Once he regained his composure, DeWayne had taken a swig and put the truck in gear. Staying barely within sight of the truck, Joe paced it at a dogtrot. As long as DeWayne kept to the dirt roads and narrow lanes of the settlement, and as long as he traveled at the deliberate pace of a drunk trying to keep his vehicle between the ditches, Joe would have no problem tracking him. And if he took the bridge out of the settlement, he would stop being an immediate threat to Faye’s safety and, thus, cease being an immediate concern to Joe.
But DeWayne hadn’t headed for the bridge. At the end of the road, he’d turned left onto the Alcaskaki-Gadsden road. Joe looked at the smooth pavement with dismay. There was no way he could keep up with DeWayne on this road. He’d watched as the truck sped away, then veered off the road, across the strip of grass at its side, and right into a stand of trees, where it narrowly avoided a pine as it rolled to a stop. Joe’s instructions had been clear. He had climbed up into his sycamore and commenced keeping an eye on DeWayne, who had cooperated by passing out, dead drunk.
But enough was enough. The time had come to fish or cut bait. Joe figured Faye’d had time to get Kiki out of harm’s way. It only made sense for Joe to go back to Miss Dovey’s and let people know where DeWayne was. But first, he wanted to eyeball DeWayne, just to make sure he wasn’t fixing to sober up and drive away. Joe dropped down to the ground and approached the truck in a crouch. Raising his head slowly, he peered in the window.
DeWayne had fallen over onto the seat and lay there breathing heavily, his eyes glazed and his mouth open.
The window was open a crack. The fumes that escaped stunk something awful of sweat, alcohol, and something else—a chemical smell, like paint thinner or cleaning fluid. In a flash, he pulled DeWayne out of the truck and onto the ground. DeWayne groaned and rolled over onto his side. On the passenger seat was a terrycloth towel soaked in something that was the source of the evil smell permeating the truck’s cabin.
Holding his breath, Joe reached in and grabbed the towel. Something told him that Adam would want to have his lab people take a look at this.
DeWayne groaned again, and Joe knelt at his side. “Mr. Montrose?” Joe shook the man’s shoulders. “DeWayne?”
The man’s eyelids fluttered, and he reached out to touch Joe’s shirt.
“Kiki,” he said.
“She’s not here,” said Joe. “I’m Joe Wolf Mantooth.”
DeWayne shook his head and moaned. “How can I live without her?”
“She’s dead?” asked Joe in some alarm.
DeWayne, even in the midst of his stupor, looked at Joe like he was crazy. “No, you idiot. She threw me out.” His eyes rolled and he vomited onto the wet grass.
Bewildered, Joe looked around. He needed to get DeWayne some help. Miss Dovey’s house wasn’t far away. If he was lucky, Faye would still be there, lingering over the Sujosa treasures she had told him about. Faye would know what to do.
***
The sight of Kiki’s red hair filled Faye with hope. Despite her injuries, she had come to help them. Maybe she could talk some sense into DeWayne. At the very least, maybe she could go for help—if, that is, she was strong enough to get back to the settlement.
Faye almost shouted out to their rescuer. She came within a single word of giving her position away. Then she saw the rifle in Kiki’s right hand and the look on her face. It was the look of a hunter. Kiki, not DeWayne, had tracked her and treed her. It had been Kiki driving the dogs to kill for her, while wearing DeWayne’s coat and boots. No wonder Joe had not come. He was still doing what Faye asked him to do; he was watching DeWayne. She was on her own.
Despite her fear, Faye felt a bitter admiration for Kiki’s game. It’s hard to keep yourself in good physical condition when you’re faking a serious illness, but Kiki had found a way. She’d been wandering these woods in her nightgown for months, maybe years. No wonder she’d been able to match Faye and Ronya, step for step.
The whole settlement lives in fear that we’ll find Kiki at the bottom of Great Tiger Bluff one morning, Jenny had said. Maybe it wasn’t so hard to convince good-hearted people that you were sick, if you tugged on their sympathies hard enough. You could even fool a gifted doctor whose treatments had put you into remission, if you suddenly refused to let him examine you. And she, Faye, had been clueless enough to tell Kiki the very thing that Carmen had been killed for knowing.
Kiki approached deliberately, each step slowed by the mud sucking at her boot soles. For Faye, crouched in the branch above, there was no time to think, no time to wonder why. She waited for the step that would take her enemy beneath her and, her warrior nerves on edge, she waited for one step more. Then she dropped.
She aimed the pocketknife at Kiki’s right arm. Its short blade couldn’t be expected to inflict grievous harm, but her foremost intent was to neutralize the gun.
The knife missed Kiki’s bicep and struck her assailant’s shoulder. Its blade penetrated the thin skin over her collarbone, then broke as it struck the bone itself. Handle and broken blade dropped into the muck beneath them.
The momentum of Faye’s falling body carried both of them to the ground and into an open pit. Faye kept her foot on the rifle as they went down, trying to use her body weight to wrest it from Kiki’s grip. Even then, so ingrained was her image of Kiki the invalid that she didn’t expect much resistance, and so was wholly surprised when Kiki fought back, agile and strong. Faye reached for the rifle with one hand and tried to hold Kiki off with the other.
Still hanging on to the gun, Kiki scrambled to her feet. She slammed Faye down so hard that Faye lost her one-handed grip and dropped into the mud.
Faye reached out and grasped the rifle again, this time with both hands, and regained her footing. Looking her adversary in the eyes, she did the unexpected. Rather than try to wrest the weapon from Kiki’s hands, she yanked it sideways, jamming its muzzle into the muddy wall of the pit. Maybe she had succeeded in plugging it with stiff clay, and maybe she hadn’t, but only an idiot would risk pulling its trigger now. Kiki responded by kicking Faye hard in her undefended abdomen.
Faye’s grip loosened reflexively and Kiki seized the opportunity to swing the rifle like a baseball bat, clipping Faye hard on the head. When the stock made contact, Faye felt blood flow over her ear and down her neck, and she knew that her stitches and the wound they protected had burst open. Her legs buckled and she went down on her knees, but she was a warrior. She was her father’s daughter.
Kiki’s belly was the only vulnerable target she could reach, but she could by God pummel it for all she was worth. She landed a solid blow to her assailant’s diaphragm and heard Kiki’s breath leave her in a whoosh, but it wasn’t enough to knock her to the ground, where Faye could fight her on her own level.
Faye saw Kiki raise the gun, preparing to strike again. She feared that another blow to the head would leave her senseless, so she threw herself down, hoping to roll away from the point of impact.
Someone behind them barked, “Hit that woman again and die.”
Joe stood on the creek bluff above them, an antique rifle at his shoulder.
Kiki looked at him. A wild smile spread over her face as she pointed her rifle at Faye’s head. “You don’t want me to hit her?” she asked. “Okay. I’ll shoot her, instead.”
Faye lay as still as she could. If the barrel of the rifle was plugged, anything could happen when Kiki pulled the trigger. She could wind up with a bullet in her brain. The plug could force the bullet out the opposite end of the chamber and into Kiki’s face. Or the barrel could disintegrate into shrapnel. No one in their right mind wanted to be near that rifle when its trigger was pulled. But then, Faye saw no evidence whatsoever that Kiki Montrose was in her right mind.
Faye had never seen Joe fire a gun, but he was a master at shooting a hand-made bow. His eye-hand coordination was perfect, and he had an instinctual understanding of ballistics. She was sure he could hit Kiki if he aimed at her
.
She was not, however, completely sure that Joe was capable of shooting a woman.
“Drop the gun. I’m not bluffing,” said Joe.
Kiki smiled at him, and touched the barrel of the rifle to Faye’s forehead.
As the shot echoed down the canyon, Faye closed her eyes and waited for death.
***
The echoes of the gunshot died, and Faye found that she was still alive. She opened her eyes.
Kiki loomed above Faye, but the rifle was no longer pointed at her head. And a bright red stain was spreading down Kiki’s right arm.
Faye’s eyes swiveled to Joe. She should have known he’d find a way to save her without doing irreparable damage to Kiki. Then she blinked. DeWayne Montrose had appeared at Joe’s side.
“Oh, God, woman, what have you done?” He started down the creek bank, but Joe stopped him with a twitch of his rifle.
“Drop it,” Joe repeated, to Kiki.
Kiki’s right arm hung limp, immobilized by Joe’s bullet, but her left arm was in perfect condition. Moving smoothly for someone with a gunshot wound, she tucked the rifle’s stock under her left armpit and reached for the trigger with her good hand.
“If I’m going, I’m taking you with me, you son-of-a-bitch,” snarled Kiki, pointing the rifle at DeWayne.
The rifle’s barrel was still jammed full of mud, and Kiki was still hell-bent on firing it. Faye rolled, covering her head with her arms against the expected explosion.
A shot rang out, clear and true. As the echoes reverberated down the canyon, Kiki slumped to the ground, her lifeless body coming to rest on top of Faye.
***
Faye’s hair was matted with blood and muck. Her whole head hurt, not just the torn skin of her scalp. It hurt on the inside, within her skull, as if Kiki’s attack had bruised her very brain. It probably had.
“Are you all right?” Joe demanded, squatting beside Faye on the ground. Laying aside the rifle, his big hands gently lifted Kiki off Faye. “Where’s Ronya?”
“She’s okay, but her leg’s broken.” She waved toward the pit where Ronya lay.
DeWayne walked toward the body of his wife. He dropped to her side, his head weaving from side to side. “What will I tell Irene?”
Faye turned her eyes away, staring at the gray sky, and then looked back at Joe. “Are you gonna be okay?”
Joe looked at Kiki’s body and sat down heavily, overcome by the realization that he had pulled a trigger on a woman. Faye reached out her icy hand. Slipping it into his big warm one, she squeezed as tight as she could.
Chapter Twenty-nine
DeWayne sat with his wife’s body while Joe went to the nearest house, Elliott’s, for help. In a surprisingly short time, the sheriff and a team of investigators arrived, as well as those Sujosa who, having heard about the third violent death to strike their community in a single week, felt compelled to venture out into the freezing dusk.
Adam and Brent arrived with the police. Together with Joe, they lifted Ronya out of the clay pit that trapped her. While Brent stabilized her leg for transport, Adam approached Faye with a bucket full of icy creek water, several sponges, a towel, and a bottle of disinfectant. He was wearing goggles and rubber gloves that reached his elbows.
“Are you afraid of me or something?” she asked, but the joke fell flat. Kiki had been suffering from a lifelong and often-fatal blood-borne infection, and here Faye sat, covered in blood. Some of it was hers and some of it was Kiki’s. This wasn’t good.
Adam made her remove her blood-soaked jacket. They were both relieved to see that her clothes were clean underneath. Then he told her to lean over and put her head between her knees. It wasn’t pleasant having a bucket of ice water poured over her head, but by the time Adam was finished, the blood dripping from her hair ran clear.
“This is what you call ‘seat-of-the-pants’ first aid,” he said, gently drying her wounded head. “You go with what you’ve got.” Then he daubed disinfectant all over her scalp wound and checked her over for other wounds. He found bruises, not cuts, which was a good thing, contagion-wise.
“I think Kiki was cured,” Faye said, hoping it was true. “That’s why she wouldn’t let Brent examine her.”
“I don’t think doctors are ever willing to say that a virus like that is cured, but Kiki was obviously in remission. Maybe that meant she didn’t have so many viruses swimming around in her blood to pass to you. Let’s hope so.”
An ambulance was waiting to take Ronya to the hospital in Gadsden, and Brent climbed into it with her. A police car arrived to take Adam and Faye back to the settlement. In the confusion, no one realized that they were taking her to a place where there would be no doctor to stitch up the open wound on her head. Faye didn’t care. Brent would come back eventually, and he could do it then.
The officer at the wheel gave Faye his jacket and cranked up the heater. All the way to the settlement, she rested with her wounded head in Adam’s lap.
***
Faye sat in an easy chair in the bunkhouse parlor. She had wrapped herself in two quilts, and she was still cold.
“You should get to bed, Faye,” said Laurel.
Faye knew she should be in bed, too. If she didn’t rest soon, her body would simply quit on her. But her mind wouldn’t let her stop worrying over what she knew she had to do.
“I’ll rest soon, but I need to find Adam first. It’s important. Do you think he’s still here in the settlement?”
Laurel nodded. “He’s over at Hanahan’s. You can borrow my coat.”
Oh, yeah. Adam had decreed that her coat had too much tainted blood on it, then thrown it in a dumpster. “Thanks. I think a coat will be mighty handy on an icy night like this.” Faye stood slowly. The last thing she wanted to do was to go back out into the cold.
***
The rain, at least, had stopped, but she lingered on the porch, reluctant to step into that blasting wind.
Brent and Adam were walking up the street. Between them walked Leo, his head bowed. They stopped at one of the sheriff’s cruisers in the church parking lot, and spoke to one of the officers. But she hadn’t ever told Adam about the forgery ring. How did he know?
When Faye noticed that Leo stood tall for a man being hauled into jail, she knew. He had confessed. There was a tiny shred of dignity to be had in facing your sins, and Leo was hanging onto that dignity.
Faye remembered Brent talking about the years the three of them—Brent, Leo, Adam—had anchored their high school baseball team. Time could wreak grievous changes.
***
“Adam,” she called, as the cruiser drove away with Leo in back.
Adam came to her side.
“I need to talk to you,” she said. “Now.”
“Let’s go inside,” he said. “You’ve had enough cold for one day. Or one lifetime.”
They went back into the bunkhouse and sat on the parlor sofa. The space heater was running, as it had been all evening, but Faye was still chilled through.
“From the looks of things, I’m guessing you know about Leo and the forgeries?” she asked.
Adam nodded. “He’s not saying much, other than that nobody else knew that Ronya’s pottery was being passed off as valuable antiques. Well, he did say one thing: he’s the one who took Carmen’s briefcase from the burned house. Seems there were some pieces of pottery in it that he was afraid would give his game away. It’s a damned good thing he’s told us that—we’d have been searching high and low for that briefcase, thinking that Kiki took it so that nobody would get a look at Carmen’s interviews. It would have put a crimp in our case if that clue were left dangling. I’m having trouble believing that Leo brokered Ronya’s work all by himself, but he’s keeping his mouth shut.”
“That’s what I needed to tell you,” said Faye. “Our friend Raleigh was his buyer. Since he left town this morning, he is probably, right this very minute, skipping the country with his ill-gotte
n dollars.”
Adam stared at her. “Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure,” said Faye. She told him how she had put it together.
Adam let out a disgusted laugh. “The hell of it is that I waved good-bye to him about lunchtime while you were busy solving this case. ‘Have a nice trip, Dr. Raleigh,’ I said. Christ. If the man hasn’t driven to the Birmingham airport and departed for parts unknown, then he’s an idiot.”
“He’s an arrogant ass, but don’t be fooled into thinking he’s an idiot. That was my mistake.”
“Care to take a guess where he would go?”
Faye didn’t know Raleigh well enough to answer that question, but she knew plenty of people like him. “Raleigh’s one of those academics whose work and personal life are completely intermingled. He’s married to a Spanish woman from Manises, where some of the finest Hispano-Moresque ceramics were produced in the 1400s. In fact, if I had to guess right now where the Sujosa came from, it would be either Manises or Malaga. Anyway, somebody should check flights to Spain. Though he’s probably already in the air. He’s had all day.”
“I doubt it,” said Adam, hope audible in his voice. “They call the Birmingham airport ‘international,’ but there are only a couple of flights a day that actually leave the country from there. He had to drive to Birmingham and wait for a flight to a real international airport. Flights to Spain don’t leave all that often, so he had to wait for one of those, too. Factor in time for getting through security, and I’ll bet Raleigh’s cooling his heels in the Atlanta airport right now, waiting for a red-eye to Spain. I’d better go find the sheriff. Luckily, he’s in Hanahan’s, drinking coffee and tearing his hair out.” He rose from his chair, and eyed her. “Are you done?”
Faye nodded. “I’m going to bed.”
“Good.” He put a hand on her arm as she headed for the stairs. “Your daddy would be proud of you.”
Relics Page 27