Tough Customer (38 page)

No one moved or said anything for several seconds, then Caroline waved Dodge up the porch steps. "Get cleaned up. What is that smell?"

"Swamp gas. Dog shit. Armadillo shit. God only knows. I'd be a lot worse off if Ski hadn't loaned me these boots." When he got to the porch, he worked his feet from the rubber hunting boots, then, without any ceremony, undid his pants and shucked them. He took off the rest of his clothing, dropping it to form a stinking heap on the porch. He went into the house wearing only his undershorts.

Standing in the entry was Deputy Lavell, not a hair out of place, staring at him with stern disapproval.

"Ski said for me to tell you to return to the sheriff's office."

"How come he didn't tell me himself?"

Dodge held their eye contact for fifteen seconds, then repeated what he'd said word for word. She shrugged, then walked out without a backward glance.

Berry was indifferent to the deputy's rudeness. She wanted to pump Dodge for information, but he insisted on taking a hot shower first. "Before any bugs can lay eggs on me. Pour me a bourbon, please," he said over his shoulder as he climbed the stairs.

He was back down in ten minutes, scrubbed and smelling of soap, his wet hair combed back off his face. He was carrying his sport jacket and was wearing a pair of Dockers and a short-sleeved shirt. With all the muck now washed off, the scrapes and scratches on his exposed skin were visible.

"Did you put some antiseptic on those?" Caroline asked as she passed him the requested drink.

"No." He took a gulp of the whiskey.

"Don't say anything till I get back."

"It better not sting," he called to her as she rushed toward her bedroom.

He sat down in the bentwood rocker that he'd sat in the day he arrived. That had been Saturday. This was Monday. Berry was amazed at how familiar to her he'd become in that short span of time, how many monumental events had occurred, how much she had shared with a father she hadn't known until forty-eight hours ago.

"Is Ski all right?"

"What, the hero of the day?"

"He is?"

"Last man standing. Made even the Texas Rangers look like little girls." He took another slurp of whiskey. "He's worse for wear, but fine."

"Where is he now?"

"Last I saw him, he was at the entry to the hospital emergency room, fielding questions from reporters. All the Houston stations. One from Tyler. Lafayette, too, I think. People still like hearing about a posse running the bad guy to ground. Especially in the Thicket. Adds to its mystique."

Berry shook her head in wonderment. "I can't imagine Oren venturing into a wilderness."

"I can't imagine him doing a lot of the things he did." He warily eyed the bottle of antiseptic that Caroline carried in along with a plastic sleeve of quilted cotton pads. "Is that gonna burn?"

"It won't hurt as much as an infection would," she said. "You probably should get a tetanus shot."

"Don't hold your breath."

Frowning at him, she knelt down beside the rocking chair and doused a cotton pad with the liquid, then applied it to a nasty puncture wound on the back of his hand.

Between curses over the stinging antiseptic, he talked the women through the previous few hours.

When he finished, Berry asked, "What are Oren's chances?"

"Of surviving? He won't. He'll die now or he'll face three counts of murder and die courtesy of this sovereign state. Either way, his goose is cooked."

Berry got up and walked to a window that afforded a view of the lake. The sun was setting. A flock of birds was reflected on the surface of the water. Pines cast long, straight shadows on the pebbled shore. The setting was picturesque and tranquil, exactly as it had been last Friday evening when she and Ben finished their work and, innocently, decided to cook steaks on the grill and celebrate the completion of a yearlong project. The memory caused her to grimace.

She turned to face her parents. Funny that she automatically thought of Caroline and Dodge now as a unit. A pair. Her
parents.

"I want to see Oren."

With a decisive thud, Dodge set his glass on the cocktail table at his elbow. "Goddammit."

"What?"

"That's exactly what Ski said you would say. He
bet
me that's what you would say. I just lost five bucks."

"Whose car is that?"

He retrieved the glass and slammed back the last of the whiskey. "Belongs to the deputy who's guarding Starks's room at the hospital. Ski said I could borrow his car to come here, get cleaned up."

"Well, now that you're clean, you can drive the loaned car back. We'll follow in Mother's."

Berry was anxious to talk to Ski, or just to
see
him, if only from a distance.

She was also anxious to see Oren. She desperately wanted this episode of her life concluded, and it wouldn't be completely over and done with until she had acknowledged to Oren the part she'd played in all the egregious things he'd done.

He must have been mentally ill all along, but perhaps she had tipped a precarious balance that had plunged him into insanity. Perhaps if she'd been kinder and more tolerant, his innate impulses would have remained dormant until he died of natural causes at a very old age.

In any case, until she owned up to her culpability, she wouldn't have peace.

If his condition was as critical as Dodge had said, time was running out for her to meet that obligation. Unfortunately, as she was crossing the hospital lobby on her way to the ICU floor, she was intercepted by Ben and Amanda Lofland.

"So that's Ben," Dodge said out the corner of his mouth, his tone indicating he wasn't impressed by what he saw.

"You two go on up," Berry said. "I'll be along."

Reluctantly, Dodge ushered Caroline toward the bank of elevators, leaving Berry to confront the couple alone. Ben was in a wheelchair being pushed by a hospital orderly. He looked pale, drawn, and thin. Amanda was at his side. She was brimming with malice.

Berry said, "Hello, Ben, Amanda."

Speaking over his shoulder, Ben asked the orderly to give them a minute. As soon as he was out of earshot, Amanda launched her attack. "Why did you sic that deputy on me?"

"Ski?"

"Ski?"
she repeated in an unflattering imitation of Berry. "You're on a first-name basis with him. No shocker there."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Amanda."

"He was here first thing this morning, questioning me about Sally Buckland.

Questioning me.
He found some calls to her on my cell phone. Why would he be investigating my call log if you hadn't poisoned his mind about me?"

Had the subject of Sally's death not been so serious, Berry would have rolled her eyes over Amanda's melodramatic phrasing. "All I ever said about you in connection with Sally was that I wasn't aware that you two knew each other."

"We didn't. But we both knew
you.
We both knew the treachery you're capable of."

"Let it go, Amanda." Ben sounded weary. Berry figured he'd been listening to her ranting about this for hours. "What does it matter now that Sally is dead and her killer is in custody?"

"So you've heard about Oren?" Berry asked.

"The TV in my room was on," he said. "Hell of a thing, this whole mess. And Sally." He ran his hand over his pasty face. "Jesus."

"You have no idea. It was quite awful, finding her that way. They're thinking that Oren abused and tortured her for hours before he killed her."

"I hope the creep dies," Amanda said. "He almost made me a widow."

"Mrs. Mittmayer wasn't as lucky as you," Berry said quietly.

"Like I said, I hope he dies." She gave Berry a hard look. "Are you here to see him?"

"I want to, yes."

"What for?" Ben asked, looking genuinely flummoxed.

"You know what for, Ben. For the same reason I called him on Thursday afternoon."

Under her meaningful stare, he squirmed in the seat of the wheelchair. "What purpose would it serve to talk to him now?"

"Maybe none. But I still want to say what I feel I must."

Amanda looked impatient and made an event out of checking the time on her wristwatch. The woman really was too self-centered and mean-spirited to deserve Berry's notice.

Addressing Ben, she said, "Good luck with the campaign. It's all yours now."

"He had nothing to do with that."

Amanda was so quick to make the point, Berry was certain the opposite was true. Her expression must have conveyed her feelings, because Ben came in right behind his wife with a denial of responsibility.

"Swear to God, Berry, I never thought Delray would take such a hard stance. Not with you, you of all people."

Berry actually laughed. "Me of all people? The scarlet woman of the company? Isn't that what Amanda implied to them?"

"That's not how it was, Berry. They drew their own conclusions about what went down in the lake house, and why. I swear I ... we ... didn't--"

"Don't work yourself into a lather, Ben. Whatever you or Amanda told them or led them to believe, whatever explanation or apology you're about to sputter now is meaningless to me. You let me take the fall, and that was dishonest and disloyal.

"But I'm not all that broken up over it. I don't want to work for a company that has so little regard for me as to believe the worst without even extending me the courtesy of a defense." She drew herself up. "The portfolio with everything in it, from the first sketches to the final mock-ups, is at the lake house. I'll have it sent to you by courier."

"He doesn't need your largesse," Amanda said. "And you can keep the portfolio. Ben has made copies of everything all along."

Berry looked from Amanda back down to Ben, whose expression bore the imprint of guilt. "Oh. I see." Berry held his tortured gaze for several seconds, then, without shaking hands or even saying good-bye, she walked away.

She'd been outside Oren's ICU for almost an hour when Ski arrived, looking recently showered and dressed in fresh clothing. Upon seeing him, her heart kicked up its pace, but his demeanor was suitably professional, so she curbed the impulse to fling her arms around him and, instead, greeted him with a reserve that was appropriate.

After they'd exchanged hellos, he turned to the deputy sitting in a formed fiberglass chair, who'd been assigned to guard Oren's room. "Do you need a break?"

Either he took the hint or he really did need a break, because he thanked Ski, left his chair, and walked away, leaving them alone.

Berry, speaking quietly, said, "Dodge told me about your heroic efforts to bring Oren in."

He waved off her compliment. "I should have caught him sooner."

"I shouldn't have called him on Thursday. I shouldn't have invited Ben to come here on Friday. I shouldn't have treated Oren so unkindly. His parents and teachers should have recognized his psychotic tendencies." She gave him a wan smile. "The blame extends a long way back, Ski."

She glanced into the ICU, where Oren's vitals were being monitored by softly blipping machines. "They let me go in. There were things I wanted to say to him, and I did." Regretfully, she shook her head. "But I don't think he heard me."

She could feel the weight of Ski's contemplative gaze on her. "Why did you want to talk to him, Berry? Why are you still here?"

"I really can't explain why. I just feel I should be. Is it macabre of me to stand vigil, waiting for something to happen?"

"It's macabre to have restraints on him." In addition to all the tubes and wires attached to Oren, there were bands around his wrists and ankles that secured him to the bed. "But he killed three people. Ruthlessly. We shouldn't feel sorry for him."

"I don't. Not really. I don't know how I feel, Ski. I'm relieved that he's no longer a threat to me or to anyone else, but my emotions are mixed. I don't know what to think about anything." Her eyes coming back to his, she added helplessly, "About
that.
"

He knew exactly what she was talking about. His voice dropped in volume. "Right.

That.
The kiss that rocked my world. I don't know what to think about it, either. I just know that I do. Constantly." Inclining a fraction of an inch closer, he added, "I didn't want to leave you last night."

"I almost came after you."

"You did?"

"I made it as far as the door. I knew you had to go, but I didn't want to be away from you."

The hungry stare they exchanged was interrupted by a commotion at the end of the long corridor. The deputy, returning from his break, was arguing with Lisa Arnold.

"I want to talk to Ski Nyland."

"It's okay," Ski said. The deputy moved aside. The girl's flip-flops made slapping sounds as she walked toward them.

"How are you, Ms. Arnold?" Ski asked politely.

She hooked a hank of overprocessed, raven-colored hair behind her ear, from which several silver rings dangled. "I'm okay. I mean, I guess. You know, I'm still sad over Davis."

"Of course."

Her gaze slid to Berry. Ski made the introductions.

"I know who you are," the girl said. "It started at your house. He shot your boyfriend, too, right?" Before Berry could correct her, she turned away from them and looked into the ICU. For several moments, she stared at Oren. Finally she said, "I saw on TV that you'd caught him. The deputy that's been parked outside my house came up to the door and told me that he was leaving, that there was no reason for him to guard me anymore."

Ski asked, "Is that the man you saw in the motel, who shot Davis Coldare?"

"That's him, all right. The son of a bitch." But her sneer gave way to rising emotion. "I talked Davis into taking me to that motel. If we'd've stayed at the drive-in, he would still be alive."