Twenty

Mary worked in the empty police cubicle for most of the day. At Galloway’s suggestion, she requested Campbell County State Police records for the past three years. While those wheels turned, she ran the SBI database on the two new Highway 74 deaths. Tiffani Wallace had multiple arrests for silly stuff—shoplifting a CD, disturbing the peace, drunk and disorderly. Despite her penchant for petty crime, she had a pretty face that belied her sketchy lifestyle. Given different circumstances, Mary could envision her graduating from college, working at a job, going home to a husband and family. The second girl, Maria Perez, was even sadder. She had nothing beyond an autopsy photo—eyes shut, her complexion dark with lividity. She’d been identified by an empty pay envelope from a sweet potato farm in South Carolina. The post-mortem found defensive wounds—scratches on her arms, a broken nail. She had skin fragments beneath the nails of her right hand, but they didn’t match anybody in the system. The skin of her own fingers was stained orange from her work picking sweet potatoes, and a small religious medal hung around her neck. Mary sighed. Latinos worked hard, usually sent most of their paychecks back home. What had this girl’s mother thought when her money had quit coming? Did she think Maria had forgotten about them to run away with some man? Or did she know, in her heart, grieve with the sense that Maria had made her last contribution—that this little chick would not be returning to their nest?

“And what do you do then?” Mary whispered. “How can you stand the not knowing?” She knew not knowing well; there wasn’t a day that passed where she didn’t turn her head at some red pickup truck or scroll through her email, looking for a message from jwalkingstick. Beyond a single birthday gift, silently left two Januarys ago, she’d heard nothing.

Shaking her head, she turned back to Tiffani Wallace. At least she had a last name, a next of kin—Eddie, a brother who lived in Campbell County. Mary punched in the number and got a voicemail message. She hung up, knowing she’d have to call back later. You didn’t leave questions about a dead family member on a recording device.

Mary stood up, stretched, looked at the papers strewn across the desk. Ann Chandler’s anti-gay conspiracy theory was getting muddied by the other suspicious deaths along Highway 74. Of the four people she’d found dead along that road, only two had been gay white males. The other two were females, their sexual orientation undetermined. Yet “getting 74’d” was well known in the local vernacular; the Latinos called the road “the highway of sorrows;” and even Pharisee, in Asheville, had concocted a drink in its dubious honor. It made no sense.

Fighting a mid-afternoon droop, she walked out into the hall and bought a cup of coffee from the vending machine. When she returned to the cubicle, she considered calling Eddie Wallace again, but instead decided to check her email, on the outside chance the state police had responded to her request in a timely manner. Usually requests for old records took hours, if not days. But she’d tried using her governor’s staff email address, mcrowgubstaff. When she opened her account, the report was waiting.

“Wow,” she said. “Guess it pays to have friends in high places.”

She opened the attached file and started to laugh. Though they’d sent her both Sligo and Campbell County complaint data, they’d covered the past thirteen years, rather than just the past three. What a difference a digit can make.

“Oh well,” said Mary. “At least they got some of it right.” Taking a sip of coffee, she started looking through the data. Slowly, she pieced together the statistics. In the past three years, both counties had similar numbers: six homicides in Campbell County, seven in Sligo. Of the murders in Campbell County, three had a Highway 74 connection. In Sligo County, only one body, Alan Bratcher, had been found on 74.

“So half the homicides in Campbell County wind up on 74, but only one in Sligo,” she whispered. “But the highway bisects both counties, straight as a ruler.” She sat back and frowned at the computer screen. Was something cooking here, or was it just random?

“Since you’ve got thirteen years here, just expand the data pool,” she told herself. “See if there’s a pattern.”

Thankful that she’d paid attention during her statistics course in Raleigh, she pulled up the two counties side by side. For the past thirteen years, Sligo’s numbers had remained constant—roughly the same numbers of burglaries, assaults, D&Ds, homicides, soliciting, controlled substance violations. Campbell County, though, looked very different. In 2001 and 2002, the numbers were similar to Sligo. Then, in 2003, things began to change. Each year the crime statistics fell. By 2009, the crime rate was half of Sligo’s; then in 2011, the numbers began to inch up. By the end of last year, they once again matched Sligo’s.

“Maybe that’s why they hired Galloway,” she whispered. “Maybe it was less about speaking Spanish and more about getting their crime rate under control.” She was sitting there, frowning at the screen, when her cell phone rang. She picked up to find Galloway himself on the line.

“Hey, how are you doing?” he asked, his voice bright.

“I’m okay,” she said. “How are you doing?”

“Are you still at the office?”

“I’m doing a little statistical comparison. Your county’s crime rate sucks.”

“That’s because I haven’t worked there long enough to change it. Come back in a year. You’ll see vast improvements.”

“I bet.” She laughed. “Did you find out anything about Honey-
cutt?”

“Nothing actionable. The old girlfriend said he was a bully, showed me the scars to prove it.”

“So he’s not homophobic?”

“He’s poly-phobic. Hates gays, hates blacks, hates Muslims, hates Jews. And don’t even get him started on Congress.”

“Women, puppies, and Christmas, too?” asked Mary.

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” said Galloway. “But he’s not stupid and he learns fast. Hey—would you like to go out to dinner with me tonight?”

“Not if it involves a sermon or a baseball game.”

“No. Just you and me. Two old cops, swapping war stories.”

“I’m not a cop, Galloway. Nor am I old.”

“Okay, one old cop and a cute young lawyer, swapping war stories.”

“Then sure.” She smiled. Dinner with Galloway would be a nice break from her statistical straw grasping, plus she could get his take on Campbell County’s growing crime rate. “When and where?”

“How close are you to finishing?” he asked.

“I’ve got another phone call to make, then I’m done.”

“There’s a little Italian restaurant in town—Angelo’s. Good food and the beer’s cold. Should I come pick you up in an hour?”

“No, I’ll meet you there. I’d kind of like to get out of here for a bit—put the top down and feel the wind in my hair.”

“Okay, then. Angelo’s is on the corner of Main and Georgia. I’ll be waiting for you and your wind-blown hair.”

She hung up, cheered by the thought of dinner with Galloway as opposed to another meal at the Gastonia Holiday Inn. Turning back to the computer, she highlighted the graphs she’d generated and punched the print button. As the printer began to crank out the pages, she tried Eddie Wallace’s number again. This time the line was busy. Mary waited, then tried the number again. Still busy. After the third busy signal, she wrote his address down on a note pad and got up from her desk. She wanted to get out of the office for a bit anyway—might as well drive over to Wallace’s house and ask him about his sister in person.

Mary put the top down on her car and keyed the address into her smart phone, wondering if the GPS would think “County Road 218” was a real street or some typographical error. Apparently, she hadn’t been the first to key the location in—a little blue dot blinked 14.72 miles northwest of her current location.

“Okay, buddy,” she whispered as she backed the car out of the parking lot. “Let’s see where you’re taking me.”

The GPS took her first through town, then through a residential area, and then out into the country, following a meandering creek that traversed acres of green pastureland dotted with grazing cows. Small trailer parks hugged the road, each unit with a dish antenna pointed to the southwest quadrant of the sky. After ten miles, the road intersected with County Road 218. She turned right, as the GPS indicated; a half-mile later she turned into the long driveway of number 320. It led to a white doublewide trailer surrounded by American muscle cars in varying states of repair. She saw a little Chevy Impala with no wheels, a Chrysler with the stuffing coming out of its upholstery, and an old Dodge Charger that had, in a former life, apparently been a race car. A tall man wearing jeans and a dark scruff of a beard stood by the Dodge, arms folded, eyes hard.

“Hi,” Mary called as she got out of her car, suddenly wishing she’d told Galloway where she was going.

“I don’t work on nothin’ foreign,” the man said, spitting in the direction of Mary’s Miata.

“I’m not here for a car repair.” Mary pulled her ID from her purse. “I work for the governor—we’re looking into some cold homicide cases here in Campbell County. Are you Eddie Wallace? Tiffani Wallace’s brother?”

He hesitated a moment, then nodded as he spat another bullet of tobacco juice.

“I’m just trying to connect some dots here,” she explained, wanting to assure Eddie that she had no law enforcement interest in him. “Were you close to your sister?”

“Close enough.”

“Did you know who her friends were? Who she hung out with?”

“Scumbags, mostly.”

“Was she seeing anyone? Have any special boyfriend?”

“I didn’t keep up with her like that.”

Mary nodded. “Do you know what your sister’s sexual orientation was?”

He frowned. “Her sexual what?”

“Orientation. Did she like to have sex with men or women?”

“You mean was she queer?”

“Yes. Was she queer?”

“Good God, no.” Wallace spat again. “Queers made her want to puke. Me too, as far as that goes.”

“I see,” said Mary.

Wallace picked up a tire iron that rested against the Dodge’s front fender. “Are you saying some queer killed her?”

“No, I’m just trying to see if there’s any connection between her death and another man’s murder.”

“Tiffani may have run with some real losers,” he said, “but never with faggots or homos.” Wallace slapped one end of the wrench against his palm. “You wouldn’t be putting it out that she was a dyke, would you?”

“No, Mr. Wallace. That’s not the way the law works.”

“Good,” he said, slapping the wrench against his hand again. “Me and mine would take a dim view of that.”

Though Wallace’s threat was implicit, Mary did not back up an inch. “Is there anything else you’d like to add to this investigation? Anything you don’t feel the local cops looked into closely enough?”

He gave a bitter laugh. “The local cops are probably missing Tiffani pretty bad, right now.”

“How so?” asked Mary.

“Any little piece-of-shit charge they could come up with, they’d hang on Tiff. Off she’d go to jail, then to court. What with all the fines she had to fork over, she probably made Campbell County more money than a damn speed trap.”

“I see. Well, every little piece of information helps. Thanks for your time.” Mary pulled a business card from her pocket and laid it on the fender of the Chevy. “If you remember anything else, call me. I’m sorry about your sister. She was a pretty girl.”

She turned and got back in her car, knowing that Eddie Wallace would probably throw her card away the minute she pulled out of the drive. Though his attitude toward gays was harsh, it fit in with the rest of Campbell County’s. What was interesting was his take that the police department had turned Tiffani into their own little cash cow. It was ridiculous, of course, but Eddie Wallace was one of millions who believed that the judicial deck had been stacked against them since birth. Never was any arrest their fault; always it was the cops who were acting on some personal, undeserved vendetta against them.