Deep South

by Nevada Barr

  Distrust, so strong it threatened to become panic, engulfed her at the sight of him. Why, she couldn’t remember. All she remembered was that they’d been friends. She didn’t feel in the least friendly. She was scared. For a moment, she tried to ignite her fear, turn it to anger, but she hadn’t the strength.

  Ignoring the fear and the sheriff, she tried to raise her left hand. The arm was immobilized. She had better luck with the right. Sensing it would be most unwise to move her head, she let the hand make its discoveries. Her face was swollen. One eye was closed beneath a tender and jellied mass that had once been an eyelid. The other was better. It would open. Her nose wasn’t broken. Several teeth were loose, but running her tongue over the familiar mouthscape, she detected no gaps. Her skin had survived intact; no cuts or gashes that she could find.

  A woman is never too old for vanity, and Anna was relieved. For a few weeks, she might sport a visage that would give the kiddies nightmares, but she should heal.

  “What happened?” the sheriff asked, and once again Anna was filled with alarm.

  Had he been the one? Was that why she distrusted him? Bits of memory were floating up like the words in the window of the Magic 8-Ball she’d owned as a child. She would share none of it with Davidson till she knew why the little hairs on the back of her neck were crawling.

  “You tell me,” she managed. Her voice was cracked and whisper-thin.

  “Would you like some water?” he asked solicitously. He put a plastic cup with a straw in it in her good hand.

  Anna’s throat was so dry that she was surprised dust devils hadn’t whirled out on her words, but she didn’t feel thirsty. An odd sensation. As she wet her mouth and throat, she noticed she was on an IV. Probably normal saline for dehydration. That would explain it.

  Paul Davidson took the cup from her and set it back on a rolling bed table, adjusting both so they would be near at hand when next she wanted a drink.

  Anna was unimpressed. Sleazeballs and dirtbags occasionally had excellent manners. It proved nothing. “Tell me what you know,” she said and was pleased her voice sounded stronger. “I can’t remember much.” With that half-truth, she realized she’d joined Lyle, Brandon, Thad and Heather in the epidemic of amnesia that was sweeping the southland.

  “Some campers from Knoxville found you a little before ten this morning.”

  “What time is it now?” she interrupted.

  Davidson looked at his watch. “Five-thirty-seven.”

  Anna nodded. She was reassured. It wouldn’t have surprised her if she’d been unconscious for six months. Half a day. Not bad. Not so frightening.

  “Keep going,” she said. Then, because she was helpless and not because she was feeling polite, she added: “Please.”

  “You scared them about half to death. You were up top the bank about a dozen feet from where we carried out the Posey girl. When you stuck your head out, the woman thought you were a bear.”

  “I must look pretty bad,” Anna said. It wasn’t a question, and he didn’t contradict her.

  “Her husband was a city fireman in Tennessee and knew first aid. He stayed with you while she ran back to the campground and found Frank. Frank got hold of Barth, and he radioed me. I called the ambulance out of Utica. You were dehydrated and not clear in the head, but you were a handful. You caught hold of the door frame and kept them from putting the stretcher in the ambulance. I got another call and didn’t get to Rocky till you’d been taken away, but I heard an earful when the boys got back. They said you wouldn’t let them load you till you’d talked with Barth. That you screamed ‘my ankle, my ankle.’ ”

  Her ankle. Wrapping it with canvas. The memory clattered through her head like a video on fast forward, leaving an ache behind. To her astonishment and relief, she also knew why she’d protected the ankle. Surreptitiously, she moved her cup of water behind the carafe out of Davidson’s line of sight.

  “They said you fought like a wounded cat till they got scared you would hurt yourself more than a delay would and let you have your own way. They got ordered out of their own ambulance while you had a private ranger meeting. After that, they said you were the ideal patient.”

  “Unconscious,” Anna said, and he laughed.

  “I strong-armed the doctor here into telling me how you were. Actually, it wasn’t too tough; the doctor is my deputy’s brother-in-law.”

  Anna tried to roll her eyes, but it hurt too much. There was something unsettling about having Sheriff Davidson know more about her than she knew herself, to have him talk to a doctor she couldn’t remember about her medical condition. Anger wriggled wormlike under her breastbone. She was too weary to feed it.

  “You’ve got a great-granddaddy of a concussion, moderate to severe soft-tissue injuries to your neck and shoulders. Four cracked ribs, one broken. The humerus bone in your left arm is cracked, and your left eardrum was traumatized but not ruptured. The hearing should return in a day or two. Abrasions and contusions, two black eyes, loose teeth. But for the soft-tissue injuries, you should be pretty much up to snuff in a month or so.”

  Soft-tissue injuries would haunt her for a while. She knew that. She’d injured her neck and back a couple times before. Muscles had long memories and did not forgive as completely as bone.

  Paul was done talking. Anna had nothing to say and no energy to say it. Silence filled the room till small sounds from the hall crept into her awareness: a PA, wheels on linoleum, voices.

  At length Paul said: “What was all that with Barth about?” His voice was oh-so-conversational, but Anna continued to be infected with distrust.

  “I’ll have to ask him,” she replied.

  “He was pretty closemouthed about it to me,” Davidson said. A note of professional irritation colored his voice. “If it has anything to do with the Posey murder or the attack on you, I’d appreciate being let in on it.”

  They were on more formal ground now, down to the business of criminal investigation.

  Anna dutifully related nearly everything she could remember. If he was there, she wasn’t telling him anything new; if he wasn’t, he needed to know. She’d been out walking. Rain had started. She’d stopped on the Old Trace. The grave, the bones, she didn’t mention for a couple reasons: the fear she felt and the sensation she’d imagined it. Before she went out on that limb, she wanted to talk to Barth.

  Somebody had bagged her from behind, sat on her, slipped a noose around her neck and tried to beat her to death.

  “The canvas he put over your head probably saved you from deafness. You were lucky.”

  “A veritable leprechaun,” Anna said dryly.

  Paul had the good manners to apologize for his choice of words.

  “I got away and ran for it. Crawled for it,” she finished.

  “My Lord!” Davidson had lost color under his tan, leaving his skin a pale muddy tone and his face looking old. “My Lord,” he said again, then breathed slowly through his nostrils as if fighting a tidal wave of emotion. He looked like he was going to be sick, and some of Anna’s distrust wavered and melted. Some. Not all.

  “So you have no idea who attacked you? None at all?”

  “None,” Anna lied.

  The sheriff’s hands clenched on the wooden arms of the chair where he sat, the skin drawn and bloodless.

  And unmarked. Anna’s assailant had been bare-handed; she’d felt the heat from his skin when he’d grabbed her leg. The man who’d attacked her would have scraped knuckles. Her fear of Davidson didn’t stem from the assault. Had Anna’s ribs not been causing her so much pain, she would have breathed more easily. She took another sip of water, careless of the cup. She no longer needed to check out Davidson’s fingerprints.

  “How did you get loose of this guy?” the sheriff asked.

  Anna didn’t know. She closed her one good eye. The effort of remembering sunk her back into a nightmare so vivid sweat stood out on her forehead, salt stinging in the abrasions made by fist and canvas. The fingers of her right ha
nd tingled and ached. She was so afraid she jerked, spiking pain in to her fragile cranium.

  Anna opened her eye and told Paul how she had gotten away.

  “I hope the bastard never walks upright again,” he said with unpriest-like viciousness, and Anna was pleased. “I’ll put the word out to area hospitals to report any man seeking treatment for groin injuries.”

  “Good,” Anna said wearily. “I think I ruptured one of his testicles. That’s got to be debilitating.”

  “Gee, you think?” Davidson said. Anna thought she heard a smile in his voice but hadn’t the energy to open her eye and see. She wondered why she had a bad feeling about him. He seemed like a nice enough man.

  “Tell Barth I need to see him first thing,” Anna said. She hoped she’d said it aloud because she hadn’t the strength to repeat herself.

  ★ 18 ★

  At eight-thirty the following morning Barth Dinkin presented himself. Anna’s mind had cleared somewhat. More chunks of memory were returned. Nothing from an hour or so before the attack, but much of what happened afterward had been restored. Other than that, she felt worse than ever, her muscles stiffened and her knitting bones angry.

  “You look ...” Barth was at a loss for words. He stood at the foot of her bed, his Stetson in his hands, his strange light eyes full of pain and awkwardness.

  “Like shit. I know,” Anna said. “Did you get the print off my ankle?”

  “A partial. The mud was pretty bad smeared. I got a comparison with the one was lifted from Miss Posey’s neck. They matched on seven points. ‘Bout a sixty percent chance they came from the same person. I sent ’em off to run ’em against FBI files. Told them the case and they got right on it, but we got no matches.”

  “I didn’t think you would. Worth a shot.”

  “I thought that print on the girl’s neck was yours,” Barth said.

  “So did I. Sheriff Davidson said a print was on the pulse point. It never occurred to me to ask which one. I never touched the carotid. It was under the noose. I checked at wrist and knee. I should have made the connection earlier, but I didn’t—not till my own head was in a sack.” Anna rested for a minute, thinking. Her brain was not yet sufficiently recovered that she could think and talk at the same time.

  When she opened her eyes—both now, though the left was merely a gummy slit—Barth was standing as she’d left him. “Get me some clothes,” she said. “My house isn’t locked. Ask Frank if he’ll look after the animals. He probably already is, but check for me if you would. Get hold of Steve Stilwell. Tell him to meet us at the Honda dealer’s in Pearl. If there’s more than one, start with the first in the phone book. What time is it?”

  “Eight-thirty-seven, but—”

  “Tell him to meet us there at eleven. Will that give you enough time to get to Rocky and back?”

  Barth looked both miserable and obstinate. His gaze wandered around the room looking for his courage. When he found it, he met Anna’s eye.

  “Might could,” he said. “But you’re beat up bad. You don’t need to be getting up and running around about now. You’ll bust something loose.”

  “That’s my problem,” she replied coldly.

  “Not just. I been here a long time. You’re the first lady ranger we’ve had. It’s not going to look good if you get yourself killed because I was dragging you around when you were supposed to be in the hospital.”

  “It didn’t seem to bother you much when you and Randy decided to hang me out to dry on that car stop.” Low blow. Anna felt momentary regret as she saw it smash into Barth’s face.

  “That was before. I apologized for that,” he said simply.

  It wasn’t the reminder of the apology that shamed Anna out of her peevish hatefulness, it was the word “before.” Before Barth knew her, before he liked her, before he cared if she lived or died.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Blood under the bridge. I’m not my usual sunny self this morning.”

  Barth cleared his throat, an aborted laugh.

  “I’ll okay it with the doctor. If he says not to check out, then I’ll stay,” she promised virtuously.

  Barth nodded, looking as if he pitied Dr. Munroe. “Anything in particular you want from your house?”

  “Boots, socks, underwear. You’ll find it. My uniform. Skip the duty belt. I couldn’t buckle it, much less draw my weapon.”

  “That’s the point I was making,” Barth tried again. “Not fit for duty.” A look must have crossed Anna’s bruised face that alarmed him. “Be back in an hour and a half, maybe two,” he said.

  Dr. Munroe, seemingly the kindest of men, became huffy the instant his authority was questioned. When Anna asked if she could be released, he told her she needed to remain in the hospital for observation another day at least, preferably two. If she left, he would not be responsible for her health. Of course, no one would hold a gun to her head. If she wanted to leave, she could.

  Anna took that as a yes.

  When Barth returned, she wasn’t a hundred percent sure she could do the things she’d planned but had no intention of admitting it to anyone, least of all herself.

  The IV had been unhooked the previous night when she began ingesting liquids on her own. She didn’t have to resort to anything as theatrical as pulling bloody needles from her arm, but moving had proved a struggle.

  By dint of will, and the kind auspices of a hydraulic bed, she sat up straight, then worked her legs over the side. The pain in her neck, shoulders, head—basically all points north of her navel—was bad, but there’d been only token dizziness. As long as she didn’t shake her head or stand quickly, it was controllable. Since she could scarcely move her head and could barely stand at all, she didn’t think it would be a problem.

  Till Barth returned, she tormented her tortured body with small yogic stretches. Though she’d undoubtedly pay for this extravagance later, the movement restored enough range to her neck muscles that she could twist her head ten degrees off center without actually screaming out loud. Her right arm was an even more unqualified success. The upper arm was badly bruised but bone had not been broken, muscle traumatized or tendons tom. Anna felt particularly good about her right arm. Maybe she should have told Barth to bring her duty belt after all.

  The hard-won sense of accomplishment was snatched away by the interruption of the phone. John Brown, the chief ranger, was on the other end of the line. Beneath his probably heartfelt condolences, she heard a second message, one that comes to most women in law enforcement whether they deserve it or not.

  Maybe she’d been hurt, not because she was careless, not because there were risks inherent to the profession, but because she was female.

  Little. Weak.

  The effort of sitting up was nothing compared to that of making light of her injuries to her boss. When she was finally able to get off the phone, her head was pounding and she was drenched with sweat that reeked of sickness.

  True to his word, if not overly enthusiastic in the execution of it, Barth returned at eleven o’clock bearing a clean uniform and boots. Looking far more grim than Anna thought her condition warranted, he left her clothes on the chair and told her he’d wait outside.

  Till she lost it, Anna’d not realized the agility required to dress oneself. By lying on the bed and wriggling, she managed to get on socks, panties, and trousers. During the process she heard her boots fall to the floor. Retrieving and donning them seemed impossible in her diminished state.

  The shirt was beyond her capabilities. Her left arm was not quite useless but very nearly so. Shoulder and neck muscles she might have used to circumvent it were in full rebellion.

  “Barth,” she called through the door.

  “I’m here.”

  “I’m having trouble with my top.”

  Silence followed. Anna was about to holler again when he replied.

  “I couldn’t find your, um. It. I went through drawers—I mean I didn’t go through them, like, just looked in them and didn’t find not
hing.”

  For a moment Anna was baffled. Then she laughed. A big mistake. The pain brought on coughing that racked her broken ribs. For a while she shut down, concentrating on pain management and oxygen. When she’d regained control, she said: “No, I burned those in 1971. I meant my shirt. Give me a hand.”

  Another silence followed by: “Why don’t you ring for the nurse?”

  “I’d rather not.”

  Barth knocked politely then opened the door, his eyes carefully downcast. “They didn’t release you, not properly, did they?” he asked accusingly.

  “The doctor said I could go,” Anna insisted stubbornly.

  “You lied.”

  “Okay, I lied.” The fact he was right sharpened her voice more than she liked. “Are you going to help me or not?” She couldn’t do it without him and waited, torn between irritation and hope, while he considered.

  “Don’t blame me if you get yourself permanently crippled up doing this,” he warned.

  “I won’t. Here.”

  Barth looked up at last. Out of deference to his sensibilities, Anna clutched her pillow modestly over her chest.

  The big ranger pinched up the proffered shirt. In his hands, it looked like doll clothes. “This isn’t in my job description,” he said woodenly. Having learned her lesson, Anna did not laugh. A very nearly irresistible urge to flash him seized her. Dr. Munroe’s painkillers, they lowered the inhibitions.

  “Just hold it up,” she said, careful not to think any wicked thoughts she might suddenly implement. “I’ll do the rest.”

  Dressed, Anna survived the baleful stares of the nurses and Barth’s unspoken disapproval, and made it unaided to his patrol car. The dizziness she was so pleased to have escaped found her halfway to the parking lot, but, like a practiced drunk, she trod carefully and managed without weaving or stumbling.