Grave Sight Page 0,19

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 planned on getting me there to his wife's grave. I told him I had to be paid, Tolliver. So he took me by the bank and got the money." I didn't tell Tolliver it hadn't been the full amount. "But I left it in the truck, because I felt so bad about the whole thing." Bad and mad and guilty and hurt.

"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!"