'You followed me?' Victor asked incredulously. 'I don't fucking believe it, Uncle David.'
'Language,' wheezed the man who'd just called me a bitch.
'So, you decided I had a sexual interest in Victor?' I said, with what I thought was remarkable dignity.
'I just wanted to be sure he was okay,' protested David. 'Joel and Diane are so wrapped up in the situation about Tabitha, and Felicia went to work, and my parents are at home… my mother's having a bad day… so I thought someone should be watching out for what Victor was doing. He doesn't need to be around people like you.'
'And you thought calling me names fell into the category of watching out for Victor?' Tolliver had come to stand beside me, and I felt like kissing the hand that had hit David.
'I thought,' he began, and then he turned so red I thought his blood pressure had soared. He cleared his throat, leaned over so he could clutch the back of a chair for support, and began again. 'I thought the boys had come up here for…'
I wasn't going to help him out. Tolliver and I waited obviously and patiently for David to finish his sentence. Barney and Victor exchanged glances that fully expressed how lame this idea had been, and how stupid Uncle David had been to follow Victor. Grown-ups!
'I thought they were going to hang out with you two because they think you're cool,' David said weakly, which was a big fat lie.
'We are,' I said. 'Aren't we, Tolliver?'
'Sure,' he said. He patted my hand with his bruised one.
David finally recovered enough to move around the back of the chair and sit down, though we hadn't asked him.
'Maybe you could tell us why you thought you could call me names, and that would be okay?' I asked, my voice sweet and gentle.
'I am sorry,' he said finally, just when my patience was running out. 'Though I don't know why your brother had to hit me.'
'He's not my brother, but he is my best friend,' I said, to my own amazement. 'And he doesn't like it when people call me names. Wouldn't you want to hit someone who called Diane a thieving bitch?'
'She got some phone calls after Tabitha vanished,' David said unexpectedly. 'People called her all kinds of things. Especially after the story got out about her quarrel with Tabitha that morning. People can be so ugly, you wouldn't believe.'
'Actually, I think I would,' I said.
It took David a minute to get that, but when he did, the red crept over his face and shoulders like a tide rolling in. 'Okay, I'm feeling pretty bad now,' he said. 'I did a stupid thing. I can see Victor's okay, he's got his best bud with him, everything's cool. I know I acted like an idiot. Hey, Barney,' David said, with a pretty pathetic attempt at regaining his superiority. 'How are you, guy?'
Barney looked embarrassed. 'Fine, Mr. Morgenstern,' the boy said. 'You?' Then he gasped and choked back a laugh at his automatic question.
'I've been better,' David said, a bit more steadily. 'Victor, why don't you and Barney run along? I've got to talk to Miss Connelly and Mr. Lang.'
'Okay, Uncle David, if you're sure you're going to be okay,' Victor said, with false solicitousness.
David gave him such a sharp look I thought Victor would probably end up paying for his moment of fun, but Victor maintained his serious look quite well. 'Come on Barney,' he said. 'The grown-ups want to talk.' They put their letter-man jackets back on and left the room, giving each other secret grins as soon as they were out of David's eyesight.
The door closed behind them with a thunk. We might as well leave it open, we were getting so much traffic.
Tolliver and I sat on the love seat and waited for David to flounder ahead.
'Diane says you're getting the reward for finding Tabitha's body,' David said.
We waited.
'Why don't you say something?' he asked, his temper flaring up again. Just when you thought the fire had been stomped out, it popped up again.
'What's to say?' I said.
'You're taking money from my brother and his wife,' David said. 'Money they need.'
'I need it too,' I pointed out reasonably. 'And I earned it. I'll bet not all the money came from Joel and Diane, either.'
He was taken aback. 'Well, there were donations,' he said. 'A lot from Fred, and a chunk from our parents, of course.'
I couldn't have had a better lead-in if I'd ordered it. 'Was your father especially close to Tabitha?'
'Yeah, he was,' David said. His blue eyes were focused on another time, and he said, 'My dad is a great guy. When he and Mom would go to Nashville to visit Diane and Joel, Dad would take Tabitha all the way out to the stables for her riding lessons. He went to her softball games.'
'And your mother went along?'
'No. I'm sure you noticed yesterday that she was too sick to do that much. The Parkinson's is eating her up. Sometimes she'd ride over to Nashville, but she'd just stay at the house with Diane. She's nuts about Diane. Of course, she liked Whitney, too.'
