Last Ragged Breath (32 page)

Serena was relieved. “Good. That's good. So we're okay here?”

“As long as Mr. Dillard cooperates.” Bell picked up a pen. “Who did you deal with?” she asked him. “Who gave you the drugs? I want a name.” She had already tried to get the same information from Artie Munson, in exchange for not charging him, but concluded that he was as ignorant as he looked. Munson was an errand boy. Nothing more.

“Never got a name,” Dillard said. “Fella just dropped them off. Told me he'd get in touch when he needed to.”

“What did he look like?”

“Big man. Fat. Had a ball cap on, so I never really saw his face. Wore one of them wool coats.”

“Well, what did the coat look like?”

Dillard pondered the question. His eyes traveled along the front edge of Bell's desk and then back again. “Green,” he said. “It was green plaid.”

*   *   *

“Do you believe him? About the drugs, I mean—do you believe he'd really changed his mind about storing them in his barn?”

Bell and Rhonda were leaving the office together, walking side by side down the long courthouse corridor, when Rhonda asked her the question.

“I don't know,” Bell answered.

“Royce Dillard is no drug dealer,” Rhonda declared. Heat in her tone. “He's no murderer, either. I do my job—you know that, Bell—and my job is to help prosecute him, but when I look at Royce, I don't see a killer. I see a victim.”

Serena had taken her leave a while ago; Royce Dillard had been returned to his cell. But Bell and Rhonda had continued to work. They needed to discuss their plans for the next day's court session, when the defense would begin its turn. Before they could settle into that, however, Bell had put in a call to Sheriff Harrison.
Don't know if it's relevant
,
Pam,
she said,
given the fact that there's a hell of a lot of plaid jackets in these mountains. But thought I'd mention it. Just in case it helps in the search for Nick's assailant
. The sheriff's voice had sounded wrung out with weariness:
Wish we were making more progress. I'm assisting Sheriff Ives as much as I can, but we're short on manpower and long on cases. So's he. I'll pass it along, though. Every clue helps.

Fatigue had finally worn down Bell and Rhonda, too. They decided to call it a night.

“I appreciate your passion, Rhonda. I do.” Bell paused at the end of the hall. Most of the lights were already switched off. Around the corner was the front lobby of the courthouse. Here, Bell remembered, Diana Hackel had waited for her and Sheriff Harrison on the night Ed Hackel's body was found. The courthouse was the place where the aftermath of all tragedies seemed to gather, the place where all the sadness in a small town eventually coalesced; here it was sorted out and labeled and ranked, and here is where the propagators of those sorrows finally were made subject to justice.
Sometimes,
she corrected herself.
Sometimes, that's how it happens. If we're lucky.

Rhonda jumped in before Bell could speak again. “I know it looks pretty bad for him right now. But I'm telling you—something's going to happen. I can just feel it. Somehow we're going to find out what really happened to Ed Hackel, and we're going to know why, and it's going to take everybody by surprise.”

Bell was too tired to argue. Plus she had a dog to get home to. “See you in the morning, Rhonda.”

 

Chapter Thirty

Goldie had eaten her supper with unusual relish and now she licked the bowl, dragging her long pink tongue around the circle again and again. Watching from across the kitchen, Bell wondered if she was giving her enough food. She dumped in another half cup of Pedigree. Goldie finished it in seconds and then dropped into a sitting position, an indication that she was satisfied. Her tail swished back and forth—but for her, the rhythm was a bit subdued. It lacked the crazy excitement normally visible in that tail. This was a thoughtful, almost melancholy tail-wag.

“You miss him, don't you?” Bell said. She had abandoned any embarrassment about talking to a dog, and now routinely conversed with Goldie. “It's okay.” She scratched a small area behind Goldie's right ear. The sweet spot. The tail incrementally increased the vigor of its wag. “It's okay.”

Bell took her coffee cup into the living room. Goldie followed her. At first Bell had disliked the dog's habit of staying close to her that way, following her as she went from room to room; it felt like having a big hairy stalker with bad breath tracking her in her own home. But in just a few days, Bell had begun to enjoy it. Now she took Goldie's loyal lockstep for granted.

She settled in her chair. Goldie, as usual, repaired to the couch, and promptly stretched out for her post-meal snooze. Bell planned to catch up on some paperwork and then drive over to the hospital to see Nick.

Her cell rang, startling her and awakening Goldie. The dog's big yellow head popped up like a curious periscope.

“Elkins,” Bell said.

“This is Melanie Treadwell. I'm sorry to be calling you at dinnertime, but I just got back from a conference in Stockholm. And your message indicated that this was urgent.”

“Yes. Yes, it is. Thanks for getting back to me.” Bell took off her reading glasses and settled more comfortably into her chair. “I appreciate this.”

“Not a problem. David Gage has been a friend of mine for years, and he left me a message as well. He speaks quite highly of you. I'm happy to help however I can.”

Bell had Googled her, and David's praise was justified; Treadwell had written and spoken extensively on the psychology of childhood trauma. She traveled a great deal, often visiting war zones and refugee camps, helping young survivors of violence deal with their horrific memories.

“Just to be clear,” Bell said, “this is a private conversation. I won't be quoting you in court or asking you to testify—nothing like that. I'm just trying to get a feel for a few things about the case I mentioned in my phone message.”

“Understood,” Melanie said. “Works for me, too. Frankly, Mrs. Elkins, I wish I could talk informally like this with every prosecutor in the country. Childhood trauma is astonishingly pervasive. I think it influences adult criminal activity to a degree we haven't even begun to deal with yet—but if you try to bring it up, a lot of prosecutors think you're angling to get murderers off the hook. I've had the phrase ‘bleeding heart liberal' flung at me so many times that I probably ought to adopt it as a nickname. And ‘academic' is another word that's somehow become pejorative.” She let out a long, frustrated sigh before continuing.

“I'm not suggesting that a bad experience in childhood ought to excuse anything an adult does. I'm just saying that if we intervene early, and get these kids some help, we could not only stop a fair number of adult crimes before they happen—we could also improve lives. People who grow up with terrible pictures in their head are living a kind of half-life. A shadow life. One part of them is always back there in the middle of the trauma, still hiding, still cringing, still terrified—while the other part is here in the present, trying to function normally. The friction between those two scenarios can cause an immense amount of psychic pressure to build up. And that pressure ultimately has to be released.”

In her impatience to get to the bottom of Royce Dillard's ordeal, Bell hadn't realized how close to the edge of her own history this conversation might stray. And it was not anywhere she wanted to be. Not now. Not ever.

“Okay,” Bell said, eager to move on. “I get that. But specifically—the defendant in my case was only two years old when he lost his mother and father in the Buffalo Creek flood back in 1972. Would a two-year-old remember enough so that it might haunt him into adulthood? And if he did—could those memories affect his impulse control? The evidence is conclusive. We're sure he committed the crime. What I'm trying to figure out is the origin of the sudden violence. Was it inevitable—or could the defendant have somehow stopped himself? I'll be making my sentencing recommendation to the judge very soon, and I want to make sure I've taken everything into account.”

“Buffalo Creek.” Treadwell's voice grew ruminative. “I've read some articles by the psychologists who talked with the survivors. Fascinating cases. Such devastating losses could tear a child to pieces emotionally.

“This area of research,” Treadwell went on, “was pioneered by Anna Freud. She interviewed children who had survived bombings in World War II. Entire cities throughout Europe ended up as smoking piles of bricks and dead bodies.”

“What happened to those kids?”

“Many of them carried psychological wounds the rest of their lives. And the same has been true of the children of Buffalo Creek. As adults, they've experienced everything from anxiety disorders and phobias to sleep issues and sexual dysfunction. Plus physical symptoms such as chronic headaches and stomach problems. Not to mention alcoholism and other addictions.”

“So even if the defendant was too young to remember—”

“Oh, he remembers, all right,” Treadwell said, finishing the sentence for her. Sadness in her voice. “They can talk about survivors all they want, but the truth is—when something like Buffalo Creek happens, nobody really escapes. Ever.”

Bell was quiet for a moment.

“Mrs. Elkins?”

“Sorry,” Bell said quickly. “I don't mean to be wasting your time.”

“You're not wasting my time. In my profession, you learn to get comfortable with silence. I just want to be sure I'm telling you what you need to know.”

“Yes. You are. So—what do you think? If someone lived through the Buffalo Creek disaster as a child, could he end up a killer?”

“Whoa.” Treadwell laughed. “I don't mean to make light of your question, but—well, like I said, ‘Whoa.' That's quite a leap.” She paused. “Let me answer you this way. There's a phenomenon called survivor syndrome. It has five parts. According to the psychologists who worked with the victims of Buffalo Creek, every survivor—to a greater or lesser degree—had aspects of these five parts in their subsequent behavior. The first is called death imprint. That refers to a memory of what actually happened that day. The picture in your head. And then there's death guilt—you're haunted by the idea that you lived while others died. The third is called psychic numbing. You just shut down, you withdraw from life, so that you can't be hurt anymore. Then there's impairment of relationships. It's why some survivors can't have healthy emotional bonds in their lives—marriage, close friendships. The fifth part of survivor syndrome is called significance. As human beings, we try to find meaning in the bad things that happen to us. We want our lives to matter—not to just be a bunch of random events, random catastrophes. We can put up with a lot—if we can find a frame for it. Some people seek that in religion. In the notion of God's will. But in the case of Buffalo Creek, that was a real challenge. The flood happened not because there was a tornado or hurricane—but because a coal company cared more about its profits than about the people in that valley. Damned hard to find significance there.”

Treadwell had talked longer than she'd intended, and Bell could hear a note of summing-up in her tone. “Here's what I can tell you, Mrs. Elkins. When I'm dealing with young people who have endured great psychic pain, as the children of Buffalo Creek did, I focus on the fifth element I told you about—the thing called significance. If we can see our lives as part of an ongoing story, then even the bad parts are somehow easier to deal with. There's a meaning behind the story. Not just panic and pain.” She took a breath. She seemed to be thinking about how to make her next point.

“The worst thing you can do for someone who's gone through a horrific ordeal,” Treadwell said, “is to strip away the meaning. To rob the experience of its significance. Because when you do that, all that's left is the anguish. And that can be unbearable.” She paused. “Did childhood trauma make your man a murderer? I can't say. But human emotions can be wildly volatile. And sometimes extremely dangerous. You have to handle them with great care.”

“Thank you. I really appreciate your expertise.”

“Not at all. And now I'd better go unpack.” She paused. “Next time you talk to David…”

“Yes?”

“Oh, I was just going to have you tell him that I miss him. I really do. Divorces just suck, don't they?” She laughed. “Jesus—I sound like my son. He's seventeen and every other word is ‘suck.' Or ‘like.' Anyway, what I mean is, things got a little nasty between David and Lesley when they first broke up. I felt caught between them. And I've known her longer. So I owed my loyalty there, you know?”

“I do.” Bell had lost a few friends herself by virtue of the same rough justice.

“But he's a great guy. And an amazing dad. I don't know what you two are—I mean, I don't know if you're—” Another short gust of laughter. “Oh, hell. If you're dating him, Mrs. Elkins, I hope things work out for you.”

*   *   *

The drive from Shelton Avenue to the Raythune County Medical Center took only about fifteen minutes, but Bell didn't want to waste even one of them. She dialed Jake Oakes's cell before backing out of her driveway.

“So how'd I do today?” he said in a light, bantering tone, dancing his way through double entendres. “Always glad to get a little feedback from a lady, if you know what I mean. Might help me improve my technique.”

“Fine, Deputy.” She was brusque. The night-shrouded neighborhood was whipping past the windows of her Explorer, and she felt precious time slipping away from her as well. “Need you to do a little more digging for me. Would you have time to make a few calls? I'll clear it with the sheriff.”