A Grant County Collection

by Karin Slaughter

  Jeffrey could imagine, but he needed to hear it. 'What did Paul say, Terri?'

  She gnawed her lip, and a fresh trickle of blood appeared. 'Dale told me he was going to put the cyanide in my coffee one of these days, that I wouldn't even know it until it hit my stomach and the acids activated the poison.' Her lip quivered, but this time it was from disgust. 'He told me it'd kill me slow, that I'd know exactly what was happening, and he'd just watch me there, thrashing on the floor, shitting in my pants. He told me he'd look me in the eye till the last minute so I'd know he was the one who did it to me.'

  Jeffrey asked, 'What did Paul do when Dale said this?'

  Terri looked at Rebecca, reached over to stroke her hair. She was still having trouble saying bad things about Dale, and Jeffrey wondered what she was trying to protect the young girl from.

  Jeffrey asked his question again. 'What did Paul do when he said that, Terri?'

  Terri dropped her hand to Rebecca's shoulder. 'Nothing,' she said. 'I thought he would laugh, but he did absolutely nothing.'

  Jeffrey looked at his watch for the third time, then back up at the secretary posted sentinel in front of Paul's office at the farm. She was less chatty than the one in Savannah, but just as protective of her boss. The door behind her was open, and Jeffrey could see rich leather chairs and two huge chunks of marble with a glass top that served for a desk. Shelves lined the room, leather law books and golfing memorabilia scattered around. Terri Stanley was right, her uncle certainly liked to have his toys.

  Paul's secretary looked up from her computer, saying, 'Paul should be back soon.'

  'I could wait inside the office,' Jeffrey suggested, thinking he could go through Paul's things.

  The secretary chuckled at the idea. 'Paul doesn't even like me in there when he's gone,' she said, still typing on her computer. 'Better you should wait out here. He'll be back in a jiff.'

  Jeffrey crossed his arms, sitting back in the chair. He had only been waiting five minutes, but he was beginning to think he should go find the lawyer himself. The secretary hadn't called her boss to announce the fact that the chief of police was here, but his white Town Car with government plates was pretty easy to pick out in a crowd. Jeffrey had parked it right in front of the building's main doors.

  He looked at his watch again, marking another minute gone by. He had left Lena at the Stanley place so she could keep an eye on the two women. He didn't want Terri's guilt to make her do something stupid, like call her aunt Esther – or worse, her uncle Lev. Jeffrey had told them Lena was there to protect them, and neither of the girls had questioned this. Brad had run Dale in on a resisting charge, but that wouldn't stick more than a day. Jeffrey doubted very seriously Terri would help with the prosecution. She was barely thirty, trapped with two sick kids and no discernible job skills. The best thing he could do was call Pat Stanley and tell him to get his brother's house in order. If it were up to Jeffrey, Dale would be lying at the bottom of a quarry right now.

  The secretary said, 'Reverend Ward?' and Lev stuck his head in the room. 'Do you know where Paul is? He has a visitor.'

  'Chief Tolliver,' Lev said, entering the room. He was drying his hands on a paper towel and Jeffrey assumed he'd been in the bathroom. 'Is something wrong?'

  Jeffrey sized up the man, still not completely certain Lev didn't know exactly what was going on. Rebecca and Terri had insisted he was oblivious, but it was clear to Jeffrey that Lev Ward was the leader of this family. He couldn't imagine Paul getting away with this kind of thing right under his older brother's nose.

  Jeffrey said, 'I'm looking for your brother.'

  Lev looked at his watch. 'We've got a meeting in twenty minutes. I don't imagine he's gone far.'

  'I need to talk to him now.'

  Lev offered, 'May I help you with something?'

  Jeffrey was glad he was making this easy. He said, 'Let's go to your office.'

  'Is this about Abby?' Lev asked, walking down the hallway toward the back of the building. He was wearing faded jeans, a flannel shirt, and scuffed cowboy boots that looked as if the soles had been replaced about a dozen times since they were made. Clipped onto his belt was a leather sheath containing a retractable carpet knife.

  'You laying carpet?' Jeffrey asked, wary of the tool, which held an extremely sharp safety razor capable of cutting through just about anything.

  Lev seemed confused. 'Oh,' he said, looking down at his side as if he was surprised to find the sheath there. 'Opening boxes,' he explained. 'Deliveries always come on Fridays.' He stopped in front of an open door. 'Here we are.'

  Jeffrey read the sign on the door, which read, 'Praise the Lord and come on in!'

  'My humble abode,' Lev told him, indicating the room.

  In contrast to his brother, Lev did not have a secretary guarding his space. As a matter of fact, his office was small, almost as small as Jeffrey's. A metal desk stood in the center of the room, a rolling chair without arms behind it. Two folding chairs were in front and books were stacked around the floor in neat piles. Child's colorings, probably Zeke's, were pinned to the walls with thumbtacks.

  'Sorry about the mess,' Lev apologized. 'My father says a cluttered office is a sign of a cluttered mind.' He laughed. 'I guess he's right.'

  'Your brother's office is a little . . . more grand.'

  Lev laughed again. 'Papa used to get onto him all the time when we were little, but Paul's a grown man now, a little old to be taken over the knee.' He turned serious. 'Vanity is a sin, but we all have our weaknesses.'

  Jeffrey glanced back out into the hall. There was a short corridor opposite the office that held a Xerox machine. He asked, 'What's your weakness?'

  Lev seemed to really give it some thought. 'My son.'

  'Who's Stephanie Linder?'

  Lev seemed puzzled. 'Why would you ask that?'

  'Answer my question.'

  'She was my wife. She died five years ago.'

  'Are you sure about that?'

  He turned indignant. 'I think I know whether or not my wife is dead.'

  'I'm just curious,' Jeffrey said. 'You see, your sister Mary came in today and told me she has a daughter. I don't remember anyone mentioning that before.'

  Lev had the wisdom to look contrite. 'Yes, that's right. She does have a daughter.'

  'A daughter who ran away from her family.'

  'Genie – Terri – that's what she likes to go by now – was a very difficult teenager. She had a very troubled life.'

  'I'd still say it's a bit troubled. Wouldn't you?'

  'She's straightened up,' he defended. 'But she's a proud girl. I still have hopes for a reconciliation with the family.'

  'Her husband beats her.'

  Lev's mouth opened in surprise. 'Dale?'

  'Cole put her in a box, too, just like Abby. She was about Rebecca's age when he did it. Did Mary ever tell you that?'

  Lev put his hand on his desk as if he needed help standing. 'Why would . . .' His voice trailed off as he obviously began to realize what Cole Connolly had actually been doing all these years. 'My God,' he whispered.

  'Three times, Lev. Cole put Abby in that box three times. The last time, she didn't come out.'

  Lev looked up at the ceiling, but Jeffrey was relieved to see it was to try to staunch the tears in his eyes instead of to break into spontaneous prayer. Jeffrey gave the man some space, letting him wrestle with his emotions.

  Finally, Lev asked, 'Who? Who else did he do this to?' Jeffrey didn't answer, but he was glad to hear the fury in Lev's tone. 'Mary told us Genie ran away to Atlanta to have an abortion.' Obviously, he thought he could anticipate Jeffrey's next remark, because he said, 'My father has strong feelings about life, Chief Tolliver, as do I. Still . . .' He paused, as if needing a moment to collect himself. 'We would never have turned our backs on her. Never. We all do things that God does not approve of. That doesn't necessarily mean we're bad people. Our Genie – Terri – wasn't a bad girl. She was just a teenager who did a bad thing –
a very bad thing. We looked for her. I looked for her. She didn't want to be found.' He shook his head. 'If I had known . . .'

  'Somebody knew,' Jeffrey said.

  'No,' Lev insisted. 'If any of us had known what Cole was up to, there would've been stern repercussions. I would have called the police myself.'

  'You don't seem to like getting the police involved in anything.'

  'I want to protect our workers.'

  'Seems to me you've put your family in jeopardy while you were trying to save a bunch of strangers.'

  Lev's jaw tightened. 'I can see why you view it that way.'

  'Why didn't you want to report that Rebecca was missing?'

  'She always comes back,' he said. 'You must understand, she's very headstrong. There's nothing we can do to . . .' He didn't finish his sentence. 'You don't think . . .' He faltered. 'Cole . . .?'

  'Did Cole bury Becca like he buried the other girls?' Jeffrey finished his question for him, watching Lev closely, trying to figure out what was going on in the other man's head. 'What do you think, Reverend Ward?'

  Lev exhaled slowly, like he was having trouble absorbing all of this. 'We need to find her. She always goes into the woods – my God, the woods –' He made to go, but Jeffrey stopped him.

  'She's safe,' Jeffrey said.

  'Where?' Lev asked. 'Take me to her. Esther's beside herself.'

  'She's safe,' was all Jeffrey would tell him. 'I'm not finished talking to you.'

  Lev saw that the only way out the door was past Jeffrey. Though he would certainly win that fight, Jeffrey was glad the bigger man didn't push it.

  Lev asked, 'Will you at least call her mother?'

  'I already did,' Jeffrey lied. 'Esther was very relieved to hear she was safe.'

  Lev settled back down, relieved but still obviously conflicted. 'This is a lot to absorb.' He had the habit of biting his bottom lip, the same as his niece. 'Why did you ask about my wife?'

  'Did she ever own a house in Savannah?'

  'Of course not,' he replied. 'Stephanie lived here all of her life. I don't even think she'd ever been to Savannah.'

  'How long has Paul worked there?'

  'About six years, give or take.'

  'Why Savannah?'

  'We have a lot of vendors and buyers in the area. It's easier for him to do business with them face to face.' He seemed a bit guilty when he added, 'The farm is a slow pace for Paul. He likes to be in the city sometimes.'

  'His wife doesn't go with him?'

  'He has six kids,' Lev pointed out. 'He's obviously home a great deal of time.'

  Jeffrey noticed he misinterpreted the question, but perhaps in this family it was normal for husbands to leave their wives alone with the kids every other week. Jeffrey couldn't think of a man out there who wouldn't be happy with this kind of arrangement, but he was hard-pressed to think of any woman who would be.

  He asked, 'Have you ever been to his house in Savannah?'

  'Quite often,' Lev answered. 'He lives in an apartment over the office.'

  'He doesn't live in a house on Sandon Square?'

  Lev roared a laugh. 'Hardly,' he said. 'That's one of the wealthiest streets in the city.'

  'And your wife never visited there?'

  Lev shook his head again, sounding slightly irritated when he said, 'I've been answering all of your questions to the best of my abilities. Is there ever going to come a point when you can tell me what this is all about?'

  Jeffrey decided it was his turn to give a little. He took out the original insurance policies from his pocket and handed them to Lev. 'Abby left these for Rebecca.'

  Lev took the pages, unfolding them and spreading them flat on his desk. 'Left them how?'

  Jeffrey didn't answer, but Lev didn't notice. He was leaning over his desk, tracing his finger down each page as he read. Jeffrey noticed the set to his jaw, the anger in his stance.

  Lev straightened up. 'These people lived on our farm.'

  'That's right.'

  'This one.' He held up one of the pages. 'Larry ran off. Cole told us he ran off.'

  'He's dead.'

  Lev stared at him, his eyes moving back and forth across Jeffrey's face as if to read where this was going.

  Jeffrey took out his notepad, telling him, 'Larry Fowler died from alcohol poisoning on July twenty-eighth of last year. He was removed from the farm by the Catoogah county coroner at nine fifty p.m.'

  Lev stared another second, not quite believing. 'And this one?' he asked, lifting the page. 'Mike Morrow. He drove the tractor last season. He had a daughter in Wisconsin. Cole said he went to live with her.'

  'Drug overdose. August thirteenth, twelve forty p.m.'

  Lev asked, 'Why would he tell us they ran off when they died?'

  'I guess it'd be a little hard to explain why so many people have died on your farm in the last two years.'

  He looked at the policies again, scanning the pages. 'You think . . . you think they . . .'

  'Your brother paid for nine bodies to be cremated.'

  Lev's face was already pasty, but his face turned completely white as he absorbed the implication behind Jeffrey's words. 'These signatures,' he began, studying the documents again. 'That's not mine,' he said, stabbing his finger at one of the pages. 'This,' he said, 'that's not Mary's signature; she's left-handed. That's certainly not Rachel's. Why would she have an insurance policy on a man she never even knew?'

  'You tell me.'

  'This is wrong,' he said, wadding up the pages in his fist. 'Who would do this?'

  Jeffrey repeated, 'You tell me.'

  A vein was throbbing in Lev's temple. His teeth were clenched as he thumbed back through the papers. 'Did he have a policy on my wife?'

  Jeffrey answered honestly. 'I don't know.'

  'Where did you get her name?'

  'All of the policies are registered to a house on Sandon Square. The owner is listed as Stephanie Linder.'

  'He . . . used . . .' Lev was so livid he was having trouble speaking. 'He used my . . . my wife's name . . . for this?'

  In his line of work, Jeffrey had seen plenty of grown men reduced to tears, but usually they were crying because they had lost a loved one or – more often than not – because they realized they were going to jail and felt sorry for themselves. Lev Ward's tears were from sheer rage.

  'Hold on,' Jeffrey said as Lev pushed past him. 'Where are you going?'

  Lev ran up the hall to Paul's office. 'Where is he?' Lev demanded.

  Jeffrey heard the secretary say, 'I don't –'

  Lev was already running toward the front doors, Jeffrey close behind him. The preacher didn't look particularly fit, but he had a long stride. By the time Jeffrey made it to the parking lot, Lev was already at his car. Instead of getting in, the man stood there, frozen.

  Jeffrey trotted over to him. 'Lev?'

  'Where is he?' he snarled. 'Give me ten minutes with him. Just ten minutes.'

  Jeffrey wouldn't have thought the mild-mannered preacher had it in him. 'Lev, you need to go back inside.'

  'How could he do this to us?' he asked. 'How could he . . .' Lev seemed to be working out all the implications. He turned to Jeffrey. 'He killed my niece? He killed Abby? And Cole, too?'

  'I think so,' Jeffrey said. 'He had access to the cyanide. He knew how to use it.'

  'My God,' he said, not just an expression but a genuine entreaty. 'Why?' he pleaded. 'Why would he do this? What did Abby ever do to anyone?'

  Jeffrey didn't try to answer his questions. 'We need to find your brother, Lev. Where is he?'

  Lev was too angry to speak. He shook his head tightly from side to side.

  'We need to find him,' Jeffrey repeated, just as his phone chirped from his pocket. He glanced at the caller ID, seeing it was Lena. He stepped back to answer the phone, snapping it open, saying, 'What is it?'

  Lena was whispering, but he heard her loud and clear. 'He's here,' she said. 'Paul's car just pulled into the driveway.'

  SIXTEEN<
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  Lena's heart thumped in her throat, a constant pulse that made it hard to speak.

  'Don't do anything until I get there,' Jeffrey ordered. 'Hide Rebecca. Don't let him see her.'

  'What if –'

  'No fucking what-ifs, Detective. Do as I say.'

  Lena glanced at Rebecca, saw the terror in the girl's eyes. She could end this right now – throw Paul to the floor, take the bastard into custody. Then what? They'd never get a confession out of the lawyer. He's be laughing all the way to the grand jury, where they'd dismiss the case for lack of evidence.

  Jeffrey said, 'Am I being clear?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'Keep Rebecca safe,' he ordered. 'She's our only witness. That's your job right now, Lena. Don't fuck this up.' The phone clicked loudly as he disconnected.

  Terri was at the front window, calling out Paul's movements. 'He's in the garage,' she whispered. 'He's in the garage.'

  Lena grabbed Rebecca by the arm, pulling her into the foyer. 'Go upstairs,' she ordered, but the frightened girl wouldn't budge.

  Terri said, 'He's going around the back. Oh, God, hurry!' She ran down the hall so that she could follow his progress.

  'Rebecca,' Lena said, willing the girl to move. 'We need to go upstairs.'

  'What if he . . .' Rebecca began. 'I can't . . .'

  'He's in the shed,' Terri called. 'Becca, please! Go!'

  'He'll be so mad,' Rebecca whimpered. 'Oh, Lord, please . . .'

  Terri's voice trilled. 'He's coming toward the house!'

  'Rebecca,' Lena tried again.

  Terri ran back into the hall, pushing Rebecca as Lena tugged the girl toward the stairs.

  'Mommy!' Tim grabbed onto his mother, wrapping his arms around her leg.

  Terri's voice was stern when she told her son, 'Go upstairs now.' She spanked Tim on the bottom when he didn't move quickly enough.

  The back door opened and they all froze as Paul called, 'Terri?'

  Tim was at the top of the stairs, but Rebecca stood frozen in fear, breathing like a wounded animal.