to indict a mentally challenged man named Albie Sheets for the murder of a six-year-old – was a daunting one, fraught with moral and legal dilemmas as tightly tangled as miscellaneous string and single shoelaces and ancient rubber bands nested in the back of a kitchen drawer. Whenever Bell sat down to tackle it, she lost all sense of time. She had instructed her assistant to meet her here at the office this morning by 9 A.M. Hearing a heavy step in the hall, Bell had rediscovered her watch and realized how late Rhonda was. Ridiculously late. At which point another thought had occurred to her: She, too, was late – late to pick up Carla at the Salty Dawg.
First things first, however. Bell had squared her shoulders, readying herself to be the fire-breathing boss, to address Rhonda in all-out, full-on, rip-her-a-new-one mode.
And then her assistant’s words finally registered.
Gunshots. Downtown.
‘Where?’ Bell said.
Rhonda, first gulping another spoonful of air, had managed a raspy, ‘Salty Dawg.’ The syllables came out in three ragged gasps. Rhonda’s rapid ascent of the courthouse steps had just about done her in.
Bell was up and out of her chair so fast that it had startled Rhonda, causing her to tilt back and wobble precariously like a sideswiped bowling pin, nearly knocking over the yellow vase on the bookshelf behind her. Bell whipped past her assistant and flew through the narrow public hall, loafers clicking against the polished wooden floor, hand diving into the pocket of her black linen trousers to fish out her car keys.
She was halfway down the courthouse steps before she was aware of Rhonda’s voice behind her, plaintive, wailing her name, pleading with her to slow down.
‘Carla’s there,’ Bell said, curt, final, flinging the words back over her shoulder, not breaking her stride. Her runner’s rhythm had, as always, come right back to her, like an obscure fact seemingly forgotten but then instantly available, tucked as it was under the first layer of consciousness.
‘Oh my God!’ Rhonda had cried. ‘Oh my God oh my God oh my God. Do you want me to come with you or should I—’
‘Go back to the office,’ Bell snapped. ‘Get to work.’
Deputy Mathers knew Bell Elkins well enough to know it was hopeless, but he had to try. Or at least to look like he was trying. As she swept past him, he leaned over and reached out a big hand to pluck at her sleeve. Bell shrugged him off like a bug, then made short work of the restaurant door.
‘Don’t touch nothing!’ Mathers said to her back. ‘I know you know what you’re doing, but the sheriff said he’d have my butt if I let anybody—’
‘Got it, Charlie.’
Inside, the chaos was receding, like a wild animal tricked back into its cage. The stunned customers had been shepherded into a far corner of the room, away from the carnage. An old woman swayed back and forth like a human metronome, muttering Jesus Jesus Jesus.
A teenaged boy had thrown up, and he was curved over the smelly mess he’d made, sobbing and quivering, his skinny tattooed arms wrapped tightly around his T-shirted torso.
A Salty Dawg employee – you could tell by her black polyester pants and blousy bright white shirt and shiny white HI! HAVE A DAWG-GONE GOOD DAY! button pinned to the front of that shirt – stared at nothing, eyes wild, mouth open, hands dangling, feet spread.
Two portly women had locked arms and were moaning in unison. They might have been best friends since fourth grade or they might have met seconds ago; it was impossible to tell. Their moaning had a rhythmic, purring quality, almost sexual in its soft undulations.
The little girl who’d been in the midst of the chicken-biscuit meltdown was screaming; her dad, instead of trying to comfort her, was screaming, too, as if in such a terrible moment, the kid was on her own and no business of his. Screams also emanated from a pudgy middle-aged man with a round face and a black goatee.
Bell’s hop-skip of a gaze halted near the center of the room.
It was worse than she’d imagined. And she had imagined it, of course, the way everyone does when they hear about violent death, visualizing it, feeling the dark echo of it in the belly as well as the brain.
The victims lay where they had fallen. Deputies had ascertained that the men were indeed dead and then had backed off, leaving everything intact. The bodies had to stay right