“How did you know about that adoption thing?” Phyllis hissed.
“Because Brad told us; we were his friends. It was one of the things Theo picked on him about,” Scott said.
He pressed on his temples to try to relieve the pressure, which felt like a steel band squeezing the top of his head. It hurt so badly he thought he might pass out.
“Oh my God,” Phyllis said quietly, as of to herself. “It was all for nothing.”
“Did Billy kill Theo?”
“I don’t know,” Phyllis said. “He disappeared after Theo left. When he came back he had blood on his clothes. I was afraid to ask him. He’s my son … but I’m afraid of him.”
With that admission Phyllis jumped up and ran out of the bar. Scott’s headache had reached the point of no return now. He was starting to get the tunnel vision which presaged a major migraine. He took out his cell phone but couldn’t focus well enough to punch in the numbers to call for help. He stumbled on his way to the bar and several people laughed at him. He got the bartender’s attention, showed his badge, and told the man what number to dial.
Maggie answered her cell phone on the first ring.
Scott had been getting migraines for as long as Maggie had known him. He was able to ward them off with medication if he took it as soon as he detected the telltale signs one was coming on. Once it took hold there was nothing he could do but rest in a dark, quiet room until it passed.
Maggie knew these headaches were the main reason Scott never sought to move up into county or state law enforcement. The county and state required a more thorough pre-employment screening process that would include a review of his medical records, which would disclose the condition. Some people still considered migraines a psychological disorder rather than a medical condition. If he was branded as having psychological problems he would be unemployable in law enforcement.
Maggie thought Scott was through the worst of it tonight. She had been horrified to find him slumped over in the front seat of the squad car in the parking lot of the Roadhouse. On the drive home Maggie called Patrick, who had been with Scott before during these attacks. He was waiting for her when she got to Scott’s house. He helped her get him inside, clean him up as best they could, and managed to get some water down him. It was just as important to keep him hydrated as medicated; she knew this from previous experiences with him.
He had been lucid enough at one point to tell her about Phyllis and Billy, and to plead with her to call Sarah and tell her. As soon as they got him put to bed she went through his wallet, found Sarah’s card, and gave her a call.
Sarah was surprised to hear from her, and although she didn’t understand why she couldn’t talk to Scott, who Maggie claimed had a bad case of food poisoning, she took Maggie seriously, listened to everything she had to say, and said she’d take it from there.
Tommy was eating a bowl of cereal and watching TV when he heard Phyllis come home. He peered through the curtains and saw her get out of a car he’d never seen before, and she was stumbling drunk. Phyllis went inside her trailer and Tommy could hear Billy and her screaming at each other. He thought he heard Billy yell he was going to kill her.
He felt paralyzed and didn’t know what to do, but when he heard the sound of glass breaking, he thought, ‘I will go tell Ed. Ed will know what to do.’
He left the trailer as quietly as he could. Several neighbors had come out to see what was going on, but none of them paid any attention to him. Tommy rode his bike as fast as he could over the icy bricks of the alley to the newspaper office, but Ed was not there. He didn’t know what else to do, so he turned back toward home.
As Tommy turned down the alley, Ed rounded the opposite corner in time to see him go, and then was horrified to hear a car come crashing down the alley. Ed heard a loud bang, and what sounded like trash cans being bounced around, before Billy slid his mother’s big Buick out of the alley and fishtailed up Pine Mountain Road. He ran a red light, narrowly missed another car, and left behind a cacophony of horn honking and a few near fender benders.
Ed ran down the sidewalk into the alley with his heart in his throat, fearing the worst. He passed the mangled bike and reached the jumble of trashcans just as Tommy got to his feet. He picked the boy up in his arms and carried him all the way back to the newspaper office, where he gently placed him on top of the worktable before calling his mother.
Mandy ran into the office, breathless and panicked, still wearing her hairnet and a flour-covered apron from the bakery next door. Ed suggested, over the boy's protests he was fine, that they take Tommy to the 24-hour medical center out on the highway, to be looked over, just in case. Mandy and Ed helped Tommy into the cab of Ed’s truck and Ed drove slowly over the icy streets, out toward the interstate, and the nearest emergency medical help.
Mandy held Tommy tightly to her and wiped his face as he cried, telling her what happened.
“I thought he was trying to kill me,” Tommy said, in between ragged sobs.
“Why in the world would anybody want to kill you?” Mandy asked him, and Ed said, “I can tell you.”
He told Mandy about Tommy seeing Billy follow Theo the night he was murdered and being worried about Billy finding out he told.
“You told me you told your mama,” Ed said to Tommy sternly, and then to Mandy, “I’m so sorry, Mandy. I should have told you myself.”
Mandy told Tommy not to worry about it now, they would sort it all out later, and then she gave Ed the evil eye.
“You and I will talk about this later,” she told him.
Snow was coming down steadily, and the temperature was dropping fast. Snowplows were out, and they made traveling the roads slow going. When they finally reached the little strip mall which held the medical center, they helped Tommy in, told the receptionist why they were there, filled out paperwork, and took their seats in the waiting room.
Ed was so mad at himself for believing Tommy when he said he'd tell his mother himself. He was also mad at himself for not protecting the boy better.
‘He could have been killed,’ Ed thought.
A nurse came out and took Mandy and Tommy back, and Ed went to the payphone to call Scott. He got his voice mail, so he called the station and told Skip what was going on.
Mandy came back out alone and crooked her finger at Ed to follow her outside, her face reflecting strong emotions. Ed prepared himself for the tongue-lashing of his life, and was amazed when Mandy threw her arms around him and burst into tears. Unaccustomed to such emotional outbursts, let alone young women throwing themselves into his arms, Ed just stood there for a moment and let her cry before coming to his senses, fishing out a semi-clean handkerchief, and helping her dry her eyes.
“Thank you for saving his life,” she cried, and Ed noticed, though not for the first time, that despite her red eyes, flushed face, hair stuffed up in a hairnet, and body wrapped in a flour-covered apron, what a pretty woman Tommy's mother was.
Back inside, Mandy untied her apron and pulled off the hair net, and shook out her long blonde hair. Ed watched, fascinated. She had green eyes and a dimple in her cheek. She smelled like fresh baked bread and a pretty perfume.
Tommy had two cracked ribs and several bumps and bruises, and although they didn’t think he had suffered a concussion, the doctor on duty wanted to keep him under observation overnight, just in case.
Tommy had pulled his old buddy Ed's bacon out of the fire by claiming he'd saved his life in the alley, and none of Ed's protestations to the contrary could convince the grateful mother otherwise. Evening turned into night. Ed and Mandy waited in Tommy’s examining room, where first Tommy talked, and then Mandy talked.
Tommy told Ed and his mother everything that happened the night Theo died, and Ed was appalled at the magnitude of the secret the young boy had been keeping. Mandy and Ed spent the night talking in the curtained off area, with the young boy sleeping between them.
After Maggie called her, Sarah jumped into her county vehicle, and b
y using the lights and siren, and despite the treacherous roads, was in Rose Hill within forty-five minutes. Frank met her and a deputy at Phyllis’s trailer, but Billy was gone by then, along with Phyllis’s car and some money she had hidden in the freezer.
Phyllis, drunk to the point of losing consciousness, was not helpful with inquiries. As Sarah left the trailer, she saw a neighbor lurking nearby and went up to her.
“Did you see Billy leave?” she asked her, and the woman shook her head no, and quickly went back inside.
Sarah drove to Scott’s house and was infuriated to find Maggie there. Sarah was used to intimidating people, and didn’t know how to handle Maggie’s firm refusal to let her in.
“Unless you have a warrant to arrest him or to search this house,” Maggie said, “you are not getting past me.”
Sarah glared at Maggie for a moment before stalking back to her police cruiser.
“Bite me, Tiny Crimefighter,” Maggie said to her retreating back, and then shut the door.
Maggie sat with Scott for several hours, putting fresh ice packs on his head and the back of his neck, thirty minutes on and thirty minutes off, which seemed to help.
Fierce, protective feelings rose up inside her, manifesting as anger toward anyone who might hurt him, and a willingness to do anything to make sure he was all right. If someone was going to look after him, she thought, it was going to be her, and not Sarah Albright. Whether that was love or something less honorable, she stayed until she was sure the other woman wasn’t coming back.
When he finally seemed to fall deeply to sleep, she put his next dose of medication and a glass of ice water on the night table, cleaned up the bathroom, and left.
When Scott awoke, he had a migraine hangover he’d gladly have traded for the more manageable alcoholic version. He was in his own bed, a glass of water on the bedside table along with one tablet of his migraine medicine, and a note from Maggie that read: “I called Sarah–take one pill–get some rest. M.” He reached for his pill and swallowed it with some water. His throat was sore and the cold water felt good.
Scott heard the combination “bubububub” and “wheeeeee” purr which was Maggie’s vintage VW bug starting up in the driveway, and realized she must have awakened him by closing the door as she left. What did “I called Sarah” mean? He was too weak and sick to think about it, and he no longer cared about anything except, where was Maggie going? When was she coming back? Those questions were his last lucid thoughts as he drifted back down into a peaceful, unaware state of less pain, less pain, and finally, no pain.
Chapter Ten - Sunday
When Scott raised his sore head to look at the clock on his bedside table he saw it was just after 7:00 a.m. Outside the snow was pouring down, darkening the sky so that it seemed more like night than day. There were ten to twelve inches of snow on his front porch, and the weather forecaster on the radio said they were likely get six to eight more before it was over. Scott took a shower and got dressed, moving slowly, still feeling clammy and shaky.
He discovered Maggie had turned off the ringer on his phone, and he had fifteen messages. Instead of listening to them he called the station and Frank brought him up to date. Someone had just reported finding Billy, who had crashed his mother’s car in a sharp curve on Pine Mountain Road the night before. Tommy had been in an accident as well but was okay, and Sarah was going to interview him as soon as he got home from the emergency room. Scott reluctantly called Sarah, got her voice mail, and left a message, relieved not to have to talk to her.
Scott was looking for a coffee filter when someone knocked on his back door. It was Curtis Fitzpatrick, his tow truck idling behind him in the alley.
“That sheriff lady’s back in town looking for you. We’re headed up the mountain to get Phyllis’s car; thought you might want to ride along.”
Scott put on his warmest coat, boots, gloves, and hat, and joined Patrick and Curtis in the wrecker cab. Patrick handed him a bag full of doughnuts and a cup of hot coffee.
“Compliments of my mother,” he told Scott.
“God bless her,” Scott said before sipping the scalding hot coffee.
Curtis drove them up the alley to Morning Glory Avenue, took a right and then a left onto Pine Mountain Road, where they met a waiting snowplow. The snowplow driver led them up the mountain at what felt like ten miles per hour. Over the scanner radio they listened to the ambulance driver report Billy’s condition as critical at the scene of the wreck.
“Driving that old Buick with bald tires in this weather…” Curtis said grimly.
Patrick asked him how his head was and Scott said, “Okay, now. Were you there?”
“Yep,” Patrick nodded. “But it was Maggie who stayed.”
Slowly, they climbed the mountain, and at one point, an ambulance crept past them going in the opposite direction, lights flashing but with no siren. They could see the paramedics inside, working on Billy as they passed.
“How’d they find him?” Scott asked.
“Snowplow driver coming down the mountain saw the guard rail down and the trees broken over in the ravine, and knew they hadn’t been that way when he went up earlier,” Curtis said. “Glencora paramedics pulled him out. He’s lucky he didn’t freeze to death.”
On the drive home from the emergency clinic, Mandy was quiet, and kept her eyes fastened on the road ahead, looking as if she believed she could keep the truck from sliding if she was vigilant enough. The snow covered the roads again as fast as they were plowed. Ed took them home, helped Mandy get Tommy to the bathroom and then to bed.
“Thank you for everything,” she said, with tears in her eyes.
He smiled at her, said, “I will check on you both later,” and left.
Ed stopped at the press office long enough to wake up Hank, take him for a short walk in the alley to pee, and then he delivered the town’s papers, several hours late. He didn’t even bother to roll them, just carried a paper to each subscriber’s front door and apologized for the delay. It felt good to do something repetitive, and not have to think too hard about it. After his task was finished, and the vending machines were loaded, he shut down the computers and lights in the office, and locked the front door.
He saw an ambulance, with lights blazing but no siren, rolling slowly down Pine Mountain road before it turned right at the light. The lights were on inside the ambulance and Ed could see the EMT's working on someone. He wondered if it was Billy.
Ed turned around and unlocked the door to the news office, and Hank looked at him, head cocked to the side as if to say, ‘what are we doing now?’
“I also write the news,” he told the dog.
There were few vehicles out on Pine Mountain Road save road crews and emergency workers. The road to Glencora stayed plowed no matter how bad the weather, in order for tourists to be able to get to the ski resorts, and the state road workers driving the big plows waved to the men in the wrecker as they passed, plowing in the opposite direction.
“They’ll be out all day,” Curtis said. “This is a nor’easter.”
Scott was glad for the coffee to counteract the sedative effects of his migraine medication. He was also glad to be with Curtis and Patrick, who seemed invincible and impervious even to the forces of nature. Patrick, usually the chattiest member of the family, was unusually quiet, and Curtis, a quiet man, was his usual self. They listened to the scanner and followed the snowplow, keeping their thoughts to themselves.
Scott was trying to piece the case together in his mind, with the view that Billy killed Theo, and trying to account for the threads that didn’t fit this scenario. He thought about Phyllis thinking Billy could be Brad’s son, and thus heir to part of the Eldridge fortune. If Billy had heard any part of the exchange between Theo and Phyllis, and thought by killing Theo he could inherit the Eldridge family’s money, there was a powerful motive.
But how had Willy ended up in the river? Was it just an accident? He wondered if Billy would live long enough to answer a
ny of those questions. He figured Sarah would meet the ambulance at the hospital and question Billy, if he was in any shape to be questioned.
He wondered if he should have listened to those fifteen messages on his voice mail. He thought, and not for the first time, that he was not a very good policeman. Maybe he could become a firefighter instead. Except the smoke would give him a migraine and incapacitate him. Maybe he could tend bar at the Rose and Thorn, deep fry doughnuts at the bakery, or pump gas at the service station. Maybe Maggie would hire him as a barista in her café. He could get fat on pastries and sweet coffee drinks, and just be nice to people all day. That sounded good. There was no need to carry a gun or investigate your closest friends in that job.
As much as he loved his job, Scott thought maybe he wasn’t cut out to be the chief of police. Rose Hill deserved someone brave and unflinching in the face of any challenge; someone who stuck to the strict letter of the law no matter who got hurt; someone who didn’t care what anyone else thought of him; someone who couldn’t be so easily corrupted by redheads with big boobs and bad tempers. He was about as good a protector as Hank, snoozing by the fire in the newspaper office, or Lazy Ass Laddie at Bonnie and Fitz’s house.
‘It’s no wonder Maggie doesn’t want me,’ he thought. ‘I’m a lazy, incompetent coward, stopped dead in my tracks by perfume and cigarette smoke.'
His gloomy, depressed thoughts matched the scene outside: snow flying sideways against a gray sky and barren black trees frosted with white.
“Cheer up,” Patrick said, as he elbowed him in the ribs. “It could be worse.”
“How’s that?” Scott asked.
“You could be dead.”
“You’re right,” Scott said. “At least we’re not dead.”
“It’s still early, boys,” Curtis said, as they pulled off the road at the site of the wreck, which was marked by flares. “Let’s not celebrate just yet.”
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