before she took her hand away again.
Nick Fogelsong had kept in touch with her over the years. Their friendship lasted even as she’d moved away, married, graduated from college and then law school. Had a child. Divorced. When Bell returned to Acker’s Gap five years ago, he’d been plenty glad about it – until she told him what she wanted to do.
She wanted to run for prosecuting attorney of Raythune County.
He was stunned.
For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why she’d willingly subject herself to all that the job entailed, day after day, relentlessly and unavoidably. The violence, the mayhem, the tragedies – hadn’t she had enough of that? And what about the exasperating compromises, the kind that made decent public officials sick to their stomachs? Not to mention the drudgery, the tedium, the paperwork.
In the end, though, Fogelsong had capitulated. Bell won the argument. Which had persuaded him that maybe it was a good idea, after all. Because if Bell had gotten him to support her bid to be prosecuting attorney of Raythune County – and he was no pushover – then she’d do a hell of a job with any jury, on just about any case.
Looking at her now, remembering those late-night arguments in Ike’s over cooling coffee and brittle cinnamon rolls, Nick Fogelsong moved his jaw back and forth a few times, a motion that sometimes accompanied his deeper reflections.
‘I’ll make a file with my notes and e-mail it to you,’ he said. ‘Deputies are talking with the family members right now. We’ve got to figure out why somebody bothered to target three old men.’
‘Crime scene techs?’
‘Finished up a while ago. We’ll have a preliminary report within the hour. Or we ought to, anyway. Buster Crutchfield called in some help from the coroner over in Collier County. They should have news for us pretty soon, too. Unofficially, looks like the shooter used nine-millimeter Parabellum slugs, consistent with a semiautomatic pistol.’
‘Not hard to get your hands on one of those,’ Bell said. ‘Not these days.’
‘Nope.’
They were quiet for a moment.
They could hear the phone ringing over and over again in the sheriff’s outer office, and they could hear his secretary, Melinda Crouch, answering it and promising, in a polite little murmur, that the sheriff would get back to them just as soon as he possibly could.
Fogelsong and Bell both knew how this news would play in the wider world. A triple homicide would fulfill so many stereotypes about West Virginia, would make people think of every negative thing they’d ever heard about the state. Bad things happened everywhere, but somehow when they happened here, people always thought, Figures.
‘How’s Carla?’ he asked. He’d wanted to ask before now, but was afraid of pissing her off. It was, after all, a personal question. Yet now that they’d had a short period of silence, walling off the earlier part of their conversation, the business end, he took a chance.
‘Still kind of shaky,’ Bell said. ‘Took me a while to settle her down.’
‘But she’s okay now?’
‘Getting there.’
Fogelsong nodded. He’d sensed a softening in her when she talked about Carla. It gave him confidence to go forward.
‘Thing is, Bell,’ he said, ‘if she’s upset, I could send a deputy over to watch the house. For a couple of days, maybe. I don’t think there’s anything to worry about, but it might give her some peace of mind.’
‘Nice of you, Nick, but she’d hate the fuss.’ Bell paused. ‘No public release of the names of the witnesses, right?’
‘Right. They’d be fighting off the TV cameras for the next month and a half. We don’t want that.’
‘Good.’
Nick pondered. ‘Now, the local folks have a pretty good idea of who was there. Hard to keep that quiet.’
‘Not “hard,” Nick. Impossible.’
With a tilt of his head, the sheriff conceded the point. ‘Anyway, the offer of a squad car stands. Let me know.’
‘She’s a tough kid,’ Bell said, making no attempt to hide the pride in her voice. ‘After she gave her statement, I got her home and made her something to eat. Finally persuaded her to take a nap. Ruthie came over to stay with her. She knew I needed to get back to work. And Tom’s been keeping an eye on the house.’ Ruthie Cox was Bell’s best friend; she and her husband Tom lived three streets over from Bell and Carla. ‘I didn’t want her to be alone.’
‘Can’t blame you.’
Bell uncrossed her legs. She leaned forward, setting her fists on her knees.
‘You know