A Killing in the Hills

44


When it came time to speak to Bob Bevins, Bell went in alone.

She had another job for Rhonda and Hick. She’d asked them to go back to their office and start the paperwork to secure Albie’s release. ‘And in the meantime,’ Bell had added, as they parted in front of the interrogation room to which Bob Bevins had been taken, ‘tell the deputy on jail duty to check for spiders in Albie’s cell, will you? Ask her to do a regular sweep. Once an hour. Twice, if she can manage it.’

Bell opened the door. The gray cinder-block walls and concrete floor of this room, the smaller of the two that Fogelsong maintained for conferences and interviews, made any color – in this case, Bob Bevins’s bright blue tie – look showy and out of place.

She didn’t need him to confess. She already had Deanna’s confession, Deanna’s eyewitness testimony to what had happened in that basement. If Bevins stonewalled, fine. If he lied, fine. Now that Bell knew the truth, she’d have the forensics specialists go back over everything, every speck of evidence that had been collected in that basement.

It was a different kind of search now. Not a search for a truth they didn’t know and had to discover, but a search for the proof of a truth they already knew.

She closed the door.

She looked at Bevins.

As cold as it was outside, he was sweating. When Bell sat down across from him, she noticed that moisture speckled his forehead in a slimy band. He was sitting sideways in his chair, one hand on his thigh, the other on the tabletop. He was tapping out a drum solo with his thumb and little finger, but he seemed to realize, all at once, how inappropriately jaunty it sounded, and he stopped. The hand flattened out against the tabletop and stayed that way.

She placed her briefcase on the floor next to her chair.

‘Good evening, Mr Bevins. I haven’t seen you for several weeks. Not since we first took Albie Sheets into custody.’

He glared at her. He had a meaty face, wide and plump and slack, edged by old acne scars that looked like rivets along a faltering seam. A hump of black hair swooped down generously over each ear. His body was big and sturdy. He was the kind of man led around by his own shoulders. There was a nervous, driving energy to Bob Bevins, an air of bluster and impatience.

‘What the hell’s going on here?’ he declared, black eyes glittering. ‘Nobody’s told me a goddamned thing. I’m pulled off a plane right after it lands and I’m shoved in a squad car and there’s no explanation. Nothing. Nobody answered my questions, the whole ride over here. Those dumb-shit deputies of yours just sat there.’ He gave the tabletop two fierce smacks, as if the stark interrogation room were a fine restaurant and the ambling waiter late with his entree. ‘What’s the matter with you people? I lost a child less than a month ago. I lost my son – and this is how you treat me? Jesus, lady. You better have a damn good reason for why you authorized—’

He stopped.

He realized that Bell was looking at him with an expression of simple curiosity, as if he represented some new species of creature she’d never come across before.

It unsettled him. He had intended to provoke her into a shouting match. No matter what was going on, no matter what they thought they knew, he’d been sure he could bluff his way out of it. Bull his way through, the way he’d always done, with everything. Every salesman knew that it was all just a matter of confidence. Think you can, think you can’t, Bevins was fond of stating, nodding sagely over his Scotch rocks, either way you’re right.

‘Deanna told you,’ he said quietly.

‘Yes, Mr Bevins. She did.’

‘I see.’

He turned his body in the chair until he sat in a direct line across from Bell. No more sideways talk, sideways cool. The fluorescent bulb overhead seemed to pick out the pores on his face and blast them with light, exposing their greasy inner slopes.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said, ‘but you’re wrong. Really.’

‘What am I thinking, Mr Bevins?’

‘That I’m some kind of monster.’

Bell gave him a long, impassive stare.

‘No, Mr Bevins. I don’t,’ she finally replied. ‘I think you’re selfish and you’re shallow and you’re vain and impulsive. I think you were having an affair, and you didn’t want to get caught, and when you did get caught, you lost your temper. You lashed out. You didn’t mean to kill Tyler. But you were more than willing to let somebody else take the blame. So – a monster? No. Don’t flatter yourself. You’re not that special. I’ve known some monsters in my time, Mr Bevins, and you’re not even close. You’re not even in the running.’

Sheriff Fogelsong had decreed a decade ago that three-quarters of the lights in public areas of the courthouse would be turned off at six o’clock each night, winter or summer, to conserve energy. It was an admirable cost-cutting move, Bell thought. But it made the hall outside her office so damned dim that she’d very nearly run smack into Serena Crumpler.

Bell had finished with Bob Bevins. The deputies had hauled him off for processing, after which he’d be placed in a cell. At long last, she could go home.

First, though, she needed to stop by her office to pick up some files. She was on her way out the door again when she almost ran over the young attorney.

‘Whoa,’ Bell said. ‘Sorry. Oh – by the way, you’ll get the paperwork in the morning, once the court clerk can file them, but we’ll be dropping the charges against Albie Sheets.’

Serena nodded. ‘Figured. But I’m still on the case.’

‘How’s that?’

‘I’ll be defending Deanna Sheets.’

‘Good for you. Frankly, though, I’m surprised your firm is letting you do that. Surely they’ve already fulfilled their pro bono quota for the year.’

‘They’re not,’ Serena said cheerfully. ‘They said no. So I quit. I’m opening my own criminal defense practice. As of about ten minutes ago.’

Bell gave her an appraising look. ‘Not to be too nosy, Serena, but I don’t think Lori Sheets has two nickels to rub together. And she might be facing a lot of trouble herself right now. I’m not sure how – or even whether – you’ll ever get paid.’

‘She’ll pay what she’s able to pay. Anyway, I can always supplement my income by setting up a coffee cart on the courthouse lawn. What do you think? Four bucks for a small latte? I’ll be rich.’ She grinned as she squared her thin shoulders. ‘Well, I’d better run along. Got some motions to prepare.’ Another grin. ‘The first one will be to suppress Deanna’s confession.’

‘Good luck,’ Bell said dryly. A thought occurred to her. ‘How about Bob Bevins? As long as you’re signing on to lost causes, what about him?’

‘He’s on his own. Can’t save the whole damned world, now, can I?’

Bell shrugged.

Serena’s smile turned a bit devilish. ‘Something tells me,’ she said, ‘that we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other in the years to come, Mrs Elkins.’

Bell lifted her palms in a Who knows? gesture. She watched the young woman walk down the courthouse corridor.

Bet her folks are proud of her, Bell thought. Plenty of reason to be.

Then it struck her.

She still hadn’t heard from Carla.