said brightly, taking his arm. "Oh... hi, Harper." I tried not to smile at my second-class status. It was easier not to smile when I saw there was no way to avoid some kind of confrontation with the boys. Alpha Boy laid his hand on Nell's shoulder, halting her progress, and therefore ours.
"You shouldn't be hanging around with these people," he said to Mary Nell. I could tell from his voice he had known Nell for a long time, and had a proprietary interest in her.
Alpha Boy might have known her for a long time, but he hadn't known her well. Her little face tightened with anger. He'd embarrassed her in front of her newest fixation, an exotic out-of-town older man. "Scotty, you don't have any say over me," she said. "Tolliver, let's us go to the Sonic and have a Coke."
Tolliver was caught between a rock and a hard place, and I waited to see what he'd do to get out of it. While he squirmed, I looked from young male face to young male face, trying to meet each set of eyes and smile, the squeaky non-sexual smile of a newscaster. Only two of them made the effort to nod to me; the others either evaded my gaze or scowled at me. This was not good.
"Mary Nell, I'd like to, but Harper and I have to go back to the motel and make some phone calls," Tolliver said. I could see him casting around for something to say that would simultaneously salvage her pride, get him off the hook, and mollify the angry columns of testosterone that were glowering at us. There was nothing that would serve all three functions.
"Maybe Mary Nell would like to have supper with us tonight," I said unwillingly. It was not so much that I was trying to show the girl some mercy; if she got angry with us, her anger would give the boys permission to attack.
I saw the conflict on Mary Nell's face pass in a flash; it was I who had asked, which negated the value of the invitation, but it did save her face, to some extent. "That would be wonderful," she said, giving me the barest glance. "I'll see you at six at the Ozark Valley Inn."
I had no idea where that was, but I said, "See you then," and Nell walked away to her car very quickly, her head held high. Just as quickly, Tolliver and I got in our car and drove away, stopping at the next light to buckle our seat belts.
Tolliver looked angry and embarrassed. "Too bad you don't want to be in a boy band," I said, after a minute of riding in silence. "You've obviously got the charisma."
"Oh, shut up!" he said. "How about you? You gonna be one of the Babes of Law Enforcement?"
"Well, at least Hollis is legal age... ." I began, but then I couldn't help smiling.
Tolliver managed a small upcurve of the lips. "Where the hell is the Ozark Valley Inn? " he said.
"I have no idea, but we better find it by six o'clock. Gosh, I have a headache. I sure hope it doesn't get so bad that I have to bow out of the dinner... ."
"You do and you die."
We picked up salads for lunch, and took them back to the motel. The phone rang just as we were settling down to read. We were in my room, so I answered.
"This is Hollis. Do you want to go to supper with me?"
"A drink afterward? "
"Yes," I said cautiously, after I'd thought about it.
"I'll pick you up at the motel. Eight o'clock?"
"Okay, see you then."
"All right. Goodbye."
I said goodbye, too, and hung up. Tolliver was eyeing me sardonically. "Let me guess, Cop Boy?"
I nodded. "We're going to have a drink together tonight at eight, so we'll have to cut short our romantic rendezvous with Mary Nell. I'm sure you don't want to be unchaperoned."
"If there's anywhere here it would take two hours to eat, I'd be very astonished," Tolliver said, at his driest.
I agreed, and re-opened my book. But for a few minutes, I read the same page over and over.
When we stopped by the motel office to ask for directions to the Ozark Valley Inn, we noticed that the older man who ran the place was not too happy about helping us. We'd learned his name was Vernon, and he wore overalls and had the worn and wrinkled face of a basset. Vernon had been pleasant enough up to now, though we hadn't seen much of him. But tonight he was distant, his gaze disapproving. "You planning on moving your bags over there?" he asked, almost hopefully.
"No," I said, surprised. "We're just meeting someone for dinner in the restaurant at the inn."
" 'Cause I been meaning to tell you, I'm going to need those rooms pretty soon. Hope you two wasn't planning on staying very long."
"I'm sure you have tons of business coming in," I agreed, maybe a little coldly. "And we won't stay a minute longer than we have to."
"Glad to hear it."
"I guess no one's going to ask us to judge the floats in the homecoming parade," I said to Tolliver when we were in the car.
He smiled, but it was a small smile. "The sooner we can get out of Sarne, the better," he said.
Mary Nell came in seven minutes after we were seated at a table in the inn, which was on the southern side of the town. Her face was flushed and her cell phone was in her hand. I was willing to bet she'd lied to her mother about where she was going and whom she was going to be with. I almost hated the girl at that moment, for the trouble she might get us into.
"Sorry I'm late," Mary Nell said, as she took a chair. "I had some things I had to do at home. My mom is so paranoid."
"She lost your brother," I said. "I'm sure that's made her more protective." I wouldn't have thought even a self-absorbed teenager could have missed that point.
The girl flushed deep red. "Of course," she said stiffly. "I just mean, she doesn't seem to know how old I am." She'd dressed with care, in new low riders with a tight green T-shirt. She wore a soft fuzzy cardigan sweater and boots.
"That's a common thing with mothers," I said. My own mother had forgotten how old I was, after she'd started chasing the drugs with alcohol. She'd decided I was much older and needed a boyfriend. She picked a doping buddy of hers who was willing to give her free samples for the privilege of being my first "date." Tolliver had gone off to college by then, and I'd had to spend a day locked in my room. I had known that eventually they'd go to sleep and I'd be able to get out of the house, but I was hungry and thirsty and had no access to a bathroom. After that, I kept bottled water and a box of crackers and an old cooking pot in my room.
"Have you lived in Sarne all your life?" Tolliver asked Mary Nell.
She flushed when he spoke directly to her. "Yes," she said. "My dad's parents were born here, too. Dad died just before Dell." I was startled. When Edwards had told me Sybil was a recent widow, I hadn't realized how recent. "Dell, he really missed Dad... . He was closer to Dad than me." She sounded vaguely resentful.
"I want to ask you a question, Mary Nell," I said. "I don't want to upset you any more than I have to, but when you were talking to us the other night, you paused after you said one sentence. You said something like, ‘I knew he wouldn't kill Teenie and...' and then you stopped. What were you going to say?"
Mary Nell eyed me. You could tell her feelings were conflicted. "Please tell us, Nell," Tolliver said, and she crumbled when she looked into his dark brown eyes. He'd called her something special.
"Okay," she said, leaning across the table to share her big secret. "Dell told me, the week before he and Teenie... the week before they died, that Teenie was gonna have a baby." Her heavily made-up eyes were as big and round as a raccoon's. The girl was clearly shocked that her brother had been having sex with his girlfriend, and she just as clearly considered the pregnancy top-secret knowledge.
"No one knew?"
"He sure didn't tell my mom. She would've killed him." Then, as she realized what she'd said, Mary Nell turned red as a brick, and tears filled her eyes.
"That's okay," I said hastily, "we know your mom wouldn't really do that."
"Well, Mom never has liked Teenie's mom too much. I don't know why. Miss Helen used to work for us a few years ago, and I thought she was great. Always singing."
And I could tell that she suddenly remembered that Helen Hopkins had been murdered, too. There was a look on her face, a lost look, like she was drowning.
"If I'd killed everyone I didn't like, I'd be able to dress in their scalps," Tolliver said.
Mary Nell gave a startled giggle and covered her mouth with her small hand.
After all this time, could an autopsy establish Teenie's pregnancy?
"Dell didn't tell anyone but you?" I asked.
"No one knew but me," Mary Nell said proudly.
Mary Nell was sure her brother hadn't told anyone about the baby, but what about Teenie? Had she told someone? Her mother, maybe?
Her mother, who was... gee, let me think... dead.
six
AFTER Tolliver and I had exchanged glances, we steered off the subject quickly. Mary Nell's sad, tearful face had already attracted some attention from the sparse clientele. Her coloring cleared up and her demeanor brightened as she talked about happier topics, addressing her conversation almost exclusively to my brother. Tolliver found out that Nell planned to go to the University of Arkansas the next year, that she wanted to be a physical therapist so she could help people, that she was a cheerleader and didn't like algebra. Her cheerleading sponsor was totally cool.
I was free to think my own thoughts. Mary Nell didn't seem much different from any of the girls I'd known in high school, the girls with sober parents, the girls who had enough money to ward off worry and homelessness. She was bright but not brilliant, virginal but not saintly. The loss of her sibling had left her drifting, searching for a new identity when her
