LENA SAT in Jeffrey’s Lincoln town car, her body tight as a drum. Her breathing came in pants, and she felt slightly light-headed, as if she might pass out. She was sweating, and not just from being trapped in the hot car. Her whole body felt lit up, as if she had touched a live electrical wire.
“Bitch,” she breathed, thinking of Sara Linton. “Stupid bitch,” she repeated, as if calling her this would take away what had been said.
Sara’s words still echoed in Lena’s head: Now you know what it’s like to hurt somebody.
Hurt, Sara had said, but Lena knew what she had meant. Now you know what it’s like to rape somebody.
“Goddamn it!” Lena screamed as loud as she could, trying to replace the sound. She slammed her hand against the dashboard, cursing Sara Linton, cursing this stupid job.
Back in the interrogation room, drilling Dottie Weaver like that, for the first time in forever, Lena had started to feel human again, and Sara had taken that away with one simple sentence.
“Dammit!” Lena screamed again, her voice hoarse from the effort. She wanted to cry, but there were no tears left, just a seething anger. Every muscle in her body was tense, and she felt like she could lift the car up and flip it over if she wanted to.
“Stop it, stop it, stop it,” Lena told herself, trying to calm down. She had to be okay with this when Jeffrey got to the car, because he would tell Sara—he was fucking her, for God’s sake—and Lena did not want Sara Linton to know her words had struck so deep.
Lena snorted a laugh at the thought of Sara’s lame apology. As if that made a difference. Sara had said exactly what she meant. The only reason she apologized was she felt bad for saying it out loud. On top of being a bitch, she was a coward.
She took another deep breath, trying to get herself together. “It’s okay,” Lena whispered to herself. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.”
After a couple of minutes, Lena felt better. Her heart was not beating so hard, and her stomach seemed to unclench. She kept reminding herself that she was strong, that she had been through worse than this and survived. What Sara Linton thought did not matter in the big scheme of things. What mattered was that Lena could do her job. She had done her job. They had gotten some solid leads to follow in that interview, something that would not have happened if Sara Linton had been in charge.
Lena looked at her watch, then did a double take. She had not realized what time it was. Hank would be wondering what was taking her so long. There was no way she could go to church with him now.
Jeffrey’s car had a cell phone mounted into the console, and Lena leaned over, cranking the engine so she could use the phone. She turned on the air conditioner and cracked the window to let some of the heat out of the car. The phone took its time powering up, and she glanced at the station, this time to make sure Jeffrey was not coming out.
Hank picked up on the first ring. “Hello?”
“It’s me,” she said. There was a pause from his end, and she realized what her voice must sound like. There was a rawness to it, and the edge from her confrontation with Sara was still there. Thankfully, Hank did not ask her what was wrong.
She said, “I’m not going to be able to make it to church.”
“Oh?” he said, but did not go further.
“I’ve got to do an interview with Jeffrey,” she told him, even though she did not owe Hank Norton an explanation. “We’re going to be a while, probably. You should go without me.” Lena’s voice went down on the last part of her sentence as she thought about going home and being by herself.
“Lee?” Hank asked, obviously sensing her fear. “I can stay here for you if you want. You know, just until you get home.”
“Don’t be stupid,” she said, aware that her tone wasn’t very convincing. “I’m not a three year old.”
“You could come after, you know,” Hank said, hesitancy in his voice. “I mean, to hear the choir sing.”
Lena experienced a sinking feeling as she remembered the concert. It would be dark outside by the time Hank got home. Inside the house would be darker, no matter how many lights Lena turned on.
“I gotta get up early to go check on the bar, anyway,” Hank offered. “I could come home after the service.”
“Hank,” Lena said, trying not to let on that her heart was about to explode in her chest. “Listen, go to the fucking concert, okay? I don’t need you baby-sitting me all the time. I mean, for fuck’s sake.”
Sunlight flashed off the back door as Jeffrey came out of the building. Marla Simms was right behind him, holding a file folder out to the chief.
Hank asked, “You’re sure?”
“Yeah,” she answered before she could think about it. “Listen, I’ve gotta go. I’ll see you when you get home.”
She hung up the phone before Hank could respond.
“Jesus,” Jeffrey said as soon as he opened the car door. “Is the air on?” he asked, throwing her the file Marla had handed him.
“Yeah,” Lena mumbled, shifting in her seat as he got in. Without thinking about it, she had moved away from him, as close to the door as she could get. If he noticed this, Jeffrey did not comment.
Jeffrey threw his suit jacket into the back seat. “I got a call,” he said, obviously preoccupied. “My mother’s had an accident. I’ve got to go to Alabama tonight.”
“Now?” Lena asked, putting her hand on the door handle, thinking she could call Hank from her car and tell him to wait for her.
“No,” Jeffrey told her, making a point of looking at her hand. “Tonight.”
“Okay,” she said, keeping her fingers on the handle, as if she was resting them there.
“It’s gonna be a pain in the ass to leave in the middle of this. Maybe Mark Patterson can straighten things out.”
“What do you mean, like it was a lover’s tiff or something?” Lena asked.
“Maybe he can tell us who the other girls were, who the mother is.”
She nodded, but did not think it was likely.
“I talked to Brad. Fine wasn’t on the Ski Retreat.” Jeffrey frowned. “I’ll call Brad again after we talk to Mark and see if I can push him to remember anything else.” He paused. “I’m sure he would have said if something bad happened.”
“Yeah,” Lena agreed. Brad was the kind of cop who would turn in his own mother for jaywalking.
“First thing tomorrow, I want you and Brad to talk to Jenny Weaver’s teachers and see what kind of kid she was, maybe find out if there was somebody she was hanging around with. Also, talk to the girls who went on the retreat with Jenny and Lacey. They probably all go to the same school.”
“Okay.”
“I can’t get out of going to Alabama or I’d do this myself.”
“Sure,” she said, wondering why he kept making excuses. Technically, he was in charge. Besides, it wasn’t like there was much Jeffrey could do on the case right now. Unless Mark pointed the finger at someone, they didn’t have very much to go on.
He said, “I also want you to interview Fine as soon as possible.” He looked at his watch. “Tomorrow morning. Take Frank with you for that one, not Brad.”
She repeated, “Okay.”
“You said you know him, the preacher,” Jeffrey began, putting the car into reverse. “You think he’s got this in him?”
“This?” Lena said, then remembered why they were here. “No,” she answered. “He’s not a bad guy. I just don’t get along with him is all.”
Jeffrey gave her a look that said she didn’t seem to get along with anybody.
Lena offered, “Actually, I’ve kind of got an appointment with him tomorrow evening.”
“An appointment?”
Lena looked at the dashboard. “Like you said before. What you wanted me to do,” she prompted, but he did not pick up on it. “Talk to somebody,” she supplied.
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t be the one to—”
“No,” she insisted. “I want to do it.” She tried to smile, but it felt fake, even to her. “It’ll surprise him, right? Thinking that I’m there for a session or whatever, but turning it around and asking him about Jenny and the Pattersons.”
Jeffrey frowned as he turned the car out of the parking lot. “I’m not sure I like that.”
“You always said that the best time to interview somebody is when you catch him off guard,” she reminded him, trying to keep the desperation out of her voice. “Besides, Hank set it up. It’s not like I would talk to him about…” Lena looked for a word, but could not find one. “I wouldn’t talk to him, okay? He’s a freak. I don’t trust him.”
“Why?”
“I just don’t,” she said. “I just have a feeling about him.”
“But you don’t think he did this?”
She shrugged, trying to find a way to backpedal. How could she explain to Jeffrey that the main reason she did not like Dave Fine, did not trust him, was that he was a pastor? Jeffrey was being just as stupid about it as Hank. How anyone could not make the connection between Lena’s being assaulted by a religious fanatic and her not wanting to talk to a preacher about it was beyond her.
She said, “I dunno, maybe he’s got it in him.”
The lie seemed to swing Jeffrey. “Okay. But, take Frank with you.”
“Sure.”
“This isn’t an interrogation. We’re just trying to find out if he knows anything. Don’t go in there and piss him off for no good reason.”
“I know.”
“And set something else up,” he said. “Something with somebody else.” He paused. “That was a condition, Lena. The only reason I let you come back so early was because you promised you would talk to somebody about what happened.”
“Yeah,” she nodded. “I’ll set something up with somebody else, first thing.”
He stared at her, as if he could figure her out just from looking.
She tried to sound casual as she changed the subject, asking, “She okay? Your mom, I mean.”
“Yeah,” he answered. “Are you all right?”
She tried not to sound glib. “I’m fine.”
“That thing with Sara—”
“I’m fine,” she reassured him, using a tone that would have shut up Hank in two seconds flat.
Jeffrey, of course, was not Hank Norton. He persisted, “You’re sure?”
“Yeah.” Then, to prove it, she asked, “What was that thing in the interview? Dr. Linton sounded surprised when the mother mentioned Lacey Patterson.”
“She was a patient of Sara’s at the clinic,” Jeffrey told her. Then, almost to himself, he said, “You know how Sara feels about her kids.”
Lena didn’t, and she looked down at the file, not answering him. Mark Patterson’s name was on the tab, and she flipped it open to see what he had been up to. The top sheet had his vitals on it, including his address. “They live in Morningside?” she asked, referring to a shady part of Madison.
“I’m thinking it’s that trailer park. The one with the green awning over the sign?”
“The Kudzu Arms,” Lena supplied. She and Brad had been called out to the Kudzu on several occasions over the course of the last few months. The hotter the weather, the hotter the tempers.
“Anyway,” Jeffrey said, moving things along. “What’s he got on his sheet?”
Lena thumbed through the pages. “Two B and Es when he was ten, both of them at the Kudzu Arms. Most recently, he beat up his sister pretty bad. His father called us out, we got there, they wouldn’t press charges.” She stopped reading, providing, “‘We’ means Deacon and Percy,” she supplied, referring to two beat cops. “They pulled this one, not me and Brad.”
Jeffrey scratched his chin, seeming to think this through. “I don’t even remember when it happened.”
“Just after Thanksgiving,” Lena told him. “Then, around Christmas time, Deacon and Percy were called back. It was the father again, and he asked for them specifically.” She skimmed the report Deacon had written. “This time, charges were filed. They took him down to the pokey for a couple of days, Mark was supposed to take some anger management classes in exchange for time served.” She snorted a laugh. “Buddy Conford was his lawyer.”
“Buddy’s not that bad,” Jeffrey said.
Lena closed the file, giving him an incredulous look. “He’s a whore. He puts addicts and murderers back on the streets.”
“He’s doing his job, just like we are.”
“His job screws our job,” Lena insisted.
Jeffrey shook his head. “He’s gunna be talking to you about the Weaver situation,” he told her. “The shooting.”
Lena snorted a laugh. “He’s working for Dottie Weaver?”
“The city,” he told her. “I guess he’s doing it as a favor to the mayor.” Jeffrey shrugged. “Anyway, work it out with him. Tell him what happened.”
“It was a clean shot,” Lena told him, because if there was one truth in her life right now, it was that Jeffrey had taken the only option given to him. She said, “Brad will say the same thing.”
Jeffrey was quiet, and he seemed to drop the subject, but after a few minutes he pulled the car over to the side of the road. Lena felt a sense of déjà vu, and her stomach lurched as she thought about being in the car with Hank that morning, and how she had embarrassed herself. There was no question in her mind now that Lena would not have the same problem with Jeffrey. She could be stronger around Jeffrey because he did not see her the way that Hank did. Hank still thought of Lena as a teenage girl because that was the only way he had ever really known her.
Lena waited as Jeffrey put the car in park and turned toward her. She felt the hair on the back of her neck rise, and thought she might be in trouble or something.
“Between you and me…,” Jeffrey said, then stopped. He waited until she looked him in the eye and repeated himself. “Between you and me,” he said.
“Yeah,” Lena nodded, not liking the serious tone in his voice. Her stomach sank in her gut as she realized he was going to say something about Sara.
He surprised her, saying instead, “The shot.”
She nodded for him to continue.
“With Weaver,” he said, as if he needed to narrow it down. She could see how upset he was. For the first time, she understood what it meant to read someone like a book. She saw the kind of pain in his eyes that she would never expect to see in Jeffrey Tolliver.
“Tell me the truth,” he said, a begging quality to his voice. “You were there. You saw what happened.”
“I did,” she agreed, feeling a startling need coming off of him.
“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. “Threeten,” 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.”
“Marla 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?”
“She’s thirteen,” Grace told him, as if that answered it. “We don’t even let boys call the house.”
“She couldn’t have been seeing anyone on the side?”
“I don’t see how,” Grace answered. “She’s home from school every day when she’s supposed to be. Whenever she goes out, it’s always with a group of her girlfriends and she always comes back in time for her curfew.”
Lena could sense Jeffrey trying to catch her eye, but she ignored him.
He asked, “What time is her curfew?”
“School nights we don’t let her go out, of course. Fridays and Saturdays, nine o’clock.”
“Does she ever sleep over with anybody?”
Grace looked as if she had just realized that Jeffrey’s interest in Lacey was more calculated than she had originally thought. The look was similar to the one Dottie Weaver had given Lena just hours before, but there was far more menace in Grace Patterson than there had been in Dottie Weaver.
She demanded, “Why are you asking so many questions about my daughter? It was Mark that little girl pointed the gun at.”
Jeffrey said, “Dottie told us that Lacey and Jenny were friends.”
“Well…,” she began, the hesitancy still there as she obviously tried to think a step ahead of Jeffrey’s questions. Finally, she said, “Yes, they were friends. Then something happened and they stopped hanging around each other.” She shrugged. “I guess it’s been a few months since that happened. We haven’t seen Jenny around for a while, and I know Lacey hasn’t gone over to her house.”
“Did she tell you why?”
“I assumed it was some silly little disagreement.”
“But you didn’t ask her?”
Grace shrugged. “She’s my daughter, Chief Tolliver, not my best friend. Little girls have their secrets. You can ask your ex-wife about that.”
He nodded at this. “Sara said Lacey’s a great kid. Very smart.”
“She is,” Grace agreed, and she seemed pleased to have her daughter complimented. “But, it’s not my place to pry if she’s not ready to talk about it.”
“Maybe she wouldn’t mind talking with someone else about it?”
“Meaning?”
“Do you mind if I talk to her?”
Grace gave him another sharp look. “She’s a minor. If you don’t have cause, you can’t talk to her without my permission. Is that right?”
“We don’t want to talk to her as a suspect, Mrs. Patterson. We just want to get some idea of what state of mind Jenny Weaver was in. We don’t really need your permission for that.”
“But, I’ve just told you that Lacey hasn’t seen Jenny for a while—probably since Christmas. She wouldn’t have any idea about this.” Grace gave a polite but humorless smile. “I do not want my daughter interrogated, Chief Tolliver.” She paused. “By you or by Dr. Linton.”
“She’s not suspected of any wrongdoing.”
“I want to keep it that way,” she said. “Do I need to call the school and tell them that she is not to talk to anyone without either her father or me in the room?”
Jeffrey paused, probably thinking that she knew a hell of a lot more about the law than they had initially suspected. Schools were very friendly with law enforcement, and since administrators served as in loco parentis while the kids were on campus, they could allow interviews.
Jeffrey said, “That’s not necessary.”
“Do I have your word on that?”
Jeffrey gave a quick nod. “All right,” he said, and Lena could hear the disappointment in his voice.
“We’d still like to talk to her,” Jeffrey said. “You’re more than welcome to sit in on an interview.”
“I’ll have to talk to Teddy about that,” she told him. “But we can both imagine what he’ll say.” She gave a slight almost-smile, ending the hostility. “You know about daddies and their little girls.”
Jeffrey sighed, and nodded again. Lena knew that Teddy Patterson was more likely to slip on his wife’s Sunday best than to let his daughter talk to a cop. Cons learned to distrust the police early on, and despite the fact that he had been out of prison for a good while, Teddy still seemed to be practicing this.
To his credit, Jeffrey did not completely give up. He asked, “She hasn’t been sick lately, has she?”
“Lacey?” Grace asked, obviously surprised. “No, of course not. Ask Dr. Linton if you like.” She put her hand to her chest self-consciously. “I’m the only one in the family who’s ever been ill.”
“She was going to church? Lacey was?”
“Yes,” Grace told them. She smiled again, and Lena could see that her teeth were slightly gray. “Mark was, too. For a while, anyway.” She paused, looking at the fireplace. Lena thought she was looking at the painting, but then she noticed there were pictures of the family on the mantel. They were the kinds of snapshots every family had, kids and parents at the beach, at an amusement park, out camping in the woods. The Grace Patterson in these photos was a little heavier and not so sunken-looking. The kids looked younger, too. The boy who must have been Mark looked around ten or eleven years old, his sister around eight. They seemed like a happy family. Even Teddy Patterson smiled for the camera in the few shots that showed him.
“So,” Jeffrey prompted, “they went to the Baptist?”
“Crescent Baptist,” Grace answered, her voice animated for the first time. “Mark seemed very happy there for a while. Like some of his nervous energy was being directed, finally. He even started doing better in school.”
“And then?”
“And then…” She shook her head slowly, her shoulders slumped. “I don’t know. Around Christmas, he started to get bad again.”
“Christmas this past year?” Jeffrey asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I really don’t know what happened, but the anger was back. He seemed so…” Again, she let her voice trail off. “We tried to get him into counseling, but he wouldn’t show up. We couldn’t make him go, though”—she looked down the hallway, as if to check to see if they were alone—“his father tried. Teddy thinks that people should be like him. Boys, that is. Or men, I should say. He has strong ideas about what’s acceptable.”
“There was a church retreat at Christmastime. Did Mark go on that?”
“No,” she shook her head. “This was around the time he started to act up. He was grounded, and his father wouldn’t let him go.”
“Lacey went?”
“Yes,” she smiled. “She’d never been skiing before. She had a wonderful time.”
They fell silent, and Grace Patterson picked at some nonexistent lint on her dress. Obviously, she had more to say.
“I’m very sick,” she said, her voice low. “My doctors don’t hold out much hope for me.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Jeffrey said, and he truly seemed to be.
“Breast cancer,” Grace said, putting her hand to her chest. Lena noticed for the first time that the woman’s chest was almost completely flat under her blouse. “Lacey will be fine. She always lands on her feet. I don’t like to think what will happen to Mark when I’m gone. For all his posturing, he’s a gentle boy.”
“I’m sure he’ll be okay,” Jeffrey assured her, though even to Lena he did not seem confident. Short of a miracle, boys like Mark did not turn themselves around.
Grace picked up on the deception. She gave a small, knowing chuckle. “Oh, I’m no fool, Chief Tolliver, but I thank you all the same.”
Teddy Patterson’s footsteps were heavy in the hallway, and the trailer shifted slightly from his weight as he entered the room. His son was behind him, a stark contrast to the father. Patterson grabbed the boy’s arm and pulled him into the room.
Lena’s first impression of Mark Patterson was that he was incredibly handsome. Last night, she had not taken much notice of him because so much had been going on. In the trailer, she took her time assessing him. Mark’s dark blond hair matched his mother’s, but it was more full, and slightly shorter. His eyelashes were longer than any she had ever seen on a man, and his eyes were a piercing blue. Like most sixteen-year-old boys, he had the beginnings of a goatee on his chin and the semblance of a mustache over his full lips.
As Lena watched, he tucked his hair behind his ears with his fingers. She could not help but think there was something erotic in the gesture. There was also something about the way he walked and held his shoulders that gave him a certain sensuality. His faded jeans rested a little below his thin hips, and the tight white T-shirt he wore rode up a little, showing off the definition in his abs.
Despite all of this, there was a sexlessness to him. Mark Patterson was a sixteen-year-old child on the verge of becoming a man. He was boyish in that androgynous way that was now popular with teenagers. When Lena was in high school, boys had done everything possible to make themselves appear more masculine. Today, they were more comfortable with blurring the roles.
“Here he is,” Patterson barked, pushing Mark farther into the room. The man seemed angry, even more so than before, and his hands were in tight fists like he wanted nothing more than to pummel his son. For some reason, Teddy Patterson reminded Lena of Hank. The gruff way he had pushed Mark and the nasty tone of his voice could have come from Hank twenty years ago.
“We’ll go for a drive,” Patterson told his wife. “Get your pills from the pharmacy.”
“Teddy,” Grace said, the word catching in her throat. Lena wondered, too, why a man with Teddy Patterson’s innate distrust of the police would leave his only son alone with them. By law, Teddy could be in on the interview. He was effectively hanging his son out to dry.
Jeffrey obviously wanted to capitalize on this. “Mr. Patterson,” he began. “Do you mind if we schedule an appointment with Mark tomorrow to get a blood sample from him?”
Patterson’s eyebrow went up, but he nodded. “Just tell him when and he’ll be there.”
Grace said, “Teddy.”
“Let’s go,” Patterson ordered his wife. “The pharmacy closes soon.”
If Grace Patterson had power over her husband, she had learned when not to use it. She stood, offering her hand first to Jeffrey, then to Lena. Grace had not even talked to Lena the entire time, but the woman kept Lena’s hand in hers for longer than just a polite good-bye.
“Take care,” she told Lena.
Grace Patterson stopped in front of her son before she followed her husband out the door, giving him a kiss on the cheek. She was a couple of inches shorter than he was, and she had to rise up on her toes to do this.
“Good-bye,” Grace told him, patting his shoulder.
Mark watched her leave, touching his fingers to his cheek where his mother had kissed him. He looked at his fingers, as if he might see the kiss on them.
“Mark?” Jeffrey asked, getting the boy’s attention.
“Sir?” he said, drawing out the word. His body was too loose to stand still, and he swayed a bit.
Jeffrey asked, “You stoned?”
“Yes, sir,” he answered, putting his hand on the back of a chair to steady himself. Lena saw a large gold class ring on his finger. The red stone caught the light, and she guessed there was an initial underneath.
Mark asked, “You wanna take me to jail?”
“No,” Jeffrey told him. “I want to talk to you about what happened last night.”
“What happened last night,” he mimicked, his words slurring together. “I wanna thank you for shooting the right person.”
Jeffrey took out his notebook, flipping it open to a blank page. As Lena watched, he took out his pen and wrote Mark’s name at the top of the page, asking, “You think I did?”
Mark smiled lazily. He walked around the chair and sat down, blowing air out between his lips as he did. There was something sexual even in this movement, and rather than being repulsed, as Lena thought she would have been, she was intrigued. She had never met a grown man who seemed so comfortable with himself, let alone a teenage boy.
Jeffrey started out with a hard question. “Were you the father of that baby last night?”
Mark raised his eyebrow the same way his father had. “Nope,” he said, his lips smacking on the word.
Jeffrey tried a different avenue, asking, “Was your sister with you last night?”
“Naw, man,” Mark answered. “My mom, you know. She’s not doing too well. Lace stayed home with her.” He shrugged. “She don’t ask often, you know? My mom likes to leave us out of the fact that she’s fucking dying.”
He swallowed visibly, turning his head to the side, looking out the window. He seemed to compose himself, because when he looked back at Jeffrey, the smile was there, teasing at his lips. There was something more to this kid than his looks. A shadow seemed to be hanging over him, and not just because of what happened last night. He had about him the air of being damaged, something Lena could relate to. He seemed fragile, but slightly dangerous at the same time. Not that he was threatening like his father. If anything, Mark Patterson seemed to be a danger only to himself.
Lena found her voice for the first time since they had gotten to the trailer. “You like your sister?” she asked.
“She’s a saint,” Mark said, twisting the ring on his finger. “Daddy’s little girl.”
“Has she been feeling okay lately?” Lena asked. “She hasn’t been sick or anything, right?”
Mark stared openly at Lena. There was nothing hostile about the stare. He seemed curious about her and nothing more. He said, “She seemed fine this morning. You’d have to ask her.”
Lena tried, “Why was Jenny Weaver so mad at you?”
He raised his shoulders, held them there for a while, then let them drop. Lena watched as he lifted up his shirt and absently started to stroke his flat stomach. “You know, lots of girls get mad at me.”
Jeffrey asked, “Were you involved with her?”
“What, in a relationship?” He shook his head slowly side to side. “Nah. I mean, I did her a couple of times, but it was nothing serious.” He held up his hand to stop the next question. “This was when I was fifteen, officer.”
Lena told him, “There has to be at least a five-year age difference for statutory rape.”
Jeffrey shifted on the couch, obviously not pleased that Lena had given Mark this information. He could have used this threat for leverage. Now he had to find something else.
Jeffrey asked, “When was the last time you had sex with her?”
“I dunno,” Mark said, still stroking his belly. There was a small tattoo on the webbing between his thumb and forefinger. Lena could make out a black heart with an inverted white heart in the center of it. Mark had obviously done this himself, because the symbol looked as rudimentary as his father’s jailhouse ballpoint ink tattoos.
Lena prompted, “You had sex with her a lot?”
Mark shrugged. “Often enough,” he said, still stroking his stomach. He started picking at the trail of hair between his navel and his pubis, giving Lena a sly look. She glanced at Jeffrey, wondering what he was making of this. Jeffrey was not looking, though. Instead, he was copying the tattoo into his notebook.
“Well,” Jeffrey began, blacking in the heart. “Take a guess.”
“Maybe a year or so ago?” Mark offered. “She wanted it, man. She begged me.”
Jeffrey finished the drawing, looking up. “This isn’t about nailing you for rape, Mark. I don’t care if you’ve been banging goats in the backyard. You know what this is about.”
“It’s about her wanting to kill me,” he said. “And why.”
“Right,” Lena said. “We just want to get to the bottom of this, Mark. This is about Jenny, and why she would do what she did.”
Mark gave Lena a lazy smile. “Gosh, detective, you sure are pretty.”
Lena felt embarrassed, and wondered what signals she had given the boy. Certainly, sex was the last thing on her mind, and she wasn’t sure that she thought Mark Patterson was so much attractive as perfect. There was a cinema-idol quality to his appearance. He seemed too good-looking to be true. She was showing the same interest in him as she would a beautiful painting or an exquisite sculpture.
“You’re pretty handsome yourself, Mark,” she countered, making her words sharp. Teddy Patterson might be able to fuck with her, but she would be damned if his precocious boy would. “Which is why I’m puzzled about Jenny. She wasn’t exactly homecoming queen material. Couldn’t you get any better than that?”
Her words hit him exactly where she had intended them to, in his ego.
“Trust me, detective, I’ve had a lot better than that.”
“Yeah?” she asked. “What, you banged her out of the goodness of your heart?”
“I let her suck me off sometimes,” he said, his fingers moving lower down his belly, his eyes on Lena as he obviously tried to gauge her reaction to him touching himself. His interest gave Lena some insight into the boy. She imagined that someone so attractive was used to trading on his looks. No wonder his father, a man who had the physical presence of a freight train, was so disgusted by his son.
Suddenly, she felt sorry for him. Lena shifted on the couch, feeling a bit unsettled. She had spent such a long time feeling sorry for herself that for a moment she did not know what to do with this new emotion.
Mark said, “She had this thing she did with her tongue, like a lollipop. No teeth. It was great.”
Lena felt her heart rate accelerate, willing herself not to react to his words. Probably the boy had no idea who she was or what had happened to her.
She could sense Jeffrey about to step in, so she said the first thing that came to her mind to keep him from interfering. “So, you let her give you blow jobs?” she said, trying to be flippant. Still, she kept her tongue firmly against the back of her teeth as she waited for his answer.
A smile broke out on his lips, and he stared at her, his piercing blue eyes sparkling with humor. “Yeah.”
“Here? In this house?”
Mark gave a light chuckle. “Right down the hall.”
“With your mama in the house?”
He stopped, seeming more afraid than angry. “Don’t bring my mama into this.”
Lena smiled. “We have to, Mark, because that’s where you’ve tripped yourself up. You wouldn’t do that kind of thing in your mother’s house.”
He twisted his lips to the side, obviously thinking this through. “Maybe we did it in her house. Maybe we did it in the car.”
“So, you went out with Jenny? Dated her?”
“Shit no,” he countered. “I took her places with my sister.” He shrugged, and thankfully his hand stopped. “The mall, the movies. Different places.”
“This is when you let her do you? On these trips?”
He shrugged, meaning yes.
“And your sister was where? In the front seat?”
He paled slightly. Mark seemed to transition back and forth from a child to a teenager to a man. If someone had asked her how old Mark Patterson was, she would have guessed anywhere between ten and twenty.
Lena cleared her throat, then asked, “Where was Lacey when you were letting Jenny do you, Mark?”
Mark stared at the flower arrangement on the coffee table. He was very quiet for what seemed like a long time. Finally, he told them, “We met at the church, alright?” He said alright the same way his father did, running the words together.
“You were having sex with her in church,” Lena said, not a question.
“The basement,” he told them. “They don’t check the windows. We sneaked out, okay?”
“That sounds pretty elaborate,” Lena said.
“What does that mean?”
Lena thought about how to phrase her answer. “It’s not opportune, Mark. You know what that means?”
“I’m not stupid.”
“Taking her to the mall, maybe running her and your sister to the store,” Lena paused, making sure she had his attention. “Those things sound like opportune times to me. She was there, you were there, it just kind of happened.”
“Right,” he said. “That’s how it was.”
“But the church,” Lena countered. “The church seems more deliberate. These were not sudden opportunities. These were planned meetings.”
Mark nodded, then stopped himself. He said, “So?”
“So,” Lena picked up again, “if your relationship was casual, why were you arranging these late night meetings?”
Mark turned his head slightly, looking out the window. He was obviously trying to come up with an answer to the question, but unable to.
Lena said, “She’s dead, Mark.”
“I know that,” he whispered, his eyes flickering toward Jeffrey, then back to the floor. “I saw it happen.”
“Is this how you want to talk about her, like she was a whore?” Lena asked him. “Do you really want to tear her down like that?”
Mark’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. After a couple of minutes, he mumbled something she could not understand.
“What?” Lena asked.
“She wasn’t bad,” he said, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. A tear slid down his cheek, and he turned his gaze back toward the window. “Okay?”
Lena nodded. “Okay.”
“She listened to me,” he began, his voice so low she had to strain to hear him. “She was smart, you know? She read and things, and she helped me with school, some.”
Lena sat back on the couch, waiting for him to continue.
“People think things about me,” he said, his tone more childish. “They think I’m a certain way, but maybe I’m not. Maybe there’s more to me than that. Maybe I’m a human being.”
“Of course you are,” Lena told him, thinking that she probably understood Mark more than he thought. Every time she walked out in public, Lena felt like the person she really was had been erased. All she was now was the girl who had been raped. Sometimes, Lena wondered if she would not have been better off if she had died. At least then people would see her as tragic rather than as some kind of victim.
Mark rubbed his fingers along his goatee, pulling Lena back into the interview. He said, “There’s things I did, okay? That maybe I didn’t want to do and maybe she didn’t want to do…” He shook his head, his eyes closed tightly. “Things she did…” His voice trailed off. “I know she was fat, okay? But she was more than that.”
“What was she, Mark?”
He tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair. When he spoke, he seemed more sure of himself, back under control. “She listened to me. You know, about my mom.” He gave a humorless laugh. “Like when my mom told us she didn’t want fucking chemo this time, that she was just gonna let herself die. Jenny understood that.” He found a thread on the arm of the chair and picked at it until it pulled. Mark’s concentration was so focused on the string that Lena wondered if he had forgotten she and Jeffrey were there.
Lena let herself look at Jeffrey. He was sitting back on the couch, too. Both of them stared at Mark, waiting for him to finish.
“She tutored me in school, some,” he said, twisting his ring. “She was younger than me, but she knew how to do things. She liked to read.” He smiled, as if a distant memory had come back. He used the back of his hand to wipe under his nose. “She started hanging out with Lacey. I guess they had a lot in common. She was so nice to me.” He shook his head, as if to clear it. “I just liked her because she was nice to me.” His lips trembled. “When Mama got sick…” he started. Again he was quiet. “We thought she’d beat it, you know? And then it was back, and she was in and out of the hospital, and sick all the time. So sick she couldn’t even walk sometimes. So sick Daddy had to help her stand up to take a shower, even.” He paused, then, “And then she said she wasn’t gonna do it anymore, couldn’t take the chemo, couldn’t take the being sick. Said we didn’t need to see her like that, but how does she want us to see her, man? Dead?”
Mark put his hands over his eyes. “Jenny was just there, you know? She was there for me, not anybody else…” He paused. “She was so sweet, and she was interested in me, and talking to me, and she understood what I was going through, right? She wasn’t about being a cheerleader or wearing my damn class ring. She was all about being there for me.” He dropped his hands, staring at Lena. “It wasn’t about Lacey, or about Dad. She thought I was good. She thought I was worth something.” He dropped his head into his hands, obviously crying.
Lena became conscious of the clock on the wall. Its tick was loud, popping in her ears. Jeffrey was completely still beside her. He had a way of making himself seem part of the scenery, letting her take the lead in things. This was the old Lena and Jeffrey. This was Lena who knew how to do her job, Lena who was in charge of things. She took a deep breath, pulling her shoulders up, letting the air fill her lungs. In this moment, in this room right now, she was herself again. For the first time in months, she was Lena again.
She let a full minute pass before asking Mark, “Tell me what happened.”
He shook his head. “It’s so wrong,” he said. “It all just went so wrong.” He leaned forward, his chest almost to his knees, his face contorted in pain as if someone had kicked him. He covered his face with his hands and started to sob again.
Before she knew what she was doing, Lena was down on her knees beside the boy, holding one of his hands. She put her hand on his back, trying to comfort him. “It’s okay,” she told him, hushing him.
“I love her,” he whispered. “Even after what she did, I still love her.”
“I know you do,” Lena told him, rubbing his back.
“She was so mad at me,” Mark said, still sobbing. Lena pulled a Kleenex out of the box and gave it to him. He blew his nose, then whispered, “I told her we had to stop.”
“Why did you have to stop?” Lena whispered back.
“I never thought she needed me, you know? I thought she was stronger than me. Stronger than everybody.” His voice caught. “And she wasn’t.”
Lena stroked the back of his neck, trying to soothe him. “What happened, Mark? Why did she end up hating you?”
“You think she hates me?” he asked, his eyes searching hers. “You really think she hates me?”
“No, Mark,” Lena said, pushing his hair back out of his face. He had switched to present tense, something people often did when they could not accept that a loved one had died. Lena had found herself doing the same thing with her sister. “Of course she doesn’t hate you.”
“I told her I wouldn’t do it anymore.”
“Do what?”
He shook his head no. “It’s all so pointless,” he said, still shaking his head.
“What’s pointless?” Lena asked, trying to make him look up at her. He did, and for a shocking moment, she thought he might try to kiss her. Quickly, she moved back on her heels, catching herself on the arm of the chair so she wouldn’t fall. Mark must have seen the shock in her expression because he turned away from her, taking another tissue. Mark looked at Jeffrey as he blew his nose. Lena looked at neither of them. All she could think was that she had somehow crossed a line, but what that line was and where it had been drawn she could not figure.
Mark spoke to Jeffrey, and his voice had more authority to it. The kid who had broken down moments ago was gone. The surly teenager was back. “What else?”
“Jenny liked to study?” Jeffrey asked.
Mark shrugged.
Lena said, “Was she interested in other cultures, other religions?”
“What the fuck for?” Mark countered angrily. “It’s not like we’re ever gonna get out of this fucking town.”
“That’s a no, then?” Lena asked.
Mark pursed his lips, almost as if he was going to blow a kiss, then said, “Nope.”
Jeffrey crossed his arms over his chest, taking back over. “Around Christmas, you stopped being friends with Jenny. Why?”
“Got tired of her,” he shrugged.
“Who else did Jenny hang around with?”
“Me,” Mark said. “Lacey. That was it.”
“She didn’t have other friends?”
“No,” Mark answered. “And we weren’t really even her friends.” He laughed lightly. “She was all alone, I guess. Isn’t that sad, Chief Tolliver?”
Jeffrey stared at Mark, not answering.
“If you don’t have any more questions,” Mark began, “I’d like you to go now.”
“Do you know Dr. Linton?” Jeffrey asked.
He shrugged. “Sure.”
“I want you at the children’s clinic tomorrow by ten o’clock to give that blood sample.” Jeffrey pointed his finger at Mark. “Don’t make me come looking for you.”
Mark stood, wiping his palms on his pants. “Yeah, whatever.” He looked down at Lena, who was still on the floor. She was at his crotch level, and he smiled, more like a sneer, when he noticed this.
Mark raised one eyebrow at her, his lips slightly parted in the same sly smile he had given her before, then left the room.