CHAPTER FIVE

For lunch I had a glass of milk and a couple of slices of rat cheese and a few saltine crackers out of the break room pantry on the second floor. A little after noon, Maylene knocked on the door and ushered Patty French into my office. She was a pretty girl in her late twenties with blue eyes, blond hair, and a very red nose. I stood and got her seated.

“Summer cold?” I asked.

“You better believe it,” she said with a nod.

“Would you like some coffee or something? We’ve got hot water, and my secretary has some tea bags.”

“Gosh, no. Hot stuff just makes your nose run worse. Don’t you know that?”

It was one of those bumbling moments men often have when they’ve demonstrated some deep and profound ignorance in front of a female. “My mistake,” I said. “Could I offer you anything else?”

She shook her head. “No, I just want to tell you what I have to say and go home and get in bed.”

“Then I’m going to record this, and if we need to have you sign a statement, we can cobble it up from what’s on the tape and I’ll have a deputy bring it by your house later. That way you won’t have to wait around.”

“Sure.”

I quickly set up the recorder and read the day and time and our names onto the tape. “Go ahead,” I said.

“Well, when I called in sick today Parker told me about you coming by. See, me and a couple of the other girls got to talking and clowning around and having fun after we closed last night, and I didn’t leave until a little after two.”

“When you say leave, you mean you didn’t start home until then?”

“That’s right.”

“Where do you live?”

“Here in Sequoya. My address is three-oh-three State Street over on the north side of town.”

“You left by yourself or did someone go with you?”

“Just me.”

“And you drove straight home?”

“Yes,” she said and nodded and blew her nose on what seemed to be her last, disintegrating tissue. I got up and rooted around in my desk drawer until I found a box of Kleenex and set them in front of her. “Thank you,” she said and scrabbled a few out of the box.

“Go ahead with your story,” I said.

“Anyway, when I came by the Pak-a-Sak the light was on inside. Doyle’s car was parked out front and so was Emmet Zorn’s.”

“Doyle who, ma’am? You need to be specific about that for the record.”

“Doyle Raynes. And that preacher’s wife was standing beside it looking for something in her purse.”

“You mean Amanda Twiller?”

“Yes, she’s the one. I forgot her name for a second there.”

“Are you sure it was her?”

She nodded. “Oh yes. She’s been in and out of the Sawmill for a week or so, and Emmet Zorn told everybody who she was.”

“Go on.”

“Well, I stopped at the red light there by the store and just happened to see that Doyle and Emmet Zorn were coming out. Doyle had a bottle in his hand.”

“And?”

“Zorn locked the door to the store and took off in his Lexus. As I passed by, Doyle and Mrs. Twiller were getting in his car.”

“And this was what time?”

“Close to two-thirty.”

“Did they go in different directions, or did they follow Zorn?”

“He went on up Main toward the north side of town, and they left going west.”

“Anything else?”

She shook her head. “I got home about two-forty and crawled right in bed. Then I woke up about four hours later with this cold.”

“Are you certain of the identity of these three people? And I mean absolutely certain?”

“There’s not a doubt in my mind, Sheriff. I know all three of them well.”

Just then the door opened and Maylene stuck her head in and said, “Sheila is out here, and she says she needs to see you now. Claims it can’t wait.”

I excused myself and went through the outer office and steered Sheila out into the hallway. “You’re not going to believe this, Bo,” she said excitedly.

“Lay it on me.”

“Tommy Twiller saw the car. Or at least I think it’s the car. The kid had to get up to go to the bathroom. He said he knew it was right before sunup because it was beginning to get light outside. He heard some kind of commotion, and looked out the window and saw an old car right in front of the house. And then it took off.”

“Did he see his mother’s body?”

“Bo, this is the awful part. He said he thought he saw someone lying on the grass, but he just went back to bed and went to sleep. I think he saw her and knew who it was and just couldn’t deal with it.”

I grimaced. I’ve always held the opinion that the term “in denial” is psychobabble that doesn’t mean much, but I was beginning to have a whole new respect for the concept.

“Did he give you any description of the car?” I asked.

“Only that it was old-looking, and that one front fender was a different color from the rest of the body.”