Fast Falls the Night

by Julia Keller

  And she doesn’t give a damn about any of that, Bell thought.

  “Just a little bit longer,” Dot said. Her voice was calm and steady. “I’ll be ready to go soon. Just not right away, okay?”

  “We can stay as long as you need to.”

  “I know you’re busy.”

  “I am. I’m busy being here with you.” The line surprised Bell, even though she was the one who had spoken it. It wasn’t like her.

  Damn. Must be mellowing in my old age, Bell thought ruefully. Too much Oprah, maybe.

  Dot was correct: She had a million other places, give or take, where she ought to be. At Jake’s request she had called Judge Tolliver, securing a warrant for a search of the Starliner Motel; she needed to follow up with the deputy and see if he’d had any luck shutting down the drug gang. She needed to decide whether or not to prosecute the addicts who had fallen and then been revived during the day’s devastation. Normally she wouldn’t bother hauling them in—an activity she filed under the heading “freaking waste of time”—but already two county commissioners had called and demanded that she do so. Naloxone, they pointed out, cost money. Lock ’em up until they paid the bill for their own rescue. Or rescues.

  She had calls to return and evidence to review. She had a sister to meet up with, a sister who had been waiting for this day from hell to end so that she could talk to Bell about something important.

  And so what was Bell doing?

  She was sitting in a plastic chair in the waiting room at the county morgue alongside a woman who wasn’t really her friend. A woman who had, in fact, caused Bell’s senior year in high school to be filled with a great deal more angst and self-doubt than it strictly needed to be.

  So why am I here?

  An hour ago, Buster Crutchfield had done his duty. He pulled back the drape on the eye-level slit of a window that enabled Dot to see Sally Ann’s body. Family members did not enter the room in which the bodies of their loved ones were stored, supine on long tables, a sheet pulled up to their necks. They were restricted to the small room with the tiny window.

  Bell admired Buster. He was gentle with the lost and grieving people who constituted the living half of his clientele. The old man had done this job for decades but never seemed to forget that for most people, this was the first time they had seen a dead body. The shock was visceral.

  Dot’s presence was not required. Sammy had already identified Sally Ann’s body. “But I need to be there,” she said to Bell, when she called and asked her to meet her there. A few minutes later Dot’s minister, Paul Wolford, showed up as well. Bell had seen him before, but could not recall where; that was what it meant to be in local politics, she reflected silently. You knew just about everyone, although you really didn’t know anyone at all. They shook hands.

  Dot peered through the window. No one spoke.

  Bell had feared Dot might break down; she had been crying all afternoon, and was primed and ready, surely, for more tears. But no. Dot spent several minutes looking through the window at the body of her niece. Then she bowed her head, murmured something in a voice too low to be intelligible to the others, and backed away.

  Sammy hugged her. He had to be getting home, he said, and if Dot didn’t mind …

  “It’s fine,” she said. “Have a good night, Sammy.”

  Paul put his arm around her and asked if he should stay. “No,” Dot said. “Thanks for coming.” He said he would pray for her. She thanked him for that, too. Paul departed, and after a few more minutes, Buster did as well. Had the prosecuting attorney not been present, he would have required them to leave when he did. Because it was Bell, though, they could stay. “Just pull the door shut behind you,” Buster said. “Locks automatically.”

  So now it was just the two of them.

  Time passed before Dot spoke. “I remember when I found pot in her room,” she said. “The first time, I mean. I wasn’t snooping. My hand to God—I wasn’t. It was totally accidental. She had just started high school. I was putting some clean socks away in her drawer. And there was just this little stash. In a plastic bag. So I ignored it. I just—I just assumed she’d figure it all out for herself. She was going through a rough patch. She never felt that she really belonged anywhere.”

  Bell didn’t respond. Dot, she sensed, didn’t want her to. She wasn’t talking to convey information. She was talking to arrange her own thinking. She was talking to make a story out of the raw materials of her memories and her emotions, like paving stones gathered and deployed to make a pathway.

  “I tried my best with that girl,” Dot went on. “I did. I wasn’t always as patient with her as I should have been—but she knew she was loved. She did. I’m sure of it. She did know that.” Now a bit of emotion glimmered in Dot’s voice. She swallowed hard. “At least I hope so. I wasn’t always able to tell her how much I loved her. That’s not…” Another difficult swallow. “That’s not easy for me. I don’t come from that kind of family. You’ve seen me and Sammy. We don’t hug—God, no. Grew up in the same house. I know him better than I know anybody else in the world, but we don’t relate that way. You saw. You saw how he was tonight. He’s just as upset as I am—I know he is, I know my brother—but he’d never show it. Never. Not to me, not to anybody.”

  She shook her head. She was rambling, and she knew it. She didn’t want to ramble. She had things she needed to say, here in this bright, cold waiting room with the bad chairs and the terrible lighting. A few feet away, separated from them only by a thin wall in which a small window had been cut, was the body of her niece, a body that Dot had fed and clothed and watched over for many years, but that soon would be out of her reach forever.

  “She loved science. Did you know that, Bell? No, you didn’t. Nobody knew that. Because she didn’t like to talk about herself. She was too shy. But I saw her eyes when she talked about her science classes. She was smart. She loved it when she learned something new. You could see it in her eyes.

  “And then,” Dot said, her voice hardening, “she just stopped coming home. First time she did it, I called Nick Fogelsong—he was still sheriff back then—and he went and found her for me. She was at that tattoo place out on Route 7.” Dot shuddered. “In some kind of back room. Can you beat that? Bunch of mattresses on the floor. Kids lying there—high or stoned or whatever the hell they call it. Kids from good families. Kids with futures. Nick brought her home but I could tell it was over. I’d lost her. After that, I couldn’t keep her home. She wanted to go back. She felt better in a horrible tattoo place than she did in that nice room I’d fixed up for her, in the best house in Acker’s Gap.” A long, deep sigh of incomprehension, followed by a sudden fury: “The drugs—God, Bell, what’re we going to do? What are we going to do?”

  She seemed, this time, to want an answer. Bell didn’t have one.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  They sat together for another few minutes. And then, with no warning, Dot stood up. That was it. She had passed through to another realm.

  “Good night, Bell. Thanks for coming. If Sammy and I decide to have a memorial service, I’ll let you know where and when. We’re not sure yet.”

  Bell drove home along streets that were largely empty of cars. She pulled into her driveway. She had forgotten to leave the porch light on. She corrected herself: She hadn’t forgotten anything. There had been no reason for her to turn it on. When she left the house early that morning, she’d had no way of knowing that she would not return again for more than twelve hours.

  Climbing the front steps, she saw a figure sitting on the porch swing. It was too dark to make out any particulars, but Bell did not need them. She could sense her sister’s presence, even in the dark.

  “Hi, Belfa.”

  “Hey. You could’ve gone on in. You still have your key, right?”

  “Yeah. I do. But it’s okay. Kind of enjoying it out here.”

  “I didn’t see your car.”

  “I got a ride. Car’s in the shop. Heard a funn
y sound in the engine this afternoon”

  “You need some help with that? I know car repairs can be pretty expen—”

  “Belfa.”

  “Okay, okay.” Bell sat down on the swing beside her. “Finally. We get to talk. But fair warning—I’ve got some calls out. I might get a return call while we’re talking. I’ll have to take it.”

  “Got it.”

  “And that’s okay, right? You won’t get mad.”

  “Promise.”

  “Mind if I go get a sweater? Kind of chilly when the sun goes down. You want one?”

  “No,” Shirley said. “I’m good.”

  When Bell returned to the swing they sat for a few minutes in silence—that is, they were silent, but the world wasn’t. The sounds of a late-summer night, the crickets and the spring peepers and the bullfrogs, rose up all around them, a robust natural symphony. The mountains in the near distance seemed to be leaning in just a little bit closer, Bell thought, as if they, too, wanted to hear what Shirley had waited all day to say to her.

  “So this thing you need to tell me,” Bell said. “I’m sorry we had to keep pushing back our talk.”

  “It’s okay. Not your average day.”

  “Good God—no.” Bell laughed, but it was disillusioned, mirthless laughter. “If it was, I’d resign. Effective immediately.”

  “No. You wouldn’t.”

  “I wouldn’t?” Mild amusement in her tone, with a palpable subtext: So you know me better than I know me, big sister?

  “No,” Shirley said. “You love what you do. You were born to be a prosecutor.”

  Bell still had a tease in her tone. “You mean I’m bossy and judgmental?”

  “No. I mean you do a lot of good for a lot of people.”

  “Oh, come on,” Bell said. She wasn’t fishing for compliments. Shirley should know that. “Lighten up.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can’t lighten up?”

  “No.”

  Now she heard it: The note in Shirley’s voice that told her this would not be like any conversation they had ever had before.

  “What’s going on?” Bell said. She said it quietly.

  “I’ve had that bad cough for a while. You know that.”

  Bell felt dread flooding her heart. “Yes. And you had it checked.”

  Silence.

  “You did have it checked, right?” Bell pressed her. “You promised me.”

  “Not right away. I got busy. What with me and Bobo breaking up and me having to move and all. Anyway, I finally did go. I went last week. I was having some lower back pain, too, and it was really bothering me. Couldn’t do my job. Those high shelves at work—with all the auto parts. I’m supposed to keep them stocked and I couldn’t. Not with the pain.”

  “So you got it checked.”

  “Yeah. They did some scans.”

  Bell waited. The world stopped turning on its axis.

  “And?” she said.

  “And I’ve got lung cancer. Something they call oat cell carcinoma.”

  Bell could not speak. But she had to. “Did they say—”

  “Three months. Maybe six.”

  Molly

  9:47 P.M.

  “So I had to come by and thank you personally, Malik,” Jake said. “Best lead we had all day. And it came from you, my man.”

  Malik’s face remained placid, but something was happening to his eyes. They widened. He was clearly pleased. He didn’t quite know what to do with that pleasure, how to express it in an appropriate way.

  “Yeah,” Malik said. He jerked his body to the left. “When I saw the matchbook, I knew. I knew.”

  “Well, you were right, buddy.” Jake held up a sheet of paper. It was typewritten, with a flourishing signature at the bottom. “This is what’s called a warrant. It gives me the legal authority to search the Starliner.”

  “Because of my matchbook?” Malik said.

  “Well, sort of.” Jake folded the paper. “It was that and some other things, too. It’s signed by a judge. And I’m on my way over there right now.”

  The house where Molly and Malik lived was on the way to the Starliner. Sort of. It was the “sort of” part that caused Molly to give Jake a sideways, questioning look. She knew how important it was for him to find the gang that was supplying the tainted heroin to the local dealer. And it sounded as if he had a good lead.

  So why had he stopped by? Why was he wasting time?

  When she’d heard the doorbell, she had looked at Malik, and Malik looked at her. It was late. Who would be visiting them at this time of night? Molly had only been home for half an hour. When she got there, apologizing for being so late to the woman who watched Malik, the woman had scowled. I’ve got my own family, you know. This can’t happen again, you hear? Molly wanted to say: You’re right. But not in the way you mean it. This can’t happen again. The town can’t take it.

  She didn’t say that. Or anything close to that. I’m sorry. That was all she said. I’m really sorry, Mrs. Hunnicutt.

  After dealing with the four overdoses—and the kid—in the idling car, she and Ernie had had one more run before they clocked out. Two more overdoses. Two women: Mary Higgs, 19, and Louella Simpson, 24. They were found at the back of an abandoned building downtown, slumped against a brick wall. A little naloxone magic up the nose and in two minutes they were up again, flailing and cursing.

  Thirty-three overdoses since midnight. Three deaths.

  Molly had barely had a chance to wash her hands at the kitchen sink when she heard the doorbell.

  It was Jake Oakes, standing in the yellow circle of the porch light, showing off his search warrant. Thanking Malik. Making Malik happy.

  She invited him in. Of course she did. Because she had to. It was only polite. But still: He had to get to the Starliner, didn’t he?

  When she saw Jake on the job, when he was the deputy present at an accident scene to which she and Ernie had been summoned, or if he arrived at a scene after she and Ernie had already begun their work, she was pleased. She was aware of the spark between them. But that was all it was. That was all it could ever be.

  “Can I go to the Starliner?” Malik said.

  They stood in the front hallway of the old house with the peeling wallpaper, the three of them. Malik was already in his Superman PJs. Molly was still in her uniform. She had untucked the light blue polo shirt, kicked off her shoes. It felt odd to be sock-footed in front of Jake. And the fact that it felt odd also felt odd. Why should it matter whether or not she had her shoes on? Okay, maybe it was this: She had never been less than fully dressed around him.

  “No, sorry, buddy,” Jake said. “It’s too dangerous. But I’ll let you know how it goes, okay?”

  “Deal.” Malik held up his hand to get a high-five.

  Jake complied. He remembered what Molly had told him that morning: Malik didn’t like handshakes but he liked high-fives. Jake had filed away the information.

  “You helped me crack this case,” Jake said. “So I owe you.”

  “It’s not finished,” Molly said. “Is it?”

  Jake looked slightly chagrinned. “Well, no. You’re right. I’m meeting Steve Brinksneader out there. We need to take a look around before we execute the warrant. So I’d better go.”

  Molly took Malik’s chin in her hand, so that he would have to look at her. He didn’t want to look anywhere but at Jake. “I’m going to walk Jake out to his truck,” she said. “It’s late. Brush your teeth, okay? I’ll be right back.”

  They didn’t get as far as the Blazer before she turned on him. They were halfway down the dark sidewalk.

  “Don’t do this, Jake.” She stopped walking. He did, too.

  “What?” He seemed very surprised.

  “Don’t try to bond with Malik as a way of getting to me.” There. She had said it out loud. She was glad it was dark, so he would not be able to see her face. She was afraid of what it might reveal.

  “I don’t know what you mean,�
�� he said.

  “Yes, you do.”

  “Look,” he said. “Maybe I was out of line. Coming to your house.”

  “We came to yours.”

  “I’d given you my address. You never gave me yours.”

  “Hey—you’re right.” She tried to sound playful. She wanted to lighten the mood. “How’d you find us, anyway?”

  He was somber, answering her as if she had really meant it to be a question. “I’m a deputy sheriff. Finding people is what I do. But it was clearly a mistake, okay? Won’t happen again.” He walked away from her, toward the Blazer.

  She followed him. When he reached the driver’s-side door he turned around.

  “I wanted to ask you out,” he said. “I thought that maybe one of these days we could—”

  “No.” She crossed her arms. “No. It’s not like that, Jake. It can’t be like that.”

  “Okay. So you’re seeing somebody. I get it.”

  “It’s not that.”

  “The race thing? Is that it? Because I don’t see why—”

  “No. This is the twenty-first century.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Twenty-first-century West Virginia. Not the most progressive place on the planet.”

  “I don’t care what anybody thinks. That’s not it.”

  He took the heel of his hand and smacked himself on the forehead. “God, what an idiot I am! You don’t feel that way about me. Okay. Okay. Message received. Thanks for clarifying.”

  He turned toward the door again, reaching for the handle. Before he could grasp it she had spun him around to face her. She was very strong.

  She kissed him. She had wondered for some time what it would be like to kiss him. She felt the long delicious thrill that comes with a first kiss. When they broke apart, he fell back against the door. She knew he was slightly discombobulated. She knew that because she was, too.

  “That’s not it, either,” she said.

  He was breathing hard.