by Julia Keller
Alcohol, Jake thought. Those were the days. He was almost nostalgic for it, remembering back when alcohol was the anesthetic of choice. That seemed like child’s play now. It wasn’t, of course; he had seen the aftermath of too many accident scenes where a drunk driver had smacked into a guardrail or sailed over a median into oncoming traffic. Still, alcohol just seemed … tamer, somehow, compared to drugs.
Their neighbors had been carried out on stretchers half-alive—and one of them not alive at all—but Jake didn’t have much sympathy for these people. They had known exactly what was going on in this apartment. Most of them were doing the same thing in their apartments. They weren’t shocked, and they weren’t distraught. They were just curious.
“Any of you know where they got their drugs?” Jake asked.
Heads waggled back and forth, indicating a No. Some shrugged. Two girls giggled nervously in unison.
“Nobody?” Jake said.
Most looked down, checking out the floor of the hallway as if it held the answer to a vexing riddle. A few murmured, “No, sorry” and “Naw” and other variations on a theme, the theme being: We’re not going to tell you a damned thing.
“Fine,” Jake said. Knowing it was useless, he added, “Any of you think of anything, you call the sheriff’s department. Right away. We’re trying to get some bad drugs off the street, okay? We got ourselves a real problem here.”
No one spoke. The old lady who had moved aside for him made a clucking sound in the back of her throat. Several people coughed. A kid sneezed and wiped the snot on his palm.
“You know what I’m saying, right?” Jake added. “The stuff you’re buying today—the heroin—it can kill you. The suppliers have added a drug to it that’s worse than anything you’ve ever seen. So if anybody knows anything, tell me now.”
Nothing.
“Okay, fine,” Jake said. “Fine. But if any of you gets a conscience—give me a call.” He couldn’t resist a coda. “Of course, it’ll probably be too late by then. More folks’ll be dead. Have a nice day.”
Jake turned away from them again and entered the tiny living room. He took note of the grooves in the thin beige carpet that had been made by the wheels of multiple gurneys. It was dark, even at midday; the windows were covered with sheets that had been thumbtacked directly into the drywall. The place smelled of heat and old food. Crumpled fast-food bags crowded the top of a card table like tumbleweed. Two flung-open empty pizza boxes, tops and bottoms stained with circular tattoos of grease, were spread out across the sagging brown couch. In the small kitchen that was really just an extension of the living room, he saw a black mass of flies hovering over the dirty sink.
The bathroom was where it had all unfolded. The report from the squad had been e-mailed to Jake and he had skimmed it while sitting in his Blazer in the parking lot. One victim—Curtis Sewell, 24—was found in the bathtub, fully clothed. His wife, Amber Sewell, 22, had somehow gotten him in the tub when he stopped responding, thinking the water might revive him. Curtis Sewell’s brother, Bobby Sewell, 19, had been curled up motionless in the corner, next to a trash bag filled with dirty clothes. Bob’s girlfriend, LaRue Synder, 20, was sprawled on the bathmat, and LaRue’s cousin, Julie Groves, 32, was on her side next to the sink, shivering so hard that her head banged repeatedly against the wall.
It was Amber Sewell who had called 911. She was the only one not affected, and that was because she had not yet had a chance to sample the heroin Bob had brought over that morning. Her kids—Logan, 3, and Matthew, eighteen months—were crying for their lunch. The moment she finished in the kitchen, she had planned to join her guests for the party.
One by one, those guests had injected themselves with Bob’s oh-so-thoughtful gift and then collapsed. The 911 recording included Amber’s screams, soon joined by the screams and crying of the two children, frightened and confused by all the commotion.
Jake stood in the bathroom doorway. He couldn’t help but recall the Marathon bathroom. Were bathrooms now the default settings for tragedy? For the last acts in human lives? Not battlefields, but bathrooms. Some progress.
Soiled clothes seemed to be breeding in the corners. The metal trash can was overflowing; along with blood-sodden sanitary napkins and dirty diapers, he spotted multiple syringes and tissues gooey with effluvia of various colors, from yellow to red to brown.
Party time, Jake thought.
He left the bathroom. Next door was one of two tiny bedrooms. This must have been the children’s room. Toys and stuffed animals were strewn across the floor. He saw a pink bear and a purple elephant. He saw a couple of Matchbox cars. He didn’t see any beds, and so he assumed that the wrinkled towels laid out side by side were the designated sleeping areas for the kids. They were under the care of county social services now. Chances were, however, that because Amber Sewell had not ingested drugs herself—today, at least—she would regain custody quickly. Never mind the fact that she had exposed her children to illegally obtained narcotics and the company of known addicts. Or that she was an addict herself. The county facilities were overwhelmed. It was constant triage.
Jake backed out, returning to the living room. The man with the plaid shirt and half a nose was standing there.
“If you’re planning on looting the place,” Jake said, “knock yourself out.” That was Jake’s little joke. There was nothing here worth stealing—which was, he supposed, as good a security system as you could likely have. He made some notes in his small notebook, and then he shoved the notebook into his breast pocket along with the short yellow pencil.
The man belched. “I know where they got the stuff they was takin’.”
“Tell me.” Jake wouldn’t beg. The man would talk or he wouldn’t talk, and chances were, whatever he said would be a lie, anyway.
“I live right across the hall there.” The man pointed. “I see things, is all I’m saying.”
“Things.”
“Yeah. Like today—I seen Bobby Sewell come in here with a lot of shit he just bought, and he was bragging about it. Next thing I know, you folks’re hauling Bobby and Curtis and LaRue and a lady I never seen before right out of here, and the kids are crying and screaming—and Amber, she’s running after the stretcher and she’s yelling, ‘Curtis! Curtis baby, wake up!’” The man shook his shoulders, and the shudder moved through the rest of his body as if he were a dog stepping out of a pond, flinging off the liquid. “Hate to think of them kids seeing that,” he said. “You know what I mean? Seeing their mommy all upset. Seeing their daddy laid out like that.”
They’ve surely seen worse, Jake wanted to say, but didn’t. “You said you had some information about the source of the narcotics.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I do. I listen a lot. Folks don’t even know I’m around. I know where Bobby got ’em. He was bragging up a storm about it. New gang just got in town the other day. Been operating out of the Starliner Motel. Selling this real powerful stuff.”
Jake offered no reaction to the information, but inside he felt a jolt of satisfaction.
Score one for you, Malik.
The man was still talking.
“How’s these folks doing at the hospital, anyway? Curtis ain’t such a bad guy. Had a lot of pain in his life, tell you that. Used to run a forklift. Had an accident a while ago. Been on disability ever since. Now, his brother Bobby—he’s no good. Wouldn’t give you a nickel for him. Nor for his girlfriend, neither. But Curtis is okay.”
“He’s dead.” Jake had been texted the ID on the fatality back in the parking lot. “The other three are going to be fine.”
“So the bastards live and the good guy dies. Ain’t that just the way it always is,” the man said.
“Ain’t it just,” Jake replied.
Jake didn’t linger. He wanted to get over to the Starliner Motel. And he wanted to run down his list of local dealers, the human bridges between the suppliers, possibly holed up at the motel, and their eager customers. Corner them, ask some questions. For the first time
since he had kneeled down next to the body of Sally Ann Burdette in the Marathon bathroom some twelve hours ago, he felt a faint stirring that he recognized as that rarest and most fragile of entities: hope.
Bell
1 P.M.
The names streamed down the screen of her cell, encased inside the light gray lozenge of text type. The text was from Sheriff Harrison. It confirmed everything Bell had most feared about what they might be facing.
Alone now in her office, she assimilated the rolling ticker of bad news, listed in order of incidence:
IRVING WALTRIP, 57
JEAN SMITH, 21
ALMA SMITH, 23
TYLER GEE, 19
MATT FORSECA, 31
SUSIE WEINER, 16
BOBBY BLEVINS, 27
Each one had overdosed within the last hour. Each one had sparked a call to 911 and required tending by a paramedic. Each one was still alive, as of right now, but three were still in the Raythune County Medical Center, and far worse off. The others had been treated at the scene with naloxone, which instantly brought them back to the misery of their lives—and to the very circumstances, Bell reminded herself wearily, which had caused them to reach for the heroin in the first place. And would do so again, inevitably.
While she contemplated the names and their probable fates, two more texts came in, one right on top of the other. The first was from Clay; the second was from Carla.
Sometimes Bell wished texting had never been invented. As easy and convenient as it was, there was something jarring about the juxtaposition of the profound and the casual, the dark and the light. Right after reading a list of addicts who had overdosed, she read Clay’s plaintive, Time 2 talk? and Carla’s peppy Yea me—aced botany quiz.
There ought to be a way of differentiating a grim text from a chipper one. Setting it off. An automatic change of font, maybe. Even another language altogether. As it was, the same alphabet that delivered details about ongoing countywide catastrophe also brought ordinary greetings, simple news. Personal business.
“Can I bring you some lunch?”
Bell looked up. She was so lost in her ruminations that at first she did not even recognize Lee Ann Frickie, a woman she had worked with daily for the past eight years. All at once, Lee Ann’s words punched through Bell’s preoccupation.
“No, thanks.”
“You have to eat. And you told me that you canceled your lunch plans with your sister.”
“I did.”
“So let me go get you some takeout from JPs. It’s Monday. That means the special is the meatloaf sandwich.”
Bell shook her head. She held up her cell. “Sixteen,” she said.
Lee Ann waited. She did not know what Bell was talking about, but knew her boss would explain.
“Just got a text from Pam Harrison,” Bell said. “The total’s rising. Sixteen overdoses since midnight. And two deaths.”
“Dear God in heaven.”
“Yeah. We’ve had to call in extra squads of paramedics from Collier and Maywood counties. And the ER’s stretched to the breaking point.”
Lee Ann’s hands were clasped in front of her skirt. She dropped her head for a half a second, exposing the pink lane of the center part in her white hair. Bell wondered if she was praying. She was annoyed sometimes by her secretary’s displays of piety, and privately questioned her reliance on religion as a means of getting over rough spots; right now, though, it struck Bell as a fine idea. I’ll take help from anywhere we can get it, she thought.
Lee Ann lifted her head.
“Why haven’t we had more calls about this?” the secretary asked. Her tone was grave. “You’d think the news would be all over town.”
“Happening too fast.”
“I thought nothing around here moved faster than gossip.”
“This is a first, then. But it’ll catch up.” Bell’s gaze moved toward the single window in her office. Sunshine picked out the islands of dust on the window and highlighted them. “I’ve got to go over and see Dot Burdette. Sammy called. She’s having a rough time. Can’t blame her.”
“She did her best with that girl,” Lee Ann declared. “I know. I watched her. Sally Ann was doing fine until she got to high school and then—boom. She fell and fell hard. Fell right into that life. One bad boyfriend was all it took. The Ehrlich boy. Junior Ehrlich’s son. Worthless—father and son both. What I don’t get,” she went on, her tone shifting as she mused aloud with a passion that she normally kept under wraps, “is why people do this to themselves in the first place. The drugs, I mean. Life is hard, God knows—but it’s hard for everybody. It was hard for my mother. A widow at twenty-four, with seven kids to raise and no income except for a couple of laying hens and a skinny milking cow. It was hard for my grandmother. My grandfather was a horrible man—violent like you wouldn’t believe. He got drunk four or five times a week and when he did, he liked to swing an ax over his head and threaten anybody in the vicinity, including his wife and his children. He once killed a man by stomping him to death. I mean—my God, Belfa, it’s not like the world was any easier for our parents and grandparents and all the previous generations on this earth. But they didn’t poison themselves. Not like this. Alcohol, yes—but not drugs. And why has it hit so hard here? We’ve already got enough problems as it is. It’s not like we needed another one.” She shivered. Her fury and her incomprehension had risen to a crescendo and now began to subside.
Bell had no answer. Lee Ann did not expect her to have one. Her secretary just needed to vent. Bell understood that and waited. After a few seconds, Lee Ann said, “Well.” She turned to go, but paused. “What about lunch?”
“What about it?”
Lee Ann sighed theatrically, lifting and dropping her narrow shoulders. “I tried. That’s what I’ll say. When you keel over from malnutrition, that’s my defense—I tried.”
A weak smile. “Noted for the record. I’ll make sure you’re in the clear.”
Lee Ann turned to go.
“Although,” Bell added, speaking to her back, “if you’ve got any of those peanut butter crackers in your desk, I’d be willing to take a package or two off your hands.”
Lee Ann grunted and kept moving. Bell knew she could expect a snack to be lobbed her way in short order. She could catch it one-handed without even looking.
She picked up her cell. The first text went to Carla: an emoji of an upraised yellow thumb. The second was far more difficult to compose. No, she couldn’t talk to Clay right now. A minute with him was too long, and a thousand years wasn’t long enough. Their relationship was intense and passionate and complicated, yet they always seemed to return to the same simple impasse: He wanted more from her than she was able to give. Or willing to give, Clay would say, correcting her, if she spoke the thought aloud in his hearing. She loved him. But she did not want to marry him. She did not want to marry anybody.
Call u later, she texted him back. Love u, she added, although she knew as well as Clay did that love was not the issue, that her failure to be what he wanted her to be had nothing to do with love, and everything to do with the past and its long, dark, endless reach into the present.
Eddie
1:37 P.M.
He had finished mopping the floor. Now it was time to rinse out the bucket in the sink. The church’s foundation was over a century old and the basement flooded every few weeks, after a hard rain or an extra-big wash load. Today it was the latter that had caused sour-looking gray water to swish across the concrete floor. Among his duties was washing the linens used in the church—hand towels in the bathrooms, napkins in the social hall—in the ancient front-loading machine that crouched in the corner, and if he waited too long between loads, he had to overstuff, with inevitable consequences. Water would come trickling from the base of the machine like a car leaking oil. Nothing major, but he still had to mop it up. Standing water in a basement led to mold and the attendant smell, a nose-crinkling astringency that could waft up to the sanctuary.
; Washing towels and napkins. Mopping floors.
Women’s work. That’s what his father would have called it. Troy Sutton would have had a good laugh if he had seen his son right now, rinsing out a mop bucket in a two-sided utility sink. Tough guy, ain’t you, Troy would say, pointing at his boy, and then using the same gnarled index finger to push at the bill of his cap, lifting it off his forehead until it sat so far back on Troy’s skull that only habit held it on. Big tough man, mopping floors. You got some sewing to get to later, boy? Some meals to cook, maybe? And here I thought you had the makings of a soldier. Huh.
Funny how you hear the voices of the dead more clearly than the voices of the living, Eddie thought.
He finished cleaning the bucket. He set it upside down in the sink to let the bottom dry off. He had already wrung the water out of the mop and propped it on the floor next to the sink. He was grateful, truth be told, to have physical work to do. The encounter with Raylene had left him shaking with anger and frustration. He needed somewhere to put all of that excess emotion. Emotions were a problem for him. If he didn’t keep them under control, bad things could happen. At the VA hospital, they had taught him strategies for dealing with his feelings when they breached their natural boundaries; work was one of them.
At least he had gotten to see Marla Kay this morning. She was the one bright spot in his life, the thing that kept him going. Last winter a number of setbacks had laid him low, and there was a moment when he really did not think he could hang on for even one more minute—but the thought of his little girl persuaded him to fight back. He could not imagine never seeing Marla Kay again.
He looked around the basement. Along one wall was the small cot on which he slept, and next to it was an aluminum clothing rack snapped together from a kit he had bought at Walmart. Across from the washing machine was the gravity-feed furnace, so old that they didn’t make replacement parts for it anymore, and so inefficient that the gas company threatened to red-tag it one of these days. All that held them back was the fact that this was a church. They were probably afraid of the bad publicity. He had learned the trick of keeping it going, nudging it this way or that when it acted up, or jury-rigging a part when the existing one failed. With special pokes and taps and instinctive adjustments, he kept it humming along, enabling the church to spend its limited funds on something other than an expensive new heating system. From the pulpit, Paul Wolford had once called Eddie the “furnace whisperer.” The parishioners laughed, but Eddie did not mind; he could tell warm, friendly laugher from the cold, mean kind, having experienced both.
