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Humphrey took the towels to Tinkie as I gave directions over the phone to the ambulance. I kept my voice calm and rational, until I hung up. My knees buckled, and I dropped into a chair. I felt as if I were still in my glass prison. No sound penetrated the thrumming of my heart and the terrible litany of my brain. Coleman is shot. He's lying on the ground bleeding. Coleman is shot. He's lying on the ground bleeding.
I walked back outside and went to him. Kneeling beside him, I held his cool hand as Tinkie and Oscar fought to staunch the bleeding while Humphrey tied Virgie into one of her lawn chairs.
"Big, dumb fool!" she spat. "I hope he dies."
We were too busy to respond to her.
"Press hard," Tinkie told Oscar as the blood seeped through the towel and between his fingers. "Press really hard." She put her hands over his, and I added mine, all three pressing on Coleman's chest, pressing the blood back into his body.
I heard the ambulance, but it didn't register. It was only when the paramedics physically pulled me back that I let go. Tinkie and Oscar stepped away and let the professionals work. We were all covered in blood.
The paramedics loaded Coleman in the ambulance and careened away to the hospital. We were left with the deputies. And Virgie. I looked at her and felt nothing. Tinkie walked over and put her hands on her hips as she glared down at Virgie.
"You'd better hope he doesn't die."
"Why should I care?" Virgie asked.
"Because if Coleman dies, you have my word that you won't be executed. You'll spend the rest of your life in prison if I have to spend my last penny filing petitions to stay your execution." She stepped back as two deputies untied Virgie and put the cuffs on her.
The Coahoma County deputies were not as personable as Dewayne and Gordon, but they did their jobs. In quick order, two took Virgie to jail, and two others took our statements. Humphrey carried the burden of the story, and he agreed to go to headquarters with them to fill in any gaps.
My first impulse was to head to the hospital as fast I could go, but Oscar detained me. "Give them some time," he said, and I'd only heard him speak so gently to Tinkie. "Stay here for a while, in the sunshine. There'll be plenty of hours to spend in the hospital."
Tinkie, Oscar, Sweetie, and I stood on the blood-soaked lawn of the premier ladies school in the Southeast, listening to what seemed an unnatural silence and waiting for the phone to ring with news of Coleman.
Oscar and Tinkie couldn't keep their hands off each other, and while it saddened me when I thought of the future without Coleman, it also gave me hope.
"I'm glad you're okay, Oscar," I said. "I was worried sick, but Tinkie threw a hissy fit. Don't let her try to pretend she wasn't worried about you. She almost had a cow."
"Quite a feat for a well-bred lady," Oscar said, and even though I thought my heart was breaking, I smiled.
"Coleman's going to be okay." Tinkie put her arm around me on one side, and Oscar on the other. "He is, Sarah Booth. He's a tough man, too ornery to die."
I wanted to believe her, but I was afraid to. So much blood! How could someone live after losing all that blood? It didn't seem possible.
"How did you find Sweetie Pie?" I asked Oscar. We moved to the striped canvas chairs, which made a picturesque setting on the lawn of Virgie's home. Sweetie settled at my feet.
"How about a drink, Sarah Booth?" Tinkie moved to the back steps. "I don't think Virgie's going to object if we sample her liquor."
I nodded. "I don't care what it is, just make it strong."
"I'll get something for all of us," Tinkie said. "Even Sweetie deserves something to calm her nerves."
I didn't know what might calm a hound's nerves, and I didn't ask. Tinkie was in charge.
"I want to tell you about Sweetie." Oscar sat across from me and took my hands in his. "She saved me. You know I adore Chablis, but Sweetie Pie is nobody's fool. She saved me."
"How?" I was merely curious. I'd learned long ago that Sweetie was miraculous, and I would gladly talk about the weather in Timbuktu if I didn't have to think about Coleman.
"I went to the front door as Coleman told me to do. I knocked; Virgie answered and invited me in. She was cool as a cucumber. Coleman had warned me not to be taken in, but she was so cordial and so . . . refined. I was thinking that surely there'd been some kind of mistake. I mean Virgie is in her sixties, and her hair is so perfectly silver and old lady-like, and she wears those pastel dresses and sensible shoes." He shook his head.
"We were all taken in," I said. "So what happened?"
"I went in the parlor, and she brought me some coffee with a slice of fruitcake. I meant to eat only one bite, but it was delicious. I have to say, it rivals those fruitcakes you make, Sarah Booth."
"Don't feel badly about the fruitcake, Oscar. The drug was in the coffee, too."
Tinkie came out with a tray of tall, dark drinks and a portion of roast, carved into bite-sized nuggets, for Sweetie. I took a drink and sipped. A Cuba libre, with expensive rum and a slice of lime. Perfect.
"Oscar, how long did it take for the drug to hit you?" Tinkie perched on the arm of his chair.
"About ten minutes. I hit the floor." Oscar rubbed his jaw where a discoloration was forming. "She may have been trying to kill me on the spot."
It was possible. Killing Oscar would accomplish nothing, but Virgie wigged out. "At first, Virgie used some restraint in her actions, but she completely lost it toward the end." I tried to blink away the image of Coleman lying in the grass. "So when did you find Sweetie Pie?"
"I didn't find her. She found me. Virgie must have dragged me into a bathroom. She didn't bother to lock the door, and I managed to open it and fall halfway out into the hall. I was semiconscious when Sweetie came up." He reached down to pat my hound's head. "Let's just say she forced me to wake up."
"She licked your face." I gave her a kiss on the head. "Sweetie isn't real tolerant of folks who try to nap."
"She wouldn't stop. She kept on until I made myself get up. I was woozy and sick, but there wasn't a chance she'd let me sleep."
"That's my girl." I stroked her long ears as she pretended to doze by my chair. "What happened after that?"
"I heard a commotion, and I crept to the kitchen, where I found Virgie and Humphrey. Everything happened too fast for me to stop it. She accused him of double-crossing her, pulled the gun, and took him to the back door where she tried to negotiate her freedom. I had another spell of unconsciousness."
"And that's when Sweetie saved the day," Tinkie said. "She knocked Virgie off the steps and snatched up the gun so Virgie couldn't reach it. If it wasn't for Sweetie, we might all be dead."
That was true, but if it wasn't for me, Coleman wouldn't even be wounded.
As if she sensed my thoughts, Tinkie knelt beside me. She took one hand, while Oscar held the other. "Sarah Booth, I've learned something very interesting about guilt in the last few weeks."
"What might that be?" She was staring at me so intensely, I wanted to draw back.
"You have to believe me."
I gave a weak smile. "I always believe you."
"I didn't believe you when you tried to talk to me about Oscar and the baby. My need to punish myself was greater than my common sense. And in punishing myself, I also punished Oscar and my friends. I don't want to see that happen to you."
"I'm not much on self-punishment." I spoke the lie with a smile.
"All of us are. I think it's part of the human condition, but I learned something from Doreen Mallory that I forgot until today."
Doreen was our former client who'd been falsely accused of killing her own infant child. She'd also been something of a miracle worker. Even though I'd greatly resisted her attempts to ease my pain, I had learned something from her.
"Things happen for a reason, Sarah Booth. I forgot that when I thought of my baby. Now you have to remember it when you think of Coleman. He came here to do something he had to do—to protect the two of us. He was
shot while doing that. But we don't know that if he'd stayed home, something else horrible wouldn't have happened to him."
I rolled my eyes. "Like what? He might have been vomited on while arresting a drunk?"
Tinkie increased the pressure on my fingers. "Sarcasm won't deflect the pain for long. Listen to me. If you don't get a grip on this now, if something does happen to Coleman, you'll carry the guilt the rest of your life. Like I carried the guilt for my child. It almost destroyed me, and it almost got Oscar, too."
"Sometimes people are guilty, Tinkie!" I couldn't stop the rush of angry words. "Sometimes people do things and they deserve to suffer."
"Virgie deserves to suffer. You don't."
"I could have done things very differently, and perhaps Coleman wouldn't even be wounded now."
"You could have done them differently, and he might be dead." Oscar patted my hand. "What Tinkie is trying to make you see is that we aren't omnipotent. We can't know the outcome of our actions, and even actions taken with the very best of intentions sometimes cause suffering. But the only people who are guilty are those like Virgie, who harm others without regard."
"I just want Coleman to be okay." Once I said the words, I couldn't stop the tears. My whole body shook, and there was no more need for words. Tinkie and Oscar wrapped me in their arms, and Sweetie Pie sat up and licked my face. And I allowed them to comfort me.
The Clarksdale hospital was clean and quiet. I sat in the waiting room with a stack of magazines and a diet cola and waited. Tinkie had gone to the gift shop to find something for Coleman to read once he came out of surgery; she refused to behave in a way that implied he might not recover. Oscar had taken Sweetie back to Zinnia.
Both Gordon and Dewayne had called to check on Coleman, but there had been no word from Connie, his wife. Perhaps no one had told her. I kept telling myself over and over that it was none of my business, but it didn't do any good. In my heart, I was Coleman's family. At last, when the doctor pushed through the doors into the waiting room, I stood to hear the news.
"Mrs. Peters," he said, wrongly assuming I was Coleman's wife, "we repaired the damage to his lung and the shattered rib." He paused, and the frown on his face told me he was worried. "The heart wasn't damaged, which is very good news, but he lost a lot of blood."
"But he's going to be okay?" I could hardly speak for the hammering of my heart.
"He's in stable condition now."
"You didn't answer my question. Is he going to be okay?"
He finally met my gaze. "We feel his prognosis for recovery is good."
What was wrong with this man? Double-talk wasn't what I wanted to hear. "Will he or won't he recover?"
He sighed. "We're not gods, Mrs. Peters. We can't see the future. He should heal, but a lot depends on him. On how much he has to live for."
"You're saying it's up to him. He has to want to live." I wondered what the doctor had seen that made him understand Coleman had been in emotional turmoil.
"That's right. He's asleep now, but maybe you'd like to see him. Talk to him a little."
"I would." I glanced around to see if Tinkie was in sight, but she was still buying magazines at the gift shop. "Is he in his room?"
"Recovery. Don't be shocked by his appearance. He lost a lot of blood. Just touch him and talk to him."
I followed the doctor down a green corridor and into a wing shut off by swinging doors. We entered a room with several beds, but only one was occupied. The man in the bed looked vaguely like Coleman. He was deathly pale.
Tears started to my eyes, but I forced them back. Crying would do no good for either of us. The doctor nodded at me, and I walked to the bedside and picked up Coleman's chill hand. I had to fight back the tears for a second time. Coleman and I had never had the luxury of walking down Main Street together, holding hands the way lovers do in movies. Heck, we were a long shot from lovers. We'd kissed, but that was it.
I brushed the fine blond hair back from his forehead, noting the dark circles beneath his eyes. "Coleman," I whispered, though there was no one else to hear me, "you have to recover. I need you."
His breathing was shallow but regular, but there was no sign that he'd heard me.
"Tinkie and Oscar are fine. Virgie is in the Coahoma County jail, and Gordon is making arrangements to have her transferred back to Sunflower County to be charged with Quentin's murder."
I felt the lightest pressure of his fingers. It could have been a muscle spasm, but it made my heart jump painfully in my chest. "Sweetie Pie is just fine, too. Humphrey wasn't injured. Everyone is okay. It's up to you now to get better."
In the movies, the camera would close in on Coleman's face, and his eyes would open slowly. He would be fuzzy for a moment, and then recognition would begin. He would turn to me and smile and say, "I've always loved you, Sarah Booth." And I would cry and kiss him, and somehow, magically, he would produce an engagement ring from the folds of the hospital bed and say, "I've been carrying this around for weeks now and could never find the right time to ask you to marry me." And I would say, "Yes, of course. As soon as you're well," and he would say, "No need to wait for that. Let's call one of the ministers visiting the sick in the hospital." And miraculously, the door would open, and Father Smith would be standing there in his Episcopal collar, and he would perform the wedding on the spot.
But this was real life, and Coleman's eyes remained closed, his breathing shallow, and if he had the power to squeeze my fingers, he didn't do it.
I leaned down and kissed his scraped cheek. "I love you, Coleman." I had to tell him that. I'd never said it before, not when he was conscious. I'd never been willing to risk all that it meant. Now, I couldn't help myself. "I've loved you for a long, long time. It doesn't matter whether you can love me back or not, it's just something I want you to know."
I kissed him again and stood up just as the sound of high heels tapped into the recovery room. Tinkie came toward us, her arms laden with magazines, books, candy, and flowers. Had I not recognized the sound of her heels, I might not have known who she was. She was completely hidden by her spoils.
"I'm going to take all of this to his room," she said, easing it down on the foot of his bed to rest her overtaxed arms. She took a good look at him and gave me a nod. "He's a little peaked, but I've seen worse."
"The doctor said they'd repaired everything. It's up to him to want to recover."
Tinkie walked to the other side of the bed and picked up his left hand. She squeezed it tightly. "Coleman Peters, you'd better get well. I won't have any malingering on the job. Folks around Sunflower County need you, and I know one particular private investigator who can't make it without you." She kissed his hand and put it back on the bed.
"I never thought I'd see Coleman so . . . still."
"He said the same thing about you, Sarah Booth, when you were shot. He was hovering over you just like you're doing with him. You probably don't remember it, but you were pale, too. You looked so thin lying on that emergency room table. We were all afraid you'd die, but you pulled out of it just fine, and so will he."
I'd never appreciated Tinkie's optimism more than now. "Thank you, Tinkie."
"Coleman will thank me, too, when he comes to." She picked up her purchases. "I'm going to take these on to Room 43. Why don't you stay here with him until they move him? Then we'll decide what we should do about going home."
"Sounds good to me."
I sat on the foot of his bed and watched the nurses come back and forth to check him. They told me there was no fresh bleeding, which was a good sign. They changed out the blood transfusion bag and gave him another one. Drop by drop, they were replacing what had leaked out of him. Surely it would soon make a difference, and his color would improve.
An hour later, two orderlies came to wheel Coleman to his room. His condition had not improved at all, but the nurses who'd checked him said it wasn't uncommon. He'd been heavily sedated for the surgery.
I wasn't soothed, but I could onl
y follow his gurney past a nurses' station and closed doors. The doctor was standing in the hallway with Tinkie, and there was an intimacy between them that reminded me of Tinkie's former flirtations with handsome men of the medical profession.
They looked up at me and both smiled. "Coleman is holding his own, Sarah Booth. That's good. Very good. Each hour that passes gives him a better chance."
"Your husband is a strong, healthy man," the doctor said, and for the first time I noticed his name, Larry Martin. He patted my shoulder. "He may stay sedated until tomorrow. Now would be a good time for you to go home and get some rest. We'll take good care of him."
Dr. Martin pulled a prescription pad from his pocket, jotted a few words, tore off the sheet, and handed it to me. "Mrs. Richmond has told me a little of what transpired. I've written you a script for a few light sedatives. Have it filled and try to sleep. Believe me, when Sheriff Peters does wake up, you're going to need all of your patience to deal with him. He doesn't strike me as the kind of man who'll be easy to manage while he recovers."
I took the prescription and put it in my pocket.
"Thank you, Larry," Tinkie said, standing on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. "I really owe you."
She took my arm and propelled me down the corridor before I could protest. In truth, I was suddenly exhausted. I'd had almost no sleep the night before, and the day had been a horror-movie blur.
"I should stay." It was a feeble protest at best.
"I'll take you home. Tomorrow you can come back and entertain him."
"Are you sure there's going to be a tomorrow?" Tinkie wouldn't fib to me about this.
"Larry was concerned right after the surgery, but Coleman has had two pints of blood, and he's holding his own. It's looking much, much better." She pushed through the doors to the parking lot. "I called the sheriff's office with a progress report. Gordon told me the deaths of Belinda Loper, Betty Reynolds, and Karla Jenkins have been reopened based on our investigation. A reporter from the Memphis Commercial Appeal wants to interview us."
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