A Grant County Collection (101 page)

'I know,' Lena said, because it sounded like what Charlotte needed to hear.

'I've been with other men, Lee. It's not like I just haven't met the right one.'

'I'm sorry,' Lena apologized. 'I wasn't saying that.'

Charlotte looked at her hands. Her wedding ring was a rock, glittering in the crappy trailer. A man didn't buy a woman a ring like that unless he was head over heels in love. She told Lena, 'When Larry and I first started dating, he knew that I was getting over someone. He just didn't know it was a woman.'

Lena had been the sighted one, but she'd ended up being more blind than her sister. Sitting in Hank's shack of an office, reading Charlotte's deepest feelings, Lena had remembered all the times Sibyl had shut the door to their room, asking Lena to leave her and Charlotte alone so that they could study. Lena had never guessed exactly what they had been studying.

For years, Lena had blamed Sibyl's lesbianism on Nan Thomas, the woman she had been living with when she died. It had taken a long time for Lena to accept that her sister's sexuality was not going to change. Lena had even developed a kind of friendship with Nan. Somewhere in the back of her mind, though, Lena had still thought of Sibyl as some innocent who had unwittingly been plucked from the straight world. If it had started as far back as Charlotte Warren, then her whole notion of why Sibyl had changed was thrown out the window.

The truth was that Sibyl hadn't changed at all. She had always been that way, only Lena had been too stupid to see it.

Lena asked, 'Does your husband know that you're in AA?'

'It's kind of hard to hide when you get suspended from your job for being drunk.' She laughed, though there was nothing funny about what she was saying. 'This was back when I was in the building instead of stuck out here in the trailer park. I fell flat on my face in full view of the newspaper staff. If it wasn't for Swallowin' Sue I would've lost my job.' She smiled. 'I guess you could argue that it was the middle of the year and it's nearly impossible to find anyone who's willing to teach anymore, but I like to think she let me continue teaching because she believes in me.'

'You're acting like this is all some kind of joke.'

'Oh, Lee. If I didn't laugh about it, I wouldn't be able to get out of bed in the morning.'

'Why did you start drinking?'

'Because it was a slower, more socially acceptable way to kill myself.' She added, 'And it helped anesthetize me. I didn't want to feel anything.'

'That's the same thing you just said about Hank.'

'Yes. It is.' Charlotte's throat worked. Now that she was looking at Lena, she couldn't seem to take her eyes off of her. 'You're so much like Sibby, you know?'

Lena shook her head. 'I don't look like her anymore.'

'It's inside,' Charlotte insisted, holding her hand to her chest. 'Y'all were always the same inside, too.'

Lena had to laugh. 'Sibyl was nothing like me. I was in trouble all the time. They probably have a chair outside the principal's office named after me.'

'She was just better at getting away with it,' Charlotte countered. 'Remember how she used to mouth off to Coach Hanson in biology class?'

Lena felt herself smiling. 'She ran circles around him. He hated her guts.'

'Remember that awful music she used to listen to? God, she had such a crush on Joan Jett.'

'Was it Sibyl who – I mean, was she the one who—' Lena felt her face turning beet red. 'Christ. Never mind.'

'It was mutual,' Charlotte supplied. 'We were both studying on the bed. We had the window open and it started raining outside and I reached over to close it and one thing led to another and it just . . . happened.'

Lena felt her stomach drop. Sibyl's bed was by the wall. They had made out on Lena's bed.

'Are you okay?'

Lena nodded, trying to block the image that came to her mind.

Charlotte took Lena's reaction the wrong way. 'She never thought you would accept her.'

'I didn't,' Lena admitted, feeling a familiar sadness. 'I do now, but I didn't when it mattered.'

'She knew you loved her, Lee. She never doubted that.' Charlotte stood and walked over to the window. 'What's Nan like?'

'Nan?' Lena echoed. 'How do you know about Nan?'

'She called me when Sibyl died.'

'Oh.' Lena felt ashamed for not making the call herself.

Charlotte seemed to pick up on this. 'You had a lot going on, Lee. Don't worry.'

'I should have let you know. You were ...' Lena didn't know how to characterize Sibyl's relationship with Charlotte. 'I should have called you.'

'She sounds kind of snooty on the phone.'

'Nan?' Lena shrugged. 'Not really. Sometimes she gets prickly, but she's okay most of the time. I lived with her for a while.'

'Hank told me,' Charlotte said. 'We had a good laugh over that one.'

Lena felt her stomach drop. 'What else did Hank tell you about me?'

'That he was worried about you. That there was this guy you were seeing who was really bad, and he was worried you wouldn't get away from him.' She paused, hesitating before adding, That he went to Atlanta with you.'

A lump came to Lena's throat. 'Is that why he started using again? Because I ...' Lena couldn't say the word, couldn't talk about what had happened at the women's clinic.

'Listen to me,' Charlotte ordered, her tone sharp. She waited until Lena looked up. 'You cannot make someone use drugs, just like you can't make them stop. You don't have that much power over Hank or anybody else. Hank started using again for his own reasons.'

She sounded just like one of his AA pamphlets. 'Did he tell you his reasons?'

Charlotte shook her head again. 'Mostly, he just listened to me. I was so wrapped up in myself that I didn't see what was going on with him until it was too late.'

'When did he start back?'

'I'd guess three months ago, maybe four or five if he started slow.'

'Did he say anything in your meetings?'

'I can't tell you what he said in meetings, Lena. You know that.' She held up her hands, as if to stop the next question. 'I can tell you that two months ago he told me that he couldn't be my sponsor anymore. I was hurt, I didn't really question him like I should have because I was too busy feeling angry and rejected. Part of me was glad when he didn't show up at the next meeting or any of the ones after that. Sometimes, he'd drive over to the ones in Carterson and I just assumed he was going to those.'

Carterson was about fifty miles away, not a long drive for someone like Hank, who liked to be on the open road.

Lena asked, 'When did you realize he had stopped going to meetings?'

'A few week ago. I got over myself and asked a friend in Carterson to tell Hank I said hi and she told me she hadn't seen him in forever.'

'Did you ever see a white SUV outside his house?'

'No.' She added, 'Larry and I go for walks after supper. We pass by Hank's almost every night. I've never seen anyone there. As a matter of fact, I wondered if you had come to get him. His car was in the driveway, but there were never any lights on except the usual one in the kitchen.'

Hank always left the kitchen light on as a deterrent to thieves; not a good strategy if the entire neighborhood knew the trick.

Lena asked, 'When did you last see him?'

'Four days ago – that's why I called you. He was outside trying to fix his mailbox. Somebody put a cherry bomb in it, probably one of those kids from a couple of streets over getting a head start on Halloween. Larry offered to help but Hank cursed at him, told us both to go away, so we did.'

Lena mulled this over. 'He's been holed up in his house for how many months and the only thing that got him outside was a broken mailbox?'

'He was so high, Lee. I'm surprised he could stand up on his own, let alone walk the twenty feet to his mailbox. His skin was awful. He obviously hadn't bathed in a while. A fool could see what he's doing.'

'Which is?'

'Trying to end it.'

Lena felt her voice catch. 'End his life?'

Charlotte shrugged. 'End his misery, maybe.'

'What's changed? What happened that set him off?'

'I have no idea. That's the truth. My focus every day when I get up is not taking another drink. I'm an alcoholic. We're not known for our altruism.'

Lena doubted that was the case with Charlotte. She pressed, 'But you saw he was having problems two, maybe three months ago?'

'I don't know,' Charlotte admitted. 'Maybe I saw that he was depressed or preoccupied or acting differently, but all I cared about was me. School had started back and I was in this hellhole with kids snickering behind my back and teachers snickering in front of it. I was struggling to stay sober. My focus was on what would keep me on the right path.' She held out her hands as if she were helpless. 'By the time I realized something was wrong with him, it was too late. He wouldn't talk to me, he wouldn't return my phone calls, he wouldn't answer the door. He just kept telling me to leave him alone and let him do what he wanted to do.'

Lena was familiar with the refrain. 'That's when you started writing him the letters?'

'Yes.' She paused, lost in her own thoughts. 'It was awkward at first, but then when he didn't write back it was almost freeing. I just wrote whatever I wanted. I've never done that before, just said what was on my mind.'

'You talk a lot about Sibyl, what it was like when you were together.' Some of the passages had been so hard to read that Lena had found herself staring out the window, lost in another time. Charlotte had managed to capture the essence of Sibyl: her good nature, her loving kindness. Even after Lena had finished reading the letters, the feelings had stuck with her, so that it was almost like Sibyl was alive again.

Charlotte said, 'Hank is the only one who knew about her. Us. What we felt for each other, that it was love and not something grotesque.' She leaned her back against the window, arms crossed low over her waist. 'But you know what? A long time ago, he asked me what would've happened if Sibyl and I had made it work. I could have transferred to Georgia Tech, you know. They wouldn't have offered me a full ride like they did with Sibby but I was already in college, doing pretty well, making the honor roll. I was miserable living with my folks and having to drive back and forth to Milledgeville. I could've transferred and gotten a job in Atlanta or got student loans or something to make it happen, but I didn't.'

'Why not?'

'I guess it scared me. Everything scared me back then. Atlanta's so big, so anonymous. I felt safe here. And it would've killed my parents.'

'It was easier for us to leave home than it was for you,' Lena tried. 'Your folks were—'

'My folks would've never talked to me again if I'd followed her to Atlanta. They caught us together once. Did you know that?' Lena shook her head, shocked that Sibyl had never told her. 'It was fall break of my sophomore year and Sibby was about to go off to Tech. My parents were supposed to be visiting my aunt Jeannie for the day but they got into a fight. They were always fighting back then. This was around the time mother found out he'd been screwing Mrs. Ford from the church for about the last five years.' She laughed at the irony. 'So, they came back early and found us ... Well, you can imagine how they found us. They called Hank at the bar and made him come over right then to confront us. He was furious – but at them, not Sibyl. He said we were both adults and that it was none of their damn business.'

'"Let he who is without sin ..."' Lena quoted. It was one of Hank's favorite verses. He was always throwing it out right before he told you that what you were doing was wrong.

Charlotte said, 'Y'all were so lucky to have him.'

Lena laughed. 'Are you kidding me? I would've killed for your parents when I was growing up.'

'You can have them.'

'Okay,' Lena allowed. 'What they did then was bad, but they never accidentally locked you out of the house all night or forgot to feed you or left you alone with strangers and they sure as hell never got so drunk they ran over you with their car and—'

'What?'

'You know what Hank did.'

Charlotte looked confused. 'What did he do?'

'He blinded her. He took away Sibyl's sight. How can you—'

'Lena, that wasn't Hank.'

Lena felt her heart stop mid-beat. 'What are you talking about?'

Charlotte stood in front of her, still confused by Lena's reaction. 'I was there that day.'

'No, you weren't.'

'You and me and Sibby were playing in the front yard with an old tennis ball I'd stolen from my brother. You threw the ball over Sibyl's head and she ran into the driveway and—'

'No,' Lena insisted. 'You weren't there.' Even as she said the words, she could picture the day: throwing the ball over Sibyl's head, making her chase after it. And there was Charlotte Warren on the other side of the driveway, scooping up the ball and tossing it back to Lena. 'No.' Lena shook her head as if she could clear the memory. 'You weren't there.'

'I was, Lee. I saw the car backing up. I yelled, but she didn't stop. The bumper hit Sibyl's head. I saw her collapse in the driveway.' As she spoke, Lena saw it happening again. Sibyl running into the driveway, Charlotte screaming. 'There was just this thin line of blood.' Charlotte traced her finger along her own temple, down her jaw, exactly where the blood had been on Sibyl. 'You started sobbing, you were hysterical, and Hank came running out of the house and your mother just—'

'My mother?' Lena felt light-headed. She leaned back against the desk. 'What are you talking about? My mother was there? She was there when Sibyl ...?'

'Lee,' Charlotte began, putting her hand on Lena's shoulder. 'It wasn't Hank. Your mother was driving the car. She's the one who blinded Sibyl.'

Sara lay in bed, trying not to think about what was living in the mattress underneath her body. The autopsy had taken ten brutal hours, and when they had finally gotten back to the motel, she had nearly cried at the sight of the filthy room. Sara knew there was a maid around here somewhere. Earlier this morning, she had seen the woman pushing around a large cart with all sorts of cleaners and a vacuum. Except for the bed being made, nothing else in the room had been touched. Sara hadn't exactly been expecting a thank-you note for scrubbing the bathroom, but the woman could have at least vacuumed the rug. The green M&M she had seen under the table yesterday morning was still nestled in the shag carpet.

Sara closed her eyes and listened to Jeffrey humming in the shower, the water slapping against the plastic tub. She had cleaned the cut on his hand using some disinfectant they'd found in the morgue, but he would have to bandage it on his own when he got out of the shower. She was too tired to do it herself, and frankly, part of her could not let go of her anger from yesterday afternoon. They had spent the entire day together, yet neither one of them had been willing to break the ice and talk about what had happened.

Jeffrey seemed fine with this, which only served to annoy Sara more. The situation made her feel like the prototypical bitchy sit-com wife who was always harping on her poor, misunderstood husband. She had always supported Jeffrey, even when she'd thought he was wrong, and it was unfair of him to let her be cast in the role of shrew.

On top of that, Sara still had a bad feeling about Elawah and whatever Lena had drawn them into. The autopsy she had performed that day only served to heighten that sense of dread. Over the years, Grant County had seen its share of violent deaths but Sara was hard-pressed to think of a more awful way to die than being burned alive. She was usually adept at separating the victim from the crime. If you were going to cut into a dead body, you couldn't think of it as a person anymore. You had to look at it as parts of a whole: circulatory, respiratory, tissue, organs, skeleton.

Still, as Sara worked on the woman, she'd found herself wondering about her life, the method of her death, the family she was leaving behind. Then, she began to wonder about the perpetrator. What kind of person could do this to another human being? Certainly not the kind of person she wanted Jeffrey talking to.

They had not waited for Fred Bart to come before starting the autopsy, which was a good thing considering the dentist had never showed. Removing the remains from the car had proven to be the easy part. Once the corpse was on the table, Sara found that the woman's body had been so ravaged by fire that the usual procedures could not be followed. There was no need for the Stryker saw since the back of the skull had fractured off in Sara's hand, allowing the brain to slip out like the pit of a ripe peach. There was no need for a Y-incision to open the torso when there was hardly any skin left to cut.

All but two of the ribs were fractured by the heat. The larynx and trachea were seared, the tongue cooked into the neck organs. The pleural surfaces of both lungs were charred, the air spaces consolidated with soot. Most of the skeletal musculature had a well-done appearance. The bone marrow was black.

The soot in the lungs proved the woman had lived long enough to inhale the smoke. Sara was certainly not an arson specialist, but she assumed that the gas tank explosion had been the result of a fire that started inside the car. The blast from the tank had gone up and out, mostly damaging the very rear of the SUV. The woman, even sitting in the backseat, would have been able to remove her seat belt, get out of the car, before the real damage started.

From all appearances, she had not been raped. Sara wondered why this came as a relief. Sara herself had been raped – brutally so, as a certain lawyer liked to point out. As awful as that experience had been, she imagined it was much more painful to be burned alive.

The thing that terrified Sara most was that the woman surely knew what was coming. There had been no obvious damage to the skull; no one had knocked her out before the fire was set. She had watched and waited as flames devoured her body.

The shower cut off, and Sara rolled over onto her stomach, wishing she'd thought to bring their pillows from home. She was wearing socks, sweatpants, and a long-sleeved shirt buttoned up to the collar, even though the room was stuffy from the heat and smelled of wet fried chicken. The remnants of a pizza they'd had delivered were on the plastic table, and she thought about getting another slice, but her body would not move. She would have asked Jeffrey, but earlier he had taken one look at the well-done ground beef topping and dry-heaved.

The bed shifted as he got in. She waited for him to turn off the light, to bunch up his pillow and arrange the blankets like he usually did before he settled down. He did none of this, asking instead, 'You asleep?'

'Yes,' she lied. 'Did you put something on your hand?'

He didn't answer her question. 'I shouldn't have slowed the car.' He added, 'Yesterday,' as if she needed some clarification, then repeated, 'I shouldn't have slowed the car.'

Sara closed her eyes. 'I shouldn't have slapped you,' she answered, though as much as she tried, as shamed as she felt for resorting to violence, Sara couldn't bring herself to truly regret it.

Still, she rolled over, put her head on his chest. He gave a deep sigh, and she felt the last of her anger dissipate.

She said, 'You smell like hotel soap.'

'It could be worse,' he pointed out, though thankfully didn't tell her how. 'Did you call your mother?'

'She was taking a nap with Daddy.' Sara added, 'At six in the evening.'

Jeffrey laughed, but Sara had never told him that she was twenty-two years old before she found out that her parents' ubiquitous Sunday afternoon 'nap' excuse had been a cover for something far more illicit than sleeping. Nor did she tell him that her nineteen-year-old sister had been the one to inform her.

Jeffrey laced his hand through hers, suggesting, 'Maybe soon we'll be taking naps.'

A baby. Their baby.

He told her, 'I checked the machine while you were doing your autopsy notes. The adoption agency didn't call.'

'I checked it while you were in the shower.'

'They'll call,' he said. 'I can feel it.'

'Let's not talk about it,' she told him. 'I don't want to jinx it.' The truth was that it could take years before a baby was available, though the fact that they had agreed to take a child up to the age of two and hadn't asked for a specific race or sex had definitely moved them up the list. The woman at the agency had said that it could be next year or it could be any day now. All they could do was wait – something neither Jeffrey nor Sara was very good at.

Jeffrey stroked her arm, then her side. His thumb slipped just under the waist of her pants, and he suggested, 'Maybe we could take a nap right now.'

She sat up on her elbow and looked him in the eye so that her answer would be loud and clear. 'No part of my naked body is touching any part of this skanky motel room.'

He gave her one of his sly grins. 'Is this some kind of come-on?'

Sara let her head fall back to his chest, not wanting to give him the chance to change her mind. 'Please tell me that what I did today is going to help you so we can get out of here.'

'I don't know that I can do that,' he admitted, stroking her arm again. 'We still don't know who the victim is. If Lena had stuck around, we probably could've found a lawyer to get her out by now.'

'Don't mention lawyers,' she begged.

'We never did talk about that,' he said. 'How the deposition went. What the strategy is.'

'It's okay,' she said, but her voice caught in her throat. There hadn't been a message from Buddy Conford on the answering machine, either. This meant that Global Medical Indemnity was still trying to decide whether or not Sara's medical judgment was worth fighting for or to capitulate to Jimmy's grieving parents.

For once in her life, she willingly changed the subject back to Lena. 'I'm just glad it wasn't Hank in that car.'

'You and me both,' he said, knowing better than anyone how easy it would be for the local cops to up Lena's charges to murder if the victim had been her uncle. 'I still don't know how Jake thinks he's going to make a case without an ID. There has to be a motive. If he can't prove a connection between Lena and the victim, then game over.'

'Not knowing the victim's name doesn't negate the fact that she's dead.' Sara smoothed down the hairs on his chest so they wouldn't tickle her nose. 'And Lena was at the scene. She had her foot on the gas can.'

'They probably won't be able to get her prints off the can.'

'That doesn't offer a resounding proof of innocence.'

'They don't have a statement from her. She didn't say a word to anyone.'

Sara thought to ask why he was giving Lena the benefit of the doubt when he would most certainly take her actions as an admission of guilt from anyone else, but she was too tired for the argument that would follow.

Jeffrey said, 'I wish we could find Hank. He's got to know something.'

'You're sure he's not at home? Hiding, maybe?'

'As far as I could tell, no one was there.' He added, 'Valentine has a car right across the street. I'm sure he knocked on the door when Lena went missing.'

'Maybe you need to knock hard enough to open the door.'

He laughed in surprise. 'I think being married to a cop is finally starting to rub off on you.'

'Then listen to me. I'm worried that Lena has done something to jeopardize Hank.'

Jeffrey took his time responding. 'Has it occurred to you that it could be the other way around?' She didn't answer, and he continued, 'Hank's probably back on drugs. Maybe he pissed off his dealer. Maybe Lena came down to take care of things, only the dealer didn't want to be taken care of.'

She looked up at him, resting her chin on her hand. 'Go on.'

'These guys don't like being fucked with,' Jeffrey continued. 'And they're not afraid of cops.'

For the first time since they'd gotten here, Sara was finally hearing something logical. She could easily imagine Lena pissing off the wrong people, damn the consequences. The same pattern she had established with Ethan Green – provoking her skinhead lover until he retaliated with force – could be playing out again in Elawah County.

Jeffrey told Sara, 'You didn't see Pfeiffer up close. He was terrified. Maybe he thought they had sent me to finish the job.' He hesitated, as if he hadn't quite worked out the next bit. 'It could be that the reason Lena didn't want to talk to me the other night was because she didn't want to expose me to these people.'

Sara put her head back down on Jeffrey's chest. She could not give the woman the benefit of the doubt, but she didn't want the ensuing argument that might come if she voiced her opinion. 'Do you think the man we saw at the hospital could have been Hank's dealer?'

'Jake said the guy was a dealer.'

'He also said that the guy was there to visit one of his boys in the hospital,' Sara pointed out. 'Jake had plenty of opportunity to tell you then and there that the man was supplying Hank and that Lena had gotten in the way.'

'I wasn't exactly high on his list at the moment,' Jeffrey reminded her. 'To his thinking, you and I had just helped Lena escape from custody.'

Sara didn't want to dwell on that point. 'Do you think Hank might have helped her?'

He shrugged. 'To get out of town, she would need a car, clothes, money. Lena could do that on her own or she could find help.'

'I don't know if I buy Hank being capable of coordinating all that.'

'He's an old man,' Jeffrey allowed. 'Then again, you don't get track marks on your arms like that from going to Sunday school.'

He had a point. Actually, he had a lot of good points. She wondered why he hadn't been thinking like this yesterday. It would have saved both of them a hell of a lot of trouble, not to mention nearly eight hundred miles on her car.

She asked, 'So, what's on the agenda for tomorrow?'

'Maybe knock real hard on Hank's door.' He chuckled, obviously still pleased that Sara had come up with the idea. 'Failing any response, I guess I'll find out a little more about Jake Valentine. I've got some contacts at the sheriff's academy over in Tifton. Hopefully, they can give me a better idea of the kind of cop he is. Then, I'm going to call Nick and get him to run a deep background check on Jake.'

'You can't get Frank to do that from the station?'

'The GBI can go deeper than a look-see,' he said, using the slang for the routine checks he could run at the police station. 'It takes several days to pull a complete profile.'

'Jake can't have a record or he wouldn't have made it through the Public Safety screening.'

'I'm going to cross-reference him for known associates.'

'Surely, they would've flagged his file if he was a known associate of a criminal.'

'Depends on how he's known.'

'And if he has some connections near your connections, and they find out you've been digging around about him?'

'I imagine he won't be too surprised to hear the news.'

She reached for his hand, her fingers brushing his skin until they touched a sloppily applied Band-Aid. She curled her hand around his. 'Do you think Jake is part of any of this?'

'Jake grew up here. He was only a deputy for a couple of years before he moved up. I think he knows everything that's going on in this town. Whether he's involved in it or just standing on the outside looking in is the question.'

'When did you come up with all of this?'

She expected him to make a joke about his stunning brilliance or remarkable sleuthing abilities. Instead, he surprised her.

'That woman,' he began, and she understood he meant the charred body they had worked on all day. 'There's somebody out there who's missing her. They're either too scared to ask the sheriff for help, or they know that it's useless, that Jake can't or won't help them.' She could hear the indignation in his voice. 'If you can't trust the police to take care of you, to do their jobs the right way, then what's the point?' He paused, but she knew he wasn't expecting an answer. 'It's not right, Sara. It's just not right.'