A Killing in the Hills

34


Rhonda Lovejoy didn’t apologize for disappearing on a workday. In fact, she seemed sincerely oblivious to the fact that there might be anything for which she needed to apologize.

She and Hick Leonard sat at either end of the couch in the prosecuting attorney’s office. It was just past 8 A.M. on Thursday, a sunless, bleak-seeming day of densely packed clouds the color of slate, the kind of day when the mountains looked aloof and sinister. The weather had been cold all week, with a frisky, biting wind. Winter waited right behind that wind.

Bell sat at her desk. She was looking at her staff, but she was seeing something else as well. She was picturing the photo of Tyler Bevins that had run with all the news accounts of his murder: Plump cheeks. Big grin, with a couple of teeth missing – missing in the usual way, nature’s way, not the West Virginia way – and round ears that stuck straight out from the sides of his head. Orangey-red hair. Looked like he’d need a haircut soon.

Except there wouldn’t be any more haircuts for Tyler Bevins. Or birthdays. Or Christmas mornings.

The image of Tyler Bevins was part of what darkened her mood this morning. The other part was the sight of Rhonda Lovejoy.

Bell didn’t want to be a hard-ass. She didn’t like to be a hard-ass. She prided herself on being a reasonable boss, one who made her expectations clear and consistent, one who wasn’t moody – Bell had had some moody bosses, and despised them – and one who was humane. Understanding of personal problems and the occasional foible.

But Rhonda Lovejoy had tested Bell’s patience from the get-go. She was scattered and irresponsible and unreliable. In the middle of two major cases, she’d gone missing. Messages, to Bell’s way of thinking, did not replace actual contact.

Using her index fingers, Bell rolled a pencil back and forth on the desk in front of her. It was the only space that wasn’t swamped by stacks of papers and massive law books. From each of those dark closed volumes bristled multiple bookmarks – yellow pencils, pink and green Post-It notes, tan emery boards, silver gum wrappers, whatever small item was within snatching reach when Bell needed to save her place in the text – which made the otherwise grim, stately books look as if they had whimsically donned festive headgear, as if they were temporarily tricked-up like Supreme Court justices letting loose in a Mardi Gras parade.

‘Missed you the other day, Rhonda.’ Bell tried to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

‘Oh, I had a ton of stuff on my to-do list, and since there weren’t any court appearances on the schedule, I thought I’d go for it,’ Rhonda said. ‘And anyway, once I tell you what I’ve got, you’re going to freak.’

Hick winced. He knew how the word ‘freak’ would register with Bell.

Bell caught the wince. She knew that Hick would be able to read the glance she shot back at him: Rhonda Lovejoy is yours, buddy. You’re the one who told me to hire her. Argued for it. Twisted my arm. Remember? You vouched for her. Big time.

Happy now?

Bell kept her eyes aimed at Hick Leonard, willing him to read her thoughts. He was dressed like the respectable, middle-aged assistant prosecutor he was – dark suit, white shirt, red tie, dark loafers – but Rhonda was dressed like . . . something else, Bell told herself, employing decorum even in her thoughts. The young woman was wearing a bright red dress with a plunging neckline and punishingly tight bodice. Her hair – clearly a spanking-new ’do, so flamboyant that even Bell, who was generally oblivious to such nuances in her employees, noticed it – had been whipped into a frenzy of large ringlets and finished off with a zesty array of tiny sprigs of spit curls. Her nails, too, had recently been attended to; there was a perky dash of scarlet at the end of each pale pudgy finger. Her makeup was more pronounced than usual, with a thick ridge of sparkly blue eye shadow and a dramatic swoop of mascara applied with a generous hand.

‘Anyway,’ Rhonda went on, in a relentlessly buoyant voice, ‘I’ve got some dynamite stuff, boss.’

‘Really.’ Bell’s index fingers continued to twitch as she played with the pencil. She rolled it first in one direction, then the other.

‘Oh, yeah,’ Rhonda said with relish, missing the ominous note in Bell’s voice. She leaned back on the couch, her clasped hands rooted in the center of her wide lap, settling into full storytelling mode. ‘I was over in Blythesburg most of the day. My sister-in-law’s got a new salon out that way – it’s called Polly’s Paradise, because she’s fixed it all up like it’s Hawaii, with these big plastic palm trees and these grass floor mats and they serve you pineapple juice if you want it, and they do hair and nails and makeup and bikini waxes and all kinds of stuff, and by the way, I can get you a discount coupon if you like – well, I was over there, because it was the grand opening and all.’ Rhonda broke off her narrative to look expectantly at both Bell and Hick. ‘I got what they call the Island Package. Cut and color, plus manicure and makeover.’

When neither Bell nor Hick commented, she went on. ‘Anyhoo, there were two mighty interesting things that happened that will just knock your socks off, Bell.’ Rhonda scooted her rear end closer to the front of the couch, tugging at both sides of her skirt as she did so. She had short legs, and when she sat too far back on the couch, her feet lost contact with the floor.

‘And what,’ Bell said dryly, ‘might those be, Rhonda?’

She had already made up her mind to fire Rhonda Lovejoy. She’d have to check with the county personnel office and make sure the paperwork was in order – Bell didn’t want any lawsuits over wrongful termination or biases or whatever – but she’d had enough of Rhonda. Plenty more than enough, in fact. Rhonda held an important post in an office that dealt daily with life-or-death issues. An office that was grappling, just now, with a half-dozen felony cases and the murder of a six-year-old and a triple homicide.

And Rhonda’s contribution?

An offer of a discount on the Island Package at Polly’s Paradise in Blythesburg. Which, in addition to being unsolicited and unwanted, also would represent – if accepted – an obvious breach of the ethical standards for a public employee and officer of the court.

‘Well – first of all,’ Rhonda said, ‘Polly wanted to know all about the Sheets case. I mean, who doesn’t? The shooting on Saturday has got folks scared, you bet, and everybody feels real bad for the families of those three old men, and kinda worried, with a killer out there and all – but it might’ve just been some dirtball passing through, you know? So even if people are kind of shaky, they’re basically okay. Now they’re all back to focusing on the Sheets case.’

Bell fired off another glance in Hick’s direction. He licked his top lip. Then he closed his mouth and looked down at the floor.

‘And so I told Polly,’ Rhonda continued, ‘that my job was to find out more about Bob and Linda Bevins and about that poor little boy, and she said – I’d just gone under the hair dryer, so I had to ask her to repeat it, because I couldn’t hear her with all that racket – she said she knew all about Bob Bevins. I said, “What do you mean?” And she said, “Oh, I know Bobby Bevins, that’s for sure,” and she said it in that way people say things when they’re saying more than they’re saying. You know? Like they’re insinuating something.’

Bell stopped rolling her pencil.

‘And so,’ Rhonda went on, ‘I just yanked off that hair dryer and I said, “Polly Ann Purvis, you tell me right now what you mean, because if you have some information that will help us with this case, you better say so, because my boss doesn’t fool around and if people have things they’re not telling, she doesn’t take too kindly to it.” Well, Polly got all red in the face and she said, “Blythesburg is just far enough away from Raythune County.” And I said back to her, “What do you mean, just far enough away?”

‘And Polly said, “Just far enough away for folks who live over there to come over here if they don’t want to be seen.” And I said, “What folks? What are you talking about, Polly?” Polly is married to my brother Harold, he’s a whole lot older than me, and we don’t have a lot in common, tell you the truth, but when he married Polly I could tell right away that she and me were going to be close. Real close. So I can talk to her honestly. I can look her in the eye and really talk to her – I don’t have to worry about hurting her feelings, because she knows we’re friends and whatever I say, I mean well – and that’s what I did. I said, “What are you talking about, Polly?”’

Bell was about to jump out of her skin with impatience. She considered flinging the pencil at Rhonda’s broad forehead to knock the digressions clean out of her and get her to stick to the basic narrative, but she knew better. Rhonda told stories in a distinctive – and distinctively infuriating – way.

‘And so Polly said to me, “Bob Bevins and that Sheets girl. Deanna Sheets. I see ’em here in Blythesburg.” And I said, “Huh?” And Polly – she’s not a gossipy person, Bell, nobody in my family is a gossip, we just notice a few more things than other people do – Polly said, “I see ’em having lunch over at the Chimney Corner and they sit real close together. This town is far enough away from Acker’s Gap, I guess, that they think they’re okay. I mean, they’re probably not talking about the weather, you know what I’m sayin’?”’

Rhonda paused. ‘That’s how Polly is. She’s not mean. She just adds something quiet like that – “I don’t think they’re talking about the weather” – and leaves it at that. Then I changed the subject. I made her think I was just letting it go. I figured you could decide if it was important, Bell, and follow up on it if you wanted to.’

Bell nodded. ‘Nice work, Rhonda.’ She couldn’t believe she was saying it, but she was impressed. ‘Good job, all the way around – listening, asking a few questions, but not too many, and then not pushing anymore. We need to be discreet here. And it sounds as if you were.’

Hick reached over and patted Rhonda’s forearm. Then he looked back at Bell. ‘Do you think it’s relevant?’

‘Could be. I’ll make a few inquiries myself. Does make you wonder, though, doesn’t it? Deanna Sheets never indicated that she knew Tyler’s father well enough to – well, let’s take a lesson from Polly and just refer to it as meeting him for lunch to discuss the weather. And Bob Bevins hasn’t mentioned, either, in any of our victim assessment interviews, that he and Deanna were such close pals. I wonder,’ Bell added, picking up the pencil and tapping the pointy tip on her desk, ‘if that little friendship might account for just how forgiving Bob Bevins was toward the man who killed his son.’

Then it was Hick’s turn.

‘The McClurgs live way the hell out in Blaney Creek,’ he said, naming a ramshackle community on the remote eastern edge of Raythune County. ‘I can’t think of the last positive thing that came out of Blaney Creek. Oh, and how about that Charlie Mathers? Lord, Bell, that man can talk a blue streak. The whole way out there and the whole way back, all he did was yammer on about the seven habits of highly effective a*sholes. Or something like that. “Plan your work and work your plan. Winners never quit and quitters never win. If you fail to prepare then you’re preparing to fail. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”’ Hick groaned. ‘I’m tellin’ you, Bell, that deputy is really annoying if you’re trying to focus on something and he just keeps—’ He paused, picking up on the pained look that crossed his boss’s face. Was he turning into Rhonda?

‘So,’ Hick said, after clearing his throat. ‘We talked to Mrs McClurg for about an hour. Her husband definitely was the person Lee Rader called on Saturday morning. She remembers the call very well.’

Bell sat up straighter in her chair. She’d found herself sliding into a slouch when Hick first began.

‘What else did she say?’

‘Told us that she listened to most of the call. She was working in the kitchen first thing Saturday, just like always. Shorty was sitting right there at the table when his cell went off. He was organizing his fishing lures, even though she’d told him over and over again not to do that at the table, at the place where they ate their meals. Last time she let him do his lures at the table, she said, he took the liberty of hauling his bait bucket right up there on the table, too, and the slimy worms were just—’ Hick grinned at Bell. ‘Just kidding, boss. I’ll get to the point.’

Rhonda giggled. Bell shot her a glare that made her halt in mid-giggle, as if someone had unplugged her power supply.

‘Shorty’s cell rang,’ Hick continued, ‘and Mrs McClurg heard him say, “Hey there, Lee. We meetin’ at the Dawg this a.m.?” And then Shorty paused, his wife said. Paused a long time. Like he was listening hard to something. He was frowning, she said. Frowning and shaking his head back and forth.

‘Finally,’ Hick concluded, ‘her husband said into the phone, “Look, Lee, we’ve gone over this before. You can’t tell a man how to run his life. It’s none of our lookout.” Then he appeared to be listening to another earful from Lee Rader. Last thing she remembers Shorty saying during that call was, “Well, I do agree with that. Always have. It’s harming the town, that’s for damned sure. And if you’ve reached your limit, if you truly don’t care to associate with him anymore, then that’s your right. But maybe we ought to let him have his say. One last time.”’

Bell nodded. ‘So it was Dean Streeter. Not McClurg or Rader. Streeter was the one with the drug connection – the kind of connection that just might have brought about this kind of violence.’ Her expression changed. Her voice slowed and softened. ‘How is Mrs McClurg doing, Hick?’

‘It’s bad, Bell. Real bad. Shorty was her whole life.’

‘Is she a churchgoer?’ Bell asked. The question had nothing to do with Fanny McClurg’s theological beliefs. In these mountain valleys, churches were the primary dispensers of charity – real charity, not the fake charity of government checks and trumped-up work programs. Church members knew their neighbors. They took care of people in need.

‘Yes,’ Hick replied. ‘There were two ladies there from Mountaintop Freewill Baptist when we got there. They’d brought over a casserole – the whole refrigerator was full of casseroles, Bell, you should’ve seen it – and they told us that they’ve been taking turns spending the night with Mrs McClurg, ever since Saturday. And a couple of teenagers from the church’s youth program were raking leaves in her yard.’

Bell was quiet for a moment. She had a powerful recollection of how much she’d relied on the people of the Stoneridge Church of Christ, the church closest to the trailer on Comer Creek, when she was ten years old. In the aftermath, they’d made sure she had skirts, blouses. Notebooks for school. A toothbrush. A comb. Some hope.

Then, once again, Bell was a prosecuting attorney. ‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘about Marlene Streeter. Did she know what her husband was up to?’

Hick pondered it. ‘Hard to say. Mathers thinks she did. We talked about it on the drive back to the courthouse, and he’s pretty well convinced that Marlene Streeter knew that Dean had done some things he shouldn’t have done. She might’ve been fuzzy on the details, but she was upset about it. Didn’t sleep easy at night, that’s for sure.’

At that point Bell realized there was an untouched mug of coffee idling at her elbow. She’d filled it from the small pot a while back, when her assistants first arrived in her office. In the intensity of her information-seeking, however, she’d forgotten about it. Now it was cold – Bell took an exploratory sip and her stomach rendered its opinion of the bitter tepid stuff – but a bad cup of coffee was better than no cup of coffee at all.

So she took another swallow.

Hick reached for his cell. He kept his notes there, on an app that looked like a yellow legal pad.

He scanned the screen. ‘Mrs Streeter told us, and I quote, “Dean had a lot on his mind. He had a lot going on.”’

‘Like what?’

Hick looked up from his phone. ‘She was a little sketchy on that part. I mean, there was grief, of course. The sadness over their daughter’s death. Just like you’d expect. But she also mentioned medical bills. Those don’t go away, even after somebody dies. According to Marlene Streeter, they still owed a ton of money for hospital stays and prescriptions and all the rest of it. Dean was worried sick over the bills.’

‘Money troubles?’ Bell said dubiously. ‘We know from Lee Rader’s family – and Fanny McClurg confirmed it – that Streeter’s association with drug dealers was the reason Rader was cutting off the friendship. Just doesn’t figure that Streeter was involved in illegal drug sales – and still worried about his bills.’

‘Unless,’ Rhonda said.

Bell and Hick looked at her.

‘Unless what?’ Bell asked.

‘Unless Streeter had decided to quit dealing.’

They waited. Encouraged by their attention, Rhonda went on. ‘Okay. Say you’re Dean Streeter. Your best buddy – the guy you’ve known your whole life, one of the two guys you’ve been having coffee with every Saturday morning since, like, the beginning of time – has figured out that you’re involved in some kind of illegal drug operation. Your buddy is pissed at you. He won’t turn you in, but he’s really pissed at you.

‘He puts up with it for a little while but then he can’t anymore. So he tells you to quit – or he’ll never speak to you again.’ Rhonda took a deep breath. She was doing a lot of talking with her body as well as her words, crossing and recrossing her arms in front of her impressive bosom, tucking her skirt under her thighs, waggling her eyebrows at appropriate moments.

‘And so,’ Rhonda went on, ‘you decide that you just won’t do it anymore. You want out. I mean, the whole reason you started in the first place – your sick kid, helping your sick kid – is not a factor now. She’s gone. You’re looking at the whole thing differently now.

‘So you plan to meet your pals that Saturday morning, just like always. But what they don’t know is that you’ve quit. You’re out. You’ve had it. You’re tired of the life you’ve been living. Tired of the lies. Tired of what you’re doing to your hometown. You’re worried, God knows, about the money you still owe, but you’d rather face a bunch of bill collectors than your own guilty conscience.’

Hick, nodding vigorously, took up the story. ‘So you called the boss – called him late last week, maybe Thursday or Friday – and you did what you had to do. You took your stand. You told him you were quitting. And you were going to turn him in. Blow the whistle on the whole operation. Naturally, he threatens you. Tells you what’s going to happen if you do it. But what do you have to lose? Your daughter’s dead. The only thing left to fight for, at this point, is your integrity. Next thing you know, you’re sitting in the Salty Dawg with your two best friends, and you’re feeling like a new man—’

‘—and a gunman walks in,’ Rhonda said, interrupting him, ‘and—’

‘—three old guys are dead, just like that,’ Hick said, interrupting her right back.

Rhonda nodded. Her expression shifted from triumph to urgency. ‘We’ve got to find the man in charge,’ she said. ‘The guy who ordered the killing. He’s the one we need to get.’

Hick coughed. He scratched the back of his neck. Something was troubling him, something that had kicked in just as he and Rhonda finished their spontaneous collaboration.

‘That’ll be tough,’ he said. ‘Anybody with the balls to order an execution in broad daylight – he’s got power. Real muscle. And he’s bound to be smart. Smart and well organized.’

Bell tapped the tip of her pencil three times against the desktop. Then she tossed the pencil toward a far corner of the desk. It landed on top of a messy stack of manila folders, rolled off the stack, and then kept going until it slid off the lip of the desk.

Nobody moved to retrieve it from the floor. They were all too focused on the conversation.

‘So what’re you saying, Hick?’ Bell asked. Challenge in her voice. ‘We just give up?’

He shook his head. ‘Maybe we just realize that we can’t always win, boss. We can get rid of a few dealers here and there, scare off the Streeters and guys like him. We can make a dent in the prescription drug trade from time to time. But we’re not going to end up with a state that’s free of drugs. It’s just not possible. Not these days.’

Bell frowned. ‘Sounds an awful lot like giving up, Hick.’

‘Well, it’s not,’ he retorted. ‘More like compromise. Or maybe you want to call it recognition of reality. Listen, Bell, I’m older than you are. And with all due respect, I think I know West Virginia a hell of a lot better than you do. It’s like with the strip mines – I mean, do you tell yourself that they’re completely unacceptable and you won’t tolerate a single one, or do you admit that maybe you have to lose a few mountaintops so that folks can have jobs and feed their families?

‘Thing is,’ Hick continued, ‘you can either knock your head against the wall every damned day of your life, trying to make things perfect – or you can settle for the little victories now and again. And be happy, boss. Not torn up all the time, angry and sick and tired. You can be happy. See what I mean?’

He had made his little speech, and now he had to wait for her reaction. Bell Elkins didn’t like speeches. In fact, she loathed them. ‘Save it for the courtroom’ was typically her irritated response, if Hick or Rhonda let their arguments run on too long during a staff meeting, although that wasn’t right, either, because Bell hated courtroom speeches just as much. She preferred the lively give-and-take of cross-examination, the verbal thrust and parry, to the formal, courtly performance of a summation to the jury.

Hick knew she hated speeches, but he’d delivered one anyway, and now he would find out just how badly he’d pissed her off.

‘It’s like this, Hick,’ Bell said. She had let a beat or so pass before answering him, so that he’d know she had thought about what he said.

Thought about it – and rejected it.

‘I don’t know about your definition of “happy,”’ she said, ‘but mine’s got nothing to do with capitulation. It’s got nothing to do with letting a bunch of drug dealers use West Virginia as a litter box. That doesn’t make me happy, Hick. Doesn’t do a thing for me.’

‘Not what I meant.’

‘Enlighten me, then.’ Bell’s voice was cold. Sometimes – like now – she second-guessed herself about hiring Hick Leonard, too. Sometimes she wasn’t sure about his priorities. Or his loyalties.

‘I just meant,’ he said, ‘that we can’t win ’em all.’

‘Fine. I’ll settle for winning one,’ Bell shot back. ‘This one.’ She turned to Rhonda. Her voice was crisp. Forward march. ‘We need to verify that Dean Streeter was involved in illegal prescription drugs. We heard what Chess Rader had to say, but that’s not proof. And even if Marlene Streeter knew about her husband’s activities, she’s not going to sully his memory by telling us the truth. How can we find out for sure? How can we know what Streeter was up to? Where do we go?’

Rhonda smiled a starburst smile.

‘You go to me,’ Rhonda said, a happy jump in her voice, like a kid skipping along a sidewalk on the first day of summer vacation. ‘You go to me, boss.’