“Yeah, but—where’s the note, man?”
“Huh?”
“The—” Forrest just barely managed to say it. “The letter Mom wrote us.” They would need to show it to the police. “Where is it?”
“Oh, shit.” Quinn took an audibly unsteady breath. “I left it—”
“Okay, okay. We gotta go back for it. I can drive that far.” He reached for the gearshift again.
Quinn said, “Be careful, little brother.”
Forrest was careful. As he drove the short distance, he heard his brother on the phone to the Sheriff’s Office. “I’m sorry, I can’t remember the name of the deputy assigned to our case.” He didn’t sound sorry, just thoroughly upset. “Listen, just put me through to a detective, okay?”
During the pause that followed, Forrest pulled up in front of the blue shack, where he idled the car for the sake of its air-conditioning.
“. . . possible homicide,” Quinn was saying. “We found a note from our mother.” He summarized what it had said. “Yes, I’m sure it was written by our mother. I recognized her handwriting.” His voice quivered. “No, I can’t bring it in. You need to send somebody out here. You expect us to drive when we can’t see straight? Anyway, there are things here you ought to see. State police? Fine. We’ll wait here.” He clicked the phone closed.
Forrest looked over at him, then wished he hadn’t; Quinn had turned away, but he saw his shoulders shaking. Reaching out, Forrest took hold of his brother’s arm below the shoulder and squeezed hard. “Suit.” The affectionate insult might help. “It’s not over yet.”
“Fuck all, Forrie,” Quinn managed to say, choking, “those phone calls of Mom’s that we never returned—”
“I know.”
“—what if she was trying to call us about something important?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Maybe if we’d called back . . .”
“Quinn, a guilt trip is not going to help. Stop it.”
“But I feel so goddamn bad!”
“I know. Me too. But we gotta man up now.”
• • •
Having very limited experience in being knocked unconscious, I could not at first figure out what was happening when I woke up sputtering. Horrified, I felt as if I were being drowned by what looked like a pooka, a shape-shifting water demon, to my blurred vision. Or some kind of evil monster bending over me and dumping cold water on my head. And cursing out of his grotesquely unbalanced half-purple face. Expletive, expletive, expletive, then “Lazy bitch, get the fuck up and make me some dinner!”
Oh. Stoat.
“Something hot, goddammit! I’m hungry.”
Huh. Evidently the car in the front yard was no longer an issue. I wanted to ask who it was and whether they had gone away, but of course I could not. Without speaking, I began to struggle to sit up.
“I want me a real cooked meal now.”
Huh. That was one of the more unlikely things for anyone to expect from me, but Stoat didn’t know my track record. And if he still wanted me to cook for him, that meant I would live a few hours longer.
Wobbling to my feet, I weaved toward the kitchen. Stoat followed me with the shotgun in hand.
I had no problem considering my options, because there was only one substantial meal I really knew how to cook. Blinking, trying to focus on things that kept sliding apart into duplication, I rummaged in the freezer compartment of the fridge.
“Gimme some ice for my face,” Stoat ordered.
Oh, poor baby, I’d hurt his ugly snakebit face. What about my aching, bleeding head? I said none of this, of course, just took him a plastic bag of frozen mixed vegetables.
“You call that ice?”
With an effort I moved my mouth and formed words. “Better than ice cubes.”
But he pulled back and would not accept what I was offering in my outstretched hand. It would seem his obsessive sense of order was offended by the idea of applying chopped broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots to his face. “You damn well get me ice.”
I draped the sack of veggies over my own head injury and got him ice. It took all my compromised strength to flex the plastic ice cube trays. Taking him the ice in a ziplock bag, I felt shaky all over.
To my surprise he was showing all his rotting, crooked teeth in a grin, and I heard him chuckling. Okay, so maybe I did look a bit goofy walking around with a pack of frozen veggies on my head.
My shakes went away when I realized Stoat was no longer immediately dangerous. I set out the pound of frozen ground turkey I had located. I looked in cupboards and found a jar of tomato sauce and a box of linguine. Close enough. I moved my unwilling mouth again. “I could make spaghetti.”