“What’s happened, Terry?” There’s only a short list of things to bring an SBI agent out during working hours. “Dwight? Somebody get killed?”
“Yeah. One of the maids out at the Orchid Motel,” Dwight said. “Lived in Cotton Grove. A neighbor found her around five this morning. Somebody sliced her up pretty bad last night. Knocked her around first, then cut off one of her fingers slick as a surgeon would. While she was still alive. Blood everywhere.”
I watched as Terry squirted a tinfoil packet of ketchup on his french fries. I guess you get anesthetized after a while.
“Is her death related to Lynn Bullock’s?”
“Be a right big coincidence if it isn’t,” said Terry, who’s as tolerant of my questions as Dwight.
“You get any hint of it when you interviewed her?” I asked Dwight.
“The thing is, we never did,” he admitted with a huge sigh of regret. “She got off work before the Bullock woman checked in and didn’t come back on duty till the next day, long after the killing took place. Didn’t seem to be any urgency about talking with her. Sloppy.”
“Don’t beat up on yourself,” said Terry, as I opened Dwight’s little refrigerator and helped myself to one of the cold drinks inside. “You and your people were all over that motel. If Rosa Edwards knew something about the murder, she should’ve—”
“Rosa Edwards?” I asked, popping the top of a Diet Pepsi. “That’s who got killed?”
“Yeah,” said Dwight. “You know her?”
I shook my head. “No, but Ralph Freeman said she was his wife’s closest friend here.” I stared at them, struck by a sudden thought. “What if it’s nothing to do with Lynn Bullock? What if it’s about how Clara Freeman wound up in Possum Creek without leaving any skid marks on the pavement?”
Dwight reached for his Rolodex and started dialing. “Jimmy? You done anything yet with that Honda Civic Robert Knott pulled out of the creek last night? . . . Good. Don’t touch it. I’m sending a crew out to examine it.”
CHAPTER | 15
But when their hearts are really touched they drop everything and rush to the rescue of the afflicted.
Cyl stuck her head in my office as I was sliding my feet into a pair of sandals so old that it wouldn’t matter if they got soaked. I saw that she, too, had changed from those expensive dark green heels to scuffed black flats that had seen better days. Fran was still out in the Atlantic, just off the coast of Wilmington, but so huge that her leading edge was already spilling into the Triangle area. We were in for a night of high wind and heavy rain whether or not the hurricane actually came inland.
Cyl had heard about Rosa Edwards’s murder, but she hadn’t connected it to Clara Freeman until I told her of their friendship. Instantly, her thoughts flew to Stan and Lashanda. Their mother was in a coma, her closest friend had been brutally butchered and a big storm was on the way. Anything that touched Ralph Freeman was going to touch her but she did seem genuinely distressed for the children, who might have to stay alone with their stern- faced grandfather.
“I could take them to my grandmother’s, but she’s already gone to my uncle’s house in Durham.”
“I’m sure some kind family from the church will take them in,” I soothed.
I was anxious to head back to the farm, but Cyl asked if I’d go with her to the hospital and I couldn’t turn her down since it was only the second time she’d ever asked me for a favor.
* * *
The sky was dark as we drove in tandem to the hospital on the northwest side of Dobbs and the ICU waiting room was nearly empty except for the children, the Reverend James McElroy Gaithers, and a couple of church people who were clearly torn between a wish to comfort and an even more sincere wish to get home under shelter before the wind got too heavy.
Lashanda was sitting on Ralph’s lap and her eyes lit up as we came through the door. Heaven help him, so did Ralph’s. His father-in-law gave a stately nod that acknowledged our acquaintance.
“You sure you kids don’t want to come home with Crystal and me?” I heard one of the women coax as we joined them.
Lashanda sank deeper into her father’s arms and Ralph said, “Thank you, Sister Garrett, but they’ll be fine here. I already spoke to one of the staff about some blankets and pillows. They can stretch out here on the couches.”
Impulsively, I excused myself and went and found a telephone.
Daddy doesn’t like talking on the phone and he answered with his usual abrupt, “Yeah?”
I quickly explained the situation.
“Bring ’em on here,” he said, before I could ask. “I’ll tell Maidie. And, Deb’rah?”
“Sir?”
“Don’t y’all dilly-dally around. They’s gonna be tree limbs down in the road ’fore long, so come on now, you hear?”
I heard.
* * *
When I got back, Cyl was extending her own invitation to the children.
“I’ve got a better idea,” I told her brightly. “My daddy just invited you and Stan and Lashanda to his hurricane party.”
