Part 11 (1/2)

The yard was huge, a long run, from the days when the rich were very rich and land was cheap. It was hard slogging through the damp overgrowth, with sharp weeds tugging at my cut feet.

I kept running.

I got to the swamp. I wasn't sure if this was the same place I had seen them. I didn't see any telltale red. I followed the edge of the swamp for about twenty yards and still didn't see anything. I looked back at the house, trying to get my bearings. The broken windows seemed to be laughing at me, like the eyes of a gap-toothed jack-o'-lantern. I ran back to where I had started, continuing until I came to a place where the weeds had been trampled down. I followed the twisted gra.s.s past a clump of scrub pine to the open place where I had seen the men.

I saw my patch of red. She could have been a doll, swept by the wind and tide of a hurricane, taken from some small child and left bent and broken in the swamp. There was that sense of disarray about her, arms and legs turned in unexpected angles. But it wasn't a doll, it was Barbara Selby with her ash blond hair streaming around her and matted with blood.

I yelled and cursed, shouting my fury to whatever was listening, as I half-ran, half-slid down the hill into the swamp.

They never tell you about the anger. I remember the anger, no, absolute fury, that I felt after my father was killed. My Aunt Greta never understood, always telling me not to act that way and I had to accept G.o.d's will. I would reply that if G.o.d was going to kill my father, then I was going to hate Him. And I would get spanked and sent to bed without supper.

* 80 *

I felt that same anger now as I slogged through the mud and marsh gra.s.s to Barbara. She had been shot, once, in the head. A big black beetle was crawling up her neck to her cheek. I picked it off and threw it as far as I could.

Kneeling beside her, I touched her hand and realized that it was still warm. Could she be alive? I felt for a pulse. It was there, ragged and weak, but she was alive.

I wanted to keep her alive. My first impulse was to grab her up and carry her out of the mud, but trying to haul her up that hill and back into the house might do her more harm than good. She needed help as fast as she could get it. She also needed to be gotten out of this cold, muddy swamp and given first aid. It was not going to be easy for one person to do both those things.

I examined her, trying to make sure that her head wound was her only injury. For all I knew those goons had broken her back, too. I hoped I could keep her alive, that this wasn't some final horror, that she would die anyway, no matter what I did, a cruel joke from the G.o.ds.

Her head injury was the only one I could find. I decided that I would chance moving her, at least up the hill and out of the swamp.

I looked at the slope, trying to figure the best route up. Suddenly a man appeared. He was yelling something at me, but I couldn't make it out. He had a gun and he was pointing it at me. I hadn't done Barbara or myself any good.

He yelled again, but he didn't pull the trigger. I stared at him and realized that I had never seen him before. He wasn't one of Milo's men.

Another man appeared at the top of the hill. He, too, was pointing a gun at me and yelling.

It took me a few moments to understand what they were saying.

They were telling me to drop something. My gun. I still had my gun in my hand. Then I saw the silver glint of a badge on one of them. The police. Only half an hour too late. Why they were yelling at me to drop my gun while Barbara was lying here dying, I didn't understand.

”Drop it,” the first one yelled again. ”Drop the gun, now.”

I didn't. I threw it at them. It disappeared over the hill just to the right of the first man.

”Help her,” I yelled. ”She needs an ambulance.”

They scrambled down the hill. When they reached us, one of them * 81 *

grabbed me, slapped me against a close pine tree, and did a search.

Then he handcuffed me behind my back. The other one was checking out Barbara. They weren't moving fast enough to suit me.

”G.o.dd.a.m.n it, get an ambulance,” I exploded. ”She's got to have help now.”

”That's enough out of you,” the first one said. He started dragging me up the hill. I tried to protest, but he twisted my arm and pulled me along. Two more men appeared at the top of the hill. One of them had a walkie-talkie.

”Call medical a.s.sistance,” said the officer that was still near Barbara. I heard one of the men asking for an ambulance as I was led back through the overgrown lawn to where the police cars were. There were three of them. About time.

I began to realize how much every part of my body hurt. My jaw where Turner had hit me, my cut feet, all the sc.r.a.pes and bruises I had gotten crawling out of the coal chute, my abraded wrists. I was also cold. I had worked up a sweat running to find Barbara. My jeans were soaked from the swamp and the T-s.h.i.+rt was little protection against the morning chill. I started s.h.i.+vering.

My friendly, kindly police officer didn't appear to notice. He led me back across the oyster sh.e.l.l drive without slowing down. This time I noticed just how sharp those things were.

He stopped at the cars and then started reading me my rights.

I interrupted, ”What am I being arrested for?”

”Murder,” he answered.

”Huh?” was my snappy rejoinder.

”Don't play dumb. Two people with gunshot wounds, one's already dead. We caught you with a gun. Someone called, said they heard shots out here. This is what we find.”

Hunger, fatigue, and pain must have been catching up with me. I couldn't quite follow his logic.

”Or are you going to tell me you don't know anything about the dead body in the house,” he continued sarcastically.

”Oh, him.” Turner had not been on the top of my priorities.

”Yeah, him.”

”But he was shot with a .38. My gun is a .45,” I said. That woke the officer up.

* 82 *

”Huh?” Now he was the witty one. ”How do you know?”

”Oh, women's intuition,” I answered. That didn't seem to particularly please him. I thought about suggesting they search the bas.e.m.e.nt and get my purse with my P.I. license and gun permit. But I didn't think it likely that they could find it where I had hidden it, let alone where it ended up after Milo's boys finished searching.

”I think you'd better start giving me some straight answers, now,”

he said.

I was cold, hungry, tired, filthy, in pain, and he wanted straight answers. An ambulance siren sounded in the distance, coming closer.

I s.h.i.+vered. My left foot suggested standing on my right foot. My right foot told me to sit down. And he wanted straight answers.

”I want a lawyer.” There, that was as straight an answer as I was going to give.

”You'll get your phone call when we get back to the station. Now, why don't you tell me about that .38?” he asked.

”Actually, I don't want a lawyer,” I said. ”I want a police officer.”

”I am a police officer.”

I almost said I wanted a real one, but I stopped myself in the nick of time.