sake! The M was for Me!
I put the fork down.
"Harper?" Tolliver said.
"Blood types," I said. "Stupid, stupid, stupid me."
"Harper? "
"It's
"I can see where that might trigger a heart attack," Tolliver said slowly. He put down his own fork, patted his lips with his napkin. "But why would that lead to Dell and Teenie getting shot? "
"I'm thinking," I said.
The family of four had cleared out while we were eating, with the topic of the beauty pageant still unresolved. I would put money on the mother winning. The older couple ate in a leisurely way, and just as slowly paid and took their leave, exchanging pleasantries with the waitress. The single man was still reading the paper, and every now and then the waitress would top off his coffee cup. Tolliver paid our bill while I stared into space, trying to imagine what had happened next in the Teague family drama.
Okay, next Hollis's wife had been killed. Sally had figured out that Dell wasn't Dick's son. Who would she tell? She would be more likely to tell a woman.
I thought she would tell her mother. But there must be something else...
We were in the car going back toward Sarne when I told Tolliver what I was thinking. "Why wouldn't she tell Hollis?" he asked. "It would be natural to tell your husband."
"Hollis told me she didn't like to talk about her family troubles," I said. "I think to Sally, Dell's parentage would fall into that category. So, Sally told her mother. Her mother, rather than Teenie, because Sally was closer to her mother. Besides, the secret was about Dell, and Teenie would've told him."
"So what happened next?" Tolliver asked, as though I would surely know.
I did try to puzzle it out. "Helen," I muttered. "What would Helen do? Why would she care whose kid Dell was?"
Why, indeed?
Say Teenie and Dell don't know anything about this. And then Sally dies. Sally dies because... she told. Because she told her mother. But I remembered Helen's overwhelming grief, and I didn't think Helen had known why Sally died. Until I came along and told Hollis and Helen differently, they'd thought her death was an accident. As far as I knew, Helen had never questioned that. And she'd believed Dell shot Teenie. Why? Over Teenie's pregnancy, of course! And then, unable to face what he'd done, Helen believed that Dell had shot himself.
Only then, to clear his name, Sybil had hired me, and I'd told Helen that Dell hadn't shot Teenie. I'd told Helen that both her daughters had been murdered by someone else.
I didn't exactly feel like all these deaths were my fault, but I didn't feel good about them, either. I'd done what I'd been hired to do, with no idea what the consequences might be in a confused place like Sarne. I believed after she found out they'd been killed, Helen must have realized who would have wanted both her daughters to die. I believed she would have arranged to confront that person to verify her suspicions, and during that confrontation that person had killed her, watched by all those pictures of two dead girls, in the little box-like house.
"I don't believe Sybil," I said abruptly.
Tolliver looked over at me briefly before turning his attention back to the rain-slick road. There was a distant rumble. I shivered.
"Why? "
"I don't believe Mary Nell would ever threaten to kill herself," I said. "I don't believe she would resort to tactics like this to win your interest. I think she's too proud."
"She's sixteen."
"Yeah, but she's got her backbone in straight."
"So, why are we going?"
"Because Sybil wants us there badly enough to lie about it, and I want to know why."
"I don't know, maybe we should just go back to the motel. It's thundering, and you know there may be lightning."
"I got that." As a matter of fact, the Tylenol hadn't prevented the ferocious headache building behind my eyes. "But I think we should go to Sybil's." Something was pushing me, and I had a bad feeling it wasn't something smart.
I spotted a flash of lightning out of the corner of my eye and tried not to flinch. I was safe, in a car, and when I got out, I'd be very careful not to step into a downed electrical wire or hold a golf club or stand under a tree or do any of the myriad things people did that increased their chances of being electrocuted by lightning, either directly or indirectly. But I couldn't help ducking and hiding my face.
"You can't do this," Tolliver said. "We need to get inside."
"Go to the Teagues' house," I yelled. I was terrified, but I was driven.
He didn't say anything else, but turned in the right direction. I was ashamed of myself for yelling at my brother, but I was also strangely light-headed and focused on what lay ahead. A little part of my brain was still gnawing at the problem: Why would Dell and Teenie have to die, if Dell wasn't Dick Teague's son? What secret was so important that all those people had to die, the people who could reveal it?
The Teague house was mostly dark when we pulled up to it. I'd imagined it would be blazing with light, but only one window glowed through the darkness. None of the outside lights were on, which I thought was strange. If I'd been Sybil, I'd have turned on all the outside lights once I'd made sure company was coming, especially on an evening when bad weather was obviously imminent.
"This is bad," Tolliver said slowly. He didn't elaborate. He didn't need to. We parked at the front of the house. The rain drummed on the roof of the car. "I think you better call your cop buddy," he said to me. "I think we better stay out of that house until we have someone with authority here." He switched on the dome light.
"I can't count on him being the one on call," I said, but I dialed his home number on the chance that Hollis was snug and warm and dry in his little house. No answer. I tried the sheriff's office. The dispatcher answered. She sounded distracted. I could hear the radio squawking in the background. "Is Hollis on patrol?" I asked.
"No, he's answering a call about a tree being across the road on County Road 212," she snapped. "And I got a three-car accident on Marley Street." I could see that a personal call to a busy officer would not be priority.
"Tell him to come to the Teagues' house as soon as he can," I said. "Tell him it's very important. I think a crime's been committed there."
"Someone'll come as soon as they can get free from the ones we're sure about," she said, and she hung up the phone.
"Okay, we're on our own," I told Tolliver. He switched off the light, leaving us in a dark island of dry warmth. The cold rain was pelting down, drenching the lawn and rinsing off the car. The flashes of lightning were only occasional. I could stand it, I told myself. We'd parked at the end of the sidewalk that led directly to the main doors. The garage, with its door into the kitchen, was to our left on the west side of the house.
"I'll go in the front, you go in the garage door," I said. By the distant glow of the streetlights, I could see Tolliver open his mouth to protest, then close it again.
"All right," he said. "On the count of three. One, two, three! "
We leapt from our respective sides of the car and took off for our separate goals. I reached mine first, without being hit by anything except leaves and twigs snapped from a tree by the high winds.
The front door wasn't locked. That might not mean anything. I was pretty sure that in Sarne no one locked up until they turned in for the night. But the hair on my neck prickled. I pushed it open, but only a foot.
The door opened directly into the large formal living room, which was unlit and shadowy. The rain running down the big picture window and the streetlight shining through it made the room seem underwater in the glimpse I had before I crouched and rolled as I pushed the door wide open. A shot whistled past and above me. I scrambled to take cover behind a big chair. I'd never held a gun in my life, but I was regretting my lack of firepower at this instant.
There was a scream from somewhere else in the big house. I thought it came from the back, maybe from the family room.
Where was Tolliver? But he'd have heard the shot. He'd be careful.
For an unbearably long moment, nothing more happened. I wondered how many people were hiding from each other in these rooms, and I wondered if I'd survive to find out.
Gradually, my eyes became used to the faint and watery light. Though the drapes had been partially drawn, I could identify the furniture by shape.
There was another doorway directly opposite the front entrance, and I was pretty sure that was where the shot had come from. I took a deep breath and rolled from the armchair to a coffee table. Next step, the couch. That would put me within a few feet of the other doorway, which was the only way into the rest of the house, if I was remembering the layout correctly.
"Nell!" I yelled, hoping to distract the shooter from Tolliver's progress, wherever he was. "Sybil!"
There was an answering shriek from the second floor. I didn't know which one of them was yelling, and I didn't know the location or number of people in the house, but I did know all of them were alive. Not a buzz in my head.
I'd been feeling very determined, but now the storm kicked up a notch. The rain began lashing harder at the window and soaking the carpet through the open front door. The rumble of thunder became almost continuous, and the crack of lightning followed right after. I felt as though I was pinned on a map and the lightning could see me, was tracking me, getting closer and closer until it could hit me again. Then I'd lose everything. The unimaginable pain would arc through me for the second time, and I'd lose my sight or my memory or the use of my leg, or something else
