A Grant County Collection

by Karin Slaughter

  She interrupted Hank's story, which had left out some important details, like the fact that he'd been a speed freak and an alcoholic when social services had dropped Sibyl and Lena on his lap – and that was the happy part of the story. 'How'd this weekend go?'

  'Better than I thought,' Hank said, sounding pleased. He had turned The Hut, his dilapidated bar on the outskirts of the shithole town where Lena had grown up, into a weekend karaoke bar. Considering Hank's regular clientele, this was somewhat of a gamble, but Hank's success proved Lena's long-held theory that a drunk redneck would do anything when the lights were turned down low.

  'Baby,' Hank began, his tone turning serious. 'I know today's a big day and all. . . .'

  'It's no big deal,' she said. 'Really.'

  'You don't have to talk all tough with me,' he said, his temper flaring. Sometimes, he was so like her that Lena felt a flicker of shock when he spoke.

  'Anyway,' Hank said, 'I just want you to know if you need anything –'

  'I'm fine,' she interrupted, not wanting to have this conversation again.

  'Just let me damn finish,' he snapped. 'I'm trying to say that if you need anything, I'm here. Not just money and all, but you know you've got that if you need it.'

  'I'm fine,' she repeated, thinking hell would freeze over before she went to her uncle Hank for help with anything.

  The phone beeped, and Lena ignored it again. She walked into the kitchen and would have turned back around if Nan hadn't grabbed her arm.

  'Happy birthday!' Nan said, clapping her hands with sheer joy. She took a box of matches from her apron, and Lena watched as she lit the single candle on top of a white-frosted yellow cupcake. There was another cupcake on the counter with a similar candle, but Nan left that one alone.

  Nan began to sing, 'Happy birthday to you,' and Lena told Hank, 'I've got to go.'

  'Happy birthday!' he repeated, nearly in time with Nan.

  Lena ended the call. The phone began ringing almost immediately, and she turned it on then quickly off again as Nan finished the song.

  'Thanks.' Lena blew out the candle, hoping to God Nan didn't expect her to eat anything. Her stomach felt like she had swallowed a rock.

  'Did you make a wish?'

  'Yeah,' Lena said, thinking it best not to tell her what.

  'I know you're too nervous to eat it,' Nan said, peeling the paper away from the little round cake. She smiled, taking a bite. Sometimes Nan was so damn intuitive it made Lena uncomfortable; it was like they were an old married couple.

  Nan asked, 'Is there anything I can do?'

  'No, thanks,' Lena said, pouring herself a cup of coffee. The coffeemaker was one of the few things Lena kept in the shared parts of the house. Most of the time, she stayed confined to her room, reading or watching the small black-and-white television she had gotten free from the bank when she opened a new checking account.

  Lena had moved in with Nan out of dire necessity, but no matter what Nan did to try to make her feel comfortable here, Lena had a strong sense of not belonging. Nan was the perfect roommate, if you could tolerate that kind of perfection, but Lena had finally gotten to the place where she wanted her own house with her own things. She wanted a mirror she could look at in the morning without having the last two years thrown back in her face. She wanted Ethan out of her life. She wanted the rock in her gut to go away. For the first time in her life, she wanted her period.

  The phone rang again. Lena pressed the buttons in rapid succession, hanging up the call.

  Nan took another bite of cupcake, watching Lena over the mound of frosting. She chewed slowly, then swallowed. 'It's such a shame you have to wear makeup now. You've got great skin.'

  The phone rang again, and Lena clicked it off. 'Thanks.'

  'You know,' Nan said, sitting down at the kitchen table, 'I don't mind if Ethan stays over sometimes.' She indicated the house with a wave of her hand. 'This is your place, too.'

  Lena tried to return the smile. 'You have frosting on your lip.'

  Nan patted her mouth with a napkin. She would never use the back of her hand or lick it away. Nan Thomas was the only person Lena had ever met who actually kept napkins in a dispenser on the table. Lena was a neat person herself and God knows she liked to have things orderly, but it was disconcerting the way Nan couldn't just put something in its place. She had to have a crocheted cover for it, preferably with tassels or a teddy bear.

  Nan finished the cupcake, using the napkin to clean crumbs off the table. She stared at Lena in the ensuing silence. The phone rang again.

  'So,' Nan said. 'Big day today. First day back.'

  Lena clicked the phone on, then off. 'Yep.'

  'Think they'll have some sort of party?'

  Lena snorted a laugh. Frank and Matt had both made it more than clear that Lena didn't belong back on the force. Most days, Lena wasn't sure she disagreed with them, but this morning when she had put on her holster and clipped her cuffs onto the back of her belt, Lena had felt like she was falling back into the natural pattern of her life.

  The phone rang, and Lena thumbed the keys again. She looked at Nan to gauge her reaction, but Nan was busy folding the paper from her cupcake into a tiny, neat square, as if this was just an ordinary moment in her ordinary life. If Nan Thomas ever decided to be a cop, she'd have criminals lining up to confess. If she chose a life of crime, there was no way she would ever get caught.

  'Anyway,' Nan resumed. 'You don't have to move out. I'm fine having you around.'

  Lena looked at the lone cupcake on the counter. Nan had bought two: one for Lena and one for Sibyl.

  'They had a two-for-one special at the bakery,' Nan said, but then amended, 'Actually, I'm lying. Sibyl loved cupcakes. It was the only sugar she would ever eat. I paid full price.'

  'I guessed.'

  'I'm sorry.'

  'You don't have to apologize.'

  'Oh, I know.' Nan walked over to the trash can, which was decorated with green and yellow bunny rabbits to match her apron. 'I did go to the bakery for you, though. I wanted to get you something to celebrate. Just because she's dead –'

  'I know, Nan. Thanks. I really appreciate it.'

  'I'm glad.'

  'Good,' Lena said, making herself meet Nan's steady gaze. As much of a neat freak as the woman was, she never cleaned her glasses. Lena could see the fingerprints from six feet away. Still, behind the lenses, Nan's owl-like eyes were piercing, and Lena clamped her mouth shut, fighting the urge to confess.

  Nan said, 'It's just hard without her. You know that. You know what it's like.'

  Lena nodded, a lump rising in her throat. She tried to chase it down with a swallow of coffee, but ended up scorching the roof of her mouth instead.

  'The thing is, it's nice having you here.'

  'I appreciate you letting me stay this long.'

  'Honestly, Lee, you can stay forever. I don't care.'

  'Yeah,' Lena managed over her coffee. How would Nan feel about a kid? Lena gave a mental groan. Nan would probably love a kid, would probably crochet booties for it and dress it up in something stupid every Halloween. She would switch to part-time work at the library and help raise it, and they would be a happy little married couple until Lena was so old her teeth fell out and she needed a walker to get around.

  As if to remind her of Ethan's part in this, the phone rang. Lena silenced it.

  Nan continued, 'Sibyl would like you living here. She always wanted to protect you.'

  Lena cleared her throat, feeling a sweat break out over her body. Had Nan guessed?

  'Protect you from things maybe you think you can handle, only you can't.'

  The phone rang. Lena turned it on and off without looking at the keypad.

  'It's nice for me to have someone around who knew Sibyl,' Nan continued. 'Someone who loved her and –' she paused as the phone rang and Lena turned it off '– cared about her. Someone who knows how hard it is to have her gone.' She paused again, but this time not for the phone. 'You don
't even look like her anymore.'

  Lena looked down at her hands. 'I know.'

  'She would have hated that, Lee. She would have hated that more than anything else.'

  They both started to tear up for their own reasons, and when the phone rang for the hundredth time, Lena answered it just to break the spell.

  'Lena,' Frank Wallace barked. 'Where the fuck have you been?'

  She looked at the clock over the stove. She wasn't due at the station for another half hour.

  Frank didn't wait for her response. 'We've got a hostage situation at the station. Get your ass down here right now.'

  The phone slammed down in her ear.

  Nan asked, 'What?'

  'There's a hostage situation,' Lena said, putting the phone down on the table, fighting the urge to put her hand to her chest, where her heart was thumping so hard that she felt it in her neck. 'At the station.'

  'Oh, God.' Nan gasped. 'I can't believe it. Was anyone hurt?'

  'He didn't say.' Lena gulped down the rest of the coffee, though her adrenaline did not need the boost. She looked on the counter for her keys, her nerves on edge.

  Nan asked, 'Remember when that happened in Ludowici?'

  'I'd rather not,' Lena said, feeling her heart stop. Six years ago in a nearby county, some prisoners had managed to grab one of the cops walking through the cells. They had pistol-whipped him with his own gun and used his keys to free themselves. The stand-off had lasted three days and fifteen prisoners had been wounded or killed. Four officers had died. In her mind, Lena ran through all the cops she knew at the station, wondering if any of them had been injured.

  Lena checked her pockets, though she knew she hadn't seen her keys all morning.

  The phone rang again.

  Lena said, 'Where are my –'

  Nan pointed to a duck-shaped hook by the back door. The phone rang a second time and she picked it up without answering. 'What should I tell him?'

  Lena grabbed her keys off the duck's bill. She avoided Nan's gaze as she opened the door, saying, 'Tell him I left for work.'

  Lena drove her Celica down Main Street, surprised to find the town deserted. Heartsdale wasn't exactly a thriving metropolis, but even on a Monday morning you would usually find a few people walking down the sidewalks or students tearing through on their bikes. There was a four-way stop at the mouth of the street, and Lena rolled through, looking around for signs of civilization. The hardware store's neon OPEN sign was darkened, and the dress shop had a piece of paper taped to the window with a hastily scribbled CLOSED. Two Grant County cruisers blocked the road twenty feet ahead, and she pulled her car into one of the vacant spots in front of the diner. Lena got out, thinking it was like being in a ghost town. The air was still and quiet, almost expectant. She glanced past her reflection into the darkened diner as she walked by. Chairs had been upended onto tables and the dollar menu had fallen off its suction cup in the window. That was nothing new. The diner had been closed over a year now.

  Up the road, she could see two unmarked cop cars in front of Burgess's Cleaners, directly across from the police station. More cop cars were in the children's clinic parking lot, and three cruisers were parked on a diagonal in front of the police station. The main entrance to the college was blocked off by a campus security Chevy, but the rent-a-cop who should have been with the car was nowhere to be seen.

  Lena stood on the sidewalk, looking up the street, half expecting some tumbleweeds to roll by. The windows to the cleaners were tinted nearly black, and even at close range they were hard to see into. She imagined that was where Jeffrey had set up the command post. There was nothing but a long parking lot behind the jail, and the prisoners had probably already barricaded the doors. The cleaners was the only position that made sense.

  She said, 'Hey,' to the Uniform standing by the cruisers. He was looking up the street, the wrong way for his post.

  He turned, his hand on his gun. Tension radiated from him like a bad odor.

  She held out her hands. 'I'm on the job. Chill out.'

  His voice shook. 'You're Detective Adams?'

  She did not recognize the man, but even if she had, Lena doubted she could say much to calm him. His face was ashen, and if he did manage to pull his gun, he'd probably shoot himself in the foot before he managed to aim it at anyone.

  'What's going on?' she asked.

  He clicked his shoulder mic on. 'Detective Adams is here.'

  Frank's response came almost immediately. 'Send her around the back.'

  'Go through the five-and-dime,' the Uniform said. 'The back door to the cleaners is open.'

  'What's going on?'

  He shook his head, and she could see his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed.

  Lena did as she was told, walking through the front entrance of the Shop-o-rama. There was a cowbell over the door, and the loud banging set her teeth on edge. She reached up and stilled the bell before entering the empty store. A half-filled shopping basket sat in the middle of the center aisle as if a shopper had abandoned it in place. Someone had been putting up a neon green sign advertising a special on suntan lotion, but it had been left hanging by one corner from a thin wire. All the lights were on, the neon pharmacy sign brightly lit, but the place was deserted. Even the yellow-haired freak who was always at the desk in the back office was nowhere to be seen.

  The doors to the stockroom made a sucking sound as she pushed them open. Rows of marked bins lined the walls from floor to ceiling: toothpaste, toilet tissue, magazines. Lena was surprised some enterprising kid from the college had not figured out the shops were wide open and unguarded. She had worked at Grant Tech for a few months and knew from experience that the bastards spent more time stealing from each other than they did actually studying.

  The back door stood wide open, and Lena blinked at the unrelenting sunlight. Sweat dripped down the back of her neck, but she was not sure if that was from the heat or her own apprehension. Her shoes crunched the gravel as she walked toward the cleaners, where two uniformed cops stood guard. One of them was a shortish, attractive woman who would have probably had Lena's job if Lena had not come back. The other was a young man who looked more skittish than the guy by the cruisers.

  Lena pulled out her badge and identified herself, though she knew the woman. 'Detective Adams.'

  'Hemming,' the cop said, resting her hand on her gun belt. She stared openly at Lena, managing to convey her distaste despite the circumstances. She did not introduce her partner.

  Lena asked, 'What's going on?'

  Hemming jabbed her thumb toward the cleaners. 'They're in there.'

  Inside, the cool air almost immediately dried the sweat on her neck. Lena pushed past the rows of laundry that were waiting to be picked up. The smell of chemicals was overwhelming, and she coughed as she passed the starching area. The industrial ironers were still turned on, heat coming off them like an open flame. Old man Burgess was nowhere to be found, and it seemed odd that he would just leave things like this. Lena turned off the dials on the ironers as she passed, watching a group of men fifteen feet away. She stopped at the last machine when she recognized the tan pants and dark blue shirts of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. They had gotten here fast. Nick Shelton, Grant County's GBI field agent, was standing with his back to Lena, but she knew him from his cowboy boots and mullet haircut.

  She scanned the room for other Grant County cops. Pat Morris, a detective who had been recently promoted from patrol, sat on top of a dorm-size refrigerator holding a bag of ice to his ear. His carrot red hair was plastered to his head. Thin red lines of blood cut across his face, and Molly, the nurse from the children's clinic, was poking at them with a cotton swab. Aside from a Uniform over by the folding table, Frank was the only other cop from the county.

  'Lena,' Frank said, waving her over. Blood streaked down his shirt, but from what Lena could tell, it wasn't his. He looked sick as hell, and Lena didn't know how he was standing up on his own, let alone trying to run this thi
ng with Nick.

  On the table in front of them was a rough map of what had to be the station. Red and black X's riddled the areas by the coffee machine and the fire door, each of them with a set of initials to identify a person. She guessed the oblong rectangles and lopsided squares were desks and filing cabinets. If the map was accurate, the room had been pretty much torn apart.

  'Jesus,' she said, wondering how the prisoners had managed to take the squad room.

  Nick motioned her closer as he finished drawing a long rectangle for the filing cabinets under the window to Jeffrey's office. 'We were just about to start.' He indicated the map, asking Pat, 'This look right, buddy?'

  Pat nodded.

  'All right.' Nick dropped the marker on the table and indicated Frank should begin.

  'The gunman was waiting here with his accomplice here.' Frank pointed to two spots in the front lobby. 'Around nine a.m., Matt came in. He was shot in the head at point-blank range.'

  Lena put her hand on the table to steady herself. She looked across the street at the station. The front door was propped open a few inches, but she did not know with what.

  Frank pointed to a desk by the fire door. 'Sara Linton was here.'

  'Sara?' she asked, unable to follow. How had this happened? Who would want to shoot Matt Hogan? She had assumed the prisoners had rioted, not that someone from the outside had come in to kill in cold blood.

  Frank continued, 'We got two kids out.' He pointed to other red X's near the door. 'Burrows, Robinson, and Morgan were taken down in the first minute.' He nodded at Pat. 'Morris managed to break the window in Jeffrey's office and drag out three more of the kids. Keith Anderson jumped over me through the fire door. He was shot in the back. He's in surgery right now.'

  When she could speak, Lena asked, 'There were kids?'

  Nick provided, 'Brad was giving them a tour of the station.'

  Lena swallowed, trying to get enough spit in her mouth to talk. 'How many are left?'