“We’re done, Riker.” Her gun hand flashed out.
“Kathy!” he yelled in a pure reflex, forgetting he held a weapon, trying to get to the child he knew, before this strange woman could kill him.
The basement was plunged into blackness. Mallory’s hand had found the fuse box. She had only killed the light. Seconds later, Riker was alone in the room.
Charles’s thoughts were with the old king of the world when he looked down at his bouquet, another apology of flowers. When he entered Alma Furgueson’s hospital room, the sheriff was gone and another visitor was sitting by her bed. The large proprietress of Jane’s Cafe was mashing delicate wildflowers between her thick fingers as she arranged them in the water glass on the bedside table.
“Hello, again,” said Jane. It was the warm welcome of an old friend, though they had never even spoken to one another. “I heard you were back in town. So you come to visit with Alma. Well, isn’t that nice.” She bent down to the woman on the bed and reiterated this, as if Alma had no eyes and they were not trained on the enormous man looming over her.
“Say hello to your visitor, Alma.” Jane took the flowers from his hand and began to arrange this larger bouquet in the water pitcher, brutally snapping the long elegant stalks to better fit the short length of glass, bruising every petal as she forced them into the narrow container. The overflow of water spilled out on the table, smearing the ink on Alma’s only get-well card, which was signed by Jane.
“I’m so sorry about all this, Miss Furgueson.” He pulled up a chair and sat on the other side of her bed. “I know it had something to do with the angel in the – ”
“Oh, no it didn’t,” said Jane, answering for Alma. “She does this at least once a year. She’s pixilated, you know. Now you just call her Alma – everyone does.”
Charles began again, speaking to Alma. “I was in the cemetery when you – ”
“Wasn’t that a sight?” said Jane. “I guess everyone in town’s been up there. But angel or no angel, Alma was due for another round of slashing and bleeding.”
And now Charles looked down to the bandaged wrists. Older scars protruded from the line of the white bandages. It was true then; this was a ritual with Alma. That assuaged his guilt only a little. Suppose she had died?
“I understand you’re a member of the New Church,” he said in a game attempt at making conversation with the woman on the bed.
“Well, everyone in Owltown belongs to New Church,” said Jane. “I did try to talk Alma out of that. She was a staunch Catholic, you know. It was pure insanity to deed her house over to the New Church.” She made a distasteful moue as she spat out the last two words, and for a moment, Charles thought she might spit on the floor.
Alma was staring at him. He couldn’t fathom her expression. Was she frightened or glad of a visitor? Again, he looked down at the history of mental illness in the old scars above her bandaged wrists.
“Would you like me to go?” he asked Alma.
“Certainly not,” said Jane.
Alma’s eyes never left his face. When he smiled at her, she smiled back. Well, lunatics liked him. That was his curse in life. There was something about his foolish smile that made them believe he was one of their number.
He covered Alma’s hand with his own. “Perhaps you should be resting.”
“Now don’t you worry about her,” said Jane. “She’s only a little peaked because the sheriff was in here upsetting her with a lot of questions about a meeting. ‘What about that meeting?’ he yells, like she’s deaf or something. And poor Alma turned white as a sheet. But she’s all right now.”
“What sort of meeting?” He spoke to Jane this time.
“Oh, nothing special,” said Alma. “Just a business meeting for the board members. And I told him that. We were talking about repairs on the tent and budgets for the mail order catalogues. And then Cass walked in.”
Now Jane chimed in. “Alma bought herself a place on the governing board of the New Church when she deeded over her house.”
Charles looked at Alma. “What was Cass Shelley doing at that meeting?”
Alma looked to the glass and pitcher, both filled with flowers. “Jane, could you get me some water?”
When Jane had gone off in search of flowerless water, Alma touched his arm. “Jane says you’re real tight with Malcolm.”
“We met in her cafe. I don’t – ”
“And I saw you in the front row at the memorial service the other night. You were in the chair with the velvet rope.” Now she clutched his wrist, her nails dug into his skin and she smiled with fever-bright eyes. “I never told the sheriff anything about the letter.”
The letter again. What had Ira said about the letter? “You mean the blue letter?”
“Yes, it was blue.” And now she smiled, very pleased with him, as if he had passed a test of sorts. “Tom Jessop’s not a believer, you know, not one of us. He knew I was there when Cass died, but he didn’t understand the importance of her ascendance into heaven. Now she’s come back to take me away. You know, Cass always wanted to do that. She would get all her legal papers together, and then Jane – Oh, doesn’t Jane love a good fight. Jane would get a legal-aid man out of New Orleans to say that there was no cause to take me anywhere. But now Cass is back, and this time she will bear me away.”
Yes, Alma was quite insane. And someone should send her away, but he thought that was unlikely. Every notch cut into her wrists represented a lost opportunity to get her the help she needed. He could see her future now. One day she would get it right, and she would die alone. What a friend she had in Jane.
“What do you remember about the meeting?”
“Cass came in as we were talking about mending the tent for the next road show. She was real angry. Her office had been robbed. I know the sheriff was out of town, but I don’t know what she expected us to do about it. And she was waving that letter. Now she said that it was stolen, but there it was in her hand.”
“Could it have been a copy?”
“It could have been. Now that would make more sense, wouldn’t it?”
“Do you know what was in the letter?”
“Yes, of course I do. She wanted to take me away. I told you that.”
“All right – the meeting. Did that have anything to do with the stoning?”
“No, that was God’s work. The stones came out of the sky like rain and one fell into my hand. Not hard, mind you, but it just settled there in my hand. I took it home with me, and I keep it under my bed. It was so quiet between the fall of one stone and another.”
Alma’s voice was shrill now, and her eyes were very bright. “Cass didn’t scream or anything. That was part of the miracle. You wouldn’t think a woman could die in silence while her body was being broken that way. It was a test. But she understood what was happening to her.”
Alma clutched his arm with one hand and raked the other through her hair. “And the rocks only rained on Cass. It was a miracle the way she died.” Tears were streaming down her face and her voice was louder, almost shouting. “And now she’s back, going about His work. She’s come for me. I was afraid once, but no more. It’s my time of atonement for all my sins.” She looked to the ceiling, and screamed. “I’m so sorry! I have offended Thee!”
“What have you done?” Jane pushed the door, open with one meaty elbow. Her hands were filled with a pitcher and a glass. “She’s not supposed to be upset. Maybe you’d better leave, Mr. Butler.” Behind Jane, a nurse’s voice seconded this opinion. When Charles stepped into the hallway, the door was slammed behind him.
Riker was leaning against a gurney, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth. “Have a nice visit, Charles? Sounded like a prayer meeting. Is Alma worried about going to hell for what she did?”