We walked back in a warm summer night. But in two blocks the air became heavy, the humidity bore down, and in the distance lightning flashed over the sea. We left Erin where we had found her, in the lobby of her hotel, and she hugged us both.
“We’re gonna be fine,” she said.
“Of course we are,” Koko said. “Why wouldn’t we be?”
Erin vanished into the elevator and Koko and I walked up the street together.
“I like her,” she said. “I was determined not to, but she’s a good girl.”
“She likes you too.”
At the motel a message had arrived from Koko’s friend Janet in Baltimore. The fire department had officially classified her house as arson. Janet had talked to the reporter at the morning paper, who was still digging around. Yesterday he had put it in the paper that Koko had apparently gone to Charleston. “So they know we’re here,” I said.
We had to assume they had known for almost two days.
CHAPTER 33
In the morning the rain finally came, a steamy downpour that billowed across Meeting Street and left the world slick-looking and empty. I talked to Erin soon after daybreak and she was moved over to our motel by nine o’clock. She circumvented the afternoon check-in by paying for the extra day and was settled into a room near Koko’s with two hours to spare before her meeting with Archer. She had called Lee again and had received instructions to walk out if Archer was abusive or difficult. “Neither of us thinks anybody’s going to go near what Lee’s offering.”
At ten o’clock Erin and Koko sat playing cards at a table in Koko’s room while the rain drummed against the window. I was watching the TV in a stupefied state with the sound turned down. A preacher with larceny in his eyes and lust in his heart was on Channel Five, and on Channel Two I got some kind of political discourse, with the eyes of the senator just like the eyes of the preacher. I could tell from their faces the attitude and vacuous nature of what was being said, and none of it tempted me to turn up the volume. This country is doomed, I thought, not for the first time, and I closed my eyes and sank into boredom.
At ten-thirty I got up and moved to the door. “I’m going out for a little while.”
Erin was immediately suspicious. “Where to?”
“There’s a movie I want to see. Debbie Does the Old Duffers.”
“I heard that doesn’t have much of a plot. Where are you really going?”
“To the store for some male needs.”
They looked at each other and tried not to laugh.
“Hey, I don’t ask about your female needs.”
“Just don’t try anything foolish, like ditching us and going after people on your own.”
“I’ll bet he’s going to buy a gun,” Koko said. “He couldn’t bring the one we had on the airplane, so he’s going to buy another one.”
“Is that where you’re going?”
“Jesus, lighten up. You can’t get a gun on Sunday. I need some razor blades.”
“I only ask because as your lawyer I’m the one who’s got to worry if there are laws here against carrying concealed weapons. Just in case I need to defend you or bail you out.”
“It’s Sunday, Mama,” I said again. “You guys play cards and I’ll be back in a while.”
I walked up Meeting Street in the rain, looking at people on both sides of the street. The gun felt snug against my back.
John Wayne’s ass. These women had no clue.
Erin had left to meet Archer when I got back and Koko was gazing at the same stupid TV fare with the volume off. “So what caliber razor blades did you get?”
“Big enough to fit a size thirty-two razor.”
“Even on Sunday.”
“Rexall’s always open.”
She smiled foxily. “I saw that man again. Same one who followed me up the street.”
“Where?”
“Out on the street. I had to go to the store for some female needs.”
“You’re becoming a real wit, Koko. So tell me about him.”
“Nothing to tell. He was just going into a store up the street when I saw him.”
“I guess it’s possible he’s just some guy who lives around here.”
“What else is possible?”
“Maybe he’s the mayor of Charleston, scouting for people to welcome to his fair city.”
Her face was pensive. “I don’t know how Erin will feel about this. Me, I’m glad you got those razor blades.”
She roused herself from the bed. “I’m going to the library. I don’t expect to find anything, but I’ve got to do something or go mad in this room.”
“Library’s closed today. It’s Sunday.”
“We could go to a movie.”
“I’m for that. Point out this dude if you see him on the street again.”
I had already made up my mind that Erin’s date with Archer was the last thing she would do solo. I wasn’t leaving Koko alone anymore, either. I left a note under Erin’s door telling her to stay put and we drove out to a suburban mall theater. Three hours later we came out frustrated: the film had been like the weather, lousy. “At least it got us through the afternoon,” Koko said. “Just one more day of this. I’ll kill that woman at Fort Sumter if she plays around with us.”
Erin was there when we got to the motel.
“I hope your lunch was charming,” I said.
“Lunch was fine. I waited two hours and ate alone. Archer never showed up.”
In the morning we learned why.
CHAPTER 34
The story was on the front page of the second section in the News and Courier. The headline said author beaten, hospitalized. Hal Archer, a Pulitzer prize-winning historian now living on Sullivan’s Island, had been brutally attacked and was in fair condition at Roper Hospital. Police had no motive and the victim had refused to talk to the press.
“I’m going to see him,” Erin said.
“We’ll all go.”
“I don’t think that’s wise.”
“Maybe not but we’re going with you anyway. We’ll try not to get in your way.”
Roper Hospital was on Calhoun Street near the Ashley River. Erin inquired about Archer at the desk and was given his room number. His condition had been upgraded to good. Koko and I sat in the lobby, where we could watch the flow of people coming and going, and Erin went up in the elevator alone.
We had only been there a few minutes when Dean Treadwell appeared. “Here we go,” I said softly. I got up, motioned Koko to come with me, and we followed him across the lobby to the elevators. We stood waiting in a small crowd, and when an elevator arrived we all got in the same car. Up we went, picking up doctors and nurses until we were all packed tightly together. Dean stared at the floor. The door opened and he got out. We were a few steps behind him as he moved down the hall. I didn’t know till that moment what I would do, but suddenly the sound of Erin’s voice moved me to his side.
“Hey, Dean.”
He stopped and looked at me but I didn’t seem to register. “How’d you know me?”
“I’m a psychic. I looked at your face and you looked like a Dean.”
“That’s interesting,” he said, but the flat tone of voice said it really wasn’t. “‘Scuse me now, I’ve got to go see somebody.”
I put a hand on his arm. “Uh-uh.”
His eyes opened wider.
“He’s got company,” I said. “One visitor at a time.”
He coughed that raspy smoker’s cough I had first heard on the telephone. “Who the hell are you?” he said, coughing into his fist. “You don’t look like any doctor.”
“That’s misleading. I took my Ph.D. in mayhem and hell-raising.”