Deadliest of Sins (15 page)

Twenty-Two

Her name was Alice;
she was from South Carolina. She was more cute than pretty—brown eyes, blond hair, freckles across her nose. Sam could tell by the way she talked that she would have been one of the popular girls at Sam's school—a cheerleader, or a band majorette. Now, as they both lay beneath their bathroom sinks, whispering to each other through a hole in the wall, the cheerleader looked like a little rat in a cage, just as terrified as Sam. She'd been here for two months.

“How do you know that for sure?” asked Sam. “There aren't any clocks, and I can't get anything but Spanish channels on the TV.”

“I've gone through two boxes of Kotex,” Alice replied. She gave a sardonic laugh. “Yusuf gets real excited when he finds dirty pads in my trash. It's like he's relieved I haven't gotten pregnant on his watch. Like I could in this room, all by myself
.
”

“I haven't had a period since I've been here,” said Sam.

“Well, you'd better have one soon,” Alice warned. “If you don't, they'll call a doctor.”

“That gross old man?” Sam shuddered at the memory of her last pelvic exam—the man's dirty lab coat and rimless glasses, and the way he'd stripped off her clothes while those other men watched.

“No, not the Meat Inspector,” said Alice. “If you start bleeding, or if you never bleed, they call in somebody else. A woman doctor who looks and sounds like a man.”

“How do you know?” asked Sam, rubbing her arms against a sudden chill.

“Because they called that doctor in for Michaela. She was in that room before you came.” Alice closed her eyes. “I listened to the whole thing through this pipe. It was horrible …”

“What happened?”

“Michaela did something to herself, you know, to make herself not a virgin anymore. She started bleeding, really bad.”

“Did the doctor take care of her?” asked Sam.

“I don't think so. Everybody—Yusuf, the doctor, that guy Boyko—they were all in the room. Michaela was crying, screaming that she didn't want to die. It was so scary I had to put the sink back together and go to bed. I put my pillow over my head and cried. The next morning, Michaela was gone.”

“When did all this happen?” asked Sam.

“Two weeks ago. I didn't think they were going to put anybody back in that room, then you came along.”

Sam sank back on the floor. She could still see the words
this place is a hell hole
scratched on the wall in front of the toilet. She pictured Michaela scratching those words into the wall, then plunging the same implement into her vagina. The image made her sick inside.

“You know what's funny?” whispered Alice. “Not funny ha-ha, but funny peculiar?”

“No.” Sam rose up on her elbows. Through the hole she could see half of her new friend's face. “What?”

“Bobby—that's my boyfriend—Bobby and I were going to do it the night they grabbed me.”

“Do what?”

“Have sex. End my virginity. We crashed a frat party at Clemson. I was a little nervous, since it was my first time, so Bobby thought I'd be more relaxed if I had a drink or two. There were some guys sitting around a picnic table in the back yard of the Chi Nu house. I didn't think they looked like frat guys, but Bobby said they were okay. They'd mixed up a big bowl of Purple Jesus and gave us a couple. I took a sip and it was really good. Bobby and I both got pretty relaxed,” she whispered. “So we went back to Bobby's car. We were in the backseat, kissing, about to take off our clothes when I got so sleepy I couldn't keep my eyes open. When I woke up, I was here.”

“What happened to Bobby?” asked Sam.

“I don't know. They won't tell me.”

“I thought somebody had left a baby by the side of the road,” whispered Sam. “I went to see, and somebody grabbed me from behind.”

“They got Michaela that way, too,” said Alice. “Somehow they figure out the ones they want to take.”

Sam shifted on the cold tile floor. “Do you know where we are?”

“Somewhere near an interstate. There's a place where the boards don't meet, up high in my window. If I stand on my tiptoes, I can watch them take the lot lizards out every night.”

“The lot lizards?”

“You know … the girls who have to work the truck stops.”

Sam knew exactly who she was talking about—the girls who'd trudged down the other hall every night and come back every morning.

“Those girls get twenty bucks for ten minutes in the back of a cab,” said Alice. “And they have to do whatever the driver wants. If they don't, they get punished.”

Sam thought about the parade that had passed by her door—the black girls who'd made fun of the white men, Dusty's loud boasting about how much money she could make in a night. She'd thought it awful back then; now she thought those girls were lucky. At least they had each other. At least they got to go outside and breathe fresh air. At least they got to stay where everybody spoke English and could pronounce your name. “You know,” she whispered to Alice, trying not to cry. “I used to feel sorry for those girls. Now I think they're lucky.”

Alice wiped away her own tears. “I do, too.”

They were silent for a moment, then Sam spoke. “Do you know what's going to happen to us?”

“Is Yusuf bringing you weird food? Like olives and goat cheese?”

“He is.”

“Then you're going overseas, just like me.”

Sam couldn't believe what she'd heard. Though Ivan had told her virtually the same thing, she thought it was one of his crazy exaggerations, like how he said Moscow was the most beautiful city in the world, and all Russian men were hung like horses. She'd thought they might shuffle her off
somewhere
, but overseas? To some country she's never heard of? She'd never see her mother again!

“They're going to sell us,” Alice went on. “To rich men who hate America.”

“But why?” cried Sam, her heart beating a thousand miles an hour. “If they hate America, why would they want an American girl?”

“Because getting one of us is like giving America the finger. They get to be even badder asses in their own country.”

“How do you know this?”

A hard look came in her pretty brown eyes. “There are ways of finding stuff out here.”

“Yusuf?” asked Sam, remembering the way the man's gaze roved over her body.

Alice's lower lip began to quiver. “He kept asking me to suck him off. For a long time I refused, then I decided it might be a way to get some information.” She wiped a tear from the corner of one eye. “I've probably done that guy off fifty times. The info comes right out with the kum.”

“Do you think he's telling the truth?”

Alice gave a loud sniff. “I'd like to think he's lying, but something
tells me he's not.”

For a while neither of them spoke, lost in the looming terror of their futures, drawn closer with every drip of the faucet in Alice's sink. Then, suddenly, the pretty blond cheerleader stuck one nail-bitten finger through the hole in the wall.

“Touch me,” she whispered.

Sam reached out, twined her finger around Alice's.

“You know before,” said Alice, “I hated my mother. Hated the way she dressed, hated the perfume she dabbed behind her ears, hated her stupid little checklist of things that would help me get into college.
Keep my grades up, take charge of the cheerleaders' service project, try out for the senior play
.”

Sam fought back an ironic smile. Though her mother's checklist had not included cheerleading projects or senior plays, she'd had an agenda for Sam as well.
Don't talk to those men in the duplex. Stop Chase from calling the cops.
And later,
Don't get on Gudger's nerves.

“Now,” Alice continued, “I would give anything to see my mom in her stupid jeans or get a whiff of her Obsession. Just for a minute, you know? Just to tell her that I love her.”

“I know what you mean.” Sam squeezed Alice's finger.

For a moment they remained silent, touching. Then suddenly, Alice jerked her finger back through the hole. “Quick! Put your sink back together! Yusuf's coming. Don't drink the tea if you want to keep your head on straight. That's where he puts the drugs!”

Before Sam could say another word, the little hole between their shared wall shut. She heard a door open, then Yusuf said, “Why you down there? You sick?”

“Yeah,” Alice replied, her voice now muffled. “I'm real sick.”

Sam heard footsteps, movement in Alice's bathroom. She knew she'd better reseal her part of the hole fast. She crouched beneath the sink and tried to screw the flange back in place with her home-made bra-hook screwdriver. But her fingers were shaking so that the little hooks continued to slip out of the proper slots. Clumsily, she dropped one screw. She tried to catch it as it bounced across the old tile floor but instead managed to knock the flange to the bottom of the U-trap. It made a loud ping that sounded like a bell ringing. She held her breath as Alice's bathroom grew ominously quiet.

Don't let him look under the sink,
she prayed, not daring to move for fear of making more noise. She sat there, holding her breath, listening to the pounding of her own heart, then all at once, Alice's flange fell away. The little hole reopened, only this time not a pretty young face peered through it, but an olive-skinned man whose thick brows made a dark, angry V above his nose.

“You two have been talking!” he cried, incredulous.

Sam didn't know what to say—to deny it seemed bad, but to admit the truth seemed worse. She settled on staying mute, hoping that Alice would know what to do.

“You little bitches!” Yusuf thundered. “You little whores!”

“We are not!” cried Alice, starting to slap Yusuf on his head and shoulders. “We just want to go home!”

Yusuf gave Sam a final, furious glare, then he turned away from the drain pipe, slamming Alice's flange shut. Sam knew it would never be opened again—they would close it with nails, plaster it over before they would let her talk with Alice again. Still, she put her ear to the wall and tried to hear what was going on next door. She heard Yusuf's yelling in Turkish, Alice crying, then the sound of glass breaking. After that, she heard nothing but silence.

She waited, crouched on the bathroom floor, for what seemed like hours, hoping to hear something from Alice's room. When she didn't, she kissed the finger she'd intertwined with Alice's. For a few minutes, she'd had a friend—a pretty girl who'd spoken English with a Southern accent and who, like her, had never had sex. If everything Alice had told her was true, they would soon be sold to people who would treat them like slaves. After that, who knew? After that, who cared? She patted the old tile wall softly, as if that might give comfort to her friend next door. She knew she would never see Alice again. She also knew that the next time she saw Yusuf's face, he would likely be coming for her.

Twenty-Three

Mary left Eddie Wallace's
house/stock car garage quickly, eager to get away from the self-pitying homophobia of clan Wallace. She took a circuitous route to Angelo's restaurant, driving along roads that bisected corn fields, enjoying the warm summer wind that whipped through her hair. As she drove, she composed her report to Ann Chandler.

“The demographic of Campbell County is largely Christian and extremely conservative,” she said. “The majority of those Christians believe that being gay is not only a choice, but a sin that will send a homosexual person to hell.”

Here she stopped, unsure of her conclusion. Unless Galloway had come up with some new bit of incriminating evidence, she'd found nothing at Trull's church to indicate that his parishioners wanted to do anything beyond turn gay people straight and save their souls. Though Trull's sermons were fiery and hugely offensive, the man had not advocated violence to anyone, beyond parents spanking their children. Nonetheless, two gay men had been murdered within ten miles of each other. Somebody either living in or passing through Campbell County had a hatred of gays that ran deep and occasionally lethal.

“If I were the governor, I'd just offer Ecotron a sweet deal in a more progressive county,” she said. “Any gay person who moves
here
will have to keep looking over their shoulder, 24/7.”

She sighed. She knew that wouldn't be what Ann Chandler wanted to hear, but she couldn't help it. In Campbell County, homophobia was an acceptable, Bible-endorsed prejudice. There was little the governor could do to change that. Certainly not with people like Reverend Trull in the pulpit.

As the western sky grew pink with the setting sun, she headed toward Angelo's. She pulled into a moderately full parking lot and walked into a restaurant decorated in an old-fashioned way, with red-checked tablecloths and candles stuck in empty Chianti bottles. Galloway lifted a half-filled wine glass at her from a small table in one corner, tucked in beneath a big poster of Venetian gondoliers.

“I was beginning to think you'd stood me up,” he said as he rose from his chair.

Mary smiled. “I took a little detour on my tour of the county.”

She sat down. Immediately, a little old man in a black tuxedo jacket appeared with a basket of warm bread and two menus.

“This joint's a real trip, isn't it?” Galloway filled her wine glass from his bottle of Valpolicella.

“I haven't seen candles in Chianti bottles in years,” Mary admitted. “Or formally dressed waiters.”

“Angelo is definitely old-school Italian. If the food weren't so good, I'd think he was some wise guy, hiding out from the mob.”

Mary took a sip of wine. “This county is just full of surprises.”

He gave her a half-smile, revealing a dimple in his left cheek. “Oh, yeah? What surprises did you uncover, holed up in your little cubicle?”

“You really want to know?”

“I never ask questions I don't want the answer to.”

She closed her menu. “Well, after I found out your police department has a funny little bubble in its statistics, I went to see Tiffani Wallace's brother. He spit tobacco juice at me, then started whacking his hand with a tire iron.”

Galloway's eyes narrowed. “He what?”

“Oh, I'm exaggerating. He didn't do anything, but he let me know that police investigations were an unwelcome intrusion on his car-
repair business. I'm sure you've run into the same behavior a thousand times.”

“Why did you pay him a visit?” Galloway pressed, angry.

“I wanted to find out if Tiffani might have been gay.”

“And?”

“And if she was, she wisely kept it to herself. Otherwise, I think her brother would have taken that tire iron to her head and buried her behind his grease pit.”

“Not an evolved family, I take it.” Galloway was simmering down, though slowly.

Mary shook her head. “You'll never see the rainbow flag waving in their front yard.”

Galloway took a sip of wine. “So tell me about this bubble in our statistics.”

“Somebody at the SBI punched the wrong computer key and sent me the crime stats for the past thirteen years, instead of the past three. Crime in Sligo County has remained fairly constant throughout that time. Campbell County started off almost identical to Sligo; then in 2003, things started to change.”

“What do you mean?”

“From 2003 until 2010, your numbers dropped to half of Sligo's rates.”

“What happened after 2010?”

“In 2011, the numbers began to inch up. By the end of 2013, they matched Sligo again.”

Galloway shrugged. “Maybe we had some super cop on the pay-
roll.”

“That's what I thought, too. But here's where it gets even weirder …
the domestic assaults and armed robbery numbers remain constant. But prostitution, soliciting, D&D, larceny, and shoplifting literally drop to zero.”

“Kiddie crimes, for the most part.”

“Right.” Mary looked up to see the waiter reappear, order pad in hand. She ordered the chicken cacciatore while Galloway opted for spaghetti.

“Anyway, had Sligo's petty crime rate risen while Campbell's fell, then I would say kids were just heading over to the next county for their mischief. But Sligo's figures never change.”

“It might be Reverend Trull,” said Galloway. “He does have an unbelievable youth outreach program. His kids play every sport on the planet, plus they camp and hike and run after-school programs at the high school and the grammar school. Campbell County kids might be too tired to get into trouble.”

Mary shrugged. “Possibly. Something sure got the marginal ones off the streets.” She took another sip of wine—it was perfect for a summer evening, mellow and fruity. “Did you find out anything about Honeycutt and the Taylor case?”

“Only that he didn't do Bryan Taylor.”

“Seriously?”

Galloway nodded. “He wasn't even in town when Taylor got it.”

“Where was he?”

“Just this side of Raleigh. The landscaping company he works for was doing a new golf course. Honeycutt stayed in the Motel 6 for two weeks.”

“You know this for sure?”

“I've got copies of his phone records and his credit card receipts. I talked to the desk clerk who checked him in and out.”

Mary sighed. During her drive she'd fantasized that she might be able to call Ann Chandler tonight and tell her that even though her conspiracy theory was dead, they'd found a single serial killer with a hard-on for homosexuals. That they were, at that moment, gathering evidence to indict him. With Honeycutt's alibi this tight, that conversation with the governor would probably not occur.

She started to ask Galloway if he had any more suspects up his sleeve when the waiter appeared, placing a steaming dish of chicken cacciatore down in front of her.

“Thank you.” She smiled up at the silent little man. “This looks wonderful.”

Nodding, he left Mary to her chicken and Galloway to his plate of spaghetti.

“So how does my Honeycutt news stack up for you?” asked Galloway, twirling pasta around his fork.

“Not so hot. Since I haven't found a conspiracy, I was hoping to give Chandler a single homophobic serial killer. Looks like she's not getting either.”

“And her big company will go somewhere else. No new jobs or tax revenues for North Carolina. No new Campbell County votes for Ann come the next election.”

Mary nodded. “That's right. She loses the county, the state loses jobs. But by God, you guys won't have any homosexuals to deal with.”

Wiping his mouth with a red-checkered napkin, Galloway leaned back in his chair. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

“You can ask,” said Mary. “I might not answer.”

“How do you come down on this, personally?”

“On what, personally?”

“You know—being gay.”

Mary looked at him. “You mean did the governor send me here because I'm a lesbian?”

His face flushed, but he nodded.

“No, I'm not, and no, she didn't.”

“Then how do you feel about Trull and gay rights?”

“I'm an attorney. I'm sworn to enforce the law. As near as I can figure, Reverend Trull hasn't broken any.”

“You're dodging my question.”

“Gay people are citizens. They pay the same taxes, so they are entitled to the same rights and protections as anybody else.”

“So you're okay with gay marriage?”

She gazed into her glass of wine and thought of Jonathan. Somewhere, far away, was the man she wanted, the man she should be married to. She thought of his smile, the way he made her laugh, how good she always felt with him. If she'd found that in a woman instead of Jonathan, would she want it any less? She looked up at Galloway and tried to smile. “I think if you're lucky enough to find someone to love, then you ought to get them to a church or a judge and marry them as fast as you can. And then work like hell to make it last.”

“Sounds like you're speaking from experience,” he said softly.

“Yeah,” she said. “I guess it does.”

After that they moved on to broader subjects—the traffic in Atlanta, Galloway's efforts to teach Crump a little Spanish, how he'd like to visit Asheville if he ever got the time. They ended their dinner with a glass of brandy, then walked out into the parking lot together. As Mary unlocked her car, Galloway touched her arm. “I know you've just pretended to be my girlfriend,” he said, a sheepish look on his face. “But do you think we might take a step in that direction for real?”

She considered his question. Years ago she'd resolved never to date cops, but something about Victor Galloway was different. He was funny and smart and wasn't caught up in interdepartmental pissing contests the way most cops were. She smiled. “I'd be willing to consider it.”

He took her in his arms and kissed her. His shoulders were broad, his back muscular. His smelled of shaving cream and laundry starch—oddly sexy aromas she had not known in months. He finally broke their kissing with another question. “Would you like to have dinner again tomorrow night?”

Mary laughed. “Don't you have to go to church?”

“
Wow, I guess I do. I'd forgotten all about that. How about I call you tomorrow? We can meet after church.”

“You've got my number. I'll be in Gastonia all day, writing my report to the governor.” He held the door open as she got in her car. “Thanks, Galloway. I had fun.”

He leaned down and kissed her once more. “You do realize you're going to drive down
la carretera del dolor
tonight, don't you?”

“Doesn't scare me,” she replied. “I'm not gay and I never stop for strangers.”

“Then watch out for the cops. I hear Gaston County speed traps are cash cows.”

“Funny you should say that,” Mary replied. “That's exactly what Eddie Wallace said about his sister and the Campbell County cops.”

She headed back to Gaston County, the little town of Manley dribbling away in a small flurry of gas stations and convenience stores, a roller skating rink that had pink flamingoes skating on a neon sign. The four lanes narrowed to two, with a wide gravel shoulder on each side of the road. She came up fast on a kid doing thirty on a liquor-cycle; he wisely pulled to the shoulder of the road as she passed him.

“Must be hurrying to get into trouble in Gaston County,” she whispered, now wishing she had the crime stats for it as well. She drove on, the tiny scooter vanishing behind her. The houses that sat back from the road disappeared altogether, replaced by the tall pine forests that covered this part of North Carolina. The air smelled faintly of turpentine, and above her she could see the twinkling of stars. As her thoughts returned to Galloway, she shifted into Overdrive, lowering the pitch of the engine, cruising along at seventy—too fast, really, but the road was mostly straight, and if she ran into a cop she would flash her governor's staff ID card. Surely that would get her out of a Gaston County speeding ticket. She flew by a sign advertising some kind of creek chapel church, then she saw an odd-looking shape by the side of the road. Squinting as she passed it, it appeared to be a plastic box of some kind, then seconds later she realized it wasn't a box at all. It looked exactly like a child's car seat, upright, as if someone had dropped a baby off on the side of the road. “Oh, come on,” she said, checking her rearview mirror. “Nobody would do that.”

But what if it somebody had? This was
la carretera del dolor
.
What if some desperate Latina had abandoned her child? Given her up to the kindness of passing strangers? Mary put on her brakes and screeched to a stop. Though she knew it was crazy, she also knew she'd spend one long, sleepless night if she didn't go back. She made a U-turn in the middle of the road and roared back in the opposite direction. When her headlights flashed across the car seat, she pulled to the shoulder of the road. She blinked, unbelieving. The car seat was wiggling slightly—somebody had actually left a child in the dark, on a highway with traffic flying by at seventy miles an hour! She pulled up her handbrake, then ran across the road. She could see something squirming in the car seat, heard whimpering, as if some child cried in a blanket.

“Honey?” she said. “Sweetheart?”

She pulled the blanket back. In the darkness she saw a chubby leg, a head with only peach fuzz for hair. She reached to touch the child's arm, but instead of feeling tender flesh, she grasped some kind of cold plastic thing.

“Ugh!” she cried, recoiling from the strange, alien appendage. She didn't want to touch the repulsive thing again, but she was curious about how it worked and why someone had put it out here. Steeling herself, she again stepped forward, this time digging deeper into the blanket. Ignoring the creepy feel of the ersatz flesh, she pulled out an incredibly realistic-looking doll wired up to a small battery. When Mary held the thing by its neck, its legs twitched in a bizarre imitation of human movement while making an odd kind of mewing squeak.