Faithless

  On the couch beside Greg was a woman around Lena’s age. She had olive skin and her brown hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail. On a good day, she might pass for one of Lena’s distant cousins— the ugly ones on Hank’s side. Today, sitting next to Greg, the girl looked more like a whore. It gave Lena some satisfaction that Greg had settled for a lesser copy, but she still had to swallow a tinge of jealousy when she asked, “What are you doing here?” He appeared taken aback, and she tried to moderate her tone, saying, “Back in town, I mean. What are you doing back in town?”

  “I, uh . . .” His face broke into an awkward grin. Maybe he had been expecting her to hit him with the newspaper. She had done it before.

  “Shattered my tib-fib,” he said, indicating his ankle. She saw a cane tucked into the couch between him and the girl. “I’m back home for a while so my mom can look after me.”

  Lena knew his mother’s house was two streets over. Her heart did an odd kind of tumble in her chest as she wondered how long he had been living there. She racked her brain for something to say, settling on, “How’s she doing? Your mom.”

  “Still cantankerous as ever.” His eyes were a crystal clear blue, incongruous with his jet-black hair. He was wearing it longer now, or maybe he had forgotten to get it cut. Greg was always forgetting that sort of thing, spending hours in front of the computer figuring out a program while the house was falling apart around him. They had argued about it constantly. They had argued about everything constantly. She had never let up, not giving him an inch on anything. He had annoyed the shit out of her and she had hated his guts and he was probably the only man she had ever really loved.

  He asked, “And you?”

  “What?” she said, still stuck in her thoughts. His fingers tapped on the cane, and she saw his nails had been bitten to the quick.

  Greg glanced at the other women, his smile a little more hesitant. “I asked how you were doing.”

  She shrugged, and there was a long moment of silence where she could only stare at him. Finally, she made herself look down at her hands. She had shredded the corner of the newspaper like a nervous housewife. Jesus, she had never been this uncomfortable in her life. There were lunatics in the asylum with better social skills.

  “Lena,” Nan said, her voice taking on a nervous pitch. “This is Mindy Bryant.”

  Mindy reached out her hand, and Lena shook it. She saw Greg looking at the scars on the back of her hand and pulled back self-consciously.

  His tone had a quiet sadness. “I heard what happened.”

  “Yeah,” she managed, tucking her hands into her back pockets. “Listen, I’ve got to get ready for work.”

  “Oh, right,” Greg said. He tried to stand. Mindy and Nan reached out to help, but Lena stood where she was. She had wanted to help, even felt her muscles twitch, but for some reason her feet stayed rooted to the floor.

  Greg leaned on his cane, telling Lena, “I just thought I’d drop by and let you guys know I’m back in town.” He leaned over and kissed Nan’s cheek. Lena remembered how many arguments she’d had with Greg over Sibyl’s sexual orientation. He had always been on her sister’s side and probably thought it was really rich that Lena and Nan were living together now. Or maybe not. Greg was not the petty type and never held a grudge for long; it was one of the many qualities she hadn’t understood about him.

  He told Lena, “I’m sorry about Sibyl. Mama didn’t tell me until I got back.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Lena said. Lu Mitchell had hated Lena on sight. She was one of those women who thought her son walked on water.

  Greg said, “So, I’ll get going.”

  “Yeah,” Lena answered, stepping back so he could make his way to the door.

  “Don’t be a stranger.” Nan patted his arm. She was still acting nervous, and Lena noticed that she was blinking a lot. Something was different about her, but Lena couldn’t put her finger on it.

  Greg said, “You look great, Nan. Really good.”

  Nan actually blushed, and Lena realized she wasn’t wearing her glasses. When had Nan gotten contacts? And for that matter, why? She had never been the type to worry about her appearance, but today she had even forgone her usual pastels and had dressed in jeans and a plain black T-shirt. Lena had never seen her in anything darker than chartreuse.

  Mindy had said something, and Lena apologized, saying, “Sorry?”

  “I said it was nice meeting you.” She had a twang that grated, and Lena hoped the smile she managed didn’t betray her aversion.

  Greg said, “Nice meeting you, too,” and shook Mindy’s hand.

  Lena opened her mouth to say something, then changed her mind. Greg was at the door, his hand on the knob.

  He gave Lena one last look over his shoulder. “I’ll see you around.”

  “Yeah,” Lena answered, thinking that was pretty much all she had said for the last five minutes.

  The door clicked shut and the three women stood in a circle.

  Mindy gave a nervous laugh, and Nan joined in just a tad too loudly. She put her hand to her mouth to stop herself.

  Mindy said, “I’d better get back to work.” She leaned over to kiss Nan’s cheek, but Nan pulled back. At the last minute, she realized what she had done and leaned forward, hitting Mindy in the nose.

  Mindy laughed, rubbing her nose. “I’ll call you.”

  “Um, okay,” Nan answered, her face the color of a turnip. “I’ll be here. Today, I mean. Or at work tomorrow.” She looked at everything in the room but Lena. “I mean, I’ll be around.”

  “Okay,” Mindy answered, the smile on her face a little tighter. She told Lena, “Nice meeting you.”

  “Yeah, you, too.”

  Mindy gave Nan a furtive look. “See you later.”

  Nan waved, and Lena said, “Bye.”

  The door closed, and Lena felt like all the air had been sucked from the room. Nan was still blushing, her lips pressed together so tightly they were turning white. Lena decided to break the ice, saying, “She seems nice.”

  “Yeah,” Nan agreed. “I mean, no. Not that she’s not nice. I just . . . Oh, dear me.” She pressed her fingers to her lips to stop them.

  Lena tried to think of something positive to say. “She’s pretty.”

  “You think so?” Nan blushed again. “I mean, not that it matters. I just—”

  “It’s okay, Nan.”

  “It’s too soon.”

  Lena didn’t know what else to say. She wasn’t good at comforting people. She wasn’t good at anything emotional, a fact that Greg had cited several times before he’d finally gotten fed up and left.

  “Greg just knocked on the door,” Nan said, and when Lena looked out the front door, she added, “not now, before. We were sitting around. Mindy and I. We were just talking and he knocked and—” She stopped, taking a deep breath. “Greg looks good.”

  “Yeah.”

  “He said he walks in the neighborhood all the time,” Nan told her. “For his leg. He’s in physical therapy. He didn’t want to be rude. You know, if we saw him in the street and wondered what he was doing back in town.”

  Lena nodded.

  “He didn’t know you were here. Living here.”

  “Oh.”

  Silence took over again.

  Nan said, “Well,” just as Lena said, “I thought you were at work.”

  “I took the morning off.”

  Lena rested her hand on the front door. Nan had obviously wanted to keep her date a secret. Maybe she was ashamed, or maybe she was scared what Lena’s reaction might be.

  Lena asked, “Did you have coffee with her?”

  “It’s too soon after Sibyl,” Nan told her. “I didn’t notice until you got here . . .”

  “What?”

  “She looks like you. Like Sibyl.” She amended, “Not exactly like Sibyl, not as pretty. Not as . . .” Nan rubbed her eyes with her fingers, then whispered, “Shit.”

  Lena was yet again at a loss for words. br />
  “Stupid contacts,” Nan said. She dropped her hand, but Lena could see her eyes were watering.

  “It’s okay, Nan,” Lena told her, feeling an odd sense of responsibility. “It’s been three years,” she pointed out, though it felt like it had barely been three days. “You deserve a life. She would want you to—”

  Nan cut her off with a nod, sniffing loudly. She waved her hands in front of her face. “I’d better go take these stupid things out. I feel like I have needles in my eyes.”

  She practically ran to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Lena contemplated standing outside the door, asking her if she was okay, but that felt like a violation. The thought that Nan might one day date had never occurred to Lena. She had considered Nan asexual after a while, existing only in the context of their home life. For the first time, Lena realized that Nan must have been terribly lonely all this time.

  Lena was so lost in thought that the phone rang several times before Nan called, “Are you going to get that?”

  Lena grabbed the receiver just before the voice mail picked up. “Hello?”

  “Lena,” Jeffrey said, “I know I gave you the morning off—”

  Relief came like a ray of sunshine. “When do you need me?”

  “I’m in the driveway.”

  She walked over to the window and looked out at his white cruiser. “I need a minute to change.”

  Lena sat back in the passenger’s seat, watching the scenery go by as Jeffrey drove along a gravel road on the outskirts of town. Grant County was comprised of three cities: Heartsdale, Madison and Avondale. Heartsdale, home to Grant Tech, was the jewel of the county, and with its huge antebellum mansions and gingerbread houses, it certainly looked it. By comparison, Madison was dingy, a lesser version of what a city should be, and Avondale was an outright shithole since the army had closed the base there. It was just Lena and Jeffrey’s luck that the call came from Avondale. Every cop she knew dreaded a call from this side of the county, where poverty and hatred made the whole town simmer like a pot about to boil over.

  Jeffrey asked, “You ever been out this far on a call?”

  “I didn’t even know there were houses out here.”

  “There weren’t the last time I checked.” Jeffrey handed her a file with a slip of paper containing the directions paper clipped to the outside. “What road are we looking for?”

  “Plymouth,” she read. At the top of the page was a name. “Ephraim Bennett?”

  “The father, apparently.” Jeffrey slowed so that they could check a faded road sign. It was the standard green with white letters, but there was something homemade looking about it, as if someone had used a kit from the hardware store.

  “Nina Street,” she read, wondering when all of these roads had been built. After working patrol for nearly ten years, Lena thought she knew the county better than anyone. Looking around, she felt like they were in foreign territory.

  She asked, “Are we still in Grant?”

  “We’re right on the line,” he told her. “Catoogah County is on the left, Grant is on the right.”

  He slowed for another road sign. “Pinta Street,” she told him. “Who got the call first?”

  “Ed Pelham,” he said, practically spitting out the name. Catoogah County was less than half the size of Grant, warranting no more than a sheriff and four deputies. A year ago, Joe Smith, the kindly old grandfather who had held the post of sheriff for thirty years, had keeled over from a heart attack during the keynote speech at the Rotary Club, kicking off a nasty political race between two of his deputies. The election had been so close that the winner, in keeping with county law, was decided by a coin toss, two out of three. Ed Pelham had entered office with the moniker “Two-Bit” for more reasons than the two quarters that went his way. He was about as lazy as he was lucky, and he had no problem letting other people do his job so long as he got to wear the big hat and collect the paycheck.

  Jeffrey said, “The call came in to one of his deputies last night. He didn’t follow up on it until this morning, when he realized they’re not in his jurisdiction.”

  “Ed called you?”

  “He called the family and told them they’d have to take it up with us.”

  “Nice,” she said. “Did he know about our Jane Doe?”

  Jeffrey was more diplomatic than Lena would have been. “That cocksucker wouldn’t know if his own ass was on fire.”

  She snorted a laugh. “Who’s Lev?”

  “What?”

  “The name under here,” she said, showing him the directions. “You wrote ‘Lev’ and underlined it.”

  “Oh,” Jeffrey said, obviously not paying attention to her as he slowed down to read another sign.

  “Santa Maria,” Lena read, recognizing the names of the ships from her junior high school history class. “What are they, a bunch of pilgrims?”

  “The pilgrims came over on the Mayflower.”

  “Oh,” Lena said. There was a reason her school counselor had told her college wasn’t right for everyone.

  “Columbus led the Niña, Pinta and Santa María.”

  “Right.” She could feel Jeffrey staring at her, probably wondering if she had a brain in her head. “Columbus.”

  Thankfully, he changed the subject. “Lev’s the one who called this morning,” Jeffrey told her, speeding up. The tires kicked back gravel and Lena saw a cloud behind them in the side-view mirror. “He’s the uncle. I called back and spoke with the father.”

  “Uncle, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Jeffrey said. “We’ll take a close look at him.” He braked to a stop as the road made a sharp left into a dead end.

  “Plymouth,” Lena said, pointing to a narrow dirt road on the right.

  Jeffrey reversed the car so he could make the turn without going into a ditch. “I ran their names through the computer.”

  “Any hits?”

  “The father got a speeding ticket in Atlanta two days ago.”

  “Nice alibi.”

  “Atlanta’s not that far away,” he pointed out. “Who the hell would live way out here?”

  “Not me,” Lena answered. She looked out her window at the rolling pastures. There were cows grazing and a couple of horses ran in the distance like something out of a movie. Some people might think this was a slice of heaven, but Lena needed more to do than look at the cows all day.

  “When did all this get here?” Jeffrey asked.

  Lena looked on his side of the road, seeing a huge farm with row after row of plants. She asked, “Are those peanuts?”

  “They look a little tall for that.”

  “What else grows out here?”

  “Republicans and unemployment,” he said. “This has to be some kind of corporate farm. Nobody could afford to run a place this size on their own.”

  “There you go.” Lena pointed to a sign at the head of a winding driveway that led to a series of buildings. The words “Holy Grown Soy Cooperative” were written in fancy gold script. Underneath this, in smaller letters, it said “Est. 1984.”

  Lena asked, “Like hippies?”

  “Who knows,” Jeffrey said, rolling up the window as the smell of manure came into the car. “I’d hate to have to live across from this place.”

  She saw a large, modern-looking barn with a group of at least fifty workers milling about outside. They were probably on break. “The soy business must be doing well.”

  He slowed the car to a stop in the middle of the road. “Is this place even on the map?”

  Lena opened the glove compartment and took out the spiral-bound Grant County and surrounding areas street map. She was flipping through the pages, looking for Avondale, when Jeffrey mumbled a curse and turned toward the farm. One thing she liked about her boss was that he wasn’t afraid to ask for directions. Greg had been the same way— usually it was Lena saying they should just go a couple of more miles and see if they lucked out and found their destination.

  The driveway to the barn was m
ore like a two-lane road, both sides rutted deep from tires. They probably had heavy trucks in and out to pick up the soy or whatever it was they grew here. Lena didn’t know what soy looked like, but she imagined it would take a lot to fill a box, let alone a whole truck.

  “We’ll try here,” Jeffrey said, slamming the gear into park. She could tell he was irritated, but didn’t know if it was because they had gotten lost or because the detour kept the family waiting even longer. She had learned from Jeffrey over the years that it was best to get the bad news out of the way as quickly as possible unless there was something important to be gained from waiting.

  They walked around the big red barn and Lena saw a second group of workers standing behind it, a short, wiry-looking old man yelling so loud that even from fifty feet away, she could hear him clear as a bell.

  “The Lord does not abide laziness!” the man was screaming, his finger inches from a younger man’s face. “Your weakness has cost us a full morning’s work!”

  The man with the finger in his face looked down, contrite. There were two girls in the crowd, and they were both crying.

  “Weakness and greed!” the old man proclaimed. Anger edged his tone so that each word sounded like an indictment. He had a Bible in his other hand, and he raised it into the air like a torch, shining the way toward enlightenment. “Your weakness will find you out!” he screamed. “The Lord will test you, and you must be strong!”

  “Christ,” Jeffrey muttered, then, “Excuse me, sir?”

  The man turned around, his scowl slipping into a puzzled look, then a frown. He was wearing a white long-sleeved shirt starched to within an inch of its life. His jeans were likewise stiff, a razor crease ironed into the front of the legs. A Braves ball cap sat on his head, his large ears sticking out on each side like billboards. He used the back of his sleeve to wipe spittle from his mouth. “Is there something I can help you with, sir?” Lena noticed that his voice was hoarse from yelling.

  Jeffrey said, “We’re looking for Ephraim Bennett.”

  The man’s expression yet again turned on a dime. He smiled brightly, his eyes lighting up. “That’s across the road,” he said, indicating the way Jeffrey and Lena had come. He directed, “Go back down, take a left, then you’ll see it about a quarter mile down on the right.”