"Then, when I stood up, I saw someone moving around below. I saw you, Florie Mae by that old car, and you was holdin' a shotgun, cracking it open."
Grady shook his head. "You know the rest. You saw me coming, dropped the gun and ran. I was thinking you shot him, that he'd tried to hurt you. Figured you was running 'cause you was some scared, after shooting him. I wanted you to stop, to talk some sense to you." Grady grinned. "You a-runnin', and me a-shouting at you to stop."
Florie Mae just looked at him.
Grady shrugged. "You find a man shot, see a woman holding a shotgun, what's a fellow supposed to think? Then you throwed that cursed tomcat at me, Florie Mae. No woman, no woman's ever done a thing like that to Grady Coulter."
Beside Florie Mae, James grinned. And he hugged Florie Mae, hard.
"Well," Grady said, "I guess Albern revived hisself some while that tomcat was a-trying to kill me. Revived hisself, got up and came on down the hill. Pulled them rocks from under that ole car, gave it a shove, and sent it over. Maybe thinking, all muddled like he was, thinking to get rid of it before I come back and found it with Martha and Idola in it—and Susan in the trunk."
Florie Mae shivered. "To kill Rebecca, even if he didn't mean to. To bury her with his backhoe. And then to kill Susan—try to kill Martha and Idola and me all because we found the doll, because we knew." She stroked Lacie June's soft hair. "Idola told me, there in the hospital, said she didn't fathom how Albern could've buried Rebecca, all that noise with the backhoe, and them not know. Not her or Rick or Rick's mother, there in the house, so close. Didn't hear a thing, in the dark of night. She thought he must have done it right in broad daylight, right while he was grading on the road. All three of them off at work, and no one else up there, he could've done it any time."
"But the car," James said. "He wouldn't know to move that, wouldn't have no reason to move it, gettin' it ready to shove it in the lake/till he'd killed Susan."
James settled Bobbie Lee easier on his lap. "He killed Susan night before last. Maybe drove up the mountain then, stayed off the gravel so not to be heard. Put her in the trunk the same night.
"Next morning—yesterday morning, say he waited 'till the McPhersons had gone to work, moved the car while he was working on the road." James shook his head. "Maybe didn't want to push it over, though, in daylight. Could be seen, and heard, from anywhere on the lake. Might could even thought to wait for a high wind, thought no one would be back up in there but him, to see the car set up like that. High wind come along, the sound of that car falling into the lake at night'd be no different from an old pine tree going over—and then last night he went searching for Susan acting all righteous," James said.
"If it wasn't for Rebecca's cat," Florie Mae said, "leadin' us back along that road, no one might never have thought to look up there for Rebecca. Might never have found her doll." Florie Mae looked at James. "He didn't know Rebecca's little cat would lead us there." James took her hand. She said, "He tried to kill us—just because of what we knew? Or, because killing gave him a thrill?"
If that be true, she had no words for the evil that filled Albern Haber. Leaning against James, and gently touching her sleeping babies, she wondered: when their babies had done their growin' up, what kind of world would they be getting? Would there be more like Albern Haber in the world? Oh, she prayed not.
Or would there be more like James? Loving and steady, and not twisted in his mind?
James said, "Sheriff told me, he guessed Susan'd been way ahead of him, finding Rebecca's scarf in Albern's truck—way ahead of him, but foolish how she handled it. The sheriff was sorry for that."
Granny looked at Florie Mae. "If Susan'd had a shotgun, she might could still be with us."
"A shotgun," Grady said. "Or a mean ole tomcat." And that made James and Granny smile.
Well, that tomcat might never be seen again in Greeley or anywhere else in Farley County. But Rebecca's Nugget, with the round gold spot on her side, she was home again now, sleeping on Rebecca's bed. Only now had she stopped keeping vigil; only now was her watch ended.
Nugget had still been there on the gravel road when the sheriff had started to dig for Rebecca. But when the sheriff's man had begun working with the backhoe, light and careful, why, Rebecca's cat had stopped evading everyone, and she'd come right to Martha and Florie Mae.
Picking up the little cat and cuddling her close, they had sat in Martha's truck, out of the way. They didn't want to be near when the body was brought up. But though they stroked her and tried to calm her, Nugget stayed nervous, staring out the window, until just at that terrible moment.
The minute the body was found, when the men went in with spades and shovels and brought Rebecca up, it was then that Nugget ceased her vigil.
She looked up at Florie Mae and yawned, and curled down in Martha's lap. And she went right to sleep, deep asleep. As if, for the first time in near two weeks, that poor, tired cat let go. Backed away from a job finished. Backed away, tired in every bone, from her lone vigil.
Even when they took Nugget home again to Rebecca's mama, just before suppertime, that little cat slept. She slept most all day and all night, for a week, on Rebecca's bed. Slept all during the police work as additional evidence was collected and logged in, strengthening the sheriff's case against Albern Haber. Nugget slept while the grand jury indicted Albern Haber, slept snuggled down in her own familiar blanket on Rebecca's bed.
After Rebecca was buried, Nugget began to hunt again and to act normal. But she didn't roam anymore, she stayed to home. Knowing, maybe, that something of Rebecca was still with her. Something of Rebecca settling in with her now, for a little while.
And Florie Mae thought, as she and Bobbie Lee and Lacie June played with the kittens, if Goldie's gold and white babies, sired by that bruiser tomcat, turned out as sweet and protective as Nugget and Goldie, but as big and bold as their daddy, why, she'd have herself some regular guard cats to help protect her young'uns.