A Grant County Collection

by Karin Slaughter

  'Yeah,' Lena answered, stepping back so he could make his way to the door.

  'Don't be a stranger.' Nan patted his arm. She was still acting nervous, and Lena noticed that she was blinking a lot. Something was different about her, but Lena couldn't put her finger on it.

  Greg said, 'You look great, Nan. Really good.'

  Nan actually blushed, and Lena realized she wasn't wearing her glasses. When had Nan gotten contacts? And for that matter, why? She had never been the type to worry about her appearance, but today she had even forgone her usual pastels and had dressed in jeans and a plain black T-shirt. Lena had never seen her in anything darker than chartreuse.

  Mindy had said something, and Lena apologized, saying, 'Sorry?'

  'I said it was nice meeting you.' She had a twang that grated, and Lena hoped the smile she managed didn't betray her aversion.

  Greg said, 'Nice meeting you, too,' and shook Mindy's hand.

  Lena opened her mouth to say something, then changed her mind. Greg was at the door, his hand on the knob.

  He gave Lena one last look over his shoulder. 'I'll see you around.'

  'Yeah,' Lena answered, thinking that was pretty much all she had said for the last five minutes.

  The door clicked shut and the three women stood in a circle.

  Mindy gave a nervous laugh, and Nan joined in just a tad too loudly. She put her hand to her mouth to stop herself.

  Mindy said, 'I'd better get back to work.' She leaned over to kiss Nan's cheek, but Nan pulled back. At the last minute, she realized what she had done and leaned forward, hitting Mindy in the nose.

  Mindy laughed, rubbing her nose. 'I'll call you.'

  'Um, okay,' Nan answered, her face the color of a turnip. 'I'll be here. Today, I mean. Or at work tomorrow.' She looked at everything in the room but Lena. 'I mean, I'll be around.'

  'Okay,' Mindy answered, the smile on her face a little tighter. She told Lena, 'Nice meeting you.'

  'Yeah, you, too.'

  Mindy gave Nan a furtive look. 'See you later.'

  Nan waved, and Lena said, 'Bye.'

  The door closed, and Lena felt like all the air had been sucked from the room. Nan was still blushing, her lips pressed together so tightly they were turning white. Lena decided to break the ice, saying, 'She seems nice.'

  'Yeah,' Nan agreed. 'I mean, no. Not that she's not nice. I just . . . Oh, dear me.' She pressed her fingers to her lips to stop them.

  Lena tried to think of something positive to say. 'She's pretty.'

  'You think so?' Nan blushed again. 'I mean, not that it matters. I just –'

  'It's okay, Nan.'

  'It's too soon.'

  Lena didn't know what else to say. She wasn't good at comforting people. She wasn't good at anything emotional, a fact that Greg had cited several times before he'd finally gotten fed up and left.

  'Greg just knocked on the door,' Nan said, and when Lena looked out the front door, she added, 'not now, before. We were sitting around. Mindy and I. We were just talking and he knocked and –' She stopped, taking a deep breath. 'Greg looks good.'

  'Yeah.'

  'He said he walks in the neighborhood all the time,' Nan told her. 'For his leg. He's in physical therapy. He didn't want to be rude. You know, if we saw him in the street and wondered what he was doing back in town.'

  Lena nodded.

  'He didn't know you were here. Living here.'

  'Oh.'

  Silence took over again.

  Nan said, 'Well,' just as Lena said, 'I thought you were at work.'

  'I took the morning off.'

  Lena rested her hand on the front door. Nan had obviously wanted to keep her date a secret. Maybe she was ashamed, or maybe she was scared what Lena's reaction might be.

  Lena asked, 'Did you have coffee with her?'

  'It's too soon after Sibyl,' Nan told her. 'I didn't notice until you got here . . .'

  'What?'

  'She looks like you. Like Sibyl.' She amended, 'Not exactly like Sibyl, not as pretty. Not as . . .' Nan rubbed her eyes with her fingers, then whispered, 'Shit.'

  Lena was yet again at a loss for words.

  'Stupid contacts,' Nan said. She dropped her hand, but Lena could see her eyes were watering.

  'It's okay, Nan,' Lena told her, feeling an odd sense of responsibility. 'It's been three years,' she pointed out, though it felt like it had barely been three days. 'You deserve a life. She would want you to –'

  Nan cut her off with a nod, sniffing loudly. She waved her hands in front of her face. 'I'd better go take these stupid things out. I feel like I have needles in my eyes.'

  She practically ran to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Lena contemplated standing outside the door, asking her if she was okay, but that felt like a violation. The thought that Nan might one day date had never occurred to Lena. She had considered her as asexual after a while, existing only in the context of their home life. For the first time, Lena realized that Nan must have been terribly lonely all this time.

  Lena was so lost in thought that the phone rang several times before Nan called, 'Are you going to get that?'

  Lena grabbed the receiver just before the voice mail picked up. 'Hello?'

  'Lena,' Jeffrey said, 'I know I gave you the morning off –'

  Relief came like a ray of sunshine. 'When do you need me?'

  'I'm in the driveway.'

  She walked over to the window and looked out at his white cruiser. 'I need a minute to change.'

  Lena sat back in the passenger's seat, watching the scenery go by as Jeffrey drove along a gravel road on the outskirts of town. Grant County was comprised of three cities: Heartsdale, Madison and Avondale. Heartsdale, home to Grant Tech, was the jewel of the county, and with its huge antebellum mansions and gingerbread houses, it certainly looked it. By comparison, Madison was dingy, a lesser version of what a city should be, and Avondale was an outright shithole since the army had closed the base there. It was just Lena and Jeffrey's luck that the call came from Avondale. Every cop she knew dreaded a call from this side of the county, where poverty and hatred made the whole town simmer like a pot about to boil over.

  Jeffrey asked, 'You ever been out this far on a call?'

  'I didn't even know there were houses out here.'

  'There weren't the last time I checked.' Jeffrey handed her a file with a slip of paper containing the directions paper clipped to the outside. 'What road are we looking for?'

  'Plymouth,' she read. At the top of the page was a name. 'Ephraim Bennett?'

  'The father, apparently.' Jeffrey slowed so that they could check a faded road sign. It was the standard green with white letters, but there was something homemade-looking about it, as if someone had used a kit from the hardware store.

  'Nina Street,' she read, wondering when all of these roads had been built. After working patrol for nearly ten years, Lena thought she knew the county better than anyone. Looking around, she felt like they were in foreign territory.

  She asked, 'Are we still in Grant?'

  'We're right on the line,' he told her. 'Catoogah County is on the left, Grant is on the right.'

  He slowed for another road sign. 'Pinta Street,' she told him. 'Who got the call first?'

  'Ed Pelham,' he said, practically spitting out the name. Catoogah County was less than half the size of Grant, warranting no more than a sheriff and four deputies. A year ago, Joe Smith, the kindly old grandfather who had held the post of sheriff for thirty years, had keeled over from a heart attack during the keynote speech at the Rotary Club, kicking off a nasty political race between two of his deputies. The election had been so close that the winner, in keeping with county law, was decided by a coin toss, two out of three. Ed Pelham had entered office with the moniker 'Two-Bit' for more reasons than the two quarters that went his way. He was about as lazy as he was lucky, and he had no problem letting other people do his job so long as he got to wear the big hat and collect the paycheck.

 
; Jeffrey said, 'The call came in to one of his deputies last night. He didn't follow up on it until this morning, when he realized they're not in his jurisdiction.'

  'Ed called you?'

  'He called the family and told them they'd have to take it up with us.'

  'Nice,' she said. 'Did he know about our Jane Doe?'

  Jeffrey was more diplomatic than Lena would have been. 'That cocksucker wouldn't know if his own ass was on fire.'

  She snorted a laugh. 'Who's Lev?'

  'What?'

  'The name under here,' she said, showing him the directions. 'You wrote "Lev" and underlined it.'

  'Oh,' Jeffrey said, obviously not paying attention to her as he slowed down to read another sign.

  'Santa Maria,' Lena read, recognizing the names of the ships from her junior high school history class. 'What are they, a bunch of pilgrims?'

  'The pilgrims came over on the Mayflower.''

  'Oh,' Lena said. There was a reason her school counselor had told her college wasn't right for everyone.

  'Columbus led the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria.'

  'Right.' She could feel Jeffrey staring at her, probably wondering if she had a brain in her head. 'Columbus.'

  Thankfully, he changed the subject. 'Lev's the one who called this morning,' Jeffrey told her, speeding up. The tires kicked back gravel and Lena saw a cloud behind them in the side-view mirror. 'He's the uncle. I called back and spoke with the father.'

  'Uncle, huh?'

  'Yeah,' Jeffrey said. 'We'll take a close look at him.' He braked to a stop as the road made a sharp left into a dead end.

  'Plymouth,' Lena said, pointing to a narrow dirt road on the right.

  Jeffrey reversed the car so he could make the turn without going into a ditch. 'I ran their names through the computer.'

  'Any hits?'

  'The father got a speeding ticket in Atlanta two days ago.'

  'Nice alibi.'

  'Atlanta's not that far away,' he pointed out. 'Who the hell would live way out here?'

  'Not me,' Lena answered. She looked out her window at the rolling pastures. There were cows grazing and a couple of horses ran in the distance like something out of a movie. Some people might think this was a slice of heaven, but Lena needed more to do than look at the cows all day.

  'When did all this get here?' Jeffrey asked.

  Lena looked on his side of the road, seeing a huge farm with row after row of plants. She asked, 'Are those peanuts?'

  'They look a little tall for that.'

  'What else grows out here?'

  'Republicans and unemployment,' he said. 'This has to be some kind of corporate farm. Nobody could afford to run a place this size on their own.'

  'There you go.' Lena pointed to a sign at the head of a winding driveway that led to a series of buildings. The words 'Holy Grown Soy Cooperative' were written in fancy gold script. Underneath this, in smaller letters, it said 'Est. 1984.'

  Lena asked, 'Like hippies?'

  'Who knows,' Jeffrey said, rolling up the window as the smell of manure came into the car. 'I'd hate to have to live across from this place.'

  She saw a large, modern-looking barn with a group of at least fifty workers milling about outside. They were probably on break. 'The soy business must be doing well.'

  He slowed the car to a stop in the middle of the road. 'Is this place even on the map?'

  Lena opened the glove compartment and took out the spiral-bound Grant County and surrounding areas street map. She was flipping through the pages, looking for Avondale, when Jeffrey mumbled a curse and turned toward the farm. One thing she liked about her boss was that he wasn't afraid to ask for directions. Greg had been the same way – usually it was Lena saying they should just go a couple more miles and see if they lucked out and found their destination.

  The driveway to the barn was more like a two-lane road, both sides rutted deep from tires. They probably had heavy trucks in and out to pick up the soy or whatever it was they grew here. Lena didn't know what soy looked like, but she imagined it would take a lot to fill a box, let alone a whole truck.

  'We'll try here,' Jeffrey said, slamming the gear into park. She could tell he was irritated, but didn't know if it was because they had gotten lost or because the detour kept the family waiting even longer. She had learned from Jeffrey over the years that it was best to get the bad news out of the way as quickly as possible unless there was something important to be gained from waiting.

  They walked around the big red barn and Lena saw a second group of workers standing behind it, a short, wiry looking old man yelling so loud that even from fifty feet away, she could hear him clear as a bell.

  'The Lord does not abide laziness!' the man was screaming, his finger inches from a younger man's face. 'Your weakness has cost us a full morning's work!'

  The man with the finger in his face looked down, contrite. There were two girls in the crowd, and they were both crying.

  'Weakness and greed!' the old man proclaimed. Anger edged his tone so that each word sounded like an indictment. He had a Bible in his other hand, and he raised it into the air like a torch, shining the way toward enlightenment. 'Your weakness will find you out!' he screamed. 'The Lord will test you, and you must be strong!'

  'Christ,' Jeffrey muttered, then, 'Excuse me, sir?'

  The man turned around, his scowl slipping into a puzzled look, then a frown. He was wearing a white long-sleeved shirt starched to within an inch of its life. His jeans were likewise stiff, a razor crease ironed into the front of the legs. A Braves ball cap sat on his head, his large ears sticking out on each side like billboards. He used the back of his sleeve to wipe spittle from his mouth. 'Is there something I can help you with, sir?' Lena noticed that his voice was hoarse from yelling.

  Jeffrey said, 'We're looking for Ephraim Bennett.' The man's expression yet again turned on a dime. He smiled brightly, his eyes lighting up. 'That's across the road,' he said, indicating the way Jeffrey and Lena had come. He directed, 'Go back down, take a left, then you'll see it about a quarter mile down on the right.'

  Despite his cheerful demeanor, tension hung in the air like a heavy cloud. It was hard to reconcile the man who had been screaming a few minutes ago with the kindly old grandfather offering his help to them now.

  Lena checked out the crowd of workers – about ten in all. Some looked as if they had one foot in the grave. One girl in particular looked like she was having a hard time standing up, though whether this was from grief or intoxication, Lena wasn't sure. They all looked like a bunch of strung-out hippies.

  'Thank you,' Jeffrey told the man, but he looked like he didn't want to leave.

  'Have a blessed day,' the man answered, then turned his back to Jeffrey and Lena, pretty much dismissing them. 'Children,' he said, holding the Bible aloft, 'let's return to the fields.'

  Lena felt Jeffrey's hesitation, and didn't move until he did. It wasn't like they could push the man to the ground and ask him what the hell was going on, but she could tell they both were thinking the same thing: something strange was happening here.

  They were quiet until they got into the car. Jeffrey started the car and reversed it out of the space so he could turn around.

  Lena said, 'That was weird.'

  'Weird how?'

  She wondered if he was disagreeing with her or just trying to get her take on the situation.

  She said, 'All that Bible shit.'

  'He seemed a little wrapped up in it,' Jeffrey conceded, 'but a lot of folks around here are.'

  'Still,' she said. 'Who carries a Bible to work with them?'

  'A lot of people out here, I'd guess.'

  They turned back onto the main road and almost immediately Lena saw a mailbox sticking up on her side of the road. 'Three ten,' she said. 'This is it.'

  Jeffrey took the turn. 'Just because somebody's religious doesn't mean there's something wrong with them.'

  'I didn't say that,' Lena insisted, though maybe she had. From the
age of ten, she had hated church and anything that smacked of a man standing in a pulpit, ordering you around. Her uncle Hank was so wrapped up in religion now that it was a worse addiction than the speed he'd shot into his veins for almost thirty years.

  Jeffrey said, 'Try to keep an open mind.'

  'Yeah,' she answered, wondering if he'd let it slip his mind that she'd been raped a few years ago by a Jesus freak who got off on crucifying women. If Lena was anti-religion, she had a damn good reason to be.

  Jeffrey drove down a driveway that was so long Lena wondered if they had taken a wrong turn. Passing a leaning barn and what looked like an outhouse gave Lena a feeling of déjà vu. There were places like this all over Reese, where she had grown up. Reaganomics and government deregulation had crippled the farmers to their knees. Families had simply walked away from the land that had belonged to them for generations, leaving it to the bank to figure out what to do. Usually, the bank sold it to some multinational corporation that in turn hired migrant workers on the sly, keeping the payroll down and profits up.

  Jeffrey asked, 'Do they use cyanide in pesticides these days?'

  'Got me.' Lena took out her notebook to remind herself to find the answer.

  Jeffrey slowed the car as they breached a steep hill. Three goats stood in the drive, and he beeped his horn to get them moving. The bells around their collars jangled as they trotted into what looked like a chicken coop. A teenage girl and a young boy stood outside a pigpen holding a bucket between them. The girl was wearing a simple shift, the boy overalls with no shirt and no shoes. Their eyes followed the car as they drove by, and Lena felt the hairs on her arm stand straight up.

  Jeffrey said, 'If somebody starts playing a banjo, I'm outta here.'

  'I'm right behind you,' Lena said, relieved to see civilization finally come into view.

  The house was an unassuming cottage with two dormers set into a steeply pitched roof. The clapboard looked freshly painted and well tended, and except for the beat-up old truck out front, the house could have easily been a professor's home in Heartsdale. Flowers ringed the front porch and followed a dirt path to the drive. As they got out of the car, Lena saw a woman standing behind the screen door. She had her hands clasped in front of her and Lena guessed from the palpable tension that this was the missing girl's mother.