Hell on Church Street (16 page)

“What did you want to talk about, then?”

He sighed. “Well, I found that envelope. Went by your house last night and picked it up. I guess you’ve been too involved with your church work to think about that kind of stuff very much.”

Goddamn it.

That’s all I could think: God. Damn. It.

“At my house,” I said.

“Mm.” He shook his head. “Leaving it there was stupid, you know.”

I nodded. “It was a bluff. But I figured it was too…” I choked a little, rolled down the window and spat a glob of blood. I rolled the window back up and said, “Too obvious.”

“Yeah,” he said, almost kindly. We were like two opposing coaches discussing a football game I’d lost. “I can see that.”

“So you don’t need me anymore.”

“Oh man, we’re way beyond me not needing you. You’re a time bomb. You killed the preacher and his wife.” He shook his head. Then he chuckled. “Christ. I didn’t see that coming. I’ll give you that one. You surprised me by killing the Cards.”

“It was an accident.”

“Yeah.”

I leaned forward.

“And now you have everything you want,” I said.

“Pretty much,” he replied. “I got plans, though. Once the money starts coming in from the aluminum plant, who knows where it could all lead?”

I put my hand on the buckle of my seat belt. “Where do you want it to lead?”

“Honestly?” he said cheerfully. “I’m thinking state senate.”

I put my head back, but I tried to nod. “Is that a real possibility?” As gently as I could, I pressed the button on my seat belt. Norris shifted his weight onto his left hip. His coat fell open and out of the corner of my eye I glanced the gun on his hip.

“You bet,” Norris answered. He took the steering wheel in his left hand.

“Ambitious.”

“Well,” he said, casually inching his right hand down to his gun, “way I see it, ambition is just a dream with a hard-on.”

I laughed, and he laughed too, and I flung myself at him and jerked the wheel hard to the right. We careened into the side of an eighteen-wheeler and the passenger’s side window shattered and sprayed glass across us. Norris growled and
cursed
“Goddamn you” and elbowed me in the head. But he didn’t take his foot off the petal; he had it pressed to the floor for leverage against me as he hammered my face and neck. But I wasn’t fighting him; I was fighting the wheel. I gave it another hard jerk and we went into a spin.

Then I was tumbling. It was like I was caught in a tornado; sight and sound and sensation had broken apart and swirled together. The dashboard lights and the windshield, the explosion of glass and the scream of metal across pavement.
Norris’s yelling and my yelling.
We slammed into each other, just two objects in the torrent, two hands clapped together and thrown apart. The truck flipped again, and then I was in flight outside the truck. The weight of air and gravity pulled at me, and then the earth smashed into me, and I was on my side and skidding down the grassy median while things were dropping and breaking all around. Cars were stopping.

And then there was silence and frosty grass and sky.

And after that, there was nothing for a while.

Chapter Seventeen

I woke up in a hospital bed. A black woman in orange scrubs was leaning over me and adjusting something above my head. Behind her on a beige wall hung a Monet print, and above that hung a television. The sound wasn’t on.

“Looks like you’re waking up,” the woman said.

I tried to nod, but my neck was in a brace.

“Jesus,” I said. “Am I paralyzed?”

“No.”

“Just tell me if I am.”

She shrugged. Her skin was caramel-colored and smelled like fresh lotion.
 
“Okay, I will. If you ever get paralyzed, I’ll tell you. But you’re not paralyzed. Which is amazing. You got some cuts and some strained muscles and some broke fingers, but the rest of you is okay. You
ain’t
feeling much because we have you doped up.”

“Thank the Lord,” I said. It just popped out of my mouth, so maybe I meant it. On the television, a fat guy dressed like Cupid was selling cars.

The nurse smiled and turned to mess with something on a cart by the bed. “You best thank somebody,” she said, “because there isn’t a logical reason why you’re still alive and relatively…”

“Unscathed?”

She said, “You’re a lucky man.”

“This is the first time,” I said.

“Well, you picked a good time to start.”

I thought about Norris. “What about the other man in the truck?”

She shook her head and patted my bare shoulder. Her hand was smooth and warm. “I don’t know about your friend,” she said. “They’re still working on him, but he’s in pretty bad shape. He was in the middle of half a ton of broken metal and glass. But they’re still working on him. We got some good doctors here.”

“Where am…am I?”

“You’re at Connor County Hospital.”

My head felt thick and spongy. “In Stock’s Settlement.
Pretty far…north.
North. Why did they bring me, us…me here?”

“You’re so full of questions,” she said. Then she held up something that looked like a tube of lipstick attached to a wire. “If you wake up and you need me there’s a little button and you can buzz me.”

“Lipstick. Can’t…” I drifted off for a second. “What—”

“You’re going to sleep now,” she said. “Medication. You’ll feel—”

I assume she said I’d feel fine.

And I did.

The next time I awoke there was a balloon in the room. It was floating in the corner and read: GET WELL SOON!!
in
red letters. The air from the ceiling vent stirred it and it thumped against the wall. On the television, a man in a blue shirt and tie pointed at a map of Arkansas while computerized snowflakes blinked over the Ozarks.

I lay there a while watching the
weather man
pointing at the weather. Then the door opened and people entered. I couldn’t really turn my head to see them, though, so I moaned out, “Hello?”

A middle-aged woman walked up. With her little teeth and her big gums she looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her at first. She looked to the other side of the room and said, “Well, c’mon. He’s awake. Don’t be bashful.”

Then it hit me. Brother Card’s sister.
Angela’s aunt.

“Angela?” I said.

Her aunt smiled, and then said again to the other side of the room, “Don’t be bashful, now.”

Angela walked to the edge of the bed. A black turtleneck sweater choked her pale face, and she just stared down at me.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I think so. I just woke up. I’m a little dazed.”

“Yeah,” she said.

She pulled at the hem of her sweater.

Ms. Card said, “She had to come see you, Brother Webb. She was real concerned when she heard about your accident. Everybody was.”

“I appreciate that,” I said. I looked at Ms. Card. “Thank you for the balloon.”

“Oh, that was from folks at the church,” she said. “A lot of people have been up here in the last day or so. We’re just the lucky ones that got you when you was waking up.”

“Do you know anything about…Doolittle?” I asked.

Angela grimaced. I could tell she was chewing on the inside of her cheek, and I wanted to tell her to stop, but I couldn’t, of course. I couldn’t be that familiar with her in front of her aunt.

Ms. Card told me, “He’s still upstairs. He’s...it’s a rough time for him right now. Nick and Lacey are up there.”

For some reason, that sent chills crawling across me like an army of ants. “Nick is here?”

“Sure. He’s been in to see you, I think.”

“He has,” Angela said.

“Everybody’s concerned,” Ms. Card said. “The kids from your youth group are all real concerned. Aren’t they, Angela?”

“Yes,” Angela said.

“And after what happened to…” Ms. Card shook her head. “That church has been through a lot.” She put her arm around Angela. “So you stay healthy, Brother Webb. Those kids need you.”

“I will,” I said.

Angela glanced at the door like she was afraid it would disappear.

“How are you?” I asked her.

“Fine.”

“She’s just bashful,” Ms. Card said. “All she talked about was getting up here to see you and now she’s here she’s quiet as a mouse.” She rubbed Angela’s shoulder and told her, “But you’ve been through a lot lately, so it’s okay to be quiet.”

“Absolutely,” I said. My head felt thick.

Angela started chewing her bottom lip and nodded. “I think we should go.”

“Well, he
ain’t
been awake five minutes, sweetie.”

“He looks tired.”

Ms. Card looked down at me. “You do,” she said.

I nodded. “I might want to get some more sleep,” I said. “I sort of feel myself drifting, so I may not have any choice.”

Ms. Card patted my arm. “You get some more sleep. You’ll be out of here soon. You just remember everybody is praying for you.”

“Thank you,” I said.

Angela, still biting her lip, didn’t look at me. “We’ll see you later,” she said.

“Thank you for coming, Angela,” I said. “I really appreciate it.”

She said, “Okay” and started for the door.

Ms. Card patted my arm, blessed
me and they
left.

I stared at a blank spot on the wall. I wanted to cry.

Then Angela rushed back into the room. She stopped at the side of my bed.

“Are we alone?” I asked her.

“Yes. I only have a second, though,” she said.

“Don’t be scared.”

“Okay.”

“I’m going to be okay.”

She stared at me and chewed her cheek. “Everyone wants to know why you were in the truck with Sheriff Norris.”

“We were talking about his son Tim.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean? I’m the youth minister. Tim is one of the kids in my youth group.”

She stared at my face like she was trying to decide what it was made of.

“Oh,” she said.

“And I was asking him about the case involving your parents.”