At the End of the Road (21 page)

Dana’s heart sank when she saw Mrs. Godwin and Melodie’s oldest sister, Deanna Wilson, at the front of the gathering. Who in their right mind would have called the family? To what purpose? If it wasn’t Melodie’s car, then the family would have gone through this ordeal for nothing. They would have come here feeling that closure was imminent, already allowing themselves to grieve the death of their loved one, to witness this final formality, only to have it snatched away and find themselves shoved back into the lingering discomfort of uncertainty.

And if it was Melodie’s car, well then Melodie’s mother was about to see firsthand what the body of her daughter would look like after four weeks submerged underwater.

Dana had never seen such a sight herself, but the old-timers had told her tales. Racially motivated crimes had once been common in Douglas County (still were, really), and in the early 60s as the dams were being completed, this man-made lake (officially the George H. Sparks Reservoir) had been a hot spot to dispose of the bodies of black men killed by whites over rage-filled drunken weekends and sober Sundays of righteousness. After about a week underwater, the corpses swelled with gases and floated to the surface, dragging weighted ropes beneath them. Bodies in water decompose at a much faster rate than those underground, but slower than those exposed to air. Things nibble at bodies underwater. Catfish are bad about that. With Melodie (assuming this was indeed her car), if there was an air pocket trapped in the interior with the body, the putrefaction could be quite ugly. Melodie’s mother did not need the last image of her daughter to be any of those eventualities.

Dana watched the lake water gush and drain out of the car as it emerged. The crime scene photographer snapped pictures as the extraction progressed. Dana couldn’t see the plates yet, but it was a 1972 powder blue Chevelle SS. No question, this was Melodie Godwin’s car. As soon as the vehicle was completely out of the water, Dana scooted behind the photographer and matched the license plate numbers with what she had written in her notebook. They were an exact match.

Dana was ashamed that the emotion she felt the strongest in this moment was disappointment. She didn’t fully understand why she had taken Melodie’s disappearance to heart like she had. Perhaps it was simply because everybody else was so eager to file it away. Another fast girl living a fast life up and disappeared. So what? But it had meant more than that for Dana, and she felt compelled to keep at it.

Dana didn’t typically like to look too deeply into herself for the impetus behind her motivations. If someone were to ask her why she had become a sheriff’s deputy officer in the first place, she would not know how to answer. She of course could answer in some generic fashion, but in her heart she did not know what had compelled her to follow this course in life. A desire to help others? Sure. Racial pride? Perhaps. A strong sense of justice in an unjust world? Maybe. Something had formed her to be the way she was, and Dana saw no benefit in digging that something out. So, when the notion to enter law enforcement had entered her mind, Dana had simply put her head down and plowed forward. She did not question it. And when her heart told her to not give up on Melodie Godwin, she just kept pushing forward.

No, she had not given up, and now here she was, and after this last dose of ugliness, Melodie’s family would finally find some peace, and Dana herself would also find some measure of peace. The steady spiritual itch that had been the unexplained disappearance of Melodie Godwin was now relieved. So why did she feel disappointed? Was it just her ego? Dana was ashamed to acknowledge to herself that it was nothing more profound than wounded pride. She was disappointed in herself for coming at this thing from the wrong angle. She had been certain that Melodie had disappeared on Eden Road. Yes, she had been pleased with herself for finding that safety glass that otherwise would have sunk into the mud with the next good rain. And the boy. Kyle. Dana had centered in on the boy from nothing more than a broken glance through an open door. She was prideful of her instinct to follow up with the boy. And she had grown certain that Kyle had some knowledge about Melodie, but was too scared to tell.

door open while Dana’s friend, Senior Deputy Ben Hughes, opened the passenger door on the other side. The metal joints had set up underwater and groaned in protest at being so rudely made to bend again. Dana couldn’t see because the men’s bodies blocked the view into the car’s interior. They emerged from the car at the same time, and Dana could see straight through it. The front was empty. The backseat too was empty. There was no body. The car was empty, but Dana knew this was not an entirely worrisome occurrence. Assuming she could swim, Melodie very well could have managed to escape from the car, but still drowned. After a crash like that, the driver and any occupants are typically disoriented, unable to tell up from down, unable to swim to the surface. The absence of the passenger side window seemed to confirm that Melodie had at least managed to escape from the car, but it also caused Dana to think again about the auto glass she’d found in the ditch on Eden Road.

Dana glanced over at Mrs. Godwin. The look of sad puzzlement on the woman’s face was heartbreaking.

The sheriff returned to the front of the car, leaned in, and pulled the keys from the ignition with his gloved hand. At the rear of the car, he used the key to open the trunk. The sheriff pulled out two black trash bags, tightly knotted at the tops. Ben Hughes reached in and pulled out two more. Ben took out a pocketknife and readied to slit one bag open, but the sheriff waved him off. Both men stepped back and allowed the photographer to take pictures of the unopened bags. The sheriff got out his own pocketknife and indicated with his beefy hand for the senior deputy to proceed as well. Going against most anybody’s interpretation of correct crime scene protocol, they split the bags open. Body parts spilled out from the bags like unfortunate prey from a gutted shark’s belly. The sheriff lurched backward, falling on his backside. He covered his mouth as he coughed and choked. Ben ran to the water’s edge and vomited. Dana heard Melodie’s sister scream, and looked up to see Mrs. Godwin collapse to the ground.

After a minute, the odor from the bodies carried to Dana. Diluted with air, she knew that she was getting only a fraction of what the two men had been exposed to. The odor made her think of the dead possum she had smelled in the garage on Eden Road, only worse. Dana noted that some of the remains were essentially skeletal, while some held on to flesh in varying stages of putrefaction.

Dana joined two of her fellow deputies who, like her, had only been observing, and began urging the onlookers away from the crime scene, instructing them to leave the area completely. Dana retrieved a roll of crime scene tape from her vehicle and worked with another deputy to cordon off the area. She busied herself and made herself useful, but her primary interest was in watching the scene unfold and develop. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation would likely take an interest in this, so Dana felt an urgency to see as much as she could while the sheriff’s department was still in control.

She saw Ben Hughes begin bagging evidence from inside the car, and went over to assist him. As he bagged and tagged the items, Dana ran them to the trunk of the sheriff’s cruiser. The items were of no real interest, trash from the floorboards mostly, but also a pair of bolt cutters and a broken chunk of cinder block.

Waiting for the next item to be handed out to her, Dana noted that the front seat of the vehicle was adjusted to its uppermost forward position, leaving a space too small for a typical adult to wedge into. Melodie Godwin was a tall girl. In family photographs, she towered over her mother and sisters.

Ben was holding out the next evidence bag. Dana took it. It was a pair of sneakers. Child size. Boys’.

lanta. After the first month/last month deposit on the apartment and the utilities deposits, there just wasn’t enough left over to pay for a regular doctor. At least she had the car. It was hers, free and clear, and in her name.

Kyle was off. He just wasn’t right. He just wasn’t Kyle anymore. He almost seemed like he was sleepwalking. But that didn’t bother Louise. She figured it was to be expected. Because of the separation. The soon-to-be divorce. The boy was just naturally upset, maybe even a little depressed.

But whatever was wrong with Grace was not something natural. Grace had not spoken a word, had not even made a sound in the week since Louise had left her husband.

every morning to be at the mail-processing plant on time. As soon as he was gone the morning after he hit her, Louise had woken up Kyle and Grace and told them to get dressed. She packed up her things while the kids were getting ready. After that, she sat them down in front of the TV with bowls of milk and cereal while she went to their room and packed up clothes for them. She loaded up the car, then went back inside to get the kids, thankful that Wade and Jason were away at vacation Bible school. Inside, she found Kyle sitting by himself watching cartoons.

“Kyle, where’s your sister?”

Kyle looked around as if just now realizing Grace wasn’t there. “I don’t know, Mama.”

Louise checked in the bathroom, and then in all the rooms in the house. “Kyle, she must have gone outside to play, can you go out and find her for me? We’ve got to go. We’ve got a lot to do today.”

Kyle went outside, and Louise could hear his voice outside calling his sister’s name. Louise took her makeup bag out of her purse and went back to the bathroom mirror to doctor her eye some more. The bruising had deepened overnight, and now the concealer just couldn’t quite cover it. As she worked the makeup into her skin, she stopped thinking for a minute. No thoughts at all. It was a small blessing. Then movement behind her drew her forward again, and she looked at Kyle reflected behind her in the mirror.

“I can’t find her anywhere. She won’t answer me.”

Louise threw her paraphernalia back in the bag and zipped it. This was exactly the kind of complication she didn’t need today. Louise stomped outside and began to call for her child. She yelled out promises of spankings and crape myrtle switches, but to no result. Louise stood there in the gravel driveway, ready to cry in frustration, Kyle standing next to her. And then there was a small rustling sound, and Grace emerged from the withering corn. Louise ran up to the girl and shook her roughly by the shoulders.

“Where have you been? Why didn’t you answer me? You always, always answer your mother. Now get in the car. Both of you.”

Louise forced herself to calm down once she was on the road with the children. It was going to be hard enough on them, and she wanted to make this transition less traumatic if possible. “We’re going on a trip,” she said to them. “Don’t that sound like fun? Grace, don’t that sound like fun?” But Grace didn’t answer. Louise pressed forward with the speech she had rehearsed. About how much fun this was going to be.

clearly at any point over the last week, she would have almost certainly noticed that Grace’s becoming mute had not been concurrent with them leaving Boyd, but had started the day prior to that. So, when the doctor at the clinic, a short Indian man with dark skin and an odor Louise found objectionable, asked her when the problem started, she answered as truthfully as she could.

“I see,” the doctor said in a thick accent. “And your eye, Mrs. Edwards? What can you tell me about that?”

“I don’t understand,” Louise said, although she understood perfectly well and they both knew it.

“Did your husband hit you?”

“You don’t understand. Boyd has never . . . It’s complicated.”

“I understand very well. With your permission, I would like to talk to Grace alone. The nurse will remain present, of course, but oftentimes a child will open up more readily without the parent present. It is for the best.”

“She lost her doll. We can’t find it anywhere. I think that she’s just upset about that. I bet that’s all it is.”

“Let me examine her. Let me talk to her.”

The doctor opened the door of the exam room and called for a nurse. He looked to Louise and motioned toward the waiting room. “I will take good care of your little girl. It is for the best.”

With a feeling of dread, Louise stood up and walked out of the exam room, leaving Grace perched atop the vinyl examination table that was covered with stark white butcher paper that crinkled whenever she moved.

Louise took her seat next to Kyle in the waiting room. She was certain that Grace was going to be okay. She had just now remembered about that doll. It had been lost for a while now, but Louise just bet that was what was wrong with Grace. That was all it was. She realized now that she had made a mistake in coming here. She looked around the waiting room and saw that the people who surrounded them were not the kind of people Louise was used to being around. To her, they looked disease ridden. When they got back to the apartment, Louise would make both of the kids take a good hot bath. So many changes in her life in such a short time. She was overwhelmed. It was all just too much. She hoped that Wade and Jason would adjust okay. She was going to call Boyd tonight and talk about visitation. Maybe every other weekend Wade and Jason could stay with her, and Grace and Kyle could stay with their father. The children had to be the priority. Of course, Louise still had to find a full-time job. The money was already running low. She might have to find a lawyer to set up child support payments. Surely Boyd would do the right thing without her having to get a lawyer.

Louise looked around the waiting room and stared at a Mexican man who appeared to have a cancerous growth eating away at one of his nostrils. Maybe she had made a mistake. Maybe life on Eden Road wasn’t so bad. Maybe Boyd could change. Maybe there was a chance that they could patch things up. For the children. Kyle would need a father’s presence.