Midnight Crossroad

“No, Teacher kept the shop that day,” Bobo answered. “At least, he was supposed to. And he must have. I found two computer entries from that day.”

“Then who came in the shop?” Fiji sounded eager. “Maybe they had something to do with—”

“No,” Lemuel said. “Of course I checked the shop records, as soon as Bobo told me Aubrey was gone. There were two transactions—but one was before you saw her, Olivia, and the second one . . . August Schneider pawned his mother’s silver again. He does that three times a year, at least.”

“This August, he’s an okay guy?” Manfred was returning from Fiji’s kitchen with another beer.

“August is eighty-seven if he’s a day,” Bobo said. “I don’t see him being able to harm Aubrey.”

“But what if he hit her with his car?” Olivia said suddenly.

“No!” Bobo said, protesting, but there was a sudden burst of enthusiastic conversation. The tenor of it was one of relief. The culprit would not be one of them, it would not be one of the Eggleston warriors, and August would hardly know about it.

Olivia leaned over to take Bobo’s hand. “I know you don’t want to even think about that, but what if he did? You know August ought not to be driving. But he’s got no one to take the keys away from him. And he’s got that big old Cadillac.”

“We’ve already looked at the Caddy, and there’s not a speck of blood on it,” said Arthur Smith. The bell had tinkled when he entered, but no one had paid attention.

There followed a moment of total silence. No one wanted to ask what he’d come for.

“I had a strange conversation with the Eggleston family this morning,” Smith said. He’d taken off his hat, but now he put it back on, as though that signaled he was conducting business. “All three of them were coming down with a cold because they’d been standing out in the chilly air last night. I asked them why, and they couldn’t say. Bart was mad at Mamie for telling me that much. But they did seem to chalk that up to you, somehow, Fiji.”

“Oh, boo hoo hoo,” said Lemuel, sounding like the very embodiment of cold himself. “If they were foolish enough to stand out in the rain, it’s hardly Fiji’s fault, Sheriff.”

“Only if she held a gun to their heads.”

“The other way around,” said Bobo unwisely. But then the glares of everyone around him reminded Bobo that he was not going to tell the law what the Egglestons had done, and he subsided.

Arthur Smith said, “If you’re not going to tell me, I could haul you all in and keep you until you told me what happened. But if you’re all right, Fiji, and no one is going to file a complaint against anyone else, there’s not much I can do about it. I was looking forward to an excuse to get that ass**le into jail, but if you won’t talk . . .”

Fiji looked at him with a bright smile. “I wish your staff wanted to get him in jail as much as you do. Any other news, Sheriff?”

“Yes,” Smith said. “I do have news.”

His voice was so grave they all hushed and turned to him, even Lemuel.

“It’s strange you should have brought up August Schneider’s car. Because we’ve determined Aubrey Hamilton was, in fact, hit by a vehicle.”

“I thought I saw a bullet hole,” Olivia said quietly. “But you told Bobo she wasn’t shot.”

“You saw a roundish hole. But the pathologist says it’s not a bullet hole, but a puncture where something on a vehicle—probably a truck, from the height—pierced the bone. That hole enlarged as tiny pieces of the bone flaked away during the time she lay there.”

Bobo said slowly, “She was hit by a truck.”

They all turned to look at Smith, who nodded. He looked from one to the other, quizzically.

“Oh,” said Manfred, finally understanding what they’d all pieced together. He lowered his face to his hands.

“You all know something I don’t know,” Smith said. “I think you’d better tell me.”

There was a long moment, a moment when the room fell absolutely silent.

“I don’t guess we know anything you don’t already know,” Fiji said finally.

An unhappy sheriff left a few minutes later, after threatening them all if they didn’t tell him what he’d overlooked.

“He was so mad,” Fiji said unhappily. “And he seems like a nice guy.”

“That nice guy thought I’d killed Aubrey,” Bobo reminded her.

“That’s his job.”

“All that aside,” said Olivia, “what do we do now?”

“When we’re sure he’s gone, we’ve got to go talk to the Lovells.” Fiji sounded sure but still unhappy.

“Will you explain to me what’s going on?” Manfred said. He had that note to his voice, the one that tells the listener that the speaker knows he is going to receive very bad news in a very few minutes. He suspected he knew what that news was; he wasn’t certain.

But no one enlightened him.

Lemuel glided out the door to return after a few minutes. “Sheriff’s gone,” the vampire reported.

Olivia looked at her watch, a slim silver thing that looked expensive to Manfred’s uneducated eyes. “It’s time for the gas station to close,” she said. “We might as well go now.”

The Rev said, “I’ll go prepare.” And he went over to the chapel.

Manfred trailed along, feeling left out and apprehensive. No one specially invited him, but no one told him not to come, and all the others seemed to be going.

They walked in a group, their steps mysteriously matching, and Manfred found himself walking beside Olivia, who turned to look at him with something like pity. But what she said was, “It’s good you’re here. You’re a good citizen for this place.”

“There are bad citizens for Midnight?”

“Yes, a few.” And she said nothing more.

35

They filed into Gas N Go, one after another, the electronic chime on the door sounding steadily, all of them but Lemuel, who vanished into the dark. Shawn was behind the cash register, clearing it out. Creek was cleaning the women’s bathroom and had the door propped open to dispel the fumes of the cleaner. Connor was mopping muddy footprints from the floor.

“Hey, guys,” said Shawn, giving every appearance of genuine surprise. “What’s up?”

Creek stood, peeled off the rubber gloves she’d been wearing, and stepped outside the bathroom, looking at them doubtfully.