Charlaine Harris (7 page)

We finished our game of Scrabble. I won.

We drove to a little town just five miles away to eat supper. Tolliver didn't seem keen on going back to the motel diner, and I didn't tease him about the waitress. We had country-fried steak, mashed potatoes, and lima beans at a near-duplicated Kountry Good Eats, and it was actually very tasty. The ambience was familiar: Formica-topped tables, cracked linoleum floor, two tired waitresses, and a man behind the counter, the manager. The iced tea was good, too.

“You know someone followed us here,” Tolliver said, as the waitress took our plates and strode toward the kitchen. He fished out his wallet to pay our tab.

“A girl,” I said. “In a Honda.”

“Yeah. I guess she's a deputy, too? She looks awful young. Or maybe they just deputized her for this.”

“She's probably cold sitting out there in that little Honda.”

“Well, that's her job.”

We paid, tipped, and left. The threatened rain was finally upon us, and Tolliver and I ran to the car. He'd clicked it unlocked as we left the restaurant, and I dove inside as fast as I could. I hate being wet. I hate storms. I won't talk on the phone when it's raining hard.

At least there was no thunder this time.

“I don't understand,” Tolliver had said once, exasperated at not being able to call me when he was a few miles away. “Why? The worst has already happened. You've already been hit by lightning. What are the odds of that happening twice?”

“What were the odds of it happening once?” I countered, though my real reasons were probably not what he supposed.

We drove slowly, and the red Honda stuck with us. The roads around Sarne were narrow and flanked by some steep terrain, and there was the ever-present possibility a deer would dash across the road.

When we got to the motel, we had a debate about whether to stop and let the unknown girl see where we were staying (which she'd already know if she was a cop) or keep riding around until she tired of following us. Going to the police station, we agreed, felt silly. After all, she hadn't threatened us or done anything other than ride behind us.

It was my bladder that determined our course of action. We pulled in, I dashed into my room, and by the time I came out, Tolliver reported, “She's trying to make up her mind to come over and knock on the door.” He was concealed behind the curtains, and he hadn't turned on a light in the room.

I joined him, and it was like watching a pantomime. The girl's car was clearly lit up by the lights in the parking lot, and she was recognizable; that is, I'd be able to pick her out in a police lineup now, though her features weren't crystal clear. She had short brown hair worn in a longer version of a standard boys' haircut, which looked cute on her, since she was a petite thing. She was maybe seventeen, maybe younger, and she had a pouting lower lip. She was wearing enough eye makeup for three ordinary women. Her small face had that look so common in teenage girls from homes where all is not well—part defiant, part vulnerable, all wary.

Cameron had worn that expression on her face all too often.

“How much are you willing to put down on this? I think she'll give up and drive away. We're too scary for her.” Tolliver put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed it.

“Nah, she's coming in,” I said with assurance. “I'd be taking your money too easily. See? She's daring herself.”

Rain began to pelt down again as she made up her mind to brave us. She launched herself from the car and dashed for my door. She pounded on it twice.

Tolliver turned on the lamp beside the bed as I answered her summons.

She glared at me. “You the woman that finds bodies?”

“You know I am, or you wouldn't have been following us. I'm Harper Connelly. Come in.” I stepped back, and, shooting me a suspicious look, she entered the room. She looked around carefully. Tolliver was sitting in the chair trying to look harmless. “This is my brother Tolliver Lang,” I said. “He travels with me. You want a Diet Coke?”

“Sure,” she said, as if turning down a soft drink was unthinkable. Tolliver got one out of the ice chest and handed it to her. She took it with her arm extended as far as she could reach, to keep her distance from him. I pushed the other chair out to indicate she should use it, and I perched on the side of the bed.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

“You can tell me what happened to my brother. I'm not saying I think what you're doing is okay, or even morally defensible.” She glared at me. “But I want to know what you think.”

I thought she had a good civics teacher.

“Okay,” I said slowly. “Maybe first you could tell me who your brother is?”

She flushed red. She was accustomed to being a notable fish in a very small pond. “I'm Nell,” she said, clipping off the words. “Mary Nell Teague. Dell was my brother.”

“You can't be much younger than he was.”

“We were ten months apart.”

Tolliver and I looked at each other briefly. This girl was not only a minor, but the sister of a murder victim. And I was willing to bet she'd never been out of Sarne for more than a two-week vacation.

“Morally defensible,” Tolliver repeated, as struck by the phrase as I'd been. He rolled the words over his tongue as if he was testing the taste of them.

“I mean, I think it's wrong, all right? Telling people what happened to their dead relatives. No offense, but you could be making all this up, right?”

No offense, my ass. I was sick of people telling me I was evil. “Listen, Nell,” I said, trying my best to keep my voice under strict control. “I make my living the best way I know how. For you to assume I'm not honest
is
an offense to me. There's no way it couldn't be.”

Maybe she wasn't used to her words being taken seriously. “Um, well, okay,” she muttered, clearly taken aback. “But listen, can you tell me? What you told my mom?”

“You're a minor. I don't want to get into trouble,” I said.

Tolliver looked as if he were mulling it over.

“Listen, I may be a kid, you know, but he was my brother! And I should know what happened to my brother!” There was a very real anguish behind her words.

We gave each other tiny nods.

“I don't believe he killed himself,” I said.

“I knew it,” she said. “I knew it.”

For someone who'd been so sure I was a fraud, she was taking my word without a second thought.

“So if he didn't kill himself,” she said, talking faster and faster, “then he didn't kill Teenie, and if he didn't kill Teenie, then he didn't . . .” She stopped with an almost comic expression of panic, her eyes popping wide and her mouth clamped together to block the crucial word in, whatever it might have been.

A pounding at the door startled Tolliver and me; we'd been staring at Nell Teague as if we could pry the end of the sentence out of her with our eyes.

“Wonderful,” I said after I looked through the peephole. “It's Sybil Teague, Tolliver.”

“Ohmigod,” said our visitor, who suddenly looked even younger than her age.

I cursed very thoroughly but silently, wishing that Sybil had arrived five minutes earlier. I had a fleeting idea that we could sneak Nell out through Tolliver's room, but as sure as we tried that, we'd be caught. After all, we hadn't done anything wrong. I opened the door, and Sybil came in like a well-groomed goddess of wrath.

“Is my child here?” she demanded, though we were making no move to conceal Nell, who was sitting in plain view. It was like she'd preplanned the moment.

“Right here,” Tolliver said gently, with an edge of sarcasm to his voice. Sybil flushed, her natural color warring with the carefully applied tints of rose and cream.

Sybil took in the sight of Nell sitting in the chair,
unmolested and with a Diet Coke clutched in her hand, and she seemed to deflate. “Where have you been, young lady?” she asked, rallying almost instantly. “I expected you home two hours ago.”

Fortunately for us, Nell decided to come clean. “I followed them. They went to Flo and Jo's for supper,” the teenager told her mother. “They took their time. I followed them here, and then I asked them if I could come in.”

“You drove back in the rain from that place, with the roads slick, in the dark?” Sybil Teague's face went even paler. “I'm glad I didn't know about it.”

“Mom, I've driven in rain plenty of times.”

“Oh, yes, in the two years you've been driving. You have nowhere near enough experience . . .” Sybil took a deep breath and made herself relax. “All right, Nell, I know you wanted to talk about what happened to your brother. God knows, I've wanted to find out, too. And I thought this woman would give me answers. I just have more questions than I started out with, now.”

“This woman” felt like throwing up her hands in exasperation. “This woman” did not like being spoken of as though she weren't there.

Paul Edwards appeared in the doorway behind Sybil. His hair was dark with rain. He put his hand on Sybil's shoulder, I thought to move her farther into the room so he could get out of the weather. I also thought it would be nice if they shut the door, since the wind was gusting in. Sybil stepped forward reluctantly, but his hand stayed on her shoulder.

For the first time, it occurred to me that there might be more between the two than attorney-client privilege. I'm just not as sharp about the living as I am the dead.

Nell's face shut down completely when she saw Paul Edwards. All the youth slid out of her mouth and eyes, and she looked like a hooker with her heavy eye makeup and tight clothes, instead of a cute kid trying on her personality.

“Hello, Miss Connelly, Mr. Lang,” Edwards said. He focused on Nell. “I'm glad we caught up with you, young lady.”

I wondered if Edwards was related to Sybil Teague's deceased husband. His ears were the same shape as Nell's, though otherwise she looked more like her mother.

“Right,” Nell said, in a voice as expressionless as they come. “Thanks for coming out to look for me, Mr. Edwards.” You could have cut the sarcasm with a chain saw.

“Your mother doesn't need anything else to worry about, Nell,” he said, with so much gentle reproof in his voice that I wanted to deck him. I had no doubt that Sybil Teague had suffered over the loss of her son, but I was pretty sure Dell's little sister had been missing him, too. If anything happened to Tolliver, I'd . . . I found I couldn't even imagine it.

I'd rather have been out doing “cause of death” for a whole cemetery than be standing in that room right then.

“Goodbye,” I said, making a hostess gesture toward the door. I was sure no hostess actually indicated her guests should leave, but this was my room, and I could behave as I chose. Everyone looked astonished except Tolliver, who smiled, just a twitch of the lips. I smiled myself, and out of habit they all responded, though uncertainly.

“Yes, of course. I'm sure you're tired,” Sybil said. Like a true lady, she was providing a reason for my discourtesy.

I opened my mouth to disagree, but Tolliver beat me to it. “We've had a long day,” he said with a smile. Mary Nell
Teague suddenly looked at him with more interest. When Tolliver smiles, it's so unexpected it gives you a pleasant surprise.

Within a minute, the mother and daughter and lawyer were on the other side of the door, which was exactly where I wanted them.

“Harper,” Tolliver said, in a reproving way.

“I know, I know,” I acknowledged, without any regret. “What do you think she was really here for?”

“I'm trying to figure it out. Wait a minute, which ‘she' do you mean?”

“I mean the mother.”

“Good. Me, too. You think she was here to find out what Nell was saying to us? Or to keep us from telling Nell anything?”

“Maybe we should be wondering why Nell was so determined to talk to us. You think she might actually know something about her brother's death?”

“We're getting too wrapped up in this. We need to get out of Sarne.”

“I agree. But I don't think the sheriff will let us leave.” I drooped on the end of the bed, trying not to look at myself in the mirror opposite after one quick glance. I looked too pale and even a little haggard. I looked like a woman who needed a big mug of hot chocolate and about ten hours' sleep.

I could do something about that. I always carry powdered hot chocolate with me, and there was a little coffeepot in the room. After making sure Tolliver didn't want any, I had a steaming mug in hand. I scooted up against the headboard, pillows stuffed behind my back, and looked at
Tolliver, who had slid down in the chair so that his long legs were fully extended. “What's our next appointment?” I asked.

“Memphis, in a week,” he said. “Occult Studies at some university.”

“A lecture?” I tried not to act as dismayed as I felt. I hated going back to Memphis, where I'd had the only easy part of life I could recall.