Who Let That Killer In The House? (29 page)

“She took in a lot of water,” said the other, running for his seat.

Art ran to his car and followed them. As they all roared away into the night, I stood in that road and sobbed.

“You okay?” Joe Riddley draped an arm around my shoulders and held me close, sopping though I was. He was trembling, but he was warm. “She’s going to be all right. Come on home for some dry clothes.”

“I want to go with her.”

“Get yourself dry first, and then we’ll go. The breeze is picking up, and I don’t want you catching your death of cold.” His fingers gently rubbed my neck.

He peered into the SUV. “Keys are in the ignition. You drive it. I’ll bring Lulu in my car.” We both needed some private time to recover.

My hair hung wet and muddy on my cheeks. I’d have to call Phyllis first thing in the morning to see if she could work me in for a shampoo and set before I went to the store. As I started the ignition, my knees shook so hard I could hardly get my foot on the gas pedal. I drove slowly, peering through the windshield as though I were peering down the long, bleak tunnel of Garnet’s life. What could have driven her to do such a thing? Did she not know how precious life is?

I glanced in my rearview mirror at Joe Riddley driving through the leaf-dappled brightness with Lulu beside him, her head hung out the window to sniff the breeze. Neither seemed to notice the spot where they’d both been shot last August, but I shivered to remember how long it had taken him to recover and how near we’d come to losing Lulu and not just her leg. As I pulled into our drive, I sent up a silent word of thanks that they were still around and asked the same blessing for Garnet.

27

Joe Riddley spent weeks in the hospital after he was shot, and I spent a week there in February, getting pills out of my system. Neither of us looked forward to yet another dash to the emergency room with hearts fluttering and prayers ascending that we’d make it in time.

“We’ll have to go get Sara Meg and take her to the hospital,” I pointed out as I sloshed across the yard to the kitchen door, “since we’ve got her car.”

It was only that afternoon that Sara Meg had asked me to leave Skye MacDonald’s office. I dreaded explaining to her about fishing Garnet out of the pond tonight, so I was real grateful when Joe Riddley said, “I’ll go get her. You get dressed and come in your car.”

“Take the cell phone and call her to say you’re coming.” I grabbed it from my pocketbook and thrust it at him.

She and Joe Riddley were already at the information desk when I arrived. “Where’s Garnet Stanton?” Sara Meg was demanding in a tight voice.

The clerk checked her list. “Room five, but the doctors are with her now. You can’t go in there yet.”

“I’m her mother!” Sara Meg headed for the doors marked NO ADMITTANCE without noticing I was there.

Art crouched in the waiting room on an orange plastic chair. “Why were you down at the pond?” I asked as I sat down beside him.

“I was going to help her run away this evening after I got off work. I was going to drive her to Swainsboro, but she didn’t come, so finally I went to her house. I saw her come out and drive off, and I followed.”

Joe Riddley joined us and we all sat on those hard orange chairs and waited. We watched patients come in with runny noses and runny eyes, bullets to be removed, sprains to be braced, broken wrists to be set, and sore throats to be soothed. I kept my mind off Garnet by wondering which of the patients would appear before my magistrate’s bench as soon as they were released and which of us would be the first to come down with something we’d caught in the emergency room.

Art sat hunched with his hands between his knees, seldom saying a word.

Joe Riddley stood all of a sudden. “I think we ought to invite the hospital board to hold their next meeting here, to see how long
they
can stand these chairs.” He started prowling.

When he next orbited past me, I said, “We ought to call Hollis.”

“She’s okay. She’s spending the night with Bethany.”

“I know, but I think she ought to be here. You’ve got the phone. Call her.”

He wandered over to a quiet corner to make the call, then came back and reported that Sara Meg had already called Buddy, and he was stopping for Hollis on his way to the hospital.

I hadn’t realized Martha was on duty until she hurried over and sat down in the chair Joe Riddley had vacated. “Somebody told me you all were out here. Is it about Garnet?”

“How is she?” Art demanded.

“She’s going to be all right. She’s being processed for a room right now. The EMTs said it was you who called. What happened?”

“She jumped in before I could stop her,” Art said. I thought he was going to burst into tears.

“And I went after her and got myself a new hairdo.” I shoved back my hair, which was matted, filthy and straggled down my neck.

“She was suicidal?” Martha was on her feet as soon as I nodded. “That changes things. Excuse me.” She hurried out. When she came back a few minutes later, she reported, “They’ve sent her to the psychiatric unit. We can’t take the chance that she’ll try something else. Can you tell me everything that happened?”

We didn’t get a chance. Sara Meg dashed out and headed straight for Martha, shooting sparks ahead of her. “Why are they changing Garnet’s room? I was filling out paperwork and heard them say she’s being sent to Three-C. Is that still the psychiatric ward?” I remembered that Sara Meg’s mother-in-law had been there for a few days after Fred’s death.

“It’s only for a night or two,” Martha soothed her. “She tried to take her own life.”

“Take her own life?” Sara Meg’s voice rose. “Garnet? You have been trying to get her to see a psychiatrist for weeks. There is nothing the matter—”

“Mama?” None of us had noticed that Hollis and Buddy had arrived until Hollis spoke.

Sara Meg turned and gathered Hollis in her arms. “Oh, honey, Garnet’s been hurt. She’s real bad.”

“What happened?” Buddy demanded.

Sara Meg shook her head. “I don’t know. She fell in the Yarbroughs’ pool or something and nearly drowned.” Three pairs of eyes turned to me accusingly.

Joe Riddley circled by again right then and overheard. “Garnet was in Hubert’s cattle pond,” he corrected them.

“MacLaren jumped in and pulled her out.” I was annoyed they hadn’t been able to figure out by looking at me that I hadn’t been in my pool. I looked like I had been dragged through a mud puddle.

“Did she try to kill herself?” That was Hollis again, her face so white that even her freckles were pale. When we hesitated, she demanded, “Did she?”

“Of course she didn’t,” Buddy answered.

“Yes, she did,” Art said with a glower.

Sara Meg seemed to notice him for the first time, and she visibly cringed. I couldn’t blame her, since the poor boy had been branded a murderer by Chief Muggins not many hours before. She moved a step closer to her brother, and Buddy said, “What are you doing here? Go on home. You have no place here.”

Art bristled, but Joe Riddley put a hand on his shoulder. “You won’t get to see her, son. We’ll stick around and I’ll call you if there’s any change. Go on home now.”

Art slunk out like the stray cats Mama used to evict from our backyard.

Hollis turned to me, her blue eyes blazing. “Did she try to kill herself, Miss Mac?”

I reluctantly nodded. “I’m not sure, but I think so. I saw her get out of the car and head toward the pond. By the time I got there, she’d already been under the water awhile.” I shivered. The hospital was definitely too cold. Joe Riddley came over to put his arm around me, and I leaned close to him. For a second there, I’d been back in Hubert’s pond.

Joe Riddley peered down at Martha. “How long before Garnet will be ready for her folks to see her? Is there time for us all to go get a cup of coffee?”

“Why don’t you go on up to the waiting room just outside the unit?” she suggested. “There’s a coffeepot there, and I doubt there are other families up there at this hour.”

Hopemore doesn’t have much call for a psychiatric unit at the hospital. It’s really just four rooms at one end of a hall, with a little lobby outside a set of double doors. Martha personally escorted us up to the lobby, which had a big round table, and made a fresh pot of coffee. She also found a box of assorted cookies that still had a few good ones left. With the bright lights dimmed, it was a pleasant enough place to wait at that hour.

Martha indicated the double doors. “Usually you’d ring to be admitted, but right now they’re getting her settled. I’ll tell them to come get you when you can go back.” The last was for Sara Meg, whose eyes were greedy on those doors.

Martha inserted a key and the doors opened with a swoosh. I saw a second set of locked doors beyond them. The unit might be small, but it was certainly secure.

We ranged ourselves around the table, with Hollis between Joe Riddley and me and Buddy and Sara Meg on the other side. Joe Riddley poured coffee and brought milk and sugar. As we munched on cookies, I wondered if like me, everybody else was wondering what to say.

Hollis knew. She said in a low, furious voice, “This has got to stop.” Her fists were clenched on the table before her and her jaw jutted out as she glowered across the table at her mother and uncle.

Buddy put one arm around Sara Meg’s chair. “Don’t worry your mother now.”

“Don’t worry your mother.” Hollis’s parody made something terrible of those words. “Ever since Daddy died, that’s all we hear from you. ‘Don’t worry your mother.’ It’s time she got worried. It’s time she got real worried. It’s time she found out exactly what’s been going on.”

“Hollis.” His voice was stern.

I didn’t know what he was warning her against, and neither did Sara Meg. She looked from one to the other, bewildered. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing,” Buddy told her.

Hollis glared at him. “Ask this—this uncle, this vermin, if he’s sleeping with Garnet.”

She might as well have poured ice water down our backs, she shocked us so. I stared at her. Joe Riddley froze with his coffee halfway to his mouth. Sara Meg wore the embarrassed expression most mothers get when a child tells a particularly shocking lie in public.

Hollis ignored us and went right on. “I can’t believe I never suspected before, but you were so clever, Uncle Buddy. Always dropping me off at places before you took Garnet to the club to play tennis or home to practice the piano or study.” Her tone made the last word into something dark and nasty.

I dared to look at Buddy and was relieved to see he looked merely baffled. “What on earth are you talking about?”

She jutted out her chin. “The day of the big storm, I came home early. I saw your car leaving our drive as I came around the corner. Garnet was taking a shower—in the middle of the day. And washing her hair—when she’d washed it that morning—like she’d gotten filthy—” She stopped to swallow hard. “And her bed was messed up. I may be naive—I mean, it’s not like we ever got any real sex education at home”—she ignored her mother’s flinch—“but I’m not dumb. I know what messes up a bed like that. I know what she’d been doing. You don’t need to deny it, Buddy. I saw your car.”

Buddy drained the rest of his coffee and set his cup on the table before he bothered to answer. “Maybe it’s you we ought to leave in the psychiatric ward. You’re making up a whole poultry farm out of one chicken. I was over there that day, yes. I went to see if you’d gotten home from the pool or if you needed a ride. Garnet said you had your bike. She’d gotten up from a nap and said the radio predicted we were in for a big storm, so she wanted to wash her hair in case the power went out—as it did, if you remember. I must have left just as you got home, and you put two and two together and got five. That’s all. You never were real good in math.” He picked up his empty cup, peered at it in surprise, and set it down again.

Hollis looked from Buddy to the rest of us. Doubt crept into her eyes. “Then why did she plan to run away? Why did she try to kill herself?”

“We don’t know that she tried to kill herself,” Joe Riddley reminded her. “We’ll have to wait for Garnet herself to tell us.”

Buddy stood. “Don’t make things worse by letting your imagination run wild.” He went to get himself more coffee.

Hollis slumped back in her chair, flushed and sulking. Her breath came in quick, angry pants. Sara Meg leaned across the table and spoke sharply to her. “I can’t believe you said those things. After all Buddy’s done for us—for
you
—”

Maybe it was her saying his name that made me look over at him just then. I caught the quick breath he expelled as coffee filled his cup. I saw how he straightened his shoulders as he turned back to the table. He looked just like a kid who has been given a hard word in a spelling bee and spelled it right, to his own surprise and elation. I found sickening little doubts rising in me.

Sara Meg had no doubts. As Buddy came back to the table, she reached out to lightly touch his arm in support. Hollis glared. Joe Riddley looked as discombobulated as I felt. It was one of those moments when I wondered how on earth we could get from there to anywhere else.

Martha bustled through the doors like an angel of deliverance. “It will just be a few more minutes until she’s settled in. They’ll call you. Everything okay for now?”

I knew she wanted to get back downstairs, but I motioned her over. “Do you have a few minutes to sit down?”

“A few. My feet would enjoy a little vacation.” She took the chair between Joe Riddley and Sara Meg.

“We’re having a discussion here I think you could shed some light on. Would you give us a quick description of a girl who has been sexually abused? Just a thumbnail of your usual lecture. What does she look like? How does she act?” I wanted to demonstrate to us all—particularly Hollis and myself—that Garnet wasn’t that girl. After all, Garnet had heard Martha’s lecture, I told myself. She could have talked about herself when she was telling Martha about her pupil. But Hollis needed reassurance, and she’d listen to Martha, who was an expert.