Grave Secret

Eleven

MANFRED seemed a little hurt that I had protested against his coming with me. “You don’t think I can be helpful?” he asked, his blue eyes looking a shade too forlorn.

“Manfred,” I began, exasperated, “I just don’t know what to do with you.”

“I have some very good ideas,” he said. He waggled his eyebrows.

He was making it funny, but he was serious. I never doubted that at my slightest response, Manfred would be booking us into the nearest hotel as fast as he could whip out his wallet.

The thing was, I’d have to pay for the room, because that wallet was probably empty. I didn’t know how Manfred was getting by. His grandmother, Xylda Bernardo, had been a colorful old fraud, but she’d had the genuine gift. It just didn’t always speak to her when she needed it to, and when she didn’t hear the real voice, she’d make one up. She’d made a poor living at it. She had a flare for the dramatic that had led to some pretty unconvincing overacting.

Manfred was much cannier. And he had the gift, too. I didn’t know the scope and depth of Manfred’s psychic ability, but I had a feeling that as soon as Manfred found his level and honed his gift, he’d be making money. As far as I knew, that hadn’t happened yet.

“First,” I told him, ignoring his innuendo, “I’ve got to go to my hotel and shower and change. Then we’ll go to the other hospital, the one where they took Detective Powers.”

“The Dallas Cowboy? Parker Powers?” Manfred’s face lit up in a wonderful way. “I read an article in Sports Illustrated about him, when he became a cop.”

“I would never have guessed you were a football fan,” I said. Life is a process of reevaluation, isn’t it?

“Are you kidding? I love football. I played in high school.”

I eyed him dubiously.

“Hey, don’t let my size fool you,” Manfred said. “I can run like nobody’s business. And it was a little high school, so they didn’t have much choice,” he added honestly.

“So what position did you play?”

“I was a tight end.” And he said it absolutely straight. Manfred did not joke about football.

“That’s really interesting,” I said, and I meant it. “Manfred, not to change the subject, but why’d you decide to come all this way after I said I could handle it?”

“I got the feeling you were in trouble,” he said. He looked sideways at me, and then straight out the windshield of his car. We’d decided that if I were being followed (an idea that still seemed incredible to me) taking Manfred’s beat-up Camaro might throw my stalker off the trail.

“Really? You saw that?”

“I saw someone shooting at you,” he said. His face was older all of a sudden. “I saw you fall.”

“Did you… You didn’t know for sure I was alive when you came into Tolliver’s room, did you?”

“Well, I’d watched the news, and I didn’t see anything indicating you’d been killed. I did hear that a Garland policeman had been shot. They weren’t releasing his name then. I hoped you were okay. But I wanted to see for myself.”

“So you drove all this way.” I shook my head, marveling.

“I wasn’t that far away,” Manfred said.

There was a little silence, while I waited for him to continue.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” I said. “Where were you?”

“I was in a motel in Tulsa,” he said. “I had a job there.”

“You’re officially in the business now?”

“Yep. I’ve got a website, the whole nine yards.”

“How does it work?”

“It’s twenty-five dollars for an answer based on one question. Fifty dollars for a consult if they give me their astrological sign and age. And if they want me to travel to them for a private reading, it’s… a lot more.”

“How are you doing?” I’d definitely been wrong about Manfred’s finances.

“Pretty well,” he said, with a slight smile. “Of course, I’m building on Xylda’s reputation. God bless her soul.”

“I know you must miss her.”

“I really, really do. My mother is a very nice woman.” He said that with the air of someone doing his duty. “But my grandmother gave me more love, and I took care of her as much as I could. My mother had to work all the time, and I don’t remember my father, so Xylda was my real… she was my home.”

That was a great way to put it.

“Manfred, I’m so sorry about Xylda. I think of her often.”

“Thanks,” he said, his voice lightening in a conscious attempt to brighten the dark conversation. “She liked you, too. She liked you a lot.”

We were silent for the rest of the ride.

While I showered and changed, Manfred walked down to the place where Parker Powers had been shot the night before. He wanted to see if he could pick up anything there, and he knew I’d be more comfortable if he wasn’t in the room while I was cleaning up. I appreciated both ideas. When he knocked on the door, I was dressed, as made up as my healing face would permit, and braced for our next stop. Manfred set his GPS so we could get to the hospital where Parker Powers was a patient. It was called Christian Memorial. I didn’t understand why he’d been taken there instead of God’s Mercy, where Tolliver was. Tolliver and Parker had both had gunshot wounds, so it couldn’t be the level of trauma the emergency room could handle.

I was impressed with Manfred’s GPS, and I’d been thinking of getting Tolliver one for his birthday, so we talked about that on the way to Christian Memorial. I didn’t want to think about the visit I was about to pay. Fortunately, we had to watch out for everyone else on the road, and that distracted me.

Every city in the world thinks it has the worst traffic. Dallas has grown in such a hurry, and so many people who move to the city haven’t driven in an urban area before, that I think Dallas may be right when it claims its traffic is pretty awful. This congestion extends to the dozens of towns that cluster right around Dallas ’s outskirts. We were maneuvering among those towns now.

When we’d exhausted small talk about the GPS, Manfred asked me about the case we’d been on before we’d come to Dallas. “Fill me in on your last few days” was the way he put it. “You know this shooting is related to something you’ve done recently. I don’t see how the Carolina case can be related.”

I agreed with him. Since Manfred was a colleague, I explained to him about what had happened at Pioneer Rest Cemetery. I wouldn’t have broken my unwritten bond with the Joyces, but I’d come to believe they were probably involved in what was happening. More importantly, I knew Manfred would keep it to himself.

“So there are two ways you can go with that,” he said. “You can pursue the missing baby, which one of the men you met may have fathered-though I guess that kid isn’t a baby anymore, it’d be in school-or you can pursue the possibility one of them threw the rattlesnake at Rich Joyce, startling him into a heart attack.”

“There are those two possibilities,” I said, relieved to be talking about the whole situation. “And there’s the fact that Tolliver’s father has shown back up, and he’s trying to reconnect with Tolliver. And the girls. And there’s the weird thing that after all these years, someone’s reported a Cameron sighting.”

I filled Manfred in on our family business.

“So this might have to do with your little sisters, somehow. Or with your missing sister. What if this has something to do with Cameron?”

I was startled. “Why would it?”

“There’s a caller claiming to have seen Cameron. Then another caller threatens you. Two anonymous phone calls. Those sure might be linked, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” I said slowly, considering it for the first time. “Yes, of course they could.” If I hadn’t put this together before, blame it on the fact that people near me kept getting shot. “So this might have to do with Cameron.”

“Or with the caller knowing this was the surest way to get you away from Tolliver. Maybe he thought you would leave, go to Texarkana. He couldn’t have counted on the police being willing to show you the tape at the police station.” There was silence for a long minute. “Uh, Harper,” Manfred said. “You sure-for real-that the woman you saw in the tape wasn’t your sister?”

“I’m sure,” I said. “Her jaw was different, and the way she walked was different. True, she was blond and she seemed the right height. True, I don’t know why anyone would claim to have seen her when the case is cold and no one’s looking anymore.”

“You’re… I guess you’ve always been convinced that Cameron is dead?”

“Yes, always.” I said that firmly, as if there were no doubt in my mind at all. “She would never let me worry like this, not for all these years.”

“But you said you two had it real hard at home.”

“Yeah, real hard.” I took a deep breath. “She wouldn’t do that,” I said. I packed my voice full of conviction. “She loved all of us, all the kids.”

“So your stepdad resurfaces, and suddenly there’s a Cameron sighting,” he said, tactfully abandoning the possibility of my sister’s voluntary disappearance. “Isn’t that quite a coincidence, too?”

“Yes, it is,” I said. “And I don’t know what to make of it. I’ve never thought that he killed her. Maybe I should have considered it. But he was visiting a jailbird friend of his, a guy he did business with, and the time frame excluded Matthew.”

“What kind of business?”

“Drugs, and whatever else they could do to raise money.” I had to stop to remember. Crazy. I would have never believed I’d forget any detail of that day. “That afternoon Renaldo and Matthew were going to take scrap iron to the recycle plant to get some money. But I don’t think they ever made it.They started playing pool.”

“What was the friend’s full name?”

“Renaldo Simpkins.” I was very unhappy that I had to struggle to recover that memory. “He was younger than Matthew, and he was a nice-looking man; I remember that.” I tried to picture his face. “Maybe Tolliver will remember,” I said finally. I felt that in forgetting even the most minute circumstance of that day, I was betraying the memory of my sister. For the first time, I appreciated the records of that day that the police would have, and Victoria Flores, too.

We pulled into the parking lot of yet another hospital. Christian Memorial was maybe a little newer than God’s Mercy, though nothing in that area was very old. We walked into the lobby and asked the lady in the pink smock if she could give us directions. She gave us a practiced smile that aimed at being warm and welcoming. “Detective Powers is up on the fourth floor, but I warn you, it’s mighty crowded up there. You may not get to see him.”

“Thanks,” I said, smiling back just as brightly. We made our way across the lobby and into the elevator, where Manfred’s facial decorations attracted a certain amount of attention. He seemed oblivious to the startled and fascinated looks that came our way. When the doors opened on the fourth floor, we were confronted by a sea of faces, and the predominant clothing color was blue. There were cops in several different uniforms standing around, and there were men and women who could only be detectives. There was also a football player or two.

Though it hadn’t occurred to me to leave Manfred downstairs, I immediately realized I’d made a mistake bringing him up here. He attracted no little attention, and none of it was positive. I stiffened my back. Manfred was my friend, and he had as much right to be here as anyone. A tall woman with broad shoulders and a thick head of brown hair came up to me. She was in charge. She’d be in charge no matter where she was.

“Hello,” she said. “I’m Beverly Powers, Parker’s wife. Can I help you?”

“I hope so,” I said, feeling hesitant. Somehow, I hadn’t foreseen this crowd and all these eyes fixed on me. “I’m Harper Connelly, and Parker was shot when someone tried to kill me. I’d like to thank him. This is my friend Manfred Bernardo, who’s driving for me today while my brother’s in the hospital.”

“Oh, you’re the young woman,” Beverly Powers said, looking at me with a lot more interest. “I’m so glad to meet you. You understand, there are all kinds of stories going around about why you and my husband were out there together, and I very much hope you’ll tell me exactly what happened.”

“Of course I will,” I said, surprised. “There’s no big mystery about it.”

She waited, her eyebrows raised to indicate she was ready. I was taken aback, since I realized she meant me to tell her here and now.

Everyone around us was listening, though they were all trying to look like they weren’t. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Manfred had retreated to a spot against the wall. He was standing with his hands folded together, his eyes on me and his stance alert. He looked like an undercover operative of some kind. I was sure that was his intent. The man was a chameleon.

“My brother had been shot two nights before,” I explained, trying to pick my words carefully. “And Detective Powers came to the scene then. He and Rudy Flemmons. Detective Flemmons came to see me at my brother’s room in the hospital the next day to give me some information, and then last night, when I went back to my hotel, your husband was there. When I told him I was going for a run, since I’d been cooped up with my brother in his hospital room all day, he said he’d run with me, since he wasn’t convinced the shooter had actually meant to hit my brother.” There was definitely no point in mentioning Powers’s avid eyes. “He thought the person who shot Tolliver might have been aiming for me, and someone had called in a death threat for me that day. I guess neither one of us took that seriously enough, which was our big mistake-and for that, I’m so sorry. My only excuse is that I’ve gotten threats before, and they were always nothing. Your husband said he had his running clothes in his trunk, and he changed in his car, and we started out running. He got winded pretty quick-excuse me, he just hadn’t run in a long time, I guess.” To my surprise, my audience had relaxed considerably while I was telling Beverly Powers how her husband had come to be shot, and when I described how winded he’d gotten, a few people actually laughed, and a smile flickered across Beverly Powers’s face.

I suddenly understood: Mrs. Powers and Parker’s fellow officers had thought I’d been having an affair with him. My no-frills explanation had dispelled that suspicion. They weren’t really amused; they were relieved.

“We were running up and down the aisles of that big bus depot across from the high school on Jacaranda.” I saw some nods out of the corner of my eye. “We heard a car come into the lot, and Detective Powers and I both thought it was after us, but then it sped away. We decided we better go back to the hotel, and we were walking on the street going back. This guy jumped out from behind some bushes and fired. I don’t know if he was trying to hit me or your husband, but Detective Powers shoved me aside real quick. That meant he caught the bullets. I’m really sorry. He was so brave, and I feel awful about him getting hurt so badly. I called 911 as soon as I could.”

“That saved his life,” Beverly said. Her face was round and sweet, but her eyes were another matter. Whatever sport she’d played, this woman had been a ferocious competitor.

I was profoundly glad I hadn’t been having an affair with her husband.

“Please, come see him,” Beverly said.

“Is he conscious?”

“No,” she said, and I understood by the way she said that one word that there was a good chance Detective Powers would never be conscious again.

Taking my hand, the tall woman led me to a glass-walled room, and I looked at her husband. He looked awful, and he was out of it. I didn’t know if it was the medication, or if he was in a deep sleep, or if he was maybe in a coma.

“I’m sorry,” I said. He was going to die. I’m not always right-death can hang over people like a shadow without ever descending-but with Detective Powers, I was pretty sure. I hoped I was wrong.

“Thanks for giving me a little longer with him,” she said. We stood for a moment in silence.

“I’ve got to get back to my brother,” I said. “I appreciate your talking to me, and letting me see him. Please tell him thanks for what he did for me.”

I patted Beverly ’s shoulder in an awkward way and eased my way through the crowd over to Manfred, who took my hand and pressed the elevator button. The door opened immediately, and we stepped into an empty elevator. I was praying for the doors to shut out the painful scene.

“I’m glad you came with me,” I said. “That must have been pretty nerve-wracking for you.”

“Oh, no, I love going into a pen of lions wearing a sign that says Edible Lamb.” Now that we were alone, Manfred’s bland mask relaxed into a face that was just as relieved as mine must have been.

Our hands were gripping so tightly that I could feel his bones against mine. Even as I realized I was in pain, he eased his hold on me.

“That was an adventure,” he said, in a more normal voice. “What next? Alligator wrestling?”

“No, I thought we’d go eat lunch. Then I need to go back to Tolliver’s room and sit with him.” We were in the car and driving over to the hotel when Manfred asked, “Did the doctor say when Tolliver would be released?”

“He’ll get out tomorrow. I’m sure I’ll have to do some nursing. Maybe I should see if I can get a suite at another hotel, instead of the room I’ve got now. We might be there for a week or so, because the doctor said Tolliver had to stay quiet. He’ll be in the bed a lot, and I don’t want to bother him.”

“You’re definitely settled with Tolliver, then? He’s the one?” Manfred asked, his face suddenly serious.

“He’s the one,” I said. “He’s been the one since I met him. Of course, you were always my fallback position.” I tried a smile. To my relief, he returned it.

“I’ll have to cast my net wider,” he said dramatically. “Maybe I’ll haul in a mermaid.”

“If anyone could find a mermaid, you’d be the one,” I said.

“Speaking of mermaids, are you checking the mirrors for tails? Or are you just scared of my driving?”

“I’m hoping I can tell if someone’s following us. That’s happened here, and for the life of me, I can’t spot anyone. It’s good I don’t want to be a detective.” Manfred tried to watch, too, but he didn’t notice a car that was doing everything we did. In Dallas traffic, that wasn’t decisive, but at least I felt a little better.

When we reached the hotel, I collected my stuff and checked out, after first calling another chain hotel down the block to see if they had a suite-type room available. They did, and I booked it under Tolliver’s name. The anonymous caller had known I was in this hotel, and though it wouldn’t be hard to find me again, I might as well not make it completely easy. I reserved the suite for six nights, figuring I could always check out earlier if Tolliver was doing well enough to leave town. I also called Mark, to tell him where we’d be. Then Manfred drove me to the new hotel and helped me carry in Tolliver’s bags as well as mine.

We went out to eat after that, to a family-style restaurant with a long salad bar. It was about time I ate something that wasn’t actively bad for me, and I loaded up my plate with salad and fruit. A little to my surprise, Manfred did, too.

My companion was a great believer in conversation. Or at least, he enjoyed talking while I listened. I wondered how well Manfred fitted in with his peers, because he needed to say a lot of things out loud that he maybe hadn’t had a chance to say, mostly about Xylda and how much he missed her, the things she’d taught him, the odd items he’d found stored away in her house.

“Thanks for showing up today,” I said when there was a lull in the chatter.

He shrugged. He looked half proud, half uncomfortable. “I knew you needed me,” he said and found something else to look at.

“I’d like you to meet some of these people and tell me what you get from them,” I said. “If I can think of a way to make it look natural.”

He looked all too happy about the prospect of doing me a favor.

“Of course, if you need to go home, I’ll understand,” I said.

“No,” he said. “I do a lot of my business on the Web now, and I don’t have any readings scheduled for this week. I brought my laptop and my cell; that takes care of me. What am I looking for?” The sense of fun faded from his face, and I was looking at an older person than the Manfred I was used to.

“You’re looking for whatever you can tell me about these people,” I said. “Someone shot Tolliver. Someone shot Detective Powers, though I guess they were trying to hit me. And I think it was one of these people. I want to know why.”

“Not who?”

“Well, of course that, too. But the ‘why’ is pretty important. I need to know if I’m the target or not.”

He nodded. “I get it.”

We drove back to the hospital, and Manfred dropped me off at a side entrance, the closest to providing concealment that the hospital offered. I scooted inside and made my way to the bank of elevators off the lobby. I didn’t think anyone was paying any particular attention to me, and no one seemed to be loitering. Everyone I looked at seemed to have a purpose, and no one spoke to me.

When I got back to Tolliver’s room, I found him sitting up in the chair. I felt a wide smile spread across my face.

“Oh, you got adventurous,” I said, beaming at him.

“Hey, I’m no slacker,” he said, but he smiled back. “Hearing I might get out made me feel better than any of the drugs. How was your trip across the city with the amazing Manfred?”

I told Tolliver about our visit to Detective Powers. “Once they all understood I wasn’t sleeping with him, they were all relieved,” I said.

“When he gets better, you can tell him his fellow officers thought he was a real dog.”

“I don’t think he’s going to get better,” I said. “I think he’s going to die.”

Tolliver took my hand. “Harper, that’s not up to us. All we can do is hope he pulls through.”

That was such a sweet thing to say; maybe not the words so much as the way Tolliver said it. I could tell he loved me. I cried a little, and he let me without saying anything patronizing, and then I helped him back into bed because he was tired. We should have been talking about who shot him, but at the moment we were simply too flattened.

Mark and Matthew came in together an hour later.

We were watching an old movie, and we were actually enjoying it, but I switched it off to be polite. As they stood together at the foot of the bed, I noticed that Mark and Matthew were much more alike in looks than Tolliver and his dad were. The shorter, thicker build, the square faces… All three men had the same coloring, but other than that, Tolliver definitely looked more like his mom. I’d only seen pictures of the first Mrs. Lang, but she’d had Tolliver’s much narrower face and thinner build.

I wondered if they wanted me to leave.

Tolliver didn’t give me any signal one way or the other, and though I half expected Matthew to tell me he wanted to talk to his sons alone, he didn’t say a word about it, so I stayed.

After the usual inquiries into Tolliver’s recovery and when he’d get out of the hospital, Mark said, “I wondered if you’d like to come back to stay with me, at my house, I mean. While you get better.”

“Your house,” Tolliver said, as if he’d never heard of such a thing. We’d been to Mark’s house exactly once. He’d had us over to dinner, and he’d ordered out. It was an absolutely standard three-bedroom ranch with a fenced-in backyard.

“Yeah, why not? Since you and Harper are…” Here he made a kind of indeterminate gesture, meant to indicate that we were sleeping together. “That means you can share a bed, so there’ll be room.”

“So, Dad’s staying in the other room now?” Tolliver didn’t look at his father as he spoke to Mark. He’d sure picked up on that little indicator.

“Yes, he is,” Mark said. “It just made sense, since his job doesn’t pay a lot, and the bedroom was empty.”

“I already got us a suite at a hotel,” I said. I made sure my voice was both quiet and neutral. I didn’t want to make this a confrontation.

But it looked as though I wasn’t going to get my wish.

“Listen,” Mark said, flushing up as he did when he was angry, “you butt out, Harper. This is my brother, and I get to ask him to stay with me. It’s his call. We’re family.”

Not only was I angry now, too, I was hurt. I didn’t care if I ever got called a member of Matthew’s family, but Mark and I had shared a lot of woe together. I thought we kids had been our own family. I could feel my own face reddening.

“Mark,” Tolliver said sharply, “Harper is my family. She’s been my family for years now. Yours, too. I know you remember how we had to stick together.”

Mark looked down at the floor, conflict making his face really distressing to watch.

“It’s okay, Mark,” Matthew said. “I understand what they’re saying. You-all did have to band together. Laurel and I weren’t exactly up to making a family work. We were together, but we weren’t a real family. Tolliver’s right.”

Overkill, I thought.

“Dad,” Mark mumbled, like he was seventeen again. “You tried to keep us together.”

“I did,” Matthew said. “But my addictions got in the way.”

I tried very hard not to roll my eyes. Drama 101. Tolliver was watching Matthew confess-yet again-and his face was unreadable. There were still times when I couldn’t tell what Tolliver was thinking, and right now was definitely one of those times. He might be softening toward his father, or he might be planning how to kill him. At the moment, I would vote for the killing.

“Please, Tolliver, give me a chance to get to know you again,” Matthew pleaded.

There was a long silence. Mark said, “Tol, you remember when Gracie got so sick? You remember, Dad took her to the hospital? And the doctors gave her antibiotics and she came home so much better?”

I’d forgotten about that. It had been a long time ago. Gracie had been very little, maybe only four months old. How old had I been? Fifteen? It had been hugely embarrassing to have a baby sister, I remembered, because that was plain evidence that my mother and her husband were actually having sex.

It’s amazing what can embarrass you at fifteen.

I knew something about babies by then, because we’d already had the care of Mariella. My mother had been a little better when our first half sister was born, though, and she’d done at least some of the everyday care. We’d been able to leave Mariella with her during the school day, for example. That was out of the question when Gracie was born, underweight and sickly. Why they didn’t take Gracie away from Mom in the hospital, I don’t know. We had almost prayed that someone would take the baby or that Mom would come to her senses and give Gracie up for adoption.

Neither of those things had come to pass. So Cameron and I had taken turns babysitting for other families, and the boys had earned money, and Matthew had chipped in, too. We’d been able to take the girls to day care while we were out of the house.

Then Gracie, who’d always had trouble with her breathing, had gotten really bad. I couldn’t remember much about it, except being scared. We’d been so impressed that Matthew had taken her to the hospital.

“Are you saying I should make friends with Dad because one time, one time, he acted like a real father?” Tolliver said, and I let myself exhale. He wasn’t fooled.

“Oh, Tolliver.” Matthew shook his head, grief written in big letters on his face. “I’m trying to stay straight, son. Don’t harden your heart against me.”

It took everything I had not to speak, but I was proud that I could hold my tongue. For a second, my heart went to my throat, because I thought I detected a weakening in Tolliver’s face. “Goodbye, Mark. Dad. Thanks for coming by,” he said, and I breathed out a silent sigh of relief.

The two visitors looked at each other, then at me. They obviously wanted me to leave the room, but I wasn’t going to do it. After a moment, they could tell I was staying put.

Matthew said, “If you need our help transferring Tolliver to the hotel, just call Mark’s number and leave a message, Harper. We’ll be glad to do whatever we can.”

I nodded.

Mark said, “I’m sorry we can’t all…” His voice trailed off miserably. “Jeez, I wish you two could forgive and forget.”

I found this incredible. I had no response to make to my stepbrother, but I had something to say to my stepfather. “I learned some of the basic lessons of my life under your neglect, Matthew. I don’t hate you, but I’m sure not going to forget. That would be under the category of really, really stupid.”

Matthew looked directly at me, and for a second I saw his undisguised dislike before he pulled the repentant mask back over his true face.

“I’m sorry you feel that way, Harper,” he said smoothly. “Son, you’ll be in my prayers.”

Tolliver looked at him silently. Then his father and his brother turned and left the room.

“He hates me,” I said.

“I’m not so sure he feels any different about me,” Tolliver said. “If I fall down three flights of stairs, don’t call them. I love Mark and he’s my brother, but he’s back under Dad’s thumb, and I don’t trust him at all.”