Page 101 of This is Why We Lied

“Damn, this was years ago.” Penny fluttered her lips in thought. “Can’t remember, but she’s a prime example of what I was talking about before. Gabbie come up from Atlanta to work at the lodge over the summer. Gorgeous as hell, full of life. Every man on that mountaintop was in love with her.”

“Including Christopher?”

“Especially Christopher.” She shook her head. “He was tore the hell up when she died. I’m still not sure he’s over it. Took to his bed for weeks. Wouldn’t eat. Couldn’t sleep.”

Faith was desperate to pepper her with questions, but she held back.

“Problem was, Gabbie noticed him,” Penny said. “Fish’s life, he’s mostly invisible. Especially to women. And then comes Gabbie smiling and pretending to be interested in waterway management or whatever the hell he’s yapping about at the dinner table. I mean, it’s not his fault he can’t read people. Gabbie was just being nice. You know how some men take kindness for interest.”

Faith knew.

“The person Gabbie was real tight with was Mercy. They were close to the same age. Instant best friends, is what I’d call it, like within a day of meeting each other they were joined at the hip. Gotta admit, I was envious. Never had anybody that close to speak of. And they had all kinds of plans for when the summer was over. Gabbie’s father owned a restaurant in Buckhead. Mercy was gonna move to Atlanta and wait tables and they were going to get an apartment together and make lots of money and live it up.”

Faith could still hear the envy in Penny’s voice.

“The two of ’em, they’d sneak out of the lodge almost every night. This was back when there’d be raves down at the old quarry. Stupidest location in the county to get wasted. The road out of there is twisted as a nun’s twat. Drops straight down on either side, no guardrails until you hit the curve. They call the last mile Devil’s Bend, cause you go down a hill and jerk into a corner like a roller coaster. I’d party with ’em sometimes, but something in my bones told me we’d all end up dead if we kept at it. Started my path to sobriety, especially after what happened.”

“What happened?”

Penny hissed out a long sigh between her teeth. “Mercy drove her car straight off Devil’s Bend. Dropped straight into the gorge. She got thrown through the front window, sliced off half her face, broke half her bones. Gabbie got crushed. Daddy said she had her feet up on the dashboard when it happened. Coroner told him her leg bones must’a pulverized her skull. Had to use dental records to identify her at the autopsy. Looked like somebody had taken a sledgehammer to her face.”

Faith felt her stomach roil. She had worked those kinds of accidents.

“Say what you will about Cecil, but he kept Mercy out of prison. By all rights, she should’a been up on a manslaughter charge, at least. Bloodwork showed she was pumped full of dope when it happened. Mercy was still off her ass when Biscuits rode with her in the ambulance to the hospital. EMTs had to restrain her. He told me half her face was hanging off her skull and she was laughing like a hyena.”

“Laughing?”

“Laughing,” Penny confirmed. “She thought Biscuits was pranking her. Thought she was still at the lodge. That she’d OD’d and they were parked outside the house. EMTs heard her laughing, too, so word got around real quick. Ain’t a person in this town you could’a put on a jury who wouldn’t have convicted her at trial. But there wasn’t a trial. Mercy basically walked. Which is another reason people in town hate her. They say she got away with murder.”

Faith couldn’t understand how that had happened. “Did she take a plea deal?”

“You’re not hearing me. There was no deal to take. Mercy wasn’t charged with nothing. Didn’t even get a ticket. Voluntarily gave up her license. Never drove again as far as I know, but that was her choice, not a judge taking it away.” Penny nodded, like she was agreeing with Faith’s shock. “You were asking about abuse of power? That’s what my daddy used it for, to put Mercy under Cecil’s thumb for the rest of her living days.”

Faith was dumbstruck. “She just got away with it? No consequences?”

“I mean, her face was a consequence. She told me every time she looked in a mirror, that scar reminded her of what a bad person she was. She was haunted by it. Never forgave herself. Maybe she shouldn’t have.”

Faith could not understand how any of this had happened. There were so many levers that had to be pulled in order for Mercy to escape criminal prosecution for vehicular homicide. And not just on the law enforcement side. The county had a prosecutor’s office. A circuit judge. A mayor. A board of commissioners.

She guessed that Penny’s tirade against the angry men who used to control this town was useful after all. Mercy hadn’t been punished because they had all gotten together and decided that she wouldn’t be punished.

“I guess the only good that came out of it is, that’s when Mercy started trying to get sober,” Penny said. “Took a few tries, but once her head was clear, all she could think about was Jon. She told me without him, she would’a walked into the lake and never come back out.”

Faith didn’t know how Mercy had stopped herself. The guilt of being responsible for her best friend’s death must have been crushing.

“Being honest, I think sometimes Mercy would’a been better off serving her time in prison. The way Cecil and Bitty treated her was worse than anything could’a happened to her on the inside. It’s bad enough when a stranger rips you down every day of your life, but when it’s your own mama and daddy?”

Faith was surprised by her own feelings of sadness for Mercy McAlpine. She kept going back to something Penny had said— Her daddy wrote the first page of her life before she had a chance to figure out her own story. That wasn’t entirely true. Cecil might have started it, but Dave continued the same abusive narrative, and yet another man had ended it. Faith didn’t believe in fate, but it sounded like the woman hadn’t stood a chance.

Her phone started to ring. The caller ID read GBI SAT.

She told Penny, “I need to get this.”

Penny nodded, but she didn’t get out of the car.

Faith pushed open the door. The sole of her boot sank into the mud. She tapped the phone. “Mitchell.”

“Faith.” Will’s voice was faint over the satellite connection. “Can you talk?”