Road to Nowhere (27 page)

“Ask him.”

“I will, I guess. Maybe when I get to know him a little better. He’s kind of intimidating at those meetings.”

June 6, Tuesday

“I’m trying to think. Did I forget to call you?” Marty sounded worried.

“You did call,” Joe said. “Afraid I didn’t call back.”

“I’m finding my notes. Okay . . . I should have called again. The man behind your road is Jack Royce.”

“I might have heard the name,” Joe said.

“Let’s just say I’m not surprised. He represents High Point and he’s kind of known around here for monkey business like that.”

“Do you have any thought why he’d be interested in Jefferson County?”

“I doubt he’d tell me anything. But let me run this by you. Different representatives here get in kind of cozy with different special interests, and Jack’s got a couple specialties. First, he’s the man for the furniture industry, since he represents all those plants around High Point.”

“Furniture.”

“Is that important?”

“Might be.”

“And also he’s big friends with developers. That made me think of the man you told me about back in April. Charlie Ryder. So I looked him up, which wasn’t hard, and he and Jack are a perfect match. It looks like Ryder works more with representatives from the mountains, where his projects are, and I didn’t find a specific connection with him and Jack. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if they were in cahoots, though.

“But that’s as far as I’ll get without putting Jack in a headlock.”

“I appreciate your help,” Joe said.

“And what we talked about last time, there in your kitchen. I don’t know, Joe. Jack’s an oily snake—but I wouldn’t call him evil. There’s somebody pulling his strings, but Jack’s not the man you’re looking for. Oh—and now that I’m looking at my notes, sorry to hear about Wade Harris.”

“Appreciate that.”

“I never met him. Isn’t that the second board member you’ve lost out there?”

“It is.”

“Now wait—that was the member you said was working for Ryder.”

It was time. “Marty, when are you out this way again?”

“Every weekend.”

“If you would stop by, I’d appreciate it. Something to talk about in person.”

“Okay. This weekend’s busy. Friday night next week?”

“That would be fine.”

June 9, Friday

“And here’s the mail,” Kelly said. She always checked.

“Thank you, thank you,” Randy said. “Well, look.” It was a formal little invitation envelope.

“That’s a graduation announcement,” Kyle said.

“But they would have gone out a month ago,” Kelly said. “Who’s it from?”

“Let’s see,” Randy said, and opened the little envelope. “Well, well. Sue Ann?” She was in the kitchen, and she came out to see. “Look at that. It’s for Lauren Harris.”

June 12, Monday

This was a large sheriff.

“Hi. I’m Steve Carter.”

The eyes were pretty far back behind the puffy cheeks, but they narrowed even more.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Carter?”

A southern large sheriff. The Rod Steiger kind, not the Andy Griffith kind. Blue uniform, open collar, pink jowly face, topping out at maybe six foot four under thin gray and reddish hair. Not overweight—more of an overhang “I’m on the Board of Supervisors,” Steve said. “I took Wade Harris’s place.”

It had seemed like a good idea, meeting the sheriff, cultivating a professional working relationship.

“Now I remember you,” Mr. Hite said, but it didn’t make any difference in the way Steve was being inspected.

Stupid idea. Really stupid.

“I’m sorry to bother you. I was just stopping in to introduce myself. I guess I should have called.”

“No, that’s fine. Pleased to meet you.” Right in the middle between annoyance and outright hostility.

Now what? Uh . . . professional relationship. Right. “I don’t know if the Sheriff’s Department ever works with the Board. I was . . .”

“Not much. I’d probably call Joe if I needed anything.”

“Oh. Well, whatever.” He should probably just turn and run before he got arrested. What could he say? “Did you know Wade at all?”

“Never talked to him.”

Wade must have been too smart to tangle with Frankenstein. “I guess you handled his accident.” Steve was just blurting now. Just cut and run! Don’t chatter!

“Of course I did.” Something had hit a button. Pure hostility, and a whole lot more muscle behind the answer. “And I don’t prefer to be questioned about it.”

“Oh—I didn’t mean . . .”

“And if it’s Roger that’s been putting you up to it, tell him I’ve had enough.”

“No, um, really, I was just . . .”

The telephone was ringing. Oh, please, let it be for this gorilla.

“Sheriff’s Department,” the receptionist said. “Gordon? It’s for you.”

Hite was still breathing fire, but his attention was diverted.

“Who is it?” He took the phone.

Steve backed across the hall to the front door. Whoever it was would be reaping what they had not sown.

Out the door into the afternoon sunlight, with a little wave that nobody noticed. Fortunately.

Roger? Who was Roger?

June 16, Friday

Black night.

“There he is,” Rose said. Joe had seen the headlights himself.

“I’ll let him in,” he said. Almost eleven o’clock.

He had the door open when Marty got to it.

“Hi, Joe,” Marty said. “Finally made it.”

“Sorry you’re out late,” Joe said, and let him in to the hall.

“Things come up. Good evening, Miss Rose!”

“Good evening, Marty.” She had coffee and a plate of pie on the table for each of them.

“Thank you.”

They sat and Joe let him talk awhile, about Raleigh politics and people Joe didn’t know anymore. But then the pie was finished and it really was getting late.

“Marty. I appreciate that you’ve taken time to look into our road. It’s been a help.”

“Glad to, Joe. It’s part of the job. Especially for you.”

“Then tonight I’d like you to just listen. I’ll keep it short.”

“Go ahead.”

“Last November, Mort Walker died. He’d been on the Board of Supervisors for near thirty-two years. In May, Wade Harris died. He’d been on the board for two and a half years. They were both fairly strong in wanting Gold River Highway built.”

Marty was watching, nodding slow. “Okay.”

“The one was a heart attack, the other a car accident. The undertaker here in town thinks each of those might not be accurate.”

“What does the sheriff say . . . Hite, isn’t it?”

“Gordon Hite isn’t open to discussing it. Plain truth is, he doesn’t want trouble.”

“Okay. And that’s why you want to know who’s behind the road.”

“I do want to know.”

“Whew.” Marty was a smart boy, and he wouldn’t need any more said. Joe gave him a minute to think.

“I’d just as soon be wrong,” Joe said.

“Sure. Good grief, Joe. Do you think that’s all the sheriff is worried about? Just not wanting trouble?”

“I’ll hope so.”

“Yeah, I will, too. Is anybody else thinking along these lines?”

“Roger Gallaudet, the funeral director, for one.”

“Who around here’s against the road?”

“Fair number of people. One is the doctor who assigned the cause of death.”

“Oh.” It was more a groan than a word. “Joe. I hate roads.”

“There’s nothing that’s more trouble.”

“That’s the thing!” Marty was getting mad, now he’d had a chance to think. “Because this could be for real. I’ll tell you, there are people who would kill over a road. Either way. If they want it and they’re greedy enough, or they don’t want it and they hate enough. Okay. Let’s talk about the State Police.”

“That’s what I was thinking about,” Joe said.

“There are two ways we can get them involved: either lack of local resources and expertise, or else suspicion of complicity.”

“Don’t have many resources here.”

“But then it can’t be kept secret. You or Hite would have to request help, and it would be public. You could make the request over the sheriff’s objection, but then there’d be a hearing with a judge.”

“I’d hate to do that.”

“How sure are you, Joe?”

“Plenty sure. But not sure enough to turn the county upside down.”

“Right. Exactly. So what are you supposed to do? Have you even discussed it with him at all?”

“I haven’t.”

“Because the other way is for you to make a confidential request for help against the sheriff, where you’d testify to a grand jury, and then a judge would authorize a secret investigation.”

“I’d hate to do that, either.”

“You’d be accusing your sheriff of murder, Joe. But here you are, telling me all this, and you haven’t talked to him. Would you?”

“I haven’t wanted to, but it’s time. But I don’t know what I want to happen, and so I don’t know what I want to do.”

“I can only help if you ask me to do something. I can’t make up your mind for you. How sure are you that Mort Walker would have been for the road?”

“Anyone could tell you he’d have been for it. He was for roads. He knew what changes they made and he was for it all. When they built the interstate, he fought to have it come through the county and have the exits it did.”

“Did he know about the funding? He got that letter from Raleigh?”

“The envelope was already opened when his wife brought it to me.”

“And I guess he would have smelled the same rats you did.”

“He would have.”

“Would he have maybe even owned a few of them? I mean, could he have been behind the deal somehow?”

“No.”

“How do you feel, Joe? Do you even want a road that’s this corrupt?”

“Wouldn’t be any roads at all otherwise.”

“Okay. Too bad that you’re exactly right.”

“It’s late and you need to get yourself home,” Joe said. “I’ll give you a call in a few days.”

“Okay. And if I think of anything else, or I find out anything else about the road, I’ll let you know.”

“Thank you. The best help would be to know what’s happened in Raleigh.”

June 19, Monday

Eliza watched as the car came slowly through the trees, some moments visible, mostly a slight clouding of dust. But on it came and she sat on her porch to wait.

The car could also be heard, and she soon knew, from its sound and from the glimpses she had of it, that it was not a car that she knew.

It reached the edge of the trees and entered the open space, and the stream. There it stopped. Its door opened and out of it came a man.

All around him the life of the mountainside shuddered. The birds became quiet, the smaller creatures fled. She could hear them escaping. Even the trees, even the grasses held back from him.

He stomped toward her. He was plump and short and carried much. His light was dark red, the color of harshness and ignorance. And pain.

He looked quickly around at her quiet place and she saw him condemn it in his mind. Then he stood at the porch steps and spoke.

“Are you Eliza Gulotsky?”

“I am.” She felt peace. She was protected here. It would take a strong power indeed to bring her harm in this shelter.

“Glad to meet you. Roland Coates.” He looked around again. “This is where you live?”

“This is where I live,” she answered. “Come, join me.”

He did not. His choices were full of hardness. “What a heap. Anyway. You’re on the Board of Supervisors?”

“Yes, I am.” She was watching the pain in him. The coarse stone of his hardness caused it. “Please, join me.”

“Might as well.” He crossed the steps and came beside her and sat on the other rocking chair, and a softening had taken place. “I came to find out what you’re voting on the road. Gold River Highway. I want that road.”

“The road.” Hard stone hammering against hard powers. Pain, indeed. “It is important to you?”

“Of course it is. Why shouldn’t it be? I’ve got a lot depending on that road.”

“There is great anger about this road.”

He laughed, abruptly, and it was filled with the anger. “Oh, you’ve picked that up, have you? Those boneheads on Hemlock. Sure, they’re squealing at every meeting, but most people would be glad for the road. Jobs, development, all that. The county needs that road.”

Eliza had heard these words before. She knew of the Warrior’s scorn for them. But Roland Coates spoke them weakly, without force.

“But what is your desire?” she said.

“My—my what?”

“What is important to you, Mr. Coates?”

“Well, getting the road built. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Anyone would see the cloud all about him. But piercing it only needed a light breeze. “What are you talking about?”

“There is sorrow in you.”

He didn’t speak. He stared at her, pulling away in his chair. Then he looked again at the porch and cabin, and his eyes narrowed from their wide openness. “They’re right. You are crazy.”

She laughed, and she saw another softening in him. “I suppose I am, if so many people think it.”

“You don’t look dangerous, though.”

“Oh my!” She had to laugh again, longer. “No, not at all!”

“Most people are crazy, now I think about it.”

“Then I hope you won’t mind it in me.”

At this, he laughed. “I guess it doesn’t matter anyway. Except for this road. How’re you going to vote on it?”

“Vote,” she said.

“What’s it going to be, yes or no?” He had already gained some peace, just being in this place, but not any wisdom.

“Yes or no.” She rocked slowly, summoning peace herself. Yes or no. A hard line between yes and no, as if it were just one or just the other. “There are many more than two colors.”

“Colors . . . what’s that? I’m talking about the road.”

Anger and hardness, like rocks beneath the surface of the water. But sorrow, too. “You fight many battles, Mr. Coates.”

“Of course I do, that’s business.” He wasn’t angry as he had been before, but confusion swirled around him like leaves in a whirlwind. “But I’m talking about the road.”

“Yes, the road.” She held up her finger to keep him from answering. “It is more than your business, or the road.” Something deeper. “Tell me about your family, Mr. Coates.”