Last Ragged Breath (40 page)

He lay back in his hospital bed and he remembered. Early on, they had talked about it. Mary Sue, after all, was still a third-grade teacher then. She loved kids; she was relaxed and happy around them. And him? Well, he could try. He was a serious man. Too serious, a lot of people said. He'd been in law enforcement many years, even before he met and married Mary Sue. But by God, he could try. He'd loosen up. Kids could do that to a man. He'd let himself be soft and vulnerable around his kids. He'd never raise his voice in anger when his children were present. Never be moody or preoccupied.

There had been no children.

Mary Sue had gotten sick. She got sicker. And somewhere along the way, the idea was lost. It fell away like a cliff face into the sea, not in a single shearing-off crash but in a slow crumble. They never discussed it. He wanted to protect her; he was afraid that children would be too much for her. Already, she herself was almost too much for him.

A noise. He looked up.

“Hey, babe,” he said.

Mary Sue stepped into the room. She looked marginally better. Her color was coming back. So much depended on the mix of medication. The right balance.

“Hi,” she said. “I—I'm so sorry about not being here the past few nights, Nick. I had to—”

“Not a problem,” he said, interrupting her. “Come on. Sit.”

“Good God. You're the one who got shot in the heart, and I'm the crybaby.” She wiped at her eyes. “Every time I see you, I think about losing you. And I can't stand it.”

“You didn't lose me.”

“Close enough.” She shook her head. “Really. I'm okay now.”

“You don't have to be okay. You just have to be here.”

She touched the rail on the hospital bed. He put his hand on top of hers. His good hand. The other one, the right hand, was still weak and unresponsive. Like a dead thing he was forced to haul around. Something had happened to the nerves; that's what they told him. Vague about it. Well, he wanted the vagueness right now. He didn't want definitive information. Vagueness, after all, meant hope. No one could say if he'd ever get the full function back. Odds were, not. But hope still scratched at the door.

“I have to tell you something,” she said.

Black dread drenched his heart. No. It couldn't be. She wouldn't—No. She would not leave him. No. That couldn't be what she was about to say to him. No.

Most people didn't understand. In the wake of her mental illness, in the wake of all the lost dreams, they thought he'd be the one to get weary of taking care of her. If anybody left, it would be him. Right?

Wrong. He needed her. She told him, by her life, who he was.

“I made a call,” Mary Sue went on. “Night before last. I had to do
something,
Nick. Because you're not getting any better. When they caught the people who did this to you, I thought that might help you snap out of it. But no. You're still wounded.” He started to argue. She stopped him with a frown, a shake of her head. “I don't mean physically. I mean—in your
soul
. You want to be sheriff—but you're not. And you can't be. Ever again. You're depressed. You've given up. I see it, Nick. I see it in your eyes.” She leaned forward. Put the back of her hand on his cheek. “So I called the one person who can relate. Who's been right where you are. The one person you might listen to. And guess what? He's coming. He's on his way here right now. He needed a few semesters off, anyway. That's what he told me. He said—and I quote—‘You tell Nick Fogelsong that I'm going to kick his butt all the way to Charleston and back unless he stops feeling sorry for himself and gets out of that damned bed.'”

“Clay Meckling.” He was pleased. Very pleased. It would be, among other things, a chance to apologize to the man for being such an insufferable know-it-all, a smug jackass, back when it was Clay in the hospital bed and Nick Fogelsong the one standing over him, solid and whole, fat with platitudes. And clueless about what it really feels like to lose everything—your purpose, your ability to do the work you were born to do, your sense of who you are. Your story.

He thought about the last time he'd seen Clay. Loading his father's truck, getting ready to head to Boston. If you didn't know, you'd never have guessed he had a prosthetic leg. After a bad spell, Clay had worked hard on his physical therapy. Damned hard.

“So he needed to take a few semesters off?” Nick said. “Come on, Mary Sue. Who believes that?”

“I don't have to believe it,” she said. “I only know that's what he said. He's coming. I didn't argue.”

Nick grinned. Couldn't help himself. Clay was coming home. Dang. Well, if a man like Clay thought he was worth that kind of effort—

Maybe I need to reconsider a few things,
Nick told himself.
Maybe I do
. There was a time when he'd envied anyone who left Acker's Gap, when he watched them go and felt a kind of wild yearning, when he wondered why Bell Elkins had ever wanted to come back here—but something was shifting inside him. There was a certain solace to knowing a world this well. You knew its flaws, its shortcomings, just as you knew its beauties. And you learned to love it all. You loved the abundance of it, the sweep and immensity of the land, and you loved the sadness and the lack, too.

To walk each day on ground that had given rise to you: that was a privilege. Not a curse.

“Have you told Belfa?” he asked.

Mary Sue shook her head. “All happened too fast. And she's been a little busy, to say the least.”

Another thought came to him: Bell hated surprises. Well, maybe it was time she learned to like them.

“Good.” Nick slid his feet around under the sheet; he was restless, and for the first time he found himself looking forward to the next day's physical therapy session. “Good.”

 

Chapter Thirty-nine

Diana Hackel sat in the gray metal chair, fingers linked in her lap, clearly peeved but trying to be agreeable. On the table in front of her—also gray—she had carefully placed the items she'd brought along: water bottle (Aquafina), package of peanut butter crackers (Lance) and candy bar (Twix, king size). She kept her coat on, as much to drive home the point that she didn't expect to be here long as to keep herself warm.

“I'm hungry pretty much all the time now,” she said to Bell, indicating the snacks with a rueful nod. “Always happens when I'm pregnant. You ought to see me on court days. The judge calls for the lunch recess and—
wham!
I'm outta there. I go tearing off in search of a sandwich.”

She smiled. She was being friendly. She had nothing to hide. They wanted to talk to her? Fine. No problem. Anything she could do to help.

Deputy Mathers had brought her from the motel to the courthouse. Yes, she'd been surprised by his request. Who wouldn't be? It was well past 10
P.M.
She was in her nightgown and robe. She'd had to get dressed again. But—okay. Okay, fine.

Bell sat across from her, face impassive. “Mrs. Hackel,” she said, “I have some additional questions for you about the day your husband died. You don't have to answer them. If you like, you can wait until your attorney gets here.”

Diana looked confused, but still affable. “Why in heaven's name would I refuse to answer your questions? I want Ed's killer to pay for what he did. I'm happy to help.” She picked up the Twix bar, waved it around. “As long as the snacks hold out.” Another smile.

Bell didn't return it. “Just to be clear,” she said, “you have the right to remain silent.” She rattled through the rest of the warning, the one made familiar by innumerable TV shows, books, and movies.

“Okay, I get it,” Diana said. “But why would I need a lawyer?”

“Because approximately ten minutes ago,” Bell said, “Carolyn Runyon told us that you killed your husband.”

*   *   *

In the second of the two interrogation rooms in the Raythune County Courthouse, Carolyn Runyon maintained a tense and rigid pose in yet another gray metal chair. She was alone in the room, but the closed-circuit camera kept tabs on her. She was aware of that; she lifted her eyes and looked at the small black box mounted high up in the corner, a steady red light in the center of it. She didn't stick out her tongue—some people did that, usually young men filled with booze and bravado—or give the middle finger to whomever was monitoring the feed, another common reaction. Her arms were wrapped around her chest, her knees pressed tightly together. After looking at the camera for a while she decided to look straight ahead. The gray wall across from her absorbed her stare as automatically as a sponge does a spill. That was its job.

She had managed to calm herself down. At first she had been enraged, lashing out at Deputy Oakes when he arrived at the construction trailer a short time ago. Roland Atwood had opened the door in response to the sharp knock, and he gave Oakes a wolfish grin that was surely exacerbated by what the deputy could plainly smell: an abundance of alcohol on Atwood's breath. Oakes pushed past him and addressed Carolyn Runyon. She was coiled up like a kitten on the black leather couch, suit jacket off, scarf unwound, black heels flipped across the carpet in a spiky heap, bare feet tucked under her butt.

When the reason for Oakes's visit was explained—he asked Runyon to return with him to the courthouse, at the prosecutor's request, to clarify a few murky areas—the kitten disappeared. It was late, she snarled. This was an
outrageous
imposition. What the hell could possibly necessitate her presence right now, especially when the trial of Royce Dillard was obviously nearing its conclusion?

The deputy clarified: She was not required to cooperate, but he'd been instructed to inform her that Diana Hackel had received the same request. She was already at the courthouse.

Runyon had looked at Atwood. He stood alongside the couch, drink in his hand, tie unraveled, grin spread out across his face, half-amused by the sudden drama. This was not the evening he had envisioned. Runyon wrenched her right shoe roughly onto her right foot. The second shoe received the same treatment. “Get my coat,” she snapped. She stood up and straightened her skirt. Her jaw was tight. Her eyes sang with anger.

*   *   *

Bell had a brief sliver of time, and barely that. It was a chance that wouldn't come again. A one-shot opportunity.

When she learned about Carolyn Runyon's visits to see Royce Dillard, elements began to line up in her mind, one after another, beads on a string. She remembered that Diana had conveniently been in Charleston and not Falls Church—hence much closer to Acker's Gap—on the day of the murder, even though Diana's business there was bogus. She reflected on the close resemblance between Runyon and Diana Hackel. She remembered how agitated and upset Diana had been at the rumor that Royce Dillard might not go to trial, the rumor that he'd made a plea deal with the prosecution. And she reminded herself that when it came to planning a murder, the conspirators needn't all have the same motive. Just the same goal.

And so she had arranged to have the two women brought here tonight. It was the prosecutorial version of what she now understood that Runyon had done: fling up a Hail Mary pass. A last-chance, what-the-hell, nothing-to-lose move.

Each woman, shortly after her arrival, had waived her right to counsel—but could change her mind at any moment. Bell had expected this initial compliance: Both hoped to maintain the appearance of honest puzzlement, of curious innocence, as long as possible, and to find out what the prosecutor knew. The moment that pose was no longer tenable, they'd be dialing their attorneys so fast that the cell signals would probably get tangled in the air above the courthouse.

Carolyn Runyon had not really said that Diana was responsible for the death of Ed Hackel. In fact, she'd said little more than, “What is this
about,
Mrs. Elkins?” before Bell left her alone in the second interrogation room and returned to Diana in the first.

But Diana didn't know that.

“She said
what
?” Diana replied to Bell, in a voice that screeched unbecomingly. The friendliness vanished. “That
bitch
. It isn't true. Why would she say such a thing?”

“I don't know,” Bell said. “What do you think?”

“I think she's trying to save her own skin, that's what I think.” Diana was trembling with fury. “Because
she's
the one who killed Eddie.” Her small fist bounced on the tabletop. The vibration caused the water bottle to flop onto its side. That seemed to enrage her even more and she swept it the rest of the way off the table, along with the crackers and the candy bar. She didn't watch them land.

“Dammit,” Diana went on, so incensed that her outrage seemed to ricochet off the cinder block walls. “I've got
children
to raise, okay? A family. Responsibilities. A
life
. Doesn't she get that? Oh, yeah.” A bitter laugh. “Yeah, she gets that, all right. She gets it—but she
doesn't freaking care
. She's never cared. It's all about her. Whatever Carolyn wants—Carolyn gets. I don't know why I ever trusted—”

She broke off her sentence. She looked at Bell. When she resumed talking, her voice was shaky. Anger had given way to a kind of quiet seething.

“The hell of it is—she never really
liked
Eddie,” Diana said. “But she sure didn't mind having sex with him. Used to call him a loser. Right to his face. In front of other people, too. Nice, huh? Real sweet. He was handy, that was all. He was there. There—and willing. God, yes. Willing and eager. But he'd
promised
me. When I told him I was pregnant again, he promised me. No more, he said. Never again. Changed man.” A hollow laugh.

“So you didn't know he'd resumed his relationship with Carolyn,” Bell said.