A Killing in the Hills

38


Lonnie twisted the wheel of the Sebring, forcing it to head down a dinky, unpaved lane.

‘Eddie lives here,’ he said. ‘Last one on the right.’

A bunch of scrubby one-story houses in various stages of disrepair were scattered up and down the street. The houses looked to Carla as if they’d landed here by crazy accident, after being picked up and flung around by a storm in some other part of the county. It made her think of that scene in The Wizard of Oz, when the farmhouse goes flying and lands with a disgusting splat on a pair of legs in funky shoes.

If another storm came along tomorrow, she guessed, these same houses would be scrambled all over again. Because in this kind of place, nothing lasted. Everything was tentative, temporary. You couldn’t count on anything. Not even more of the same.

As Lonnie drove slowly down the road – the pace was a must, because the potholes were humongous – Carla looked left and right. Gutters dangled at crazy angles off the front edges of these houses, looking like broken arms. Two of the houses were dark wood, while the rest were swallowed up by dirty aluminum siding. The wood-sided ones needed a paint job. None of them had any grass in the front yards. There were no sidewalks.

Even though it was cold, Carla pushed the button to roll down her window.

She didn’t see any people. Only two of the houses even had mailboxes. She could hear, coming from the backyard of one of the houses, the constant barking of a dog. The animal just kept barking, with no variation in frequency or tone. And no letup. Bark Bark Bark Bark Bark. She thought it just might be the loneliest sound she’d ever heard.

This, she knew, was what most of Raythune County – and surrounding counties, too – looked like. This was what her mother was talking about when she said that parts of West Virginia were so depressing that you couldn’t think about them too much. Unless you’re planning to do something about it, her mother always added. Unless you’re going to help.

If you just stare, her mother told her, it becomes another kind of pornography. Poverty porn.

‘This is where we were? This is where that party was?’ Carla said.

She peered at the last house on the road, a small brown one squared off by a rusty chain-link fence. The house had a peculiar tilt to it, almost as if somebody had tried to shove it over but quit halfway through the chore, out of boredom. Most of the windows were covered with newspapers. The top half of the front door was taken up by a storebought NO TRESPASSING sign, black with orange fluorescent letters. A black car with no rear fender and a smashed back window was parked in the side yard.

‘Yeah.’

Lonnie switched off the engine. It shuddered and shimmied and then emitted a final fart-like pop! like it always did when he shut down the Sebring. Carla had long thought it was pretty weird that, as much as Lonnie knew about cars, as many hours as he spent fiddling with other people’s cars, he drove such a rattletrap mess himself. He wouldn’t take the time to fix it up.

‘I don’t remember it being this – well, you know, this crappy,’ Carla said.

‘Hey,’ Lonnie said. ‘It was, like, one A.M. when we got here that night. Pitch black. You couldn’t see the neighborhood or nothing. But, hell, Eddie’s okay. He’s good people. Don’t matter what his zip code is, ain’t that right?’

Lonnie checked his face in the rearview mirror – that was the last thing he did before he left his car, every time – and then he wiped at both sides of his head, licked his lips, and opened his door.

‘Let’s go, girl,’ he said, calling to her through the driver’s-side window. ‘Come on, now.’

It was Lonnie’s fake-casual voice. She knew it well. Like when he called her sometimes and asked if she wanted to hang out, and when she said no, he acted as if it didn’t matter, as if it had just been a whim, anyway, when the truth was, she knew, he’d been counting on it. Had planned his whole night around it.

‘Eddie’s waiting for us,’ Lonnie went on, still in his fake-casual voice. ‘If anybody knows who that guy is, the one you’re so hot to find, it’s Eddie Briscoe. You can tell Eddie what he looks like. Maybe draw a picture of his face or something, like them police sketch artists. You know. Anyway, Eddie’ll fix you right up.’

Carla hesitated, her hand on the knob. She was starting to feel funny about this. Not scared, just a little funny. Tingly, even.

Like this was a place she’d been destined to see just one more time, before she left West Virginia for good. Like in some strange way it had been waiting for her to return, this house that sort of heaved to one side, this house that was all pinched-looking and half-pushed-over and dilapidated.

It was a dump. No question. But she’d spent time here, according to Lonnie. She’d been to a party here. She’d danced here. Hell, she’d probably thrown up in the woods over there, in that crooked mess of stumps and brush she’d just noticed, off to the side.

‘Come on,’ Lonnie said. The fake-casual thing was gone now. ‘Let’s go, okay? Can we, like, go inside now? Since we’re here and all?’

She had a thought that made her feel a little softer toward Lonnie, but also made her pity him even more: He wanted to help. He got off on the idea that he was helping her. They were, like, partners. Solving mysteries. Like Sherlock Holmes and that other guy. The Jude Law guy.

Her cell rang. Carla rooted through her skirt pocket, pulled it out, looked at the caller ID.

Not now, Mom.

She stuffed it back in her pocket.

The weather had been warm the night of the party, almost sultry, and Carla also seemed to remember that she and her friends – drunk, laughing, happy, God I love you guys you’re the best I really really mean it – had stumbled out of the house when they got so woozy from dancing that they knew they were going to hurl.

Her cell rang again, interrupting her memories of party night. Mom, Carla thought with a wince, there’s a reason they invented voice mail, okay? Kinda busy right now.

When her mother found out why she was here, she’d forgive Carla for every single lame thing she’d ever done.

Once again, she let the call go.

If things worked out today, if this Eddie guy talked to her, told her how to find the guy, the guy who might be the killer, then she’d be helping her mom big-time. She’d get that name. Her mom and Sheriff Fogelsong would track him down. Arrest him.

And Carla wouldn’t feel like such a loser, such a flake.

Everything would be okay again. She’d make it okay.

She opened the car door.