Then Everett turned to Grant. “We’ll finish up our report and get out of here, but I guess you’ll want to leave the body until the medical examiner arrives?”
Grant nodded. “Yes. I’ve already contacted the morgue.”
My mother made a choking sound and stumbled toward me. “Oh, Darcy. If that quake hadn’t happened when it did . . . .” Unable to continue, she began to cry. “That man, that Rusty Lang, had a rifle. Do you think he meant to shoot you? The earthquake broke our chimney, but it looks like it saved our lives and at the same time, killed that poor soul there.” Mom’s eyes were wide and she was pale and trembling, obviously near collapse.
Everett cleared his throat. “Maybe we ought to take a look at you two ladies. Sometimes a person gets hurt in a disaster like this and doesn’t realize it until after things have calmed down.”
Over Mom’s head, I nodded at Ted Everett. “It might be a good idea if you took a quick look at her. She stumbled and fell on one knee when the quake first started and I’m afraid her blood pressure is going to be sky-high.”
As Everett reached for his medical bag, I took Mom’s arm, then he and I led her toward the wide front porch and lowered her to the first step.
Grant pulled his cell phone from his belt, punched in a number, and spoke quietly. Putting his arm around my shoulders, he drew me close. “I’m thankful to the good Lord that my two favorite women are not harmed. Yes, Lang must have been out to get you. What other reason could he have for being here with a gun? A close call but that’s all it was. He won’t be a threat any longer.”
Amazing how good it felt to lean against Grant with his strong arm around me. For a few seconds, I closed my eyes and tried to block out the horror of the morning.
Joe worked the hook off the fallen slab of bricks and signaled the truck driver to re-wind.
“Sheriff, if you won’t be needing us any longer, we’d better be getting back. I’m betting we’ll have more work than we can handle today,” he said.
Grant nodded. “Yes, I’m sure you will, but the last word I got was that the damage wasn’t as extensive as it could have been.” His gaze swept up and down the jagged pile of bricks. “I’m a little surprised there wasn’t more harm done to Miss Flora’s house considering the way this chimney cracked wide open.”
Jim Clendon squinted up at the roof. “Maybe the chimney was already cracked from that first quake. And anyhow, it was old and the mortar was most likely brittle and didn’t need much shaking to break.”
Grant nodded. “That’s probably the case. But since the house was built originally on a tall foundation, I think it would be a good idea to have an expert take a look at the underpinnings before long.”
He nodded to Joe and his helper. “Thanks a lot, boys. We may need a statement from you later, after the medical examiner has taken a look at the body, but I’ll get back to you if we do.”
I was sitting on the porch steps watching Ted Everett bandage Mom’s knee when Lieutenant Dave Swearingen from the Oklahoma State Police arrived. He got out of his car, shaking his head. “I would have been here sooner, but things are pretty bad just south of here. There’s a lot of trees down and that Quik-Mart at the corner of Hazel and Oak is in shambles. I had to take a detour and come down Highway 82 because the main roads are mostly blocked. But so far, I haven’t heard of any casualties.” He gestured toward the man on the ground. “Except this one. I won’t be surprised, though, if there’re more. A search crew is out right now.”
“What about the bridges?” Grant asked.
Swearingen shook his head. “All okay so far as I’ve heard except for the one over Spring Creek. Seismologists pegged the quake at about 6.5. They say the epicenter was way south of us, in an area of open fields, and that limited the destruction that might have occurred if it had smacked Levi right along Main Street.”
Swearingen took a laptop from his car. “The medical examiner will want to take a look at this guy, but we don’t need an expert to tell us what happened here. All we need now is confirmation of his identity.”
He opened the laptop, knelt beside the crushed body, and lifted one of the dead man’s hands flat against the computer screen. “I’ve already called headquarters and they’ve got somebody waiting to compare these fingerprints with the ones we have on file.”
It took less than five minutes for the message to appear on the screen. Confirmed. Rusty W. Lang, dob: 02/27/81. Convictions on record for theft, breaking and entering, assault, violation of probation and numerous juvenile charges.
“You knew it was that Lang person right away, didn’t you, Darcy?” Mom asked.
I nodded. “I’ll never forget how he glared at me in the courtroom. He really hated me for taking that picture. I guess he meant it when he said he’d get me.”
“Is my mother okay?” I asked Everett, who was putting his tools back into his bag.
“She’s going to have a walloping bruise on that knee and you were right about her blood pressure. I gave her a pill that’ll help her relax. She ought to go in and lie down. That med will make her kinda shaky.”
Grant and I held onto Mom’s arms and helped her up the steps and across the front porch. But before we got inside, she turned to Grant and gave him a look that seemed not at all affected by the tranquilizer. Her speech didn’t seem slurred either.
“Grant Hendley, now that this man is dead, is my daughter safe and we can breathe easy?”
He patted her hand. “I think you can relax. You sure won’t have to worry about Rusty Lang anymore.”
I noticed he didn’t really answer her question.
We walked her to her bedroom and slipped off her shoes and tucked a quilt around her shoulders. I kissed her forehead. “Rest a little now and when you get up, things are going to look a lot better.”
She looked up at me. “Is that a promise?”
“Sure, Mom. That’s a promise.”
Grant went with me into the kitchen. A glance at the old oak cabinets brought me up short. They appeared to be slanting toward the northeast corner of the kitchen, and there was a crack between the largest one and the kitchen floor. I tried to open the lower cabinet door where we kept the coffee. It stuck. Grant moved around me, put both hands on the door and pulled. The door came off and he sat down suddenly.
I giggled. “Sorry, Grant. You just looked rather surprised.”
Grant grinned. “That’s how I felt, too. Anyway, it’s off and it’ll stay that way for a while.”
Mom and I had been debating the wisdom of trying to remodel and update the old house. My mother wanted to stay where she had lived for forty years, but I believed a new house would be more comfortable and convenient for her. The earthquake had most likely resolved the matter.
“It looks like the quake gave the kitchen a whole new look,” I said, reaching for the can of coffee.
He took the can from my hands. “I may not make a cup of Joe that equals Miss Flora’s, but I’ve had lots of practice. You sit down and I’ll do the honors.”
“You’ll get no argument from me,” I said. “If I ever yearned for a cup of hot, bone-jarring caffeine, it’s now. Thanks for being here.”
“I’ll go soon—it’s going to be a long day. But first, we both need something to settle our nerves. In lieu of anything stronger, I hope this coffee fills the bill. I imagine that lieutenant out in the yard could use a cup too.”
A white van from the Ventris County Morgue was pulling up to the gate as Grant and I walked back into the front yard. I carried a cup of coffee to Lieutenant Swearingen who was sitting on the porch, busily entering data into his computer.
Hopping out of the van, a white-coated attendant opened the hatch and pulled out a gurney. Doc McCauley alit from the passenger side and bustled toward the body. He nodded to Grant and me. “Grant. Darcy. Miss Flora okay?”
“She will be a lot better after her nap,” I answered.
“Well, bring her in tomorrow and I’ll take a look. You too, Darcy.”
As well as his small black medical bag, Richard McCauley always brought with him a sense that things were going to get better. He knelt beside Rusty Lang. “Darcy, you are going to have to find a new profession,” he said.
“You don’t care for my newspaper stories, Doc?”
“Your writing is fine. It’s your nose that’s the problem.”
“You don’t like my nose?”
“It looks all right but you’re always sticking it into trouble. You’ve gotta stop that.”
Grant raised an eyebrow. “That’s what I keep telling her.”
Dr. McCauley might be reassuring, but he was also blunt. And it looked like he was right.
“I’m done here.” He snapped his bag shut and grunted as he got to his feet and dusted off his knees. “Take care, Darcy. I’m serious,” he said over his shoulder as he followed the gurney with its burden back to the van.
“Hey, Doc, got a minute?” Lieutenant Swearingen intercepted him as he turned toward the gate. Jim Clendon joined them.
Grant took my hand and led me away from the porch, toward the peony bush by the front gate. His tone was somber. “I need to talk to you, Darcy.”
“It’s not really over, is it, Grant?”
“I’m afraid it may not be. I don’t know. You see, I think Rusty was out for revenge, pure and simple. But I think you’ve stirred up a hornet’s nest with your investigation into the disappearance of Andrea Worth. We haven’t resolved anything there. Haven’t found Andrea, haven’t uncovered anything about what might have happened to her. I think you’d better be very cautious and watch your back, Darcy.”
This was sounding more and more ominous. A hornet’s nest was a pretty apt description. I had a mental picture of a swarm of those angry little yellow insects zeroing in on me. But at least a person could see the hornets coming and I had no idea who my enemies were.
My mouth suddenly felt dry. “Okay, Grant, let’s assume that somebody who doesn’t want me nosing into the Andrea business hired Lang; maybe Andrea herself hired him, if she’s still alive and doesn’t want to be found. Maybe Lang wasn’t out for revenge. Maybe he was just trying to carry out orders.”
Grant ran his hand through his hair and took a deep breath. “Think about it, Darcy. It makes a whole lot more sense that Rusty Lang had planned to get even with you the whole time he was locked up. I doubt that Andrea or anybody else hired him. It’s a possibility, but I think he acted on his own. I doubt very much that just because Lang is dead, you are no longer in danger. I think somebody in Levi doesn’t want you snooping around the Worth case and that person is still very much alive.”
The horror of what he was saying felt like somebody had punched me in the stomach. “So, it may be that Rusty wasn’t my only enemy? There may be somebody else out there who just doesn’t like me very much?” I gulped.
Grant nodded. “Maybe.”
“And you think that maybe he or she is still determined to . . . um . . . silence me?”
Grant’s mouth tightened into a thin line. “Could be.”
Once again I wished that our mailman had lost Sophie Williams’ letter. I wished I had turned a deaf ear to her plea. I had not only opened myself up to danger, I had put my mother in danger, too.
“But Grant, you are just guessing. I really think that Rusty was my only immediate worry. With him gone, I don’t think there’s anybody else who would be willing to commit murder. That’s a dangerous thing in itself. Nobody ever gets away with taking someone else’s life. Most people draw the line at that. Anyway, most sane people do.”
Grant was silent, staring off down the road. Finally, he muttered, “You just said it, Darcy. I agree—most sane people would never attempt to kill another human being. But what if there is an insane person in town who is just unbalanced enough to think he could get away with it? What if he has weighed the risk of getting rid of you against the possibility that you might find out what happened to Andrea? Maybe the stakes are so high that he is willing to take that risk.”
I shook my head and shivered. The morning sun was doing nothing to dispel the chill in the air.
“You must have a guardian angel, Darcy Tucker, watching over you. I just hope he’s always there when you need him.”
I was so near tears that I couldn’t even correct him. Tucker, Campbell, whichever, I had never been so afraid in all my life. And yes, I believed in guardian angels. Mine must be very busy.