A Fugitive Truth (25 page)

“Emma? Emma!”

I could hear that it was Chris: I didn’t want to answer, but I had to warn him. “Chris, don’t! Someone’s shooting at me!”

“They sure as hell better not be!” he shouted even louder now. “I don’t know what the deal is, buddy, but I’m armed and you should get gone now!”

I strained to hear, but couldn’t make out anything that sounded like anyone retreating. At the same time, there were no more shots. I waited still, unsure of what to do.

“Emma?” Chris called. “Come on out, toward me. Keep talking so that I know it’s you, okay?”

“Uh…”

“It’ll be okay.”

“All right.” I had a last look around, and couldn’t see anyone, not even Chris. “I’m coming out now. I don’t see anyone…”

“That’s good, just keep coming toward me. Follow the path, if you can find it again.”

“Uh, no problem.” I tried to think of something to say. “Um, I think I found another foundation hole for you.”

“Yeah?” Chris called back, his voice cracking a little. “That’s good. Pretty big one?”

“Not too bad.” I thought about what I’d used it for. “I would have liked it to be deeper, though.”

“Well, come back next summer. It will be pretty deep after we get done excavating it. You think you can find it again?”

By this time I could see Chris. True to his word, he had a shotgun in his hand, but he was sweating bullets, and breathing heavily, a Day-Glo orange vest hanging half off him.

I hurried the rest of the way down the path. “Chris, I didn’t want to lead whoever it was toward the center. Toward the kids.”

“Nell just put them on the bus; everyone’s fine. I doubt they even heard it.” Then he saw me up close. “Shit, you’re bleeding!” The alarm on his face made him look almost babyish. “Did you get hit?”

“I didn’t think so—” But some of those shots had come pretty close, I recalled with a shiver. I reached out to Chris instinctively, and clutched his sleeve in my hand.

“I think I see a piece of bark,” he said, going paler, holding my arm tight. “Maybe it’s just a splinter. Let’s get you back and get you cleaned up. And I’m going to call the cops.”

“No! Don’t!” A panic almost as great as that in the woods threatened to engulf me.

Confusion filled Chris’s face. “Emma? I gotta call the cops, I can’t just…”

I shook myself. “No, you’re right…you have to call them.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I…nothing. I…just didn’t want any more police.”

Chris didn’t say anything. We walked the long way around to his office, avoiding the windows of the classroom, just in case. He picked up the phone and looked at me. I nodded, and Chris called the police. He then pulled a first aid box out from a steel cabinet and put on a pair of surgical gloves. He probed gently at my face, and I felt a sharp pain as he hit something. “You got a big-assed splinter in here. I’m going to take it out, okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

He worked carefully, but I could feel the blood flow when the splinter was removed. Chris took his time blotting it up and applying disinfectant. “By the way, I don’t advertise that I keep a shotgun out in the truck. I don’t like to take any chances, not with the kids around.”

“Gotcha.”

“Did you see anyone? Do you think it was…something to do with the other stuff? At Shrewsbury?”

“I didn’t see anyone, but the bullets just came faster when I called out to whoever was there.”

“Hmm. Any idea who it might have been?”

“Not really.” But the number of suspects had just been increased by two, if Detective Kobrinski had to release Paul Burnes and Gary Connor. I felt a sharp pain as the disinfectant found its way into the wound. “Ouch!”

“Now, you’re all right. I’m done,” Chris said with the practiced calm of a father. He cleaned up the discarded wrappers and gloves and put the box away. “I don’t think you’ll need stitches or anything.” He paused as he shut the cabinet door.

“Emma. Do me a favor? Talk to your cop about this, okay?”

I nodded. “I’m going to call the investigating officer as soon as I get out of here.”

Chris looked at me funny, and I realized that he seemed a little sick.

“What the hell is going on here?” Nell was suddenly in the doorway, her face waxen. “Christopher Marlowe Hensley, you tell me what I just heard outside! And what is that thing doing around your neck?” She tugged at the hunting-orange vest that still hung crazily off Chris.

“Uh. There were shots. I was worried about Emma.”

He didn’t need to say anything more. Nell saw the shotgun propped up against the cabinet.

“You asshole!” She crossed the office in two steps and shoved her husband in the chest. “Don’t you know—?”

“Yes, of course I do. Why do you think I…?”

By this time, Nell was sobbing, hanging onto Chris by his shirt. He was crying too, not making any noise at all. I wished I was a million miles away; this
was
all my fault, I couldn’t help but think.

Sirens sounded nearby.

Nell quieted down; Chris pulled out a hanky and handed it to her. She shook her head, pulled out her own, and wiped her eyes and nose. “Trust us to get pregnant, right before a vacation.”

“I knew we would, we always do. St. Bart’s?”

“Better hope it’s a boy. What would we name a girl?”

“Bartina? Guadalupe?” Chris screwed up his eyes, concentrating. “Maybe Gustavia?”

Nell shuddered. “Better hope it’s a boy.” She turned to me. “We were going to St. Barthelemy in a couple of weeks. We name the kids…well, usually we go on vacation, we even think about going on vacation, we get a kid.”

I was about to suggest she change travel agents, but I bit my tongue. “Congratulations.”

Nell turned suddenly on Chris. “And you, if you know I’m pregnant, don’t go running into the woods with a shotgun!”

“This is my fault,” I interrupted. “If I hadn’t been here…”

“Don’t be stupid, Emma.” Nell cut in. “You don’t know who was out there. Big guy should have a little more sense, no matter what.”

“I was thinking of you…” he began, but he already sounded lame. “I wasn’t going to let anyone hurt you.”

“Don’t be a dope.” She kissed him again, suddenly all business.

I wasn’t about to bring up the fact that Chris had probably saved my life. I didn’t want to believe the shots had anything to do with me, and admitting that he had would bring it home to me.

The three of us went outside and waited for the cops to come. When the squad car arrived, Chris and Nell looked relieved.

“Burke’s a friend of mine,” Chris explained. “Good guy.”

“You guys okay, Chris?” the officer called as he emerged from the vehicle.

“Yeah, Burke, we’re okay. This is Emma, she’s the one who was out there.”

The cop was on the shorter side of average height, but with a barrel chest that seemed to compensate for his lack of inches. “What happened, ma’am?”

I quickly told him my part of the story, and he noted it down. He looked concerned, confirmed Pam Kobrinski’s name and number, then asked Chris his side of things.

“And there were no more shots after you called out?”

Chris shook his head. “Nope.”

“Okay.” The policeman excused himself and spoke into his radio for a few moments. When he returned he announced, “I’m going to check out back. I doubt there’s anyone still around though.”

We waited inside until he was done, about twenty minutes, then Burke returned and he and Chris spoke away from me and Nell before he departed.

“I want to go pick up the kids,” Nell announced suddenly, watching the cruiser depart. “I want to see them right now.”

Glancing at the clock, Chris said, “They won’t be ready for another—” But then he got a look at his wife’s face. “Right. It won’t matter if they leave a bit early today. Emma, I think—”

“I’ve got to get out of here.” I hugged them both, and after reassuring them both that I was fine, and being reassured in turn that they were both fine. I headed for the door.

“Drop by the house before you head back home, okay? Some weekend. A real visit, with lunch and drinks. You can see the kids.” Nell was trying hard not to seem relieved that I was going, but wasn’t protesting. Neither was Chris. I couldn’t blame them in the least.

“Right.” And hold the gunfire, I added silently.

When I got back to Shrewsbury, I called Pam Kobrinski, who wasn’t at all thrilled with my description of my afternoon, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from telling her that it wasn’t like I was doing anything wrong. She informed me that she would indeed be speaking with Chris’s friend the cop and warned me that I might be asked for more information. I agreed quickly, but inside, my heart sank. Just thinking about what I’d had to go through in the trial of a murderer who’d gone after my sister not so long ago was enough to make me want to limit my participation as much as possible, but I knew that she was right. It was my responsibility.

I made yet another sandwich, went back to my room, and tried to write, as if it would be easier to work now, but that was a faint hope at best. So, trying to ignore my throbbing cheek, I began to write down the new ideas that
were
flooding my head. I took out a piece of paper and began writing down the names of the people who were in this mess with me, and then I started writing why each one might be a likely candidate for murderer.

I loitered over Paul for quite a while before I took a deep breath and began working on the folks at the library. I didn’t want to think these things about most of them, but if I was going to do things properly, I wasn’t going to let my own biases get in the way. That was just bad science.

I paused there, realizing that I would need two lists—all of the things I’d written for Harry had to do with the theft, and nothing to do with Faith or Jack. I kept writing dutifully:

Here I hesitated again. I thought about erasing the line about liking my work, but left it in anyway. Underlining the most damning thing, which was that she showed up in two places where similar thefts had taken place, led me directly and all too easily to my next suspect.

I was startled at how much I had written so quickly, and that started to make me nervous. How much had I been ignoring, possibly to my own peril? Casting an educated eye over what I wrote about Michael, I was struck by two things. I had written more personality traits down about him than any of the others, and if I had been reading an entry like that in Madam Chandler’s diary, I would have suspected her of some sort of interest. And I had filled up a goodish space with far too many damning coincidences. Holy snappers.