Ghost Roll (3 page)

“Mr. Harless?” she said. His expression was faraway, transfixed, and it alarmed her.

“I'm sorry.” He sent out a long sigh. “You see, Bell, I'm the one who prevented Matt from learning that very valuable lesson—the lesson about how to love. To love, period—but also
how
to love. That is, how to keep love from destroying you.” His voice acquired a bitter edge, tinged with sarcasm. “I taught him to be strong and resilient. I taught him to avoid what I used to call ‘the death trap of love.' I shaped him. I showed him with my own life how love could slow a man down, be an anchor, be the thing to be avoided at all costs.” A fleeting, mirthless smile. “Matt's mother and I had an arrangement. It had nothing to do with affection. It was—.” He paused, careful in his selection of the word. “It was
efficient.
Yes. Efficient. Nothing more. I spent most of my time overseas. Lots of missions, lots of clandestine operations. She kept things nicely organized at home. Running smoothly. That's what Matt saw. That's the idea of love that he grew up with. Love wasn't about passion or desire. It was about the propagation of the species.”

The words caused a memory to spark in Bell's mind. Matt had used that stilted, almost comically formal phrase once, years ago, during one of their early-morning conversations back in D.C. They often met for a run through Rock Creek Park. They didn't talk much, preferring to revel in the silence broken only by their rhythmic breathing, but when they did, it came during the cooldown phase, while they jogged side by side. Bell had told him the latest news about a mutual friend, a brilliant, driven woman who was giving up law school to join her partner in the Peace Corps. “Why the hell's she doing that?” Matt had said. And Bell had replied, “Jesus, Matt, they love each other.” And he'd said, “Love? No such thing. It's just a matter of the propagation of the species.” She'd laughed at that, assuming he was kidding. But maybe he wasn't.

Quentin Harless was speaking again. “That's why, when he finally fell, he fell hard—so hard that he lost all sense of what was right and wrong. It was my fault, Bell. I gave my son a terrific education—all the best schools. I introduced him to all the people who matter—powerful people, people who helped him climb the ladder at the CIA. I groomed him. Trained all the weakness out of him. And so when he was blindsided by love—when he met Amatullah and felt all those things he'd never allowed himself to feel before—he was helpless. He was overwhelmed.” He paused. “I'm responsible for what he did. Just as surely as if I'd brought that terrorist here myself.”

Parts of Quentin's story were already familiar to Bell; Matt had described an austere childhood and a rigid, demanding father, but those high expectations, Matt always added, had been set out of love, not cruelty. He admired his father. Yet Bell had sensed as well a sadness in Matt Harless, arising from the conviction that he could never measure up.

“All right,” she said. She couldn't think of anything else to say. “But I still don't understand why you came here.”

“I need to see where my son died. I can't picture it—I don't really know this area of the country—and that bothers me. It bothers me a great deal. I'm hoping you'll tell me how to get there. Not the actual spot—just the general location. So that later on, I can imagine it, and think of him in his final moments. The report said it was in a house in a valley.”

“It was.”

“And that there's a rocky outcropping above it. A place where I can stand and look down upon it.”

“There is.” She paused. “And what will you do after that?”

“After that,” he said, “I'll leave.”

“Do I have your word? That you'll leave this town after you've seen the spot?”

“You do. I will.”

*   *   *

Before she departed from the courthouse that afternoon, Bell stopped at the county clerk's office. She wanted to check and see if the owners of Little Miss ‘n' Mister had obtained permits to operate a child-care facility, as state law required. Permits cost money, and a lot of new businesses skipped that step and hoped for the best.

No permit had been issued. No surprise there.

She headed out to her vehicle, a six-year-old Ford Explorer that handled with aplomb the roller-coaster roads in West Virginia, the ones with their nearly vertical inclines and stomach-shifting drops. She had managed, throughout the long workday, to successfully put aside any emotions about Quentin's visit. She had told him how to get to Smithson's Rock, which hung out over the ranch house in which his son had died of multiple gunshot wounds, and she extracted from him, one more time, a promise to make his pilgrimage and then exit the scene.

Her cooperation had been based on more than just goodwill. It was based, too, on resignation. Because even if she didn't tell him how to get to Smithson's Rock, Bell knew, somebody else in town would. The people of Acker's Gap, like those in most small towns, were always eager to give directions. They might not have much money, but helpfulness didn't cost a thing.

It was not yet dusk. The town had sifted down into the weary russet light of a dying afternoon in early fall. Bell passed the last block of downtown, intending to turn right on Sayman Street and then make her way toward the four-way stop at the edge of her neighborhood, a collection of venerable old homes with slate roofs and large square yards, many bordered by wrought iron fences over which a toddler could have climbed with ease; the fences were decorative, not protective. Bell was looking forward to a phone conversation with Carla tonight. Her daughter had started another new job, this one with a web design firm. Carla had decided to put off college for a few years—a state of affairs that didn't exactly thrill Bell, but she knew better than to push. If she did, she'd most likely push Carla right out of her life.

Before she turned on Sayman Street, Bell reconsidered. She had at least an hour of daylight left. Why not drop in on the fine folks at the Little Miss 'n' Mister Day Care? By itself, the pattern of bank deposits didn't meet the threshold to obtain a search warrant, but maybe she'd spot a clue during a surprise visit. Something small, but telling, that could lead to something more incriminating.

The long gray building with the red metal roof was located on the left side of the highway, just past a tattoo parlor called Skin in the Game. She almost drove right past it. Her only clue that she'd found the place were the tiny words painted in fresh white paint on the side of the black mailbox: LITTLE MISS ‘N' MISTER DAY CARE. There was no sign on the building itself. She tried to remember the businesses that had called this place home before the day care did. There was, at one point, a chicken-processing plant—wasn't that right?—and then a permanent flea market. This stretch of Route 6 was known for the revolving series of small businesses that showed up and then disappeared, sometimes lasting a month or two, sometimes a few years, but never longer than that. The buildings along here had housed puppy mills and auto-parts stores and bait shops and barbeque restaurants and karate clubs. Bell remembered a story that Jesse Jarvis had told her. Years ago, when Jesse was a little girl, a strange man with straw-like orange hair and a bright green suit had passed out free tickets in town one day, inviting families to come to a special show in a lot out on Route 6. When Jesse and her parents and her brothers and sisters arrived, they found a wooden caravan, painted in reds and purples and golds, and lots of other families milling about. Turned out that the free ticket was for the parking. You had to pay for the show. It was a trick, but by that time, the kids were crying and begging; they'd been promised a show. So Jesse's parents, “who never in their whole lives had more'n two nickels to rub together,” as Jesse put it, paid for Jesse and her brother Clarence to go in. “It was disgusting,” Jesse said. She could recall it all these years later. “There was these big jars with fetuses in them—I didn't know back then what to call them, and me and Clarence thought they looked like little baby pigs—and there was an old lady with a curly white beard that went all the way down to her waist, and then there was a man who was so fat he couldn't move or even turn his head, he could only blink.” It was a freak show. Jesse still thought about it, she told Bell, every time she drove along Route 6, and sometimes got a little sick to her stomach at the recollection.

Bell parked in the dirt lot at the side of the building. There was one other car, an elderly blue-green Impala with Kentucky plates. From here, Bell could see the dusty backyard; the proprietors had flung up a couple of cheap-looking swing sets and deposited a round plastic sandbox. The playground was deserted, but then again, it was after 5 p.m. Any children would've already been picked up by their parents, yes?

Before Bell got to the front entrance, the door opened. A beefy-looking man with a red face, a turned-up nose, and a bad comb-over took several steps in her direction. His manner was mild, not menacing.

“Can I help you?” he said. His khaki pants were a little too short, ending just above his ankle bones, and his crusty work boots lacked laces. His plaid flannel shirt was too tight across the middle. He had the ageless, timeless look of so many of the hill people Bell encountered, meaning that he might have been anywhere between thirty-five and sixty-five, and that he'd looked this way since he was thirteen.

“Maybe,” Bell said. “I'd like to see the owner.”

“You found him.” He stuck out a hand. “Trent Emery.”

She shook it and then a peculiar silence fell on the scene, as if he was waiting for her to say something else.

“You got some business here?” he finally said.

“Well, it's a day care, right?”

“Yeah.” He scratched at his chin with an index finger, parting the constituent elements of a patchy black-and-white beard. “Yeah. But if you're here to register your kid, I gotta tell you that we're all full up. Sorry.” A crooked grin came and went. “Okay, then. Take 'er easy.”

“Hold on.” Bell kept her county ID handy in her jacket pocket. She held it up for Emery to see. “I'm Belfa Elkins. Prosecuting attorney for Raythune County. Turns out you've forgotten to file a permit.”

“A permit.” He frowned. He paid no attention to the ID, so Bell replaced it.

“Yes. To run a child-care facility. State requires it. County enforces it.” Telling the truth, she'd found, was generally an effective opening gambit.

“That so.” He looked bemused. Then he perked up. “Well, okay. I'll get it tomorrow. At the courthouse, right? Done.”

“Just a minute, sir. I'd like to have a look around, if you don't mind.” This was a tricky moment; Bell had no warrant, and thus Trent Emery would be completely within his rights to deny her entry. But as Bell had learned early during her tenure as prosecutor, a great many transactions occurred without the intercession of words. There was an implied bargain here: If he let her in, she might eventually go away and not be inclined to cause any more trouble.

“I put up swing sets,” he said, waving toward the side yard, as if that might buy him some goodwill. “Kids like to play outside.”

“Yes. They do.”

Another puddle of silence.

“Well. Okay,” he said. “Come on inside. Lots of toys around, though, so watch your step.”

The interior of the building was one large room. The blinds had been shut on every window, and the only light came from two freestanding halogen lamps set in opposite corners. In the dimness Bell could make out paneled walls, a gray concrete floor, and a raggedy red rug in the center, across which were scattered a few toys: a baby doll, a shovel and pail, a drum with a hole in it, a small plastic xylophone, a stuffed animal that might have been a panda. It took Bell a moment to realize that there were also two children sitting on the rug. A girl and a boy. They were small and dark, and they almost seemed to disappear into the weave of the carpet. They weren't playing; they simply sat there, cross-legged and still, like stage props.

Emery had paused at a small table just inside the door. He thumped it with his palm. “This here's where we register the kiddies when they come in. Most days, we got fifteen, twenty in here, running around, having fun. This place's crawling with kids. Sight to see.”

Bell nodded. “Can I take a look?”

“At what?”

“The roll. Where you write down the children's names when their parents bring them here.”

Emery pulled over a spiral notebook. He opened it. The lined page was filled with names, recorded in a densely inked scrawl. “Got about thirty regulars. Rest are drop-ins.”

“Really.” The names, she knew, were fake. It was a ghost roll, filled with phantom children who'd never existed. Intended to justify the daily cash deposits.

“Yep.” He nodded. “We charge ten bucks for the day and that's a bargain. My wife's real good with kids.”

“Is she here now?”

“Sure.” He tilted his head. On the other side of the room, Bell saw, was a wooden door. Probably the bathroom. Indeed, after another few seconds, the sound of a flushing toilet was easily audible through the flimsy door. The door flapped open, hitting the wall beside it with a bang.

“Hey, Deb,” Emery called out. The woman moved toward them with short, chopping, relentless steps. Crossing the rug, she was so focused on Bell's presence that she stepped on the stuffed animal; in response it emitted a single wheezy squeak. The woman kicked it out of her way. She didn't acknowledge the children. They didn't react to her, either.

“Yeah,” the woman said. “What.” She had reached the table by now, and Bell got a better look at her: long hair dyed a color that reminded Bell of Blue Bonnet margarine, hanging straight down like a pair of side curtains; plump face flecked with acne; dumpy body. She wore bell-bottom jeans and a purple smock. She aimed her truculent glare exclusively at Bell.