Kisscut (10 page)

"Tell me," he said, begging more openly this time. Lena felt a kind of rush from his desperation. Jeffrey needed something from her. Jeffrey Tolliver, who had seen her naked, nailed down to the floor, bruised and bleeding, needed something from Lena.

She let the moment linger, savoring the power more than anything else. "Yeah," she finally said, though with little conviction.

He continued to stare, and she could see the doubt in his eyes. For a moment, she thought he might even tear up.

"It was a clean shot," she told him. He kept staring straight at her, as if he could see into her. Lena knew that her tone wasn't confident, and that he had picked up on this. She knew, also, that she had not made it clear that she trusted his judgment. Her response had been purposefully ambiguous. Lena had no idea why she had done this, but she felt the thrill of it for a long while, even as Jeffrey put the car back into gear and drove down the road.

Grant County was made up of three cities: Heartsdale, Madison, and Avondale. Like Avondale, Madison was poorer than Heartsdale, and there were plenty of trailer parks around because it was cheap housing. This did not necessarily mean that the people occupying the trailers were cheap. There were some better parks with community centers and swimming pools and neighborhood watches, just as there were some that festered with domestic violence and drunken brawls. The Kudzu Arms fell into this second category. It was about as far from a neighborhood as a place could get without falling off the map. Trailers in various states of dilapidation fanned out from a single dirt road. Some of the residents had tried to plant gardens to no avail. Even without the drought, which had put all of Georgia on water restrictions, the heat would have killed the flowers. The heat was enough to kill people. The plants did not have a chance.

"Depressing," Jeffrey noted, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. It was a nervous habit she had never seen in him, and Lena felt the guilt come back like a strong undertow, pulling her the wrong way. She should have been more adamant about the shooting. She should have looked him right in the eye and told him the truth, that killing the teenager was the only thing he could have done. Lena could not think how to make it better. A thousand adamant yeses would never erase her initial reticence and the impact it had made. What had she been thinking?

Jeffrey asked, "What's the address?"

Lena flipped the file open, tracing her finger to the address. "Three-ten," she said, looking up at the trailers. "These are all twos."

"Yeah," Jeffrey agreed. He looked over his shoulder across the road from the park. "There it is."

Lena turned as he backed out of the park. A large mobile home, she guessed a doublewide, was on the other side of the road. Unlike the ones in the park across from it, this trailer looked more like a house. There was something like landscaping in the front yard, and a cinder block foundation covered the bottom portion. Someone had painted the concrete blocks black to offset the white trailer, and a large covered deck served as a front porch. To the side was a carport, and beside this was a large diesel semi.

"He's a truck driver?" Jeffrey asked.

Lena thumbed down to the proper space on the form. "Long hauler," she told him. "Probably owns his own rig."

"Looks like he makes some money from it."

"I think you can if you own your own truck," Lena told him, still skimming Mark Patterson's file. "Oh, wait," she said. "Patterson owns the Kudzu, too. He put it up as collateral when he bailed out Mark."

Jeffrey parked in front of the Patterson trailer. "Sure doesn't take good care of it. The park, I mean."

"No," Lena answered, looking back across the road. The Patterson house was a stark contrast to the desolate-looking Kudzu Arms across the street. She wondered what this said about the father, that he would take such pride in his own home, yet let the people living less than thirty yards away live in such squalor. Not that it was Patterson's responsibility to help people out, but Lena would have thought the man would try to pick himself some nicer neighbors, especially with two kids in the house.

"Teddy," Lena told Jeffrey. "That's the father's name."

"Maria pulled his sheet back at the station," Jeffrey told her. "He's got a couple of assaults on him, but they go back about ten years. He did some time on one of them."

"Apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

A large man stepped from the trailer as Jeffrey and Lena got out of the car. Lena guessed this was Teddy Patterson, and she felt a momentary flash of panic because he was such a physically large man. Taller than Jeffrey by a couple of inches and at least thirty pounds heavier, Patterson looked as if he could pick up both of them in one hand and toss them across the road.

Lena felt angry that she even took note of his size. Before, Lena had felt like she could take on anybody. She was a strong woman, muscular from working out in the gym, and she had always been able to push herself to do whatever she wanted to do. Now, she had lost that feeling, and the sight of Patterson gave her a slight chill, even though he wasn't doing anything more threatening than wiping his hands on a dirty dish towel.

"You lost?" Patterson asked. He had that look about him that all cops learned to recognize: Teddy Patterson was a con, right down to the jailhouse tattoos clawing up his arms like chicken scratches. Lena and Jeffrey exchanged glances, which did not seem to be lost on Patterson.

"Mr. Patterson?" Jeffrey asked, taking out his badge. "Jeffrey Tolliver, Grant Police."

"I know who you are," Patterson shot back, tucking the dish towel into his pocket. Lena could see it was soiled with what looked like grease. She also took note of the fact that Patterson had not bothered to acknowledge her.

Lena opened her mouth to speak, to let him know that she was there, but nothing came out. The thought of him training his animosity on her brought a cold sweat.

"This is detective Lena Adams," Jeffrey said. If he noticed her fear, he did not seem to register it. "We're here to talk to Mark about what happened last night."

"Alright," Patterson said, running the words together like most people in Madison did, so that it came out more as "
Ahte
."

Patterson turned his back to them and walked toward the house. He stood in the doorway as Jeffrey passed, crowding him on purpose, and Lena could see that the man was a lot taller than she had thought from the car. Lena was not sure, but Patterson seemed to narrow the space between his stomach and the door jamb as Lena passed through. She turned slightly so that she would not be forced to touch him, but even then Lena could tell from the smile on his face that he knew she was feeling intimidated. She hated that she was so transparent.

"Have a seat," Patterson offered, indicating the couch. Neither Jeffrey nor Lena took him up on this. Patterson's arms were crossed over his barrel chest, and Lena noticed that his head was about three inches from the low ceiling. The room was large, but Patterson filled the space with his presence.

Lena looked around the trailer, trying to behave like a cop instead of a scared little girl. The place was orderly and clean, certainly not what she would have guessed if she had met Teddy Patterson in a bar somewhere. The room they stood in was long, a kitchen at one end, with a hallway to what she assumed was the rest of the trailer, then the room they stood in, which had a medium-sized fireplace and a big-screen television. A floral scent was in the air, probably from one of those plug-in air fresheners. The living room seemed feminine, too, the walls painted a light pink, the couch and two chairs covered in a light blue with a matching pink stripe. A quilt was over the couch, the pattern complementing the decor. On the coffee table, a bowl of fresh cut flowers was surrounded by women's magazines. There were some nice framed prints on the walls, and the furniture looked new. The carpet, too, was freshly vacuumed. Lena could see Patterson's footprints indenting the pile where he had walked.

"We just need to talk to Mark about what happened last night," Jeffrey told Patterson as Lena continued her survey of the room. She stopped midturn, seeing a picture of Jesus hanging over the fireplace. His pierced and bleeding hands were open in the classic "let's be pals" Jesus pose. Jeffrey seemed to notice the painting at the same time, too, because he was staring at Lena when she made herself look away. He raised his eyebrows, as if to ask if she was all right. Lena could feel rather than see Patterson assessing this exchange. Of course he had heard about what happened to Lena. She could only imagine what kind of pleasure Patterson was getting out of reviewing the details of her assault in his mind. The hold this gave Patterson over Lena was suffocating, and she made herself look the other man right in the eye. He held her gaze for just a second, then glanced down at her hands.

She knew exactly what he was looking for, and Lena was fighting the urge to tuck her hands into her pockets when a small woman with a ravaged look about her walked up the hallway, asking, "Teddy? Did you get my pills?"

She stopped when she saw Jeffrey and Lena, putting her hand to her neck. "What's this about?"

"Police," Patterson said, looking away quickly. Something like guilt flashed in his eyes, as if his wife might guess what he had been thinking about Lena a few seconds before.

"Well," she said, a wry look on her face. "Tell me something I don't know."

She was a small woman, probably no taller than Lena 's own five-foot-four. Her dark blonde hair was thin, her scalp showing through in places. She looked almost emaciated, like pictures Lena had seen in history books of Holocaust survivors. There was strength to her, though, and Lena imagined this was the woman who was responsible for keeping the trailer so neat and organized. Underneath her sickly appearance, she had the stance of a person who knew how to take care of things.

"I knew you were coming," the woman said, "so I know I shouldn't feel surprised." Her hand stayed at her neck, nervously playing with a charm on her necklace. Lena guessed from the Jesus on the wall that it was a cross.

"Mrs. Patterson?" Jeffrey asked.

"Grace," she told him, holding out her hand. Jeffrey shook it, and Lena took the opportunity to let herself study Teddy Patterson. He watched his wife and Jeffrey with a slack expression on his face. His shoulders stooped somewhat when his wife was in the room, and he did not seem so threatening in her presence.

"We want to talk to Mark," Jeffrey told the woman. "Is he around?"

Grace Patterson gave her husband a worried look.

Patterson told his wife, "Why don't you sit down, hon?" Then, as if he needed to explain this to Jeffrey, he said, "She's been sick lately."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Jeffrey said. He sat down by Grace on the couch and nodded to Lena, indicating that she should sit as well. Lena hesitated, but did as she was directed, sitting in one of the chairs.

The light coming through the window hit Grace Patterson just right, and Lena could see how pale she was. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her lips were an unnatural shade of pinkish-blue. Lena realized the woman matched the living room perfectly.

Grace spoke. "I appreciate your not interrogating Mark last night, Chief Tolliver. He was very upset."

Jeffrey said, "It's understandable that he would need some time to recover from what happened."

Teddy Patterson snorted at this. Lena was not surprised. Men like Teddy Patterson did not think that people needed to recover from things. He was actually more like Lena in that regard. You dealt with it and you got over it. Or, at least you tried and did not whine about it.

"Is his sister around?" Jeffrey asked. "We'd like to talk to her, too."

"Lacey?" Grace said, putting her hand to her necklace again. "She's at her grandmother's right now. We thought it would be best."

Jeffrey asked, "Where was she last night?"

"Here," Grace answered. "She was taking care of me." She swallowed, looking down at her hands in her lap. "I don't usually ask her to stay with me, but I had a very bad night, and Teddy had to work." She gave him a weak smile. "Sometimes the pain gets to be too much for me. I like having my children around."

"But Mark wasn't here?" Jeffrey said, even though that much was obvious.

Her face clouded. "No, he wasn't. He's been a bit difficult to control lately."

"He smacked up his sister a while back," Patterson told them. "I guess you got that on his sheet. He's a real shit, that boy. Nothing good coming from him."

Grace did not make a sound, but her disapproval traveled through the room.

"Sorry," Patterson apologized. He actually looked contrite. Lena wondered at the hold Grace had over her husband. In the space of a few short minutes, she had subdued the man.

Patterson said, "I'll go fetch Mark," and left the room.

Lena caught herself running her tongue along the back of her teeth again. For some reason, she could not speak. There were questions to ask, and Lena knew that Jeffrey wanted them to come from Lena, but she was too preoccupied to focus. Her goal was to get out of this trailer and away from Teddy Patterson as quickly as possible. The truth was that even with his wife sitting three feet away, and Jeffrey right beside her, Lena felt scared. More than that, she felt threatened.

Lena tried to take her mind off the claustrophobia she was feeling. She stared off into the kitchen, which was roomy but not large. Strawberry wallpaper lined the walls, and there was even a clock with a strawberry on it over the kitchen table.

Grace cleared her throat. "Mark has had a bad time lately," she said, picking up where she had left off. "He's been in and out of trouble at school."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Mrs. Patterson," Jeffrey said. He sat up on the couch, probably to establish a sense of rapport. "How about Lacey?"

"Lacey has never been in trouble a day in her life," Grace told him. "And that's the God's truth. That child is an angel."

Jeffrey smiled, and Lena could guess what he was thinking. Usually the angels were the ones who committed the most heinous crimes. "Is she dating any boys?"