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Bell cocked his head in reappraisal, tapped the spoon on the side of the cup, and smiled softly. “There now, I see the resemblance.”
“I’m a homicide detective in Washington, DC.”
“Long way from home, Detective Cross,” he replied, setting the spoon down. “And funny, I don’t recollect ever meeting you.”
“I was young,” I said. “It was about a year after my mother died.”
“You mean after she was murdered, don’t you?” he said in a straight tone delivered with an expression that revealed nothing.
“I remember that night,” I said. “You tied my father to your car with a rope, dragged him through the streets.”
Bell sipped his coffee, never taking his eyes off me. “It was another time. It was what you did to a man who’d kill his own wife in cold blood and call it good.”
I hadn’t expected that and said nothing while Bell talked on.
“I gave your father some of the punishment he deserved. And then I did the right thing and immediately turned him over to the police. Sad what happened next, but probably for the good of all. Even you. Even your brothers.”
I hadn’t expected that either, and it took a few beats before I could reply.
“You sold my mom and dad drugs,” I said. “Got them hooked.”
Eyes still, Bell smiled with precision. He altered the position of his cup on the saucer by a quarter turn.
“That statement is not true,” he said. “I have never sold drugs or been involved with them. Your mother and father, I actually tried to get them clean, and anyone who says otherwise is
lying.”
“Never been involved with drugs?” I said.
“I am involved in business,” Bell said, sipping the coffee. “I have several enterprises, all successful. Why would I need to pursue something risky like drugs?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But every time your name comes up, people tell me that I should be looking at you.”
Bell seemed amused. “Looking at me in what way?”
“As some kind of criminal mastermind,” I said.
Bell laughed, reached for another sugar, said, “That’s a small town with a lot of poor folks for you.”
“What does poor have to do with it?”
“Everything,” Bell said. “Most poor people think that anyone who becomes successful couldn’t have done it legitimately, with initiative, with hard work. It’s just not part of the myth most poor people want to believe. So they sit around and invent bullshit stories to explain things when someone makes it in the world.”
“So there’s nothing to the charge?”
“Zero to the charge,” Bell said, holding my gaze. “How’d you come to be back in town, Detective Cross?”
I had the feeling he knew this, but I played along, said Stefan Tate was my cousin.
“Butcher,” Bell said, hardening. “Sorry that he’s your cousin, but based on what I’ve read, I hope that boy fries.”
“It’s a popular sentiment.”
“There you go.”
“You heard the defense’s position?”
“Can’t say that I have,” Bell said, reaching up to pick a coffee ground off the tip of his tongue.
