you?" he asked. I could tell that for two cents he'd whip out his own gun and take a shot.
I got up slowly, fighting a tendency on the part of my legs to stay collapsed. I leaned against the granite monument, thinking a few deep breaths would have me back up to walking speed.
He looked at my face. His demeanor became a lot more businesslike. "Where'd you say these shots came from?"
I pointed to the woods across the road to the west, the closest cover to the cemetery. "See, look at Dick Teague's tombstone," I said, pointing to the jagged little white scar where a chunk had been blown off the edge.
Suddenly, Bledsoe was scanning the woods with narrow eyes. His hand went to his holster.
"What's the blood from?" he asked. "Were you hit?"
"It was the chip from the stone," I said, and I wasn't happy with how uneven my voice was. "The bullet was that close. The chip hit me in the cheek."
I spotted it on the ground, picked it up and handed it to him.
"Course, you coulda done it yourself," he said, with no conviction.
"I don't care what you think," I told him. "I don't care what report you write up. As long as you showed up and stopped him shooting at me, I don't care."
"You say ‘him' for a reason?" he asked.
"No reason at all." My breathing was about normal by now. As I adjusted to the fact that no one was going to try to kill me in the next second or so, I reverted to my former opinion of the deputy.
"What were you doing out here, anyway?" He, too, was reverting to hostility.
"Just visiting."
He looked disgusted. "You're some piece of work, you know that?"
"I could say the same. Listen, I'm leaving while you're standing here, because I don't want to die in this town. Thanks for coming. At least..." I stopped before I finished with, "At least the police here aren't totally corrupt." I figured that would be less than tactful, especially since the deputy wasn't standing there pointing at me and yelling, "You can go on and shoot her!"
He gave me a curt nod. As I was shutting my door, he said, "You were standing on Dick Teague's grave?"
I nodded.
"You wanted to know what killed him?"
I nodded again.
"Well, what was it? According to you? "
"Heart attack, just like his dad." I looked at the deputy, making sure my face was smooth and sincere.
"So, the doctor was right?"
"Yes."
He nodded, rather smugly. I started my engine and turned the heater up. When I stopped at the turnoff from the cemetery onto the county road, I glanced in the rearview mirror. Deputy Bledsoe was right behind me. I realized at the same time that I needed to stop by the motel before I went to see Tolliver, unless I wanted to give him his own heart attack. My cheek was spotted with drying blood, and some had spattered on my coat, too.
I hated the motel by this time, but (since no attacker leaped out at me when I unlocked the door) I had to admit it felt safer than the streets. Sarne was beginning to represent one big danger zone to me. With the dead bolt and the chain employed on the door, I washed my face and put on some makeup, including bright lipstick. I didn't want to look like a ghost when I went to visit Tolliver. Possibly the little butterfly strips I put across the cut on my cheekbone detracted from the effect, but I had to use them. I put the blood-spotted jacket and glove in the bathtub to soak in cold water and I got out a black leather jacket.
On the drive to the jail, I caught myself checking my surroundings every few seconds. I tried not to feel ridiculous. No one was going to try to kill me in broad daylight in a busy town, I told myself. But then, I'd thought I'd seen the last of Scot, too; that he was a basically harmless teenage lunk whose punishment I could safely leave to his football coach. Ha.
I'd visited jails before. Being searched and having to let the jailer keep my purse was nothing new or extraordinary. It was far from pleasant, though. The sudden movements I'd made at the cemetery had reawakened the painful bruises from the night before. I was just a mass of misery, and I hated being so needy.
Seeing Tolliver enter the room in an orange jail jumpsuit made my brain flicker. When a jailer ushered him in, I had to cover my mouth with my hand. Two other prisoners entered the room with him (neither of them Scot), and they went to their visitors at their little separate tables. The rules at the Sarne jail were: Keep your hands on the table so they're visible at all times. Do not pass anything to the inmates unless you'd had it cleared with the jailers first. Do not speak loudly or rise suddenly from your chair until the prisoners have left the room.
Tolliver took my hands. We looked at each other. Finally, he said, "You've been hurt."
"Yes," I said.
His face was rigid. "Your face. Did one of them hit you?"
"No, no." I hadn't prepared a story for him. It would be stupid to try to conceal what had happened to me since he'd been in jail. I couldn't think of a lie that would cover everything, not even for Tolliver's peace of mind. "Someone shot at me from the woods," I said flatly. "I wasn't hurt, except for this scratch. I won't go back to the cemetery."
"What's going on in this town?" Tolliver was having a hard time controlling his voice. "What's wrong with these people?"
"Have you seen Scot?" I asked, trying to put a little perkiness in my voice.
"Scot the kid? "
"Yeah."
"They brought someone in last night, someone I haven't seen yet. What's he in for?"
"He was in my motel room when Hollis brought me back last night, and he..."
The expression on Tolliver's face stopped me.
"You have to calm down," I said, very quietly and intently, holding on to his hands as if they were lifelines and I was drowning. Or he was. "You have to. You just have to. You can't get into trouble in here, or they'll keep you. Now you listen, I'm going to be okay. I've called the lawyers, and a lady, Phyllis Folliette, from Little Rock, is coming tomorrow for your arraignment. She's a friend of Art's, so she's good. You'll get out, and we'll be okay." I adjusted my position in the hard chair, suppressing a wince.
"That Scot's a rat bastard," Tolliver said. His voice was misleadingly calm.
"Yeah," I said, and gave a little snort of laughter. "Yeah, that's what he is, all right. But I think someone paid him to be more of a rat bastard than he actually is."
I told Tolliver about the death of Dick Teague, the fact that Sally had been hired to clean the study, the fact that she'd seen something on Dick Teague's desk that had aroused her curiosity or her interest, so much so that she'd come home and consulted her textbook about what she'd noticed. "SO MO DA NO" didn't mean anything to Tolliver, either.
"Maybe an anagram?" he asked.
"I haven't been able to make a word of it, if so," I said. "And those aren't anyone's initials. I tried writing it backwards. I tried assigning numbers. I tried moving the letters one forward in the alphabet, and one backward. I don't think Sally Boxleitner was up to a more complex code than that."
Tolliver thought for a minute. Under my fingers, I felt his pulse, steady and vital.
"And what was on his desk?" Tolliver asked.
"Insurance forms."
"Whose?"
"According to Sybil, he was reviewing the family's medical bills for the year."
"And he really had a heart attack?"
"Yeah, that was what I was checking at the cemetery. He really did. It runs in his family; at least, Dick's father died the same way, real early—though not as early as Dick."
"I can sure give it a lot of thought, since I don't have anything else to do," Tolliver said, trying hard not to sound bitter.
I cleared my throat. "I brought one of your books. They're searching it for hidden messages, I guess, and they'll pass it on to you when you go back to your cell."
"Oh, thanks." There was a pause while he struggled not to say anything, but he lost. "You know, I ended up in here so I can't stop someone when they try to hurt you."
"I know."
"I feel as angry as I've ever felt in my life."
"I got that."
"But we have to know who wanted me in here so bad."
"Surely... surely it must be Jay Hopkins?"
"What's your figuring on that?"
"Marv Bledsoe is a good buddy of Jay Hopkins. And Marv's a cousin of Paul Edwards. Or else it was Harvey the sheriff, himself, who told Marv to arrest you."
"Of the three, I'd rather this be Jay's doing."
I nodded. Jay was the weakest of the three.
"Time's up," the jailer said, and the other two visitors stood. Tolliver and I looked at each other. I was making a huge effort not to look as anxious as I felt. I suspected Tolliver was doing the same.
"I'll see you tomorrow in the courtroom," he said, when the jailer showed signs of impatience. I let go of his hands and pushed back the chair.
Five minutes later, I was standing out in the cold, bright day, wondering what I should do next. I couldn't stop myself from wondering if anyone was looking at me, and if that anyone had a rifle in his hands. I wondered if I would live long enough to get Tolliver out of jail. I despised myself for my fear, because at least I was free; my brother was not. He was probably not any safer in jail than I was walking around, especially if our enemy turned out to be the sheriff.
I could see from the traffic that school had let out for the day. So I wasn't surprised when my new best friend, Mary Nell Teague, pulled up in her little car. "Come for a ride," she called, and I climbed in the front seat. I was surprised she was by herself, and I was also surprised that she would want to approach me so publicly.
"Have you seen him?" she asked, backing out and driving away at what I could only think was a reckless speed.
"Yes."
"They wouldn't let me, since I'm not family or a spouse." She said this with sullen amazement, as if it was extraordinarily bull-
