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on the end of the bed by me, his arm around my shoulders. He didn't say a word. Neither did I. I shivered and shook until the lightning was past.
Chapter 3
three
SARNE seemed like a complicated little town. I would be glad when we left it. We were supposed to show up in Ashdown within the next couple of days, and I wanted to keep the appointment. I try to be as professional as my odd calling will permit.
There were times we sat in our apartment in St. Louis for two weeks at a stretch. Then the phone would ring steadily, one call right after another. With my work schedule so unpredictable, we had to be ready to get on the road at any time. The dead could wait forever, but the living were always urgent.
The sheriff called me the next morning right before seven. Normally, I would've been out for a run, but the day after I both find a body and get through a storm is going to be a slow day. I peered at the clock before I lifted the receiver. "The body's Teenie, the lab in Little Rock said," he told me. He sounded tired, though it was early and he should just have risen from a night's sleep. "Go pick up your check at Paul Edwards's office." He hung up. He didn't say, "And never come here again," but the words were hanging in the air.
Tolliver had just come in, dressed and ready for breakfast, his favorite meal. He looked at my face as I hung up the room phone.
"Blaming the messenger," he said. "I guess it was a positive ID?"
I nodded. "I never understand that. You know, they ask me here to find the body. I find the body. Then they're pissed at me, and they give me the check like I should have done the whole thing for free."
He shrugged. "I guess we would do it for free if we could get a government grant or something."
"Oh, sure, the government just loves me." Paying taxes was excruciating - not because I minded giving the devil his due, but because accounting for my income was very difficult. I called myself a consultant. So far, I'd flown under the radar, but that would change sooner or later.
Tolliver grinned while I pulled on a T-shirt and a sweater. Since I'd planned today as a traveling day, I was wearing jeans. I don't care much about clothes, except my blue jeans. I'm particular about them. This was my favorite pair, and they were worn thin in spots.
"We'll stop by Edwards's office and get the check on our way out of town."
"We better cash it quick," I said, speaking from bitter experience.
The motel phone rang again. We looked at each other. I picked it up.
"Miss Connelly," said a woman. "Harper Connelly?"
"Yes?"
"This is Helen Hopkins. I'm Sally and Teenie's momma. Can you come talk to me?" Hollis's mother-in-law: Had he told her what I'd found at the cemetery?
I closed my eyes. I so didn't want to do this. But this woman was the mother of two murdered women. "Yes ma'am, I guess so."
She gave me her address and asked if I could come in a half hour. I told her it'd be an hour, but we'd be there.
I T actually took us a bit over an hour, because after we'd checked out of the motel and loaded our bags and gone into the restaurant, Janine, the waitress Tolliver had entertained the afternoon before, dragged her feet serving us. She'd glare at me, try to touch him - a performance both obvious and painful. Did she think I was forcing my brother to stay with me, dragging Tolliver all around the United States in my wake? Did she imagine that if I relaxed my grip on him, he'd stay here in Sarne and get a job at the grocery store, make her an honest woman?
Sometimes I teased him about his conquests, but this wasn't one of those times. His cheeks were flushed when we left, and he didn't say a word as we drove to Paul Edwards's downtown office. It was housed in an old home right off the town square, a home which had been painted in lime green and light blue, a whimsical combination I'm sure the original builders would have deplored. Paul Edwards was fitting into the image Sarne was trying to sell the tourists, that of a fun-house antique town with something interesting around every corner.
Tolliver