'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 onto 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 baby feet were so small, their toes little nubs, their arches curling like a banana peel as they pulled their knees to their chest.
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 miniscule 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 rea
lly 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, 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?'
'Eight years,' she answered. Eight years of having the shit beaten out of her. Eight years of making excuses, covering his tracks, convincing herself that this time was different, this time he would change. Eight years of knowing deep in her gut that she was lying to herself, but not being able to do anything about it.
Lena would be dead in eight years if she had to endure that.
Terri said, 'When Dale met me, I was clean, but I was still messed up. Didn't think much of myself.' Lena could hear the regret in her voice. She wasn't wallowing in self-pity. She was looking back on her life and seeing how the hole she had dug for herself wasn't much different from the one Cole Connolly had put her in.
Terri told them, 'Before that, I was into speed, shooting up. I did some really bad things. I think Tim's the one who's paid for it most.' She added, 'His asthma is really bad. Who knows how long those drugs stay in your system? Who knows what it does to your insides?'
He asked, 'When did you clean up?'
'When I was twenty-one,' she answered. 'I just stopped. I knew I wouldn't see twenty-five if I didn't.'
'Have you had any contact with your family since then?'
She started picking at her cuticle again. 'I asked my uncle for some money a while back,' she admitted. 'I needed it for . . .' Her throat moved again as she swallowed. Lena knew what she needed the money for. Terri didn't have a job. Dale probably kept every dime that came into the house. She had to pay the clinic somehow, and borrowing money from her uncle had been the only way.
Terri told Jeffrey, 'Dr Linton's been real nice, but we had to pay her something for all she's been doing. Tim's medication isn't covered by his insurance.' Suddenly, she looked up, fear lighting her eyes. 'Don't tell Dale,' she pleaded, talking to Lena. 'Please don't tell him I asked for money. He's proud. He doesn't like me begging.'
Lena knew he would want to know where the money went. She asked, 'Did you ever see Abby?'
Her lips quivered as she tried not to cry. 'Yes,' she answered. 'Sometimes, she used to come by during the day to check on me and the kids. She'd bring us food, candy for the kids.'
'You knew she was pregnant?'
Terri nodded, and Lena wondered if Jeffrey felt the sadness coming off her. She was probably thinking about the child she had lost, the one in Atlanta. Lena felt herself thinking the same thing. For some reason, the image of the baby upstairs came to her mind, his little feet curling in the air, the way Terri tucked the blanket under his soft chin. Lena had to look down so that Jeffrey wouldn't see the tears stinging her eyes.
She could feel Terri looking at her. The mother had an abused woman's sense of other people, an instinctive recognition of changing emotions that came from years of trying not to say or do the wrong thing.
Jeffrey was oblivious to all of this as he asked, 'What did you say to Abby when she told you about the baby?'
'I should have known what was going to happen,' she said. 'I should have warned her.'
'Warned her about what?'
'About Cole, about what he did to me.'
'Why didn't you tell her?'
'My own mother wouldn't believe me,' she said bluntly. 'I don't know . . . Over the years, I thought maybe I was making it up. I did so many drugs then, lots of bad stuff. I wasn't thinking straight. It was easier to just think that I made it up.'
Lena knew what she was talking about. You lied to yourself in degrees just so you could get through the day.
Jeffrey asked, 'Did Abby tell you she was seeing somebody?'
Terri nodded, saying, 'Chip,' with some regret. 'I told her not to get mixed up with him. You've got to understand, girls don't know much growing up on the Holy Grown farm. They keep us secluded, like they're protecting us, but what it really does is make it easier for all the men.' She gave another humorless laugh. 'I never even knew what sex was until I was having it.'
'When did Abby tell you she was leaving?'
'She came by on her way to Savannah about a week before she died,' Terri said. 'She told me she was going to leave with Chip when Aunt Esther and Uncle Eph went into Atlanta in a couple of days.'
'Did she see
m upset?'
She considered the question. 'She seemed preoccupied. That's not like Abby. There was a lot on her mind, though. She was . . . she was distracted.'
'Distracted how?'
Terri looked down, obviously trying to conceal her reaction. 'Just with stuff.'
Jeffrey said, 'Terri, we need to know what stuff.'
She spoke. 'We were here in the kitchen,' she began. She indicated Lena's chair. 'She was sitting right there. She had Paul's briefcase in her lap, holding it like she couldn't let go. I remember thinking I could sell that thing and feed my kids for a month.'
'It's a nice briefcase?' Jeffrey asked, and Lena knew he was thinking exactly the same thing she was. Abby had looked in the briefcase and found something Paul didn't want her to see.
She said, 'He probably paid a thousand dollars for it. He spends money like it's water. I just don't understand.'
Jeffrey asked, 'What did Abby say?'
'That she had to go see Paul, then when she came back, she was leaving with Chip.' She sniffed. 'She wanted me to tell her mama and daddy that she loved them with all her heart.' She started to cry again. 'I need to tell them that. I owe Esther that at least.'
'Do you think she told Paul she was pregnant?'
Terri shook her head. 'I don't know. She could've gone to Savannah to get some help.'
Lena asked, 'Help getting rid of the baby?'
'God no,' she said, shocked. 'Abby would never kill her baby.'
Lena felt her mouth working, but her voice was caught somewhere in her throat.
Jeffrey asked, 'What do you think she wanted from Paul?'
'Maybe she asked him for some money?' Terri guessed. 'I told her she'd need some money if she was going off with Chip. She doesn't understand how the real world works. She gets hungry and there's food on the table. She's cold and there's the thermostat. She's never had to fend for herself. I warned her she'd need money of her own, and to hide it from Chip, to keep something back for herself, in case he left her somewhere. I didn't want her to make the same mistakes I had.' She wiped her nose. 'She was such a sweet, sweet girl.'
A sweet girl who was trying to bribe her uncle into paying her off with blood money, Lena thought. She asked, 'You think Paul gave her the money?'
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