Charlaine Harris - Grave Sight

"There now," I said. "Are we all clear about this?"

He nodded.

"Okay, then," I said. I spun and walked into my room. Tolliver stayed outside for a bit. Then he came in, too.

We finished our game of Scrabble. I won.

We drove to a little town just five miles away to eat supper. Tolliver didn't seem keen on going back to the motel diner, and I didn't tease him about the waitress. We had country-fried steak, mashed potatoes, and lima beans at a near-duplicated Kountry Good Eats, and it was actually very tasty. The ambience was familiar: Formica-topped tables, cracked linoleum floor, two tired waitresses, and a man behind the counter, the manager. The iced tea was good, too.

"You know someone followed us here," Tolliver said, as the waitress took our plates and strode toward the kitchen. He fished out his wallet to pay our tab.

"A girl," I said. "In a Honda."

"Yeah. I guess she's a deputy, too? She looks awful young. Or maybe they just deputized her for this."

"She's probably cold sitting out there in that little Honda."

"Well, that's her job."

We paid, tipped, and left. The threatened rain was finally upon us, and Tolliver and I ran to the car. He'd clicked it unlocked as we left the restaurant, and I dove inside as fast as I could. I hate being wet. I hate storms. I won't talk on the phone when it's raining hard.

At least there was no thunder this time.

"I don't understand," Tolliver had said once, exasperated at not being able to call me when he was a few miles away. "Why? The worst has already happened. You've already been hit by lightning. What are the odds of that happening twice?"

"What were the odds of it happening once?" I countered, though my real reasons were probably not what he supposed.

We drove slowly, and the red Honda stuck with us. The roads around Sarne were narrow and flanked by some steep terrain, and there was the ever-present possibility a deer would dash across the road.

When we got to the motel, we had a debate about whether to stop and let the unknown girl see where we were staying (which she'd already know if she was a cop) or keep riding around until she tired of following us. Going to the police station, we agreed, felt silly. After all, she hadn't threatened us or done anything other than ride behind us.

It was my bladder that determined our course of action. We pulled in, I dashed into my room, and by the time I came out, Tolliver reported, "She's trying to make up her mind to come over and knock on the door." He was concealed behind the curtains, and he hadn't turned on a light in the room.

I joined him, and it was like watching a pantomime. The girl's car was clearly lit up by the lights in the parking lot, and she was recognizable; that is, I'd be able to pick her out in a police lineup now, though her features weren't crystal clear. She had short brown hair worn in a longer version of a standard boys' haircut, which looked cute on her, since she was a petite thing. She was maybe seventeen, maybe younger, and she had a pouting lower lip. She was wearing enough eye makeup for three ordinary women. Her small face had that look so common in teenage girls from homes where all is not well—part defiant, part vulnerable, all wary.

Cameron had worn that expression on her face all too often.

"How much are you willing to put down on this? I think she'll give up and drive away. We're too scary for her." Tolliver put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed it.

"Nah, she's coming in," I said with assurance. "I'd be taking your money too easily. See? She's daring herself."

Rain began to pelt down again as she made up her mind to brave us. She launched herself from the car and dashed for my door. She pounded on it twice.

Tolliver turned on the lamp beside the bed as I answered her summons.

She glared at me. "You the woman that finds bodies?"

"You know I am, or you wouldn't have been following us. I'm Harper Connelly. Come in." I stepped back, and, shooting me a suspicious look, she entered the room. She looked around carefully. Tolliver was sitting in the chair trying to look harmless. "This is my brother Tolliver Lang," I said. "He travels with me. You want a Diet Coke?"

"Sure," she said, as if turning down a soft drink was unthinkable. Tolliver got one out of the ice chest and handed it to her. She took it with her arm extended as far as she could reach, to keep her distance from him. I pushed the other chair out to indicate she should use it, and I perched on the side of the bed.

"Can I help you?" I asked.

"You can tell me what happened to my brother. I'm not saying I think what you're doing is okay, or even morally defensible." She glared at me. "But I want to know what you think."

I thought she had a good civics teacher.

"Okay," I said slowly. "Maybe first you could tell me who your brother is?"

She flushed red. She was accustomed to being a notable fish in a very small pond. "I'm Nell," she said, clipping off the words. "Mary Nell Teague. Dell was my brother."

"You can't be much younger than he was."

"We were ten months apart."

Tolliver and I looked at each other briefly. This girl was not only a minor, but the sister of a murder victim. And I was willing to bet she'd never been out of Sarne for more than a two-week vacation.

"Morally defensible," Tolliver repeated, as struck by the phrase as I'd been. He rolled the words over his tongue as if he was testing the taste of them.

"I mean, I think it's wrong, all right? Telling people what happened to their dead relatives. No offense, but you could be making all this up, right?"

No offense, my ass. I was sick of people telling me I was evil. "Listen, Nell," I said, trying my best to keep my voice under strict control. "I make my living the best way I know how. For you to assume I'm not honest is an offense to me. There's no way it couldn't be."

Maybe she wasn't used to her words being taken seriously. "Um, well, okay," she muttered, clearly taken aback. "But listen, can you tell me? What you told my mom?"

"You're a minor. I don't want to get into trouble," I said.

Tolliver looked as if he were mulling it over.

"Listen, I may be a kid, you know, but he was my brother! And I should know what happened to my brother!" There was a very real anguish behind her words.

We gave each other tiny nods.

"I don't believe he killed himself," I said.

"I knew it," she said. "I knew it."

For someone who'd been so sure I was a fraud, she was taking my word without a second thought.

"So if he didn't kill himself," she said, talking faster and faster, "then he didn't kill Teenie, and if he didn't kill Teenie, then he didn't..." She stopped with an almost comic expression of panic, her eyes popping wide and her mouth clamped together to block the crucial word in, whatever it might have been.

A pounding at the door startled Tolliver and me; we'd been staring at Nell Teague as if we could pry the end of the sentence out of her with our eyes.

"Wonderful," I said after I looked through the peephole. "It's Sybil Teague, Tolliver."

"Ohmigod," said our visitor, who suddenly looked even younger than her age.

I cursed very thoroughly but silently, wishing that Sybil had arrived five minutes earlier. I had a fleeting idea that we could sneak Nell out through Tolliver's room, but as sure as we tried that, we'd be caught. After all, we hadn't done anything wrong. I opened the door, and Sybil came in like a well-groomed goddess of wrath.

"Is my child here?" she demanded, though we were making no move to conceal Nell, who was sitting in plain view. It was like she'd preplanned the moment.

"Right here," Tolliver said gently, with an edge of sarcasm to his voice. Sybil flushed, her natural color warring with the carefully applied tints of rose and cream.