“I’m more interested in how it might relate to the murder,” Harlan said. “Don’t you think that’s the sort of deal that could come back to bite someone?”
“You think Leland killed Lew?”
“No. It wasn’t that much money. But there might be other bribes.” Harlan stopped. “Forget I mentioned it.”
Holly started packing up her purse. “I don’t care about defending Lew’s legacy, but I also don’t see him doing anything so corrupt as to get shot. Lew wore his faults like badges of honor.”
“Maybe you didn’t know him as well as you think.”
“Maybe not. I’m just giving you my opinion.” Holly snapped her purse shut and put on her jacket. “Find the gun. That’s the fastest way to wrap this up.”
As far as Harlan was concerned, Leland was his best lead. Let the other deputies search for the gun, that was a needle-haystack job. Let them follow up on bunk information from the tip line. Just because Lew was dead, Harlan wasn’t going to pretend like his former boss was some idealistic lawman. Lew had plenty of enemies besides the people he arrested, and Harlan was willing to bet he carried his fair share of secrets. If he found out why Lew was murdered, he was certain it would lead him to who.
Harlan took advantage of Holly’s absence and lit a cigarette as he examined Lew’s old office. Inside various cabinets and closets he found paperwork Lew had neglected to file, old campaign paraphernalia, and stacks of Field & Stream, but nothing of consequence. Lew’s funeral was slated for the next morning. After that Harlan would have to meet up with Mabel Mattock and search Lew’s house. He’d need to talk with Lewis as well.
He took a seat at the desk and sifted through its drawers, searching for clues among the pens and paper clips. The filing cabinet was still locked, and with a cigarette dangling from his lips, Harlan used his clasp knife to break in. An upward shove popped the pins and the drawer came sliding out. It was crammed with files tagged in Lew’s mix of cursive and print. Budget files and employee files. Various official forms. Harlan read through his own file first. It was clean. No discipline cases, no commendations—just a decade of service and a promotion.
Near the back of the drawer, he uncovered a folder of correspondence between Wesley Craycraft and Lew. It seemed Lew liked to offer the judge suggestions for parole and sentencing—his way of being judge, jury, and executioner. Harlan sorted though the file and stopped at a familiar name.
Wes,
We talked about the parole hearing for inmate 165198. Given the lack of prior offenses and prison overcrowding I don’t see any benefit in keeping Doyle Chapman behind bars. He has family in Arkansas and intends to move there. The sooner Doyle is gone and forgotten the better. I never believed he intended to kill Angeline Chapman. As far as I’m concerned Mr. Chapman must reckon himself with God more than the state of Kentucky. I suggest an early parole and an end to this unfortunate incident.
—Mattock
Harlan ran his fingers over the type as if reading braille, pressed them against her name. Stapled to Lew’s letter was a copy of Doyle’s court-ordered release, signed by Craycraft.
For two years Angeline had curled into Harlan like a scared potato bug and rested her backside against him—a pretty girl with a round face. In the morning they’d flirt over fried eggs and figure out to the minute when they’d see each other again. She worked at a dental office and liked to tell Harlan he drank too much soda. He picked up groceries after his shift and cooked her dinner. They talked about plaque and criminals, kissed each other softly, and made sweet love. Harlan promised her a ring on her finger when he could afford it and then, all at once, it ended.
Harlan found Angeline dead in the kitchen of her father’s place the day after she decided it was time to move in with him. Her body was covered in flies. Doyle Chapman had pushed his only daughter harder than intended into an object not made for contact with the head. A plastic bag filled with Angeline’s meager belongings sat next to her body like trash. Later, Doyle would claim that he’d only meant to have a heart-to-heart, to teach Angeline a lesson about family. He’d only wanted her to stay. Maybe he’d been drinking. He was sorry. Things had gotten out of hand.
By the time Harlan found her body, Doyle was already on the run, though he didn’t have many places to go. Harlan treated it like a crime scene and called Lew for help, a decision he’d regretted ever since. They’d looked at Angeline’s misshapen face together. Lew had seen the crater in her skull, the skin a loose bowl, her bangs falling into it—the frightening lack of blood. How could the man capable of that reckon himself with God? If Harlan were a better man, he’d have tracked Doyle down and beat him to a pulp, he’d have brought him back to the house and made him bear witness to what his hands had wrought, but Harlan had trusted in the law.
Lew gave him an extended leave, which Harlan spent in various stages of drunkenness. People brought casseroles and buckets of fried chicken, left them on the porch when he didn’t come to the door. Doyle pled guilty and people talked about the tragedy of Angeline Chapman for a while but soon they forgot. At some point, Harlan took her belongings from evidence and offered them to the river. Everything sunk save one white dress, which floated downstream, rippling beneath the surface like some sort of water flower. Afterward, Harlan asked Lew if he could please return to work. Doyle served a few years on a twenty-year manslaughter charge and moved on. Early release. And all because of Lew. Harlan had vowed to find Doyle in Arkansas, but the weeks passed and he stayed in Marathon—working all day and getting high deep into the night—his dreams of revenge drifting away on a cloud of smoke.
Nearly four years had passed and Harlan had never woken up the same. He still loved Angeline, could conjure memories of her that made him ache—her soft body, the way she sneezed twice whenever she sneezed, the nonsense she spoke in her sleep—but the girl in those memories had grown faint. He no longer remembered the hint of red in her summer hair, the smallest scars of her skin. She’d slipped into the fog of his past. A ghost. There was only one thing left of her in the house, a bottle of apple-scented shampoo that he brought to his nose whenever the loneliness became too much to bear.
Harlan balled Lew’s letter in his fist and punched the cabinet. The metal buckled and he punched again, an uppercut that sliced his knuckles. Blood pooled in his hand and dripped onto the carpet but Harlan didn’t care. He punched again. And again. Over and over. He punched because he’d failed to protect her, because he’d done nothing to avenge her, because she was gone and he’d started to forget her.
When Paige came in to take over dispatch, she asked, “What happened to your hand?” Asked, “Are you all right?” Asked, “What’s going on?” Harlan wrapped his bloody hand in a bandanna and shoved the crumpled letter into his pocket. There were always more questions than answers. Why even reply? He left the rest of Lew’s correspondence on Holly’s desk along with a note telling her to find out what Craycraft decided in each case.
Outside, crows perched on power lines, black forms above the glow of a streetlight. They squawked warnings to anyone who’d listen. Harlan had once known a crow with a forked tongue. His owner cut him that way, taught the bird to say, “Damnation is coming to us all.” The crow squawked it to whoever would listen. Harlan launched a rock at the crows with his bandaged hand but missed. They flapped their wings and sang an ugly song. Damnation coming.
* * *
In that hazy hour between night and day, just after the sun fell but before the sky went dark, Mary Jane’s mother knocked on her door. “Your father insists you join us at the table.” Lyda started to fold Mary Jane’s discarded clothes and pair her scattered shoes. “It’s a mess in here,” she said.
“Mom,” Mary Jane groaned, letting the vowel extend. “Stop.”
Lyda opened the closet and pulled out a dress that still had its tags attached. Lyda’s tastes tended toward floral print and cable-knit, and she rarely brought home anything in a size twelve. She bought Mary Jane fours to “inspire”
her and help her envision the pretty girl she might become again. “This looks nice,” she said. The dress complemented the shimmering skirt and blouse Lyda had on for dinner. Wearing it would turn Mary Jane into an accessory no different from her mother’s dangly earrings or diamond tennis bracelet.
“I’m not wearing that,” she said.
“Well, you can’t wear sweatpants. You father has it in mind to enjoy a proper meal and we should play our part.”
“Like puppets.”
“Like ladies.” Her mother gave a dramatic curtsy to make a joke of it. Mary Jane burrowed deeper into the covers. “Why are you always so tired?” Lyda asked.
“Maybe I take after you.”
Lyda ignored the insult. “Did you sleep at all last night? Were you even here? What’s going on? Are you smoking marijuana?”
Mary Jane moaned. Caring wasn’t something her mother got to turn on and off whenever it seemed convenient. “Yeah,” Mary Jane said. “I’m smoking pot and snorting cocaine and dancing at a strip club where my boyfriend works as a bouncer. It’s a great life.”
“I guess I don’t find that funny,” Lyda said. “Besides, the girls who dance at those clubs are fit. Maybe that would be a step in the right direction.” Satisfied that she’d gotten the last word, Lyda turned to leave. “Ten minutes,” she said. “And put on some makeup.”
Mary Jane dropped her head back to the pillow. She and her mother had been close once. After Mary Jane’s pageants they’d get tea—“lady time” Lyda called it—and her mom would talk about how she’d wanted to go to New York to model or L.A. to act, dreams that were silly looking back, but growing up they made Mary Jane think her mother a star. For a long time she’d wanted those same things. Pageant titles. Attention. Compliments. But when Mary Jane stopped rehearsing for the stage and trying on sequined dresses at the store, they lost whatever connection they’d had. For a while Lyda kept trying to fit Mary Jane in a box and slap a bow on her but eventually they drifted apart for good.
The difference between Mary Jane’s stagnant life and her mother’s was that Mary Jane had been born into it and Lyda had chosen it. Her mother was born a Fieldhouse, the daughter of a tobacco worker and a homemaker; she married into the Finley money. Her mother barely spoke about that past, but the way Mary Jane’s father told the story, it wasn’t hard to win her affection. He told her his last name, bought a big diamond, and soon enough they were walking down the aisle. After one too many gins, Jackson liked to pay Lyda back for years of icy stares and noncommittal I-love-you’s by recounting their wedding in glorious detail—hillbillies on one side, respectable folks on the other. Mary Jane had heard her mother crying after a few particularly unpleasant dinners and came to realize those tears might not be from shame over the life she left behind but the life she chose. Because the Finley name wasn’t a badge of honor; it was a burden to live up to.
Mary Jane took a nerve pill from an Altoids box and popped it to get through dinner intact. Then she tossed her mother’s dress on the floor and trudged downstairs in her sweats. The chandelier was dimmed and a pair of candles sat perfectly spaced on the table. Jackson was at one end, Lyda the other. A plate for Mary Jane sat between them. “I thought you told her to wear something decent,” Jackson said.
“I pulled out an option,” Lyda said. “I can’t very well hold her down and dress her.”
“It didn’t fit,” Mary Jane said and sat down. A thin slice of breaded meat, dollop of mashed potatoes, and three stalks of grilled asparagus sat on the plate. A meal for a bird.
“It’s my famous Beef Wellington,” Jackson said, taking a large bite and swallowing it down with a drink from his highball glass.
“I’m not hungry,” Mary Jane said, which was a lie. She wanted her mother to see how she starved herself. Lyda forked an asparagus and took a bite from its end. Then she rested the fork back on the plate, dabbed the corner of her mouth with her napkin, and folded it in a perfect triangle as if she were done. The tip of her napkin was marked with lipstick that looked like a bloodstain. “Delicious,” she said. Mary Jane wanted to scream.
Theirs was a playhouse—phony at its core, every detail designed to show off the family’s wealth and taste. They ate off china and spread their butter with silver knives. Their furniture was antique, their carpets Persian, their towels monogrammed. Oil paintings hung on the walls in ornately carved frames. All to keep up appearances.
Appearances. That’s what had kept Mary Jane from reaching her potential. She didn’t look like a Finley, didn’t grow into the lady the girl foreshadowed. Her story was the opposite of the ugly duckling’s; it was the tale of a swan turned homely.
“How is it?” Jackson asked.
Mary Jane looked down. In her hand, she held her fork and knife. Half her food was gone even though she hadn’t remembered taking a bite. She looked over at her mother’s plate. It had barely been touched. “Delicious,” Mary Jane said.
“Now,” Jackson said. “We have to discuss our plans for the funeral.”
“What funeral?”
“Lew Mattock’s.” Jackson looked across the table at Lyda, then turned to Mary Jane. “Make sure you wear something appropriate. And black jeans and a black T-shirt are not appropriate.”
“Why do I have to go?”
“Your father insists,” Lyda said.
Mary Jane’s hands started to go clammy and she dropped her fork—the first pangs of a panic attack. “No,” she muttered and shook her head. “I don’t want to.”
“It’s not up for discussion,” Jackson said. “We’re Finleys and the town expects it.”
Mary Jane heard her mother stand up. “Excuse me. You two can sort out the details while I smoke a cigarette.”
Jackson put his hand out and grabbed Lyda’s arm as she walked by. “You don’t want to be part of the discussion?” He squeezed. “I thought you’d have an opinion.”
Mary Jane stared at her shoes. Black Chuck Taylors. Black Chuck Taylors.
“You tell me where I need to be and when,” Lyda said. “We get along better that way.”
Jackson grinned as she tapped out a Virginia Slim. “That sounds easy enough,” he said. “How about you, Mary Jane? Are you as agreeable as your mother?” Black Chuck Taylors. Black Chuck Taylors. “Mary Jane?”
“Can I be excused?”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
“Fine. Whatever. Now can I be excused?”
Jackson downed the rest of his drink. “Go ahead. The both of you.” Mary Jane heard her mother step onto the porch, then stood up from the table and ran upstairs. She couldn’t find a pill fast enough.
four
The morning of Lew’s funeral, Holly called to tell Harlan the cell phone he’d found was registered to Lyda Finley. Whatever Harlan expected to learn about the phone, this wasn’t it. “Why would Lew have Lyda Finley’s cell phone?”
“I don’t know, but maybe she’ll be at the funeral and you can ask her yourself.”
“What about the note I left you at the office?”
“That’s a lot of court records to sort through.”
“It’s worth it, right? I mean first we find out Lew was taking bribes and then we find out he lobbied on behalf of felons.”
“It sure sounds suspicious, but you know how Lew was. He wanted his hand in all the honeypots. It’s not exactly surprising. He and Wesley were old friends.”
“And that makes it okay?”
“No. It doesn’t. But I worked with Lew for twelve years, so excuse me if I’m not exactly thrilled to find out he might have been crooked. And maybe I hold out hope he was just an asshole and not a criminal.” She took a deep breath. “I’m also worried this is personal for you, Harlan. Lew never treated you right but he didn’t shoot himself. Don’t forget that.”
“Let me know what you find out,” Harlan said and hung up.
Harlan hoped to forget about police work at the funeral, to put aside his feelings about Lew and simply pay his respe
cts, but as soon as he arrived, Stuart Simon of the Marathon Registrar came up and asked about the investigation. That morning the paper had run a special edition complete with photos of Lew throughout the years along with sentiments from various friends and luminaries. Harlan looked Simon up and down; he was a hack for certain. “I’m not sure this is the best place.”
“I called but I keep getting the machine,” Simon said. “It still has Lew’s voice on the message.”
“And?”
“Do you have any leads?” Harlan walked away but Simon followed at his heels like a needy mutt. “People have a right to know,” he said.
Harlan stopped and let Simon bump into him, then leaned in close to the man’s ear. “Fuck off,” he growled. Simon took the hint and left him alone, though Harlan didn’t look forward to reading what he wrote in the next edition. Tragedies seemed to bring out the worst in people or maybe they brought out the worst people.
Harlan stood along the outskirts of the service in his wedding-and-funeral clothes, a hand-me-down suit with roughed-up cowboy boots and a thin black tie. The other deputies wore uniforms and lined up alongside Lew’s casket as if it were a military affair. They looked ridiculous, like the saddest of regiments at the end of a lost war. Harlan wished he could slip away and skip the charade, but if he didn’t put in an appearance, people would notice and then speculate on what that meant—guilt over a lingering investigation, jealousy, gutlessness.
At least Lew would have been happy with the size of the crowd. His funeral was the social event of the season. Mabel Mattock was front and center, flanked by her son and Holly, who kept her head bowed. Lewis’s daughters sat between him and his wife, who leaned the slightest amount of weight against her father, the doctor, who didn’t so much watch the ceremony as the clouds above. All around them sat prominent Marathoners—politicians, lawyers, doctors, gentleman farmers. Wesley Craycraft sat back row center beside the mayor and his mother, herself a former mayor. Lyda Finley sat near the back, flanked by her husband and daughter, who looked uncomfortable in a black dress and cardigan. Harlan recognized the girl as the passenger from the car Paige had stopped at the dirt track.
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