Page 64 of This is Why We Lied

She kept her voice low, telling him, “Paul saw Mercy walking to Frank and Monica’s porch around ten-thirty.”

“He didn’t think to mention that before?”

“He didn’t mention a lot of things,” Sara said. “I couldn’t get anything out of him about the tattoo, why he gave a fake name, whether or not they knew Mercy, or what the argument on the trail was about. I don’t think it was just the alcohol. They came across as incredibly blasé about everything.”

“Fits the theme of the night.” Will cupped her elbow as they walked down a particularly steep slope. “I didn’t find anything in the woodpile. No sign of Dave in the cottages. No broken knife handle. No bloody clothes. We’re already three hours into this. Dave’s probably crossed state lines by now.”

“Did you talk to Amanda?”

“She didn’t pick up.”

Sara looked up at him. Amanda always picked up when Will called. “What about Faith?”

“She got behind a pile-up on the interstate. It’ll be another hour minimum before they can clear out the accident and open the road back up.”

Sara bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. There was no way she would be able to persuade Will to wait for Faith now. Once they turned Mercy’s body over to Nadine, he was going to find a way to get a car and drive down the mountain to find Dave.

“Nadine,” Sara called. She couldn’t change Will’s mind, but she could at least do her job. “How long have you been the county coroner?”

“Three years,” Nadine said. “My dad used to do it, but old guy problems caught up with him. Congestive heart failure, kidney failure, COPD.”

Sara was familiar with the trio of co-morbidities. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. He had his fun earning it.” Nadine stopped to face them. “Y’all are probably used to a bit of anonymity down there in Atlanta, but up here, you should know, everybody knows everybody’s business.”

Neither Will nor Sara told her that at least one of them knew small towns very well.

“Thing is, it’s boring as shit up here, and when you’re young, you get into things.” Nadine leaned her hand against a tree. She had clearly been thinking about this on the hike down. “The thing about Mercy is, she was wilder than all of us put together. Knocking back booze. Taking pills. Shooting dope. Stealing shit from the store. Breaking car windows. TP-ing houses. Egging the school. You name a petty crime, she was part of it.”

Sara tried to square the troubled woman she’d spoken to in the kitchen bathroom with the wild picture Nadine was painting. It wasn’t a hard connection to make.

“Y’all know how parents will say their kid is good, they’re just hanging around with the wrong people? That was Mercy. She was the wrong people for every kid in town.” Nadine shrugged. “Maybe they were right back then, but that ain’t how it was now. The thing about small towns is, you’re basically born into Elmer’s glue. Whatever your reputation is when you’re a kid, that’s how folks are gonna think about you for the rest of your life. So even though Mercy cleaned herself up, started doing right by Jon, turned this place around when her daddy tumbled himself down a cliff, Mercy was still stuck in that Elmer’s glue. You following me?”

Sara nodded. She knew exactly what the woman was saying. Her own little sister had enjoyed an active sex life in high school that still earned her sideways glances, even after Tessa had married, given birth to a beautiful daughter, and served as a missionary overseas.

“Anyway, I’m guessing that was a question you had about why folks aren’t more torn up about her murder,” Nadine finished. “They think Mercy deserved it.”

Will said, “That’s exactly what I picked up on from the sheriff.”

“Yeah, well, you’d think a man who’s been called Biscuits for nearly twenty years of his miserable life would understand that people can change.” Nadine did not sound like a fan of the sheriff. “Dave gave him the nickname in high school. Poor sap was a real roly-poly back then. Dave said his belly was popping out of the top of his pants like a can of biscuits.”

Nadine turned back down the trail. Sara watched her flashlight dance across the trees. They walked in silence for another five minutes until they reached a terraced area. Nadine went first, then turned around to offer the benefit of her flashlight.

She said, “Watch out, the going’s tricky.”

Sara felt Will’s hand at the small of her back as she carefully walked down. The wind had shifted, bringing a smokey scent from the burned out cottage. She could feel a mist on her skin. The temperature had dropped from the rainstorm. The cooler air was pulling condensation off the surface of the lake.

“I heard Dave was fixing up the old cottages,” Nadine said. “Looks like he was doing his usual bang-up job.”

Sara watched Nadine’s flashlight bounce over the sawhorses and discarded tools, the empty beer cans, smoked-down joints and cigarette butts. Having learned quite a bit about Dave McAlpine, she was not surprised he’d trashed his own worksite. Men like that only knew how to take. They never considered what they were leaving for others.

“Hello?” a tense voice called. “Who’s there?”

“Delilah,” Will said. “It’s Agent Trent. I’m here with the coroner and—”

“Nadine.” Delilah had been sitting on the stairs that led up to the second cottage. She stood up when they approached, wiping dirt from the back of her pajama bottoms. “You took over for Bubba.”

“I’m out all hours fixing busted compressors anyway,” Nadine said. “I’m real sorry about Mercy.”