Sorrow Road

by Julia Keller

  “Not bad,” Bell said. With Nick Fogelsong, you had to keep the compliments to a minimum. Anything that reeked of gratuitous praise would send him into a two-day brood. She had learned that the hard way.

  He shrugged. It was good. He knew it was good. But he also knew that it did not really mean anything. Not yet. He had a long, long way to go before he was anywhere close to where he had been as a marksman. He was fifty-six years old. Even without the injury that had almost taken his life—he had been shot last year by a drug dealer—he would be fighting time. The fine motor skills that had made him a crack shot were the first to go. He hated that. But hating a fact did not make it any less true.

  They sat down in the kitchen. It was a bright, well-kept one, with clean countertops and a white tile floor. Bell piled up her outerwear on a third chair. Nick gestured toward the coffeepot. She shook her head.

  “Already had a full pot before I left home this morning. ’Bout to float away as it is,” she said. “Where’s Mary Sue?”

  “She’s been volunteering at the school.” He did not need to specify which school; Bell knew he meant Acker’s Gap Elementary. His wife had taught third grade there for many years until mental illness forced her to take disability leave. She was doing better now, with the right balance of medication. And with a diligent daily attention to routines, such as keeping a kitchen spotless. But she wasn’t able to teach third grade anymore.

  “She likes being back there,” Nick went on. “Helps out with the math classes. Goes in on Fridays, when I’m home in the morning. I give myself a half-day off. She claims that otherwise we’d be tripping all over each other, both of us home on a weekday morning. Probably true.” He was head of security for the Highway Haven chain—a good job, a job coveted by a lot of people, but not the one he’d done for most of his adult life. And not the one he wanted.

  It struck Bell—not for the first time, certainly, but with a poignant force today that she had not felt before—that Nick and Mary Sue were in the same boat now, trying to work their way back into their former lives, trying to recover some essential part of themselves that they had lost along the way. There was a kind of quiet heroism about that. But at what point, she had begun to wonder, did it start to be counterproductive, robbing the present because your hopes were fixed so passionately on the future?

  Unclear. And frankly, she knew she was in no position to be giving life advice to anyone.

  “I need your help, Nick,” she said. “I’m just frustrated as all get-out.”

  “This about the old ladies?”

  “Sort of. Pam Harrison is pretty well convinced it was the same perpetrator who’s been holding up gas stations in Muth County.” Harrison had been deputy sheriff under Nick Fogelsong, and then, with his endorsement, was elected to the top spot.

  “And you’re not.”

  “That’s a hell of an upgrade—going from robbing gas stations to committing murder,” Bell declared. “And why take the chance? Marcy Coates’s house was a run-down piece of crap. Her TV set was about a thousand years old. And there were no other electronics. No jewelry. Who’d target her in the first place?”

  “What does Harrison say?”

  “She says beggars can’t be choosers. She says the assailant probably just found himself out there on Hanging Rock Road. Maybe he was cold and hungry. Maybe he saw the light in Marcy’s window. Stopped by to take what he could get. Maybe they resisted. And that’s what got them killed.”

  “Two old ladies. Resisted.”

  “Exactly,” Bell said, smacking the tabletop. “You see my point. Those women were—and forgive my bluntness here—old and fat and helpless. The chances of either one of them putting up a fight? Nonexistent. And anyway, these were good people we’re talking about here. If a stranger came along and asked for a sandwich, they’d fire up the stove and ask him if he wanted his grilled cheese on white or wheat.”

  “So you figure it was on purpose. Somebody wanted one or both of them dead.”

  “Maybe. Makes more sense, anyway, than the idea of two old ladies sneering at a knife-wielding, gun-toting maniac and saying, ‘Make my day.’ I mean, come on.” She shook her head. “The good news is that Jake Oakes isn’t giving up. He pointed out that the killer would have had to check and make sure Coates and Dollar were really dead. Couldn’t take a chance on surviving witnesses. So our man might have gotten some of their blood on his shoes when he did that. Just a drop or two, maybe—and he could very well have burned his shoes afterward—but it might give us an angle if we take someone into custody.”

  She filled him in on her visit to Thornapple Terrace, and on the fact that Marcy Coates was the aide who had found each of the three deceased residents. He knew about Darlene Strayer’s death on Saturday night; Bell had mentioned her name to him in the past, when Darlene was involved in a run of big cases.

  “I’d been meaning to give you a call about that,” Nick said. “Express my condolences.”

  “Well, now you’ve got a chance to do more than just mumble some empty platitudes in my direction,” she shot back. She knew he would not get mad, but instead would appreciate the point of her visit. “Help me think this through, Nick. Did Marcy’s job at the Terrace have something to do with her death? It’s tempting to think so—but how to prove it? And even if there is a connection somewhere, and Marcy gave Mother Nature a little nudge, so what? Three old people with late-stage Alzheimer’s die in their sleep. Not exactly hot news, you know? Not even much of a tragedy. More like mercy.”

  “And you’ve still got Darlene’s death. And her suspicions about her father’s passing.” Nick’s voice was ruminative.

  “Yes. But the truth is, every single thing that has happened—Darlene’s accident, the deaths at the Terrace, even the murder of the two old women—could have another explanation entirely. They might not be linked at all. It sounds like a lot of bodies, but except for the deaths of Marcy Coates and Connie Dollar, these are probably not criminal justice matters at all. Just happenstance. Inevitability.”

  “What does your staff say about it?” Nick believed that most people in the world were fundamentally overrated, but he had an abiding respect for Rhonda Lovejoy and Hickey Leonard. He had worked with them on enough cases over the years to know who they were.

  “Wish I knew,” Bell said.

  “Pardon?”

  “We haven’t had a staff meeting in a while. Rhonda was getting ready to try the Charlie Vickers case, but she needed an emergency family leave. So Hick took over for her. He’s up to his ears in trial prep, trying to be ready for next week.”

  “What’s going on with Rhonda?”

  “Her grandmother had a stroke on Tuesday night—the night they found the bodies. Not expected to make it. The news was just too much for her to handle. Grandma Lovejoy was best friends with Connie Dollar. Blames herself, apparently, for not trying to reach Connie earlier.” Bell shook her head. “She’s Rhonda’s paternal grandmother. Rhonda’s been really close to her since she was a little girl. And you know Rhonda—her family is her life. There’s no way I wouldn’t grant her the leave.”

  “Well,” he said. “At least you’ve got the sheriff to talk it over with. Discuss strategy.”

  Bell grimaced. “I respect the hell out of Pam, but you know how she operates. Makes up her mind early. After that, it takes an act of God or Congress to get her to change it. And neither one of those parties is much concerning themselves with the deaths of a bunch of old folks in West Virginia.” Last year, Pam Harrison had persuaded Bell to prosecute a man for a murder that, evidence later proved, he did not commit. The rush to judgment was a habit to which Harrison seemed permanently inclined. It was her only significant flaw, as Bell saw it—but it was a doozy. From that moment on, Bell had relied less and less on Harrison’s instincts and perspective. Harrison would never be to Bell what Nick Fogelsong had been. Never again would Bell bring her into the innermost circle of her thoughts.

  “And the sheriff,” Nick says, “
believes it was a crime of opportunity.”

  “Yes.”

  “Even though Marcy Coates worked at the Terrace.”

  “Yes.” Bell’s frustration showed through in her voice. “I’m going to keep pushing, of course. Talk to Marcy’s family. Find out the circumstances surrounding her discovery of those three bodies at the Terrace. But I sure wish I had Rhonda and Hick to help me think it through.”

  “It’s a shame you can’t rely on Clay. He’s got a good head on his shoulders, that one. But he’s a civilian.” A slight chuckle. “Hell, so am I, come to that. Better watch what you tell me, young lady. Professional ethics and all.”

  She was quiet.

  “Hey,” he said. “I was kidding. I’m grandfathered in, right? As the former sheriff?”

  “Right.”

  Her mind was elsewhere. Should she tell him? Jesus, she wanted to. She wanted to tell him the whole story, right here and right now, because Nick would listen, and he would guide her toward the correct course of action, and she could finally go one way or the other way. She could forgive Clay or she could tell him that she couldn’t forgive him—not now, not ever—and that they needed to move on, both of them, in separate directions, toward separate futures. No hard feelings.

  Feelings. Those were the real culprits. Those were the guilty parties in this mess. If she did not feel what she felt for Clay Meckling—a lively and beguiling sexual attraction, an immense respect for his intelligence and his work ethic and his ambitions, plus a quiet comfort in just being in his presence, all of which added up to the simple fact that she was in love with the man—if she didn’t have that to reckon with, she would not be in this fix in the first place.

  He was all wrong for her in a hundred different ways. He was too young, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to stay in Acker’s Gap long-term. They did not have any of the same friends. They had very few shared life experiences. Their relationship over the past four years had been up and down. On and off.

  But she loved him, she loved him passionately, and his absence from her life for the past couple of weeks—her idea, not his—had made everything on her prosecutorial plate harder, from the violent deaths of Darlene Strayer and the two old ladies, to the less urgent but still perplexing deaths of three residents of the Terrace.

  Damn, Bell thought. I wish …

  What? What did she wish, when it came to her and Clay?

  She did not really know.

  Nick read her mind. Or at least it seemed that he had, because he said, “Things aren’t great, I take it, with Clay. Something happened.” Before she could get mad at him, tell him it was none of his damned business—she was just about to do just that, and he knew it—he held up a hand to head off her wrath. “You don’t have to confirm or deny. Don’t like to pry into your personal life, Belfa. You know that. All I want to say is that Clay Meckling’s a fine man. Never known a finer one. Whatever you two are going through—work it out. He’s worth it. And you’re worth it.”

  Bell gave him a hard, steady glare, like a Buick with its high beams on. She hoped he would keep up his little mind-reading trick for just a few more seconds and pick up on what she was thinking with all her might:

  You don’t know. You don’t know what it is that he did.

  She did not say anything, though. They had strayed too far off the topic of what she had come here to talk about. They both sensed it.

  “So,” he said. “You’ll keep on asking questions out at the Terrace.”

  “Yes. I’ve got a hunch that somehow it all starts there. Somebody knows something. So I have to pry it loose. A little bit at a time, if I have to.”

  “Depressing place. Went there once myself. Mary Sue’s great uncle needed a ride to go see an old Army buddy who’d just moved in. We sat in that visitors’ lounge for about an hour. Felt like about eight hours, you know? All those sad folks, shuffling along. Asking the same questions over and over again. ‘What day is it?’ You’d tell ’em, and then a minute later, you would get it again: ‘What day is it?’ Skin and bones, a lot of ’em. They forget how to eat, is how it was explained to me. They waste away, not remembering the names of their children or the year they were born or where the hell they are. Sure you’re ready for that on a regular basis?”

  “Of course not. Who could be ready for that?”

  “Point taken.”

  “If those three old people died of natural causes—which is what it looks like—I’ll be able to ascertain that quickly and then move on. Get the hell out.” Bell smiled a rueful smile. “Until the day they finally stick me in a little room over there. For keeps. Or you. Or any of us. No telling what the future holds, Nick. That’s the hell of it.”

  He used his thumbnail to pick at a spot he saw on the table. There may or may not have been an actual spot. Truth was, he did not want to look Bell in the eye right now, because a thickness had come into his throat. He was afraid it might show up in his voice.

  “You ever wonder?” he said.

  “Wonder what?”

  “If it’s worth it. Fighting for a long life. Doing everything you can, to last as long as possible. I mean, you either end up like Rhonda’s grandmother—flat on your back in some hospital, rigged up to a bunch of damned machines, or you end up like those folks out at the Terrace, with your memory eaten away like a sweater that the moths have had their way with. Living a kind of death in life. Or you get yourself butchered like those two old women in the woods. Be honest here, Belfa—is it really worth it? Any of it?”

  “Don’t ask me that today. I’ve got too much work to do.”

  “When can I ask?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “And what are you likely to say then?”

  She grinned at him. It was a little catechism they went through. He knew what she was going to say—they had been in this place before, the two of them, burdened by duty and sadness and a sense of futility, and sometimes she was the one asking and he was the one answering—but he needed to hear the words from her. Just as, when the roles were reversed, she needed to hear the words from him.

  “I’ll say, ‘Ask me tomorrow.’ Best I can do, Nick.”

  * * *

  Marcy Coates’s granddaughter, Lorilee Coates, sat in the wooden chair in front of Bell’s desk. Or tried to.

  She could not hold still. She itched and she fidgeted. She coughed. She sniffled. She rubbed her nose and scratched her skinny arms. Left arm with the right hand, right arm with the left hand, left arm against the back of the chair. It was eight degrees outside, and she was wearing cutoff jeans and a pink tube top. Her outerwear—it lay in a slatternly heap on the floor—was a jean jacket that still had the Goodwill tag affixed to it by a dirty string, the giant number visible in slanting Magic Marker: PRICE $3. Lorilee had aimed for the coat hook on the wall. She missed. She did not seem to notice. She was twenty-six years old. She could have passed for forty.

  She asked if she could smoke, and when Bell said no, she scowled and mouthed the word Fuck and then looked around the room with incredulity. Her disgruntled glance was easy to translate: No smoking? Really? In this dump? Like—why’s it even matter?

  She crossed and recrossed her legs. She uncrossed them altogether, placed them flat on the floor. The chunky-heeled clogs hit with a thwunk. Then she crossed her legs again, right over left, left over right. She had stringy hair, dyed purple, with a twisting strand of red that looked like drainage from a scalp wound. Her skin was almost reptilian, a carapace of sore and flake and scab. She had a nose ring, and another ring through a piercing in her lower lip. Both holes were infected. The crusty ring of red around each one added a touch of lurid color to her drab complexion.

  She was, according to Rhonda, who had heard it from Grandma Lovejoy—back when Grandma Lovejoy could still form sentences—a heroin addict. Grandma Lovejoy had heard it from Connie Dollar, who had heard it from Marcy Coates. Bell really didn’t need the provenance of the information; Lorilee Coates was well-known to law enforcement o
fficials in a three-county area, not because she was a criminal mastermind, but because she was so pathetic, and her story such a familiar and depressing one.

  Lorilee had started huffing glue, paint, whatever, at twelve. At thirteen she had her first arrest, for drunk and disorderly. At fourteen she’d been caught in the ladies’ bathroom of the Pizza Parade over on Oak Street, chugging the plastic dispenser of floral-tinged soap, hotly desirous of the alcohol content. In the years to follow she’d been picked up three times for prostitution out at the Highway Haven, and another two times for shoplifting at various locales. She had slept and giggled and mocked her way through two court-ordered stints in rehab.

  She was a total wreck of a human being. She was a rapidly disintegrating mess. She was a walking tragedy. And she was the apple of her grandmother’s eye.

  Deputy Oakes had found her that morning in a tattoo shop on Route 6, a place called Skin U Alive, begging the owner for a freebie. Oakes had gotten a tip about where she might be. His network of sources was nowhere near as extensive as Rhonda’s, but as he often said, “Give me time.” He had only been living and working in Acker’s Gap for three years. Moreover, his informants were more likely to be from the sleazy side of the line—pimps, addicts, dealers, prostitutes—whereas Rhonda’s people were churchgoers and old folks. Different universes. Both important to a prosecutor’s office.

  “So. Lorilee. Appreciate you coming by,” Bell said.

  “No choice. Damned deputy made me.” Lorilee’s voice sounded like she’d been gargling with Clorox. “What the fuck’s going on?”

  “Your grandmother was murdered two nights ago.”

  “Like I don’t know that. I know, okay? They told me.” Lorilee sneered. The expression necessitated the flexing of a nostril, the one with the infected piercing, and she winced. “Why’m I here? What’s the deal? Ain’t done nothing wrong.”

  “I’m hoping you can help us.” Bell knew there was absolutely no point in lecturing Lorilee Coates, in trying to inspire her to lead another kind of life. Her grandmother, Rhonda said, had tried to do that, over and over again, year after year. It never worked. Nothing worked. And so Bell understood that there was no percentage in threatening Lorilee, or cajoling her, or bargaining with her, or reminding her that she was still young enough to change everything. That she could get clean. That she could, once again, see things as they really were, see a panorama of crisp edges and depth of field—not a pinched-off, woozy haze, viewed through a constant stupor.