The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires(57)

None of their expressions had changed and she’d used up all her facts.

“His story changes about where he’s from,” she tried. “Nothing about him adds up.”

She saw her friendships die, right there in front of her. She could see it clearly. They’d say they believed her, and end the book club meeting awkwardly. First, there would be the unreturned phone calls, the excuses to go talk to someone else when they ran into each other at parties, the canceled invitations for Korey or Blue to spend the night. One by one, they’d turn their backs.

“Patricia,” Grace said. “I warned you when you came to see me. I begged you not to make a fool out of yourself.”

“I know what I saw, Grace,” Patricia said, although she felt less and less sure.

Patricia felt herself losing control of the conversation. She tried to find a place to put her frozen fruit salad plate, but the coffee table was crowded with a bowl of marble roses, glass pyramids of various sizes, two brass gamecocks frozen in combat, and a stack of oversize books with titles like Blessings. She decided to just hold it in her hand and focus on the person she thought she could best sway. If one of them would believe her, the rest would follow.

“Maryellen,” she said. “You just called Ann Rule a dope because if the evidence says your best friend talks like a duck, and walks like a duck, and drives the same car as a duck, then he’s probably a duck.”

“There’s a difference between a compelling chain of evidence and accusing someone of a crime based on a bunch of coincidences,” Maryellen said. “So let me get your evidence straight. Mrs. Greene says there may or may not be a man in the woods molesting the children of Six Mile.”

“Giving them drugs,” Patricia corrected.

“Okay, giving them drugs,” Maryellen said. “Mrs. Greene may or may not have seen a van with the license plate number, but not even the full number, of James Harris’s van which no longer belongs to James Harris because he sold it to someone else.”

“I don’t know what happened to it,” Patricia said.

“Putting the van aside,” Maryellen continued, “you want us to believe that the simple fact he went out to Six Mile, even though he wasn’t there at the time anyone died or anything happened, means he’s somehow involved in something?”

“I saw him out there,” Patricia said. “I saw him doing something to a little girl in the back of his van. I. Saw. Him.”

No one said anything.

“What did you see him do?” Slick asked.

“I went out to visit one of the children who seemed sick,” Patricia said. “Mrs. Greene went with me. The little girl was missing from her bedroom. We went looking for her in the woods, and I saw his white van. He was in the back with the child. He was…” She barely hesitated. “…injecting her with something. The doctor said she had a track mark on her leg.”

“Then why don’t you tell the police?” Slick asked.

“I did!” Patricia said, louder than she meant. “They couldn’t find the van, they couldn’t find him, and they think the mother gave her daughter the drugs. Or her boyfriend.”

“So why aren’t they looking at the boyfriend more closely?” Maryellen asked.

“Because she doesn’t have a boyfriend,” Patricia said, trying to keep calm.

Maryellen gave a shrug.

“This just goes to show that the North Charleston police and the Mt. Pleasant police have very different standards.”

“It’s not a joke!” Patricia shouted.

Her voice echoed harshly in the cramped living room. Slick jumped, Grace’s spine stiffened, Maryellen winced.

“Do we have any more wine?” Kitty asked.

“I’m so sorry,” Slick said. “I think it’s all gone.”

“A child is being hurt,” Patricia said. “Don’t any of you care?”

“Of course we care,” Kitty said. “But we’re a book club, not the police. What are we supposed to do?”

“We’re the only ones who’ve noticed something might be wrong,” Patricia said.

“You, not us,” Grace said. “Don’t lump me in with your foolishness.”

“Ed would laugh this right out of court,” Maryellen said.

“The police wrote me off,” Patricia said. “I need your help to go to them again. I need y’all to think through this with me, to help me put it together. Maryellen, you know how the police work. Kitty, you were in Six Mile. You saw how it was. Tell them.”

“I mean,” Kitty said, trying to help, “something wasn’t right out there. Everyone was on edge. We almost got jumped by a street gang. But accusing one of our neighbors of being a drug dealer…”

“Here’s how I see it,” Patricia said. “In Six Mile, they think that someone is doing something to the children, giving them something that makes them go crazy and hurt themselves. Now over here in the Old Village, we’ve had Mrs. Savage go crazy and attack me. And then there’s Francine. I saw her go into his house, and then she disappeared. She may have stumbled on his drugs, or his money, or something, and he had to get rid of her. But everything is connected through him. It’s all happening around him. How many coincidences do you need before you wake up?”