swallow that. Actually, it was somewhat easier to believe a scenario in which Mary Nell sprung the same trap on Tolliver, because the phony warrant and the broken taillight seemed like such desperate and amateurish steps. But it seemed very unlikely that Mary Nell would even know we'd been in trouble in Montana once upon a time, and even if she'd learned about the episode somehow, she wouldn't be able to go on the police computer network and somehow enter a false incident.
I tried to imagine a credible progression of cause and effect, opportunity and motive, sitting in my lonely hotel room. When my mind remained persistently blank, I opened the door to Tolliver's room and went and sat there. The maid had done the beds and put fresh towels out, so there wasn't even a trace of Tolliver in his room, at least to my eyes. For a little while, though, being there made me feel a tad better; but after a bit, I felt foolish, and then I felt like an intruder, so I went back.
There was a knock at the door, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. I glanced down at my watch. I'd been sitting there, with my thoughts scurrying around like hamsters in an exercise wheel, for over an hour.
At the door, Hollis said, "I'm sorry."
"Did you... you didn't have anything to do with this, right? "
"No," he said, not sounding offended. He sounded almost too gentle, the way you sound when you're afraid a dog might turn on you. "Marv Bledsoe and Jay Hopkins, they used to drink together."
I remembered the smug look on Jay Hopkins' face, and I felt sure he'd called Marv and told him where to catch hold of us. No wonder he hadn't minded us getting the hair samples. He hadn't believed we'd have time to get them in the mail.
"I've never trusted Jay, or Marv for that matter. Unfortunately, Harvey does, or at least he acts like he does. And the state guys are gone. They went off to check out another teen date murder they think might be related to Teenie's and Dell's. So there's no brakes on Marv, like there ought to be."
"So, have you seen this warrant?"
"No, not me. I gather there was some problem in Montana while you worked up there, last year?"
"Yeah, but it was all resolved. There's no warrant for Tolliver's arrest. I'd know for sure. And we didn't have a busted light this morning when we got up."
"Did you see him do it?"
"No, we didn't."
"If Marv made all this up, he would have some way to stop you," Hollis said, sitting down heavily on the foot of my bed. He caught my eyes, and said hesitantly, "I thought I better stop by to see how you were doing. I got the impression you depend a lot on your brother."
"I do," I said simply. "But I'm going to be okay. I've already called a lawyer in Little Rock. She's going to call me back."
"That's good," Hollis said heartily. "You're doing real good." Again, the encouragement was too overdone.
I was well aware that I wasn't, you know, Miss Stability. But there's a difference between knowing you have a flaw and seeing other people reacting to it. "You can't hide how weird you are," was the unspoken message. "You require special handling and careful treatment." I began to tense up all over again.
"Hollis," I said, hearing my voice come out as a growl. "You make sure nothing happens to Tolliver in that jail. You hear me?"
I could see his resentment at the implication, but at the moment, that wasn't important to me. What mattered to me was that I see in his face the assurance that nothing could happen to my brother in that jail, that he would be treated fairly and guarded well.
I could not find that in Hollis's expression.
"Hollis, you listen to me," I said, in the quietest voice I could manage. "I know you love this town and you love the life you have here. But something's going on in Sarne, there's a rotten apple somewhere spoiling things. There's a lot we don't know about these deaths. Someone you know murdered Dell Teague and Teenie Hopkins. Someone you know killed your wife Sally and beat Helen Hopkins to death. And someone you know doesn't want my brother and me to leave, for some reason. Now, we have to find out who that someone is. I came here, and I did my job, and I did it quick and I did it right. Now, Tolliver and I should be able to leave you all to solve your own damn problems."
"You were beginning to care about me until this happened," Hollis said, completely to my surprise. It seemed more like the kind of thing men expect women to say; if life were like a sitcom, that would have been my line.
"Yes," I said. "I was."
"I know someone is responsible for all the deaths," he said. "I know that. And I realize it's someone I know. But I can't imagine why. Sally was a good woman, a nice woman, and I loved her." Hollis was apparently having as hard a time keeping his thoughts on track as I was.
"She knew something," I said intently. "She knew a secret, a big secret. She died first."
We thought about that for a second.
"Can you remember anything about her, in the days before she died? Was she excited, upset, worried?"
Hollis looked profoundly depressed. I wanted to touch his hair, stroke it, but I kept my hands locked together in my lap. "She seemed like someone who had a secret," he said heavily. "She would talk to me about almost anything, but some things about her family and the mess her mother had gotten into—I guess it's not too surprising that she didn't want to talk about their drinking and fighting and their divorce, or her mom's and dad's... well... infidelities."
I worked my way through that sentence. "So, she'd be open and honest with you about almost anything except her family," I said.
He hesitated. "Yes," he said finally, firmly. "Anything but her family."
"Do you think she had a secret because she had just figured something out—like, ‘Oho! Eureka!'—or because her mom or Teenie had confided in her?"
Hollis tried hard to remember, while I tried hard not to be impatient. I was sorry he had to go through even more pain, but I thought it was necessary. Actually, part of me was asking, "Why didn't he do all this before?" Of course, he'd thought his wife had died accidentally. Now that he knew she'd been murdered, though, surely he'd been turning that time over in his head?
"I think she'd figured out something," he said. "It's almost impossible to say what was going through someone's mind, you know? And I've been thinking maybe I didn't know Sally as well as I thought I did. If we'd been married longer, trusted each other more, she would have told me what she was worried about, thinking of. We could have worked on it together. We just hadn't been married that long. We hadn't been tested."
This wasn't getting us anywhere. "Did anything happen right before she died?" I asked, realizing I might sound callous. "Anything that might have triggered her death?"
"Only Dick Teague dying," Hollis said.
"When did he die?" I asked. I'd seen the newspaper stories, but I hadn't noted the date.
"I think in February. That sounds right," Hollis said, after a moment's thought. "When Sybil found him, she couldn't cope with cleaning up everything for the funeral, so she hired Helen and Sally to clean the house. Did you know Sybil used to have Helen clean her house, before Helen began drinking so bad and all? Sybil hired Barb Happ after that. I didn't much want Sally cleaning for anyone, but Sally really enjoyed cleaning and she said she might as well do it on her day off from Wal-Mart, not only because she felt sorry for Sybil, but because she wanted some extra money for Christmas. Sally came home that day feeling real concerned about something."
"But she didn't give you any hints?" I'd been assuming that Sally had discovered her sister's pregnancy, but Sally had died months before the event.
"Of course, I asked her how the job went. She said she cleaned the downstairs while her mom took the upstairs, and that's about all she said. The study was just like it had been when Dick fell over dead, and that made her feel a little funny, she said. But that night, she searched out one of her high school textbooks. The school system discontinued this book, so the students could keep it if they wanted to, and she did. Sally was interested in some things that surprised me."
"What book was it?"
"She had several. I can't even remember now. I only recall it because she seemed so... like she was thinking real hard about something else, and then when Sally found the book, she studied over it for the longest time. That was unusual."
"So, do you think you could remember?"
"Maybe. I'll look this evening, see if I can find it. Seems like I remember it had a red back cover..." Hollis looked distant, as if his eyes were seeing a distant scene, and I guess they were.
The phone rang. I jumped about a foot. "Hello?" I said.
"Ms. Connelly? " It was a woman's voice, heavily southern and somehow really smart.
"Yes."
"This is Phyllis Folliette? With Huff, Moon, and Greene? "
"Right. Oh, good." Hollis was pointing at the door, indicating he needed to leave, and I nodded and waved before returning my attention to the lawyer.
"Okay," she said, and her voice became carefully soothing. "I hear you're in kind of a jam, over in Sarne."
"Yes."
"I just wanted to tell you, I called the sheriff's office and they said your brother wouldn't be arraigned for two more days. I can't bail him out until the judge sets the bail, you understand?"
"Yes, I understand."
"And the judge won't be there until the day after tomorrow."
Okay, I wasn't dumb. "I understand that two days means the day after tomorrow," I said clearly.
"Um. I get that... Sorry if I was talking down," the lawyer apologized. "Occupational hazard."
"Umm."
"So, I'll be there in Sarne, day after tomorrow, to get your brother out of jail," she said. "These charges sound like a bunch
