“And what, men don’t have fingernails?”
“Let me continue. This is Beth’s picnic basket. If she were labeling it, she’d have used an ink pen, or a knife or other sharp object.”
“And she’d have used her own initials.”
“Exactly.”
“So maybe she’s got a fuck buddy with the initials LV. They go on a picnic, spread out a big blanket, eat some food, and suddenly he’s all over her. She’s all ‘Oh, LV! LV!’ They have wild monkey sex right in the middle of the day in some deserted area tucked behind a sand dune. It’s their special place. They’re lying on the blanket after doing it, thoroughly spent, and our sanctimonious little Beth is all raptured up ‘cause it’s been a long time, and she gathers up her strength and scratches his initials on the basket.”
I looked at her as I often did, with complete amazement. “Why is it that all your scenarios involve sex?”
“Why is it that yours don’t?”
She had me there. I decided to move along. “Let’s frame it a different way.”
She shrugged.
“You still haven’t proven the marks were made by a woman.”
“I’m getting to that.”
“You’re just trying to be dramatic. Like some detective in a stupid movie.”
“It’s my one opportunity.”
“When you fall asleep tonight I might super glue your dick to your stomach.”
I looked at her as I often did, with complete horror. I handed her the little sharp piece I’d put in my pocket earlier, just before the kid burned his back in my fire pit. She looked at it and wrinkled her nose, turned her hand and let it fall to the kitchen counter.
“That’s disgusting,” she said.
“But you’ll concede it’s a woman’s fingernail?”
“Not Beth’s.”
“Right, not Beth’s. But a woman’s. And suppose she was scratching her own initials into the bottom of the basket, and had to use her fingernail because she didn’t have access to an ink pen, a knife, or any other type of sharp object.”
“Like what, a prisoner?”
“Exactly like a prisoner, except that she has a northern accent.”
“A northern accent.”
“Yup.”
“And this you can tell from her fingernail.”
I smiled, enjoying the moment.
Rachel abruptly crossed the floor to the cabinet that housed the odds and ends. She pushed a few objects around with her finger and eventually picked up a small tube and held it between her thumb and forefinger so I could see it clearly.
Super Glue.
She sighed. “I’m tired, Kevin. Just say it. Who do you think made these scratches in Beth’s picnic basket?”
“Libby Vail.”
Chapter 21
A LONG, LOW rumble woke us up an hour before dawn. Remembering what happened the last time I heard that sound, I jumped out of bed and checked the window, wondering if another hail storm was headed our way. Thankfully, all was calm. Patches of heat lightning lit up the distant sky.
“You okay?” I said.
Rachel murmured, “I’m tired. Go back to sleep.”
“How’d you know the kid’s name?”
“What kid?” She seemed half asleep as she said it.
I raised the volume in my voice to a conversational level. “The kid that got burned in the pig pit yesterday, the fire ant kid.”
She lay still a moment, and then yawned. “I went to check on him in the hospital.”
“When?”
“The morning after that thing with the fire ants.”
She settled back into her breathing rhythm and I thought about that morning and how I’d gone for a long run. I remembered returning to the Inn, and Beth mentioning Rachel had gone somewhere in the car. So that made sense. But Rachel had gone to see the kid
“You saw him again, though.”
She hesitated a moment, then sighed and propped herself up on one elbow.
