you and Nick see that as well. Living in a small town like this – well, we all know each other’s sorrows, don’t we? There’s nowhere to hide. We’re all a part of each other’s lives.’ Ruthie touched Bell’s hand. ‘I really do mean what I said before. You and Nick will get to the bottom of this. I’m certain of it.’
Bell nodded. It was true that she and the sheriff made an effective team. They’d handled killings before. Brutal, horrendous ones.
Last year, an eighteen-year-old, floppy-haired, vacant-eyed punk named Kyle Waller – definitively rejected earlier that evening by Tiffany Amber Porter, aged seventeen, on account of his drug use and general good-for-nothingness – had expressed his humiliation and rage by murdering four people in a trailer park over by the interstate, driving his point home by killing, in addition to the lovely Miss Tiffany herself, the girl’s parents and her toddler niece with a semiautomatic weapon that turned the inside of that trailer into a compact slaughterhouse, a red metal tube of death. A semiautomatic wielded by an eighteen-year-old, Bell had thought at the time, shocked despite herself. In Raythune County, West Virginia. Every year, the river of violence rose, the river that swept in from the big cities and the faraway places, and now it was washing up at the edges of Acker’s Gap.
It was coming. You could smell it, Bell thought. You could feel it.
Today’s violence, though, was far more ominous than Kyle Waller’s rampage. Waller was a kid, and his act came from a moment’s whim, for which he’d pay a lifetime’s penance. But what had happened in the Salty Dawg that morning seemed to have nothing to do with passion. It was cold. Methodical. Carefully planned.
That much had been clear to Bell and the sheriff as they’d gone over details of the case, again and again and again. They’d compared witness statements, noting the fact that he didn’t try to rob the place or anybody in it. They’d reenacted the shooter’s movements, from his casual entrance to his precise aim to his calm getaway.
Why in the world, though, would anybody want to kill three harmless old men?
Ruthie opened the big front door. The hinges yelped, but complied. ‘Call me if you need to, Bell,’ she said. ‘Day or night. You know that.’
‘I do. We’ll talk soon. And thanks again for coming over.’
The overhead light suddenly flickered. It lasted less than a second, just a slight dimming before returning to full strength, but Bell muttered, ‘Damn this old house.’
‘Thought you just had all the wiring redone.’
‘I did. By Walter Meckling and his crew,’ Bell said, naming the best-known general contractor in Raythune County. ‘Good thing it’s still under warranty. Walter’s supposed to be sending somebody over to take a look at it.’ She shook her head. It wasn’t the wiring that was bothering her. ‘Hell, Ruthie, can’t anything go right around here? Just one damned thing. That’s all I ask. Just one.’
Ruthie gave her a quick hug. It wasn’t an answer, but it would have to do for now. Even through Ruthie’s jacket Bell could feel how thin she was, how sharp and prominent the bones were.
‘Let me know if there’s news,’ Ruthie said. ‘And listen, Bell.’
She leaned close to her friend and dropped her voice, although the volume on the TV set in the next room was plenty loud enough to ensure privacy. ‘Carla’s going to be okay. She’s really just a scared little girl right now. She can’t show you that, though.’
Bell nodded, as if it all made perfect sense to her. But it didn’t. Not really.
The door closed.
She turned and walked slowly back into the living room. Carla stood in front of the couch, blanket foaming around her feet, arms folded across her small chest, head bowed, breathing deeply. She wasn’t watching the TV set. The noise pouring out of it was ludicrously loud. Bell knew better, though, than to reach for the remote control to shush it. That would be a declaration of war.
‘You sure you don’t want to talk a little bit about today?’ Bell said.
She timed her question to arrive in the space between the braying honks of a sitcom laugh track. Bell didn’t recognize the show. They all seemed alike to her these days. Big oily vats of dumb jokes, mostly about sex.
Carla lifted her head and gave her mother a savage sideways glare that mingled contempt and incredulity. ‘Talk about it? You want me to talk about it.’ She