A Grant County Collection Read online

  For some reason, she anticipated a treatise against Jeffrey. What she got was, 'This look pretty straightforward to you?'

  Sara tried to measure her words, not knowing whether or not to trust the man. 'I don't think any shooting is straightforward.'

  'That's true,' he agreed, his tone just as cautious as hers. 'How long you known Jeffrey Tolliver?'

  For some reason, Sara felt the need to take up for Jeffrey. 'A while. Why?'

  'Just asking,' he said.

  'Was there something else?'

  He shook his head no and she went back to the report.

  A few minutes later, Reggie cleared his throat again, and she looked up, expectant.

  He said, 'The Beretta takes seven rounds in the magazine.'

  'Then you should have found five bullets in the magazine.'

  'Six if he had one in the chamber.'

  Sara waited, thinking this was like pulling teeth. 'How many did you find?'

  'Six.'

  She put down the pen. 'Reggie, are you trying to tell me something?'

  His jaw worked just like Jeffrey's did when he was angry. Sara was getting tired of drawing out information from reluctant men.

  She said, 'If you've got something to say, then say it.'

  Instantly, she knew she had pushed him in the wrong direction, but Sara was no longer worried about stepping on people's feelings. 'Reggie, if you think there's something suspicious about this shooting, then you need to speak up. All I can do is fill in these forms. I'm not a cop and I'm not your mama.'

  'Lady,' Reggie began, his voice shaking with anger, 'you don't know what you're getting yourself into here.'

  'That sounds an awful lot like a threat.'

  'It's a warning,' he said. 'You seem like a nice enough person, but I don't trust the company you keep.'

  'You've made that abundantly clear.'

  'You might want to think about why people keep warning you off him.' He tipped his hat to Sara as he headed toward the door. 'Ma'am.'

  TWELVE

  The heat slammed into Sara like a brick as soon as she opened the door to leave the funeral home. Overhead, she could tell a storm was coming, but the rolling clouds did nothing to cool the air. Her skin seemed to contract for a few seconds before it adjusted, and by the time she got to Jeffrey standing by the car, she could feel sweat dripping down her back. Despite this, she told him, 'Let's go for a walk.'

  He did not ask questions as they made their way through the cemetery behind the building. There was no breeze as they climbed a sloping hill, and Sara felt slightly dizzy from the heat. Still, she kept going, absently reading markers as they walked toward the wooded area at the rear of the cemetery. There was a gate in the fence, and Jeffrey held it open for her.

  The sky darkened even more as they walked into the forest, and Sara did not know if it was from the canopy of trees overhead or the impending thunderstorm. Either way, the temperature seemed to drop about ten degrees in the shade, and for that she was thankful.

  They walked along a narrow path, Jeffrey ahead of her pushing back branches and kicking debris out of the way. Birds called overhead, and she heard a buzzing sound that could belong to a cricket or a snake, depending on how much she let her imagination get away from her.

  Finally, she broke the silence. 'I know this is a crazy question considering we're in Alabama, but has anyone thought to ask why Luke Swan wasn't wearing a shirt?'

  Jeffrey pulled a twig off a low-hanging branch. 'I don't think anybody's asking much of anything.' He glanced at her over his shoulder. 'There weren't any footprints outside the window.' Seemingly as an afterthought, he added, 'Of course, the ground was dry. You could make the argument that nothing would leave footprints.'

  'It seems to me arguments are being made to dismiss a lot of things,' she said, flinching as a tree root dug into her heel.

  He stopped, facing her. 'I couldn't tell if the screen was pulled off from the outside or pushed from the inside.'

  'What are you going to do?'

  'Hell,' he said, throwing the twig into the woods. 'I don't know.' He knelt down and started to untie his shoes.

  'What are you doing?'

  'You might as well be walking barefoot in those sandals.' He slipped off his tennis shoe and handed it to her.

  Sara hesitated, and he added, 'I've had my mouth on every part of your body, Sara. You think I haven't noticed your feet are the same size as mine?'

  'They're not that big,' she mumbled, putting her hand on his shoulder to steady herself as she slipped her foot into his shoe. To her embarrassment, the fit was nearly perfect.

  She looked down to see if he had noticed, and he smiled up at her. 'I love the way you blush.'

  'I'm not blushing,' she said, though she could feel it in her cheeks.

  He helped her into the other sneaker. She started to kneel down to tie the laces, but Jeffrey did it for her, saying, 'I keep waiting for somebody to say something. There's no way they're all buying this story.'

  'I think Reggie has some questions,' she said, watching him double-knot the laces. He had such large hands, but they were soft, and his touch was always so gentle. For some reason, the anger Sara had felt toward him this morning had dissipated, and all she could think was that twenty-four hours ago she had been on the verge of falling in love with this man. As much as she wanted to change her mind, she could not alter how she felt about him.

  'There.' He stood, holding her sandals in one hand. 'Okay?'

  She took a step, lying, 'They're a little loose.'

  'Yeah, right.' He continued, walking in his socks. 'Did Reggie mention I dated his sister?'

  'I just assumed you'd dated every woman in town.'

  He gave her a look.

  'Sorry,' she said, and she really was. They walked for a few more minutes before she asked, 'Why is everyone so against you?'

  'My dad wasn't exactly in the Rotary Club.'

  'It goes back further than that,' she said, wondering what he was hiding. She had her own secrets, though, and she was hardly in a position to fault him for being reticent.

  He stopped, facing her again. 'I want to stay in town another day.'

  'Okay.'

  'And I want you to stay with me.'

  'I don't –'

  'You're the only person here who doesn't think I'm some kind of criminal.'

  'Hoss doesn't.'

  'He will after I give my statement.'

  'What are you going to say?' she asked, wary of his answer.

  'Exactly what you'll say: the truth.' He resumed walking and she followed. 'Maybe it'd be different if Robert was talking.' He stopped, pointing behind Sara. She turned, looking at the mountains on the horizon.

  'That's Herd's Gap,' he said. 'All the rich people live there. Jessie's family included.'

  Sara shaded her eyes, taking in the view.

  'I know it doesn't look like much, but it's right at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains. You can't see them from here, but up that way,' he indicated the space to their left, 'are the Cheaha Mountains.' He started walking again. 'And underneath us, there's thirty-two miles of the hardest, whitest marble in the world. It goes about four hundred feet down.'

  Sara watched his back, wondering why he was telling her this. 'Is that so?'

  'Sylacauga marble is in the Washington Monument and the Supreme Court building,' he continued. 'I remember when I was a kid the windows would shake from all the blasting.' He stepped over a fallen tree and held out his hand to help Sara over. She could see his socks were getting filthy, but he did not seem to care.

  He said, 'There's an underground river that cuts through the city. Between the river and the blasting in the quarry, there are sinkholes all over town. A few years ago one of them opened up at the Baptist church and the back half of the building dropped about ten feet underground.'

  'Jeffrey –'

  He stopped again. 'That's what I feel like, Sara. I feel like this whole town is sinking, and I'm going right down
with it.' He gave a harsh laugh. 'They say you can't get any lower than the ground, but this is the one place you can.'

  She took a deep breath, and breathed out, 'I can't have children.'

  He did not speak for what seemed like an eternity, then he gave her a neutral 'Okay.'

  'I gather we're supposed to pretend you didn't say what you said last night before . . .' she threw a hand into the air, '. . . before all hell broke lose.'

  'No,' he stopped her. She believed him when he told her, 'I meant what I said.'

  'Then tell me,' she asked. 'Tell me why Reggie doesn't trust you.'

  Droplets of rain splattered against the leaves overhead, and Sara looked up at the sky just as the bottom dropped out. In seconds, they were both soaked. The rain was so dense she reached out to take Jeffrey's hand for fear she would lose him.

  'This way,' he yelled over the downpour. He walked fast, then started jogging when a bolt of lightning cracked the sky. The tall trees all around them that had been so beautiful before were nothing more than lightning rods now, and Sara picked up the pace along with him, wanting to find shelter before the storm got worse.

  The sky grew darker, and Sara looked up just as Jeffrey pulled her down into a squatting position. Carefully, he pushed back a clump of hanging vines and rotted old boards before leading her through a four-foot-wide opening into a cave. Inside, the air turned almost cold, and she put her hand against the rough rock of the ceiling, trying to get her bearings. Even with her knees bent, Sara could not stand up straight. She curved at the waist, reaching out with her hands, trying to feel her surroundings as Jeffrey pulled her farther into the cave. There was nothing but empty space to her left and right, but overhead the ceiling sloped up so that she could straighten a bit more. Still, she had to keep her head and shoulders down so she would not scrape against the ceiling.

  In the distance, she could hear the muffled rain as well as a constant dripping. Just enough light came in through the vines and cracked boards at the entrance to keep them from total darkness, but somehow that was no comfort. Even as her vision adjusted, she could not see the back of the cave.

  'You okay?' Jeffrey asked.

  'Fine.' Sara shuddered, but not from the cold. She kept her hand against the ceiling, feeling claustrophobia overwhelm her.

  'Jesus, it smells in here.' He passed by her again, doing something at the entrance of the cave. More light came in as he kicked out the boards, but it was still too dark for comfort.

  Sara blinked a few times, making out a long bench seat like the kind they used to put in cars. Stuffing and springs jutted out of the vinyl upholstery. In front of the seat was an old coffee table with hemp rope around the edges, scuffs showing where people had sat with their feet propped up. Jeffrey brushed something out of his hair as he walked over to the seat. He searched under the bench, and over the steady hush of the rain she heard him laugh.

  'They're still here,' he said, sounding pleased.

  She stepped closer to him, unsettled by the darkness. A musty odor was in the air, and underneath that the scent of decay. She wondered if there were any animals in here, or perhaps an animal was on his way back home, looking to get out of the storm.

  Jeffrey struck a match, and the cave was briefly illuminated before the flame flickered out. Like her, he was standing with his shoulders hunched against the ceiling. Unlike her, he seemed perfectly at ease. She felt embarrassed for being so frightened. Sara had never been afraid of the dark before, but the closed space had a feel to it that she could not quite name.

  He struck another match. The fire burned down just as quickly as it had with the first, casting the cave back into darkness. He said, 'I guess they got wet.'

  Sara spoke before she could stop herself. 'I don't like it in here.'

  'The storm will pass soon,' he told her, taking Sara's arm and leading her to the seat. 'It's okay,' he soothed. 'We used to come here after school.'

  'Why?' she asked, thinking this was as close to being buried alive as she ever wanted to come. Even sitting down, she could feel the cave looming over her. She reached out, grabbing Jeffrey's hand.

  'It's okay,' he repeated, finally sensing her fear. He put his arm around her and kissed the side of her head.

  Sara leaned into him, asking, 'How did you find this place?'

  'It's near the quarry,' he told her. 'Robert came across it one day while we were out looking for arrowheads.'

  'Arrowheads?'

  'This area was filled with Indians. Creek at first, then Shawnee warriors. They called it Chalakagay. DeSoto's records mention the town in the early 1500s.' He paused. 'Of course, the government came in around 1836 and moved them all out west.' He stopped again. 'Sara, I don't want kids.'

  The sound of rain filled the cave, sounding like a thousand brooms sweeping across the rock.

  'I didn't exactly have the best role models growing up, and who knows what the hell my genes will pass on.'

  She put her fingers to his lips. 'Tell me more about the Indians.'

  He kissed her fingers, then asked, 'Why, you want something to help you sleep?'

  Sara laughed, and she realized with a start that she could stay here forever as long as he kept talking. She repeated, 'Tell me more.'

  He paused, probably trying to think of what to say. 'You can't see it, but there's a lot of marble in here. Not enough to get the quarry folks interested, but you can see the veins along the back wall. That's why the air is so cool. Are you cold?'

  'No, just soaking wet.'

  He pulled her closer and she put her head in the crook of his neck, thinking that everything would be okay if they could just stay this way until the storm passed.

  He continued, 'We stole this bench seat from an old car out in the junkyard. Possum's probably still got the scars on his ass from the dog we had to wrestle for it. The coffee table was out by the road for trash pickup. We carried it two miles up the highway to get it here.' He laughed good-naturedly. 'We thought we had it made.'

  'I bet you brought girls here all the time.'

  'Are you kidding? They were afraid of spiders.'

  'Spiders?' She stiffened.

  'Don't tell me you're suddenly afraid of spiders.'

  'I'm just afraid of things crawling on me that I can't see.' He stood up, and she asked, 'Where are you going?'

  'Hold on,' he told her, and she could hear his hand feeling along the wall of the cave. 'We used to keep a coffee can . . .' He stopped, and she heard the jangle of metal against metal. 'Aha. More matches. Possum got them out of the back of a comic book. They're supposed to be waterproof.'

  Sara tucked her feet underneath her, keeping her back flat to the seat. Crazy as it was, she had the unnatural fear that something – or someone – would reach out and touch her shoulder.

  'Here we go,' he said, striking a match. She could see his face in the light as he held the flame to a small utility candle. There was a flicker, and she held her breath, not breathing until the wick caught.

  'I can't believe it still works after all this time.'

  In the flickering light, Sara saw a form behind him. Her heart jumped into her throat and she gasped so loudly that Jeffrey startled, banging his head against the ceiling.

  He looked behind him, shouting, 'Jesus Christ!' In his haste to get away, he tripped against the coffee table, unable to catch himself before he hit the ground.

  Sara panicked, reaching out for the candle. Hot wax burned her hand, but she managed to keep the flame from blowing out. Her heart was pounding so hard that her ribs ached.

  'Christ,' Jeffrey said, brushing dirt off his jeans. 'What the fuck is that?'

  Sara forced herself to stand, and walked over to the skeleton that had scared her so much seconds before.

  The remains were laid on a rock that jutted out like a seat. Though the bones looked yellowed with age, sinew remained in a few areas, probably because of the coolness of the cave. Part of the left leg down to the foot was missing, as well as some fingers on t
he right hand. Even in the dim candlelight, Sara could see the teeth marks where some kind of rodent had gnawed skin from the bone. She held the candle up to the head, which had tilted sideways and become lodged in a crevice between two rocks. The skull was fractured on the right side, the bone collapsed into the braincase from the force of what must have been a very heavy object.

  She looked back at Jeffrey just in time to see him slip something into his pocket.

  His tone was defensive. 'What?'

  Sara turned back to the skeleton. 'I think this person was murdered.'

  THIRTEEN

  1:58 P.M.

  Lena was gritting her teeth so hard her jaw hurt. Wagner wasn't saying much into the phone, but Lena and probably everyone in the cleaners could hear the shooter screaming on the other end.

  Wagner said, 'Why don't you tell me your name?' Only to be answered with a barked laugh. When she asked about the children, the only response she got was a little girl yelling into the phone. The sound echoed in the room, and Lena fought the urge to cover her ears.

  Wagner remained calm. 'I take it that means you're holding on to the children?'

  The answer was mumbled, but the shooter's last demand was loud and clear, especially since Wagner held the phone a few inches from her ear to deflect the sound. 'One hour, bitch. You take any longer than that, the body count's gonna get a lot higher.'

  Despite the threat, Wagner smiled as she closed her cell phone. 'Well,' she said. 'They want beer.'

  Lena opened her mouth to restate her offer to volunteer, but Wagner held up a finger for silence, saying, to Frank and Nick, 'Gentlemen, if I could have a moment of your time?'

  The two men followed her into Bill Burgess's office. Wagner smiled at Lena before shutting the door. It was a cat's smile, and Lena could not tell if the woman was being polite or warning her off. Either way, Lena would fight tooth and nail to be the one to go into the station. She had to do her part. Jeffrey had allowed her back on the force despite what everyone in town was saying. The worst crime was that he was lying dead right now and Lena was alive.