Charlaine Harris - Day Shift

“You and Bertha worked together. She put the pills in Mama’s water the only time Mama had gone out of the house in a couple of weeks. She thought Mama would have a car wreck on her way to see you, and that either you or I would be blamed.”

“And how do you know this? And why on earth do you think I knew about it ahead of time?”

“I know it because Mama told me so. She’s been whispering in my ear. She told me all this.”

“That is total bullshit and you know it. Your mother is at peace with your father. She is not whispering in your ear.” Manfred shook his head. “I’m willing to believe you have some kind of delusional situation going on here. But you can leave me out of it. I wished your mother nothing but good.”

Lewis, amazingly, had no response to that. He struggled to his feet. Manfred offered no help. He didn’t want to get that close to Lewis. He was wondering how to clean the wood floor, which was wet where Lewis had landed. Maybe one of those Swiffer things?

“So what do we do now?” Manfred asked. “Are you ready to run back to your car and get out of here?”

“I still think you conspired with Bertha,” Lewis said. He was as tenacious as a pit bull but with half the brainpower and none of the looks.

Manfred sighed, and he made it gusty and obvious. “You’re a jerk, and I don’t know why your mother didn’t put you in a straightjacket,” he said, and then realized that had crossed the border into cruel. Did he mind? Not at this exact moment.

“There’s someone outside,” Lewis said. He was staring at the window. Skeptically, Manfred glanced in the same direction. There was a face at the window for real. Manfred gasped. But once the shock was over, he thought he knew who he’d glimpsed.

“Was that Bertha?” he said, astonished. She must have followed Lewis all the way to Midnight. “You weren’t lying,” he said, and there was a lot of wonder in his voice. “She really does have it in for you.”

Manfred had a choice at that moment. (Afterward, he thought of it as his “The Lady, or the Tiger?” moment.) He could try to warn Bertha, grab her, and bring her into his house, just as he had Lewis — or he could leave her to the mercy of the tigers.

He felt something very like relief when the choice was taken out of his hands.

Outside, with the moon radiating a gentle glow — intermittently, since clouds were drifting through the sky — Olivia felt more alive than she had since Lemuel had left for New York. She’d been atop Manfred’s roof since he’d left for Home Cookin with the lawyer. Since sunset, she’d been watching the tigers prowl through Midnight.

Olivia was almost certain she’d seen three. But like Fiji, she couldn’t tell them apart, and they’d never been all together.

Only one of the big cats was in sight now, and it was right below her. The woman who’d been looking through Manfred’s window had backed against the wall, and Olivia could hear her breathing — ragged, uneven breaths, almost like crying. Olivia hadn’t been able to get a good look at the woman, but she was fairly certain it was Bertha, and she was delighted at Bertha’s appearance here in Midnight.

Bertha stayed put until the tiger advanced and batted at her with a huge paw. Then Bertha bolted. Olivia watched, transfixed, as the tiger overtook her with one bound.

At least it was quick. The last shriek was cut off like a knife.

Olivia supposed that now the tiger would dispose of the corpse in the most practical manner.

But the tiger who’d made the kill didn’t get to consume his prey. An even larger tiger suddenly appeared from the brush-strewn acres that lay between Midnight and the river. The new arrival shoved the killer away from the corpse. Olivia figured the larger tiger would now eat the corpse himself, but he didn’t. He made a huffy, chuffy noise and rubbed up against the killer. Olivia thought, He’s telling him he shouldn’t eat people.

The killer tiger made a halfhearted lunge at the new arrival, but the larger tiger simply butted him back. Then a third tiger emerged from the shadows behind the pawnshop. But he didn’t interfere. He turned silently and crossed Witch Light Road in a single bound.

As far as Olivia could tell, the tiger passed between Fiji’s house and the fence around the pet cemetery. Then it vanished into the night, heading south, perhaps to the Braithwaite ranch. After some silent interaction, which was surely communication, the other two followed.

Olivia waited a few minutes before swinging down. She landed in a neat crouch and knocked on Manfred’s door. “They’re gone,” she called.

The door opened. “Thank God,” Manfred said. “You’re okay, then? What about Bertha?”

“She’s a mess,” Olivia said. “Dead, of course. Was that Lewis pounding on your door? I couldn’t tell.”

“Yeah, he’s in here.” Manfred stood aside, and Olivia could feel herself smiling as she looked down at Lewis. “You’re a mess, too,” she said. And he was. He smelled like pee, his clothes were wet and dirty, and he was clearly very shocked by what had just happened. But she’d met a few Lewises before, and she knew that very soon he’d revert to being his disagreeable and unbalanced self.

She was right.

“You, you, you… crazy people!” Lewis was pulling himself up as he sputtered.

“Why’d you come here, Lewis?” she asked.

Manfred said, “Good question, Olivia. Lewis?”

“To tell you… to tell you…” he began, but he couldn’t think of a good ending for his sentence.

“Do you think he came to kill me?” Manfred asked Olivia.

She patted Lewis down. It was unpleasant to touch him, but she was not one to flinch at unpleasant things.

“No,” she said. “Unless words can turn to stones. I don’t think Lewis has the balls to kill someone. He likes to screech at ’em, though.”

“You people should be locked up,” Lewis said. But it had no force behind it. He was exhausted, at least for the moment. He did muster up a spark of defiance, just enough to make him draw his hand back to slap Olivia, but she caught his arm with no trouble at all and bent it the wrong way. He began to sob.

“Olivia,” Manfred admonished her. “I think we’ve heard enough from him for one night.”

“I agree,” she said. “Lewis, pipe down.”

Lewis made a poor effort to do so.

She opened the door. “Just go home,” she said. “And never talk to anyone about tonight. Or Manfred will bring charges for trespassing and assault against you. You know, I bet you’d really, really hate jail.”

Lewis staggered out the door and to his car, moving with almost frantic clumsiness to pull open its door and dive inside. He locked the doors. In the quiet night, Olivia could hear the click. He didn’t even glance over at the mangled corpse.

“I wouldn’t want to be on the road with him driving tonight,” she said, as they watched the car lurch backward and then go to the intersection. Lewis turned south, probably going to the interstate.

“And yet we’re not stopping him,” Manfred said. He sounded angry. Surprised, Olivia swung around.

“You have issues with the way I handled that?” She was beginning to get angry herself.

Manfred took a deep breath, and she watched him calm down. “No,” he said. “And yes. I’m not happy that a woman is dead outside my house, and that she died in pain and fear. Also, I’m worried with how to conceal her corpse. I’m worried about further police investigation. And I’m sorry that since she’s dead, there may not be justice for Rachel. No one will know what happened to her. Since the murderer has been murdered, there’ll always be suspicion floating around.”