"Visiting hours are from two to three on Tuesday and Friday," she said, looking away from me as if I were too loathsome for her eyes to behold.
Since it was Tuesday, I could see him that afternoon. The relief was enormous. But until two o'clock, I didn't have anything to do. I was sick to death of that motel room.
I went out to the cemetery, the newer one. I wanted to have another visit with the rest of the Teagues, the deceased side of the family. This time I was able to park very close to the Teague plot, and I was bundled up pretty heavily, because the temperature was dropping. This was Arkansas in early November, so snow wasn't too likely; but in the Ozarks, it also wasn't out of the question. I had a red scarf wrapped around my neck and wore my red gloves. I was wearing a puffy bright blue jacket. I like to be visible, especially in Arkansas in hunting season. It was the first time I'd wrapped up quite so much this fall, and I felt as padded as a child being sent out to play in the snow for the first time.
I looked around me at the people-empty landscape. Across the county road, to the west, was a stand of forest. There was a small group of houses, perhaps twenty, to the north; they had half-acre lawns and sundecks and gas grills outside their sliding glass doors. No visible cars; everyone worked to maintain that slice of suburbia. The cemetery stretched south over the swell of a steep hill, part of a line that also blocked the view to the east. This was a peaceful place.
It was easy to locate the Teague plot. There was a large monument on a plinth in the center, with TEAGUE carved on it twice, once to the north and once to the south.
I moved through the Teagues, slowly working my way from grave to grave. They were not a family that had long lives, as a whole. Dell's grandfather had lived only until he was fifty-two, when he'd had a massive heart attack. Two of Grandfather's sibs were there, dead in infancy. Dell's grandmother had come from hardier stock. She'd been seventy-two, and she'd died just two years ago—of pneumonia, basically. I gave Dell a hello; his gunshot death brought the average down sharply, of course. I did the subtraction on his father's tombstone and found that Dell's dad had only been forty-seven when Sybil found him facedown on his desk.
Of course, Dick Teague had been my goal all along. When I stepped onto his final resting place, I felt an edge of anticipation, like you feel before you bite into a gourmet dessert. Down through the rocky soil my special sense went, making contact with the body below me. I examined Dick Teague with the careful attention he deserved. But I found the barrier of shoes and dirt and coffin were muffling my response. I needed more contact. I sank down in front of the headstone to lay my hands on the earth. Just as I did so, there was a cracking noise from the woods to the west of the cemetery, and something stung my face sharply enough to make me cry out.
I put my gloved hand to my cheek, and it came away with blood on it. My blood was a different red than the cheerful scarlet of the glove, and I looked at it with some bewilderment. I heard the same crack again, and suddenly I realized that someone was shooting at me.
I launched myself from squatting to prone in one galvanic motion. Thank God I wasn't in the Delta, where the land was so flat I wouldn't have been able to conceal myself from a fly. I crawled to take cover on the east side of the big monument in the middle of the plot. It wasn't as wide as me, but it was the best I could do.
For a miracle, I'd put my phone in my pocket, and I stripped off one glove and called 911. I could tell the person who answered was the woman I'd just talked to at the desk at the police station. "I'm at the cemetery off 314, and someone's firing at me from the woods," I said. "Two shots."
"Have you been hit?"
"Just by a piece of granite. But I'm scared to move." I'd started crying from sheer terror, and it was an effort to keep my voice level.
"Okay, I'll have someone out there right away," she said. "Do you want to stay on the phone?" She turned away for a minute, and I heard her ordering a patrol car to my location. "Probably just a hunter making a mistake," she offered.
"Only if deer here are bright blue."
"Have you heard any more shots?"
"No," I said. "But I'm behind the Teague monument."
"Do you hear the car coming yet?"
"Yes, I hear the siren." It wasn't the first time I'd been glad to hear a police siren in Sarne. I wiped my face with the clean glove. A police car pulled to a screeching halt behind my car, and Bledsoe, the deputy who'd arrested Tolliver, stepped out of it. He sauntered over to the spot where I crouched.
"You say someone's firing at you?" he asked. I could tell that for two cents he'd whip out his own gun and take a shot.
I got up slowly, fighting a tendency on the part of my legs to stay collapsed. I leaned against the granite monument, thinking a few deep breaths would have me back up to walking speed.
He looked at my face. His demeanor became a lot more businesslike. "Where'd you say these shots came from?"
I pointed to the woods across the road to the west, the closest cover to the cemetery. "See, look at Dick Teague's tombstone," I said, pointing to the jagged little white scar where a chunk had been blown off the edge.
Suddenly, Bledsoe was scanning the woods with narrow eyes. His hand went to his holster.
"What's the blood from?" he asked. "Were you hit?"
"It was the chip from the stone," I said, and I wasn't happy with how uneven my voice was. "The bullet was that close. The chip hit me in the cheek."
I spotted it on the ground, picked it up and handed it to him.
"Course, you coulda done it yourself," he said, with no conviction.
"I don't care what you think," I told him. "I don't care what report you write up. As long as you showed up and stopped him shooting at me, I don't care."
"You say ‘him' for a reason?" he asked.
"No reason at all." My breathing was about normal by now. As I adjusted to the fact that no one was going to try to kill me in the next second or so, I reverted to my former opinion of the deputy.
"What were you doing out here, anyway?" He, too, was reverting to hostility.
"Just visiting."
He looked disgusted. "You're some piece of work, you know that?"
"I could say the same. Listen, I'm leaving while you're standing here, because I don't want to die in this town. Thanks for coming. At least..." I stopped before I finished with, "At least the police here aren't totally corrupt." I figured that would be less than tactful, especially since the deputy wasn't standing there pointing at me and yelling, "You can go on and shoot her!"
He gave me a curt nod. As I was shutting my door, he said, "You were standing on Dick Teague's grave?"
I nodded.
"You wanted to know what killed him?"
I nodded again.
"Well, what was it? According to you?"
"Heart attack, just like his dad." I looked at the deputy, making sure my face was smooth and sincere.
"So, the doctor was right?"
"Yes."
He nodded, rather smugly. I started my engine and turned the heater up. When I stopped at the turnoff from the cemetery onto the county road, I glanced in the rearview mirror. Deputy Bledsoe was right behind me. I realized at the same time that I needed to stop by the motel before I went to see Tolliver, unless I wanted to give him his own heart attack. My cheek was spotted with drying blood, and some had spattered on my coat, too.
I hated the motel by this time, but (since no attacker leaped out at me when I unlocked the door) I had to admit it felt safer than the streets. Sarne was beginning to represent one big danger zone to me. With the dead bolt and the chain employed on the door, I washed my face and put on some makeup, including bright lipstick. I didn't want to look like a ghost when I went to visit Tolliver. Possibly the little butterfly strips I put across the cut on my cheekbone detracted from the effect, but I had to use them. I put the blood-spotted jacket and glove in the bathtub to soak in cold water and I got out a black leather jacket.