by P. J. Vernon
“You’ve seen the Devil, haven’t you, Gray?” the man asked. It was Matthew, his voice bubbled as though we were underwater. I couldn’t see him, but I knew the crocodile grin he spoke through. The toothy smile that crossed his face. Razor sharp.
“You’re a bad girl, Gray King,” Matthew whispered into my ear. His breath smelled rancid. Damp onion mixed with metal. “You’ve seen the Devil, and you’re a bad girl now.”
I stared deep into the looming mirror in the cellar. The one Mamma had returned to Piper Point’s stair landing. I was much younger and with fire-red curls. Matthew had darkened to a black shadow behind me. He kept whispering, but his words dissolved into distant mumbling. His mouth, as if filled with marbles. I only smelled his foul breath.
My eyes met themselves on the mirror’s surface. A cracking, splintering pop. The glass fractured in two diagonally across my face.
“I’m a bad girl,” I repeated to my broken reflection.
I jolted awake to find myself on Main Street. At least I think it was Main Street. The car hurdled towards a fork in the road. I jerked the wheel to the left but the SUV seemed to slide out from under me as it spun a half circle.
My body lurched in the other direction. A smashing sound tore through my ears. The airbag exploded, striking my face like a mallet. Then silence. Everything stopped. Frozen.
21
Nina
I tripped a bell wire as I entered Dale’s Hardware. The scent of pine shavings and cigarettes greeted me as I made for the lone cash register to my left.
“How ya doin’, ma’am?” a round man—Dale—nodded as I approached. He roused from a creaking stool and spit a slick wad of dip into a fast-food cup. “Can I help ya?”
I nodded a hello. “Mailboxes. The one I’ve got is rusted-out from all the rain. You have any?”
He crossed his arms, sucked air through his teeth. “We’ve got a couple different sorts. Might try a plastic one. Won’t ever rust. Head to the back wall and take a right. You’ll see them in the corner past the hacksaws.”
“Thanks.” I smiled, paused. “And someone to help carry it out to my car?”
“Let me radio Jacob,” he replied. “I’ll have him bring the dolly up.”
In the store’s back corner, a fluorescent bulb neared the end of its life. It flashed and strobed as I surveyed the collection of mailboxes Dale kept in stock. Footsteps and the mousey squeak of metal wheels turned my head.
“Mr. Wilcox.” I extended my hand.
Jacob removed one of his frayed earbuds and gave me a firm handshake. “Nina.”
“I’ll be buying one of these mailboxes,” I announced. “After we talk.”
The loose earbud leached music, abrasive heavy metal screaming into the empty space between us. Turning the music off, he respooled the wire and stuck it in his jeans pocket. “I can take fifteen.”
“Someplace private?”
He flicked his chin to an exit door behind me. “Out back. Let me grab my cigarettes.”
Behind the store, the loading dock sat a few feet above the concrete drive. Bits of paper trash and soggy mulch collected around a grate in the center of the lot, pushed there from all the rain.
“Cowboy killers,” Jacob mused, referring to the fresh box of Marlboro Reds he packed against his palm. “You want one?”
“I don’t smoke,” I answered, before giving him time to put a cigarette between his lips.
“What can I do for you, Nina? Or should I call you detective?” A hint of laughter dotted his last question.
“Nina’s fine. Do you mind?” I asked, looking down at the tape recorder I’d pulled from my coat pocket.
He shook his head. “By all means.”
I pressed record. “I want to talk about Christmas Eve.”
A pink plastic lighter sparked alive. The soft color reminded me of Frances’ comments. Which lucky lady’s bedside had he lifted it from? He tucked the lighter in the same pocket as his earbuds. “And Gray’s husband?”
“Yes. I want to know what happened between you and Paul Godfrey that night. I’m already aware of a confrontation.”
Cigarette lit, he took a glowing drag. “Not much of one, to be honest about it. The guy flew off the handle at me and Gray. We were dancing, but there wasn’t any harm in it.”
“You kissed his wife.”
The cloud of tobacco he expelled blossomed in my face, and I held my breath. Cowboy killers.
“His wife kissed me,” he retorted. Emphatic. A point of pride for him, perhaps. Pride made folks behave in all sorts of ill ways.
“Can you explain what you meant by ‘Paul flew off the handle’?”
“Shouting mostly.” Jacob’s face held more than a whisper of apathy.
“Anything physical?”
Another drag on his cigarette. “He stuck his fingers hard into my shoulder. So, I stuck mine right back. Knocked him backwards a step or two.”
“And then what happened?”
The ambivalence in his eyes was replaced by smugness. “He sized me up for a fight, best I could tell. Then decided it was a bad idea and yanked Gray out of there.”
Interesting word choice. “Yanked?”
“Hard,” he answered.
“You could tell that even though you’d been drinking?”
He shrugged. “That’s how rough he was with her, I guess. Plain enough to see. Beer or no beer.”
That reconciled with the concern Charlotte had expressed, but I’d heard Jacob called entitled, possessive, jealous, all in the past couple days. Time to see if he was a liar, too. “And they left at that point? You had no more contact with either of them the rest of the evening?”
“Yes ma’am, that’s correct.” Another smoldering drag.
“Do you know a man by the name of Jonas?” I countered, omitting the last name intentionally. When it came to names, people often filled in blanks before deciding if it was in their interest to do so.
“Jonas Hatfield?” he asked, barely hesitating.
“That’s correct.”
He leaned on the guard rail behind us, one steel-toed boot lifted to a low rung. Flecks of paint and hardened soil spattered them. I pictured those boots trudging through the forest’s damp floor of pine and rotting fronds off Paul Revere Highway. Then stomping through saw grass and sinking deep into salty marsh mud. “Yeah. Holds a card night every other Thursday at his place. Texas Hold‘em, mostly. I’ve been a few times. Why?”
“Because he was at the bar, too. I’ve spoken to him already.”
He shifted his weight, suddenly uneasy. “Why’s that important?”
I’d maintained eye contact through the conversation, but now I stared. “He saw you, Jacob. He saw you leave the bar right after the confrontation with Mr. Godfrey. He puts you jumping into your truck and speeding off.”
“So?” His eyes wandered over my shoulder. His jawline tensed.
I continued, “Your place is north of Ruby’s Pub. You took off south. Right behind the Godfreys’ rental car.”
He moved from the guard rail and straightened his back. “I got turned around. I told you, I’d been drinking a little.”
“Did you tail Paul Godfrey?”
“Why the hell would I do something like that? Follow some dick from D.C. just ‘cause he shoved my shoulder? I shoved him back. That was enough for me.”
“You followed him because of Gray, Jacob. I know about you and Gray. You have a history together. A long history.”
“Doesn’t mean a thing to me now,” he replied, breaking eye contact again.
But I didn’t permit him to glance away. “That’s not what I hear. I hear you have a tough time letting things go. Letting women go, to be blunt about it. You don’t seem to differentiate much between women and things, do you?”
His voice grew petulant. “Who the hell told you something like that? Frances? That bitch is mad I’m not fucking her all the time like I used to. There’s no truth to it. Bitch calls me every time she’s drunk
begging for it. She’s crazy. You can’t trust her. Once she said she was pregnant and—”
“That’s not all I heard, Jacob. I heard you took Gray’s virginity. There any truth to that?”
Silence crowded the air between us. It finally broke with Jacob swallowing a stiff lump in his throat.
“Yeah, that’s true,” he answered, voice lowered.
“You were both about thirteen?”
“I dunno, maybe. It was a long time ago.”
I took a step closer. “You want to know something else?”
He said nothing, taking another long pull from what little remained of his cigarette.
I went on, emphasizing each word as I did. “That’s statutory rape.”
“Like hell it is. I was the same age.”
Of course, there’d be no way to stick him with statutory at this point but letting him hear the words might knock him off-balance. I’d seen good liars before, methodical liars whose cold eyes put worms under my skin. Jacob didn’t come close. “In the eyes of the law, it doesn’t matter.”
“Are you threatening me, Nina?”
“Just stating facts.”
He tossed his spent smoke onto the concrete, grinding it beneath his boot. “There’s limitations or whatever you call it for charges like that. You can’t do a damn thing.”
I smiled. “That’s where your wrong, Jacob. South Carolina’s one of a handful of states with no statute of limitations on crimes of a sexual nature.”
“A sex crime? Fuck, Nina. We were kids. Both of us.”
I struck back with the question I wanted answered. “Did you follow Mr. Godfrey’s rental car after he took off from Ruby’s?”
He hunched his shoulders and thrust his hands in his pockets. “Yeah. I followed him. Gray wanted me bad, and that fucker couldn’t stand it. He thought he could pick a fight with me. I showed Mr. Washington how country boys handle things.”
“And is that what you did, Jacob? Did you handle things?”
He went on, eyes gone from spooked to aflame. “I flashed my high beams. I got him to pull off the road, and I whooped his ass, if that’s what you wanna know. Gray won’t tell you that’s what happened. She was too drunk to know one way or the other. Do I need a lawyer?”
“Did you assault Paul Godfrey on the night of Christmas Eve or early Christmas morning?” I touched the button on my tape recorder, ensuring it was still depressed for on.
“Call it what you want. I showed him he don’t run things down here, and we don’t care how important he is. And I’m done talking to you. You got any more questions, I want a lawyer by my side.” He began to turn.
“Suit yourself.” I reached for the cuffs nestled in the pocket of my jacket. “Jacob Wilcox, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you do or say can and will be used against you by the state of South Carolina.”
“What the hell for?” His muscles tensed like they wanted to fight back, but he held his fists. Turns out Jacob could suss out the difference between a bad idea and good one. If only occasionally.
“Assault and battery,” I answered. “For now.”
22
Gray
The blackness that had swallowed me up began to recede. It unfolded slowly at first, one frame at a time. Then it crossed some invisible threshold and the dam in my mind broke, everything rushing through.
I stared up at a metal pole. Plastic baggies of liquid and clear tubing strung from it.
I’d gone to meet Annie, but she’d never shown. I’d gotten drunk instead. I drove.
My body jolted, seized. I drove … and I …
To my left and right, there were plastic guardrails. I was in … a bed. As I moved my arm, something pinched the back of my left hand. An IV line was attached to me, held by strips of translucent medical tape. I made a fist, and the outline of the needle buried deep in my vein appeared.
Someone spoke to me. A man’s voice. “Just Lactated Ringer’s,” he announced, motioning to the plastic drip bag suspended above my arm. “Fluids. You’re very dehydrated.”
My vision blurred, but he wore beige scrubs. A nurse. I was in a hospital.
I wrecked.
He went on, “You’re woozy from analgesics. I’m not a fan of narcotics,” he paused, “especially in these sorts of situations, but doctor’s orders. You have a fractured clavicle. And you’re going to be sore from the airbag. And the gastric lavage.”
A throbbing shot out from my left shoulder as though he’d summoned the pain. Spreading out from my chest, a heavy pressure followed.
“Can I get you anything?”
The man had taken on sharper features now. He was older, but his veined arms looked fit. I closed my eyes and shook my head to indicate no.
“Alright, I’ll get your family. They’ve been outside for hours.”
My eyes shot open as a wave of nausea rippled outwards from my gut. My family. Charlotte and Mamma and Paul. A painful lump rose in my throat. I swallowed it. Not Paul. Paul’s gone.
A door clicked open. Heels on linoleum announced Mamma’s entrance.
“Hummingbird,” she whispered, taking my bruised hand. “My baby girl.” By the closeness between our faces, she must’ve kneeled by the bed. The nurse had vacated the room. Only me and her. The anguish in her words must be real, then.
“Charlotte went for some coffee across the street before they said you’d woken up,” Mamma continued. “I sent an orderly for her. She’ll be here soon as she can.” She gave my hand a second squeeze.
Questions. I wanted to ask questions. Did I hurt anyone? Was the car bad off? Would Charlotte forgive me? Between the aching and a sinking feeling of guilt, I’d lost the ability to speak. Was I in shock? Had they heard any news of Paul?
“I’ve spoken to…” she hesitated, pain still behind her words, “someone. Someone who knows the county prosecutor. He’ll take care of everything. There’ll be no charges, Hummingbird. No charges, and we’re going to get you better. Your body and your mind.”
The fogginess that shrouded my thoughts prevented me from processing what she’d said. Then a second click from an opening door broke my attempt at concentration altogether.
“Gray,” another voice called. Charlotte. Mamma stood as my sister rushed to my side. Her warm lips found my forehead.
I forced words out. “I’m sorry. Your car—”
“Quiet,” she said, index finger to my mouth. “Things are things. They’re unimportant. You’re going to be okay, and that’s all that matters.”
She offered me a tiny smile. I wanted to return it, but I couldn’t. I had nothing to smile about. Truthfully, I wasn’t happy to have woken up at all.
23
Nina
“Shit, is she okay?” I asked.
“Beat up a bit,” Cora answered, discomforted. Likely unsettled to be the one communicating on behalf of the family. “She’ll make a full recovery, I’m told.”
I’d phoned Piper Point to inform Gray of Jacob’s arrest. I had more questions, too, hoping the details of a fight between the two men on the highway might jog her memory. Instead, Cora told me she’d struck a streetlamp in town.
What Frances disclosed replayed in my head. “Was alcohol involved?”
Cora ignored the question. “As I said, she’s expected to make a full recovery, Ms. Palmer.”
I sighed. “Thank you, Cora.”
“You’re welcome,” she replied before she hung up.
My next call would be to the station. If alcohol was a factor in the accident, they’d be sure to let me know.
My gaze wandered to Auntie Tilda, asleep in her hospice bed. It’d been half an hour since I’d administered her meds, and I needed to get back to work. If I had to guess, Gray looked the exact same right now.
As I walked back into the kitchen to retrieve my book bag, my phone vibrated in my pocket. Virginia area code. Andrew Huang. He’d called twice already. He must be scanning the sheriff’s office website. Jacob’s mug shot would’ve been
posted by now.
Jacob had lawyered up courtesy of his grandmother, so I didn’t have anything new yet. Even if I did, I didn’t owe Andrew information. I played his voicemail anyway.
“Nina, it’s Andrew. Give me a call at this number when you can. I’ve got some things I’d like to discuss with you.”
Of course, he did.
“Maybe we could meet for a drink this evening? Let me know.”
As I started to tuck my phone back into my pocket, it vibrated once more.
Damn, this guy was persistent. But instead of Andrew, it was Sammie. “Nina, you need to come back in now.”
“I’m about to be on my way,” I replied, book bag slung across my shoulder.
Sammie didn’t miss a beat. “The dogs found blood down by the marsh.” My heart stopped. “Running it against the samples from Piper Point now, but my guess is DNA’s gonna match Paul Godfrey.”
* * *
The baying of German Shepherds met me as I stepped out of my car on the shoulder of Paul Revere Highway. Their handler guided them back into the truck bed kennels beneath the strobes of silent flashers. Taut yellow police tape wound from tree trunk to tree trunk to tree trunk.
I swallowed hard and approached the man waiting to speak with me, a Charleston Crime Scene Unit insignia emblazoned on his windbreaker. The constant hum of cicadas soon overwhelmed even the dogs’ barking. Loud and hostile.
“Detective Palmer,” he said. “This way, please.”
I remained silent as I followed him off the road and into the woods. Piles of decaying broad leaf and pine needles cushioned my steps. The smell of damp rot mixing with the saline marsh air lent a sinister air to an otherwise peaceful scene.
“Upturned foliage suggests the movement of two individuals coming this way from the road.”
“Can you tell where they originated?” I asked, thinking of Jacob’s truck. “If they came from the same car or different ones, for instance?”
“Not for certain. Asphalt’s not really great for footprints, detective. Not unless there’s a bit of gravel on the surface. And with the rain…” He paused to find his footing in the swampy soil.