Wolfhunter River (Stillhouse Lake #3)(44)

“That’s right.”

“Until the call came from her phone.”

“Yes.” I remember the sick sensation of realizing just how badly things had gone on the other end of that phone.

“I’d like you to describe that call in detail, ma’am. Be as specific as possible.”

So I do. I tell him what Vee Crockett said, as best I can recall it; I describe the unsettling way she said it. The panic of the shotgun blast, and thinking that she’d been killed as well.

“Ah,” he says. “Well, that was the postman on the front porch, delivering a package. Good thing he was bent over putting it down when she let loose with that shot.”

“He wasn’t hurt?”

“Ran for his life,” Fairweather tells me. “Punched a hole the size of his head through the door just above him. He was damn lucky.”

I agree. Vee had meant to kill whoever was on the other side of that door. “That doesn’t necessarily mean she killed her mother, though.”

“I haven’t said anything about that,” Fairweather says. “And I’m not here to tell you what I think. Go on. What happened after that?”

“I told her to put the shotgun down, switch the phone to speaker, and hold up both hands after she opened the front door.”

“Why not tell her to hang up? Or hang up yourself?”

“Because I felt like she shouldn’t be alone,” I tell him. “She’s fifteen. She’d been through a trauma.”

“You just described how little that bothered her.”

“You know that sometimes people react to trauma in odd ways. She called me. I felt I needed to see it through as far as I could. I was afraid . . .” I pause, thinking about whether or not to say it. “I was afraid she’d make a mistake and somebody would overreact.”

“Or she’d provoke them into it? Suicide by cop?”

“I can’t say. I just felt she wasn’t thinking clearly. She needed help.”

He changes tack. “Folks around Wolfhunter said that Marlene had a sour relationship with that girl,” he says. “She was into drinking and taking some pills. Trouble at school. She tell you anything about that?”

“No,” I tell him. “No specifics, like I told you. I can’t help you with that. But honestly—that describes a lot of kids, right?”

“Yours?”

Well, that’s a precise little stab. “No.” Not the drinking and pills part, at least. “Let’s stick to the subject, please.”

He veers back into timelines, and I tell him point by point up to the minute the phone dropped from Vera’s hand, and then add what I’ve done since. Some of it, inevitably, will be unverifiable, but when paired up with cell records, I think I’ll be okay.

He asks me then to write it all down. I do. I know the ploy: Ask the questions aloud, then match the written timeline and identify discrepancies. Then double-check everything.

“Detective,” I ask, “how is she?”

“Marlene? She’s dead.”

“Vera.”

“Hospital checked her out. She’s just fine. Just not cooperative.”

“Have you charged her?”

“I’d be an idiot not to,” he says. “Nothing she said to you on the phone says she didn’t do it; even then, the physical evidence shows her with fingerprints on the weapon, blood all over her, and gunshot residue.”

“The gunshot residue comes from the shot I heard.”

“Maybe. Maybe that was her second target. Two shells, and the gun was empty when we collected it.”

Even I am not convinced of the kid’s innocence, but this bothers me. “Does she even have a lawyer?”

“Ma’am, I caution you not to get too involved in this. We may never know why her mother called you; maybe it was because of the very thing that happened, and the person she was afraid of was her own daughter.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

“The court appointed someone,” he says. “Hector Sparks. He’s local.”

He’ll be one of the two numbers on my arms, most likely. “Can I see her?”

He leans back, as if he wants to get as far away from that question as possible. “Why would you want to do that, Ms. Proctor? You don’t know this girl. You didn’t even know her mother.”

“She’s my daughter’s age,” I say. “And . . . and she might talk to me. She did on the phone.”

He thinks it over, and I believe he’s tempted, but then he shakes his head. “Can’t allow someone without legal standing to visit until she’s been held over for trial.”

“What if her lawyer’s present?”

“Well,” he says, “if her lawyer’s present, and you have his permission, then it’s privileged communication as long as you’re working with him in some capacity. Otherwise, no decent lawyer would allow it.”

There’s a strange emphasis, the way he puts that, and something I can’t quite unwrap. I let it go. “Okay,” I say. “What if she asks to see me?”

“Don’t put ideas in that girl’s head,” he tells me. “She’s not the fragile little thing you seem to think she is. And I guarantee you she doesn’t need your protection.”