"The gun that Sadie Durning used..." he said, picking it up. "Am I right?"
She beamed. "I found it in the scrub behind the motel, before the police got to searching for it. There was such a commotion, you know, nobody looked twice at me. And of course they didn't try and look for it in the light."
"Why was that?"
"The '55 tornado hit, just the day after. Took the motel roof right off; blew the school away. People were killed that year. We had funerals for weeks."
"They didn't question you at all?"
"I was a good liar," she replied, with no small satisfaction.
"And you never owned up to having it? All these years?"
She looked faintly contemptuous of the suggestion. "They might have taken it off me," she said.
"But it's evidence."
"They executed her anyway, didn't they?" she replied. "Sadie admitted to it all, right from the beginning. It wouldn't have made any difference if they'd found the murder weapon or not."
Earl turned the gun over in his hand. There was encrusted dirt on it.
"That's blood," Laura May informed him. "It was still wet when I found it. She must have touched Buck's body to make sure he was dead. Only used two bullets. The rest are still in there."
Earl had never much liked weapons since his brother-in-law had blown off three of his toes in an accident. The thought that the .38 was still loaded made him yet more apprehensive. He put it back in its wrapping and folded the cloth over it.
"I've never seen anything like this place," he said as Laura May kneeled to return the gun to the drawer. "You're quite a woman, you know that?"
She looked up at him. Her hand slowly slid up the front of his trousers.
"I'm glad you like what you see," she said.
"SADIE...? Are you coming to bed or not?"
"I just want to finish fixing my hair."
"You're not playing fair. Forget your hair and come over here."
"In a minute."
"Shit!"
"You're in no hurry, are you, Buck? I mean, you're not going anywhere?"
She caught his reflection in the mirror. He gave her a sour glance.
"You think it's funny, don't you?" he said.
"Think what's funny?"
"What happened. Me getting shot. You getting the chair. It gives you some perverse satisfaction."
She thought about this for a few moments. It was the first time Buck had shown any real desire to talk seriously. She wanted to answer with the truth.
"Yes," she said, when she was certain that was the answer. "Yes, I suppose it did please me, in an odd sort of way."
"1 knew it," said Buck.
"Keep your voice down," Sadie snapped, "she'll hear us."
"She's gone outside. I heard her. And don't change the subject." He rolled over and sat on the edge of the bed. The wound did look painful, Sadie thought.
"Did it hurt much?" she asked, turning to him.
"Are you kidding?" he said, displaying the hole for her. "What does it fucking look like?"
"I thought it would be quick. l never wanted you to suffer."
"Is that right?" Buck said.
"Of course. I loved you once, Buck. I really did. You know what the headline was the day after?"
"No," Buck replied, "I was otherwise engaged, remember?"
"'MOTEL BECOMES SLAUGHTERHOUSE OF LOVE,' it said. There were pictures of the room, of the blood on the floor, and you being carried out under a sheet."
"My finest hour," he said bitterly. "And I don't even get my face in the press."
"I'll never forget the phrase. 'Slaughterhouse of Love!' I thought it was romantic. Don't you?" Buck grunted in disgust. Sadie went on anyway. "I got three hundred proposals of marriage while I was waiting for the chair, did I ever tell you that?"
"Oh yeah?" Buck said. "Did they come and visit you? Give you a bit of the old jazz to keep your mind off the big day?"
"No," said Sadie frostily.
"You could have had a time of it. I would have."
"I'm sure you would," she replied.
"Just thinking about it's getting me cooking, Sadie. Why don't you come and get it while it's hot?"
"We came here to talk, Buck."
"We talked, for Christ's sake," he said. "I don't want to talk no more. Now come here. You promised." He rubbed his abdomen and gave her a crooked smile. "Sorry about the blood and all, but I ain't responsible for that."
Sadie stood up.
"Now you're being sensible," he said.
As Sadie Durning crossed to the bed, Virginia came in out of the rain. It had cooled her face somewhat, and the tranquilizers she'd taken were finally beginning to soothe her system. In the bathroom, John was still praying, his voice rising and falling. She crossed to the table and glanced at his notes, but the tightly packed words wouldn't come into focus. She picked up the papers to peer more closely at them. As she did so she heard a groan from the next room. She froze. The groan came again, louder. The papers trembled in her hands. She made to put them back on the table but the voice came a third time, and this time the papers slipped from her hand.
"Give a little, damn you..." the voice said. The words, though blurred, were unmistakable; more grunts followed. Virginia moved toward the door between the rooms, the trembling spreading up from her hands to the rest of her body. "Play the game, will you?" the voice came again; there was anger in it. Cautiously, Virginia looked through into Room Eight, holding onto the door lintel for support. There was a shadow on the bed. It writhed distressingly, as if attempting to devour itself. She stood, rooted to the spot, trying to stifle a cry while more sounds rose from the shadow Not one voice this time, but two. The words were jumbled. In her growing panic she could make little sense of them. She couldn't turn her back on the scene, however. She stared on, trying to make some sense of the shifting configuration. Now a smattering of words came clear, and with them, a recognition of the event on the bed. She heard a woman's voice protesting. Now she even began to see the speaker, struggling beneath a partner who was attempting to arrest her flailing arms. Her first instinct about the scene had been correct: it was a devouring, of a kind.
Sadie looked up into Buck's face. That bastard grin of his had returned; it made her trigger finger itch. This is what he'd come for tonight. Not for conversation about failed dreams, but to humiliate her the way he had so often in the past, whispering obscenities into her neck while he pinned her to the sheets. The pleasure he took in her discomfort made her seethe.
"Let go of me!" she shouted, louder than she'd intended.
At the door, Virginia said: "Let her alone."
"We've got an audience," Buck Durning grinned, pleased by the appalled look on Virginia's face. Sadie took advantage of his diverted attention. She slipped her arm from his grasp and pushed him off her. He rolled off the narrow bed with a yell. As she stood up, she looked around at the ashen woman in the doorway. How much could Virginia see or hear? Enough to know who they were?
Buck was climbing over the bed toward his sometime murderer. "Come on," he said. "It's only the crazy lady."
"Keep away from me," Sadie warned.
"You can't harm me now, woman. I'm already dead, remember." His exertions had opened the gunshot wound. There was blood smeared all over him; over her too, now she saw. She backed toward the door. There was nothing to be salvaged here. What little chance of reconciliation there had been had degenerated into a bloody farce. The only solution to the whole sorry mess was to get out and leave poor Virginia to make what sense of it she could. The longer she stayed to fight with Buck, the worse the situation would become for all three of them.