Last Ragged Breath (10 page)

“Another four miles or so and we're there,” Rhonda said, employing her most cheerful and optimistic voice. She sensed that Bell was wavering. The morning had started out bright and cold but now was just cold, and the chill seemed to press itself against the windows of the vehicle, demanding to be let in.

“Okay,” Bell said. It was true: She'd considered scrapping the mission at least a dozen times since they'd left her house, and another dozen times once they turned off Route 6 and onto this chunked and rutted road. She'd definitely been tempted to call Sheriff Harrison and say,
Come on. I'm the prosecuting attorney, not the friggin' dogcatcher. SEVEN dogs? What the—?

Rhonda had arrived at Bell's house on Shelton Avenue twenty minutes after Bell hung up with the sheriff. She was armed with three dog crates and a red box of Milk-Bone biscuits. Somehow, by virtue of passionate pushing and rhythmic grunting and the sporadic application of curse words, Rhonda had managed to wedge the three large crates in the back of Bell's Explorer, after which she stepped back and grinned, winded but proud. Rhonda was a heavy woman with generous hips and a regal bosom, and this morning she was dressed in a manner totally out of sync with the weather conditions. For a week now, daytime temperatures had fluctuated between the freezing mark and a notch or two below, and she was decked out in canvas sandals, a diaphanous powder blue skirt with a gauzy pink T-shirt, and a black velour vest. No coat, no hat, no gloves, no boots.
No sense, either,
Bell wanted to say, but restrained herself. Still, though, if Royce Dillard's dogs got away from them and went tearing across the winter-clawed countryside, Rhonda would be quite a sight going after them in that getup.

“Three dog crates,” Bell had said, eyeing the contraptions jammed up inside the rear windshield, “and seven dogs.” She stood on the sidewalk next to her assistant, arms crossed, car keys digging into her fist. She was in a bad mood, the bad mood that generally descended after she'd granted a favor under duress and then felt the opening pangs of severe regret. “I'm no math whiz, Rhonda, but I can tell you that—”

“Not a problem,” Rhonda said, cutting her off. “I stopped by the jail this morning and talked to Royce about his dogs, so I'd know who's who. The crates'll hold the bigger ones—Goldie, Ned, and Utley—and Connie and Elvis can ride in the backseat. They're real well behaved.”

“Which still leaves two more.”

“I can hold PeeWee and Bruno on my lap up front. They're Shih Tzus. Well—Shih Tzu mixes, anyhow. Maybe Pekinese. Maybe something else. Hard to say. They're pretty small—that's all I know. Anyway, I've already lined up temporary homes for just about everybody. We can deliver 'em on our way back into town. Like toys from Santa.”

“Christmas is over.”

“Treats from the Easter bunny, then,” Rhonda countered with a game grin. “Coming a little early this year.”

Off they went, the cages jangling and rattling in the back of the Explorer despite the snug fit. The commotion would've given Bell a headache, if she hadn't already had one. As the Explorer headed toward Royce Dillard's property, the height and density of the woods increased. They were in the least inhabited part of Raythune County now, on land that was generally left to do whatever it wanted, and what it wanted was to host trees and other varieties of vegetation that twined and looped until they created a nearly impenetrable living filigree. There was a wildness here, a wildness that started at the edges of the road and grew heavier and more menacing as it progressed toward the mountains, like a mild preoccupation that grows into a dark obsession.

The bleakness of rural Raythune County sometimes got to Bell, working its fingers deep into her mood. This was the territory of her childhood—not this specific road or batch of woods, but land so like it that the longitude and latitude didn't much matter. This was territory she felt as much as saw. It kindled in her a certain melancholy, reminding her of an abusive father, of a dirty trailer in which she and her older sister Shirley had struggled daily for their very lives, and finally, of the night when Shirley murdered their father and burned down the trailer. Bell was ten years old at the time. Sometimes she could swear she still smelled it: not the odor of a trailer turning to ash, but of the past itself changing shape, becoming heat and smoke. She had escaped, yes. So had Shirley. But for both, escape cost them dearly.

Six years ago, Bell had come back to Raythune County. No one forced her to. Quite the contrary: Everyone in her life at the time called it the worst idea in the world. The phrase “career suicide” appeared in more than one startled, admonishing e-mail from her Georgetown friends. She'd shaken her head. Told them—in her thoughts, at least—to mind their own damned business. And did it anyway. Once back here, she had decided to run for prosecutor, a job that often entailed trips back into the very landscape over which her memories rose like the charred arch of a ruined cathedral.

Landscape like this. Tangled woods, a disintegrating road, a sense of isolation and despair that drifted in and out of the reaching branches and trailing vines and rotting stumps like an insinuating whisper. The whisper of a story told over and over again, until even the rocks and trees seemed to have it memorized.

“Turn here,” Rhonda said. First words she'd spoken in at least ten minutes. She, too, had settled into silence as they made their way beneath the gray-black valance of the day.

Bell braked. There was nobody behind them—they'd not seen another car since leaving the county road—so she didn't bother with a turn signal. “Where?”

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.