His secretary was a straight arrow, and she was not amused to hear me demand to be put straight through to Art. But after she checked with her boss, I heard his booming southern voice, and the dreadful tension that had gripped me eased off a fraction.
"Where are you, honeychild?" Art asked.
"Sarne, Arkansas."
"My God almighty, what the hell are you doing there?"
I almost smiled. "We had a case here. But there were complications. When we came out of the auto parts store, there was this asshole deputy waiting to arrest Tolliver." I explained about the open warrants and the broken taillight.
"Hmmm. So, Tolliver is in jail?"
"Yes." That was way too close to a whine. I gripped the cell phone so tightly my fingers were white.
"You're there all by yourself, darlin'?"
"Yes."
"That's not good. Of course Tolliver's not wanted in Montana. We got that all cleared up. He couldn't be arrested for a broken taillight, so the cop trumped up something else for some reason."
That really wasn't the point I'd make if I were defending Tolliver, but I was glad to talk to someone who took Tolliver's innocence for granted.
"Are you going to be able to handle this, sweet thing?" Art's voice was very gentle, but also brisk, as if he expected a quick answer.
"Yes, I'll be fine," I said, pretty sure I was lying.
"That means you're going to try real hard," Art translated.
"Yep."
"Good for you, darlin'. Tell you what, I know a lawyer in Little Rock who can drive up there and steer you through this. Her name is Phyllis Folliette. Write that down, now."
There was nothing wrong with my memory, but I did write it down, along with the lawyer's phone number.
"I'm calling her as soon as I hang up the phone with you, and she'll be in touch with you right away, or at least very soon."
"That's good," I said. "That's real good. Listen, Art? They can't open packages we were sending via UPS, can they?"
"No," he said. "I guess they'd have to have a warrant to do that." Then he told me to call him if I needed anything more and hung up.
I was hoping that Bledsoe didn't know what we were doing at the auto parts store; he hadn't gone inside to enquire while I was standing there, and he hadn't asked me. So maybe sending off the hair samples hadn't been the trigger for Tolliver's arrest. Maybe there had been something else.
Harvey Branscom, while not my favorite guy, had seemed like a pretty independent fellow to me, and one who knew his business. Why would he consent to be part of the charade outside the auto parts store? Who could influence him so heavily? He had to know what his deputy was doing.
What was gained by having Tolliver in jail? That was the crucial question. What was the result of his incarceration?
Well, the first thing to pop up in my mind was that we'd have to stay in Sarne longer now. But I couldn't understand why that would be to anyone's advantage. A wild thought crossed my mind, and I made myself consider it. Could Hollis have become so nuts about me in such a short time that he was willing to frame Tolliver to keep me here? I just couldn't swallow that. Actually, it was somewhat easier to believe a scenario in which Mary Nell sprung the same trap on Tolliver, because the phony warrant and the broken taillight seemed like such desperate and amateurish steps. But it seemed very unlikely that Mary Nell would even know we'd been in trouble in Montana once upon a time, and even if she'd learned about the episode somehow, she wouldn't be able to go on the police computer network and somehow enter a false incident.
I tried to imagine a credible progression of cause and effect, opportunity and motive, sitting in my lonely hotel room. When my mind remained persistently blank, I opened the door to Tolliver's room and went and sat there. The maid had done the beds and put fresh towels out, so there wasn't even a trace of Tolliver in his room, at least to my eyes. For a little while, though, being there made me feel a tad better; but after a bit, I felt foolish, and then I felt like an intruder, so I went back.
There was a knock at the door, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. I glanced down at my watch. I'd been sitting there, with my thoughts scurrying around like hamsters in an exercise wheel, for over an hour.
At the door, Hollis said, "I'm sorry."
"Did you... you didn't have anything to do with this, right?"
"No," he said, not sounding offended. He sounded almost too gentle, the way you sound when you're afraid a dog might turn on you. "Marv Bledsoe and Jay Hopkins, they used to drink together."
I remembered the smug look on Jay Hopkins' face, and I felt sure he'd called Marv and told him where to catch hold of us. No wonder he hadn't minded us getting the hair samples. He hadn't believed we'd have time to get them in the mail.
"I've never trusted Jay, or Marv for that matter. Unfortunately, Harvey does, or at least he acts like he does. And the state guys are gone. They went off to check out another teen date murder they think might be related to Teenie's and Dell's. So there's no brakes on Marv, like there ought to be."
"So, have you seen this warrant?"
"No, not me. I gather there was some problem in Montana while you worked up there, last year?"
"Yeah, but it was all resolved. There's no warrant for Tolliver's arrest. I'd know for sure. And we didn't have a busted light this morning when we got up."
"Did you see him do it?"
"No, we didn't."
"If Marv made all this up, he would have some way to stop you," Hollis said, sitting down heavily on the foot of my bed. He caught my eyes, and said hesitantly, "I thought I better stop by to see how you were doing. I got the impression you depend a lot on your brother."
"I do," I said simply. "But I'm going to be okay. I've already called a lawyer in Little Rock. She's going to call me back."
"That's good," Hollis said heartily. "You're doing real good." Again, the encouragement was too overdone.
I was well aware that I wasn't, you know, Miss Stability. But there's a difference between knowing you have a flaw and seeing other people reacting to it. "You can't hide how weird you are," was the unspoken message. "You require special handling and careful treatment." I began to tense up all over again.
"Hollis," I said, hearing my voice come out as a growl. "You make sure nothing happens to Tolliver in that jail. You hear me?"
I could see his resentment at the implication, but at the moment, that wasn't important to me. What mattered to me was that I see in his face the assurance that nothing could happen to my brother in that jail, that he would be treated fairly and guarded well.
I could not find that in Hollis's expression.
"Hollis, you listen to me," I said, in the quietest voice I could manage. "I know you love this town and you love the life you have here. But something's going on in Sarne, there's a rotten apple somewhere spoiling things. There's a lot we don't know about these deaths. Someone you know murdered Dell Teague and Teenie Hopkins. Someone you know killed your wife Sally and beat Helen Hopkins to death. And someone you know doesn't want my brother and me to leave, for some reason. Now, we have to find out who that someone is. I came here, and I did my job, and I did it quick and I did it right. Now, Tolliver and I should be able to leave you all to solve your own damn problems."
"You were beginning to care about me until this happened," Hollis said, completely to my surprise. It seemed more like the kind of thing men expect women to say; if life were like a sitcom, that would have been my line.