Fast Falls the Night

by Julia Keller

  Watching her, Jake felt the spasm in his own throat, the tightening, the seizing up. And this was a time when she most needed to speak, to comfort Charlie. She had access to words that Jake didn’t have.

  “Talk to him, Bell,” Jake murmured. “He needs to know we’re here.” He wanted her words to wash over Charlie as he left on his last journey. His journey home.

  She tried to speak. Nothing. She tried again.

  This time, her voice came back. It was thin and unsteady, and she had to push, but she was able to keep going. Jake had no idea of the source of the words. He did not know that she had heard them for the first time herself earlier on this very day, while sitting in her office at the courthouse. He did not know that, when she began speaking them here in the dimly lit parking lot of a seedy motel, as she knelt over her dying friend, they were as much of a surprise to her as they were to Jake:

  “‘Abide with me, fast falls the eventide. The darkness deepens. Lord with me abide. When other…’” She choked up. Jake put a hand on her shoulder. She swallowed hard and continued: “‘When other helpers fail and comforts flee, help of the helpless, O abide with me.’”

  Jake was not a religious person. He did not know if Charlie was a religious person. Or Bell. That did not matter. The words were not about a doctrine. They were about comfort. They were about hope in a place where there was no hope. They were about picturing a life—however long that life lasted—as a single day, from midnight to midnight, and within that span, loving and knowing you were loved in return, and believing, and trusting, and trying.

  When the squad arrived Jake and Bell backed off, letting the paramedics do their work. Charlie was gone, and they knew it. But the paramedics would still try. It was their job.

  Everyone had a job to do.

  “I’ve got to get these suspects over to the courthouse,” Jake said. “And the evidence that Charlie collected.” He had done many things wrong tonight. He had been reckless, because he wanted to shut down the drug ring. And maybe because he wanted some glory. Maybe because he was showing off. He had persuaded his friend to join him because he didn’t want to postpone the search of the Starliner. It was a bitter thought.

  “I’ll get the paperwork going for the arraignment,” Bell said.

  He started to go, but something pulled him back to her.

  “There’s more,” he said.

  “What?”

  “It’s not just Charlie. I know we’re both shaken to our cores by what’s happened, but from the moment you got here tonight—you’ve not been yourself.”

  “Thirty-three overdoses in a day will do that to a person,” she said.

  “Well, yeah. But…” He stopped. Why should she confide in him? He worked with her. That was the extent of it. He wasn’t really a friend. Whatever was troubling her, it was her business.

  By this time another squad had showed up. The paramedics hopped out, ready to deal with the old lady who was sprawled on the strip of concrete leading to the office. She was obviously dead but they still went through their checklist.

  “She was the lookout,” Jake said. He said it with disgust. “Wonder how much they paid her.”

  Bell shrugged. “In the end, she’s the one who paid.”

  They watched as the first ambulance, the one carrying Charlie, pulled away. Soon the red taillights were absorbed into the Appalachian night.

  “He’s in good hands,” Jake said softly. He didn’t know why he said that, or what he meant by it. He must have meant the paramedics and the staff at the Raythune County Medical Center.

  Yes. That must have been it.

  “So,” Bell said. “See you back at the courthouse.”

  He heard a cell ring. Was it his or hers?

  “That’s me,” she said.

  Jake watched her face as she listened to the call. It told him that the night, as long and arduous and sorrowful as it had been, was still not over.

  Paul

  11:11 P.M.

  He had been talking for over two hours now. His throat was hoarse. He was weary to the bone.

  He sat on the top step of the three concrete steps leading down to the door of the church basement, elbows on his knees. The dark alley behind him had a pinched and lonely feel, as if it was the last alley in the history of the world, a tunnel lined by the boarded-up back doors of abandoned buildings, leading nowhere. He had propped the flashlight next to his right hip and its light cast a big yellow circle on the locked door. Paul had talked to that door for so long now that he swore he could see hidden pictures in the wood grain: a galloping horse, a Nixon profile, the outline of the state of Texas.

  There was something else in that door, too, that kept snagging his eye: a bullet hole.

  Jenny and Raylene were behind him, pacing and fuming. He could hear their quick, angry steps on the gravel, Raylene’s heels and Jenny’s New Balance sneakers. But he could not focus on them. He had to focus on the door, and on Eddie.

  And on Marla Kay, who was Eddie’s prisoner.

  At first they had agreed to take turns dealing with Eddie, trying to persuade him to come out, or at least to let the little girl leave, but that did not work. Raylene could not keep her emotions in check. Twice she had ended up screaming and cursing at him. Jenny, too, grew frustrated after a short while. Only Paul seemed able to remain calm, to keep Eddie talking.

  “It’s so late,” Paul said to the door. He had said it before, but there was no telling what might get through to Eddie. “You’ve got to be exhausted. And Marla Kay—come on, Eddie. She’s five years old.”

  “She’s fine.” Eddie’s voice was easy to hear through the door.

  “Let me talk to her, then,” Paul said. “Let her tell me she’s fine.”

  “She doesn’t want to talk to you,” Eddie said.

  Was that a giggle? Paul leaned forward. Had Eddie somehow persuaded Marla Kay that this was a game?

  After hearing the gunshot, the three of them—Paul, Jenny, and Raylene—had run out the back door into the alley. Jenny had barely managed to keep Gilead, agitated and madly barking, inside the house.

  Eddie Sutton was at the basement door, foot on the bottom concrete step. With one hand he held his rifle; with the other, Marla Kay’s small hand.

  When he saw them, he pulled the girl back inside. The twist and thunk of the dead bolt sliding into place was unmistakable.

  “Eddie—we heard a gunshot,” Paul had said. He was breathing heavily, palm on the basement door. “What’s going on? Open up.”

  “Back off, Paul. Just go away.”

  “Is everybody okay? Just tell me that.”

  “We’re fine. Go away.”

  Before Paul could respond, he heard Jenny’s voice behind him. “I’m calling the sheriff. That little girl could be bleeding. For God’s sake, Paul, we have to—”

  “Jenny, please,” Paul said. He gave her a long, meaningful look. “He wouldn’t hurt Marla Kay. So let’s try to settle this on our own, okay? Before we call the authorities? I think that’s best. And I think you know why.” He glared at Raylene, who stood next to his wife, a surly, petulant look on her face. “And you know why, too.”

  Jenny stared back at him. At last she nodded. “Your decision. It’s all your doing, anyway.”

  Raylene had thrust her hands into her tangled red hair. When she got nervous or upset, she would tousle her hair, flipping it up and then letting it fall in bountiful tangles. Her hair was like a separate character in the story of her life. “Believe you me—Eddie’s enjoying the hell out of all this drama,” she had said with a sneer. “Making us all dance to his tune. He’s a bastard. A first-class, grade-A, bast—”

  “That’s not helpful, Raylene,” Paul said quietly.

  “Oh, excuse me, Mister High-and-Mighty Minister,” she snapped. “So sorry that I offended Your Highness.” She tried to execute a mock-bow and do a quick little tap dance, but stumbled. The rock-strewn alley was not hospitable to stiletto heels.

  When they first
moved here, Paul didn’t like the fact that Rising Souls was located in a business area, especially since the businesses had all closed down, stranding the church on its own dingy little island. But at the moment he was grateful for that. There were no houses around with nosy occupants who might wonder why three people were standing in an alley arguing with each other—especially when one of the three was a minister.

  Or why a gunshot had not prompted an immediate call to the sheriff.

  “Eddie,” Paul said. “Why did you fire your rifle?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “What?”

  “I said I didn’t. I didn’t fire it. That was Marla Kay.”

  “You let a child near a firearm?”

  “It won’t happen again. It was a mistake,” Eddie said. “She picked it up before I could stop her. It was my fault for having it out like that. I was packing and I lost track of her for just a second. Bullet hit the door. She’s safe.”

  “Oh, my God,” Jenny murmured. “Oh, my God. That little girl. And a rifle. Oh my—”

  “Yeah, we get it.” Raylene interrupted her in a flat, bored voice. “We get that you’re real upset. You and your husband are just so sensitive. So good. So—”

  “Shut up,” Jenny said. “You can’t talk to me that way.”

  “The hell I can’t. Who’s gonna stop me? That husband of yours?” Her laugh was cold. “I don’t think so, Fat Ass.”

  “Watch your mouth.”

  “Well, you watch your husband.” Raylene crossed her arms. She struck the same pose she had favored that morning, when she stood in the Lymon’s Market parking lot and dared anyone to challenge her right to exploit her child for cash.

  Paul ignored them. He kept a hand on the basement door, trying to get Eddie to come out. Then Raylene had taken a turn, and then Jenny, and then Paul again.

  Two hours later, Paul was spent. He sat on the top step, still talking to Eddie, but with less conviction that it would do any good. He signaled to Jenny. It was time to call the sheriff. She nodded and pulled out her cell.

  “So what happens now, Eddie?” Paul said. “Where do we go from here?”

  Silence.

  Paul tried again. “Just tell me what you want. I can’t promise, but I’ll try to help. I will. What do you want?”

  The voice on the other side of the door was gentle and wistful, not hostile and demanding.

  “I want my little girl.”

  “You get to visit her, Eddie.”

  “Not enough. It’s never enough.”

  “Raylene’s right here. What if I talk to her? What if I get her to agree that you get to see Marla Kay more often? How would that be?”

  Silence.

  “Eddie?”

  “Keep your voice down,” Eddie said. “Marla Kay just fell asleep. Poor thing’s tired out. Don’t want you to wake her up.”

  “Okay, Eddie. I’ll do that. But listen—you’ve got to end this, okay? You’ve got to come out of there.”

  Silence.

  Raylene spoke again. “You’re acting like a damned fool, Eddie. Like a crazy person Wait—I forgot. You are a crazy person.” She laughed. “Crazy, crazy, crazy.”

  “You hush,” Eddie said.

  Paul tried to wave Raylene away but she wouldn’t stay back. She charged at the basement door, shouting at it. “You’re looney-tunes, mister, and everybody knows it!”

  “Let me have her, Raylene.” Eddie’s voice sounded wistful and pleading. “You don’t want Marla Kay. Let me take her. Raise her. Let me have my little girl.”

  “She ain’t.”

  “What?” Eddie said.

  “You heard me. She ain’t your little girl. She’s mine but she ain’t yours. And if you weren’t such a goddamned fool, you would’ve figured that out a long time ago, mister.”

  The silence that fell upon the alley was unlike any Paul had ever heard before. He knew silences; he considered himself something of a connoisseur of silences. He put plenty of silent moments into his Sunday services. He sought out quiet places so that he could think about his life and how he had fallen so far short of his ideals.

  But he had never heard a silence like this one.

  All he could think of was, Thank God Marla Kay’s asleep. She would be spared this. One day she would have to know, but not from hearing it blurted by her mother specifically to wound the one man who had been kind to her, the one man who loved her the way a father should.

  A decent father, that is. Not a coward. Not a liar who hid behind pretty words and platitudes to cover up the massive fraud of his life, the compulsions that ruled him. He had tried to make everyone happy and he had ended up making no one happy, including himself.

  “What?” Eddie said. “What?”

  “Yeah,” was Raylene’s saucy reply. “You heard me. She’s not even yours. You never even asked for a paternity test! What kind of dumbshit don’t ask for proof that a kid’s his, anyway? Who in their right mind takes the woman’s word for it? Jesus Christ, Eddie—wise up! You got no rights to her, no rights at all. I only let you think it so I could get some money from you now and again. But you never made enough for it to matter. So fuck you. You bring her out so I can go home.”

  Silence.

  “Who’s her father?” Eddie said.

  Raylene laughed. “I think you know. I think if you take that pea brain of yours and apply it to the problem at hand, you’ll figure out it out. Remember when we were first working here, Eddie? You in the basement there and me scrubbing toilets? Remember how I told you that the good reverend couldn’t keep his eyes off my ass? You think on that, Eddie. You think real hard.”

  The sound of a siren grew ever closer.

  Eddie’s plaintive voice threaded through the door. “Paul? Is it true?”

  Jenny spoke before her husband could.

  “Of course it’s true,” she said bitterly. She didn’t seem to be talking only to Eddie. “Of course it is. That kind of scandal—we’d never survive it. Never. Not another one, like back in Stone Ridge. And what would be next? Where would they send us after this latest little escapade? Where do they send ministers who get their housekeepers pregnant?”

  “Jenny,” Paul said.

  That was all he had a chance to say before the wincingly bright headlights of a Chevy Blazer invaded the alley. The vehicle stopped a few feet away from them. From the driver’s side, Deputy Brinksneader jumped out. From the other, a large woman in a hot-pink pantsuit and white sandals.

  Paul had met the deputy once before, about two months ago, when somebody broke a window at the church and Jenny had insisted they call the sheriff’s office. Paul didn’t want to. No matter who had done it, that person would be forgiven—so why make a fuss? Why bother some poor deputy who had more important things to take care of? Paul’s attitude had irritated Jenny so much that he backed down and called. They sent Deputy Brinksneader. All he did was look around at the damage, frown, make some notes. See? Paul wanted to say to Jenny, but didn’t, because that would only set her off all over again. Told you. Nothing anybody can do. Some things, you just have to put up with.

  Brinksneader was panting. Sweat glittered on his forehead and his neck.

  “Stay back, Rhonda,” he said to the woman who had accompanied him. “Reverend, this is Rhonda Lovejoy. Assistant prosecutor. You got a hostage situation—that right?” he said, his eyes going from face to face, seeking confirmation. “That’s what the dispatcher indicated. Any firearms involved?”

  “The SOB’s got a rifle,” Raylene said, shrieking the words. “Plus my baby.” She banged on the basement door.

  From inside came the sound of a child’s crying.

  “You woke her up,” Eddie said. “Whoever did that woke her up.”

  “It was me,” Raylene yelled at the door.

  “Figures,” Eddie said.

  Steve cleared the area in front of the door. He looked at Paul. “What’s his name?”

  “Eddie.”

  “Okay.” Steve turne
d back to the door. “I’m Deputy Steve Brinksneader,” he called out. “I’m asking you to come out of there peacefully and to bring the girl, Eddie. Or I’m coming in. I don’t want any trouble. I don’t think you want any trouble, either. We’ve had enough trouble in this town today as it is. Let’s end this, Eddie. Right now. I’ve got a prosecutor here with me and after you come out, we can talk about what’s gonna happen next.”

  There was a murmur of conversation on the other side of the door, a man’s voice and then a child’s voice.

  “I’m coming out,” Eddie said. “Not because you want me to. I’m coming out because she wants me to—my little girl.”

  Steve stepped back. He kept a hand hovering near his holster as the door slowly opened.

  Eddie still had the rifle in one hand, and Marla Kay’s hand in his other hand.

  “Drop the weapon!” Steve yelled. “Drop it now!’

  Something passed in front of Eddie’s eyes. A mist, a dream, a memory—something. Watching him, Paul almost felt as if he could hear Eddie thinking: We can make a run for it. If we can just get to the truck, we’ll be free. We’ll go somewhere and I can raise her, and we’ll—

  “Drop your weapon!” Steve repeated, even louder.

  Now a wave of anger seemed to grip Eddie. Once again, Paul felt himself channeling the other man’s thoughts: They can’t do this. I won’t give her up. I don’t care who they say her father is—I’m her father. It’s me. I won’t let her go. I can’t.

  Eddie re-formed his grip on the rifle. To Paul, he looked as if he had made a decision: He would fight back if they tried to stop him from taking his little girl.

  Marla Kay called out in a bright, hopeful voice. “Don’t be upset, Daddy! And if you are—count to ten! Remember? Like you taught me? Count to ten, Daddy! Here, I’ll help—one. Two. Three. Four.”

  By the time she reached five, Eddie had lowered the rifle again. He was looking at Marla Kay, not at the deputy who rushed at him, grabbing the weapon out of his hands, and then securing his wrists behind his back with a zip tie. Eddie did not resist. He did not speak. As the deputy led him away, Eddie twisted his neck so that he could keep his eyes on the little girl for as long as he was able.