“It’s Sheriff Brady,” Amy explained. “She came to talk to you about your father.”
The rocking ceased abruptly. Suddenly, Holly lurched to her feet. Out of a stark, pale face, two deeply troubled eyes stared at Joanna. “Where is he?” Holly demanded. “Tell me where he is. I have to see him. He was supposed to make arrangements for a settlement. He promised. But then he disappeared. No one knows where he is.”
“I’m afraid your father won’t be able to carry through on any promises,” Joanna said quietly. “He’s dead. He died sometime between Tuesday night and now. They’ll be able to fix the time better once they do the autopsy.”
“My father dead?” Holly Patterson repeated slowly, sinking back into the chair as though her legs no longer had the capability of supporting her. “He’s dead?”
“Yes, you see…”
Holly Patterson doubled over, as with a sudden attack of appendicitis, clutching her abdomen and sobbing. “Nooooooo. He can’t be dead. I won’t let him. I never wanted him dead. Never!”
Amy Baxter moved forward quickly and knelt beside the chair.
“It’s okay, Holly. Hush now. Everyone knows it’s not your fault.”
“Oh, but it is,” Holly groaned. “Don’t you understand? It is my fault. All of it. I didn’t want him dead. I just wanted him to tell me to my face that he was sorry for what he did to me. That’s all. I never should have come back to this terrible place. Never!”
“Please, Holly,” Amy begged, “don’t take it all on yourself. You didn’t do it.”
“How did he die?” Holly was asking, her mouth still muffled by her hand. “Please don’t tell me he committed suicide. I can stand anything but that.”
Joanna could see no sense in pulling punches. Better to let all the bad news out at once and give her a chance to start assimilating it while she had someone like Amy Baxter there to help as needed.
“We’re investigating his death as a possible homicide,” Joanna answered carefully. “I wanted you to hear that from someone in an official capacity.”
“You mean he didn’t kill himself then?” Holly asked, suddenly sitting up straight and pulling her hand away from her face. “You mean someone else did it?”
“That’s the way it looks….
Holly Patterson let out a long sigh. “Thank God. I couldn’t have stood it if he had done it himself. It would have driven me crazy, but if somebody else did it…”
“Good girl,” Amy said, rubbing the back of Holly’s neck as if to remove some of the tension. “Let it go. Don’t hold on to it.”
Holly Patterson closed her eyes and leaned back into the neck rub. “I should go see Mother about this,” she whispered softly. “Mother will know what to do.”
Amy caught Joanna’s eye, shook her head, and held the fingers of one hand to her lips while she continued massaging Holly’s neck with the other. “You can’t go see your mother, Holly. I’ve already explained that to you. Your mother is dead, remember? She died five years ago. We’ve been over to the cemetery and seen her grave.”
“But I saw her. The other day in town, remember?”
“That was your sister, Ivy. She looks just like your mother used to look when you last remembered her.”
“That can’t be my sister. Ivy’s a little girl. She’s a baby.”
“Of course she is,” Amy said soothingly. “A little baby. Why don’t you rest awhile now, Holly? When you wake up later, maybe we can make better sense of this.”
Holly nodded but said nothing. There was a minute or so of silence. By the end of it, Holly was sound asleep.
Amy turned to Joanna. “I could call Mrs. Gonzoles, but if you don’t mind, would you help me get her back into the bed? She hasn’t been eating right, and she’s barely been sleeping at all during the night. After something like this during the day, though, she’ll nap for hours.”
Holding Holly Patterson between them, Amy and Joanna wrestled the dozing woman from the chair to the bed, then Joanna followed Amy down both the hall and stairs.
“What’s wrong with her?” Joanna asked.
“What isn’t wrong with her is probably a better question,” Amy Baxter said. “It’s just what I was afraid of. Being here has been way too hard on her. You’re looking at a textbook case. Start with a dash of incest, add in a mostly dysfunctional family, stir in some recreational drug use and a fistful of self-loathing, and you end up with a very troubled woman.”
“Ernie Carpenter is the homicide detective on her father’s case. He may need to talk to her. Do you think she’ll be able to handle answering questions?”
Amy shrugged. “That’s anybody’s guess. He’s more than welcome to try, but I don’t know how much good it will do. Sometimes she’s better than others. Have him call first to see what kind of shape she’s in.”
“She acts like she’s on drugs,” Joanna observed thoughtfully.
Amy Baxter answered with a nod. “Not recently, though. She still suffers from flashbacks, occasional echoes of LSD from her misspent youth.” Amy Baxter and Joanna were standing at the bottom of the stairway with Amy Baxter’s hand still on the polished mahogany banister.
“Thanks for all the help,” she said.
“It was no trouble,” Joanna returned.
