"I hope the police understand," I said.
"I'm sure they will. Nothing wrong with our sheriff. She's a good one."
I wasn't as sold on that idea as Nita, but then the sheriff wasn't answerable to me.
"How come your head's bleeding?" Nita asked, as if to make sure I was completely there with her mentally.
"He pulled me out of the car by the hair," I said, and she looked truly shocked. "He pulled some stitches out."
"Well, if Ted knew that, he'd shoot him again," she said, and that triggered a set of giggles that shook my body in an unpleasant way.
I thought, Then I wish I'd told him, but just then we heard an ominous sound outside. It was a deep groan, and it came from right outside the door. Ted Hamilton. Oh, shit.
Quick as a wink, Nita locked the front door, and just barely in time. The knob turned, and when the door wouldn't open to him, Barney threw himself against it.
"Come out," he bellowed, "come out here!"
"He's hurt Ted," Nita said. "That son of a bitch."
Even at that moment, I was shocked. But that was only the beginning. Nita opened a closet on the other side of the front door, pulled out a rifle, and aimed it at the door. "This is our varmint rifle," she told me, maybe because I was gaping at her. "He comes in here, he's dead. I might turn my own cheek, but I ain't offering up yours."
Barney threw himself against the door. Since I was still sitting to the right of the door, like a fool, I could hear the click in the quiet night. "Move!" I yelled. "Move, Nita!" And Barney fired Ted's pistol into the house.
The cabin had a good door, but the bullet came in and passed through the living room and into the kitchen beyond. Nita had moved to the side, and it missed her by a foot or more, but it was pretty shocking. For a moment I thought Nita would falter, that all her courage would drain away, but she raised the rifle and fired right back, and we heard a scream.
After a second of staring at each other, Nita said, "I have to see about my husband." Though I thought it was the worst idea in the world for her to open that door, I said "Of course you do" through stiff lips. I reached up my right hand and unlocked the door, and turned the knob as quietly as I could, though I'm not sure why I was trying to be so quiet at this late date.
The door swung open, and we saw Barney again down and bleeding, and Ted Hamilton crumpled on the deck in a corner, blood running from his shoulder. He was conscious, but only just. Nita said, "Oh," and it sounded like she was witnessing the end of the world.
Then she simply stepped over Barney to get to her man, and she knelt down by him, and she put pressure on his shoulder like the sensible woman she was, and I finally managed to subtract myself from the situation by fainting.
Sixteen
WHEN I was a little more aware of what was around me, things were better all around. I was being strapped to a gurney and I was willing to bet I was about to get a ride in an ambulance to the Doraville hospital.
"Doraville's not lucky for me," I said, or at least I thought I was saying that, but I guess I was just mumbling, because the EMT at my head, a plump young woman with an aggressive jaw, said, "You're gonna be okay, honey, don't you worry."
"Mr. Hamilton?"
"That's nice, your asking about him. We got the bleeding stopped. I think he's gonna be okay, too."
"Barney?"
"He ain't dead, but I bet he's gonna wish he was."
"Where's my—where's Tolliver?" Had to get out of the habit of calling him my brother.
"Tall, dark, skinny?"
"Mm-hm."
"Waiting for us to wheel you out."
And I smiled.
"That's sweet, she's happy to see him," the young woman said. Her partner, a man in his fifties, said, "Grace, let's just get her out of here," and she pouted as they got me down the deck steps.
Tolliver was by me, and he was beside himself. "He took you right out of the car," he said, as if I didn't know that. "I couldn't believe it when I came out and you were gone!"
"Well, you-all can talk all night if you want. Let us get this gal to the hospital," the older man said.
The ride back to the hospital took a while, and the young woman sat in back with me and chattered the whole time. She took my pulse and checked my temperature and did all kinds of things, including looking at the stitches in my scalp. From the slight face she made, I knew they weren't in good shape.
"Now, I understand you had a cracked ulna a few days ago?" she asked. "I think you've graduated to a broken arm, but we'll take us an X-ray to be sure."
"Okay," I said. We'd have to go into our savings to pay for my Doraville medical bills. That'd be that much longer until we could buy our house. But it was hard for me to worry about that right now, or much of anything else, being in this ambulance felt so blissful compared to my previous three hours of experience.
I felt so safe I actually fell asleep and had to blink my eyes open when we reached the hospital.
The whole hospital experience was déjà vu. I wasn't in the same room—I think Ted Hamilton was in that one. I was down the hall and on the other side.
Sandra Rockwell was my most surprising visitor. After we'd done the "How are you" s and so forth, she said, "I want to apologize for something."
I waited.
"I knew whoever attacked you, I knew it had to be the killer. And there wasn't a trace of him. Or his vehicle. Turns out, Tom Almand says he parked over behind Hair Affair and cut across the back parking lots. Then he hid behind the Dumpster behind the motel. He was going to slash your tires, but then you came out, and he'd brought the shovel just on the off chance."
I tried to remember where Hair Affair was—two doors down from the motel, I thought. It hardly mattered now.
"How's he doing?" I asked.
"Tom?" She sounded surprised. "Talking his damn head off. But won't mention his son."
"Maybe Barney will," I said. Again, I felt as if I hardly cared. Chuck Almand was gone now, and no amount of confession or explanation would bring him back.
Tolliver came in just then. He'd been in the cafeteria getting coffee and breakfast. He'd gotten me some coffee, and though I wasn't sure if I was supposed to have it or not, I planned on drinking it. He bent over to kiss me, and I didn't care, either, what Sandra Rockwell thought about that.
Klavin and Stuart came in then. They both looked exhausted, but they were smiling.
"There's enough pathology between those two to keep the serial-killer writers busy for years," Klavin said. "As long as they're behind bars while they're being studied, that's fine with me."
"The writers are welcome to 'em," said Stuart. He smoothed his already smooth hair. "Those two are talking, and that's how we're filling in the cracks."
Tolliver took my hand.
I sighed.
They began asking me exactly what had happened the afternoon before, and I wasn't really ready to talk about it. But I'd had to do a lot of things I didn't want to do during my stay in Doraville, and this was simply another one of them.
"Did you suspect he was the one?" Stuart asked.
"Yes," I said, and they all seemed surprised…especially Tolliver. "Because when I was sitting there in the car, I was thinking about the hole under the barn, and I was thinking how strange it was that Barney Simpson knew there was a hole there. He said something about it when I was visiting Manfred here at the hospital. I might not even have thought about it, but when Doak Garland asked me a question about it, it was clear that Doak had no idea there was a pit under the stall. So it was not common knowledge. Yet Barney had known about it. And then I thought about the way so many of the boys had had a trip to the hospital. That would have been a good place for Barney to spot them and mark them for future attention. And he said something to me about that."