THEO
“OKAY THEO,” Bud said, opening the door to his patrol car. “You can usually talk a hungry dog off a meat truck, so get those girls calmed down and don’t let any gossip spread. We don’t know what we’re dealing with just yet.”
“Those are no regular dogs,” I said, pointing to Imogene and Pearl who watched us from the window. “But yeah, got it.”
“I’ll be at Marge’s,” he said. “The bodies in that house been there a few days from the smell a things. I got Oz boarding up the front door so animals don’t completely destroy what little evidence is left.” He opened the patrol car door, slid inside, rolled down the window, and said, “Bring the detectives soon as they arrive.” His radio buzzed like a live wire.
“Okay,” I said. “Soon as they get here.”
Solomon and Tula emerged from a trail a couple blocks away, walking casually despite getting soaked from an abrupt cloudburst.
Imogene ran to Bud’s car, leaned into the window, and asked, “Where you going?”
“You’re soaked to the bone,” he said forcing a smile. “I’ll take care of things. You go on inside, now.”
“That was me inside a few minutes ago,” Imogene said, “listening to you tell someone on the phone there are dead bodies. How do you ‘take care’ of that?”
“I just don’t want ya worryin’ about those—”
“Dead bodies!” she said. “I’m not, I’m worried about all these live ones and that bastard I just saw in church. It was him, Toreck’s friend.”
Bud looked up at me.
“We were just getting to that when you came in with this news,” I said.
“I’ll send Oz back down to watch the store while you bring the detectives up,” Bud said. “Store is to remain closed.”
Imogene nodded.
“Immie, go on inside,” I said. “I’ll be right in. Then you can tell me everything.”
She hesitated but then hurried back into the store.
Bud’s smile, which hung like an unhinged shutter on an empty house, dropped.
I leaned down to the patrol car and asked, “Who do you think it is?”
“Don’t know,” he said shaking his head in disbelief. “The stench of gasoline is so strong I can’t believe the whole place didn’t go up in flames. Their bodies were seated upright in two chairs, side by side. Looks like the killer set a fire that for some reason petered out.”
“You suppose it’s Tula’s—?”
“Don’t know . . . It’s some sick shit though. There was a Bible and a box of dead rattlesnakes. Don’t know who they are, who did it, why . . . nothin’. Yet.” Bud shook the rain from his hat and tossed it to the passenger seat.
“Did you actually read Hansel’s file,” I said, “or just give it to me to read? Because if you read it, you’d know that all points directly to him. Snakes and Bibles; right up his alley.”
The rain stopped as suddenly as it had started.
“See,” he said. “You’d make a good detective.”
As Solomon and Tula approached, I saw Andréa’s white Thunderbird slowly pulling into the Bouvre driveway. A bolt of lightning shot through my veins.
“Old man,” Bud said. “Those bodies. . . you think two, maybe three days?”
“Two,” Solomon said.
“Do you know who they are?” I asked, watching Andréa get out of the car and run into her house with a small suitcase.
Solomon’s face sagged. He looked to the ground, nodded yes, and looked up as Tula stepped to the bench. She took off her medicine pouch and stared at the wet seat.
Andréa quickly returned to the car and opened the door. She stood, hesitant with her hand on the rim, and then looked up at me. I stepped away from Solomon and Tula, intent on slowing my racing heart and heading straight to her, not hesitating, not giving her a chance to run. But then Tula said, “Hey,” and pointed to a red shoe on the bench. “That’s mommy’s shoe!” She smiled in a way I’d never seen her smile before. She picked up the shoe, still tied with a black ribbon, and said, “Where’s Mommy?”
“Yes,” Solomon said. “We know who they are.”
Andréa got into the car, backed out, and headed to the highway.
She did not return that day. Or any day soon thereafter.