by Julia Keller
“I’m rising above my raising, to be sure,” Rhonda said, grateful for the brief chance to smile. “From now on, you’ll get nothin’ fancier from me than ‘Yep’ and ‘Nope.’ Learned my lesson.”
Harrison and Rhonda had utterly different personalities—Pam was quiet and self-contained, Rhonda gregarious and irrepressible—but they had one crucial element in common, Rhonda reminded herself: Both had been born and raised in Acker’s Gap. They knew this place and its people, and were in turn known by it. Their bond was a thing of the soil.
They were two women doing jobs—prosecutor and sheriff—traditionally done by men. That was part of their bond, too.
“So tell me this,” Rhonda said, serious again. “How do we protect Tyler and Ellie Topping?”
The sheriff took a minute to think about it. She recalled an email she had received on the night Brett Topping died, a message that came in before the murder. She had checked her phone a few minutes prior to midnight and there it was—a brief note from a man who was, she knew, sorely in need of proof that he still had something to give, proof that the broken part of him didn’t go all the way through to the bone.
“I don’t think Ellie Topping is the one in danger,” Harrison said. “Think of it from Foley’s point of view. We haven’t disrupted any of his operations yet—which we surely would have, if we knew the locations. So he knows we haven’t found the file, either. It’s not in the Topping house—that’s the only certainty. I’ll still have a deputy keep an eye on her, but I think Ellie Topping’s safe at home. She can start to pick up the pieces of her life, as best she can.
“But Tyler’s a different story,” the sheriff continued. “He worked for Foley. Which puts him in a hell of a lot of danger.” She leaned over and rubbed at a spot on the side of her black boot. Just a dash of dried mud, but it bothered her. “If it’s okay with you, I’m going to name Jake Oakes a special assistant to the sheriff’s department.”
“Special assistant. Is there such a thing?”
“There is now.” Harrison rose. “Tyler can stay over at Jake’s house while we’re sorting this thing out. We’ll keep it quiet. A need-to-know basis. He’ll be safe. Jake is the best marksman my department ever had. If there’s any trouble, he can protect him.” She tucked her thumbs into her belt, proud of herself for coming up with the idea. “Think of it as our own version of a federal witness protection program.”
“I hate to bring this up, but what about Tyler’s addiction?”
The sheriff smiled. “Jake was a deputy sheriff. He’s got no patience for that shit. He’ll have that kid getting up at sunrise and making his own bed. My guess? Tyler won’t know what hit him.”
Rhonda shrugged. “All right, then. In the meantime—”
“—we’ll get back to work tracking down Foley.” She put on her hat, adjusting it until it felt right. “Which leaves only one thing for you to do.”
“What’s that?”
“Call that guy of yours back. He’s a good man. I’ve known Mack for years. Never seen him so happy.” A shy grin. “And you seem kind of pleased, too, about how it all worked out between you two. Hang on to that, Rhonda. You didn’t ask for any personal advice from me, but I’m going to give it to you, anyway. Happiness is a rare thing. Got to tend to it daily. Protect it. Baby it. Think of a flowerbed when a bad frost is on the way. Can’t be too careful. Because around here”—she was at the door now, ready to go—“a bad frost is always on the way.”
* * *
Before she returned Mack’s call, Rhonda needed to use the ladies’ room.
And that was when her day got a lot more complicated.
“Lee Ann. What the hell are you doing?”
A poor choice of words under the circumstances, perhaps, but Rhonda was bristling with shock. When she opened the door to the ladies’ room off the main corridor of the courthouse, she saw Lee Ann Frickie, Eloise Drummond, and Amy Purcell in a line, facing the whitewashed plaster wall in the lounge area that came just before the row of stalls.
Each woman held a can of red spray paint. One of them—Rhonda suspected it was Amy, because she was renowned for her careful artistic hand and had painted the nativity scene on a big piece of scrap lumber that the church propped up in its parking lot every Christmas—had made a penciled list of the Ten Commandments on the white wall.
Clearly, the trio was about to trace over the large letters with spray paint. Amy’s template would ensure the uniformity of the Thou Shalt Nots.
“I’ll thank you not to curse,” Lee Ann said primly.
“What are you doing?”
Rhonda advanced into the room as she spoke. The wooden door swung shut behind her.
“It was supposed to be a surprise,” Eloise said. “When people come in to use the facilities, they’ll be in the presence of these sacred words. A few might even give themselves to the Lord, thinking this is some kind of miracle.” She gave a cheerful shake to the paint can.
“It’s your fault, Rhonda,” Lee Ann stated. “You won’t let us put up a monument on the courthouse lawn. So this is the next best thing.”
Amy nodded. She was less defiant than Lee Ann and even sounded slightly maternal. “Rhonda, dear, we’ll be out of here soon. You look tired, honey.”
Rhonda crossed her arms.
“If anybody so much as touches the button on a spray paint can for one single second,” she declared ominously, “I will put that person in jail for defacing public property. I mean it.”
“Well, I think that’s a little excessive.” Lee Ann’s voice was filled with umbrage.
“No, it is not excessive,” Rhonda shot back. “I’ve been over and over this. The courthouse is a public facility. You can’t put up any sort of religious signage here because it clearly violates the Constitu—” Rhonda stopped.
She didn’t say anything for a full minute. She just stood there, looking at the three women.
They looked back at her.
“Dear?” Amy said. Her forehead was wrinkled with concern. “Are you having a stroke?”
Rhonda shook her head. “No, I’m not having a stroke. Although that does sound rather appealing at this point. I could use the bed rest.” She smiled a tight little smile. “No, I’m fine. I’m just thinking about how those commandments are going to look with passages from the Koran painted in between every line.”
“What’s that, dear?” Amy said.
“The Koran. I’m going to call up the mosque over in Blythesburg. Tell them I’d love to have excerpts from the Koran decorating our ladies’ room wall. I’m sure they’ll be happy to send someone over to do that. Of course, it’ll cut down on the space you have for the Ten Commandments.”
Lee Ann touched Amy’s arm. “Pay no attention. She’s bluffing.”
“Am I, Lee Ann? Am I bluffing? I don’t think so,” Rhonda said. “I mean—even with the threat of arrest, I can’t seem to make you stop trying to display your religious message. What should I do? Keep a deputy on duty all night long, to head off any sneak attacks by your friends, armed with spray paint and self-righteousness? I don’t have the manpower. As you might have heard, we’re trying to track down a murderer right now. So—I’ll go in another direction.” Rhonda tapped a finger against her chin. “And I’ll also contact that witches’ cult that just started up over in Simmons County. They’ve got some wonderful Satanic art to share. It’ll be lovely right next to your commandments.”
Lee Ann stared. Amy looked confused. Eloise set down her paint can on the front of one of the sinks.
“Rhonda Lovejoy,” Lee Ann said. There was deep reproach in the way she said the words.
“If one group gets to post their message,” Rhonda intoned, “then all groups do. Or—and this is the path I hope you’ll choose—we can just agree, here and now, to keep the walls and the lawn clear. We can all worship as we wish. Start any church we like. But we keep the church as the church—and the courthouse as the courthouse. What do you think?”
Amy and El
oise kept their eyes on Lee Ann. They would follow her lead.
Lee Ann bowed her head.
Was she praying? Rhonda couldn’t tell.
If lightning strikes me in the next three seconds, Rhonda thought, or a mighty wind comes along and lifts up the courthouse and carries it away—I’ll know for sure I’m on the wrong side of things here.
A few more seconds went by.
Lee Ann raised her head.
She turned to her friends. In a crisp, businesslike voice, she said, “Ladies, let’s go home.” To Rhonda, she declared, “You’ve won. You’ve beaten us. I hope you’re proud of yourself.”
“It’s not a matter of pride. It’s Constitution 101, Lee Ann, and if you’d just—”
“Don’t.” The old woman cut her off, a soft quaver in her voice. “Just don’t. I’m following your orders, doing what you tell me to, because I believe you. I think you might’ve actually put those nasty words up there, just to spite me. And I can’t have that. I won’t abide having that sort of blasphemy on the walls of this building I love. But you know what, Rhonda? I don’t have to listen to your lecture on top of it. If anybody gets to give a lecture, it’s me.”
She waited. Rhonda didn’t interrupt her, so she went on.
“My heart breaks every single day when I see what’s become of this town. It breaks and then it breaks again. It’s finding new ways to break, all the time. I was born here and I was raised here and I’m going to be buried here, and I can tell you for absolute certain—it’s never been this bad before. Never. We’ve crossed over. Crossed over some terrible line. We’re on the other side now. In the darkness.”
She took a breath and then went on. She didn’t speak melodramatically, but in a driven monotone that was somehow more sorrowful-sounding than histrionics would have been:
“Our children are dying and we can’t stop it. They’re dying right in front of us, every day. They’re filling their bodies with poison. Babies are born at Evening Street and they’re already sick with the same poison. We’ve been trying to fix it your way for a long time, Rhonda, and you tell me—where has that gotten us? How is that working out? The law’s way, the way of arresting people and putting them in jail and then arresting other people and putting them in jail, too—where will it end? I worked here at the courthouse for a lot of years, Rhonda. You know that. And I can tell you this—the law’s way has failed us. We need to try the Lord’s way.”
“Good afternoon, Lee Ann,” Rhonda said. She said it quietly, wearily. The argument was over, as far as she was concerned. “I’ll just wait here while you all clean up this mess and then I’ll walk you out.”
Amy reached over and patted Rhonda’s arm. She was smiling. “Hope we see you at church this Sunday, sweetie.”
“Oh, my, yes,” Eloise said. Her pale blue eyes were shining.
For the two of them, Rhonda saw, this had been a bit of a lark. A grand and spirited adventure, the likes of which ladies in their late seventies and eighties did not often get to indulge.
But for Lee Ann, it was different. This had been no lark.
Lee Ann did not join her friends in scrubbing the pencil marks off the wall with a couple of blue sponges or gathering up the spray paint cans and putting them back in the tan Home Depot bag. She watched them work. Occasionally her eyes moved from Amy and Eloise over to Rhonda.
There was something in Lee Ann’s expression—a hardness, a bleakness, the stark residue of a long and bitter knowing—that Rhonda found a little disturbing.
Each time Lee Ann looked at her, she looked away.
Chapter Twenty-six
“So here’s your room.” Jake stopped his wheels at the threshold of the tiny bedroom. Tyler, following too close behind, bumped hard against the back of the chair.
“Sorry,” Tyler mumbled. He didn’t sound sorry at all.
The young man backed up and flattened himself against the wall of the corridor, so that Jake could maneuver his chair out of the way and they could switch places, with Tyler in the lead. He stepped into the small room. There was a single bed, a particleboard chest of drawers, a small closet, a tiny window.
“Sheets are in the linen closet out here in the hall,” Jake said. “There’s a quilt in there, too. Ought to work for a month or so, until the cold really gets going. Then I’ll dig out the comforter.”
“A month or so?” Tyler was incredulous. “No way. I’m only here until they find Foley. That’s it.”
“Whatever.” Jake backed up his chair. “Check out the room. Figure out what else you’re gonna need—the sheriff told me to send her a list. No guarantees, but they’ll do their best. Shampoo, toothbrush, razor, whatever. Up to you. Then meet me back in the living room.”
He wanted to let Tyler have some time alone so that it could sink in: This is home now, bro. So get your mind right.
Truth was, Jake wasn’t any happier to suddenly have a housemate than Tyler was to suddenly be a housemate. When Sheriff Harrison had called this afternoon, Jake’s first reaction was to laugh, and when Harrison didn’t respond to that, his second reaction was to say, “You’re kidding, right?”
She wasn’t kidding.
They needed somewhere to stash a kid whose father had just been gunned down by a drug dealer—the emergency for which Jake, in his capacity as dispatcher, had ended up summoning the EMTs and the sheriff’s department—until the aforementioned drug dealer was caught. “You don’t have to accept the assignment, Jake,” she said. “But it comes with a title—special consultant to the sheriff’s department.” They had thought of calling him an assistant, she said, but Rhonda Lovejoy had researched a few relevant statutes and decided that “consultant” would look better as a budget line than “assistant.”
“And by the way,” Harrison had added, “it comes with a salary, too. Because it’s an official job. I’ll get somebody else to run the dispatch.”
Jake had agreed. He didn’t relish the idea of being a babysitter—and when he heard about Tyler’s drug problems, he was even less charmed—but this was, he thought, a way back into the department. A proverbial foot in the door. Today, a special consultant; tomorrow, maybe … something else. Maybe a deputy.
It could happen, couldn’t it? Sure it could.
Steve Brinksneader had brought the kid over from the jail just before suppertime. As awkward moments go, the introduction wasn’t the most awkward one that Jake had ever endured—that distinction probably belonged to the first date he’d ever had, a trip to the movies with Lola Saylor back in Beckley, when his overeager fourteen-year-old self had tried to unhook her bra and ended up spilling a jumbo Mountain Dew all over her white silk blouse—but it was close.
Tyler had come in first. He hovered on the threshold, looking around the dinky living room with an expression that was half-wonderment, half-revulsion. Steve, right behind him, muttered, “Get on in there, willya? Ain’t got all day.”
The kid took another step and then he noticed Jake, in his chair over by the couch, and that’s when the awkwardness really kicked in.
“Shit, man,” Tyler mumbled. “You’re in a fucking wheelchair? And you’re supposed to protect me? Jesus. I guess I better hope Foley’s got a couple of broken legs, right? To even up the odds?”
Steve tapped the kid’s shoulder to get him to advance farther into the house. He wanted to shut the front door as soon as possible. Once that was done, Steve had turned on the kid with the full force of his fury at seeing Jake humiliated that way.
“Listen, you,” Steve huffed. “This guy here was the best deputy Raythune County ever had. You read me? You’re damned lucky he’s agreed to keep an eye on you.”
Jake, annoyed, shook his head at Steve. He could fight his own battles. Besides, Tyler had just lost his father. Cutting him slack was no problem. Temporarily.
“Thanks, Steve,” Jake said, “but I can take care of this.” He shifted the wheels slightly, so that he was facing Tyler head-on. “Foley won’t know where you are. That’s how we int
end to keep you safe. Not with gun battles.” He smacked the top of the wheels with his palms. “And not with foot chases. But if this doesn’t meet your high standards, let’s break clean. I’ll call the sheriff, tell her you want to stay in a jail cell instead. That’s your only other option.”
Tyler’s eyes swept the room. His disgusted gaze took in the ratty couch, the battered coffee table, the patched carpet. From here you could see into the matchbox-sized kitchen with its toylike dinette set and the short hallway, along which were visible the hollow core doors to the two bedrooms and the bathroom.
Jake could read his thoughts: The house was cheap and depressing and small. Jail probably seemed downright palatial in comparison.
But then again, jail was … jail. And the kid didn’t look to be a fool.
“Hate that stinkin’ place. Been there enough times,” Tyler muttered. “I’ll stay.”
“Okay, then,” Steve said. Brusque now, in a hurry. “I need to go check out the perimeter. And then the rest of the neighborhood.” He realized he’d neglected to make formal introductions. “Jake—this is Tyler Topping. Tyler, your host here is Jake Oakes.” To Jake, he said. “We’re bringing you a scanner tomorrow so you’ll know what’s what. For tonight, if you hear anything—I don’t care if it’s a hoot owl that’s making you jumpy—you call me. You got that, buddy?”
“I got it.” Jake grinned at his former colleague, a big, slow-talking man of refreshingly uncomplicated motives. Steve did the best job he could, every day. Jake had always liked him.
For a while there, right after the night Jake had been shot, envy and resentment had edged out the affection. Steve, after all, still walked upright, still wore the uniform.
But now Jake was back to simple liking.
“And you.” Steve addressed Tyler. “We’ll be picking you up every day to take you to Narcotics Anonymous meetings. We’ll vary the locations. But that’s the deal. The sheriff isn’t kidding. If we’re doing this, you’re going to stay clean. There’ll be some medical supervision, too. But mostly it’s on you. Okay?”