Charlaine Harris - Grave Sight

"Have you lived in Sarne all your life?" Tolliver asked Mary Nell.

She flushed when he spoke directly to her. "Yes," she said. "My dad's parents were born here, too. Dad died just before Dell." I was startled. When Edwards had told me Sybil was a recent widow, I hadn't realized how recent. "Dell, he really missed Dad... . He was closer to Dad than me." She sounded vaguely resentful.

"I want to ask you a question, Mary Nell," I said. "I don't want to upset you any more than I have to, but when you were talking to us the other night, you paused after you said one sentence. You said something like, ‘I knew he wouldn't kill Teenie and...' and then you stopped. What were you going to say?"

Mary Nell eyed me. You could tell her feelings were conflicted. "Please tell us, Nell," Tolliver said, and she crumbled when she looked into his dark brown eyes. He'd called her something special.

"Okay," she said, leaning across the table to share her big secret. "Dell told me, the week before he and Teenie... the week before they died, that Teenie was gonna have a baby." Her heavily made-up eyes were as big and round as a raccoon's. The girl was clearly shocked that her brother had been having sex with his girlfriend, and she just as clearly considered the pregnancy top-secret knowledge.

"No one knew?"

"He sure didn't tell my mom. She would've killed him." Then, as she realized what she'd said, Mary Nell turned red as a brick, and tears filled her eyes.

"That's okay," I said hastily, "we know your mom wouldn't really do that."

"Well, Mom never has liked Teenie's mom too much. I don't know why. Miss Helen used to work for us a few years ago, and I thought she was great. Always singing."

And I could tell that she suddenly remembered that Helen Hopkins had been murdered, too. There was a look on her face, a lost look, like she was drowning.

"If I'd killed everyone I didn't like, I'd be able to dress in their scalps," Tolliver said.

Mary Nell gave a startled giggle and covered her mouth with her small hand.

After all this time, could an autopsy establish Teenie's pregnancy?

"Dell didn't tell anyone but you?" I asked.

"No one knew but me," Mary Nell said proudly.

Mary Nell was sure her brother hadn't told anyone about the baby, but what about Teenie? Had she told someone? Her mother, maybe?

Her mother, who was... gee, let me think... dead.

AFTER Tolliver and I had exchanged glances, we steered off the subject quickly. Mary Nell's sad, tearful face had already attracted some attention from the sparse clientele. Her coloring cleared up and her demeanor brightened as she talked about happier topics, addressing her conversation almost exclusively to my brother. Tolliver found out that Nell planned to go to the University of Arkansas the next year, that she wanted to be a physical therapist so she could help people, that she was a cheerleader and didn't like algebra. Her cheerleading sponsor was totally cool.

I was free to think my own thoughts. Mary Nell didn't seem much different from any of the girls I'd known in high school, the girls with sober parents, the girls who had enough money to ward off worry and homelessness. She was bright but not brilliant, virginal but not saintly. The loss of her sibling had left her drifting, searching for a new identity when her old one had been shaken at its core. I could see the knowledge of her brother's secret life with Teenie had disturbed Mary Nell deeply, until that shock had been smothered by the greater trauma of Dell's death. Clearly, sharing her brother's secret had relieved the knot of tension deep inside Mary Nell Teague. It didn't seem to make a difference to Mary Nell that the people she'd shared it with were strangers.

The girl was fascinated with Tolliver. Since she was popular, pretty, and a teenager, Mary Nell was sure Tolliver would find her equally fascinating. I observed Mary Nell flounder through the conversation, trying to find the key to cajoling my brother into noticing she was a woman. Mary Nell would begin an anecdote about her homeroom teacher, realize that was a kid topic, and make a huge effort to switch to some conversational gambit she believed would appeal to an older man.

"Did you go to college?" she asked Tolliver.

"I went two years," he said. "Then I worked for a while. After that, Harper and I started our traveling."

"How come you don't get a regular job and stay somewhere?" Like real people do.

Tolliver looked at me. I looked back. "Good question," he said. I looked at him askance, determined not to answer. She hadn't asked me.

"Harper helps people," he said. "She's one of a kind."

"But she gets paid for it," Nell said, outraged.

"Sure," Tolliver said. "Why not? When you get to be a therapist, you'll get paid."

Mary Nell ignored this royally.

"And she can do that by herself. Does she have to have help?"

Hey, sitting right here! Listening! I spread my hands, palms up. Only Tolliver noticed the gesture.

"It's not that she has to have my help. It's that I want to give it to her," Tolliver said gently. I looked straight down at my plate. Mary Nell abruptly excused herself to go to the ladies' room. I had no intention of accompanying her—I would not be welcome—so Tolliver and I silently picked at the remnants of our food until she returned, her eyes red and her head held high.

"Thanks for dinner," she said stiffly. We'd insisted on treating her. "I enjoyed it." Then, holding her eyes wide and unblinking, she strode out of the dining room.

I watched her car pull out of the dark parking lot. I was a little surprised to find myself actually concerned about the girl. Her life was crashing in ruins around her, and that could make her careless. Too many things can happen to girls who don't watch where they're going. I find their corpses every year.

We got back to our motel in plenty of time for me to brush my hair and spray on a little perfume for my date. Tolliver watched without comment, his face harsh in the shadowy light of the room. "You got your cell phone?" he asked. "I'll leave mine on."

"Okay," I said. Tolliver went into his room, shutting the door behind him very gently.

Hollis knocked on my door right on time. When I opened it, he said, "You look pretty," sounding unflatteringly surprised. I was wearing jeans and a black blouse and some black heels. I wore a gold chain with a jade pendant, a gift from me to me after I'd gotten a bonus from a distraught husband who'd been looking for his wife's body for four years.

Hollis looked pretty good himself, solid and blond in a new pair of jeans and a gold-and-brown plaid shirt. He'd shaved, and he smelled of some cologne. He'd made an effort. Maybe this was a bit more of a date than I'd imagined.

We went to a small dive a little north of town. It was built of dark wood and had plastic banners on long ropes tied from the building to the trees and lamp poles around the graveled lot. If the brightly colored triangles had been fluttering in some breeze, possibly the effect would have been cheerful and festive. In the chilly, still night air, the banners were simply depressing, forlorn reminders of failed festivity.

The interior looked better than I'd imagined, given the exterior. The bar itself was polished wood and the floor had been redone recently in that fake oak flooring that actually looks pretty good. The tables and booths were clean. The décor was definitely Hunting Lodge, with deer heads and large fish mounted on the walls, interspersed with mirrors and old license plates. The jukebox was wailing country and western.

I was pleased with the place, and I smiled. Hollis asked if I wanted one of the small booths or a table, and I picked a booth. He asked me what I wanted to drink, and when I said a Coors would be fine, he went to the bar and returned with two longnecks. He also brought two napkins, one of which he solemnly placed on the heavily polyurethaned wood in front of me before he put my mug on it. I suppressed a smile.