The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires(53)

“I’m in the middle of a million things right now,” he said.

“We promised her, Carter. We made a promise. That woman is covered in stitches from trying to help your mother.”

“Okay, okay, Patty, I’ll make some calls.”



* * *



—

“Everyone thinks Hitler was bad,” Blue said to the dinner table. “But Himmler was worse.”

“Okay,” Carter said, trying to wind him down. “Can you pass the salt, Patty?”

Patricia picked up the saltshaker but didn’t hand it to Blue just yet.

“Did you call that doctor about Destiny Taylor today?” she asked.

Carter had been deflecting her ever since he got home.

“Can I get the salt before I’m interrogated?” he asked.

She made herself smile and passed it to Blue.

“He was the head of the SS,” Blue said. “Which stands for Schutzstaffel. They were the secret police in Germany.”

“That sounds pretty bad, buddy,” Carter said, taking the salt from him.

“I’m not sure that’s appropriate conversation for the dinner table,” Patricia said.

“The Holocaust was all his idea,” Blue continued.

Patricia waited until Carter had salted everything on his plate for what Patricia thought was a very long time.

“Carter?” she asked the second the saltshaker touched the table. “Did you call?” He put down his fork and gathered his thoughts before looking up at her, and Patricia knew this was a bad sign. “We promised, Carter.”

“The second they form a search committee, any chance I have of becoming department head is over,” Carter said. “And they are so close to a decision that everything I do is scrutinized under a microscope. How do you think it would look if the candidate for chief of psych, who’s a state employee, started calling up other state employees and telling them how to do their jobs? Do you know how bad that would look for me? The Medical University is a state institution. Things have to get done a certain way. I can’t just run around asking questions and casting aspersions.”

“We made a promise,” Patricia said, and realized her hand was shaking. She put her fork down.

“They did medical experiments in the camps,” Blue said. “They would torture one twin and see if the other one felt anything.”

“If her doctor made a decision to remove her from her home, he had a good reason and I’m not going to second-guess him,” Carter said, picking up his fork. “And frankly, after seeing that trailer, he probably made the right decision.”

Which was when the doorbell rang, and Patricia jumped in her seat. Her heart started beating triple time. She had a sinking feeling she knew who it was. She wanted to say something to Carter, to show him how unfair he was being, but the doorbell rang again. Carter looked up over his forkful of chicken.

“Are you going to get that?” he asked.

“I’ll get it,” Blue said, sliding out of his chair.

Patricia stood up and blocked him.

“Finish your chicken,” she said.

She walked toward the front door like a prisoner approaching the electric chair. She swung it wide and through the screen door she saw James Harris. He smiled. This first encounter would be the hardest, but with her family at her back and her house around her, standing on her private property, Patricia gave him her very best fake hostess smile. She’d had lots of practice.

“What a pleasant surprise,” she said through the screen door.

“Did I catch you during a meal again?” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s no bother.”

“You know,” he said, “I got interrupted during a meal recently. It was very upsetting.”

For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. No, she told herself, it was an innocent comment. He wasn’t testing her.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said.

“It made me think about you,” he said. “It made me realize how often I interrupt your family’s meals.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “We enjoy having you.”

She examined his face carefully through the screen. He examined her face right back.

“That’s good to hear,” he said. “Ever since you invited me into your home I just can’t stay away. I almost feel like it’s my house, too.”

“How nice,” she said.

“So when I found myself dealing with an unpleasant situation today I thought of you,” he said. “You were so helpful last time.”

“Oh?” Patricia said.

“The woman who cleaned for my great-aunt disappeared,” he said. “And I heard that someone was spreading the story that the last place she was seen was my house. The insinuation is that I had something to do with it.”

And Patricia knew. The police had been to see him. They hadn’t said her name. He hadn’t seen her last night. But he was suspicious and had come here to test her, to see if he could jolt her into revealing something. Clearly he had never been to a cocktail party in the Old Village before.

“Who would say something like that, I wonder?” Patricia asked.

“I thought you might have heard something.”