Dead Weight (24 page)

I wasn’t a Catholic, didn’t know a lot about them, to tell you the truth, but the one thing I was pretty sure about was that, just like Protestant ministers and Jewish rabbis, priests weren’t supposed to lie. But it was pretty evident that Father Timothy Quartermyer was lying his ass off.

MEGAN

We got to the clinic where Mrs Mc’s big brother was drying out (I sure hope Graham never makes me come see him when he dries out), and she made us sit in the lobby and wait. There were some patients in the lobby – some not that old, like maybe late teens, early twenties – and most of them were guys. And boy, were they looking. For the first time I was a little bit grateful Mom didn’t let me buy that bikini – but don’t tell her I said that.

I got the girls situated with coloring books and colors and went up to the woman at the reception counter. ‘Do y’all have like a robe or something I can put on? Mrs McClure picked me up at the pool to watch her kids, and it’s kind of cold in here.’

‘Sure, honey, just a second,’ she said and left her station.

I looked around me, waiting for the great escape. Nothing happened. The reception lady came back with a terry cloth robe. It was puke gray. I put it on and cinched it up tight. Then I glanced at the inmates. I was wearing the same thing they were. ‘Ah, y’all aren’t going to confuse me with them, are you? And put me in a rubber room?’

The woman looked serious. ‘You better stay with the little girls, then we’ll know you don’t go back. Otherwise . . .’ As her voice trailed off, she shrugged her shoulders. Then she said, ‘Oh, by the way, you said you were with Mrs McClure, right?’

‘Uh huh,’ I said.

‘I just saw her going out the side door. She was moving pretty fast.’

‘What?’

‘Maybe you can catch her in the parking lot?’ she said as I ran into the lobby to get the girls, then dragged them out to the parking lot, only to see their mother turn the corner onto Birch. Birch only headed one way. Back to Black Cat Ridge.

I figured I wasn’t going to get much more out of Timothy Quartermyer with this whole gang with me, so we said ‘thanks so much’ and ‘see ya’ and headed back to our cars.

I hugged Carolyn Gable. ‘Thanks for the help, Carolyn,’ I said. ‘I really appreciate it.’

‘You’re welcome,’ she said. She reached out a hand to touch Berta’s shoulder. ‘Honey,’ she said, ‘I have a feeling this is going to work out. I know I’m gonna pray for you, and I’ll get my church prayer line on it. We’ve been able to pull out a few miracles.’

Berta moved in for a hug. ‘It may take a miracle,’ she said. ‘And thank you.’

Holding out her hand to Vera, she said, ‘And you too, Mrs Pugh. I don’t know what we’d of done without you.’

‘Just found another way, that’s all,’ Vera said in her pragmatic way.

I waved goodbye to my mother-in-law and she said, ‘Any message for Willis?’

It seemed my husband hadn’t yet told his mother he was moving back. I said, ‘No, not really,’ and we headed to separate towns in separate cars.

Alone in the car with Berta, I asked her, ‘Did that bring up any memories? Seeing Tim, talking with him?’

Berta shook her head. ‘No, nothing. I thought it would, E.J., I really did,’ she said, turning in her seat towards me. I looked away from the road for a second to see her face all red and splotchy, her eyes filling with tears. ‘What if I never remember?’

I reached out a hand to her. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘What if? Worst-case scenario: what if you don’t remember?’

‘Then I may be locked up for killing my mother!’ she said, the tears released.

I waved that away. ‘I
meant
once we find your mother’s real killer. That, my dear, is a given. We will find out who killed your mother, and I can guaran-damn-tee you it wasn’t you.’

‘Why do you say that? The trailer I lived in with my mom blows up and I run away. Sure seems to make me guilty!’

‘No, it makes you
look
guilty. So if you killed your mother, who ran you down? And who killed Kerry? You? Like I said before, there are definitely other scenarios that could explain what happened to your mother. One, you were terrified that whoever did it – presumably someone you knew – would come back to kill you; two, you were kidnapped by someone who blew up the trailer to cover his tracks; three, when the trailer blew up, you were thrown clear, hit your head, had amnesia, and wandered off—’

Berta laughed. ‘OK, I have amnesia
on top of
amnesia? Now that’s going to be hard to cure!’

‘It’s just a theory!’ I said defensively. ‘And four—’ I was silent for a moment. ‘I’m still working on four. But we have three pretty good ones.’

‘I’ll give you two
fairly
good ones,’ Berta said.

‘Back to my point—’

‘You had a point?’ Berta said. I smiled at her. She was actually teasing me, which was a good sign. The timid, obedient Berta might be taking a back seat to the more spunky (I hoped) Rosie.

‘Yes, I had a point! Worst-case scenario if you don’t recover your memory: you run into people you should know and embarrass yourself by not recognizing them. There. That’s it.’

Berta shook her head. ‘I wish it was going to be that simple.’

‘Well, it may not even be that bad. If you keep the name Berta Harris, and stay in Black Cat Ridge, added to the fact that you left Codderville fifteen or so years ago and as far as we know, didn’t come back until around the time you were run down, I doubt if you
would
run into anyone you knew.’

‘Wouldn’t there be a legal problem with me keeping an alias? Because that’s what Berta Harris is, right? An alias?’

‘People have their names legally changed all the time. You could do that.’

Berta nodded her head. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

Unless, of course, I thought to myself, she and Ken decide to change it another way. And that would be such a
bad
idea!

MEGAN

Mom’s phone wasn’t answering. She must have had it on vibrate
again
! So I called my grandma Vera, since I was in Codderville. Both Tabitha and Tamara were crying and the little one kept trying to walk into the street, and I had to keep chasing her, and a hundred bucks was
not
going to cut it! Not by a longshot! Grandma Vera answered the phone on the second ring.

‘Megan?’ she said.

So Grandma Vera had caller ID. I also heard she has a Twitter account. ‘Grandma, listen! I’m babysitting for this lady, and she took us to the rehab center out on the highway? And then she ran off and left us here!’

‘You said “us,” honey. Who all?’

‘Me and her two little girls!’

I heard Grandma Vera talking to someone, then she said, ‘We’re on our way!’ and she hung up.

I took the girls back into the lobby, but the big one kept crying, and everybody was giving me dirty looks – like it was
my
fault – so I took them back outside and kept them busy singing songs. Then this really cool car, red and low slung and, well, sexy, pulled into the circle drive and stopped right in front of me. The tinted window rolled down and – believe it or not! – my grandma Vera’s head poked out.

‘Is this a nifty car or what?’ Grandma said, grinning.

‘Rad,’ I said, and immediately regretted it. That was something Graham would say. Ewww!

The driver’s-side door opened and a big lady got out – a lady much too big to have fit in that low-slung car, but she did nonetheless. (Don’t you just love that word? Nonetheless. Three words but you can put them together and then they’re one word! You gotta love the English language.)

‘Now you tell me what’s going on here, young lady!’ the big lady said. Like she was the boss of me or something. ‘The lady who brought you here: was she supposed to be going into rehab?’

‘Oh, no, ma’am. She comes here to visit her big brother, and for some reason she just ran out of a side door and left us here.’

‘Did the nurse’s aide at the reception desk call her?’

I shrugged. ‘I dunno.’

‘Did anyone call her?’

Again I shrugged. ‘I dunno.’

‘Where did her brother say she was going?’

I was getting a crick in my neck, so I just said, ‘I dunno.’

Turning to the open passenger window of the red car, she said, ‘Vera, you told me this girl was smart.’

It was Grandma’s turn to shrug. ‘She used to be.’

Grandma got out of the car and looked up at me. (Grandma’s very short and I’m very tall. You do the math.) ‘Girl, did you do
anything
?’

I was getting a little p.o.’d. ‘I ran after the car! And I took care of these kids! They’ve been crying and running around, and trying to get in the street, and you try taking care of two little girls who are spoiled rotten and see how you do!’ My hands were on my hips and I was breathing hard. Uh oh. Not good.

‘Little lady, are you getting snippy with me?’ Grandma said, hands on her own hips and a frown on her face.

I sighed. ‘Yes, ma’am, I did get snippy, and I apologize. I’m just upset.’

The big lady said, ‘Well, Vera, she’s not that stupid. She knew to apologize to you.’

Grandma Vera patted me on the back. ‘She’s a good girl,’ she said.

Then the big lady said, ‘Let’s go kick some nurse’s aide butt,’ and opened the door for us to go in.

She went right up to the reception desk and said, ‘I want to see the nurse in charge.’

‘In regards to?’ the girl behind the counter said.

‘In regards to you keeping your minimum-wage job, young lady. Where is she? I’ll find her myself!’ She walked purposely away with the receptionist following.

‘No, ma’am! You can’t go back there without an escort!’ The older lady kept walking. ‘Ma’am! Come back! Please come back!’

A door along the hall opened, and a woman in blue scrubs with Mickey and Minnie Mouse on them, stepped into the hall. ‘Sherry, what is going on?’

The girl, Sherry, I guess, said, ‘I tried to stop her, Nurse. But she just barged through—’

‘Go back to reception, Sherry. And don’t leave your station again. You know that red button under the counter? When this sort of thing happens, you push that button and big, burly men come to your rescue. Can you remember that, Sherry?’

The girl turned all sorts of red – who could blame her? That nurse lady was mean! – said, ‘Yes, ma’am,’ and ran back to the reception desk.

‘And you are?’ she said to the big lady.

‘Carolyn Gable, R.N., UT class of ’fifty-five,’ she said.

‘Judy Pearce, R.N., UT class of ’sixty-five,’ she said, smiling at our nurse lady. ‘Please come in my office. I certainly hope you’re not applying for a job. That would be a bad first impression.’

‘Hardly,’ Mrs Gable said, turning back around and waving the rest of us forward.

We went into Nurse Pearce’s office and sat down, Grandma taking both girls and sitting them on her tiny knees. They were perfectly content.

‘This young lady,’ Mrs Gable said to the head nurse, ‘is my friend’s granddaughter. She came here with the woman she babysits for, as I understand it, and then, Megan, please tell her what happened.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said. Looking at the head nurse, I said, ‘I was at the pool when Mrs McClure called me with an emergency so that’s why I’m in my bathing suit,’ I said, opening the robe so all could see I wasn’t a patient. ‘The receptionist gave me the robe to cover up.’

‘Are you on point, dear?’ Mrs Gable asked.

‘Ah, maybe not. Anyway, Mrs McClure comes here to see her big brother, and she left me and her girls in the lobby, and went back and then we saw her leave through the side door and when I got outside, she was driving away.’

‘Hum, well, I guess I’ve been a little slow in putting two and two together,’ Nurse Pearce said. ‘I saw you in the lobby but had no idea you were involved with Ray Thornton.’

Mrs Gable stood up and Grandma almost dropped the girls. They seemed really surprised. ‘What has Ray Thornton to do with this?’ Mrs Gable asked.

‘Mrs McClure is his sister. Mr Thornton has been with us on mandatory drug and alcohol rehab due to DUIs, to reduce his sentence, but he escaped tonight. That’s why we called his sister.’

Grandma and Mrs Gable looked at each other. Turning to me, Mrs Gable said, ‘Which way did you say she was going?’

I pointed in the general direction of Black Cat Ridge. ‘Home,’ I said.

Mrs Gable pushed us all out of the room. Over her shoulder she yelled at Nurse Pearce, ‘Call the sister! Find out where she is!’

‘The younger girl in the photo?’ I heard Grandma say.

Mrs Gable said, ‘Got to be,’ and we all headed outside.

Mrs Gable stuffed me and the little girls into the back seat of her very small sports car. I mean, there
was
a back seat, but not much of one. ‘I had seat belts installed in the back for my grandkids,’ she said to my grandma. ‘Help Megan figure them out.’

We spent quality time pulling out the bottom seat cushion to find the various parts of the seat belts, then Grandma helped me clip the girls in. ‘They really should be in car seats,’ I told Mrs Gable.

‘Thanks for the information dear, but do you
see
any car seats?’

I swear that woman could be as sarcastic as, well, me.

We got everyone settled and Mrs Gable headed out of Codderville and over the river to Black Cat Ridge. It was already getting dark and the perfect day was turning into a perfect night. I’d left the robe at the reception desk and was in just my bathing suit, and with such a small car, the air conditioning worked really,
really
well. I was freezing.

‘What are you thinking?’ Grandma asked Mrs Gable.

‘Ray’s family was Catholic. Which means his sister probably is, which means, since she lives in Black Cat Ridge—’

‘That it’s possible she goes to Our Lady of whatever in Black Cat Ridge, which means—’

‘That she knows Timothy Quartermyer is the priest there, which—’

‘Means that maybe Ray might be headed there—’

‘Or at least his sister thinks he is—’

‘So we go straight to the church.’

‘Exactly,’ Mrs Gable said and stepped harder on the gas. The two little girls looked up at me with wide eyes and big smiles. Hey, who doesn’t like speed?