Hot Enough to Kill (10 page)

I smiled at Jerry's ex-wife and tried not to wince when I spoke. "I'm really glad you're here, Amy. I hope you'll be able to stay for the next visiting time. I really need to get back out to my mother's and check on her. The bullet took a pretty good chunk out of her arm before it got to Jerry. She has a dozen or so stitches and her arm's in a sling. I expect she'll need some help."

Amy nodded and brushed a lock of silky hair behind her ear. "Do you think they'll let us in to see Jerry soon?"

I checked my watch. "Maybe half an hour or so. I think they said the next time visitors could go in was at four. Of course, even at the designated time I had to lie to get past the Rottweiler at the nurse's station." The children's eyes bugged a little and I was just as surprised they were listening. "I was just joking, kids. The nurses will be very nice to you and your daddy will be so very happy to see you if he's awake. He sleeps a lot right now."

"Will you be back tonight?"

"I'd planned to come back, but if you're going to be here--"

"Oh, no. I won't be able to stay long with the children. They need to get home and get some rest. We'll be back tomorrow." Amy smiled, but it was more of a sad, resigned effort than an actual smile. "Besides, if he needs anybody to be here with him, it's you." She hugged her children to her. "And his kids."

There it was again, that painful stab of guilt. I hadn't had a single thing to do with either his marriage or his divorce. So why did it keep feeling like I had? Like I was somehow responsible for the misery of Amy Parker, and in turn, her children? All I wanted to do was run.

Discarding that particular option as a cowardly reflex, I spoke to Benjamin and Rachel again. "Your daddy is a very brave man. He's had a rough time. There are all kinds of funny machines by his bed with tubes and wires everywhere. They look scary, but they're helping your daddy."

They said nothing, but Benjamin rolled his eyes a little at my toddleresque delivery. I tried again. "I know you've seen all this stuff on TV, but it's different when you see it in person, and it's very different when it's someone you love. I didn't take it too well myself, and I wanted you to know what to expect."

Benjamin frowned as if to say "Yeah, yeah," but I also saw him giving what I'd said some thought. Rachel for sure was.

"I want to go see my daddy," Rachel said, her angelic little face a tad less angelic. "Right now."

My heart twisted. No more. I had to get out of here. "They'll let you in to see him in a few minutes, sweetheart. You just be thinking about all the things you want to tell him. Even if he's asleep, you go right ahead and talk. He'll know you're there." I glanced at Amy as I turned to leave. "It was really nice to meet you, Amy," I said, the urge to flee shaking through me. I practically ran from the waiting room.

I arrived at Mother's house in about twenty minutes, and with each minute that passed, exhaustion weighed heavier. Between the all-night trip down and the emotional toll, the eight hours of sleep in three days just wasn't cutting it.

I went in the back door as I usually did, but I turned the opposite way from the kitchen.

Mother's house is one of the old style homes with a circular traffic area connecting every room, rather than the hallway design of later years. When I'd been overcome with a burning concern for physical fitness, I'd open all the doors and trot from room to room on my personal air-conditioned jogging track. I had been a pretty decent athlete back then, but running for any reason other than to win a short distance sprint race bored me to tears, so I didn't wear any paths in the carpet. Funny, looking back, my mother had been incredibly indulgent of my antics. Had one of my kids gone tromping through the house like that, I'd have had a fit. Okay, I'd probably indulged plenty of fits about very similar activities, but let's don't muddy the waters.

I walked through the first bedroom, trying not to make too much noise in case Mother was napping. She met me in the short hall by the bathroom, walking none too steadily, but I resisted the urge to grab her and scold her for being up. "Hello, Mother, dear," I said cheerfully. "How are you feeling?"

"Oh, I'm doing fine," she said, although I knew good and well she wasn't. When I was allowed in to see her in the emergency room, I'd counted twelve stitches in her lower left forearm. The doctor told me there were internal ones as well. They'd pulled it together as best they could and felt confident that it would heal nicely. They put her in a sling to keep her from moving it too much. They also said it was going to hurt like hell and gave her some serious narcotics.

"Are you in much pain?"

"Oh, it's started hurting a little, but I didn't want to take one of those pain pills until you got here. So much of that stuff makes me sick as a dog. I don't much want to take any at all. I was thinking I'd just take some aspirin."

"No, you probably shouldn't do that. Remember, aspirin is a blood thinner, and that's probably not what we want right now. Better stick to acetaminophen or the prescription."

She nodded and cradled her arm. "Well, I suppose I'll have one then."

I got her a pill and a glass of water from the bathroom. After she'd downed it, we went to the living room and I got her settled her in her favorite chair.

"Tell me about Jerry," she said. "Is he still in the intensive care?"

"Yeah, and will be for a while. He's pretty out of it, but I think he knew I was there."

"So he's going to be all right?"

"I hope so," I said, glancing toward the kitchen. "The police sure didn't take long investigating in there."

"Yes, they did try to hurry. Merline and Agnes kept telling them that it was just plain as day what happened and there was just no reason for me to have keep the place in such a mess, so they finally quit piddling around and left."

I wasn't thrilled that the police could be coerced into doing a shoddy forensics job, but the ladies were right. Trajectory of the bullet was about all there was to figure out--where was the shooter, how far away, what angle, etc. Jerry had taken the bullet with him to the hospital, so there was no time wasted looking for that. Still, they'd finished up amazingly quickly, and even more amazing was the fact that the kitchen looked good as new except for the plywood on the window.

"Mother, tell me you didn't get in there and do the cleaning."

She frowned a little. "Well, I did help, but Merline and Agnes did most of it. They weren't about to leave me here alone and they wanted something to do."

Against my better judgment, I had given in to Mother's idea that I should stay at the hospital with Jerry and Merline should come to the hospital and get her. Merline and Agnes showed up thrilled to be needed and planned to take Lucille to eat before they headed home. I doubted Lucille felt like a trip to Furr's Cafeteria, but the ladies assured me that they needed to keep her away from the house for a while longer while the police people finished up. I gave them my cell phone number and the trio went on their way, already debriefing Lucille as they walked out the door. "So the police haven't been gone long?"

"Oh, maybe an hour and a half, two at the most. Merline just left not ten minutes ago. She had her son come over and put plywood on the window. It had turned into an oven in here and the flies were just awful."

"Well, it sure cooled off pretty quickly," I said, refusing to think about what the buzzing little insects were up to.

"It has now, but for a while there I was sure thinking we'd just go stay at a motel tonight. Then again, I'm not letting some damn fool run me out of my home. Besides, I've been thinking."

"Thinking about what?"

"The gunshot." She pointed to the boarded-up bay window in the kitchen. "It's as plain as anything, but that goon Leroy Harper can't tell his head from a hole in the ground."

"I can't argue with you there, but I have a feeling you have a specific reason for saying so."

She nodded. "I've had plenty of time to think about this, Jolene, and I think Jerry getting shot was an accident."

"An accident such as some idiot was deer hunting in the neighborhood and drew a bead on Jerry?"

"No. More like the shooter was aiming at something else and hit Jerry by mistake."

I frowned. "That doesn't really make sense. Jerry's the sheriff. There are plenty of people who could be out to get him. For all we know, he could have been onto the person who killed BigJohn."

Lucille adjusted the sling, but the grimace on her face didn't ease. "I was the target, Jolene. If I hadn't stood up the very split second that I did, well, I'd be dead, plain and simple. And Jerry wouldn't have a scratch on him."

I replayed what I remembered of the incident--who was where, the shatter of the glass, the angle of the gouge on Mother's arm and the fact that she had been standing up when the shot blasted in. She was right. If she hadn't stood at that exact moment, the shot would have hit her square in the back of the head.

Shivers rippled through me. "Why?"

"The only thing I can think of is that the shooter believes I know something of BigJohn's business."

"Do you?"

"Good Lord, no. I learned early on that his monkey business was the last thing I wanted to talk about. Only way I knew what he was up to was mostly through other people or when my water got shut off."

"Well, apparently that's beside the point since somebody wants to kill you for what they think you know." I stood and walked toward the phone. "I've got to call the sheriff's department and tell them about this then we've got to get you out of here and to someplace safe."

Lucille shook her head and pointed an acrylic nail toward me. "Sit back down, Jolene. I'm not going anywhere. I'm not in any danger right now, not with that deputy outside."

"I saw the car when I pulled up, but I waved and he sure didn't get out and try to stop me from walking right in. Not my idea of a high security program."

"Oh, well, Jolene, everybody knows who you are. No point in causing a stir when it wasn't necessary."

Fine, I'd let that slide, but not much else. "I'm still calling the sheriff. This is serious and I'm not taking any chances."

"I've already tried that, Jolene. I've told three deputies plus the two police people who were here. A couple of them said they'd make a note of it, for all the good that will do, but they dismissed it as something they'd figure out when they got all their tests or measurements or whatever it was they were doing in my kitchen all day. Besides that, Leroy Harper has made it real clear that he's in charge of this case and we have to talk to him personally about everything, not that he has a brain in his head to hear it."

"Well that's just peachy," I groused. "All the way around." Nasty thoughts about incompetent rednecks and backwoods police work flitted through my mind, but I tried to push them away. Leroy was just being Leroy, and hopefully the forensics people from the Redwater Police Department were just trying to get their job done fast and were ignoring Leroy like everyone else. Hope does spring eternal at times, however, I was less than willing to bet my mother's life on it. "What do you think we should do?"

Lucille sighed. "I'd like to think I can carry on with my life as usual, but I'm not an idiot. If I go traipsing off to the Dairy Queen or the Senior Center as I usually do, I'll be a sitting duck."

"Which is why we need to get you out of this place." Getting
me
out of this place wasn't such a bad idea either.

"I won't be run out of my home, Jolene. We do need to do something though. I suggest you call your old friend down at the
Times
and get a reporter on this."

"So do you want me to tell him about the shootings or the idiot pretending to be sheriff?"

"Both." Lucille adjusted the sling on her arm and tried to hide another wince. "As I recall, Jolene, this sort of thing is just your cup of tea."

"I like lime in my tea, not bullets. And just because I caused a stir with an article twenty-something years ago doesn't mean it will work this time, not that it worked that great then either. As you'll recall, it took them two years to fire the perverted principal."

"And nothing much has changed around here, so I suppose we'd better get started. I left you the newspaper's number over by the phone."

Gary Gammons and I had interned together at a newspaper in Austin during our final college days. We were both applying for jobs half-heartedly, and after my interview in Redwater Falls took a turn for my breasts, I told the editor I had a good friend who was a great reporter and would probably fit right in. That wasn't exactly true since Gary wasn't a leering sexist, but the position did have potential and Gary had jumped on it. And he was still there, but in an upper management position. "I haven't talked to Gary in fifteen years--at least."

Lucille shrugged. "Doesn't matter. He was crazy about you, too. Always telling me how you were the prettiest--"

"Dammit," I said, pushing myself up and stalking to the phone. "Not every male in the county was crazy about me, Mother."

"Well, a whole bunch of them were. You may not have noticed, but they certainly were. You call Gary. I just know he'll help."

I did call Gary--but not just because my mother said so--and I discovered that he is apparently a really big fish in the local media pond, which translates to darned hard to get hold of. After a few transfers and evolving explanations, I finally reached his voice mail.

Now, to be fair, Redwater Falls is technologically superior to Kickapoo in more ways than tone dialing and real voice mail. I myself can confirm that there are two actual computer stores in Redwater. One sells only DOS machines with "Winders," to quote the salesman. I was tempted to engage him in the Mac/IBM debate but it seemed pointless, particularly since he thought Mac was the name of the salesman at the second computer store in town. But educating the "Winders" man would have been easier than getting Gary Gammons to help me out and investigate the gunfire in Kickapoo. Primarily because Gary was in a foreign country, and I mean a real foreign country as opposed to, say, Kansas. In case you didn't know, the Republic of Texas is alive and well--just ask any Texan. And the particular Texan I needed to talk to was on a two-week honeymoon with his new wife in Mexico.