Grave Sight Page 0,83

Dick Teague was saying, 'I have type O, Sybil has type O, Mary Nell has type O, but Dell has type A.' That was what Sally Boxleitner was looking up in her high school science textbook. She suspected right away when she found the note Dick left on the medical records right before his heart attack. Dick had discovered he could not have been Dell's dad. Two O's can't have an A."

"I can see where that might trigger a heart attack," Tolliver said slowly. He put down his own fork, patted his lips with his napkin. "But why would that lead to Dell and Teenie getting shot?"

"I'm thinking," I said.

The family of four had cleared out while we were eating, with the topic of the beauty pageant still unresolved. I would put money on the mother winning. The older couple ate in a leisurely way, and just as slowly paid and took their leave, exchanging pleasantries with the waitress. The single man was still reading the paper, and every now and then the waitress would top off his coffee cup. Tolliver paid our bill while I stared into space, trying to imagine what had happened next in the Teague family drama.

Okay, next Hollis's wife had been killed. Sally had figured out that Dell wasn't Dick's son. Who would she tell? She would be more likely to tell a woman.

I thought she would tell her mother. But there must be something else...

We were in the car going back toward Sarne when I told Tolliver what I was thinking. "Why wouldn't she tell Hollis?" he asked. "It would be natural to tell your husband."

"Hollis told me she didn't like to talk about her family troubles," I said. "I think to Sally, Dell's parentage would fall into that category. So, Sally told her mother. Her mother, rather than Teenie, because Sally was closer to her mother. Besides, the secret was about Dell, and Teenie would've told him."

"So what happened next?" Tolliver asked, as though I would surely know.

I did try to puzzle it out. "Helen," I muttered. "What would Helen do? Why would she care whose kid Dell was?"

Why, indeed?

Say Teenie and Dell don't know anything about this. And then Sally dies. Sally dies because... she told. Because she told her mother. But I remembered Helen's overwhelming grief, and I didn't think Helen had known why Sally died. Until I came along and told Hollis and Helen differently, they'd thought her death was an accident. As far as I knew, Helen had never questioned that. And she'd believed Dell shot Teenie. Why? Over Teenie's pregnancy, of course! And then, unable to face what he'd done, Helen believed that Dell had shot himself.

Only then, to clear his name, Sybil had hired me, and I'd told Helen that Dell hadn't shot Teenie. I'd told Helen that both her daughters had been murdered by someone else.

I didn't exactly feel like all these deaths were my fault, but I didn't feel good about them, either. I'd done what I'd been hired to do, with no idea what the consequences might be in a confused place like Sarne. I believed after she found out they'd been killed, Helen must have realized who would have wanted both her daughters to die. I believed she would have arranged to confront that person to verify her suspicions, and during that confrontation that person had killed her, watched by all those pictures of two dead girls, in the little box-like house.

"I don't believe Sybil," I said abruptly.

Tolliver looked over at me briefly before turning his attention back to the rain-slick road. There was a distant rumble. I shivered.

"Why?"

"I don't believe Mary Nell would ever threaten to kill herself," I said. "I don't believe she would resort to tactics like this to win your interest. I think she's too proud."

"She's sixteen."

"Yeah, but she's got her backbone in straight."

"So, why are we going?"

"Because Sybil wants us there badly enough to lie about it, and I want to know why."

"I don't know, maybe we should just go back to the motel. It's thundering, and you know there may be lightning."

"I got that." As a matter of fact, the Tylenol hadn't prevented the ferocious headache building behind my eyes. "But I think we should go to Sybil's." Something was pushing me, and I had a bad feeling it wasn't something smart.

I spotted a flash of lightning out of the corner of my eye and tried not to flinch. I was safe, in a car, and when