Last Ragged Breath

by Julia Keller

  Rhonda pointed.

  Twisting in her seat, squinting out the side window, Bell finally caught sight of a thin dribble of what might once have been a path through the tightly furled woods. She wasn’t sure the Explorer would make it ten feet before sinking or being swallowed up.

  “I’m supposed to go there?” Bell said.

  “Yep.”

  “It’s not a road.”

  “Best we’re going to get.”

  “Lord help us.” Bell swung the wheel.

  “No chance of that, boss. He’s not been spotted around these parts for a while.”

  Rhonda was trying to be funny. Or maybe not. There was evidence all around that she was right: This place had an aura of abandonment, of having been forgotten by all but the agents of decay.

  * * *

  Eight minutes later they emerged into a small dirt clearing. The interval had been filled with Bell’s excruciatingly slow and careful driving, necessary to avoid the drop-offs on either side of the road that would’ve landed them in bogs with indeterminate bottoms.

  In front of them loomed the crumbling mess of Royce Dillard’s home. A few of the dogs inside the cabin barked, but the barks sounded tentative, not menacing. One uttered a long, mournful howl. The howl broke off abruptly, as if the animal had suddenly remembered the pointlessness of everything.

  In spite of the cold, Bell lowered her window. Rhonda did the same with hers. The silence now was profound. Later in the spring, these woods would be alive with the thrash and crackle of small animals dashing through the underbrush, with the tattered music of birdsong. But not yet.

  Once, standing in the middle of an abandoned Raythune County farm on a late-winter day just like this one, Bell had been startled by a dramatic flapping sound as a cauldron of turkey vultures—that was the collective noun, a cauldron, which she knew because she’d looked it up when she got back to her office—passed overhead in a solemn gray wave. The sound was like the sexy rustle of silk or the preliminary shifting of a heavy velvet theater curtain just before the show commences. It was a rare sound, because turkey vultures didn’t often flap their wings. They did more gliding than flapping.

  You were supposed to be repulsed by the birds, Bell knew; they zeroed in on roadkill and tore out the entrails and eagerly inserted their scrawny heads in the ripped-open cavities of dead animals, burrowing and chewing, burrowing and chewing. She’d been to grisly crime scenes that featured less blood and gore. But somehow, she was never put off by turkey vultures. They were nature’s cleanup crew. They were just doing their job. If they were interrupted, they took to the air, and there they were majestic. Wings spread, superbly balanced, they were in their element, rising higher and higher on spirals of air, poised between the red carnage on the ground and the blue promise of the sky. The flap of those wings was a sound you never forgot. It was a sound that told a story. An ancient one, filled with hunger and beauty.

  But this was still too early in the season. Bell had seen a few of the birds in the past week or so, but not a cauldron. Here in Royce Dillard’s front yard, there was no sound of wings. Only a peculiar kind of silence. A silence that seemed to be waiting right along with them for the next thing to happen.

  “Wow,” Rhonda said, still discombobulated from the jolting trip. She straightened her skirt with one hand. With the other, she checked her hair, refastening a barrette that had vibrated loose on account of the violent bounces of Bell’s vehicle. “No wonder Royce Dillard walks everywhere.”

  “Not sure that would be much better. I’d rather lose a tire or two than break a leg. Some of those sinkholes are pretty deep.” Bell turned up the collar of her jacket, hoping to protect her neck from the wind. “I always think I’ve seen the roughest parts of the county—but then I come to a place like this.”

  She turned back to the cabin. Ragged, dilapidated, it seemed well on its way to being consumed by the gray tangle of woods on three sides. Panes of glass in the front windows were badly cracked or missing altogether and replaced by flaps of cardboard. The muddy front yard was crammed with the kind of clutter that would make a hoarder feel right at home. There were multiple piles of garbage bags bulging with whatever Dillard had stuffed them with. Many were leaking fluids of various colors: green, yellow, brown. There were two rusted-out riding lawnmowers tipped over on their sides, uncovering greasy round puddles that had repeatedly frozen and thawed. There were wooden sawhorses and loose rolls of fencing and old shovels and rakes. There were at least a half-dozen open-topped barrels, brimming with the rain that had overflowed and leaked down the blackened sides, leaving long, drippy trails. A scummy green film of algae, taut as a drum, stretched across the tops of the barrels. Behind and to the left of the cabin was a small, humped, sullen-looking barn; the warped gray boards seemed to breathe a toxic exhaustion.

  “So what’s his deal?” Bell said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Dillard. He’s got some money, right?”

  “Not a lot. There was some kind of insurance settlement when he was a kid. But he hasn’t worked in a long time. Can’t, the way I hear it. He’s tried, but he gets too nervous around other people.” She had an intricate knowledge of the backstories of an impressive number of Raythune County residents. Bell depended upon that knowledge, and tapped it often. “He doesn’t spend much,” Rhonda added. “Keeps his head above water—let’s put it that way. And he has enough to take care of his dogs. Barely.”

  “So he’s not destitute.” Bell’s voice was hard. “Then why the hell does he live like this? Like he’s some kind of animal himself.”

  “Seems to me that people in this world can live howsoever they please.” Rhonda’s reaction surprised Bell; clearly Bell had touched a nerve. “They don’t need you or me or anybody else passing judgment on their choices.”

  “Come on,” Bell said. “I didn’t mean—”

  “You—you of all people—ought to understand. Royce Dillard lives out here because he’s poor. And because he can’t deal with all the bullshit of civilization, okay? He just can’t. I mean, given what he saw as a little kid—” Rhonda looked down and brushed something off her skirt. An invisible something. She was buying time. Afraid of getting too upset.

  “Listen,” Rhonda said, starting again. “I don’t believe Royce killed that man, but nobody asked for my opinion. If he’s charged, a trial’s gonna do the deciding. When it comes to condemning him, though, just because this place won’t be showing up in Architectural Digest anytime soon, well—” She stopped. “Dammit, Bell,” Rhonda said, her tone softer now. “I really thought that after what you’ve been through—I thought for sure that if anybody judged Royce Dillard, it sure as hell wouldn’t be you.”

  Bell opened the Explorer door. Rhonda had a point. And the sooner they got to work, the better. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  The outside was a junk heap, but the inside of the cabin was clean and uncluttered. The furniture in the one-room structure was simple but serviceable: square wooden table with one chair, rocker, couch, camp bed. Four small dogs made a lumpy mound on the left side of the couch; unperturbed by the arrival of strangers, they watched, but did not bark. They barely stirred. The room smelled of cold, with a touch of cut wood and wet fur.

  The log walls were bare of decoration. The oak floor was scratched and stained, but had been recently swept. In one corner was an old gas stove. It was flanked by a makeshift six-plank shelf stocked with canned goods: Hormel chili, baked beans, Chef Boyardee ravioli, green beans. A jar of Jif. A box of saltine crackers. Propped on the highest shelf was a huge slumping sack of Purina Dog Chow, well out of reach of inquiring canine snouts, with a big metal scoop right beside it.

  Bell took a few seconds to look around before they dealt with the dogs. This wasn’t the first time she had been in a stranger’s home without the owner present to explain, to guide, to buffer, or even to hide things at the last minute; she had accompanied the deputies many times as they undertook warranted
searches of places from which people had fled or been forcibly removed. It was always a peculiar experience, like catching a glimpse of someone when he doesn’t know he’s being watched. She’d heard the basics of Royce Dillard’s story—everyone in the area had, his unusual early life being as familiar as the chorus of a favorite hymn—but no more than that. People knew what had happened to him at age two; of the long aftermath, they knew very little.

  Who is this man? Bell wondered, standing in the middle of his home on this cold Sunday morning. More to the point: Was he capable of murder? And if he was, what could have provoked it?

  “Better get these pooches outside right quick,” Rhonda said.

  One of the dogs sneezed. The others looked at him. Apparently they’d slept right there, snuggled together in the folds of the old couch. They hadn’t made a mess. They had persevered through the long dark hours, hours broken up only by the arrival of search teams with too much on their minds to pay attention to pets.

  Rhonda led them outside for their communal peeing. It was, she reported to Bell when they returned, copious and prolonged. The look of relief in the dogs’ eyes was unmistakable.

  “So who’s who?” Bell asked, watching the animals warily. They watched her warily right back.

  Rhonda was busy rounding up leashes, bowls, blankets, chew toys. She paused to point to each dog and tick off a name: “There’s Connie and Elvis—Elvis, you’re a troublemaker, aren’t you?—and over there is Bruno. PeeWee’s the one with the missing ear. Royce says his ear was that way when he got here.”

  “Fine.” Bell was restless. She wanted to get back to town.

  They headed for the gray barn. Rhonda was in charge of the dogs, so it was Bell’s job to wrench open the rickety wooden sliding door, a task requiring two hands. She grimaced at the shriek it made. The windowless space was frustratingly dim, even with the door wide open, and the floor was padded with a thick layer of dirty straw. The walls were lined with junk: three old washing machines; a cracked leather saddle; two bicycles, one minus its handlebars and the other lacking tires; more scum-topped barrels; a hodgepodge of construction equipment and yard implements. Deputy Oakes had roped off the area where he’d found the bloody shovel.

  “Hey, there. Good boy,” Rhonda said. Slowly, she moved toward a shadowy corner, from which a pair of eyes watched her. “This must be Utley,” she said. She reached forward and scratched at the tangled thatch of gray and white hair behind the dog’s ears; her other hand held the leashes of the four dogs from the house, who waited amiably, pawing at the straw, sniffing it.

  Bell looked around. Two other dogs waited along the back wall, regarding her with what seemed to be curiosity, not ill will. She wasn’t good with dogs. She figured they could probably tell.

  “Here you go,” she said to the closest one. The words came out flat and listless.

  “Oh, come on,” Rhonda said. “You can do better’n that, boss. Know you can.”

  Still Bell held back. She’d never owned a pet. Her life was too busy, too complicated. Carla had begged for a puppy when she was eight years old, and again when she was nine and ten, but Bell was adamant: No dog. And there was something else: The longer she was a prosecutor, the less Bell trusted animals. Two years ago she’d won a case against the owner of three fighting dogs; the dogs had broken loose from their thick chains and killed a toddler. The year before that, she’d prosecuted a domestic violence case in which a husband had forced his German shepherd to attack his estranged wife, ripping off a large portion of her face. Multiple plastic surgeries later, the victim still wouldn’t go out in daylight without a veil. The horrific incidents seemed to validate Bell’s instinct to keep all dogs at a distance.

  Truth was, she felt the same way about people sometimes.

  “These are sweet dogs,” Rhonda said. “They wouldn’t hurt anybody. There’s no such thing as a bad dog—only humans who don’t treat ’em right. Come on, now. Just walk right up and say hello. Put a little oomph in it. Got to get ’em motivated.”

  The cold in the barn had begun to penetrate the fabric of Bell’s jacket. She couldn’t imagine how chilled Rhonda was, in her flimsy clothes.

  Oh, hell, Bell thought, stepping forward. Here goes. “Hey, dog. Good girl,” she said. A bit louder this time, with more enthusiasm. The animal closest to her emerged from the dark corner. She was a kind-eyed, broad-chested animal, with a thick coat the color of buttered toast. Her tail made wide looping circles, sweeping the floor with each downward revolution. The tops of her rounded ears were hiked up in anticipation of something new. She whined softly.

  “That’s Goldie,” Rhonda said. “While you put a leash on her, I’ll handle Utley and that other one over there. The bulldog. Name’s Ned. He’s about a hundred years old, give or take. Won’t be any trouble—except for the drool factor. We were warned, remember?”

  A few minutes later they trooped out of the barn, a motley parade made up of two women, seven dogs, and a crisscrossing confusion of leashes. Rhonda was handling six dogs; Bell, one. Rhonda looked far more comfortable.

  * * *

  “Okay. So I’m keeping Bruno, which means we’re done. Everybody’s taken care of,” Rhonda said. She smacked the dashboard of Bell’s Explorer with satisfaction, which was her way of high-fiving herself. Then she folded up the piece of notebook paper, the one on which she’d been keeping track, penciling lines between dogs’ names and the names of friends and relatives. Rhonda had called them all first, naturally, to warn of their approach, but hadn’t given too much advance notice. Didn’t want to provide time for second thoughts.

  She slipped the paper back into her purse. She tickled Bruno’s scruffy gray head, which was pushed into the crook of her arm. “We’re going to get along fine, you precious little thing,” she said. “You’re a sweetie, aren’t you?”

  They had just pulled out of Hickey Leonard’s driveway on the south side of Acker’s Gap. Hickey and his wife had agreed to provide a temporary home for Elvis. Bell had seen little of Hickey around the courthouse of late; he was working on a major drug case and spent most of his time on depositions in other counties.

  Prior to the stop at Hickey’s, Bell and Rhonda had made dog drops at Ken and Michelle Burch’s house; Roger Cantrell’s trailer; Sharon Morgan’s apartment; and Curtis and Annie Wehrle’s farm, where they deposited, respectively, Utley, PeeWee, Connie, and Ned.

  Bell turned the Explorer back toward the county road. At each home, she had remained in the car while Rhonda went inside, toting one of Royce Dillard’s dogs under her arm or leading it by a leash. A few minutes later she would come back out again, giving Bell a thumbs-up sign. Then they’d head to the next location.

  “Hold on,” Bell suddenly said. She kept driving, but gave Rhonda a sideways glare.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You miscounted. There’s an extra back there.”

  Rhonda turned around. In the rear of the Explorer the round golden hump of a large dog, asleep in a crate, rose and fell with deep, untroubled breathing.

  “Oh,” Rhonda said.

  The fake surprise was utterly unconvincing, Bell thought, as her irritation increased.

  “‘Oh’?”

  “Well,” Rhonda said, sounding flustered, “I suppose I thought that maybe, if the need arose, you might—”

  “No.”

  “We can work real hard on finding another home for her, Bell, but for the time being, it sure seems to me that you might consider opening up your heart to a sweet—”

  “No.”

  “She’s housebroken, boss.”

  “Don’t care.”

  “Well, if you look at it right, this is your duty. She ought to be a protected witness. After all, she’s the one who found the body. And she surely won’t be any trouble or—”

  “No. No. No.”

  Rhonda looked down at the small dog in her lap. She used an index finger to make a series of soft squiggly paths through the fur on his back, a gesture that clearly
pleased Bruno. “Looks like you’re gonna have yourself a roommate, buddy.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Bell shook her head. “You live in a studio apartment above a pizza place, Rhonda. You don’t have enough room for one dog, much less two. That mutt back there is bigger than your kitchen.”

  “We’ll manage.”

  They rode in silence for another mile. Bell turned onto Shelton Avenue. She sighed a prolonged, exasperated sigh.

  “Okay, fine,” Bell said. “I’ll keep the dog. But just for a few days, okay? After that, we’ll have to figure out something else. It’s just temporary.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “A dog. Really.”

  Carla’s voice on the phone combined skepticism and amusement. Bell always called her daughter on Sunday nights—she called her other times, too, but this was a standing date—and on this particular Sunday night, Bell conveyed a piece of news that clearly surprised the young woman. And delighted her, too.

  “Yes, but it’s just for a day or so,” Bell quickly added. “Until we can find another place.”

  “Geez, Mom. That big old house seems perfect to me. And there’s a fenced backyard. Plenty of running room for—What’s her name again?”

  “Goldie.”

  “Right. Goldie. Well, Goldie is one lucky pooch, tell you that.”

  Bell took a sip of the Rolling Rock she’d opened just before making the call. Her bare feet were tucked up under her; that was her preferred position when she settled into this beloved old easy chair. The chair had been one of the very first items she had insisted that the movers carry into this house six years ago—ahead of the washer and dryer, or the beds, or the couch, or the boxes that she had packed in a daze back in the condo on Capitol Hill, still reeling from the collapse of her marriage and her decision to return to her hometown.

  The chair was torn, dilapidated, printed with stains of mysterious origins—And let’s keep them mysterious, Bell had muttered to herself, when she’d first spotted it in a Goodwill store in central West Virginia when she was nineteen years old—and dozens of holes worn right through the fabric to the meager bit of stuffing beneath. It dominated her living room. The rest of the furniture, fairly new, seemed to be sinking slowly down to the level of the chair, instead of the other way around. Bell didn’t mind. This chair had seen her through the milestones, good and bad, of her adult life: marriage, motherhood, divorce, relocation, election to prosecuting attorney, and one passionate love affair, the kind upon which she still couldn’t quite close the door, even though Clay Meckling now lived four states and many mountains away.