Beverly Connor - The Night Killer

Diane watched Tammy and Slick as she spoke. Slick kept his face still, too still. There was a flash of something in Tammy’s face as she dropped her smirk and picked it up again.

“Well, aren’t you something?” said Tammy. “You need to go into storytelling, the way you can spin a yarn at the spur of the moment like that.”

“You’re right on, Tammy,” said Slick. “The woman’s pure entertaining.”

“I’ll keep my eyes open,” said Deputy Conrad, looking at the two of them and shaking his head. “I sure will.”

“I don’t suppose I can get my things back,” said Diane. “From my purse and glove compartment?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Tammy. “Accusing us of stealin’, when all we ever did to you was try to help you. People come down this road all the time and steal stuff. You didn’t have your car locked, did you?”

“What about Roy’s arrowheads?” said Travis. “If you guys took his arrowheads, I’ll have the National Guard out here combing your land.”

“What the fuck do we want with a bunch of arrowheads?” said Slick. “Like Tammy said, people come and steal stuff all the time. We can’t keep nothing out what it don’t get stole. Alls we did was look in her purse to find out her name. Here this strange woman drives by and the tree falls on her. We was trying to help. Had no idea who she was. She didn’t say before she run off.”

“I need to look in the back of my SUV,” said Diane.

Deputy Travis nodded and they walked back over to Diane’s vehicle. Diane opened the rear door and looked at the boxes strewn across the back.

“Well, shit,” she said.

The boxes of artifacts were open in the back of Diane’s vehicle. Their contents were in disarray. Some were overturned and the arrowheads had spilled out on the floor.

“Well, hell,” she muttered, and climbed in the back. “I need to sort this out.”

“Damn it, Slick, Tammy, can’t you keep your hands off other people’s things?” said the deputy. Travis Conrad stood at the back of the vehicle with a hand on the open hatch.

“Now you’re accusin’ us,” said Slick. “We was out lookin’ for her. When was it we had time to rifle through her stuff?”

“You had time to move that dead tree,” said Conrad. “I doubt Tammy was out looking for her. Were you the one who went through her things, Tammy?”

“You watch your mouth, Travis Conrad,” said Tammy. “I could say some things about you.”

“A lot of people could, I’m sure. Did you take any of these arrowheads? I mean it. You got yourself in a heap of trouble if you did.”

“You gone crazy, Travis? You wasn’t this pissed about the notion of a skeleton,” said Slick.

“Just empty your pockets,” said Deputy Conrad.

“Them arrowheads belong to Roy Barre. Now empty your pockets.”

“The hell I will,” said Slick.

“You want me to take you in?” said Conrad.

Diane listened from her vantage point in the back of her SUV. She was a little surprised at the deputy’s anger, but then again, after seeing Roy’s and his wife’s murdered bodies, she understood. While they spoke, she took the knife wrapped up in the rain hat and put it between the front seats. She put the flashlight she took from Slick with it. It felt good not to have them sticking her in the ribs. She felt only mildly guilty not giving them to the deputy. But technically, the knife wasn’t part of the crime scene. Nor was the poncho the stranger had given her, and so far Deputy Conrad hadn’t asked her for it.

“I won’t forget this, Travis,” said Slick.

“If you didn’t have such a reputation for pilfering people’s things and siphoning their gas, you wouldn’t be having this problem, Slick. Empty out your pockets, or so help me, I’ll run you in.”

“If I had an arrowhead in my pocket, it would be mine, and you’d think I stole it,” Slick said.

He sounds like a kid , Diane thought as she looked at the boxes of arrowheads. Most of them they hadn’t opened, thank heaven. They had pulled the smaller boxes out of the larger one. She supposed when they discovered they were arrowheads, they pretty much lost interest.

“Just hand it over,” said Deputy Conrad.

Slick pulled a three-inch, black flint arrowhead out of his pocket.

“It’s mine,” he said. “Roy ain’t the only one who collects arrowheads.”

Diane watched Deputy Conrad take the arrowhead and turn it over in his hand.

“You know, Slick, I can imagine you picking up arrowheads and collecting them. But for the life of me, I can’t picture you sitting at a desk and putting numbers on all of them.” Conrad handed the point to Diane. “Does this belong with Roy’s?” he asked, eyeing Slick.

Diane looked at the projectile point, as Jonas Briggs, the museum’s archaeologist, called them. She had no idea what kind it was, but it was pretty. Long and jet-black. Near the base on a flake scar was a small rectangle of white paint with neat, tiny black numbers. Roy said he had numbered each of the items in his grandfather’s collections-all according to the carefully penned outline his grandfather did of each point he found, along with a rather charming description of where he found it and what he was doing that day. It must have taken Roy months to find which point matched what outline in his father’s diary. A real labor of love for him.

“Yes, this is one of Roy’s,” said Diane.

“You lying bitch,” said Tammy. “This is the last time we ever try to help anybody out. They can just lie out in the mud for all we care, can’t they, honey?”

Diane ignored her and carefully put the point away, grateful that it hadn’t gotten broken in Slick’s pocket.

“Tammy, why don’t you and Slick go in the house and fix yourselves some of that cocoa you were talking about,” said Conrad.

“Travis, I never would have suspected what a little piece of shit you are,” said Tammy. “No wonder Carol steps out on you. I saw her getting it on with Pryce Moody the other day out by the lake.”

“Tammy, how would you even know what that looks like?” said Deputy Conrad.

“Why, you pig, I ought to scratch your eyes out,” she said, making clawlike movements with her hands.

“Slick,” said Conrad, “why don’t the two of you go inside, like I suggested. And if, on the way, you find anything that belongs to Miss Fallon, just toss it over here.”

Slick and his girlfriend, Tammy, turned and walked inside, hurling a few more insults that Diane didn’t quite hear. She shook her head. What a pair.

Travis climbed in the back with Diane and looked over the boxes she was repacking.

“Roy was so proud that the museum was interested in his arrowhead collection. He said he might get a plaque with his and his grandfather’s name on it hanging in the museum. He was worried that you might not accept the collection, ’cause he didn’t have an exact location where they were found.”

“His grandfather left a detailed diary telling generally where he found things in the woods,” said Diane. “We don’t have an exact location, but our archaeologist assures me that the collection will be useful-at the very least, to catalog the types of points found in the area.”

“So Roy’ll get his plaque?” asked Deputy Conrad.

“Yes,” said Diane. “This is going to be a nice collection for the museum.”

Travis Conrad nodded. “Good. I’d like to put that in his obituary, that he’s getting a plaque. He’d be proud.”

“Yes, he would,” said Diane. “I’m glad Mr. Massey didn’t get into the boxes with the really large points,” said Diane.

“He’d of taken them for sure,” said Deputy Conrad. “I was thinking about Dances with Wolves , ’bout them soldiers wiping their butts with John Dunbar’s diary. Slick didn’t get Ray’s grandfather’s diary, I hope?”