When I got to the kitchen, Grandpa Ross actually stood up. He was breathin’ ’specially heavy, like he always does when he’s excited. He said, “That was fast.”
“What was?”
“Can’t be five minutes ago I called.”
“Maybe you’d best start over. Who was it you called an’ what about?”
“You. Well, I talked to Martha Rooney. She said she’d get hold a you.”
“About?”
“That dad-blamed girl Nina’s had stayin’ here stole my gun!”
I looked at the corner where Grandpa kept his twenty-gauge; it weren’t there. I said, “Angie?”
“Damn straight!”
“When’d it happen?”
“Not a quarter-hour ago. Nina went off to work. I went in there …” He hitched his thumb in the direction of the indoor outhouse. “When I come out the girl was gone an’ my gun with ’er.”
“Anythin’ unusual happen this mornin’? Anybody stop in or call?”
“Might’a been a call—don’t know. I never answer the damn thing.”
“Anythin’ else missin’? Shells or food or money?”
Grandpa huffed an’ puffed over to the drawer where he kept his spare shells an’ hauled it open. “Shells,” he wheezed. He patted his back pocket an’ nodded like he was reassured. “You’ll have to ask Nina ’bout money. She ain’t took nothin’ else a mine.”