The Code of the Hills (2 page)

When middle age progressed and she tired of being a social matron, Madeleine wanted to toy with politics, and found her opportunity when the current state prosecutor was appointed to an opening on the circuit bench. The governor at the time, a young man with little experience and even less legal background, gladly handed the position to her and considered the political debt to her husband paid in full.

Madeleine clearly enjoyed the spotlight, and the job of prosecutor certainly provided the attention she wanted; but she was not work brittle, and her trial skills were rusty. So she tended to take high-­profile cases for herself and plead them cheaply, which appalled Elsie. Is this what Madeleine had planned for the Taney case?

After her boss's exit, Elsie walked down the hallway to her office, acutely aware of how quiet the building was on a Saturday morning. She settled into her padded chair, rubbing her forehead and wishing she had some Advil. She wished, too, that Noah would call and clear the air; their spat was hanging over her like a dark cloud. She checked her phone just in case, but there were no texts or calls.

She shook her head to clear it.
I've got more to do than
think about his bullshit
, she reminded herself.

Resolutely, Elsie pulled her chair to her desk and reviewed the file. There wasn't much to it: an incident report from a police officer made reference to a juvenile court file, which was not duplicated for confidentiality reasons. From the police report she learned that Kris Taney lived at a residence in Barton with a wife and a girlfriend, had three minor daughters with his wife and an infant son by the girlfriend. She checked his DOB: he was thirty-­six years old. He had an older brother, Al Taney, who had cooperated with the police when they interrogated him as a witness.

She studied Al Taney's affidavit in preparation for the interview. His statement contained allegations capable of setting her hair on fire. He claimed that his brother regularly had relations with two of his young daughters, maybe all three; and that he also had a sexual relationship with the girlfriend he kept on the premises.

Al Taney had told police that Kris was also involved in the production and distribution of controlled substances, but the police hadn't found any evidence of illegal drug activity on the property when they took Kris Taney into custody. The report noted that Al's face was battered and bruised; when the reporting officer asked about his injuries, he attributed them to his brother. Al had stated that Kris was dangerous and told the police they needed to step in before something terrible happened.

Elsie checked the language of the criminal complaint that Madeleine had prepared and filed: it said the rapes occurred “at some time within the past five years.” She circled the language with a red pen. That would never stand up; they needed a date of offense. She'd have to pin Al Taney down when she talked to him, and amend the complaint before the preliminary hearing.

She checked her watch, frowning; it was way past ten. Al Taney was supposed to ring the bell that sounded in the Prosecutor's Office when he arrived at the courthouse, and there was no way she could have missed him. You could hear that bell in the next county. She reread the file, pulled out a clean legal pad and jotted down questions to ask him.

Engrossed in her work, she lost track of time. After preparing several pages of interview questions and an outline of the reports, she remembered to check the clock. It was nearly noon. This guy wasn't showing up.

Well, she thought, if Mohammed won't come to the mountain, and gathered up the file with her notepad. She had Al Taney's address. She'd just pay him a visit.

But first she had to get her damned car.

Chapter Two

E
LSIE'S GRAY 2001
Ford Escort waited for her right where she'd left it in the parking lot of Baldknobbers bar, several blocks from the courthouse. It sat under a weathered painting on the side of the bar, depicting a grinning hillbilly smoking a corncob pipe. It was a historically inaccurate image; the Baldknobbers, Elsie knew, had been a secret band of vigilantes living in the Ozark hills over a century ago who covered their heads with scary-­looking bags to hide their identities. They purportedly organized to fight lawlessness in the Ozarks, meeting on the bald knob of a hill to don their horned masks, turn their clothes inside out, and warn off pig thieves and other wrongdoers with the threat of a flogging with hickory sticks. Predictably, the men who claimed to combat lawlessness became the problem as the Baldknobbers' acts of vigilante justice escalated to murder. Elsie sincerely hoped she wasn't descended from them, but there was no telling.

She shut herself inside the car in a hurry. The January wind blew cold, and she'd lacked the presence of mind that morning to bring a scarf or gloves. The Ford started right up; though Elsie often fantasized about driving something red and sleek and foreign, her car was as dependable as clockwork.

Dependable though it was, the Ford was too old to feature GPS, and her phone sometimes proved unreliable for navigation, so she kept a city map torn from an old phone book in the glove box. She took it out and studied it for a minute, searching for the unfamiliar address. It was on the wrong side of the tracks, sure enough, but she didn't feel too apprehensive about making a visit at this hour of the day. She had her county ID, and anyway, she wasn't the timid type. She got her bearings and drove out of the parking lot headed north.

Now that she was on the road, the gnawing feeling in Elsie's stomach captured her attention. She hadn't eaten all day, but was reluctant to lose her momentum. The McDonald's down the road presented a solution, and she pulled into the drive-­through lane.

“I'll have a cheeseburger and a forty-­two-­ounce Diet Coke,” she told the voice inside the speaker box.

“Do you want fries with that?” the box inquired.

“No,” Elsie said, then amended that. “Oh, what the heck. Yes, I'll have a small fry. The size that comes in the little bag.” It was justified—­she needed some grease and salt to fortify her.

She ate while she drove, keeping a sharp eye out as she searched for her witness's neighborhood. Barton was not a big town, but she wasn't familiar with this area. She pulled up in front of 985 North High Street.

It was a peeling white American foursquare that had once been stately but clearly had suffered neglect and fallen into disrepair, and at some point was chopped into apartment units. Elsie pulled her county badge out of her purse, shoved the purse under the front seat, and grabbed her file. Taking care to lock the car, she thrust her keys in her pants pocket. She felt a little flutter of nerves; she considered herself a plucky gal, but something about this tumbledown house conjured up an image from an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Hopefully, her witness would not channel Norman Bates.

Screwing up her courage, she headed for the door, nearly tripping on the cracked pavement path. She had to step carefully toward the sagging porch, where a jumble of makeshift mailboxes hung beside the door. She studied them, trying to determine which one might belong to her witness. The boxes bore peeling layers of Scotch tape and hand-­scrawled names, signs that the tenants did not stay at this High Street residence for long.

She finally made out the name Taney on the mailbox for apartment 1B. In the building's entryway and found a door marked
1B
in black marker, gave the door a decisive rap and waited. No response. She knocked again, and waited again, to no avail. She counted to ten, then knocked a third time. Then a small commotion behind her, the rattle of a doorknob and angry murmurs.

Hearing a harsh voice whisper “Hush your mouth,” Elsie whirled around as the door across the hall opened briefly and the occupant of Apt. 1A peeked out at her. “Can you help me?” she began, but the door closed as quickly as it had opened.

Stepping across, she knocked briskly. When she got no response, she called through the door: “I don't want to bother you, but I need to talk to your neighbor. Can you tell me who lives across from you? Please open the door.”

She heard a hushed exchange within, followed by silence. After another moment, the door opened again and a woman stood in the doorway, glaring at her suspiciously.

“Well, hello,” Elsie said in her friendliest tone. “I'm so sorry to trouble you on this awfully cold day, but I have an appointment with Mr. Taney, and I'm having trouble reaching him. Do you know him?”

The woman looked at her as if she'd inquired after the devil. “What do you want him for?” she asked, an unmasked note of dread in her voice. Her face was skeletal, with an unhealthy pallor, and her long dark hair was lank. The smell of mildew in the woman's apartment hit Elsie like a fist. “He's not in here,” she added, though Elsie had not asked.

“Al Taney is a witness in a court case next week,” she said, “and I want to talk to him. See, I'm an attorney at the Prosecutor's Office; this is my badge.” She offered her ID to the neighbor for her inspection. The woman took it and gazed at it for a long minute. When she looked up at Elsie, her expression was less hostile.

“So it's Al you're looking for. You're not here for Kris.”

“No,” Elsie assured her. “Kris Taney is the defendant. I'm looking for Al; he's the witness for the prosecution. I want to run through some facts that Al will cover in his testimony next week.”

“Well, Al won't give no testimony,” the woman said as she handed Elsie back her ID, “because he's gone.”

“I know; I knocked and knocked, but he didn't answer. Would you have any idea when he might return?”

“He ain't gonna return, because he done gone.”

“I don't suppose you have a phone number where I could reach Mr. Taney?” Elsie ventured. The police reports had not listed a phone contact for him.

The woman's laugh was a short hoot low in her throat. “Al ain't got no phone. He's gone.” She shut the door in Elsie's face.

Elsie stared blankly at the door. It was covered with old white paint, cracked and peeled like an alligator's hide; a sure sign of lead paint, her mother had taught her. This was a house where important matters were neglected. She turned on her heel and walked back to the car.

She settled into the driver's seat and fished her phone out of her bag. Man oh man, this was a call she didn't want to make. She took a breath, held it, and blew it out. Then she called Madeleine, to tell her that she couldn't find the star witness.

Madeleine's casual reaction surprised her. “Oh, well, if he's not there, he's not there. We'll have to get somebody else. What other witnesses did we subpoena for the hearing next week?” Elsie could almost see her shrug.

“That's just the problem, Madeleine,” she said, pressing on. “We need Al Taney to make our case at the preliminary hearing. The only other witness we've called is the Social Ser­vices worker, and she can't testify about the elements of the offense because she wasn't there.”

After only a brief pause Madeleine said, “We'll just have to use the social worker. She can testify about the allegations that were made to her.”

“No, she can't; that's hearsay. The judge won't let her testify about what someone told her.”

“Well, then,” Madeleine said impatiently, “we'll introduce her report.”

“But we can't, Madeleine; that's hearsay, too. The judge won't make a probable cause finding based on that.” Elsie silently cursed the governor for appointing a lawyer whose trial experience had been cut short decades ago.

“Well, we'll figure something out by Wednesday. Look, I'm at the hairdresser and I've got to get off. I'll see you at the office Monday morning.” Then Madeline ended the call without waiting for her response.

Elsie sat back and rubbed her temples. That was it, then. She started the car and drove home, looking forward to her warm apartment. She was weary and bone-­tired, and more than anything, wanted to wrap up in a quilt and stretch out on her sofa.

Chapter Three

E
LSIE'S APARTMENT WAS
small and snug, just as she liked it. The living room window looked out onto a schoolyard and the Ozark hills rising in the distance. The cozy kitchen was filled by her grandmother's red and gray linoleum kitchen table and chairs, while the bedroom barely accommodated the double bed and dresser from her childhood. The rooms were sparsely furnished with an eclectic mix of old and new: she had purchased a green velvet couch and easy chair for her living room, and a flat-­screen television with all the bells and whistles, but the remaining pieces were hand-­me-­down odds and ends, blond and maple furniture that relatives no longer wanted.

By nine o'clock her wish for a quiet Saturday evening on the couch was finally coming true. Dressed in a soft flannel nightshirt and her old blue terry-­cloth robe, she curled up under a patchwork quilt. Her hair, damp from a hot shower, smelled of coconut shampoo. The television remote was at hand, resting on the coffee table next to a bag of Lay's potato chips and a dish of Hershey's Kisses. She drank from a tall glass of iced tea, holding an open copy of
The National Enquirer
on her lap
.
Underneath that was the Taney file.

She turned the pages of the tabloid, idly reading, too distracted to pass judgment on the fashion mistakes at the Golden Globes. She still hadn't heard from Noah, and the resounding silence troubled her. She picked up her cell phone and toyed with it; she could dial his number and put an end to the wait but rebelled against the idea. Noah was the offender, she thought, and so he should be the one to initiate the call. She just wished he'd hurry up and do it.

Elsie turned on the screen and checked her texts, just in case. A new message had escaped her notice, from Ashlock:
You okay?

The question made her face flush, reminding her of his grip as he pulled her to her feet the night before. She hit Reply, but stared at the phone, wondering whether she owed him a lengthy explanation. After a moment, she responded,
Fine!
Thanks!
and hit Send.

Setting the phone and gossip rag down, she took a swig of tea and began to examine the Taney file. As she read, digesting the case, her focus narrowed and her personal concerns faded. The file didn't reflect a thoroughly investigated case, and she realized that the three sex charges against Kris Taney had been filed prematurely. The allegations didn't sound fabricated; everything rang true, but it all seemed incomplete. Madeleine had rushed to file before the case was ready, and that could lead to disaster. If their errant witness—­the mysterious Al Taney—­failed to appear and testify at the preliminary hearing on Thursday, the case would be dismissed and Kris Taney would walk free. The rape and incest charges would disappear like smoke. And she couldn't let that happen again.

She examined the notes she'd made at the courthouse that morning. At the top:
FIND AL TANEY.
Underneath: police interviews—­daughters, wife, girlfriend—­in that order. She needed specific recollections of acts by the defendant that constituted sexual assault and child abuse, and they had to pin those acts to dates and places. Shuffling through the pages of the reports, she checked the social worker's statement again, to see if the woman heard the allegations in the daughters' own words, which the report confirmed.

Elsie wondered what event precipitated the accusations against the father, since the report didn't reference any particular family crisis. As a prosecutor who had handled many of these cases, she knew that a strict code of silence generally accompanied a family history of abuse, and something must have happened to crack it. She knew all too well the ways in which terrible wrongs could be hidden from the world.

Elsie had first learned about the tragedy of incest in seventh grade, when a friend from school, Angela Choate, accused her stepfather of sexual abuse. Angela had confided in her mother, who reported it to the police. The stepfather was charged with statutory rape, and the local paper followed the case with breathless fascination because he was a prominent businessman, a big shot in the Shriners and the Chamber of Commerce. But ultimately the case crumbled. Angela became a reluctant witness, traumatized by the media attention and the stress of public testimony. Her mother filed for divorce, moved with her daughter to Kansas City, and the charge against the stepfather was reduced to misdemeanor assault.

Elsie never saw Angela again. But during her junior year of college at the University of Missouri, her mother had called with tragic news she'd heard at church—­that Angela was dead, of an apparent suicide. It was whispered in Barton that the stepfather had remarried and was abusing the teenage daughter of his new wife. The theory was floated that when word reached Angela, she'd blamed herself.

Though it had been years since Elsie thought about Angela, the news sent her into a deep funk. There weren't many girls who grew up and left Barton, and remembering Angela as a quiet but intelligent classmate, she'd hoped her old friend had found happiness after leaving Barton. Stricken and angry, thinking about Angela's suicide, and sick to death of the secrets kept in towns like Barton, Elsie had gotten drunk on cheap wine at the Heidelberg bar across the street from campus, stumbled home, and slept through her morning classes the next day. But as she lay numb on the worn sofa of her student apartment, she'd had what she felt qualified as an epiphany, given the aimlessness of her college life till then: she had a calling. She would go to law school so she could fight to protect children like Angela, trapped in abusive homes. For real change to happen, abusers like Angela's stepfather had to be penalized.

Now, concentrating on the Taney case, Elsie scribbled another note:
Check old police reports for domestic disturbance calls on Kris Taney.
Then, after a moment's thought, she added:
Talk to daughter's teachers—­did they see or hear anything that corroborates the charges?
She wondered if anyone had made a mandated reporter call. A Missouri statute required teachers to report signs and allegations of abuse to Social Ser­vices. She looked again at the language of the three-­count complaint that bore Madeleine's signature and realized it would never stand up. Taney might be the worst kind of child molester, but they'd have to flesh out the case and amend the language of the charge to make it fly.

Her spurt of productivity was interrupted by the buzz of the cell phone. Elsie snatched it up and looked at the caller ID; Noah, at last. She wondered how she should sound. Mad? Hurt? Forgiving?

The phone buzzed again and she quickly answered, lest he give up.

“Hey,” she said, keeping her tone noncommittal.

“Hey, there,” he replied.

There was a pause, one she was determined not to break. Finally, he spoke.

“How you feeling?”

The question irritated her; she did not intend to serve up any hangover angst for his entertainment.

Tersely, she said, “I'm okay. A little tired. I worked today.”

“I thought you'd be laid out all day, after last night.”

She decided to grab the bull by the horns. “Yeah, about last night. What was the matter with you? Why on earth did you run off like that?”

She heard him sigh into the phone. “I got pissed off.”

“I could see that.”

The phone was silent for a long moment, before Noah said, “You want to know why?”

She was starting to simmer, but she said, “Sure. Tell me.”

“I didn't see you all week, not one damn time, because you were all tied up. Then we finally meet up at Baldknobbers, and all you wanted to do was talk shop with your witnesses.”

Pressing her cold tea glass against her forehead, she said, “Noah, I was in trial for a week. I have to come down after it's over.” When he didn't respond, she added, “You know what I'm talking about.”

“Yeah,” he admitted. “How'd you get home? Did you drive?”

“No. Ashlock drove me home,” she said, intentionally omitting the circumstances.

“That's good. That you didn't drive.” After a pregnant pause, he said, “Sorry I wasn't there to do it.”

At the word “Sorry,” the tension in Elsie's chest began to ease. “Okay.”

“Really, I am. I think I must have been kind of drunk, to go off like that.”

“Well, that makes two of us,” she offered, as a concession.

“And you know that you don't have to worry about Paige.”

She didn't follow. “What?”

“The woman I was playing pool with: Paige. She works at the crime lab.”

“Oh, yeah. Her.”

Switching topics, he said, “I wish I wasn't working tomorrow, but I'm pulling the second shift.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

“So I guess I won't see you till Monday.”

“Monday?” she repeated. “What are we doing Monday?”

“I'm set to testify at the courthouse. I'll come and see what you're up to. We'll get a bite to eat later on.”

Her mood lightened at the prospect. She was tired of eating alone. And they could catch up on some other activities that she'd been missing.

“Okay,” she said with enthusiasm. “I'd really like that.”

“See you Monday, then,” he said.

Once they hung up, she tossed her phone on the table. She was a sucker, she knew. But it was hard to hold a grudge against a man who looked like he could be in movies.

Sometimes Elsie thought that when it came to romance, she had been born under an unlucky star. She wondered, and not for the first time, how she managed to reach the ripe old age of thirty-­one without even coming close to a walk down the aisle. Once she stumbled through her awkward adolescence and moved beyond those years of nearsighted angst and acne, she attracted her share of attention from men; she'd been told she was very attractive, and she knew that she had a winning smile and a shining mane of blond hair. Maybe she was built more like an hourglass than a waif, but she found that a buxom girl had plenty of appeal to the opposite sex. Nonetheless, she was still waiting to be lucky in love.

Lots of things came easy to Elsie: academics were a breeze, public speaking was natural, and she could make ­people laugh. But beneath a veneer of confidence, she battled self-­doubt. Was she good enough to ensure that the guilty were convicted? Were her instincts keen enough, was her courtroom advocacy convincing? And on the personal side, did she lack some essential quality men looked for in a mate? Because it seemed to her that finding the right man was like hunting for treasure without a map.

Admittedly, she had a long history of targeting the wrong guy; from high school, when she chased after the star of the basketball team and ignored the star debater who pined for her, through her undergraduate years, partying with frat boys. And in law school, she'd bypassed the quiet scholars in the law library to lounge with a flashy guy in the student bar association office. It never quite worked out.

Four years ago, when she'd returned to her hometown, Elsie had resolved to forget about romance altogether, to keep her nose to the grindstone and hone her professional skills. Barton didn't offer a generous population of eligible partners anyway. Most men were married, and none of the few singles who remained could be considered a diamond in the rough.

So she wasn't looking for love when Noah came on the scene. She'd heard some buzz about him from the courthouse clerks: a new cop was in town, fresh from the farm country in the Missouri Bootheel but looking like he stepped off the movie screen. Elsie didn't credit the reports until she saw him in the flesh, when he appeared as a witness in a liquor store burglary. Putting Noah on the stand, she had the chance to engage with him, and sparks flew. She'd always felt most confident when she was in the courtroom, and with him on the stand calling her ma'am and answering every question with a lopsided grin, the electricity was so hot, she had trouble remembering the direct examination questions she'd prepared. While the defense attorney cross-­examined Noah, Elsie sat at her counsel table with her legs tightly crossed and couldn't stop herself from eye-­fucking him between his answers.

They went out for drinks that night. Charmed by his easy “aw shucks” manner and his sheer physical magnificence, she eagerly went home with him and tumbled into his bed that night. He ate her like ice cream, and she thought: this is it.

But she had learned a lot about Noah since then. A man who'd initially appeared simply perfect was, like everyone, neither simple nor perfect. She could overlook some of his shortcomings, but after passing the milestone of her thirtieth birthday, and then her thirty-­first, she began to worry a little. Maybe she was just marking time with Noah; and time was slipping away. Thirty-­one years might be regarded as youthful in some places, but in the Ozarks a woman past thirty was over the hill.

Satisfied by the phone call, Elsie peeled the foil from a Hershey's Kiss. At least Noah Strong looked like a treasure. And she was still hungry for romance. “I think you're on probation, Noah,” she said aloud. “We'll see how you behave on Monday.”