Faithless

by Karin Slaughter

  “Hey, Dale,” Jeffrey said. “How’d you get the shiner?”

  “Ran into a door,” he quipped, and Lena wondered how he’d really gotten it. Terri would need to stand on a chair to reach his head. Dale weighed about a hundred pounds more than she did and was at least two feet taller. Lena looked at his hands, thinking one was large enough to wrap around her throat. He could strangle her without giving it a second thought. She hated that feeling, hated the sensation of her lungs shaking in her chest, her eyes rolling back, everything starting to disappear as she willed herself not to pass out.

  Jeffrey stepped forward, Brad and Lena on either side of him. He told Dale, “I need you to come out of the garage.”

  Dale tightened his hand around the wrench. “What’s going on?” His lips twitched in a quick smile. “Terri call you?”

  “Why would she call us?”

  “No reason.” He shrugged, but the wrench in his hand said he had something to worry about. Lena glanced at the house, trying to see Terri. If Dale had a bruised eye, Terri probably had something ten times worse.

  Jeffrey was obviously thinking the same. Still, he told the man, “You’re not in trouble.”

  Dale was smarter than he looked. “Don’t seem that way to me.”

  “Come out of the garage, Dale.”

  “Man’s home is his castle,” Dale said. “You got no right coming in here. I want you off my property right now.”

  “We want to talk to Terri.”

  “Nobody talks to Terri unless I say so, and I ain’t saying so, so . . .”

  Jeffrey stopped about four feet from Dale, and Lena moved to his left, thinking she could get to the gun before Dale. She suppressed a curse when she realized that the cabinet was well out of her reach. Brad should have taken this side. He was at least a foot taller than she was. By the time Lena dragged over a stool to retrieve the gun, Dale would be on his way to Mexico.

  Jeffrey said, “Put the wrench down.”

  Dale’s eyes darted to Lena, then Brad. “Maybe ya’ll should back up a step or two.”

  “You’re not in charge here, Dale,” Jeffrey told him. Lena wanted to put her hand on her gun, but knew that she should take her signals from Jeffrey. He had his arms at his sides, probably thinking he could talk Dale down. She wasn’t convinced.

  “Y’all are crowdin’ me,” Dale said. “I don’t like that.” He lifted the wrench to chest level, resting the end in his palm. Lena knew the man wasn’t an idiot. The wrench could do a lot of damage, but not to three people at the same time, especially considering the three people had guns on their belts. She watched Dale closely, knowing in her gut that he would make a try for the gun.

  “You don’t want to do this,” Jeffrey told him. “We just want to talk to Terri.”

  Dale moved swiftly for a man his size, but Jeffrey was faster. He yanked the baton from Brad’s belt and slammed it into the back of Dale’s knees as the taller man lunged for the gun. Dale dropped to the floor like a stack of bricks.

  Lena felt nothing but shock as she watched the normally docile Brad jam his knee into Dale’s back, pressing him into the ground as he cuffed him. One swipe to the back of the knees and he had fallen. He wasn’t even putting up a fight as Brad jerked back his hands, using two sets of cuffs to keep his wrists bound behind his back.

  Jeffrey told Dale, “I warned you not to do this.”

  Dale yelped like a dog when Brad pulled him up to his knees. “Jesus, watch it,” he complained, rolling his shoulders like he was afraid they’d been popped out of the sockets. “I want to call my lawyer.”

  “You can do that later.” Jeffrey handed the baton back to Brad, saying, “Put him in the back of the car.”

  “Yes, sir,” Brad said, pulling Dale up to standing, eliciting another yelp.

  The big man shuffled his feet on the way to the car, a storm of dust kicking up behind him.

  Just so Lena could hear, Jeffrey said, “Not such a tough guy, huh? I bet it makes him feel real good beating on his little wife.”

  Lena felt a bead of sweat roll down her back. Jeffrey swiped some dust off the leg of his pants before heading toward the house. He reminded Lena, “There are two kids in there.”

  Lena cast around for something to say. “Do you think she’ll resist?”

  “I don’t know what she’ll do.”

  The door opened before they reached the front porch. Terri Stanley stood inside, a sleeping baby on her hip. At her side was another kid, probably about two. He was rubbing his little fists into his eyes as if he’d just woken up. Terri’s cheeks were sunken; dark circles rimmed her eyes. Her lip was busted open, a fresh, bluish-yellow bruise traced along her jaw, and angry red welts wrapped around her neck. Lena understood why Dale hadn’t wanted them to talk to his wife. He’d beaten the shit out of her. Lena couldn’t see how the woman was still standing.

  Terri watched her husband being led to the squad car, studiously avoiding Jeffrey’s and Lena’s eyes as she told them in a flat voice, “I’m not going to press charges. You might as well let him go.”

  Jeffrey looked back at the car. “We’re just gonna let him stew there for a while.”

  “Y’all are just making it worse.” She spoke carefully, obviously trying not to crack the lip back open. Lena knew the trick just as she knew it was hell on your throat, making you strain your voice just so your words could be understood. “He never hit me like this before. Not in the face.” Her voice wavered. She was trapped, overwhelmed. “My kids’ve gotta see this.”

  “Terri . . .” Jeffrey began, but obviously didn’t know how to finish it.

  “He’ll kill me if I leave him.” Her drawl was exaggerated by her swollen lip.

  “Terri—”

  “I’m not gonna press charges.”

  “We’re not asking you to.”

  She faltered, as if that hadn’t been the response she was expecting.

  Jeffrey said, “We need to talk to you.”

  “About what?”

  He pulled an old cop’s trick. “You know about what.”

  She looked at her husband, who was sitting in the back of Brad’s cruiser.

  “He’s not going to hurt you.”

  She gave him a wary look, as if he’d told a really bad joke.

  Jeffrey said, “We’re not going anywhere until we talk to you.”

  “I guess come on in,” she finally relented, stepping back from the open door. “Tim, Mama needs to talk to these people.” She took the boy’s hand, leading him into a den that had a large TV as the focal point. Lena and Jeffrey waited in the large entrance foyer at the base of the stairs while she put a DVD into the player.

  Lena looked up at the high ceiling, which opened onto the upstairs hall. Where a chandelier should be hanging there were only a few stray wires jutting out of the Sheetrock. There were scuff marks on the walls by the stairs, and someone had kicked a small hole at the top. The spindles holding up the railing on the other side looked almost bent, several cracked or broken toward the landing at the top. Terri, she bet, picturing Dale dragging the woman up the stairs, her legs kicking wildly behind her. There were twelve steps in all, twice as many spindles to grab on to as she tried to stop the inevitable.

  The shrill voice of SpongeBob SquarePants echoed off the cold tiles in the foyer, and Terri came out, still holding her youngest son on her hip.

  Jeffrey asked her, “Where can we talk?”

  “Let me put him down,” she said, meaning the baby. “The kitchen’s through the back.” She started up the stairs and Jeffrey motioned for Lena to follow her.

  The house was larger than it looked from the outside, the landing at the top of the stairs leading to a long hallway and what looked like three bedrooms and a bath. Terri stopped at the first room and Lena paused, not following her in. Instead, she stood at the door to the nursery, watching Terri lay the sleeping baby in the crib. The room was brightly decorated, clouds on the ceiling, a pastoral scene on the walls showing happy sheep
and cows. Over the crib was a mobile with more sheep. Lena couldn’t see the kid while his mother stroked his head, but his little legs stretched out when Terri took off the crocheted booties. Lena hadn’t realized that babies’ feet were so small, their toes little nubs, their arches curling like banana peels as they pulled their knees to their chests.

  Terri was staring intently at Lena over her shoulder. “You got kids?” She made a hoarse noise that Lena took as an attempt at a laugh. “I mean, other than the one you left in Atlanta.”

  Lena knew she was trying to threaten her, using her words to remind Lena that they had both been in that clinic for the same thing, but Terri Stanley wasn’t the type of woman who could carry this off. When the mother turned around, all Lena could do was feel sorry for her. The light was bright in the room, sunlight illuminating the bruise along Terri’s jaw as if it were in Technicolor. Her lip had cracked, a sliver of blood seeping out onto her chin. Lena realized that six months ago she could have been looking at a mirror.

  “You’d do anything for them,” Terri said with a tone of sadness. “You’d put up with anything.”

  “Anything?”

  Terri swallowed, wincing from the pain. Dale had obviously choked her. The bruises weren’t out yet, but they would come soon enough, looking like a dark necklace around her throat. Heavy concealer would take care of it, but she would feel stiff all week, turning her head carefully, trying not to wince when she swallowed, biding her time as she waited for the muscles to relax, the pain to go away.

  She said, “I can’t explain—”

  Lena was in no position to lecture her. “You know you don’t have to.”

  “Yeah,” Terri agreed, turning back around, pulling a light blue blanket up around the baby’s chin. Lena stared at her back, wondering if Terri was capable of murder. She would be the type to poison if she did anything. There was no way Terri could see someone face-to-face and kill them. Of course, she had obviously gotten her own back with Dale. He didn’t get the bruise on his eye from shaving.

  “Looks like you got him one good,” Lena said.

  Terri turned around, confused. “What?”

  “Dale,” she said, indicating her own eye.

  Terri smiled a genuine smile, and her whole face changed. Lena got a glimpse of the woman she had been before all this happened, before Dale started beating her, before life became something to endure instead of enjoy. She was beautiful.

  “I paid for it,” Terri said, “but it felt so good.”

  Lena smiled, too, knowing how good it felt to fight back. You paid for it in the end, but it was so fucking fantastic when you were doing it. It was almost like a high.

  Terri took a deep breath and let it go. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Lena followed her back down the stairs, their footsteps echoing on the wooden boards. There were no rugs on the main floor and the noise sounded like a horse clattering around. Dale had probably done this on purpose, making sure he knew exactly where his wife was at all times.

  They walked into the kitchen where Jeffrey was looking at the photographs and children’s colorings on the refrigerator. On the drawings, Lena could see where Terri had written the names of the animals they were supposed to represent. Lion, Tiger, Bear. She dotted her i’s with an open circle the way girls did in high school.

  “Have a seat,” Terri said, taking a chair at the table. Jeffrey remained standing, but Lena sat opposite Terri. The kitchen was neat for this time of morning. Plates and silverware from breakfast were drying in the rack and the counters were wiped clean. Lena wondered if Terri was naturally fastidious or if Dale had beat it into her.

  Terri stared at her hands, which were clasped in front of her on the table. She was a small woman, but the way she held herself made her seem even smaller. Sadness radiated off her like an aura. Lena couldn’t imagine how Dale managed to hit her without breaking her in two.

  Terri offered, “Y’all want something to drink?”

  Lena and Jeffrey answered no at the same time. After what happened with Cole Connolly, Lena doubted she’d ever take anything from anyone again.

  Terri sat back in her chair, and Lena looked at her closely. She realized that they were about the same height, the same build. Terri was about ten pounds lighter, maybe an inch or two shorter, but there wasn’t that much different about them.

  Terri asked, “Y’all aren’t here to talk about Dale?”

  “No.”

  She picked at the cuticle on her thumb. Dried blood showed where she had done this before. “I guess I should’ve known you guys would come eventually.”

  “Why’s that?” Jeffrey asked.

  “The note I sent to Dr. Linton,” she told him. “I guess I wasn’t real smart about it.”

  Again, Jeffrey showed no reaction. “Why is that?”

  “Well, I know y’all can get all kinds of evidence from it.”

  Lena nodded like this was true, thinking the girl had watched too many crime shows on TV, where lab techs ran around in Armani suits and high heels, plucking a minuscule piece of somebody’s cuticle from a rose thorn, then trotting back to their labs where through the miracle of science they discovered that the attacker was a right-handed albino who collected stamps and lived with his mother. Setting aside the fact that no crime lab in the world could afford the zillions of dollars’ worth of equipment they showed, the fact was that DNA broke down. Outside factors could compromise the strand, or sometimes there wasn’t enough for a sample. Fingerprints were subject to interpretation and it was very rare there were enough points for comparison to hold up in court.

  Jeffrey asked, “Why did you send the letter to Dr. Linton?”

  “I knew she’d do something about it,” Terri said, then added quickly, “Not that y’all wouldn’t, but Dr. Linton, she takes care of people. She really looks after them. I knew she’d understand.” She shrugged. “I knew she’d tell you.”

  “Why not just tell her in person?” Jeffrey asked. “You saw me Monday morning at the clinic. Why didn’t you tell me then?”

  She gave a humorless laugh. “Dale’d kill me if he knew I’d gotten messed up in all of this. He hates the church. He hates everything about them. It’s just . . .” Her voice trailed off. “When I heard what happened to Abby, I thought y’all should know he’s done it before.”

  “Who’s done it before?”

  Her throat worked as she struggled to say the name. “Cole.”

  “He put you in a box out in the state forest?” Jeffrey asked.

  She nodded, her hair falling into her eyes. “We were supposed to be camping. He took me out for a walk.” She swallowed. “He brought me to this clearing. There was this hole in the ground. A rectangle. There was a box inside.”

  Lena asked, “What did you do?”

  “I don’t remember,” she answered. “I don’t think I even had time to scream. He hit me real hard, pushed me in. I cut my knee open, scraped my hand. I started yelling but he got on top of me and raised his fist, like he was going to beat me.” She paused, trying to keep her composure as she told the story. “So, I just laid there. I just laid there while he put the boards on top of me, nailing them in one by one. . . .”

  Lena looked at her own hands, thinking about the nails that had been driven in, the metallic sound of the hammer hitting the metal spike, the unfathomable fear as she lay there, helpless to do anything to save herself.

  “He was praying the whole time,” Terri said. “Saying stuff about God giving him the strength, that he was just a vessel for the Lord.” She closed her eyes, tears slipping out. “The next thing I know, I’m looking up at these black slats. Sunlight was coming through them, I guess, but it felt like a lighter shade of dark. It was so dark in there.” She shuddered at the memory. “I heard the dirt coming down, not fast but slow, like he had all the time in the world. And he kept praying, louder, like he wanted to make sure I could hear him.”

  She stopped, and Lena asked, “What did you do?”

>   Again, Terri’s throat worked as she swallowed. “I started screaming, and it just echoed in the box. It hurt my ears. I couldn’t see anything. I could barely move. I still hear it sometimes,” she said. “At night, when I’m trying to sleep, I’ll hear the thud of the dirt hitting the box. The grit coming through, getting stuck in my throat.” She had started to cry harder at the memory. “He was such a bad man.”

  Jeffrey said, “And that is why you left home.”

  Terri seemed surprised that he asked this.

  He explained, “Your mother told us what happened, Terri.”

  She laughed, a hollow-sounding noise devoid of any humor. “My mother?”

  “She came into the station this morning.”

  More tears sprang into her eyes and her lower lip started quivering. “She told you?” she asked. “Mama told you what Cole did?”

  “Yes.”

  “She didn’t believe me,” Terri said, her voice no more than a murmur. “I told her what he did, and she said I was making it up. She told me I was going to go to hell.” She looked around the kitchen, her life. “I guess she was right.”

  Lena asked, “Where did you go when you left?”

  “Atlanta,” she answered. “I was with this boy— Adam. He was just a way to get out of here. I couldn’t stay, not with them not believing me.” She sniffed, wiping her nose with her hand. “I was so scared Cole was gonna get me again. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. I just kept waiting for him to take me.”

  “Why’d you come back?”

  “I just . . .” She let her voice trail off. “I grew up here. And then I met Dale . . .” Again she didn’t finish the thought. “He was a good man when I met him. So sweet. He wasn’t always the way he is now. The kids being sick puts a lot of pressure on him.”

  Jeffrey didn’t let her continue along that track. “How long have y’all been married?”