Страница 17 из 52
9
By the time we got back to the motel, Royce was close to collapse and I had to help him into bed. A
As soon as the patrol car pulled away, friends began to arrive with solemn expressions, dropping off casseroles. Some of these people I'd seen at the courthouse and I couldn't tell if their appearance was motivated by sympathy or a craven desire to be part of the continuing drama. Two neighbor ladies came, introduced to me as Mrs. Emma and Mrs. Maude, aging sisters who'd known Bailey since he was a boy. Robert Haws, the minister from the Baptist church, appeared along with his wife, June, and yet another woman who introduced herself as Mrs. Burke, the owner of the Laundromat two blocks away. She just popped over for a minute, she said, to see if there was anything she could do. I was hoping she'd offer cut rates on the Fluff V Fold, but apparently this didn't occur to her. Judging from Mrs. Maude's expression, she disapproved of the store-bought frozen cheesecake the Laundromat lady handed over so blithely. Mrs. Maude and Mrs. Emma exchanged a look that suggested this was not the first time Mrs. Burke had flaunted her lack of culinary zealousness. The phone rang incessantly. Mrs. Emma appointed herself the telephone receptionist, fielding calls, keeping a log of names and return numbers in case Ori felt up to it later.
Royce refused to see anyone, but Ori entertained from her bed, repeating endlessly the circumstances under which she'd heard the news, what she'd first thought, when the facts had finally penetrated, and how she'd commenced to howl with misery until the doctor sedated her. Whatever Tap Granger's fate or her son's fugitive status, she experienced events as peripheral to "The Ori Fowler Show," in which she starred. Before I had a chance to slip out of the room, the minister asked us to join him in a word of prayer. I have to confess, I've never been taught proper prayer etiquette. As far as I can tell, it consists of folded hands, solemnly bowed heads, and no peeking at the other supplicants. I don't object to religious practices, per se. I'm just not crazy about having someone else inflict their beliefs on me. Whenever Jehovah's Witnesses appear at my door, I always ask for their addresses first thing, assuring them that I'll be around later in the week to plague them with my views.
While the minister interceded with the Lord in Bailey Fowler's behalf, I absented myself mentally, using the time to study his wife. June Haws was in her fifties, no more than five feet tall and, like many women in her weight class, destined for a sedentary life. Naked, she was probably dead white and dimpled with fat. She wore white cotton gloves with some sort of amber-staining ointment visible at the wrist. With her face blocked out, hers were the kind of limbs one might see in a medical journal, illustrative of particularly scabrous outbreaks of impetigo and eczema.
When Reverend Haws's interminable prayer had come to a close, A
"What can I do to help?" June Haws asked from the kitchen door. With her cotton gloves, she looked like a pallbearer, possibly for someone who had died recently from the same skin disease. I moved a plate of cookies just out of range and pulled a chair out so she could have a seat.
"Oh, not for me, hon," she said. "I never sit. Why don't you let me take over, A
"We're doing fine," A
"Haws is reading Scriptures with her even as we speak. I can't believe what that woman's been through. It's enough to break your heart. How's your daddy doing? Is he all right?"
"Well, it's been a shock, of course."
"Of course it has. That poor man." She looked over at me. "I'm June Haws. I don't believe we've been introduced."
A
"Private detective?" she said, with disbelief. "I didn't think there was such a thing, except on television shows."
"Nice to meet you," I said. "I'm afraid the work we do isn't quite that thrilling."
"Well, I hope not. All those gun battles and car chases? It's enough to make my blood run cold! It doesn't seem like a fit occupation for a nice girl like you."
"I'm not that nice," I said modestly.
She laughed, mistaking this for a joke. I avoided any further interaction by picking up a cookie plate. "Let me just take these on in," I murmured, moving toward the other room.
Once in the hallway, I slowed my pace, caught between Bible readings in the one room and relentless platitudes in the other. I hesitated in the doorway. The high school principal, Dwight Shales, had appeared while I was gone, but he was deep in conversation with Mrs. Emma and didn't seem to notice me. I eased into the living room where I handed the cookie plate to Mrs. Maude, then excused myself again and headed toward the office. Reverend Haws was intoning an alarming passage from the Old Testament full of besiegedness, pestilence, consuming locusts, and distress. Ori's lot must have seemed pretty tame by comparison, which was probably the point.
I went up to my room. It was almost noon and my guess was the assembled would hang around for a hot lunch. With luck, I could slip down the outside stairs and reach my car before anybody realized I was gone. I washed my face and ran a comb through my hair. I had my jacket over my arms and a hand on the doorknob when somebody knocked. For a moment I flashed on the image of Dwight Shales. Maybe he'd gotten the okay to talk to me. I opened the door.
Reverend Haws was standing in the corridor. "I hope you don't mind," he said. "A
"Hi, how are you?"
"I'm just fine. My wife, June, was telling me what a nice chat she had with you a short while ago. She suggested you might like to join us for Bible study over at the church tonight."