Grave Secret

Page 16

"No, it was a man's voice. He was saying he thought your work was the work of Satan, and so on. Said he didn't think you ought to be in Texas, and he was going to take care of that the next time he saw you. He mentioned your new hotel by name."
I was pretty offhand about the phone call until Parker Powers got to the "he mentioned the hotel" part. That was unnerving, and I knew I had to take this seriously.
"So do you think this car was his, or do you think you just scared the shit out of some teenagers parking back here?" My legs were getting stiff, so I bounced up and down gently on the balls of my feet, then stretched down to touch my toes.
"I don't know," Parker said, his voice gloomy. "I got a partial license number, though, and I'll run the plate."
I suddenly realized, actually understood, that this man had put himself in front of me when he thought someone was going to be shooting at me. The enormity of the act virtually smacked me in the face.
"Thank you," I said. All of a sudden, my knees were shaking. "Thank you for doing that."
"That's what we're supposed to do," he said. "We're supposed to protect. Lucky I didn't have to do much protecting. I might have had a heart attack." He grinned, and I was glad to observe that his chest wasn't heaving anymore.
"So, we should head back, huh? I guess this was pretty much a nonincident?" I didn't want to hurt his feelings, which was pretty absurd.
"No, I guess they left for good." He seemed relieved about that. "Let's go back to the hotel." He holstered his gun.
I knew there was no way I was going to get the policeman back up to a running pace. We were at least walking briskly when we left the bus lot and we passed the high school. Then we were in the residential area, and there was almost no traffic now. Everyone was home from work, no one was going back out tonight. The temperature had dropped a little, and I began to shiver. We had three blocks to go. We were in a little neighborhood where yards were a hobby. Even in the winter, there were trees with leaves, and bushes, and rock gardens decorating the small front yards. Parker Powers was asking me questions designed to calm me down, an inconsequential stream of inquiry about my running history, how long I ran each day, if my brother ran...
And just as I recognized that the shadow behind one of the trees was suspiciously man shaped, it began to move. A man stepped out from the tree, and I saw the streetlight glint off a gun. Parker Powers lunged toward me to shove me aside, away from the threat, and the gunman fired right at him and hit him in the chest.
Screaming would have been a waste of time. The only advantage I had was speed, and I jumped onto the tiny grass lawn and took off like a rabbit on meth. I heard footsteps behind me, even on the grass, and I tried to go behind the house and found there was a fenced-in backyard. It wasn't much of a fence, kind of a swipe at providing security. I grabbed the top of the fence and vaulted it, landing well, then chased across the dead grass and vaulted the other side.
It wasn't until later that I thought of everything that could have made me fall and break my leg.
I found myself in the next backyard, and I had a clear shot at the next street over. There were houses only on one side of the street. The opposite side was a narrow belt of trees with a ravine behind them, as near as I could tell in the spotty pools of light. I began running toward the hotel, running in earnest, flat out. It was much darker back here. I was afraid I would fall, afraid I would get shot, afraid the detective was dead. I knew I was going in the right direction, but I couldn't see the hotel because the street curved. I almost knocked on a door, but then I thought of the danger to the people inside that house, and I ran on. I thought I heard a noise ahead of me, and I dove to the side and crouched behind a car parked in a driveway. I was silent for a moment, listening, though my heart was pounding so loudly it was hard to make out external sounds.
I unzipped my shorts pocket, withdrew the cell phone, and flipped it open, keeping a hand curved around it to dim the light. I punched in 911, and a woman's voice answered. "I'm hiding in the driveway of a house, in the business park behind the Holiday Inn Express," I said, keeping my voice as low as I could. "Detective Parker Powers has been shot. He's lying out on Jacaranda Street. The shooter is after me. Please come quick."
"Ma'am? Did you say an officer's been shot? Are you wounded?"
"Yes, Detective Powers," I said. "I'm not wounded yet. I have to hang up." I couldn't be talking on the phone. I needed to be listening.
Now that my own breathing had moderated, I was sure I could hear someone else breathing, someone else stepping very quietly through the front yards. Someone who didn't want to be out in the middle of the street. Weren't any of these people aware of what was going on around them? Where were the armed householders with guns when you needed them? I didn't know whether to break and run, or stay where I was and hope he didn't find me.
I found the tension almost intolerable. Waiting crouched beside that car was one of the hardest things I'd ever done. I didn't even know if this quiet street went through. Maybe it dead-ended just around the slight curve. I'd have to plunge back through the yards so I could emerge on Jacaranda Street to get back to the hotel. There might be fences, there might be dogs... I could hear one barking now, and it sounded like a big one.
The footsteps, very quiet footsteps, came a little closer and then stopped. Could he see me? Would he shoot me in the next minute?
Then I heard the wail of sirens. God bless the police, God bless their lights and noise and guns. The shadow that had crept almost up to where I crouched made a rapid retreat as the gunman abandoned caution and ran back down the street in the direction I'd come from.
I tried to get up but I couldn't. My legs just wouldn't work. I could see the beam of a large flashlight coming closer and closer, and then it danced over me. It returned to fix me in its glare.
"Lie down with your arms extended!" said a woman's voice.
"Okay," I said. "I will."
At the moment, that seemed a lot better than standing up.
Chapter Ten
IN the end, I went back to the hospital and spent the night with Tolliver. I simply didn't want to be by myself, and I felt safer around him even though he had been shot.
Detective Powers was still alive. I was profoundly glad to hear that, profoundly grateful that his courage would be rewarded in this life rather than the next. I had caught snatches of conversation from the cops around me, who'd pretty much treated me as if I weren't there.
"Powers is going to be all right," the female officer, who'd finally let me get up, had told me. "He's too tough to kill."
"All those years playing football, he's got to be tough," said one of the ambulance attendants who'd been summoned to have a look at me. He was taking his time packing up his stuff, having determined that I was pretty much okay.
"Yeah, those knocks in the head didn't do him any good, though," said another officer, a young guy with a shaved head. "Powers played one season too many."
"Hey, respect the detective," the older ambulance attendant said. "He's a good spokesman for the department."
Reading between the lines, I gathered that Detective Powers had been a recruitment point for the police since he'd been hired, and that had a lot to do with his promotion to detective. People were so thrilled to be questioned by a former football star that they told him things they hadn't planned on spilling, just to keep his attention. So he was not highly regarded because of his cleverness or innate ability, but because he was an asset and was always willing to share the spotlight. Plus, he was regarded as being a genuinely nice guy.
It was a pleasure to tell his cohorts how brave he had been, and a pleasure to see the pride they took in that. The fact that they thought he'd been pretty much of an idiot to go running with me-well, that was left on the back burner.
I had a few speckles of blood on my face, and I went into my hotel room to scrub them off. The female officer, Kerri Sauer, went with me, and she also volunteered to follow me over to God's Mercy, a gesture I appreciated.
"You ever watch Parker play?" she asked, as she watched me scrub his blood off with a washrag.
"No," I said. "Did you? You must have been a kid."
"I was. He was great. Him getting hurt, that was a terrible thing for the team. He did-still does-all kinds of stuff for kids at risk. He's a great guy. You had his location when you called. That saved his life. He's got a chance to make it."
It seemed counterproductive to point out that Powers probably wouldn't have gotten shot if he hadn't been with me. I nodded and buried my face in towel so she couldn't read my expression.
After I parked at the hospital and walked to the door, I waved to the patrol car, and it pulled out into the traffic. I had a crazy idea: if I couldn't make money finding bodies anymore, could I be a police officer? I wondered if I could even pass the physical. Usually my right leg was okay, but every now and then it gave me fits. And I got awful headaches. So probably law enforcement wasn't a career option for me. I shook my head and saw the movement reflected in the shiny walls of the elevator. I was just being silly.
I went through the hall on silent feet and opened Tolliver's door carefully. It was dark inside, though the light in the bathroom was on and that door had been left open a crack.
"Harper?" he said, his voice thick with sleep.
"Yeah, it's me. I missed you," I said, keeping my voice down.
"Come here."
I went to the bed, and I crouched to take my shoes off. "I'm going to sleep in the chair," I said very softly. "You go back to sleep."
"Climb in with me, on my good side."
"Are you sure that'll be comfortable for you? That bed's mighty small."
"I'm sure. I'd rather be crowded with you than have lots of room without you."
I felt tears begin to trickle down my cheeks, and I suppressed the sobbing sound that went with them.
"What's wrong?" He put his good arm around me after I'd crawled into the bed. I lay on my side to give him enough room.
"Nothing we need to talk about now," I said. "Sleep now. I just didn't want to be by myself."
"I didn't either," he said. And he fell back to sleep. After a few minutes, so did I.
The nurse who came in at five thirty in the morning was fairly surprised to find me there, in bed with Tolliver. Once she saw that we were both clothed and she could assume that Tolliver hadn't done anything to hurt his mending shoulder, she relaxed.
Tolliver looked a lot better in the morning light. Being with him had done me good, too. I felt a lot more confident. After he'd been bathed and shaved and he'd eaten breakfast, I told him the story of the night before.
He said instantly, "I have to get out of here," and actually began to sit up to get out of the bed.
"No, you aren't," I said sharply. "You're going to stay right here, where no one can get at you, until the doctor says you can go."
Tolliver said, "You're in danger, baby. We've got to find somewhere to put you, somewhere safe." He'd abandoned the idea of leaving, I was relieved to see, mostly because the movement had been enough to make him cold and sweaty.
"That sounds good," I said. "But I just don't know where that would be."
"You could leave," he said, a little wildly. "You could go up to St. Louis, to the apartment."
"And leave you here by yourself? Not too likely."
"You could leave the country."
"Oh, hush. I'm not going to spend the money to fly to Europe or whatever, just because someone shot at guys while I was around."
"You got a death threat," Tolliver said, as if I was mentally slow or hard of hearing.
"I know that," I said, mimicking his tone accurately. He gave me a narrow-eyed glare. "Seriously, Tolliver, I think someone's just trying to spook me. I mean, you got shot and then poor Detective Powers. But couldn't that shooter have hit me, just as easily, if I'd been the real target? I'm not so sure anymore that I simply got lucky both times. I'm thinking maybe the shooter is just trying to scare me."
"I don't particularly like the results of someone trying to scare you any more than I like the idea of someone trying to really kill you," Tolliver said, indicating his hospital bed pointedly.
"True enough." It appeared we were at an impasse.
Dr. Spradling appeared and asked Tolliver the usual questions. It seemed clear that Tolliver was out of danger, and the doctor talked about dismissing him, provided Tolliver had someone to take care of him at home. I raised my hand, to indicate I was that person.
"What about traveling?" I asked.
"By car?"
"Yes."
"I wouldn't. He needs to rest for at least two days before you travel. I'm thinking of giving him an antibiotic drip, but if you promise to stick to what I say faithfully, if you promise to keep him in a room and quiet, then I'll make it oral antibiotics and release him tomorrow."
"Okay," I said. "I promise."
"Then if he continues to improve, doesn't run a fever, tomorrow."
I was delighted to hear it. Tolliver looked relieved, too. When the doctor had left, I said, "I guess I'd better go back to the hotel to take a shower and eat something."
"Can you wait until Mark gets off work? He could go with you." "I'll go by myself. I can't stay shut in a room the whole time, Tolliver. I've got to get out and get things done." I didn't want Mark to get shot, too.