“You’re not making sense.”
“I have business to take care of.” He spoke slowly and enunciated carefully, like he thought the problem was me. “Billy wants to stop me. You get it now?”
“Clear as smoke,” I said.
“Do you remember me?”
I recalled what he’d said when he dragged me in the room and dropped me to the floor. He remembered me. “No,” I answered.
“I’m not surprised. It was a bad time.”
“What was?”
“You were naked. Too beat up—too cut up and bloody to be pretty.”
I didn’t say anything, but I knew exactly the moment he was talking about. After being left to bleed out behind a mud wall, I had gathered pants and a T-shirt, then staggered out to the road. I was found first by locals in a pickup truck, who wanted to kill me. There was nothing I could do. I was in a ditch saying my goodbyes to the world when a patrol ran them off. I was hustled into the back of a Humvee as a medic cut off my rags. As much as the cuts deep in my skin, I could feel the eyes on my body. The medic was kind and competent.
“You were there?” I asked.
“I was the first one to see you in the ditch. I called for the stretcher.”
“Thank you,” I said and I meant it.
Levi laughed again. “You’re a strange one,” he said. “I whack you on the head and you say thank you for something that wasn’t nothin’ years ago.”
“It saved my life.”
“Billy did that. I just rode along.”
I froze. My face was up, with my chin on the scratchy carpet. My chest was pinned to the floor by a man who could have killed me if he had been trying. The only thing I could see clearly were the flames in the stove. And the only thought in my head was that Billy had lied to me.
I had suspected that Billy Blevins was the corporal medic who had given me plasma and packed the worst of my wounds in the back of a rolling Humvee. In my dreams I saw his face. Over the roar of hard rubber tires on a crumbling desert road the only sound I heard—the one thing I could grasp without terror—was his voice telling me it would be okay.
For a couple of years I doubted the memory. It was a secret I kept, afraid it would turn out to be a dream born in pain and alcoholism. When I finally got the courage to share the memory with him, Billy said he wasn’t the man in the Humvee.
“Billy saved me?” I asked the question, almost forgetting that a man was sitting on my back with the answer.
“Course he did. He’s the medic.”
“I didn’t know.”
Levi laughed. His shaking body rocked my ribs, grinding my chest to the floor. “He didn’t tell you?” Then he laughed again like he just got the joke. “He wouldn’t. Mr. Straight. Mr. Reliable. Good old Mr. Tell the Truth and Damn the Consequences. He couldn’t tell you he found out who you were and where you were and showed up to get himself in your life. Sounds a little creepy, don’t it?” The laughter started again. Levi even wiggled his ass on my spine with his happy dance.
“Get off me,” I said.
“Nope,” he shot right back. “I don’t want to get arrested. And I don’t want to hurt you no more to make sure I don’t.”
“Then stop your stupid donkey braying or I won’t worry about hurting you when I get up from here.”
“That why they call you Hurricane? All that wind?” He leaned forward, putting more pressure from his knees on my shoulder joints. The pain locked me harder. Trying to roll only threatened to dislocate a shoulder. Levi put his hands on my neck and twisted his right knee down until I gasped. He whispered, “Me ’n’ Billy were always like two pages out of the same book. He put things together. I take them apart. I might have seen something in you back then too. But you looked already come-apart to me. You were his kind of girl. Damaged. Maybe now you want to ask yourself what he saw in my sister.”
I opened my mouth. Whether it was to scream or answer I wasn’t yet sure. I let all the sound die away as Levi lifted his weight from my back. I jerked my arms in despite the pain and pulled them under my body. The moment I pushed up he hit me again. This time it was with the heel of his boot. It struck between my flexed shoulder blades, right in the meat of the muscle to the right of my spine. It was a lightning bolt of pain. I dropped.
Levi Sharon ran out the front door.
I don’t know how long I remained face down on the floor, but it was a black and painful time. When I mustered the strength to turn myself over it was in fits and bucks. My joints screamed and my head throbbed. My body felt like a beer left in the car window on a hot day, like it could explode any second. There was blood in the back of my hair and if I moved my neck too far I became nauseated. It was so hot. I kept wondering why.
After a bit I realized I had a phone in my pocket and could call for help. I called Billy. He didn’t pick up. I called dispatch. Then I went to sleep.
When I woke I was wrapped in a cotton gown and clean sheets. My first thought was, who had undressed me? My second was, when had the sun come up? Outside my hospital-room window the sky was bright and cloudless.
Behind a partially drawn curtain, someone snorted. It was an aborted snore. The sound of a falling book and a big body trying to resettle in a small chair told me exactly who was there.
“Uncle Orson,” I said.
“Yeah,” he answered, with sleep in his voice. He pulled the curtain aside and straightened in his chair. “How’re you doing?”
“I feel like a bomb went off in my head and a family of skunks slept in my mouth.”
“That’s good.”
“Why is that good?”
“Because that’s exactly how you look.” He didn’t laugh. Uncle Orson did stand and pour me a cup of water from the plastic pitcher beside the bed.
“I want something stronger.”
“I brought you an orange soda.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
“I’m not an idiot. I know what you’re talking about. I’m just ignoring it.”
“As long as we got that settled,” I said, reaching out for the cup. “Give me the water.”
He handed it over. For some reason my attention fixed on the blurred and faded blue ink of a globe-and-anchor tattoo on his forearm. I took the cup with my left hand and touched the fingers of my right to his tattoo.
“It’s gotten old,” he said. “Just like me.”
“Do you wish it still looked like it did?”
“I got that thing in a dirty, back-alley Saigon shop. It was really just a chair under an umbrella between the back doors of a brothel and a bar. A terrible and wondrous time.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Sweetheart, wishing time away is like wishing yourself away.” He moved his arm. “That’s why I brought you orange soda. Want to tell me what happened?”
“First tell me, where are the cops? Someone should be here taking my statement. They need to be out looking for Levi Sharon.”
“Old Chuck was here. Billy has the word out on the guy that hit you. I imagine that everything that needs to happen is happenin’.”
“Was Billy here?” I didn’t look at my uncle when I asked the question. I watched the sun rise higher in the sky.
“Is that the question you wanted to ask in the first place?”
“Things have been difficult.” I stared into the infinite blue beyond my window.
“They are talking about him on the news. Saying he had something going on with that girl. Do you believe it?”
I shook my head and winced. The pain made clear to me for the first time how much I didn’t believe it. “I don’t know what I believe. But I don’t believe that.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to get out of here and do my job.” Most people would counsel rest and waiting. They would tell me t
o see the doctor and take any tests. The nice thing about an uncle who is an old marine is that he was never the cautious type. Uncle Orson said, “I had your truck towed to the hospital.”
“Did you bring me some clothes?”
“Jeans and shirt.”
“Socks? Underwear?”
“I wasn’t going to go digging in your delicates.”
So much for the toughness of old marines. “What did the doctor say?”
“Slight concussion. You got two stitches in your scalp. Rest and recover.”
“Do me a favor and go warm up the truck.”
Chapter 6
Getting out of the hospital wasn’t as quick as I’d hoped. Dealing with bureaucracy is never an easy or rewarding experience. I caused a stir when I walked into the hall, dressed and not trailing the IV tether they had had attached to my arm. One nurse jumped up from the station and ran right to me. She reached out with both arms as if I might collapse at any moment and she would be able to catch me. The other nurse picked up the phone. Both were professional and courteous but as easy to deal with as a pair of flustered chickens.
They slowed me long enough for the doctor to show up and get involved. He was full of doom and dire consequences that might happen if I left the hospital. If I hadn’t been hurt much worse before I might have believed him. In the end he didn’t seem to really care once I signed the right forms. I’ve come by my dim view of the medical profession as one of payment and indemnity honestly.
Refusing to be rolled out in a wheelchair caused another hospital crisis. They were still arguing when the elevator door closed between us.
Uncle Orson was parked in his own truck beside mine. Both were idling and streaming white trails of vapor up into air so crisp a deep breath felt like filling my lungs with icy knives.
“Are you going to come by the dock later?” Orson asked through his open window.
Uncle Orson owned a boat dock with a floating bait shop. He lived above the store and kept a houseboat tied up in the largest slip, close to the gas pumps. That boat was my home away from everything else in the world. I usually ended up there when things in my complicated life got too tangled. It’s a safe refuge but not a warm one.
“I might come eat something if you’re cooking. But I won’t sleep in the houseboat.”
“If you’re coming, I’m cooking, so let me know.” He rolled up his window and drove off without waiting for anything more.
I opened my truck door. The big GMC 2500 was hot. I let the door stand open as I called my old boss.
The new assistant sheriff answered his personal phone on the first ring. “Tell me you’re still in the hospital,” he said.
“I’m at the hospital.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m in the parking lot, ready to go.”
“Ready? What’s keeping you?”
“Where’s Billy?”
“Katrina, you don’t—”
“I do.” I set the words hard, then let them hang. “I have to. He’s mixed up in a murder any way you shake it.”
“You don’t believe—”
“I know.” I took a deep breath. Between the cold air and the heat spilling out of the truck it was like inhaling steam and broken glass. “You know too. It doesn’t matter that we believe he didn’t do it. Billy knows something he’s not sharing. And if he isn’t in front of it, the real killer will hide behind the mistakes our sheriff is making.”
“God dammit,” Chuck said. He had a habit of reverting to profanity when he was in a tough spot. But only with those he trusted. I thought of every vulgarity as a vote of confidence. “Everything about this murder is like sitting under the ass end of a bull. You just keep getting buried in shit.”
“Has something else happened?”
“The internet happened, that’s what.”
“It’s a new century. Get used to it, old man.”
“No. There are pictures on the internet.”
“What kind of pictures?”
“The dead girl. In the snow.”
“Are they leaked crime scene photos?” I asked, afraid I already knew the answer.
“No. And people are going crazy saying the killer took the pictures.”
“It wasn’t the killer,” I said. “I’m certain of that. Have a talk with the new deputy, Tom Dugan. I saw him putting his phone in his pocket when he was taping off the scene.”
“I’ll kick his narrow ass if it was him.”
“You do that. First tell me where Billy is.”
He gave me an address, then explained that Billy wasn’t there. He was watching the place.
Driving in the glare of bright sun off a layer of snow exhausted me. It wasn’t only the drive. It was the forty minutes of thinking it afforded me. I tried drowning my questions and grievances with the radio. It didn’t work. After listening to a moldy chestnut from Hank, Jr., I was treated to my murder victim, Rose Sharon, singing “You Took What Wasn’t Yours.”
It was modern country pop, produced with strings and piano backed by steel guitar. It wasn’t the slick music that chilled me, though. Her voice was raw with truth and hurt. The song, about a girl surrendering herself, without love, seemed to be as much confession as accusation.
I had heard of the girl. It was impossible to live in the Ozarks in the past year and not encounter her name. But I never paid any attention to television and my taste in music was formed by the man who raised me. I knew about Waylon Jennings and Elvis. I had no idea who was on the charts in this century. Hearing Rose Sharon on the radio made me regret that I had never heard her on stage.
Her song ended and I switched off the radio. The last of the drive was made in silence. My own pain didn’t seem so sharp anymore.
The address was easy to find. Billy wasn’t. It was one of those developments with winding roads and home lots set way back in the woods. Billy, in his Sheriff’s Department SUV, was parked in a bit of vacant woods on the high side of the road. He was watching a small house with two expensive cars parked out front.
He didn’t say anything or turn to look at me when I climbed in the passenger side.
I let the silence linger a few moments before asking, “You want to talk?”
“No,” he answered without turning.
“You need to.”
“You think so?”
“I do.”
Billy finally shifted around and looked at me. “What exactly do I need to talk about?”
“Well, for starters—”
“How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine.”
“You looked tired. The sleep was good for you.”
“The sleep?” I searched his expression for meaning. He gave me nothing. “You were at the hospital?”
“Of course I was.”
“Why didn’t you stay?”
“Why didn’t you?”
He had me there. I changed the subject. “Who are you staking out?”
Billy looked back down the hill again and said, “It’s probably best you don’t know.”
“Best for me? Or you?” I put my hand on his shoulder and urged him to turn. It didn’t work so I pulled harder. “Is it best for the dead girl? Or the county you’re sheriff of?”
He turned around. I’d never seen his face so grim. “You think I was involved in her murder.”
“Not her murder.” I knew how wrong I was the instant I said it. Billy’s face, already hard, went flatter and set like concrete. “I found things at her place. Your things.” My voice sounded as feeble to me as the words and reasoning. I tried again, saying, “Billy…” I had nothing to say but his name.
“Get out,” he said.
“Billy…”
“Get out of the car and go do your job.”
“We need to—”
“No, we don’t,” he said. The words dropped between us like a mortally wounded animal. Then the animal died.
I pulled the door handle and slid out, keeping my gaze on his frozen eyes.
If I had not opened the door we might have missed the throaty sound of Levi Sharon’s Dodge as it swung into the driveway with the two other cars.
At the same time, we turned to look down the hill.
Levi opened his car door and burst out. He left the car running as he charged to the house.
Billy was already out of the SUV and moving forward for a better look when I stepped around the front fender.
Levi didn’t stop to knock at the front door. It must have been unlocked. He went straight inside.
Billy dashed forward. He sprinted into the bare trees and went headlong down the steep hill.
I didn’t follow. I had my keys in my hand and was planning on driving down until I heard the two gunshots. Then I ran, trying to keep to Billy’s blazed path.
Billy pulled his weapon as he ran. He went down the hill without fear or hesitation. I was about fifty yards behind him and falling back. His feet found solid purchase under snow and never once turned on a stone or tripped on a root. I didn’t run so much as fast-hop from spot to spot. The exertion was already making my legs burn. The spot between my shoulder blades where Levi had stomped his boot heel was throbbing.
When Billy reached the road at the bottom of the hill he jumped the ditch and went faster on the plowed blacktop.
As he was racing across the road I was falling over a buried stump. I tumbled down about twenty feet of snow and frozen leaves before I could stop myself. I was still struggling to get up, using a persimmon tree to pull myself upright, when Billy was approaching the house with his pistol drawn.
“Come out of there, Levi,” he shouted.
I wanted to tell him to wait. When he ran right to the door I wanted to scream.
He got to the door at the same time I got to the bottom of the hill. He never made it inside. Two men came charging out, one in front of the other. Levi Sharon was pushing a shirtless and bleeding Donny Fisher ahead of him. Levi used his shoulder to drive Donny straight at Billy, who was too close to stop.
A Killing Secret Page 6
