Grave Sight

"And you found Teenie."

"Yes, that's what Sheriff Branscom told me. I'm sorry for your loss."

"I knew she was dead," Helen said, eyes dry. "I been knowing since she vanished, that Teenie had passed over."

"How?" If she could be blunt, I could, too.

"She would've come home, otherwise."

According to Hollis, Teenie had been as out of control as her mother at one time. I doubted Helen Hopkins was speaking realistically. Her next words echoed my doubts so closely that I wondered if the woman was psychic.

"She'd been a wild girl," Helen Hopkins said slowly, "acting out because she could get away with it, because I was a drunk. But when I sobered up, she began to come around, too."

She gave me a wisp of a smile, and I tried to smile back. This dried-out husk of a woman had once had a jaunty charm not too many years ago. You could see the traces of it in her face and posture.

"I liked Dell Teague just fine," Helen said. Her voice was slow, as if she was thinking out what she was saying very carefully. "I didn't ever think that he'd killed my girl. I liked him, and I think Sybil's okay. But the kids wanted to get married, and I didn't want Teenie to marry early, the way Sally did. Not that Sally made a bad marriage. Hollis is a fine man, and I don't blame him for not caring for me none. He had enough reasons. But Teenie... she didn't need to be getting so tight with Dell Teague, so young. I just wanted Teenie to have some choices. It was good of Sybil to pay you to look for my girl, though... ."

"Hollis tell you we went out to the cemetery?" I was trying to make sense of this flow of thoughts.

"Yes. He come by yesterday, the first time I've talked to him in a long time. He told me that you said Sally had been killed, that it wasn't no accident." I saw Tolliver stiffen. He shot me a look. He didn't like me going off with someone, he didn't like me doing freebies, and he didn't like me not telling him everything.

"How do you do it?" she asked. "How can you tell? How can I trust you?"

These were all good questions, questions I'd been asked before.

"You don't have to believe a thing I say," I told Helen Hopkins. "I see what I see."

"You think God gave you this gift? Or the devil?"

I wasn't about to tell this woman what I really thought. "You believe what you want," I said.

"I believe that you saw both my daughters get murdered," Helen Hopkins said. Her huge brown eyes seemed to get even bigger and rounder. "I believe God sent you to find out who did this to them."

"No," I said immediately. "I am not a lie detector. I can find bodies. I can tell what killed 'em. But who, or why, that's beyond me."

"How did they die?"

"You don't want to hear this," Tolliver said.

"Shut up, mister. This is my right."

She was little, but persistent. Like a mosquito, I thought.

"Your daughter Sally was drowned in her bathtub. She was grabbed by the ankles, so that her head went under the water. Your daughter Teenie was shot in the back."

All the strength seeped out of Helen Hopkins as we watched.

"My poor girls," she said. "My poor girls."

She looked over at us, without really seeing us. "I thank you for coming," she said stiffly. "I thank you. I'm in your debt. I'll tell the girls' fathers what you've said."

Tolliver and I got up. Helen didn't speak again.

"Now we leave," Tolliver said, when we were outside. And after we stopped by the bank to cash Sybil Teague's check, we got in our car and drove south out of Sarne.

We pulled into our motel in Ashdown a few silent hours later. Tolliver sat in the chair in my room after we'd eaten supper, and I perched on the foot of the bed.

"Tell me about going out with the trooper," he said. His voice was mild, but I knew that was deceptive. I'd been waiting for that shoe to drop all day.

"He came by while you were gone flirting with that waitress," I said. "He wanted me to take a ride with him." Tolliver snorted, but I decided to ignore that. "Anyway, he talked, and he talked, and we got a milk shake, and then I realized that he just wanted to take me out to the cemetery and get me to tell him what happened to his wife."

I could hardly bear to look at Tolliver's face, but I sneaked a peek. To my relief, he wasn't full of anger. He hated it when people took advantage of me, and he hated it more when the person was a man. But he didn't want me to feel bad, either.

"Don't you think he liked what he saw, and that's why he came by the motel?"

I ducked my head. Tolliver's hand smoothed my hair.

"No," I said. "I think all along he pla

"You did the right thing," he said, at last. "Next time, don't go anywhere without telling me, okay?"

"You going to follow me?" I asked, feeling a little spark of anger. "What should I do when you go off without me? Make the woman promise to bring you back by ten? Take her picture so I can track her down when you're late?"

Tolliver counted to ten. I could tell by the tiny movements of his head. "No," he said. "But I worry about you. You're a strong woman, but a strong woman still isn't as strong as most men." This was one of those simple biological truths that made me wonder what God had been thinking. "If he hadn't taken you to the cemetery, he could have taken you anywhere else. I would have been looking for you, like we track other people."

"If anyone in this world is aware that she might be killed at any moment, Tolliver Lang, that person is me." I pointed at my own chest, my finger rigid. "Amazingly, every day millions of women go out with men who have no ulterior motive whatsoever. Amazingly, almost all of them come home perfectly all right!"

"I don't care about them. I care about you. How you could ever trust anyone when what we see, so many times a year, is murder... ."

"And yet, you have no problem inviting a woman you just met into your room!"

He threw up his hands. "Okay, forget it! Forget I said anything! All I want is to know where you are, and for you to be safe!" He stomped out of my room into his, which required going outside; no co

I heard the television come on in the next room. What had we been quarrelling about? Did Tolliver really want me to sit in my room while he had fun? Did he really want me to turn down every invitation that came my way, in the name of safety?

I was pretty sure the answer, if you asked him, would be yes.

During the night, the phone by Tolliver's bed rang. I could hear it through the thin walls. After a moment, it stopped. I tried to imagine who could know where we were and what we were doing, and in the middle of imagining, I fell back to sleep. I ran the next morning, and in the cold crisp air it felt great. The hot shower felt even better. While I was dressing, Tolliver knocked on my door. After I let him in, I finished buttoning my blouse. I was wearing better clothes since we would be meeting the Ashdown client for the first time. This would be a cemetery job, and I wouldn't have to change. A quick in-and-out.

"The call last night," he said.

"Yeah, who was that?" I'd almost forgotten.

"It was the police in Sarne."

"Who in the police?"

"Harvey Branscom, the sheriff."

I waited, hairbrush in hand.

"We have to go back."

"Not until we do this job. Why, what happened?"

"Last night, someone went into Helen Hopkins' house and beat her to death."

I stared at Tolliver for a minute. I was so used to death that it was hard to produce a normal reaction to news like this.