present nature, and what the future may hold.” She took my right hand and traced the lines with a bent finger.
“He was shot last night,” I said.
“I am sorry to hear that,” she said. “He is alive, no? I would hear it in your voice if he had been killed.”
“Yes, he’s alive.”
She nodded her head. She still did not look up from my hands. “You have lived a very hard life,” she said.
“I was a catcher,” I said. “That’s why my hands are so beat-up.”
She looked up at me for an instant. “That’s not what I’m looking at,” she said. “Your fate line is ragged. It shows much misfortune.”
“He was shot in a small town called Orcus Beach,” I said. “Does the name mean anything to you?”
“No,” she said. “Your fingers are well separated. You are a very independent person. But your last finger is set very low, which means you’ve had to work very hard.”
I watched her white head as she held my hand. The oxygen tank hissed in the corner.
“Do you see how your first finger is bending toward your middle finger? That means you are a very persistent man. Very stubborn. And this separation between your head line and your life line, it means you need to work very hard on controlling your temper.”
“Orcus Beach,” I said. “That’s where Maria is, isn’t she?”
She looked up at me. “If that’s true, it’s news to me.” She looked me right in the eye as she said it. If she was lying, she was damned good at it.
“Ma’am, there’s a shotgun in this house,” I said. “Do you know where it is?”
A step behind me, and then a voice from the doorway. “You mean this shotgun?” It was William, back from his phone call, pointing the shotgun directly at my head.
“What are you doing?” I said, trying to keep my voice level. “Put the gun down.”
“William, dear,” she said. “Do as the man says. You’re going to hurt somebody.”
Hurt somebody, she says. If he unloads both barrels of that thing, he’ll do more than hurt somebody.
“William,” I said. “If you fire that weapon, you’ll kill both of us. Do you understand?”
“You can’t just barge in here without me doing something about it,” he said. The gun started to waver in his hands. His face was turning red.
“Put it down,” I said.
“You think I’m just an old man who can’t protect anybody?”
“Obviously, you can,” I said. “Now put it down.”
He looked at the gun. His face kept getting redder.
Goddamn it, I thought. The gun’s too heavy. He’s gonna slip and blow both our heads off.
“William!” I said. I could feel the sweat running down my back. “I swear to God, if you fire a shotgun from there, you’ll kill both of us! Do you understand me?”
“I’m sorry, Arabella,” he said. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
And then he lowered the gun. I got up out of my crouch, nearly falling over when my legs cramped up. The movement surprised him, and he started to bring the gun back up at me. I took it away from him. For a single moment, I felt like bashing his old fool head in with the butt of the gun. Instead, I made myself take a deep breath.
I had the shotgun barrel in both hands now. This is not what I had been planning on doing. Now with my fingerprints all over the thing, I’d have some explaining to do.
“Ah hell, as long as I’m touching it,” I said. It was a classic breach-action Parker, the kind of shotgun some of the older hunters still liked to use. I broke it open slowly so the shells wouldn’t eject across the room. They weren’t the buckshot shells I was expecting. They were slugs, which made sense if the owner was going after big game, like deer or bear.
“Well, the good news,” I said, “is that you wouldn’t have killed both of us after all. Assuming you didn’t miss.”
“I wouldn’t have missed,” he said. He was holding on to the doorframe with both hands, catching his breath.
“That’s great,” I said. “And of course blowing two slugs through my head wouldn’t have bothered the woman sitting right next to me.”
“William, dear,” she said. “You really need to think about things before you do them. You’ve always been too impulsive. You know that.”
“Go sit in the chair,” I said. “You’ve had a busy day.”
I looked at the gun again. If Leopold had used this gun to shoot Randy, I thought, then he didn’t hide it. He cleaned it and put in slugs. It was possible, but it didn’t seem likely.
“Where was your son last night?” I asked her.
“Ask him yourself,” William said as he slowly lowered himself into the chair. “He’s on his way.”
“Good man,” I said. “How long until he gets here?”
“Not long,” he said. “And he won’t be happy.”
I was waiting outside for him when he finally pulled up in his truck. He hit the brakes with such a jolt it sent one of his ladders flying off the rack. When he came charging out of the truck, I moved out onto the cold, hard ground of his front lawn, my hands in the air, about shoulder height. With your hands up, you look like you want peace, but at the same time you’ve got them ready for anything else.
He didn’t say a word. He came right at me and started swinging. He was the same little fireplug I remembered from our first meeting, built like a bantamweight boxer. Today, he was wearing his white painting overalls, complete with the little white hat.
I blocked a few of his punches and then slipped one into the ribs. I shouldn’t have enjoyed seeing the wind go out of him, but I couldn’t help myself. When you get thrown down a flight of stairs, handcuffed to the wall, and then threatened with a shotgun, it’s not something you can let go of too easily. Even if the guy admits he made a mistake.
“Little different story, isn’t it,” I said, ducking a big overhand haymaker. “When you don’t have a shotgun or your muscle-head son hiding behind the door.”
“What the hell are you doing here anyway?” he said as he backed up to regroup. “You got no business here.”
“Randy got shot yesterday,” I said.
He stopped moving. “What does that have to do with us?” he said.
“Did you shoot him?” I said.
He shook his head. “No, I didn’t shoot him,” he said.
His little white hat had come off. It was blowing away. I looked him in the eye.
He was telling the truth.
“Why would you even think that?” he said. “What reason would I have to shoot him?”
“Because he found your sister,” I said.
“What are you talking about?”
“I know where she is,” I said.
His eyes narrowed.
Here it comes, I thought. This will tell me something.
“I know she’s in Orcus Beach,” I said.
The eyes. If he doesn’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll see the confusion in his eyes. If it’s the truth, he’ll look away.
He looked away.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. But it was too late.
“How did Randy find out?” I said. “Did he come back here? Did you tell him where she is?”
“Of course not,” he said.
“Your mother? Your son? How about…” I stopped.
“Nobody told him anything,” he said.
“Maria’s daughter,” I said. “What was her name, Delilah?”
