Charlaine Harris - Grave Sight

He wrote that down, and the name of the motel. I handed him the receipt that I'd tucked in my purse. He copied it and made some more entries in his notebook.

"What time did she die?" I asked.

He looked up at me. "Sometime before noon," he said. "Hollis went over there on his lunch hour to talk to her about Teenie's funeral. He'd spoken to her for the first time in a year or two, when he went over to tell her what you'd told him about Sally. Which, by the way, I don't believe. I think you're just trying to mine for gold here, and I'm telling you, Hollis ain't a rich man."

I was puzzled. "He gave me money, but I left it in his truck. He didn't tell you that?" Maybe Hollis just hadn't wanted to tell his superior I'd asked for it in the first place—though why, I don't know. Sheriff Branscom didn't think much of me, and it wouldn't have surprised him at all that I'd wanted to be paid (for something I do for my living!). It would have confirmed his poor opinion. Yes, I expect even poor people who want my services to pay me. So does everyone else.

"No," the sheriff said, easing back into his creaking chair. He rubbed a hand over his stubbled jowls. "No, he didn't mention that. Maybe he was embarrassed at giving money to someone like you in the first place."

Sometimes you just can't win. Sheriff Branscom would never join my fan club. It's lucky I'm used to meeting people like that, or I might slip and get my feelings hurt.

"Where's Tolliver?" I asked, my tolerance all used up.

"He'll be in here directly," the sheriff said. "I guess Hollis ain't finished up his questions yet."

I fidgeted. "I really need to go to the motel and lie down," I said. "I really need Tolliver to take me there."

"You've got some car keys," the sheriff observed. "Hollis'll bring him over when they're done."

"No," I said. "I need my brother."

"Don't you raise your voice to me, young woman. He'll be through in a minute." But there was the faintest look of alarm on the round soft face.

"Now," I said. "I need him now. " I let my eyes go wide so the white showed all around the irises. My hands wrung together, over and over.

"I'll check," said the sheriff, and he could hardly get up from behind his desk fast enough.

Most places, I would've gotten thrown in the cage or taken to the hospital, but I had gauged this man correctly. Within four minutes, Tolliver came in, moving quickly. Because Hollis was watching, he knelt at my feet and took both my hands. "I'm here, honey," he said. "Don't be scared."

I let tears flow down my cheeks. "I need to go, Tolliver," I said softly. "Please take me to the motel." I threw my arms around his neck. I loved hugging Tolliver, who was bony and hard and warm. I loved to listen to the air going in and out of his lungs, the swoosh of his heart.

He raised me up out of the chair and walked me to the front door, one arm wrapped around my shoulders. The few people in the outer office eyed us curiously as we made our way to the door.

When we were safely back in the car and on our way, Tolliver said, "Thanks."

"Was it going bad for you?" I asked, taking my hands from my face and straightening in my seat. "The sheriff thinks I made up everything I said, but the motel receipt was pretty conclusive."

"Hollis Boxleitner has a thing for you," Tolliver said. "He can't decide if he wants to go to bed with you or slap you around, and he's full of anger like a volcano's full of lava."

"Because of his wife getting killed."

"Yep. He believes in you, but that makes him mad, too."

"He's gonna burn himself up," I said.

"Yes," Tolliver agreed.

"Did he tell you anything about Helen Hopkins' murder?"

"He said he found her. He said she'd been hit on the head."

"With something there, something already in the house?"

"Candlestick."

I remembered the glass candlesticks flanking the Bible on the coffee table.

"Was she standing when she was hit?"

"No," he said, "I think she was sitting on the couch."

"So the killer was standing in front of her."

Tolliver thought about it. "That makes sense," he said. "But the deputy didn't say one way or another."

"Being suspected of a murder isn't going to help business," I said.

"No, we need to get out of here as soon as possible." He parked in front of the motel and went in to get our rooms.

I really did want to lie down by the time we were in our rooms, and I was glad when Tolliver came through the connecting door and turned on my television. I propped up on the pillows while he slouched in the chair, and we watched the Game Show Network. He beat me at Jeopardy! I beat him at Wheel of Fortune . Of course, I would rather have won at Jeopardy!, but Tolliver had always been better at remembering facts than I was.

Our parents were brilliant people, once upon a time; before they became alcoholic, drug-addicted disbarred attorneys. And before they'd decided their clients' criminal lifestyles were more appealing and adventuresome than their own. My mother and Tolliver's dad found each other on their way down the drain, having shed their original spouses. My sister Cameron and I had gone from living in a four-bedroom suburban home in east Memphis to a rental house with a hole in the bathroom floor in Texarkana, Arkansas. This hadn't happened all at once; we'd experienced many degrees of degradation. Tolliver had fallen from a lower height, but he and his brother had descended with his father, too. He'd been our companion in that hole in Texarkana. That's where we'd been when the lightning struck.

My mother and Tolliver's dad had had two more children together, Mariella and Gracie. Tolliver and I watched out for them as best we could. Mariella and Gracie had no memory of anything better than the life we were living.

What had happened to our other parents: my father and Tolliver's mother? Why didn't they save us from the terrifying turn our lives had taken? Well, by that time, my real dad had gone to jail for a long string of white-collar crimes, and Tolliver's mother had died of cancer—leaving our at-large parents to complete their own downward passage, dragging us and their own children behind them.

So here we were, Tolliver and I, in a run-down motel in a seedy Ozarks tourist town in the off-season, hoping to dodge being charged with murder.

But by golly, we were smart.

We were playing Scrabble when we heard a knock at the door.

It was my room, so I asked, "Who is it?"

"Hollis."

I opened the door. Hollis saw Tolliver behind me and said, "May I come in?"

I shrugged and moved back. Hollis stepped in far enough to allow me to shut the door behind him.

"You're here to apologize, I assume," I said in the coldest voice I could summon. It was pretty damn cold.

"Apologize! For what?" He sounded genuinely bewildered.

"For telling the sheriff I took your money. For implying I cheated you."

"You did take my money."

"I left it on the seat of the truck. I felt bad for you." I was so angry I was almost spitting; I'd gone from cold to hot in less than five seconds.

"It wasn't on the seat of the truck."

"Yes. It was."

He fished his keys out of his pocket. "Show me."

"No, you look yourself, so you can't accuse me of planting it."

Tolliver and I followed Hollis back outside. The sky was gray, and the trees around the motel were beginning to whip in the wind. I was cold without my coat, but I wasn't going back in to put it on. Tolliver put his arm around me. Hollis opened the passenger door of his truck, began thrusting his fingers in the crack at the back of the seat, and in about ten seconds he came up with the bank envelope, still fat with money.

He stared at it in his hand, flushed red, and then went white. After a moment or two, he met our eyes. "You told Harvey the truth," he said. "I'm sorry."