Текст книги "So Close the Hand of Death"

Автор книги: J. T. Ellison

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

Twenty-Three

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Indianapolis

Dear Troy,

Mind-numbingly simple. Surely you have a bigger challenge ahead?

BB

He had to admit, the steak lived up to expectation. And the atmosphere in the St. Elmo Steak House, home of the world’s best shrimp cocktail, wasn’t too bad either. Cozy. Warm. Brick. He liked brick. Liked the looks of the hostess who was stumbling around in impossibly high heels, too, casting glances over her shoulder at him every time she wobbled past. Blond hair, brown eyes. Tight black skirt over one of those buttonfront pin-tucked blouses that was actually a bodysuit. He had an ex-girlfriend who loved those things. They snapped right at her cunt, perforated for easy access. They could fuck up against a wall and she’d never have to get undressed.

He took a sip of his excellent Bordeaux and sighed. The hostess wasn’t a part of the game. He’d have to save her for another time. The job was finished here in Indy. He’d killed a woman named Mary Jane. Sweet Mary Jane Solomon. Mary Jane, the pretty and plain. All tied up with a delightful little bow. She’d scratched the hell out of him, raked her nails along the edge of his arm, but he’d brushed her nails with her toothbrush before he left, and changed into a long-sleeved shirt before dinner. He’d gotten blood on the UPS delivery uniform and had to burn it. Exorcise the DNA demon with fire and toothpaste. Some Indy cop was going to find a naked UPS man and think someone had a uniform fetish.

He laughed to himself. Pretty plain Mary Jane’s eyes had lit up when he came to the door. She wasn’t used to getting packages; she lived alone, had few friends…by choice, of course. Terribly shy Mary Jane. A stutterer, poor thing. Then he had rung the doorbell. Rung Mary Jane’s bell, too. Changed her life forever. Death did that to a girl.

One bite left. The meat was luscious, melting in his mouth, leaving little greasy butter trails running down his chin. He always drowned his steaks in butter, just like dear old mom used to do. It made the meat tender.

He checked his watch, it was only 10:00 p.m. He wasn’t scheduled to be in Nashville until noon the following day. He’d gotten ahead of the game, so to speak. He had time for dessert, then a chat with the hostess. Maybe score a number, or an email, or, the best of all possible worlds, she would whip out her smartphone and friend him on Facebook. Reverse look-up the number and he would have her home address. Email and he could track her down on the internet with ease. But with Facebook, he’d have her pants down in moments. These silly girls put all their personal information out there for the taking, their birth dates, pictures of themselves drunk and naked, announcing to the world exactly where they were at all times. They made themselves bait. They asked for it. He loved technology. It made the job so much easier.

He waved to his waiter for the check. It was time to move on to the last portion of the game. Time for his big reward. He was looking forward to a nice calm night. He could swing back through Indy on his way home, see if he couldn’t get himself a date.

Twenty-Four

The chief was right, it was impossible to miss the Andersons’ house. Not only was it beautifully huge in the Southern style of miniature Taras, there were tricycles, toys, multiple discarded gloves and a small batterypowered minicar parked on the front lawn, damning evidence of a juvenile invasion. Children’s laughter rang in the air, shouts of joy that made Taylor’s stomach hurt. When was the last time she’d been so innocent and carefree? So very happy?

They pulled up to the curb, watched as a gang of little boys tore around the edge of the house into the dead grass of the front yard. Playing cowboys and Indians, it seemed, all bundled up against the cold.

Taylor smiled. She did love kids, so long as they weren’t hers.

She and Baldwin wended their way through the game to the front porch. One of the boys, a towhead with incredibly light blue eyes, stopped to gawk at them. When Taylor grinned at him, he picked his nose and ran off toward the back of the house.

“Charming,” Taylor said.

“Little boys,” Baldwin replied. There was something strange in his tone. She glanced over at him. His face was shuttered, he looked lost in thought. He’d been acting weird for two days now, and she was pretty sure it didn’t have anything to do with his suspension, though finding out about that had gone a long way toward settling her down. She’d had a crazy moment when he’d looked at her sideways in the car and she wondered, for the briefest of seconds, if he was having an affair. It was a silly thought. Baldwin wasn’t the kind of guy to sneak around behind her back, but something was up. She let it go—they had enough on their plates. He’d tell her when he was good and ready.

They crossed the porch and knocked on the door. Taylor could smell a wood fire burning, and was suddenly chilled through. She tucked her hands under her arms. She should have asked the waitress at Smith’s to make her a to-go cup of tea or hot chocolate.

The door was opened by a woman with liberal gray streaks running through her dark brown hair. She was of an indefinable age, anywhere from forty to sixty, with either laugh lines or crow’s feet surrounding her eyes, and deep vertical wrinkles sprouting from her upper lip like perfectly planted rows of corn, the telltale sign of a lifelong smoker. Taylor blessed her decision to quit the previous year—it was the idea of having those wrinkles that had forced her to stop.

“Mrs. Anderson? Stephanie Anderson?” Taylor asked.

The woman smiled. “That’s me. What can I do you for?”

Open, guileless. Maybe there was something to the notion of a small town. She pulled out her badge, Baldwin followed suit with his credentials.

“I’m Lieutenant Taylor Jackson, from Nashville, Tennessee. This is Supervisory Special Agent John Baldwin, with the FBI. May we come in? We need to ask you some questions.”

The woman’s face closed, the smile faded. She hesitated for a brief moment, then said, “What’s this all about, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Baldwin turned on the charm, smiling in encouragement. “We’re here doing background on a former student from this town. We won’t take much of your time, I promise.”

Mrs. Anderson’s eyes narrowed, but she pulled the door open wider. “Come in then. I’m just making the kids some dinner. I hope you don’t mind if I keep cooking while we talk.”

They followed her into the warm, inviting kitchen. It was purely country—oak cupboards with glass insets, cabbage rose wallpaper and flouncy lace curtains, a huge open fireplace at the far end. Taylor crossed to the fire and stood, warming her hands. “That’s nice,” she said.

Mrs. Anderson’s face creased in dismay. “Your nose and cheeks are bright red. I didn’t realize it had gotten so cold out there, we had a right nice afternoon. The fire keeps things so toasty in here, and you know how it is with kids. They love to play in the cold, then come in, warm up, and go back out again. I should probably round them up before they catch their death.”

Taylor did know. When she was a kid, they’d had a lot of snow in Nashville during the winters. She and Sam would spend hours sledding, then decamp back to one or the other’s house to defrost and drink cocoa. She felt almost wistful for a moment, then pulled herself together.

“If you can wait for just a second, Mrs. Anderson, it would be better to talk without the kids running around.”

“Oh. Of course. Certainly.” Mrs. Anderson went to the stove and took the lid off a huge stoneware Crock-Pot. Steam billowed off the contents. She took a wooden spoon and stirred, and Taylor smelled chili. Despite the meal she’d just had, her stomach rumbled. She loved good chili.

Mrs. Anderson started chattering about the boys, her grandkids, bragging on how sweet they were. Baldwin looked at the pictures she pointed to on the wall and murmured his approval. They were dillydallying. It was time to ruin the woman’s good mood.

Taylor settled on a stool at the wide counter. “Mrs. Anderson, we want to talk to you about Roger Copeland.”

The woman’s body stilled, though her arm still rotated the spoon in the pot. She sniffed twice, then with great care, she removed the spoon and laid it gently on the counter in a white ceramic holder shaped like a cauliflower. Despite her attempt to keep things clean, some of it spilled over onto the white Corian counter. The red of the chili sauce looked like blood.

“Roger’s been dead a long time,” she said, soft and gentle.

“We know. We’re sorry to have to bring up bad memories.”

She smiled. “Oh, they’re pretty good memories. I loved that man like nobody’s business. He loved me right back. It was terrible, what that woman did to him.”

“Betty Copeland,” Taylor said.

“That’s right. Betty. Mean as a snake, and crazy as a bedbug. He used to say she was a charmer, that she put some sort of spell on him. Then he woke up and saw the light, and it was too late. Three little boys, a nutty wife, a career to manage. He was on the road a lot. That helped. When we got together, he wanted out. He just didn’t know how to end it with her. He was scared of that woman.” Her soft Southern accent broadened. “Scairt to death of her, really. Looks like he was right to be, don’t you think?”

Taylor glanced at Baldwin, who met her eyes and raised his eyebrow. Something here, his look said. She agreed. They stayed silent, watching Mrs. Anderson as she chewed on her lip for a moment, lost in thought. A gauzy smile appeared on her face.

“At least I have Ruth to remember him by. Not that I’d ever forget him, of course. But time, it does heal all wounds. He never got to meet her, more’s the pity. She’s a lovely girl. Smart as a whip. Looks just like him, too. All the good parts. Roger was such a handsome man.”

Baldwin sat at the counter next to Taylor. “Mrs. Anderson, do you ever hear from Ewan Copeland?”

Mrs. Anderson clutched her throat. “Ewan? Oh, no. That boy. That poor, poor boy. Wrong in the head, just like his mama. You know he raped a girl when he was only sixteen? How does a young man learn how to do that? How do they even know? Movies, I guess, or those girly magazines. The state, they shipped him off quicker than you could say jiminy, that’s the last any of us heard from him.”

“So these are Ruth’s boys you’re babysitting?” Taylor asked.

“Oh, no. Ruth doesn’t live here in Forest City. She’s not married either, though I nag her about it constantly. No, she ended up going to school to be a scientist, up in Raleigh. She works for the city up there.”

Baldwin shifted on his stool. “Oh? Doing what?”

“Crime lab stuff. Like that TV show, CSI? Though she tells me that it’s a pack of lies—her job’s nothing like that. ‘It’s drudgery, Mama,’ she tells me. ‘Nothing cool and glamorous, and we don’t get to carry guns.’”

“She’s a forensic scientist?” Taylor asked.

“Yeah, that’s the right term. Smart girl, my Ruth. I bet she’d love to talk with you, Agent Baldwin. She’s always talked about the FBI, getting into the academy. The selection process is hard though.”

“Yes, it surely is. Do you have a picture of Ruth?” Baldwin asked. Taylor didn’t need to look at him; she could feel that he was practically quivering. It dawned on her why. Oh, my God.

Mrs. Anderson was back to her cheerful self, pride in her offspring’s accomplishments overshadowing the sorrow she’d been feeling about losing the girl’s father. “Well, sure. Right here in the living room. Come on, you can see it, it’s up on the wall with the rest of the family photos.”

The formal living room was painted a glossy eggshell-white, the thick red Turkish rug whisper silent on their feet. The family photographs took up the entire back wall, a huge montage of generations. Taylor’s heart thudded with every step she took across the floor.

Mrs. Anderson pointed to a picture dead center of the collection.

“This is the best one, here. Taken just after her college graduation, see? She’s still wearing her cap and gown. She looks so lovely in blue.”

Taylor covered her mouth so she wouldn’t swear aloud.

When she smiled, Renee Sansom’s imposter was almost pretty.

Twenty-Five

Taylor couldn’t get away from Mrs. Anderson quickly enough. She felt like she was going to throw up. They’d nearly been killed by the Pretender’s sister. His sister. Granted, a half-sister, but still his flesh, and his blood. He’d found her somehow, and manipulated her into working for him. And she’d been worried for her. Jesus.

Looking at the soft, gently lined face of Mrs. Anderson, she was filled with an all-consuming rage. This woman had helped sow the seeds of destruction to the tune of at least seven deaths. She either didn’t know her daughter was a psychopath, or didn’t care.

Taylor couldn’t afford to let the emotions show. She swallowed them down, kept the smile plastered on her face. Felt her nails dig into the skin of her palms. They needed more information. Background. History. Contact information, if they could wheedle it out of the woman. She slowed the beating of her heart and adopted her calm, professional demeanor. But the words didn’t come. She was thankful when Baldwin stepped in. He’d sensed she wasn’t prepared to speak just yet, and he was a master tap dancer. He poured it on thick.

“Mrs. Anderson, we’d love to talk to Ruth. I’m always looking for qualified crime scene techs. My teams in the BAU have at least one forensic scientist on them, sometimes two. If she’s not right for me, I might be able to suggest another spot for her. At least get her an interview or two. The Academy classes start soon. If she’s right for us, she might make it in under the wire.”

“You would do that?” Mrs. Anderson’s eyes were shining. No, she didn’t suspect a thing. She was too sweet, too unassuming. She probably didn’t know about her daughter, not in a conscious way. She may have felt something was off, or Ruth could have been a fabulous actress. Regardless, she’d birthed a killer. A maniac. Was there something in Roger Copeland’s genes that sparked madness? Granted, Betty had a history of instability, but Stephanie Anderson seemed downright normal. Two very different women, Betty and Stephanie. Yet both mothers of killers, with Copeland’s sperm the simple common denominator.

She heard Fitz’s voice in her head. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck…

Baldwin was still talking. Taylor forced herself back to the conversation.

“I’d be more than happy to talk with her about it. We’re looking to fill these positions rather quickly, so the sooner I talk to her the better. Do you have a phone number, or an email, where I can reach her?”

Mrs. Anderson was beaming now. “Of course I do. Let me get my book. I’ve got all her information written down. I can’t ever remember all those little details. Thank goodness for speed dial.” She looked at her watch. “Why don’t we try to give her a call right now? I haven’t talked to her in a few weeks. She never answers her phone, such a busy little thing.”

Baldwin gave her a huge grin. “You know what? Let me make the call. I’d like to surprise her.”

“Oh, Dr. Baldwin. You’re a good man. Ruth’s going to be so happy.”

She bustled back toward the kitchen. They held back for a moment, let her get ahead. Baldwin’s face changed, the good humor gone, the sharp planes of his cheekbones shadowed. Taylor squeezed his arm, and he whispered in her ear.

“At least we know who the imposter is now. Copeland’s certainly kept this all in the family.”

“You don’t think Mrs. Anderson is shining us on? Is she clueless?”

“I don’t think she has any idea of what Ruth’s become. But we aren’t going to be able to sit on this for long. Mrs. Anderson’s bound to follow up with her daughter. And we have to keep Ruth from contacting Copeland. He can’t know we’re getting close.”

“Maybe that’s exactly what we need to flush him out?”

“I don’t know, Taylor.”

“Baldwin, this is a small town. The FBI and a cop from Nashville? It’s all over the place by now. If he has any contact with anyone here, he knows.”

“I bet he doesn’t. I think he wants to stay as far away from this place as humanly possible.”

There was a noise behind them, they broke apart.

“Here we go,” Mrs. Anderson sang out. “Let’s see, do you have anything to write with?”

“Absolutely,” Baldwin answered, drawing a small black Quo Vadis Habana notebook from his pocket. Taylor had bought it for him online and he carried it with him everywhere. He needed to order some more, this one was nearly full. He’d developed a taste for the fine Clairefontaine paper, felt like quite the dandy when he felt the perfect ink lay down.

He opened to a clean page and said, “Go ahead whenever you’re ready.”

Mrs. Anderson recited all the information for her eldest child—home phone and work phone, home address, email. Ruth Copeland Anderson was based in Raleigh, North Carolina, and worked for the Durham Police Department. The traitor in their midst. At least now the fact that all the forensics from the trailer in Asheville and Fitz’s boat had been compromised made a perverse kind of sense.

Mrs. Anderson handed Baldwin the phone. “Just hit Memory, then 1. That will call her house.”

Taylor watched him mime the motion, depress the buttons only partway, clear his throat. After a few moments, he shook his head. “I’m getting the answering machine. I’ll leave a message. Hi, Ruth? This is Dr. John Baldwin, from the Federal Bureau of Investigations. I’ve just met your mother and she tells me you’re interested in joining our team. Please call me at 703-555-5494 so we can talk about getting you in for an interview. Don’t forget to call your mother. Bye now.”

A nice bit of subterfuge. Baldwin had never hit Dial, she saw the number on the screen as his hand flashed to hit the end button. He handed the phone back. “That’s too bad. If you talk to her, let her know to give me a shout. Thanks so much for your time, we need to get going.”

Taylor could barely contain herself. She just wanted to get out of there, call Roddie Hall from the SBI, and give him the information so his people could get up to Raleigh and take her down. Assuming Ruth had gone back to Raleigh after killing the agents in Nags Head. Would her brother be with her? The odds were in their favor. Taylor would bet a hundred dollars that he never, ever expected them to find this small town, to hear of his sad, troubled childhood.

They bid Mrs. Anderson farewell, tried to be polite about it. She didn’t sense anything wrong, or if she did, she chose not to see. Taylor suspected that Mrs. Anderson got through a lot of life’s little monstrosities by turning a blind eye. It was what all good Southern ladies did.

They took the path to the street.

“Good job,” Taylor said.

“I’m getting that phone disconnected right now. It doesn’t matter, I can’t imagine she went home. If she’s got half a brain she’s on the run,” he replied.

She let Baldwin hold the door to the car, slid into the soft leather seat feeling smug. Mrs. Anderson waved from her wide, gracious porch. Taylor waved back, hoping Mrs. Anderson misinterpreted the cold smile on her face.

We’ve got you now, you son of a bitch.

Twenty-Six

They drove back to the town square so they didn’t raise Mrs. Anderson’s suspicion by sitting in front of her house making excited phone calls.

Once they’d parked in front of a large stone block that Taylor identified as a monument to the fallen heroes of the World Wars, Baldwin took the honor of calling the SBI. She eavesdropped as he relayed all the information to Roddie Hall, whose ebullience came through the phone’s speakers. He was thrilled to have at least a part of the puzzle solved. He knew the chief of police in Durham, and promised that a tactical team would be sent to Ruth’s business and home addresses within the hour. He’d call with updates as soon as he had anything to report.

Baldwin hung up the phone and turned to her with a smile. “God bless Wendy Heinz. If she hadn’t put two and two together…”

“But she did. How long do you think it will take Hall to get the juvie records for Ewan Copeland?”

“Roddie said that would be his second call. He’ll have to get the district attorney’s office involved. He’s on it. Told you he was a good cop.”

“I’m glad you have friends in high places. You know, it’s only 7:00.”

He took her hand. “I assume by your tone that’s not an invitation?”

“It’s never too early to go to bed.”

“Hmm. We do have that reservation. Or we could just head back to Nashville instead.”

She was getting interested in what Baldwin was doing with her hand.

“Tempting. On both counts. There’s nothing like a Holiday Inn to get my juices going. But heading home’s not a bad idea either. We could trade off driving so you could get a nap.”

“I’m up for it if you are.” He showed her that was certainly the case, tossed her a crazy, silly grin that she couldn’t help but respond to. They were like disaster survivors, giddy in the knowledge that they’d come through okay. She recognized the feeling, she had it every time a case turned her way. She reached over and ran her free hand through his hair, smoothing it down. He’d been fussing with it, and it was sticking up in all directions.

“You know, on second thought, I’m wondering if we should stay in North Carolina, just in case. Raleigh is only a couple hours north of here. We could head up there instead. Hall could use another couple of trained agents, couldn’t he?”

“Taylor, we’d just be in the way. Hall knows what he’s doing.”

“True.” She sighed heavily and looked out the window. “Well, Chief Morgan gave us the address of the old Copeland place. What about we go over there and take a look, see if Hall calls us back in the meantime?”

He sighed dramatically and released her captive hand. “All right. You win. We’ll go put a place to the face.”

“Thank you, sweetie. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

“Oh, yes, you will,” he said, then put the car in gear.

Within five minutes, they arrived at the address the chief had given them.

The Copelands’ old house was off a side street, tucked into a neighborhood that was probably nice in the forties or early fifties, but now just seemed tired of putting on airs.

It was fully dark; the single streetlight’s meager illumination didn’t penetrate the houses’ front yards. They had to dig the Maglites out of the trunk to get an idea of the scene. Equipped with the powerful lights, they started toward the little house.

A cracked concrete walk littered with weeds and trash led to the tiny front porch. The house was a small single-story clapboard affair, smaller than its neighbors, with what looked like five rooms—the kitchen up front, and two tiny bedrooms that overlooked the dingy gray porch. Taylor played the flashlight’s beam into the darkness. She could see a hallway off what was most likely the bathroom, and a living room beyond. The master, if you could call it that, would be in the back.

They scrambled around the side of the house, shining their lights into the desolate landscape and murmuring to each other. The backyard butted up to the train tracks, with a chain-link fence separating it from the endless black iron. There was a small storm cellar beside the house, the doors painted what used to be blue.

A dog began to bark two houses over and the porch lights on either side of them came on.

“Who’s there?” a deep, hurt female voice whispered. “Allen, is that you? You’re late.” Someone was expecting a date.

“Time to split,” Baldwin said, sotto voce.

Taylor nodded and turned off her light. They slunk back around the side of the house as quietly as they could, Baldwin leading in the dark, Taylor following him back up the slope into the front yard.

Another female voice rang out, this time more authoritative, from their right. “I see you moving around over there. I’m calling Chief Morgan. You no good little brats better stay out of my yard. I’ve got a gun and I know how to use it.” A door slammed and the dog stopped barking.

Feeling silly, Taylor turned to yell that she was the police and stumbled over something hard. She went down on her hands and knees, the breath going out of her in a whoosh. Baldwin was right there, helping her up, shining the light around in a circle so they could see what she’d tripped on.

It was a metal stake. The kind you hammer into the ground to tie a dog’s chain to. She limped the last ten feet to the car and let Baldwin look at the offending shin.

He rolled up her pant leg gently, his palm warm against her sore skin. “You scared me. Don’t go falling down like that.”

“Then tell these people not to put stakes in the middle of their yard.”

The voice from next door spoke again, this time much closer. “Serves you right, sneaking around like that.”

Baldwin moved like lightning, his weapon out in a heartbeat and his Maglite shining square in the woman’s face, effectively blinding her. She was an older woman with a frazzled gray bun and a white terry housecoat covered in small brown cartoon puppies. True to her word, she carried a Remington 12-gauge shotgun, which she had pointed at them. Taylor hadn’t heard the shell jacked into place, either the woman was waiting to impress them—there was nothing like the sound of a pump action shotgun going live, it was unmistakable and threatening enough to stop any smart person in their tracks—or she didn’t have it loaded, and the gun was just for show.

Taylor bit her lip so she wouldn’t laugh. This was absolutely ridiculous.

“Please don’t shoot, ma’am. We’re law enforcement. We have identification in our pockets. I’m John Baldwin, FBI, and this is Lieutenant Jackson, from Nashville.”

The woman grinned at him. “Well, that’s a damn good thing.” She lowered the shotgun, stuck out her hand. “Sharon Potts. I’m a nurse, over at the hospital. Let me see if she’s okay. Can’t help but feel that was my fault, spooking her like a spring horse. You’re a jumpy thing, aren’t you?”

Taylor just sighed and stuck out her leg. Baldwin shined the light up and down it while the old woman ran her fingers along the broken skin. She hissed in a breath when the woman grabbed her leg and twisted. The nurse stood and brushed her hands down the front of her housecoat, smoothing it out over her hips.

“Nothing’s broken. You barked it pretty good, that’s a deep scratch. You’re bleeding all over this fine young gentlemen’s car. You don’t need stitches, but some peroxide and a Band-Aid might come in handy. Probably need a tetanus booster, too. You folks have a first-aid kit in this fancy vehicle?”

“Not one that has fancy tetanus boosters,” Baldwin said. Taylor could hear the smile in his voice. He thought this was funny, too. Then she drew a breath and sobered. If the Pretender had been lurking around instead—no, she’d have been alerted by her guards. He wasn’t going to be able to sneak up on her.

“Smarty pants. Well, you can take her on over to the emergency room. Won’t be too busy this time of night,” Sharon said. She started back to her own yard, coughing deeply, the Remington slung up over her shoulder, almost longer than she was tall. Taylor felt like she’d stepped into the pages of Li’l Abner.

“Wait, Ms. Potts?” Taylor called out.

“Yes, yes, you’re welcome,” the old woman called back, hand fluttering up in a backward wave, still moving toward her front door.

“No, I…well, yes, thank you. But I was wondering. How long have you lived here?”

She stopped walking and turned around. “Long enough. Why?”

“Did you know the folks who used to live next door to you? The Copelands?”

Potts stared at her for a long moment, the darkness making her face look like a Janus mask, grotesque and unyielding. Then she smiled, and the face turned.

“Hell, you’d best come in. I’ll make you some tea.”

The tea was plain old Lipton from a bag, but it was warm and there was fresh cream and lots of sugar. Taylor sipped her cup and held an ice pack against her leg with a paper towel. Ms. Potts had fixed her up, but only after she assured her that she’d gotten a tetanus booster just six months earlier. It was required by Metro—like a dog, she had to get all her shots regularly.

Baldwin had settled in at the small wooden dining table looking like a giant. Sharon Potts was about five feet tall, and her house reflected that. Everything felt small, compact and efficient. Clean and homey, nothing superfluous. Just like its owner. Who was quick to share her story. Taylor got the sense that even though Ms. Potts worked around, with and for people all day, she was terribly lonely.

“Of course I remember the Copelands. Laws, there’s no one in town who doesn’t. It was terribly sad. Betty, she had a sickness. Even growing up, that girl was wrong in the head. Everyone knew it, and we all tried to help. But some kids are just born bad, and there’s nothing you can do to help them. I knew her mama, God rest her soul. She was terrified for that child. Loved her to pieces though she never knew what she was going to get into next. Overloved her, really. She was pretty much blind to her faults. But you know how it is, no one can ever tell what happens behind closed doors. I think she let the cancer get her, so she wouldn’t have to witness what she’d given birth to. Breast cancer, you see, late stage, and her so young. She was barely forty, died when Betty was seventeen or so. Right before she graduated. That spooked Betty, I think, because her mama was always the one place she knew she could turn when things got tough.”

“What about her father?” Taylor asked.

“He was off in the merchant marines.” She snorted. “Which is a fancy way of saying no one really knew who Betty’s father was. Edward Biggs married Barbara when Betty was about three or so, gave her his name. But by that time he was so busy with the restaurant, and Betty was such a handful. He died early, and Barbara, that’s her mother, Barbara did the best she could. Barb was a good woman. But when she died, Betty had no one. So she took up with Roger Copeland. Got herself knocked up, knew he’d take care of her. Roger was an honorable man.