if love is a hole wide enough to be god's mouth, let me plunge into that holy dark & forget the color of light.

bare, danez smith

THE CORPSE IN FRONT OF HER WAS A STANDARD CORPSE. Ligature marks around her neck, eyes bulged and bloodshot, bruises denting her inner thighs. A deep sigh escaped her lips as she stared down at the carcass - the one that could look too much like her sister if she thinks too hard on it. The fingers holding her pen reach up to rub her tired eyes. Her boots tap the dirt beneath her, waiting for the coroner to finally place her on the stretcher and stuff her in the back of their van. To her left, Lon looked around at the broken glass that had surrounded her. "Looks like she broke a beer bottle over the guy." He mumbled, looking around for anything else. But his words fell on deaf ears. Her mind was miles away, years away. Too often did she reside back in 1985, in her little hometown of Madisonville, population 850. Everyone knew everyone. And everyone knew everyone's dirty laundry. Over half the town consisted of chatty older ladies who had nothing better to do than sip lemonade and spread gossip as their husbands rotted away in their recliner, eyes glued to a sports game or some new-fangled preacher spouting about fire and brimstone and begging for money on the television. From age twelve, Elaine swore up and down to never be like that. And when her sister was born, she made sure the little girl tailing her did the same. They were destined for better lives. Get out of this shit hole state, move to a big city like Houston or Los Angeles. She didn't care, just as long as it was far from here, far from her folks. Just her and Sally. What a fucking laugh that was.

A hand shakes her arm. Her eyes dart towards Lon, a glare settling in her full gaze. "No shit she fought back, Lon. Could'a told me the fuckin' sky's blue and I would'a been more surprised." Rolling her eyes, she slaps her notepad shut and turns her back to the crime scene. She takes in the surroundings: the bright blue sky that grows increasingly gray in the distance, the tall fields that surround them on all sides, the gravel road leading up to this nowhere bar. "We got any leads on that boyfriend o' hers? What's his name? Eddie?"

"Eddie Ray." Lon responded as he looked over his own notepad. "Got a brother up in Baton Rouge. Ain't no one's seen Eddie for a good month, though. He was big into meth, though." She frowned at his words as she stared out at the open field. Her fuckin' luck. Reaching up, she pinched the bridge of her nose. She needed a drink. Pulling out the pack of Marlboro's, she sticks it between her pink-stained lips and lights it with the old Zippo her grandfather gave her when she was sixteen. "Bet we could, uh, probably get a hold'a his brother. My sister-in-law used to date his cousin. Name's Barker Ray, I think. He'd know where Eddie's at." She slowly nodded, taking a deep drag from her cigarette. Quiet curses spilled from her lips in a hushed whisper. She was really hoping for a quiet week, a week that she could sit her ass at her desk and fill out paperwork and eat food that would clog her arteries and give her a goddamn heart attack. Be a hell of a lot better than the way she was going.

"Let's head back to the office. See if we can find other relatives o' hers to notify." She huffed with frustration as smoke billowed from her lips, dissipating in the sky above. It was gonna storm soon. Not much evidence out here anyway, she thought to herself. "You take enough pictures to print out at the office?" She finally turned on her heel back towards Lon. His body faced away from her as he crouched next to the spot the body had been discovered. The handheld camera in his grasp clicked as he took photos of the disturbed gravel. The brown glass shards from a beer bottle lie scattered. But the glass shards could be found scattered everywhere. Didn't mean it came from her. Always some drunk redneck ready to smash a bottle out on the road. Pressing the cigarette to her lips, she took another deep inhale. In her peripheral, she can faintly see the paper of the cigarette burning away, leaving ash in its place. Tapping it, she watched the ash fall to the gravel, disappearing in the gray of the rocks. Holding the cigarette between her middle and index fingers, she scratched her forehead with her pinkie nail.

Taking a sharp inhale, her eyebrows furrowed. The stench of decay and ash fills her nose. Glancing around, she notices smoke rising from the side of the bar. Her boots crunch against the gravel as she slowly nears the corner of the pitiful excuse of a building. Glancing around, she's almost surprised at the three men that gather around a pit of fire. "Hey," she greeted, startling them all, "gon' need y'all to put that fire out now."

"Who the hell're you, a cop?" One slurred out. A quiet chuckle rang from his two friends.

Frowning, she placed her cigarette between her lips and pulled her badge out from her jean pocket. Their expressions dropped as their chuckles died in their throats. One of the men dumped his beer on the fire, snuffing it out. "Thank ya' kindly, gentlemen. Mind if I ask y'all a few questions?" Replacing her badge with her notepad, she began approaching them. They all shared skeptical looks, unsure how to go about this. "Y'all come here a lot?"

"Define a lot." The one who had joked that she was a cop answered.

"By the looks o' you, every night." She snapped back, glaring him down. "Does the name Bella-Jo Walters mean a thing to any o' you?" They all shared another look between them. It's difficult not to notice the knowing look they all carry in their sobering eyes.

One of them, the one who hadn't spoken yet, chimed in. "Everyone 'round these parts knows Bella-Jo."

"How so?"

"She the town whore." The other's slurred speech cuts through the air like a knife. She almost decides she wants to hear nothing else from him. But she can't just cut off a possible witness. Or even just a local who's in the know. Clenching her jaw, she bites her tongue as she pressed the cigarette back to her lips. Holding it there, she uses her free hand to write down notes. The worst part of the job - other than the murder and rape cases - was holding her tongue. You're too angry, her mother used to spit at her. You shouldn't be around her, she'd warn Sally. Chewing the inside of her cheek, she tried to brush away those memories. They didn't belong here, not here, not now. She can faintly hear the men talking to her, but none of it is sinking in. Nothing sticks. She just thinks of her sister. Of her familial soulmate. Not long for this world. A soul taken into the hands of God, the preacher had deemed her at her funeral. What a miserable fucking day that had been. Her grip around her pen tightened at the memory. The sorrowful looks of pity everyone gave her. The way her mother stood far from her, shooting blaming glares her direction. Her father stopping her from giving a eulogy. Don't make things worse, he'd whispered to her. You don't want to upset your mother, he offered. Fuck her. And fuck him. Fuck them all. This anger is stuck in her throat, constantly clawing its way out. It leaves marks down her esophagus, forever bleeding and spewing venom. She hates them. Hopes they're dead by now. Is almost sure her mother's dead. Cancer, she remembers reading in one of her father's letters. You shouldn't wish death upon others, she'd heard before. But she can't wait for the day the daily newspaper obituaries reads Delilah Greenwood on it.

A hand clamps down on her shoulder at the same time her pen snaps in half. All eyes are on her, judging and wary. Her head swivels to the left, Lon's bright eyes boring into her. There's an understanding in his gaze, something she doesn't even see in her own reflection. It almost makes her head hurt if she thinks on it too long. "My, uh... My partner here is gon' get y'all's names and numbers if we have any further questions. Thank y'all." She quickly shut her notepad, taking her cigarette and tossing it on the gravel, snuffing it out with the heel of her boot. Lon was quick to step up to the men and begin writing down their contact information while she began to retreat towards their car. That anger in her throat is replaced with something else, something deeper. Is it grief? She's not sure anymore. If you'd asked her in 1985, she'd tell you that grief wasn't something Greenwood women felt. But now... now she's not so sure. Her throat tightened as she neared the car, every step feeling like her last. Just get back to the office, she told herself, like a mantra. Something to keep her going. Something to stop her from picking up a bottle of vodka on the way back to the office.

†

"I first met Rust back in... '95, I think. My eighth year as a detective, when he got transferred to Louisiana. I had the misfortune of having my desk right by Rust's. Every damn day he'd go off on some tangent 'r another about life and death and how it was all meaningless. At the time, I didn't know that was a li'l after he'd lost his kid and that he 'n' his wife were goin' through a divorce - guess that might be one of the reasons he transferred. All I knew was that he sounded pretty damn smart for someone pretty damn stupid."

"So, how did you get involved in the Dora Lange case they were on if you were on the Bella-Jo Walters case?"

A beat of silence. A sigh. "I'm nosy."

"So you put off your own work to snoop on Detectives Hart and Cohle's?"

"I solved the Bella-Jo Walters case, didn't I? Look, am I bein' prosecuted for bein' nosy 'r somethin'?"

"No, Detective Greenwood. We just want a clearer picture of how you became so close on a case that wasn't yours to begin with."

Another sigh, more like a huff of frustration. "When they came back from that crime scene... I don't know, I could just see that it was different. The way they were actin' was different. And I'm curious by nature so I took a look at the file on Rust's desk while he was half-asleep at it. When I saw that spiral shit on her back..."

"Go on."

"Gi'me a minute, goddamn it." A beat of silence. "It looked just like the one on Sally."

"Your younger sister?"

"The very one."

"So, you thought this was the same guy that killed your sister?"

"Didn't think. Knew."

"And did you bring any of this up with Detective Cohle?"

"Only when we were three glasses of whiskey deep."

†

She huffed in frustration as she frantically searched the drawers of her desk. Curses quietly spilled from her lips as she began tossing things onto her desk. Packs of cigarettes, filled and empty notepads, receipts from diners that her and Lon had spent many restless nights at. The past eight years of her life spread out on the top of her desk, visible for any curious eyes that dared to look over. But they all avoided her eyes. Those dark, sunken eyes that seemed to hold something worse than a thousand yard stare. Another grunt of irritation before she slammed the drawer shut and collapsed onto her chair. Lon remained unphased, flipping through his notepad to jot down extra notes in his steno pad. "You notice anything odd 'bout those boys? What the hell were they burnin'? Smelled somethin' mighty awful." He commented without looking up, his pen furiously scribbles a mix between cursive and print.

"Fuck." She hissed. "We should'a checked that pit. Made sure they weren't burnin' evidence. Fuck!" Her fist slammed down on the desk, startling a few other officers close by. Her hands reach up to rub her face, smearing the day-old makeup that she had slept in. She looked like a mess - she always looked like a mess. But it was beginning to become heavier, an increasing weight on her conscience.

"We ought'a go back out there once this rain passes. Make sure we didn't miss nothin'." He still has yet to look up at her as he jots down notes. These outbursts have become commonplace between the two. He knows what to expect from her. Has seen her temper reach its peak. Has seen her drunkenly cry out for her sister. There's little that he hasn't seen from her and she finds herself more than thankful for him - though she'd never say it out loud. Leaning her head against the back of her chair, her eyes slowly turned towards the desk to her right. Pushing herself up from her desk, she neared the vacant one. "He ain't gon' like that." Lon warned.

Rolling her eyes, she approached the desk and opened one of the top drawers. Her hands rummaged through the various cigarette packs - Camel, she wanted to spit - and notes written on crumpled napkins. Everything that she wasn't looking for was inside this drawer. A scoff dripped from her lips as she continued digging through the few items he kept in his drawer. "You know I don't like you goin' through my shit." A voice spoke from behind her. Her back stiffened under the weight of his gaze. With a sigh, she straightened up, pulling her hand from his drawer. Turning towards him, she took a step back from his desk. He set his notebook on the desk, his gaze never dropping from hers as he took a seat.

"You got a fuckin' pen in this thing?"

"What is the magic word?"

A subtle glare settle in her eyes towards him. Her arms crossed over her chest as she sighed again. "Please."

His hand dug into the pocket of his slacks and pulled out one of his pens, holding it out to her. Her own hand snatched it from him with a small smile. Without another word, she began to make her way back towards her desk. "Laine," he called out, stopping her as she turned back towards him, "stay the fuck out'a my desk."

"Always a pleasure, Rusty." She winked at him before collapsing back down into her own chair and scooting closer to her desk. Pulling out her notepad, she began scanning through the few notes she'd taken at the scene. "You got those names and numbers from those fellas at the bar?" Lon slid his notepad over to her, continuing his own set of notes. "You wan' go to Susie's before we head over to next o' kin?" She jotted down the names and numbers of the men from the bar, labeling it as so. Organization was not in her wheelhouse, but she did her best to keep her notes legible. When in doubt, look at Lon's notes, she always told herself.

Finally pulling his gaze from his notes, he leaned back in his chair. "I been meanin' to try that new burger they got on the menu."

"Sounds like a date, Lon."