Grave Sight Page 0,59

leave. I want justice done. I feel terrible that Helen lost both her daughters to a murderer."

"Or is this all about Hollis?" Tolliver asked, his voice sharp. "Is this about you wanting to impress a law man?"

I felt like slapping Tolliver, or screaming. But I stared up at him and did neither of those things. After a long moment, he said, "Okay, I'm sorry."

"She said it would take three days to get a preliminary answer?" I responded.

"Yes. Longer for a definitive answer, but three days for a quick yes or no. Since it's from hair follicles, and not blood samples."

We were leaving the store when a patrol car pulled up beside ours. A deputy got out, a man I hadn't seen before. He was tall, thin, and middle-aged, his colorless hair shaved close to his head. He wore ugly glasses and he was tense as a coiled snake. He stalked to the rear of the car and looked at our Texas license plate like it was in German.

"I run your license plate," he said. "You got a warrant out for your arrest in Montana."

"No we don't," I said, but Tolliver gripped my arm.

"And you got a busted out taillight back here." He pointed, but I wasn't fool enough to get close to him to look. He waited for a reaction from us, seemed a little disappointed when he didn't get one. "You, sir, you're the legal owner of this car?"

"Yes," Tolliver said carefully.

"Lean up against your car with your hands on the hood. I'm going to have to take you in."

I felt a humming start up in my head, just a distant little humming. I stood frozen while my brother silently, almost casually, complied. Tolliver had seen the tension in the deputy's body, too.

"What..." I had to clear my throat. "What are you doing?"

"Outstanding warrants, he's got to go to jail while I clear this up."

"What?" I couldn't understand him because the humming felt louder.

"Judge'll come to town soon. If there's any mistake, he'll be out quick as a New York minute."

"What?"

"Ain't you understanding me?" the tall man said. "Can't you speak English, woman?"

"You're arresting my brother," I said.

"You got it."

"Because you say there's a Montana warrant out for him."

"Yes'm."

"But that's not true. The charges were dismissed."

"That's not what the computer says. And, ma'am, aside from that, there's the matter of the taillight." And he pointed. While Tolliver stayed where he was, I edged carefully around the car, keeping a safe distance from the deputy. The taillight was smashed.

"It was okay when we went in the store," I said.

"You'll excuse us if we can't take your word for it," the deputy said, smirking. He walked around the end of the car, taking care to stay as far from me as I wanted to be from him, and he patted Tolliver down. I could see shiny pieces of the broken light scattered on the street.

"When can I get him out?" I asked, pretending with all my might that the deputy didn't exist. This was sheer bullshit, but there was nothing I could do about it.

"After the judge sets the fine for the taillight, and we get this warrant thing settled," the deputy said. "We don't have a sitting judge here; have to wait for the judge to come around."

I gasped. I couldn't help it. Every fearful reaction I gave fed the deputy's sense of power and gloating, but there was nothing I could do about it. I was on the teetering edge of panic, and I was scrabbling around in my head for some way to put this right, right now.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Bledsoe," he answered, not too happily.

"Harper," my brother said. He was handcuffed now, and the humming level rose higher and higher as I looked at the metal around his wrists. The deputy was looking at me uneasily. He'd quit grinning. "Just call Art. He'll recommend someone." Art Barfield was our lawyer. His office was in Atlanta, which was where we'd been the first time we needed an attorney.

The deputy looked even more jittery as he absorbed the implication that we had a high-powered lawyer at our backs (which wasn't exactly true), and he began to say something. Suddenly he thought the better of it and stopped, a word half out of his mouth. Then he made up his mind again. "Don't go crazy about this, young lady. Nothing's going to happen to your brother in our jail."

I hadn't even thought about that. My focus had been on