Charlaine Harris - Dead Over Heels

No. Somehow, some way, Perry had concealed the knife on his way into the community center. Had to be Perry.

I thought of my friend Sally, about how cheerful she’d been the day we took the punching bag to the airport. She’d already been through so much with Perry, his bouts with depression and his run-in with drugs; the prospect of Jenny Tankersley as a daughter-in-law had to look like Easy Street in comparison. It was inescapable, though, that Perry looked like the best bet for this series of horrible events. He’d looked at Angel with wanting eyes; he’d had a chance to hide the knife.

But that wasn’t enough, even close to enough, evidence for an arrest.

I started the car and drove out of the cemetery slowly, not having the slightest idea of where I was going. It was noon, lunchtime. I bought a sandwich from our local barbecue place and ate it sitting in the car, a practice I normally detest. Maybe I should have called Martin. I thought of doing it, then I remembered the day before when I’d had to track him down, and I childishly thought it might do him good to wonder where I was for a while. But those were surface thoughts, ideas that just skated through the front of my brain.

I had the feeling you get when everyone begins roaring with laughter at a joke, and you sit anxiously waiting for the punch line to make sense. There was something big and obvious right in front of me, and I couldn’t see it. It was like there was a hole in my glasses. In that spot, I was blind, though I could see clearly all around it.

I surprised myself by driving to the hospital and asking to see Arthur.

“He’s got a police officer stationed outside his room, you’ll have to ask her,” said the stout, elderly volunteer at the information desk. So I trudged through the uncomfortably familiar corridors, thinking that if this kept up, I might even learn the floor plan and figure out the reasoning behind it.

Arthur was in a room at the end of the hall so visitors could be seen coming for a long time. The officer in blue outside Arthur’s room was indeed a woman, husky and tough in her uniform. “C. Turlock” said her little name pin, and it seemed an unpromising sort of name.

Sure enough, Officer Turlock was determined to be the snarlingest watchdog a wounded fellow officer ever had, and she found me highly suspicious. Since my head was approximately as high as her elbow, and I offered to leave my purse out in the hall with her, I couldn’t see the source of her suspicions-did she think my glasses concealed a hidden dagger?

If Arthur himself hadn’t called out to C. Turlock to find out what she was in a lather about, I would have had to give up; but when he found out who was at the door, he ordered C. Turlock to let me in.

Arthur had one of those horrible gowns on. I could see the bandage at the back of his shoulder, where the material had pulled to one side. He looked as if he was in pain; and I was reminded that being stabbed, even with a pocketknife, is a very unpleasant experience.

I stood beside him, looking at him and wondering what to say. He looked right back.

“So, did Perry do it and drop the knife in a garbage can inside the building?” I asked finally.

Arthur’s face went through the most amazing changes. First he looked stunned, then aghast, and at last he started laughing. It was a big laugh, from the belly, and C. Turlock stuck her head in to see what was so funny. Arthur made an imperious sweeping motion with his right hand, and she hastily shut the door.

That right hand kept on traveling and grasped mine, drawing me nearer to the bed. I looked steadily into the pale blue eyes that had once turned my legs to jelly.

“I should never have left you and married Lynn,” Arthur said.

“Yes, you should,” I said briskly. “And you ought to go back to her now, if she’ll have you.”

“Can’t I detach you from that shady bastard you married?” Arthur’s voice was light, but he was serious.

All the troubles Martin and I had flashed through my mind. I shrugged. “Not with a crowbar,” I answered.

“I don’t think Perry did it,” he said, after a moment, dropping my hand.

“Why?”

“Faron Henske hand-searched the garbage cans along the way to the office where Perry placed the call to 911,” Arthur said. “He looked down drains. He took apart a sink. Faron isn’t a ball of fire, but he’s a very reliable searcher. And there were cleaning people still in the community center, plus a few guests who stayed to talk or take down some of the decorations, and they say Perry didn’t stop on his way to the office.”

“And the office was taken apart.”

“Yes. Of course.” Arthur leaned back against his pillow; I’d only seen him look this bad once before, when I’d nursed him through a bout of flu.

“I’m real sorry you got hurt,” I said.

“I’m real sorry I fell on you,” he answered politely. “Took you down to the ground, Paul says. Of course, it made the fall easier on me. ” A shadow of his hard grin was on his face. “Did you get hurt?”

He sounded rather as if he hoped I had.

“Just some bruises and scrapes.” I pulled back my hair to show him the bump on my forehead.

“Next time I’ll try to fall on someone bigger, and land on her front and not her back,” he told me, trying for bawdy.

“Lynn’s bigger than me.”

“Roe…”

“Okay, sorry. I don’t know what went on with your marriage. But I’m not the escape hatch. I’ll always have good memories of you, and I don’t want them to get sour.”

“Straight from the hip, Roe.”

“Had to be,” I said.

“I love you.” Suddenly he looked twenty, vulnerable and yearning.

“You love what you remember. But you were screwing Lynn on the side for the last three or four months we were together. So I’d say your love wasn’t ever an exclusive item.”

“Let me have it when I’m down.”

“Only time I can get you to listen.”

The corners of his mouth twitched in a smile. “Okay, okay. You listen now,” and he reached for my hand again. “You take care, Roe. I know you love Bartell, but since you told me what you think about my marriage, I’ll tell you what I think about yours.”

Oh, boy, I didn’t want to hear this.

“That guy is out of your league, Roe. He’s tough and he’s ruthless. He’s a lot older. He’ll never think you’re his equal.”

That seemed a very strange charge to level at Martin, and I looked at Arthur in some surprise. I’d been scared, perhaps, that Arthur would tell me he’d kept Martin under surveillance and that Martin had a mistress. Or that Martin was engaged in some criminal activity. Arthur would just love to catch Martin in those situations, and he’d make sure I knew, because he’d warned me from the time I met Martin that I shouldn’t marry him.

If Arthur hadn’t caught him, Martin wasn’t doing it, I suddenly realized. I hadn’t known how worried I’d been until the relief spreading through my body made me giddy with cheer.

“I don’t know if he thinks I’m his equal,” I said. “We’re so different I think ‘equal’ would be hard to pin down. But he lets me be myself, and he’s never tried to change me, and we enjoy each other very much.”

We looked at each other steadily. I thought of how wounded I’d felt at Arthur and Lynn’s wedding, how betrayed. It seemed strange now, as though those emotions had been felt by some other person and only told to me.

“Good-bye, Arthur. I hope you get out of the hospital soon.”

“Bye, Roe. Thanks for visiting. I know you’re curious about what happened. I’ll get Paul to keep you filled in.”

I thought about being embarrassed, decided to skip it.