CHAPTER 8

BRITT PRACTICALLY POUNCED ON DELNO. “WHAT ABOUT THE autopsy?”

Raley braced himself. He figured Britt would probably need bracing, too, so he went to stand near her where she had squared off with Delno.

“They said-”

“Who? Who said?”

“The men on the TV.” Looking beyond her at Raley, Delno said, “Have you gone plumb crazy, kidnapping her?”

“Reporters?”

“Huh?” Delno’s eyes shifted back to Britt. “Yeah, reporters. Them and the cop they was talking to.” Then back to Raley. “What the hell do you expect to gain by-”

“What did he say? The cop.”

Delno was losing patience with her interruptions. “He said that, accordin’ to the autopsy, Jay Burgess died of suffocation.”

She fell back a step. “Suffocation?”

“Smothered-like. With a pillow over his face.”

She stared at Delno with disbelief. “That’s impossible.”

“I ain’t lyin’, lady. That’s what the fella said.”

For several seconds nobody moved, then Britt flew into action as though she’d been jabbed with an electric prod. “Where’s your phone?” Without waiting for Raley to answer, she went tearing around the cabin, knocking a stack of books off a table, scattering a deck of playing cards, flinging aside anything her hands landed on as she searched for a telephone.

“I don’t have a phone,” he said.

“A cell then. You’re bound to have a cell phone.”

“No. And I purposefully left yours behind.”

“A TV. Radio.”

“None of the above. Britt, calm down.”

She rounded on him, her eyes wild, arms held rigid at her sides. “Who doesn’t have a telephone?”

“I don’t,” he shouted back.

She gaped at him as though he’d just arrived from another planet, then she headed for the door. “I’ll take your truck. Are the keys in it?”

She made it through the screen door, over the mound of dogs, and down the steep steps before he caught up with her. He grabbed at her windbreaker. That broke her stride but didn’t stop her. She pulled her arms free, leaving him with nothing but a fistful of synthetic fabric.

She was rounding the truck bed when he managed to hook her elbow and jerk her to a stop. “Will you wait a damn minute?”

“Let go of me!”

“Not yet. Not until you tell me what you plan to do.”

“What do you think? Go back. Deny it. Tell them I had nothing to do with Jay’s dying. Tell them I don’t remember what happened that night, but I would certainly remember killing him. Holding a pillow over his face? My God!” She pulled her arm from Raley’s grasp and put her hands to the sides of her head, grabbing handfuls of her hair.

“You already told them you’d lost your memory. They didn’t believe you.”

“Still don’t.” This from Delno, who’d come out behind them, following the action as though they were staging it for his entertainment. “They’re looking for you,” he said, addressing Britt. “Said a warrant had been issued. They went to your place. Said it looked to them like you’d runned off to avoid arrest.” He grinned at Raley, showing his dental stubs. “Reckon they didn’t figure on her being kidnapped.”

“I’ll make them believe me.” Britt spun away and headed for the cab of the truck.

Raley reached out and caught her arm again, bringing her around. “How? How, Britt? You were there, with Jay, all night.”

“Yes, but there’s no solid evidence against me.”

“They got the pillow,” Delno said.

That statement arrested her attempt to get free from Raley’s grip. She stared at Delno, then looked up at Raley. “How could I have smothered a man and then calmly gone to sleep beside him?”

“I don’t believe you could.”

“Then-”

“But they do. They do. Jay was one of their own. They’re looking for a scapegoat and somebody-Jay’s killer-made certain they’d have one.”

“Jay’s killer?” Her eyes probed his. “You knew all along he’d been murdered?”

“I suspected. I was anxious to hear the autopsy report, same as you.”

“Did you suspect me?” she asked, her rich contralto suddenly going thin.

He hesitated, then said, “Not really, no.”

“Do you know who-”

“Not yet.”

The faint ray of hope he’d seen momentarily in her eyes dimmed and then flickered out. “I’ve got to go back and clear myself.”

“Listen to me,” he said, taking a step closer. “You can’t go back unarmed. They’ll put you through a shredder. I know. I’ve been there. Come back inside. Listen to everything Delno heard on the news.” Lowering his voice, he said, “Listen to what I have to tell you. Then I’ll drive you back myself. I swear.”

She stared at him, then looked at Delno, who had lifted one of the hounds into his arms and was stroking its lolling head. She looked back at Raley. “I’ll give you an hour.”

Delno dropped the hound onto the porch and held the screen door open for them as they filed back inside. He helped himself to the last of the coffee. Raley offered to brew a fresh pot, but Britt declined with an absent shake of her head. She resumed her place at the dining table. Raley took his previous seat. Delno sat in the third chair.

Britt seemed to have expended all her energy. She sat with shoulders slumped, staring at the nicks in the tabletop. She traced one with her thumbnail. Finally she looked up and caught him and Delno staring at her.

She turned to Delno as though only now registering his presence. “Who are you?”

“Delno Pickens,” he replied, at the same time Raley said, “My neighbor. He has a place a couple miles from here.”

He remembered his first exposure to Delno, what a shocking sight the old geezer had been. Britt was experiencing that mix of amazement and repugnance now. Delno never wore a shirt beneath his overalls, except on the coldest days of the year. This left his arms and upper chest exposed to the elements almost year-round. His skin was crepey, tanned to leather, overlaid with a sparse crop of white hair.

It was hard to determine the natural color of the hair beneath the hat he perpetually wore. A straggly ponytail hung long down his back. He greased it to discourage lice. At least that was what Raley had surmised.

It was a testament to Britt’s basic kindness that she remained sitting that close to the man, because he was no more inclined to bathe than he was to wash his hair. Or maybe kindness didn’t factor into it at all. Maybe she was simply too shell-shocked to angle away from his overripe odor.

“Raley here won’t get hisself a TV,” he said to Britt. “Says he hates the goddamn things. So if there’s something really important in the news, it falls to me to let him know.”

“They have Jay’s pillow?” she asked, her voice still thready.

Delno nodded. “They took it as evidence that first morning. Said it was on the floor next to the bed. One of them hard, foam kind. It bore the imprint of his face. They suspected right off you’d smothered him, but they kept it to their selves till the coroner could prove it.”

“He may have been suffocated with his pillow, but I didn’t do it, Mr… uh…”

“Pickens. And it don’t matter to me none if you did or didn’t.”

She scraped back her chair and stood up, went to the fridge, got a bottle of water and took a long drink. Raley sensed Delno watching him curiously, a thousand unasked questions in the old man’s rheumy eyes. Raley pretended not to notice.

Britt said, “They went to my house to arrest me. What did you mean when you said it looked to them like I had run away?”

“Well-”

“I can answer that,” Raley said. “I left my pickup and hitched into town late yesterday afternoon. After stopping at The Wheelhouse, I walked to your house.”

“That’s-”

“A few miles. After I knocked you out, I-”

“You knocked her out?”

He didn’t acknowledge Delno’s interruption. “I looked for your car keys and found them on the hook by the back door. I left as you would, going out that door and resetting the alarm.”