“I tell you, Chief, you’re too good for this town. You ought to get into the state police, or go to Massachusetts and pick up some additional schooling. Maybe even the FBI academy.”
He frowned as he took a sip from his mug. There were only a few other customers here this morning, and most of them were at the long counter running down one side, where Mona held court. “Counselor, I barely keep ahead of what goes on in Norwich. My mind would be spinning within five minutes of leaving here.”
“You barely keep ahead because you’re a one-man department. You ought to lean on the selectmen to get you more help.”
“One-man department means I know what’s going on. And I lean too hard on the board, they may replace me with someone a little less noisy.”
Rachel drank from her cup, leaving a trace of lipstick on the mug. “They wouldn’t be that stupid, hill people as they may be.”
“Don’t get into that hill people crap.”
She smiled. “You’re mad because you know it’s true. You and I both grew up in the valley, relatively well-off. It’s tough up in those hills. Little farms and mobile homes, miles up on dirt roads, no neighbors, electricity going out in every bad storm, late at night and in the winter. I don’t care how good you are, Chief, you can’t know what’s going on up there all the time.”
“Like the Hanson family, for instance.”
Returning the coffee cup to the counter, she said, “That’s my case and it’d be prejudicial if I discussed it with you. But let me tell you a story that might give you some insight.”
“A hypothetical story?”
“Aren’t those the best kind?”
“Go ahead.”
Rachel folded her hands before her. “Let’s say — hypothetically, of course — you’re a hill woman married to an abusive man. His name is Henry.”
Victor said, “Some coincidence.”
“Hush. And you married young and soon, before you’re thirty, you have three children. You don’t have much of an education, money is tight, and you’re lucky if you have meat on the table once or twice a week. You try to go on welfare but Henry won’t let you. Too proud, he says, and since you’re a hill woman, you partially agree. Still, it makes you hurt inside when your kids cry at night because they’re hungry.”
Rachel picked up a paper napkin, folded it over a few times. “Your husband isn’t much of a provider, isn’t much of a person. He’s overweight and he smokes and he drinks too much, and he’s a bit of a religious nut. And when he’s drinking he starts hitting you. Nothing bad at first, nothing you haven’t experienced before or seen in your family, but it makes every day a nightmare, wondering what will happen to you.”
“Still hypothetical, Counselor?”
“Still hypothetical, Chief. Then you notice he starts to look at your daughters in a funny way. He visits them at night, in their bedrooms. And he starts quoting Biblical verse to you, about multiple wives. You’re a hill woman. Your nearest neighbor’s a half-mile away, and you have no skills. In wintertime you get to town maybe once every week. Electricity keeps on getting shut off for non-payment. You have nothing except a son and two daughters you’re frightened for, a collection of bruises, and a hate that’s beginning to burn inside you. You’re this hill woman, Chief Victor Dumont, and what do you do?”
“Take a baseball bat and bash in his head?”
Rachel smiled. “Hardly. No, you wait. You let your hate grow and one night, after eating a heavy meal, Henry goes to the couch and sits down and rolls his eyes and clutches at his chest, and he dies, right there. The horrible thing in your life is gone, right before your eyes. But there’s a problem.”
“No life insurance?”
Rachel said, “Think, Chief. Think. All of your hate hasn’t helped you or done anything. He’s escaped your hate. He’s gone. But you still want your revenge — you still want to get back at him. And how do you do this to a God-fearing man like Henry?”
He nodded and started tapping on his empty coffee mug with a spoon. “You bury his body in an unmarked, unconsecrated grave.”
“Exactly,” she said, smiling. Her teeth were white and even. “You toss him into a septic tank hole and cover him up. And you get your revenge, and you get your comfort, because every day you walk out of your house, you’re walking on his grave, and it’s not in holy ground. Everything’s fine, until your son comes of age.”
“And that story?”
“That story revolves around an inheritance you get from a distant uncle. He decides that as head of the family, he deserves a cut. You say no, he gets mad and goes to the cops with a crazy story that you murdered his daddy.”
“Hell of a story.”
“A hell of a story because you know it’s true, Chief. I’ve read the autopsy report and the statements, and you’ve got nothing on Deborah Hanson, except for maybe disposing of human remains improperly, and even with that, she’ll plead the Fifth Amendment. Your witness Freddy’s skipped out of town and no one’s been able to find him since. You and the State have zip.”
“I’ll let the State decide that.”
A teenage waitress in a stained pink uniform slapped down the bill. On the back of her hand was the tattoo of a butterfly. Rachel picked up the paper. “On me today, Chief. I’ll bill it out.”
He picked up his hat. “You got anything going on tonight, Counselor?”
She smiled and winked. “Like what, Victor?”
“Thought maybe we’d discuss some precedents.”
She laughed and the throaty sound thrilled him. “Fine. Out on Route 12, past Canaan. The Bluebird Motel. Ten o’clock sound okay?”
“Fine.”
She winked again. “Wear your utility belt?”
“Only if you file the right motion.”
“I’ll work on it.”
Deborah Hanson sat on her bunk at the Franconia County Jail, working on her third cigarette of the night. She sat up against the rough concrete and looked out at the bars, listening to the televisions and the radios and the catcalls and shouts of the other prisoners. Most of them were in for petty crap, like drunk driving or stealing things to support their boyfriends’ drug habits. She was the only one in for a serious crime, as serious as the cops made it out to be, and the other inmates left her alone.
Finished with the cigarette, she tossed it into the metal toilet. For a brief moment she considered telling it all. Life wouldn’t be that bad here. Three meals a day, simple work compared to what she was used to, and no more worrying or scraping by. Everything taken care of.
But there were Kristin and Bridget to think of, and if she did talk up, they wouldn’t keep her here in the county lockup. No, they’d send her to the new woman’s prison in Concord, almost two hours away, and that’d be no way for the girls to grow up. And Freddy, well, he was more of Henry’s child than hers, and now he was nothing to her, ever since he went to the police.
Damn the boy’s blood, anyway.
She lit another cigarette, let the flame burn down the match’s length until it scorched her skin. The girls were at her sister’s, along with that mangy mutt. They’d do all right. For she was sure she’d be out soon.
Just as soon as the valley folks got their heads straight.
Victor Dumont sat on the hood of his cruiser, next to Gordon Moore. It was almost midnight and he had driven the cruiser up to Overlook Point. In the valley below them were the few lights of Norwich. Victor had a bottle of Beck’s beer wrapped in a paper bag. He had to drive a half hour to a store that sold it but he had grown to love the taste. Gordon drank from a thermos, whiskey and water.
“You could get in trouble, you know,” Gordon said, “drinking on the job.”