Big Lies in a Small Town Read online

  I cashed the check without a problem at the bank on Broad Street and opened an account for myself at the same time. Then I walked to Verizon, bought a phone and earbuds, and committed my new number to memory. A new number for my new life. I plugged into my old Spotify account—the music I hadn’t been able to listen to for more than a year—and I loved every second of the walk back to the house, singing along with Rihanna and Maroon 5 and Ariana Grande, feeling my freedom. Back at the house, I used the phone to figure out what computer I wanted, then called Lisa to have her order it, asking her to get overnight shipping. I was desperate to begin restoration research.

  Before I’d left the gallery the day before, Oliver had talked to me about how I wanted to handle working with the mural. “Do you think you’ll need a heat table?” he’d asked. “Or would you rather work on a stretcher on the wall? Wyatt and Adam’ll make whatever you need. I’ve been working with them for a while now and they’re excellent woodworkers.”

  I’d opted for the stretcher, having no idea what a heat table was. I was in way, way over my head.

  I ordered some clothing online, then stared at the phone in my hand. Temptation. I’d lived on Instagram before everything went south. Did I dare go there? It would be like taking a drink; I’d start surfing and be unable to stop. I’d look up my old friends. I’d look up Trey. What was the point in that?

  I slipped the phone in my pocket, proud of my self-control. It was nearly time to leave for the parole office, anyway. Grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl on the island, I headed out the door. It felt like a miracle, being able to walk out Lisa’s—Jesse Jameson Williams’s!—front door and take off down the street with no one watching my every move. My sense of freedom, though, took a hit when I pulled open the door to the parole office on Broad Street. I was not truly free. I wouldn’t be free for a long time.

  At one forty-seven, I took a seat next to the desk of my newly assigned parole officer. “Supervision officer,” the woman called herself. Her name was Rebecca Sanders and she instantly reminded me of my mother, with her short, wavy blond hair and narrow black-framed glasses that kept sliding down her nose. I waited as she read through my file.

  “So, let’s see what we’ve got here,” she said, studying the papers in front of her. “Class F felony. Driving while impaired. Aggravating factors: second DUI and serious injury by vehicle.”

  I took in a very long, very tired breath. “I know that’s what it says,” I said, “but I wasn’t driving.”

  Rebecca slipped off her glasses to frown at me. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that my boyfriend was the one who was driving and he took off after the accident.”

  “So why did you end up being charged and going to prison?” She didn’t believe me. I could tell. No one believed me.

  I shook my head. “At this point it doesn’t matter,” I said, not wanting to go through it all again. “Just … I just wanted you to know that I didn’t do it. I can’t sit here and pretend that I did.”

  “You had an attorney, right?”

  I nodded. My court-appointed attorney hadn’t believed me, either. “It was just … at first I said I was alone in the car because I wanted to protect him. My boyfriend. He’d just gotten a scholarship to Georgetown Law and I … He had too much to lose. I had no idea I’d end up in prison. I thought I’d be fined, or … I didn’t know what. I wasn’t thinking clearly. It was all so … terrible.” Sickening images flashed through my mind, and I raised a hand to my eyes as if I could block them out. “When I finally told the truth, no one believed me,” I said, lowering my hand. I was so tired of explaining it all. It was pointless. I should have gone along with what was in this woman’s file. Gotten it over with.

  Rebecca pursed her lips. Cocked her head. “What about your previous DUI? Was your boyfriend driving then, too?” She raised her eyebrows. I supposed she was waiting for another lie.

  “No, that was me,” I said. “I’m not proud of it.” An understatement.

  “Well, if what you’re saying is true about the accident, I hope you’re done with your so-called boyfriend.” Rebecca lifted my file in the air. “And I have to go with what I have here,” she said. “That you served time for a Class F felony. And we move forward from there.”

  I was surprised to feel tears burn my eyes as a familiar sense of helplessness washed over me, but I looked at her squarely. “I wish you could believe me,” I said. Why was this so important? Why did I need her—need someone—to believe me?

  “I have to go with what I have,” she said again. “What I do believe is that you’re lucky to have your new lawyer.” She looked down at my file. “This Andrea Fuller. The one who got you out.”

  What I heard behind her words was: Most people can’t afford a lawyer like yours and they end up serving their maximum sentence, and when they get out they have a record employers can’t get past and they can never find a job.

  “I didn’t hire her. This all just fell into my lap.” I motioned to the file in her hands. “I just wanted you to know the truth about what happened.”

  She hesitated, her eyes tight on my face before she slipped on her glasses again. “Let’s move forward,” she said, returning her gaze to the file. “Supposedly you’re uniquely qualified for the work you’re doing in the gallery, and supposedly the work is going to improve the community. What are you doing there exactly?”

  I tried to hold my head high against what I perceived to be her sarcasm. “I’m an artist,” I said. “I’ll be restoring a mural.”

  “And this will improve the community,” Rebecca said. It was a statement but I heard it as more of a question.

  I shrugged, trying to come up with a response that wouldn’t sound argumentative. “I hope so,” I said.

  “Well.” Rebecca lifted a clipboard from her desk and handed it to me. “I have some paperwork for you to fill out,” she said. “Your supervision is for one year.”

  I looked down at the stack of papers attached to the clipboard. “I’ll only be in Edenton a couple of months,” I said.

  “We’ll worry about that later.” Rebecca looked down at my file. “And during the time you’re under supervision, you need to work twenty hours a week.”

  “I’ll be working a lot more than that,” I said.

  “Fine. That’s the minimum. Just so you know. And once you complete the work, you’ll still be on parole until the twelve months are up.”

  “All right,” I said. I would do whatever it took to stay out of prison. I glanced at her file. Took in a long breath. “I have a question,” I said slowly. “Do you have any information on … Do you know how the victim of the accident is doing?” It was hard to get those words out. I shut my eyes, an involuntary reaction, as if I could block out the image of Emily Maxwell’s bloody, mangled body from my memory.

  “I have no idea,” she said. “You haven’t had any contact with her? There’s nothing in your postrelease supervision preventing it.”

  I opened my eyes and looked down at my hands. I was afraid I was going to lose it. “I don’t want to see her,” I said quickly. “But I dream about her. Nightmares. I just wish I could know how she is.” Emily was my age, almost to the day. When I thought about what Trey and I had done to her life … Sometimes I didn’t think I could bear it.

  “I can’t help you with that,” Rebecca said. She returned her attention to her paperwork. “So, here’s how we work out your restitution and the payment of your court costs, et cetera,” she said. She handed me a chart filled with dates and numbers and dove into a long explanation of how I could try to make up for the harm I’d done using dollars and cents. The numbers swam before my eyes.

  “You were in AA while in prison?” Rebecca asked, breaking away from the chart.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m going to require that you attend at least one meeting a week.” She handed me another sheet of paper.

  “I don’t think I’ll have time,” I said. “But I’m completely over alco
hol. I was never an alcoholic. I just drank when I was with—”

  “You have two DUIs, Morgan. By the age of not quite twenty-one, you had two.” Rebecca leaned forward again. “You crippled a young woman. Permanently. I want to hear you say it: I have a drinking problem.”

  I swallowed, the image of Emily rising up in my mind again.

  “I sometimes used to drink too much,” I said. It was the best I could do, and Rebecca seemed to give up the battle.

  “That’s a list of local meetings.” She pointed to the paper she’d handed me. Then she gave me yet another sheet. “And here’s a log for you to keep track of the meetings with spaces for the dates and locations. You need to have someone verify you were there with their phone number, and turn it in to me when we meet.”

  I imagined going up to a stranger and asking him or her to sign my log. “I really don’t need AA now,” I said. “Wouldn’t you rather know I’m working hard than going to—”

  “This is not negotiable, Morgan,” Rebecca said. “Find a local group as soon as possible and make that connection.”

  I caved. “All right,” I said.

  “You and I will meet every couple of weeks at first and I’ll be stopping by your home … the place you’re staying or your place of employment … the art gallery … some time unannounced.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “You may not leave Chowan County for a year.”

  “What about when I finish my work at the gallery?” I asked. “My work on the mural?”

  “We’ll talk about it then. One step at a time,” she said, handing me an appointment card. “I’ll see you here again in two weeks.”

  I nodded, then started getting to my feet.

  “We’re not finished,” Rebecca said, and I lowered myself to the chair again.

  Rebecca opened a box with what looked like one of those ankle bracelets that monitored people under house arrest.

  “Do you know what this is?” Rebecca asked.

  “Do I have to wear that?” I asked in disbelief. “I’m not under house arrest, am I?”

  “It’s an alcohol monitor, and yes you do need to wear it,” Rebecca said. “It goes on your ankle and reacts to your sweat. You take the smallest sip of booze and I’ll know about it even before you feel the buzz. You don’t take it off, not for showering, not for anything. I’ll know if you drink and I’ll know if you tamper with it. I’ll know if you try to stick a piece of plastic wrap between it and your skin. You’ll wear it for six months and then we’ll reevaluate.”

  I couldn’t imagine being tied to that thing for six months … but then I thought of Emily Maxwell. I imagined her tied to a wheelchair for life.

  “All right,” I said.

  “You can wear pants that cover it up, if it bothers you,” Rebecca said. “Tell people it’s an exercise monitor. I don’t care. All I care about is that you don’t drink.”

  I nodded.

  “You’ll have an eleven P.M. curfew and I’ll be checking on that occasionally. You need to attend DUI classes to get your license back. Here’s a list of where and when the classes are offered.” She handed me yet one more piece of paper. How was I going to find time for all of this? “You’ll have a random drug screen at least monthly, and—”

  “I’ve never used drugs,” I said.

  “A random drug screen at least monthly,” Rebecca repeated as if I hadn’t spoken.

  “All right,” I said, thinking it was best to nod and go along.

  “Now let’s talk about your risk factors,” Rebecca said. “Who do you need to stay away from to avoid temptation?”

  The name “Trey” thumped inside my brain in time with my heartbeat.

  “There’s no one around here I need to avoid,” I said. “I’m hours away from any of my old friends and I’m done with them.”

  “Who did you used to drink with?”

  “Friends. And my boyfriend. The one who was driving that night.” I looked at her as if challenging her to argue with me on that fact again.

  “Have you been in touch with the boyfriend? What’s his name?”

  “Trey. And no.”

  “Whether he was driving or not, do I need to tell you to steer clear of that guy?”

  I shook my head. “No, you don’t,” I said, and I felt my anger at Trey rise up inside me again.

  The walk from the parole office to the gallery wasn’t far, but I felt the monitor rubbing against my ankle with every step. It was going to take some getting used to.

  No one was in the foyer of the gallery, though I could hear the buzz of saws and the pop of nail guns coming from somewhere in the rear of the building. I was alone with the mural, which seemed to have grown in size overnight. I stared down at the seventy-two square feet of dirt and abraded paint, and panic filled my chest. What a mess. I didn’t even like the thing. The old-fashioned style and subject matter. The bizarre motorcycle was the only intriguing thing about it. Jesse Williams, I thought, what have you gotten me into?

  I stared at the mural a while longer, already feeling time ticking away from me, growing closer minute by minute to August 5. There wasn’t anything I could do with the mural until I got my new computer and learned something about restoration. Even then, I wasn’t sure I’d know where to begin.

  Chapter 10

  ANNA

  December 11, 1939

  Mid-afternoon, Mayor Sykes picked Anna up from Miss Myrtle’s house in his green Chevrolet for the drive to the warehouse that he hoped would become her new studio space.

  “What do you think of Miss Myrtle’s?” he asked, chewing his cigar as he drove. The smoke filled the car and Anna wanted to roll down the window, but then they’d both freeze. The mayor exuded a sense of power in his strong, resonant voice. Although she remembered him being short at lunch, she hadn’t realized how very fat he was. His belly strained at the buttons of his wool coat and brushed against the bottom of the steering wheel. His hair, which had seemed either blond or gray in the restaurant, was actually a mixture of the two. His entire presence was quite overwhelming to her in the small confines of the car, and she felt very young, very girlish sitting next to him. Actually, she felt quite vulnerable, an unusual feeling for her. She didn’t like it.

  As they chatted about Miss Myrtle’s house, the weather, and the things the mayor’s teenaged sons wanted for Christmas, she thought about how few men she’d truly known in her life. She’d never had a chance to know her father. Her uncle Horace, Aunt Alice’s husband, was such a quiet man that she didn’t feel as though she knew him at all. Then there was Mr. Prior, the sculpture teacher at Van Emburgh, who seemed to think her work was wonderful, so of course she’d liked him very much and had hardly found him intimidating. The only other male art teacher at Van Emburgh, Mr. Blaine, had been kind, serious, complimentary, and almost certainly homosexual and unthreatening.

  Cigar-smoking men who took up more than their share of space were a new species to her.

  After driving for a short while, Mayor Sykes pulled onto a long, narrow dirt road that led into a short tunnel of trees, at the end of which was a large, decrepit-looking, once-white warehouse partially surrounded by woods. The side of the building facing the car had a series of tall windows that Anna doubted would be enough to let in much light in that wooded setting.

  “Here we are,” Mayor Sykes said as he slowly drove toward the building. “No one’s used this ol’ warehouse in a generation or two.”

  Anna couldn’t have said why, but she had an instantaneous fear of the building as they neared it. They weren’t very far from town, yet the location felt isolated, and even before the mayor had stopped the car, she was already planning to use the excuse of poor lighting to turn down the offer of the building.

  Mayor Sykes parked the car near the side door of the warehouse, and for a moment Anna wondered if she would be foolish to go into the building with him. He’s the mayor, she reminded herself. You’re being silly. They got out of the car, and the mayor walked he
r across the weedy, rutted lawn, his hand on her elbow. They entered through the unlocked side door. The scent inside was musty, a little oily and metallic, but it quickly gave way to the tobacco smell of the mayor’s cigar. Anna stood still, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the interior light, and she began to notice her surroundings. For the most part, the warehouse was quite empty, save for some boards and crates scattered here and there, along with the occasional concrete block. Against one wall were three long wooden tables and a couple of chairs. The floor was a mess, littered with dirt and sawdust and who knew what else. The place was downright spooky.

  “Is there a key for the door?” she asked. “I’ll have supplies and other valuables in here I won’t want stolen.”

  “Well, you might have to worry about that in New Jersey, but it won’t be a problem down here.” The mayor gave a self-satisfied laugh. “But sure, I can have a locksmith come and make you a key, if that’ll help you rest easy.”

  “It would,” she said.

  The warehouse not only had those big windows along one side, but many skylights scattered the length of the high-beamed ceiling as well. Round pendant lights and huge black fans hung from the beams like giant bats. There were shadowy areas of the ceiling that no daylight seemed to reach and Anna shuddered, turning her gaze away from those beams. Anything could be up there.

  “When the weather warms up,” Mayor Sykes said, “you can open those doors over there. Let fresh air in.” He gestured to the opposite side of the warehouse and for the first time Anna noticed four huge garage-type doors, far larger than the sort you’d find on a house.