A Killing in the Hills

42


‘Albie,’ Bell asked, ‘why did you put the hose around Tyler’s neck?’

Serena Crumpler was standing a foot away from Bell. Albie sat on his bunk, legs spread. His hands were in front of his face. He was playing with his fingers. He seemed to be only half-listening, but Bell sensed he was paying attention. He was paying attention because he liked her. She was his friend.

When she arrived that night, Bell had looked around for bugs. She found a tiny spider in the corner and stepped on it. Albie had clapped his hands and squealed in delight.

‘Why?’ Bell repeated.

She was gentle with Albie, but she wouldn’t coddle him. They had been coddling him too long. They weren’t doing him any favors that way. He deserved direct questions.

Bell saw something shift in Albie’s demeanor. The head-on question seemed to have shaken something loose inside him. Freed him.

‘Necklace,’ Albie said. He said it with a kind of relief. He looked at Bell.

‘The hose was a necklace?’

‘Yeah. To make him look pretty. All green. Shiny green.’

‘What did Tyler say?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Why not, Albie? Why didn’t Tyler say anything?’

‘He was quiet. Tyler fell down. Asleep.’

Albie wiggled his fingers. Then he began bending them down, one by one, making each hand into a lumpy fist.

‘How did he fall down, Albie?’

‘His daddy knocked him down. It was a accident.’ Albie opened his fingers again so he could start all over, bending each finger down.

‘Accident,’ Bell said.

‘Yeah. Me and Tyler was playing outside. We come in.’

‘Was there anybody else in the basement, Albie?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Who, Albie? Who else was in the basement?’

He hesitated.

‘Tyler’s daddy and Dee-Dee,’ he said.

‘You mean your sister, Deanna.’

‘Yeah. Yeah.’

Bell had read the transcripts of earlier interviews with Albie. This was the first time he had mentioned other people in the basement.

Then it struck her: We never asked.

We never asked, because we figured we knew what had happened.

We never asked, because it was obvious.

The investigators had arrived on the scene and immediately observed a large, powerful man with extremely limited mental capacity, and the body of a small boy who was his playmate, and a hose around the small boy’s neck. The large man was frightened and cowering.

And so, Bell chastised herself, we didn’t treat it like a crime scene. We treated it like a seminar room in a divinity school. We didn’t look closely enough at Tyler’s body. We started asking about good and evil, and right and wrong, and intelligence and the lack thereof.

I’ve been acting like I’m Socrates, she thought with disgust, abandoning the comfort of the ‘we,’ when I should’ve been acting like an officer of the court. I wanted Truth – when plain old truth would’ve done just fine.

‘What were they doing, Albie? Tyler’s daddy and your sister – what were they doing? When you saw them in the basement?’

Albie’s face clouded.

‘Don’t know.’

Bell moved a few steps forward and touched his arm. He stared at her hand, which looked small and pale on his thick hairy forearm. He smiled. Bell realized that Albie probably wasn’t touched very often. People didn’t shake his hand or pat him on the back. They were afraid of him. And so he missed out on casual human contact, on that sense of being connected to other people by a simple bridge of skin.

No wonder he’d loved playing with Tyler. Tyler was too young to know he was supposed to keep his distance from Albie. He treated Albie like a friend. Not a freak.

‘You can tell me what you saw, Albie,’ Bell said softly. ‘It’s okay.’

‘They was—’ He shook his head. He started again. ‘They was on the couch. Tyler’s daddy was up on top of Dee-Dee. Like when me and Tyler is wrestling. Like that. And they was moaning. Like they was hurt or something. Moaning like this.’ He closed his eyes. His rubbery lips vibrated as he said, ‘Mmmm – oooooo-mmmm.’

Under different circumstances, it might have been funny.

It wasn’t funny now.

Bell looked back at Serena Crumpler. Serena’s face wore a somber and stricken expression. It seemed to Bell as if the young woman had aged ten years since she’d arrived at the jail, since she’d signed her name at Deputy Mathers’s behest, since she’d stepped into Albie’s cell. She, too, had failed to ask the right questions. And she was his defense attorney.

Bell turned back to Albie. ‘And you and Tyler saw them?’

‘Yeah. We come in the basement. We’d been at my house and then we walked back to Tyler’s house. We come in the basement from the back door and then Tyler’s daddy jumped up and he started yelling at Tyler.’

‘Yelling.’

Albie nodded. ‘Like how my mama does when she gets mad at me after I do something bad wrong. Real bad. Tyler’s daddy was hopping around. Getting his pants on. And he was yelling.’

‘Were you scared, Albie?’

‘Yeah. Tyler, too. We didn’t know we done nothing bad. We just come inside there to play.’

‘And then what happened?’

Albie took a deep breath. He licked his lips. ‘Tyler’s daddy come running at Tyler and he picked him up and he shook him and shook him. He pushed him real hard. Tyler hit the wall and he fell down. Went to sleep.’

‘Then what, Albie?’

‘Well, then Tyler’s daddy looked at Dee-Dee and she looked at Tyler’s daddy. Dee-Dee was crying. Then she wasn’t crying no more.’

‘And then?’

‘And then Dee-Dee, she says to me, “Hey, Albie, won’t Tyler look nice with a pretty little necklace? When he wakes up, doncha think he’d like a pretty necklace?” And she went and got me the hose. It was right outside. On the patio. I put the pretty necklace on him and Dee-Dee said, “Pull it, Albie. Pull it tight. It don’t fit him like that. Pull it tight and when he wakes up, he’ll like it.” And then Tyler’s daddy and Dee-Dee, they left. They left me there. I couldn’t get Tyler to wake up. I tried and tried. I wanted to play some more. I started feeling bad. Real bad. Somethin’ was wrong with Tyler and I done it. So I run away. I run so fast, I lost my shoe.’