Perdition Read online

  “Where else would I go?” Nell answered quickly.

  “Anywhere. You’re intelligent, talented, clearly have major organizational and management skills. It shouldn’t be hard to find a job—and a place more fulfilling than Perdition Point.”

  “I’ve got my kids … this isn’t a bad place for them to grow up.”

  Marion didn’t say anything, but she leaned forward onto the table, her eyes questioning Nell.

  “Maybe,” Nell continued, into the silence Marion left, “maybe I’d planned my future here with Thom and … now that he’s gone, I’ve been too numb to think of a future for myself without him. Or maybe I can’t let go of his dreams and plans … and the memories here.”

  “We can endure a lot with love, but without love …” Marion trailed off. Of course, Marion had love to help her endure; Nell did not.

  “And maybe I don’t really know,” she said. “I only know that I’m here and there’s no clear direction anywhere else right now. Except to try and make friends,” she added with an unsure smile.

  “The grand experiment. I’m game if you are.” Marion returned her smile.

  “You’re not the first person to tell me they didn’t think Ronald was a murderer, of children or himself,” Nell said.

  “Jacko?” Marion asked.

  “A good reporter never reveals her sources.”

  “You’re not a reporter now, you’re a friend, remember?” Marion gently chided her.

  Nell realized that she did want to talk to someone about Jacko—what might happen to him and the ways she could and couldn’t protect him. “Yes, it was Jacko,” she admitted.

  “See, it wasn’t so hard. And don’t worry, I’m a librarian. Nobody comes to us for gossip.”

  “We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to,” Nell said.

  “Actually, I’d like to. It’s the reason I wanted to see you this afternoon, you know. That returned book we talked about? It’s disturbing, and I think I should give it to someone, but I don’t really know who to tell about it.”

  “You said there were drawings?”

  “It might be evidence,” Marion said.

  “Then maybe you should take it to the police and not involve me,” Nell said, but her curiosity made her hope that Marion wouldn’t take her advice.

  “That’s the problem. Here, let me show you.” Marion reached down into her large canvas book bag and produced a children’s book. She handed it to Nell.

  It looked like one of the picture books Nell had seen Rayburn Gautier taking home with him from the library. She gave Marion a quizzical glance.

  “Look inside,” Marion instructed her.

  Nell started by fanning through the pages. She realized that someone, presumably Rayburn, had added crayon drawings. She stopped her skimming and began looking at the pictures. They were crude figures added to the scenes in the book. Looking closer, Nell noticed there were also additions to some of the book’s pictures. The added stick figure was smaller than the other pictures, as if the added figure was a child with an adult. And the adults had been altered and were now anatomically correct, or at least the ones she assumed were the adults.

  Marion clearly read the look on Nell’s face. “Dolly mentioned Rayburn coloring in some of the books. When I shelved them, I looked at the pictures. You were there the day she came in, remember?”

  Nell nodded and said, “I’m still not sure why you didn’t show it to Chief Shaun? Or Sheriff Hickson?”

  “Look closer at the pictures.”

  Nell flipped to a few more and saw what had prompted Marion’s reluctance. The book was a picture book about different jobs, and only the pictures of people in uniform had been altered. Most of the uniforms had crude guns and badges added to them. If Rayburn was depicting the man who’d molested and finally murdered him, then that man wore some kind of uniform. Even that was speculation, although it seemed certain that a male adult had been having sex with the boy. Nell didn’t like the thought that one young boy could be molested by one man and murdered by another. It made the world too savage to think of these crimes being so common that a child in a small town fell victim twice.

  The drawings were too crude and lacking in detail to guess more than that. In one picture the gun was blue, in another it was orange. The badge similarly changed colors. There was a hat drawn in, but it was just a floppy thing on the head that could be the cowboy hat of the sheriff’s office or the peaked cap of the police force. Or even a Smoky Bear hat of the forest service.

  “So, what do I do with this?” Marion asked softly.

  “I’m not sure,” Nell said slowly. “I guess it should be fingerprinted, the usual stuff.”

  Marion gave her head a gentle shake. “A lot of people have touched that book, probably none of them the killer. I’m wondering if it would make any difference.”

  “Maybe you could go to Harold Reed, the assistant district attorney. Last I saw, his only uniform was a suit.”

  “I don’t know him, but that’s a thought. Or I could go to Buddy Guy, hand it over to him, and tell him I’ll vote for him in the next two elections if he takes care of it.”

  “Which is probably the same as going to Harold Reed, except for the extorted votes,” Nell pointed out. In a more sober tone, she continued, “It could be anyone in any uniform.”

  “Not quite anyone,” Marion interjected. “Unskilled as the drawings are, nothing indicates it’s a woman.”

  “No, and although it does narrow the suspects down a bit—”

  “And Ronald is eliminated, too. He never was even a Cub Scout. I think the butchest thing he ever did was go as the tin man for one Halloween.”

  “—it still leaves it open to a lot of men in uniform,” Nell finished.

  “I know. But Sheriff Hickson pulled me out of the harbor when I was six and thinking that I could swim like the big kids. It’s hard to suspect him. Yet he also … let Ronald be killed.”

  A cell phone nearby rang. It took Nell a moment before she realized it was hers. She smiled an apology to Marion and picked it up. “Nell McGraw,” she said brusquely to the interrupter.

  “Mom?” the voice on the other end said. “I’m sorry, but I forgot my key and now I’m locked out. Josh isn’t going to be out of his stupid bike class for an hour and it looks like it’s going to rain,” Lizzie finished in a voice filled with teenage angst.

  “Okay,” Nell said. “I’ll be there in a few minutes. Try not to melt before I arrive.”

  She ended the call and said to Marion, “There seems to be a hurricane that we don’t know about headed this way and my teenage daughter has locked herself out of the house.”

  “Time to batten down the hatches—and unlock the doors. Thanks for meeting me.”

  “Let me know what you decide to do,” Nell told Marion. “Or if I can be of any help.”

  “Thanks. It’s helped to talk about it. I might think it over tonight and postpone any decision until tomorrow.”

  “Don’t wait too much longer. They’ll move on to the next thing,” Nell said as she stood up.

  “Tomorrow. I’ll do it then,” Marion said quietly.

  On impulse, Nell gave her a hug. There was a sadness in her that seemed to need it. “Tomorrow, we’ll talk, okay?” she said as she let go.

  “I’ll call you,” Marion agreed.

  A crack of thunder suggested Lizzie might not have been exaggerating as much as Nell thought. She headed out of the coffee shop and home to rescue her daughter.

  The rain gods were not kind and fat drops were starting to fall as she pulled into the driveway.

  “About time, I could get drowned out here,” Lizzie greeted her.

  “I would have been here sooner, but I got stopped three times for speeding,” Nell answered as she unlocked the door.

  “Funny, very funny
,” Lizzie replied, in a voice that made it clear this was not what she thought. She ducked through the door in front of Nell. “That creepy cop guy was back around the school today,” she added from the safety of the kitchen.

  “What the hell is he doing back in town?” Nell was too angry to even apologize for the curse.

  “Sorry, I forgot to ask him that. But he wanted to know where Josh was.”

  “You didn’t tell him, did you?” Alarm put a hint of demand into Nell’s voice.

  “My little brother’s right over there, can I hand you this rope and knife?” Lizzie, Nell noted, was getting quite good at teenage sarcasm.

  “Maybe I should call the bike shop and make sure Josh is okay,” Nell mused.

  “Mom.” Lizzie made it a two syllable word. “Sometimes you are so overprotective. Josh’s only at the bike shop with Kate, ten other kids, and at least four parents. Very dangerous.”

  Am I overprotective? Nell wondered. What’s the perfect line between keeping children safe and not smothering them? She also noted the hint of jealousy in Lizzie’s tone, implying that Nell had left her standing out in the rain but was worried about Josh at the bike shop. Worse, was she treating Josh as more valuable, spending more worry on him because the “creepy cop” had asked about him than she was on Lizzie, who’d actually been confronted with the man? Or maybe it was just that Lizzie was standing in front of her and okay, and Josh wasn’t.

  “I’m sorry. I’m just having a moment of mother panic, wondering if Josh really is at the bike shop,” Nell apologized.

  “Janet’s dad gave us both a ride in the back of his truck, so unless someone kidnapped him in the ten feet from the curb to the door, he’s probably okay.”

  Now I can worry about my kids bouncing around in the back of a pickup truck, Nell thought, but she decided discussing it could wait until another time; or maybe she would just talk to Janet’s mother. “Okay, you have an advantage on me. You saw him go into the bike shop?”

  “With my very own two eyes,” Lizzie answered. Then seizing on Nell’s guilt, asked, “Is it okay if I get on the computer until suppertime? Janet and I are working on our homework over email.”

  Nell managed half a nod yes before Lizzie was out of the kitchen and into the living room where the computer was. There’s not only the danger of riding in trucks—I should also check what homework is actually being done, Nell thought. She suspected it was one tenth homework and nine tenths chatting about boys.

  “I’m going to go back to the office,” she said to her online daughter. She was granted a bare nod of acknowledgment. “Call me when Josh gets in.” Again she got a half nod. Nell took the cell phone left in the pile of purse and books, put it beside Lizzie, and repeated, “Call me.”

  Lizzie gave a guilty start at seeing her mother within screen-reading distance. “I’ll call,” she hurriedly agreed, just as quickly minimizing the screen she was working on.

  Nell had time enough to read “way cute,” which she doubted had anything to do with assigned homework. She bent down to give Lizzie a quick kiss on the cheek, to let her know she’d been caught and that her mother didn’t mind.

  Leaving Lizzie in the bliss of a home to herself, Nell headed back to the office, being sure to carefully lock the house door. And still wondering if she was being overly protective or a reasonable parent.

  When she arrived at the Crier, Jacko was there, as they had agreed he would be. Carrie, as usual, wasn’t. Nell hadn’t seen her all day.

  Jacko looked up at her and in a flat, tired voice said, “The sheriff told me to get the hell out of his office.”

  “What?” Nell stopped in the middle of the room, then caught herself and crossed to Jacko’s desk. “Tell me what happened.”

  “I guess … news travels fast.”

  “He threw you out because you’re gay?”

  “Yeah, more or less. The minute I walked in, I knew that something had changed. None of the ‘Hey, Jacko, how’s it goin’?’ Just a few mumbled hellos. So I put on my polite boy-reporter face, including the ‘yes, sirs’ and ‘no, sirs,’ and talked about the weather for a bit. Then I asked if there’d been any progress in investigating Ronald’s death. That got me silence, a stony stare, and finally ‘Suicide, nothing to investigate.’”

  “This was from the sheriff himself ?”

  “Yes, ma’am, it was. I followed up with asking if there was a note or anything like that, and the only answer to that question was that I needed to get out of there. One of the deputies managed to say loud enough for me to hear, ‘The only good faggot is a dead faggot.’”

  “Oh, Jacko, I’m sorry.”

  “I can’t be a reporter in this town anymore. They probably would throw me out of the sewage and water board meetings.”

  “It’s crazy. You’re the best damn reporter I’ve had since I started working on this paper,” Nell said, feeling her anger start to build. And her sadness. She knew too well it was true.

  “Thanks. So can I count on you as a reference?” Jacko attempted a wan smile.

  “Good Lord, of course. But I don’t want to lose you. Would you be willing to hang tough for a while and see if it dies down?”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not like I have another job waiting for me. But …” He trailed off.

  But small towns have long memories, Nell finished silently. However, all she said was “Give it time. It might blow over. And I think I’m going to ask the sheriff a few follow-up questions.” With that she went into her office, leaving the door open so that Jacko would be privy to her conversation.

  “Sheriff Hickson, please,” she said when the phone was answered. “Nell McGraw of the Crier.” She was left on hold, but she finally heard the labored breathing of Sheriff Hickson as he picked up the phone.

  “Miz McGraw. What a pleasure,” he drawled.

  “What evidence do you have that Ronald Hebert’s death was a suicide?” Nell plunged in.

  “You ain’t gonna let that question go, are you?”

  “First rule of reporting: when someone in power doesn’t want to answer a question, you ask it over and over again.”

  “Look, I don’t want that nelly boy reporter over here questioning me.”

  “You don’t want him? Okay, then you’ll get me.” Nell hung up and angrily got to her feet. She also noticed that the sheriff had again ducked her question. She went into the main room and rummaged in the storage closet for a small tape recorder and notepad.

  “I’m going to visit Sheriff Hickson,” she told Jacko. As an afterthought, she added, “Follow me. Park discreetly out front. If I get thrown out, take some pictures for the front page.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Jacko answered, throwing her a mock salute as he got up to head to his assigned post.

  The sheriff’s office was near the jail and the county courthouse, on the outskirts of Pelican Bay. It was about a fifteen-minute drive from the paper, and Nell needed those minutes to calm herself down enough to be a reporter. Albeit an angry reporter.

  Sheriff Hickson clearly intended not to be there when Nell arrived, but he only made it as far as the front door. They met on the top step of the building.

  “Sheriff Hickson. What a pleasure,” Nell greeted him.

  He merely sighed.

  “Just a few questions,” she hurried on.

  “A few quick ones. I got other places to be.”

  “Ray opened his bar again?” That’s the only one you get, Nell admonished herself.

  “Ma’am?” Sheriff Hickson gave her a confused stare, clearly not quite catching what she said.

  “What have you learned from questioning the assailant who raped Ronald Hebert?”

  That cleared the confusion from his face. “Who the hell let that out? And don’t give me that ‘sources’ crap,” he thundered at her.

  Nell calmly replied, “You just di
d.”

  “Goddamn you, Nell McGraw! Where do you get off tricking someone like that?”

  “I have to admit, Sheriff, you’re the first one who ever fell for it,” Nell again answered calmly.

  “I don’t want to see that in the paper!” he bellowed.

  “What evidence do you have that Ronald Hebert committed suicide?”

  “He was a faggot and he was in jail for killing kids. Any man with half a brain’d kill himself.”

  “Seems to me those very facts, that he was branded as being gay and accused of molesting and murdering children, would be likely to lead to him being attacked by other inmates. If he hanged himself, how do you explain the marks on his body?” Nell was again guessing, but how the sheriff reacted would tell her the story.

  “He tripped and fell in the shower. How the fuck do I know? Happens all the time that people get bruised up in jail.”

  “Even bruises that would be described as classic defense wounds?”

  “Maybe he had to defend himself in the showers, you know. And what sonofabitch leaked things from the coroner’s office?”

  “So you’re admitting that within twenty-four hours of being taken into your custody, Ronald Hebert was sexually assaulted and had bruises all over his body that would be hard to self-inflict, yet you claim that he committed suicide? Before even seeing a lawyer or hearing the evidence against him?”

  Nell hadn’t expected this to calm the sheriff down, and she was right.

  “Where the fuck do you get off, lady? Pardon my French. No, don’t pardon it—you want to be a feminist, you can hear any language just like the men. What the fuck are you accusing me of ? You want your own little private Watergate right here in Pelican Bay?”

  “What evidence do you have that Ronald actually killed himself instead of being killed?”

  “I got evidence, but I don’t want it blazoned ’cross the front page. Seems you got enough stuff that you shouldn’t know already.”

  “Can you explain why the public shouldn’t know how their tax dollars are being spent? Who could you possibly be protecting by withholding evidence that Ronald committed suicide? Other than yourself ?”