A Killing in the Hills (31 page)

‘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. ‘
Any
hoo, 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 assholes. 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.’