County. So you two are gonna have to cool your heels for a while."
We'd been doing plenty of that.
There was no help for it. No matter how irritated we might feel—and I for one felt plenty irritated— Rob was going to dump us at the station.
"Will they take the boy to the local hospital?" I asked the deputy.
"No, they'll take him on to the bigger hospital in Asheville," Rob said. "The SBI guys insisted. We got good doctors here." He sounded deeply resentful.
"I got good treatment here," I said. Admittedly, I wanted to be on Rob's good side in case we could get him to take us out to the cabin later. But it was the truth. I was willing to believe, a small town like this, the hospital wouldn't have the big diagnostic machines larger hospitals could acquire, but I seemed to be mending fine, and the nurses had been very kind, if very busy.
Rob relaxed a little.
There's always something strange about riding through town in a cop car when you're seated in the back with a wire mesh between you and the driver. It just makes you feel guilty of something, and you feel awfully conspicuous. When we pulled in back of the station and got out, the media swarmed around the back of the station wanting to know if we'd been arrested. Damn it. I wasn't in the mood to put up with this. I couldn't understand why the vicious swarm hadn't migrated to the old barn.
"We kept radio silence and used our cells," Rob said when I asked him. He seemed completely open now, and he made a point of walking by my side and holding open the back door to the station, making it clear to the watching reporters that I was in favor.
Inside, there was chaos. The news was spreading in the building and it was only a matter of time before it would flow outward.
Rob looked as if he didn't know what to do with us once we'd gotten to the sheriff's office, so he stuck us in one of the interview rooms, told us where the snack and drink machines were, and said there were some magazines in the waiting area if we wanted to go get them. He was obviously in a tearing hurry to collect the film and get back out to the latest crime scene, so we nodded and he took off.
There ensued several hours of boredom. We could have been on the road getting the hell out of Doraville. We could have been in bed together enjoying our new relationship, an idea that got Tolliver's vote. (I would have enjoyed some aspects of that, but truthfully, I was pretty sore in unexpected places, and my arm had been too busy for a cracked arm.) Or we could have been making money on another job. But instead, we sat in the drab room.
For a change of pace, we made a foray to the station waiting room out front. We commandeered all the magazines, bought junk food from the machines, and tried to stay out of the way.
After four hours, the sheriff came back. She, Klavin, and Stuart came into the room with a couple more chairs, and we went over everything all over again.
"And you really think this boy Chuck killed himself so you'd find the other boy?" Stuart asked for the fifth time.
I shrugged. "I don't know what was going through his mind."
"He could have written a note, he could have called us, he could have called you, for that matter, and said, ‘My dad has put a boy in a hidden room,' and that would have solved the problem."
"That wouldn't have solved the problem for him," Tolliver said.
"He was an adolescent boy," I said. "He was full of drama and horror and guilt and sorrow. I guess he was trying to atone for himself and his father."
"So what do you think, Ms. Connelly? Do you think he tortured the animals willingly?"
"If he did, that enjoyment horrified him." I didn't think there was a simple explanation of Chuck Almand's behavior. I thought at the end he'd tried to do the right thing, but his thinking processes hadn't foreseen the possibility that he could come out the other side of the horror of his situation, come out and heal and recover. He just hadn't lived long enough to believe that he had a future after his dad's arrest, and he wanted his dad to stop killing. At least, that was the way I interpreted Chuck's actions.
They talked at us for a long time, trying to pry things out of us that weren't there to be gotten. "And don't tell anyone anything you saw in the barn," Klavin said. "Not until we get the case completely locked."
That was easy to promise. We had no desire to talk about what we'd seen.
I had some doubts that the case was all wrapped up, but I kept them to myself. After all we'd done, they still weren't going to listen to my speculations. But doubt niggled at me, and I had that feeling of incompleteness.
Now we had to find Manfred and his mother, who must be wondering what she'd done in her previous life to merit the punishment she was taking.
I asked the sheriff where Manfred was, and she surprised me by telling me he'd been kept here at the Knott County Hospital. He'd asked to stay here, she said.
"I can understand that," I said to Tolliver as we climbed into Rob's patrol car again. He'd finally been detailed to take us back to the cabin. "Otherwise, it would complicate his mom's life so much, and if he can get the care he needs here, that's better than moving him up to Asheville."
"The doctor said he'd be okay here," Rob said from the driver's seat.
"Okay, that's good," I said. Then I remembered that Manfred had suspected someone had killed his grandmother during the night. Maybe it wasn't so good that Manfred was in this hospital after all. Shit. More to worry about.
So when we got back to the cabin, we packed everything—just in case—and put it in the car—just in case. We put out the fire. We hung the cabin key from the rearview mirror so we wouldn't forget to return it to Twyla—just in case. Then we drove back into Doraville. We'd taken the opportunity to freshen up, since we'd had so little time that morning, and we felt better now. My arm was aching because I'd been more active that day than I should, and I took a pain pill. I felt almost ashamed to pop one, there were so many other people who were suffering far worse than I; but the only pain I could ease was my own.
"Can I just keep driving?" Tolliver asked as we came to the major intersection in Doraville. Straight ahead would take us out of town. Turning left would take us to the hospital.
"I wish," I said. "But I think we have to make sure Manfred and his mom are okay. Don't we?"
Tolliver looked stubborn. "I bet Manfred's mom is tough. She'd have to be, with Xylda for a mother. I bet they're fine."
I gave him a sideways look.
"Yeah, okay," he said, and took the left turn.
Twelve
MANFRED'S mother, Rain Bernardo, was a younger version of her mother. The resemblance was only physical, I discovered. Rain was not the least bit psychic, and she hadn't had any special rapport with Xylda. Rain worked in a factory and had risen to management level. She was proud of that. She was proud of being a single mom. She was dismayed that Manfred had followed in Xylda's footsteps and not hers. But she loved her son, and she'd loved her mother, and she was pretty subdued at Manfred's bedside. "Subdued," for Rain, meant she only talked fifty words a second instead of a hundred.
She had the family red hair, and she had the curves of her mother, but in Rain's case they weren't nearly as generous. In fact, Rain was a very attractive woman, and I was pretty sure she hadn't seen her fortieth birthday yet.
We were there when the first of the usual callers came in. Barney Simpson was more solemn than I'd ever seen him, and I wondered if he was a friend of Tom Almand's. After Barney had asked his usual questions about his patient's comfort and contentment with the treatment he was receiving in the hospital, he lingered. I wondered if he was admiring Rain. After all, he was a divorced guy.
"I'm very sorry about your mother," Barney told Rain. "She was a colorful lady, and I know you'll miss her. She made quite an impression on this little community in the short time she was here. She'll be long remembered."
That was a model of tact, I thought. Though Manfred was lying there pale and in pain, a twitch of a smile crossed his face.
"I appreciate your saying that," Rain said, not to be outdone in courtesy. "Thank you for taking such good care of her. Manfred said you came by to see her. Her health was so poor that both Manfred and I know she was due to go anytime, and we don't blame the hospital for anything." She cast a quelling look at Manfred, who had closed his eyes, absenting himself from the whole conversation.
"Manfred thinks she should have an autopsy," Rain said. "And she hadn't been under a doctor's care here in Doraville. Though of course she had doctors in Tennessee, and she saw her cardiologist right before she left for Doraville. What do you think?"
Dr. Thomason came in then, said, "It's raining outside, folks," and shook a few droplets off his umbrella. "Just rain, not ice," he added reassuringly.
"It's good you came in here now," Barney said. "Let me tell you what we've been talking about." Barney repeated Rain's question. "What about it, Len?" he asked.
"Depends on what we hear from her doctor in Tennessee," Len Thomason said, considering. "If her doctor there is of the opinion that her death was expectable, not a surprise, no questions to be answered about it, then I think it would be reasonable to assume we didn't need an autopsy, and that's what I'll recommend to the coroner. On the other hand," he went on, raising both his hands to show us "caution," "if that doctor isn't satisfied—and he knew her best—we'll have to check into it."
Dr. Thomason had put it in such a matter-of-fact way that you felt quite sane and reasonable after listening, and you were sure this was the right course. That manner of his must have been invaluable to his practice. It was almost enough to make me ashamed I'd suspected he might have had something to do with the boys' deaths. Now, as I watched him smile gravely at some question of Rain's, I could only imagine all over again how easily Len Thomason could persuade a boy to go with him anywhere. Everyone trusts a doctor. There were a
