The town of Niobe sat on the West Virginia bank of the Ohio River. In the mornings after a long shift, Lea Regan liked to drink her coffee on the exterior stairs outside her apartment and watch the river make its solemn way southwest toward Cairo, Illinois, where it joined the Mississippi. It reminded her that the outside world was still waiting and that her two-year purgatory here in Niobe—self-inflicted though it might be—would be ending soon. One way or another.
Lea bartended nights at the Toproll, the bar directly below her apartment, which she rented from her boss. So more often than not, “morning” was code for early afternoon. Last call was two a.m., so she usually didn’t crawl into bed until after four. At least it made for a short commute. She rested her coffee on the railing while she stretched and listened to her joints crack. Felt good but did nothing to loosen the golf ball–size knot between her shoulder blades.
A barge tramping upstream toward Pittsburgh passed between the two towers of the old Niobe Bridge, which loomed out of the water like CGI effects in some end-of-the-world summer blockbuster. The center deck had collapsed spectacularly on the Fourth of July, 1977, sending cars and families tumbling into the river as fireworks lit up the night. The state legislature, in a decision that cemented Niobe’s declining stature, deemed the bridge too costly either to repair or demolish. So the spine of the bridge rusted amiably in the sunshine, the unacknowledged symbol of a town on the far side of its heyday.
The citizens of Niobe had more or less adjusted to the inconvenience of driving north for an hour if they needed to cross into Ohio. But truth was, Ohio was an unfamiliar ambition for the many locals who lived within eyeshot of another state but never left West Virginia. Still, every so often, Lea caught Old Charlie, a fixture at the Toproll, in an expansive mood, and, for the price of a drink, he would recount the town’s history and rail against the black mark on their honor.
It made her sad. She imagined that Niobe must have been a beautiful town once, but the money had moved on and left relics like the Niobe Bridge to remind people of their past. The people survived, if you could call it that, in hard-drinking bars like the Toproll, easing the pain of having been left behind as well. Most too young to remember the way things used to be but feeling their obsolescence deep in their bones like toxin absorbed from the groundwater. They were good people but quick to anger and held a grudge until it fossilized. In that way, she fit right in. In all other ways, she was an outsider and always would be if she spent the rest of her life in Niobe.
She pulled the rubber band off yesterday’s mail and stood in the sunshine, sorting it. Mostly junk, but the magazine caught her attention. It was him. On the cover. That wasn’t right.
“UNREPENTANT.”
It was supposed to be only a short profile piece, not a cover story. At least that was what her source inside the prison had told her. Her heart lurched in her chest; Lea studied the photo of Charles Merrick, smiling proudly as if he were wearing a tuxedo instead of a prison jumpsuit. How did he manage to look smug? She tore the cover off, shredded it, and scattered Charles Merrick confetti out over the Toproll’s back parking lot. She had a bad feeling, and coffee suddenly didn’t sound nearly strong enough.
Lea sat at the bar of the Toproll and read Merrick’s interview for the third time. She pushed the magazine away and reached for her beer, trying to decide what it meant. Merrick hadn’t admitted to anything—not straight out—but it was all there, between the lines. If you knew him well, it was impossible to miss. Insane—the only word for it. Others would read it and glean what she already knew. Three years of preparation, and she might already be dead in the water. Everything was predicated on her, and her alone, knowing Merrick’s secret. She wasn’t equipped to fight a war. And it would be a war. They’d be coming now, circling like vultures the day Charles Merrick walked out of Niobe Federal Prison. The hell with taking him quietly at the local airfield. He might not make it ten feet out of the prison gate. He had beaten her. Beaten her without knowing or trying.
She texted Parker to set a meeting. A guard at the prison, Parker supposedly served as her eyes and ears. At least that was what she was paying him for, but getting blindsided by the full scope of Merrick’s interview made her reconsider Parker’s usefulness. Well, he was all she had, and she needed an update on Merrick so she could figure out what to do.
What was she going to do now?
Order another beer, to start. While she waited, she prodded her forgotten lunch with a fork until the fork got stuck. That’s what you got for ordering fettuccine Alfredo at a dive bar in West Virginia. That being said, it was far from the worst bar food she’d ever eaten and not even close to the worst bar she’d eaten it in. One of the drawbacks of not knowing how to boil water was you wound up eating too many meals in places like the Toproll. Even when it wasn’t your shift. Not that you could taste anything but the thick pall of cigarette smoke that hung in the air. There was no ban on smoking in West Virginia, and the citizens of Niobe took their smoking seriously. Only one p.m. and already it stung her eyes. After a shift, Lea changed clothes in the bathroom and tied them up in a garbage bag before heading back upstairs.
“You know you’re not on the schedule until tonight,” Margo said from behind the bar. Margo was her boss and landlord, a potentially dangerous combination, but they’d made it work.
Lea nodded.
“Just think it’s kind of sad. I own the place, and even I don’t hang out here on my days off.”
That was a lie, but Lea let it go. “If I’m the saddest thing you see today, consider it a good day.”
Margo nodded at the truth of it. “Well, it’s your youth, babe. Just don’t turn out like Old Charlie there.”
Old Charlie had been drinking at the Toproll back when it had still been Kelly’s Taproom. As the longest-tenured regular, he was treated with the lack of respect that such an accomplishment warranted. However, the position did come with its own barstool, a grace period after last call to order one more round, and the privilege of insulting Margo without Margo kicking his ass. Of those perks, it was definitely the latter that Old Charlie cherished most.
“Up yours,” Old Charlie said without breaking eye contact with his mug of Budweiser or the shot of Jameson’s keeping it company.
“Oh, hush up,” Margo said. “You know I love your old wrinkled ass.”
“Then come here and kiss it,” Old Charlie said and belted back the shot.
“Exhibit A,” Margo said. “Another beer?”