270 EAST

CHAPTER 1 On the afternoon of the night her baby is murdered, Tracy Wheeler leaves the kids in the house with her mom and sister and goes over to Oscar Santiago’s to get drunk and stoned. She walks north in the August heat to the end of the row of cottages, then west across a stretch of ryegrass and dried mud, then back on the road at the Rock Island crossing, the rails receding left and right, the caution sign waiting beside its oval shadow, her own shadow quickening behind her as she crosses the tracks. Richardson isn’t far from the Arkansas border. This far south and east, the overarching sky of the plains still looms, but the flatness gives way to rolling grasslands. The soil is pale and rocky, good for grazing cattle but not rich enough to grow crops with much success. McAlester and the string of small towns to the east – Krebs, Haleyville, Hartshorne, Richardson – lie among protrusions of coarse granite. Spanish oak, cedar elm, and redbud climb the flanks of the hills. Southern pine tops the ridgelines. Oklahoma is in on the continuing oil and natural gas boom. At the edges of little towns like Richardson, scruffy prefabs and fieldstone cottages shoulder up against the country properties of oil-and-gas nouveau riche. There’s a horse farm across the road from the Wheelers and their neighbors – a white railed fence, a manicured expanse of rolling pasture, a pond winking in the distance, a distant prosperous house and barn. North of the horse farm, not far from the Wheeler house, past the end of the road and across the Rock Island line – literally across the tracks – there’s a warren of leaning, rotting trailers. Many of the people who live there are addicted to methamphetamine. A few are heroin addicts. The Richardson Police and the Lafayette County Sheriff’s Department know this road well. Oscar Santiago lives in the “Jewell Apartments,” a pair of tumbledown buildings the size and shape of single-story army barracks, with an alleyway running between them. There’s a stenciled sign, “JEWELL APARTMENTS,” and a phone number. Decaying trailers stand at angles around the apartments. Scrub oak provides partial shade. The roofs of the trailers are off-center and the dank frames slope at one end or sag in the middle as if they’d been dropped from a height down in among the clumps of gnarled, suffering trees. The ground is strewn with trash and abandoned toys. The alley is deserted. Scraps of noise emerge from the insides of the trailers and the apartments – voices, radio music, a muffled shout, a keening toddler. Tracy steps over some wet-looking plastic bags and around a broken tricycle and walks up two plank steps and opens the door to Oscar Santiago’s apartment without knocking and goes in. Santiago is bowing before the open fridge, pulling out a 16-ounce can of Miller. Howard Conner is sitting on the couch, legs out straight. There’s a bong between his feet. Conner says, “Fuck you doin here.” “What you think I’m doin here, Howard.” Santiago straightens up, closes the fridge, pops his beer, and looks at Tracy. Tracy looks back. “Oscar, you got some Lortabs?” “You got money?” Conner says, “She’s got the money I gave her.” Howard Conner is a cocky, runty punk with pasty skin, short brown hair, big dark brown eyes, and a handsome-guy jaw and Roman nose. Jeans, work shoes, white t-shirt, jailhouse forearm tattoos, cap on backwards. Tracy says, “You know how much you gave me, Howard.” She’s still looking at Santiago. Conner says, “I gave you money for the kids.” Now she looks at Conner. “You gave me sixty dollars.” Santiago says, “Come on, now, don’t chawl start.” Conner says, “I’m not talkin bout how much, Tracy.” “Howard, that money’s for the kids.” Conner is up off the couch. “Ain’t that what I just said?” He takes a step toward her. “Done a buncha crank, now you’re crashin, comin in here tryin to score pills.” He adjusts his cap for emphasis. “I want it back, Tracy.” Tracy backs up. The room is tiny. “Howard, I ain’t got it.” “I ain’t talkin bout the crank. I’m talkin bout the fuckin money.” Santiago parks his beer on top of the fridge and advances uncertainly. “Okay, yawl gon start, go on get the fuck out.” Conner is standing in front of Tracy. She’s backed up against the door. “Howard, that money’s at home.” Conner rocks his head and mocks her again. “That money’s at ho-o-owm.” “That money’s for the kids, Howard.” “I want it, Tracy.” Conner makes a grab for Tracy’s strap purse. “Howard, quit it, I ain’t got it.” Tracy straight-arms Conner and they start turning and tussling. Tracy’s hand is on Conner’s chest. She’s drawing back her shoulder to keep his hand away from her purse strap. Conner is holding onto her wrist in front of his chest and windmilling with his free hand, trying to grab the purse. His foot hooks the base of the bong and it topples onto the filthy shag and he lets go of Tracy’s wrist and falls to one knee and gets back up. Santiago comes up behind them and starts shoving at both of them. “Go on now, I mean it, go on do your arguin someplace else.” Santiago’s tone has a wheedling edge to it. Santiago is thirtyish, with thinning hair and a paunchy Tex-Mex laborer’s build. He’s a good deal bigger than Conner, but he’s warily afraid of him, afraid of Conner’s quick surly wit and rabid temper. Conner re-sets his cap, opens the door, and steps out onto the top step. Tracy stands facing him in the open doorway. “You owed me that money, Howard.” Conner does his gangsta growl. “I don’t owe you nothin, bitch.” Santiago is backing into the middle of the room, sorrowfully eyeing his upended bong. “Yawl better go on get the fuck out.” Viscous mud-brown liquid is dripping from the bong down onto the shag.