CHAPTER 35
Callie’s words replayed in my mind as I drove to work that morning: They’d be better off with no mother. . . . The link between mother and child tore at the fabric of lives. My own mother, unmarried and pregnant at seventeen, in trouble with the law, and ostracized from the clan, had left Bone Gap and me behind. Had it been a blessing? Had I been better off without her, raised by Gran? I loved Gran with all my heart, yet I carried my mother’s absence with me every day, and that void defined me. For the better? Worse? I didn’t know. What would Katie’s children suffer if I doled out justice to their mother, the woman who had killed their father? And what would they suffer if I didn’t?
Parks met me outside the department at eight o’clock. It took about thirty minutes to get to Johnson City, and another ten or so to locate the train conductor’s place, a ranch-style home, red brick with white trim and a screened front porch. Old but well kept.
A lawn mower sat mid-strip in the front yard. A man called from within the screened porch. “I’m here. Come on in.”
We entered, Wilco at our heels. “Mr. Roger Meyer?” I asked if it was okay to have my dog with me.
“Call me Roger, and yes, I’m glad to see the dog. Used to have a dog. Duke. Best damn dog ever.” He offered a pudgy hand, dirt creased and calloused. Gray tufts of hair poked out on either side of a cap advertising the local Ford dealership. He smelled like fresh grass and sweat. “So, what’s the sheriff’s department want?” He motioned for us to sit.
My shoes made a scraping sound on the green indoor/outdoor carpet. I settled in a folding lawn chair and explained why we were there.
Roger rubbed at his whiskered jaw. “I remember it like it was yesterday. Coal train, but ain’t a lot of need for that now. They shut down the old Clinchfield line, you know? Don’t think trains run through your parts no more.” He picked up his coffee cup and took a sip. “Get y’all some?”
“No thanks. Can you tell us about that night?”
“Not much to tell. The kid was on the tracks. I couldn’t stop in time, and I hit him. It’s haunted me ever since.”
“Is there anything in particular that stood out?”
“The whole damn thing.” The cup shook in his hand.
“I’m sorry.”
Parks hadn’t said a word. She sat opposite me in a lawn chair. An electric fan hummed and clicked in the corner. Wilco lay directly in front of it, focused on the whirling blades, his fur rippling from the blowing air.
Roger continued, “About a month after it happened, the mother paid me a visit. I could hardly look at her, felt so bad for her.”
“Was she angry with you?”
“She was. But I explained to her that I couldn’t stop the train. She seemed to understand, but she wanted to know stuff.”
“Like what?”
He stared at the floor. “Like if he moved or tried to get up before . . . before I hit him.”
“Did he?”
His features darkened. “It was a high-speed collision. I didn’t have time to slow the damn train down. It couldn’t be avoided. And he was just a kid. It was awful. There was nothing left . . .” Sweat pricked his hairline. He set his coffee aside and swiped his forehead.
“I understand.” And I did. The impact of that type of speed would be like bodies impacted by explosions: blood spray, flesh fragments, bones, and odd chunks of organs. “But the mother asked if Zeke had moved. Did he flinch? Anything?”
“No. Nothin’.”
Parks spoke up. “Are you sure? It might have been difficult—”
“Listen, lady. I had full freight that night, ’bout seven thousand tons, and was travelling at ’round fifty-five miles per hour. It was near ten seconds from the time I applied the brakes until impact. The longest ten seconds of my life. I was locked on that boy. Didn’t close my eyes or nothin’. Dear Lawd, the sound when I hit him . . .”
Wilco turned his head and whined.
Roger’s eyes glazed over. “I’m tellin’ ya, there weren’t no movement. He was just lyin’ there, stretched out straight across the tracks, with his arms at his sides.”
That doesn’t sound right.
Parks must’ve thought the same thing. She stayed quiet, folded her arms, and clenched herself. This type of talk about a kid must’ve bothered her.
I leaned forward. “His head didn’t move at all?”
“Nothin’. Still as a dead man.” He looked down and shook his head. “Poor woman got real upset after that. Kept sayin’ that someone had lied about her boy.”
“Lied about what?” I asked.
Roger still shook his head. “Didn’t say. I didn’t ask, couldn’t. But I was the only one who saw . . .” He squeezed his eyes against seeing the horror once again.
I came to a silent conclusion: This didn’t sound like suicide. If Zeke had been conscious at the time, he would have flinched or cowered before impact. It would have been instinctual. He couldn’t have helped it.
Still as a dead man.
Was it possible that Zeke had been drugged prior to lying on the tracks? Was the lie about not finding drugs in his system or in whatever pieces of it they had recovered? That the mother knew her son took drugs, or suspected he’d been drugged? Or . . . was he knocked out or already dead before impact? His arms at his sides . . . Had someone arranged his body on the tracks? I’d seen posed bodies before, done for a purpose, whether ritualistic or to honor the dead. But the only reason to lay a dead body on railroad tracks would be to cover up the real cause of death.
* * *
I called Pusser on the way back from Johnson City, put him on speaker, and told him we’d gotten a break in the case. “I don’t think Zeke Farrell’s mother believed her son died by suicide.” I told him about the body and how it was immobile before impact and positioned on the tracks. “Has Harris turned up any connection yet between Walker and Bannock and Zeke Farrell?”
“Nothing yet.”
“Any luck finding an address for his family?”
“Harris pulled the death certificate. Mother was Georgia Farrell. The address of the deceased wasn’t listed. We’ve checked with utility companies and the postal service and came up with four families in the area with that last name. We’re checking them one by one. I should have something soon.”
The low hum of food-place noises flowed over the line. It was Saturday. The Cuban sandwich special of sliced slow-roasted pork, glazed ham, Swiss cheese, and thinly sliced dill pickles layered with spicy brown mustard on sliced French bread. The McCreary Diner’s nod to an international sandwich. Ten to one, Pusser was in his usual corner booth. Was Meg working today? I couldn’t remember, but lunch sounded good. My stomach growled.
I scanned the side of the road for food signs. “I don’t get it. Roger said that he told all this to the cops at the time. I would have followed up on something like that.”
“Maybe they did, and nothing came of it,” Pusser said. “You know how it is. Witness testimony isn’t always that accurate.”
“Roger seemed pretty sure about what happened.”
“Can’t be an easy ordeal for him. Besides, it was seventeen years ago. And trauma does weird things to memory.”
That’s an understatement. “Do you remember anything about the case?”
“I remember that a kid committed suicide on the tracks around that time. That’s about it. The local cops handled it.”
Parks pointed out a place for lunch. She must have been hungry, too.
“We’re pulling off for a bite to eat,” I told Pusser. “We’ll be back in an hour.”
* * *
After lunch, I went back to the department and spent the rest of the day at my desk, digging back through the ME’s reports and calling local taxidermy shops. Maybe Zeke had worked for one of these places and had taken Princess there or had learned enough to stuff her himself. But no one had heard of the kid.
When I finally left work, Harris was out in the lot, leaning against my car. “You like playing games, don’t you?” he said.
I pulled out my keys. “Get off my car.”
“What are you planning to do with that picture?”
“You mean the picture of the naked girl on the holding cell’s bunk? That picture?”
He glared at me. “I found her name,” I said. “Alma Shelton. Pretty young thing. Emphasis on young.”
“All you got is a picture. You can’t prove nothin’ with that.”
“I wouldn’t waste my time trying. If it comes down to it, I’ll simply turn it over to the district attorney’s office. Let them take on the burden of proof.”
His face went slack, then hardened again. “Do, and I’ll report this.” He stepped forward. Wilco, sensing the tension, moved in front of me, his ears back. Harris stopped where he was but pulled out a piece of paper, held it out at arm’s length. A newspaper article. Gran in front of our trailer a couple years ago. I remembered when it happened. The press had been on us, and they had gotten a picture of her in front of our trailer, waving a gun, threatening them for trespassing.
“I blew it up,” Harris said. “Made comparisons. That engraving on the grip is unique, that’s for sure. It’s the same gun, and it was in your family’s possession.” He got all smug-like. “There’s going to be a lot of questions for your grandmother.”
“She’s sick, Harris. She can’t even talk, let alone answer questions.”
He smirked. “And then there’s Kevin Doogan. I checked around. He was spotted in town last week, right before his death. There was a big wedding that day. One of your pikey friends was getting hitched. And you gypsies are big on weddings, everyone knows that.”
Okay.
“So, I pulled the video surveillance from the hotel parking lot. And look who was there.” He pulled out a still shot of Doogan, walking in the lobby. “At the same hotel, the same party as you, the same night he killed himself. How’s that work?”
“You seem to think you know.”
“I didn’t. Not for a while. Not until the note.”
“The note?”
“Doogan’s suicide note.”
My stomach turned; my heart kicked up. Anxiety. And he read it in my expression.
“You should be scared, Callahan. Because it’s lookin’ a lot like your grandmother was involved in Dublin Costello’s murder.”
My blood boiled. I got in his face. “I don’t know what you’re hoping to accomplish, Harris. But you better be careful where you sling this crap. It might come back to hit you in the face.” I jingled my keys. “Now get the hell off my car.”
* * *
It all rained down at once.
Gran’s stroke, Doogan’s death, Katie’s threats, Harris’s accusations. . . I opened the door for Wilco and climbed into my car, watching Harris walk away, anxiety snaking through my body. Wilco stared at me from the passenger seat, watching and panting, slobber dripping onto my pants. I stretched out my legs, reached into my pocket, and pulled out the meds I’d lifted from Harris’s desk. I sat for a while—couldn’t get the shakes to go away—and looked at the pills. Relief, I knew. Sweet relief. My hand jiggled, the pills jumping like Mexican jumping beans—Take me, senorita! Take me!—and I licked my dry lips. I shifted them to my left hand, my right reaching for my water bottle. My hand brushed Wilco’s wet nose, and he cocked his head at me. Deep brown, trusting, questioning eyes.
I shifted my reach, this time going for my cell, and dialed. “Jake?”
“Brynn. I was going to call and see—”
“I need . . .” What did I need? Every muscle ached with tension, tight and throbbing, called out for relief. Booze or pills, but that wasn’t an option. I slid the pills into my glove compartment. Stored and locked away for now. “I need to see you. Can I come over?”