More Bitter Than Death (25 page)

Meg opened her door and almost got out, but I screamed, “No, don’t! Just get us out of here!” I flung myself at the back of the truck, my feet now feeling leaden and my muscles resisting every demand that I made on them.

Sliding on the ice where there was no salt, and rolling forward on the coarse grains where they were, I threw myself up and over the drop door of the truck, getting a facefull of plastic woven sacks full of sand. My feet still dangling outside the bed, I slapped at the rear panel, and the truck lurched away.

“Go! Go!” My grip was less sure than I imagined, and I slid back, almost falling off the truck altogether, my elbows slamming into the drop door and saving me, even as one foot dropped off the bumper and bounced the toe of my boot along the pavement as Meg sped away. The cold metallic tang of the truck bed, the industrial feel of the sand bags, and the exhaust of the truck were the most reassuring smells I could have imagined at this point.

Meg swerved to miss potholes, but then hit a couple of doozies that knocked the wind from me. Praying that my upper body strength was not as depleted as I feared, I hauled myself up and finally over the back of the truck, coming to rest on the lumpy sacks. I rolled over, watched the gloomy sky fly past overhead, and tried to catch my breath, my chest heaving and my body soaked in sweat that I now could feel running in rivulets down every part of me. The cold seemed to catch up with me, now, and I was shaking.

I heard something that sounded like a human voice, and realized that Meg had slid the rear window back and was shouting at me. I shinnied down the bed as quickly as I could without actually getting up, and caught her last words:

“—going on? What should I do?”

“Drive anywhere, fast,” I shouted. “Anywhere there’s people. Fast!”

I didn’t hear her response, but saw her nod and heard the window slide shut. I let my head sink down onto my uncomfortable nest once again, feeling the cold follow the warmth of the sweat congealing on my body. I was glad to think that the aches I knew were awaiting me were going to come, that I was going to live to clean out the cuts and to ice the strains and curse my bitten tongue. There are some times when pain is as welcome as a hug and a cup of tea.

“W
HAT THE HELL IS GOING ON
?”
MEG SAID AFTER
she pulled over in the parking lot of the hotel. “What are you doing out here, with no jacket! And”—her eyes widened—“you’re bleeding!”

“It’s not bad,” I said automatically, though I was now trembling violently. She took off her coat immediately and put it around my shoulders. “You got a phone?” I said through chattering teeth. “I left mine down the road.”

“Yep.” She tossed it to me, and I dialed information for the hotel. I was lucky, and I got the manager right away. I told him to get the cops who were here down the road, there was a shoot-out, there was an FBI officer down.

Meg kept the rest of her questions to herself until I was done, and then handed me a water bottle from the cab of the truck. Even as I had finished the call, the aches and chills I was feeling were making themselves known. Then I was swarmed by uniformed officers. Okay, there were only two of them, but they were big enough, or seemed so to me, at any rate. I was still seeing with tunnel vision. I heard more sirens in the distance and hoped that Widmark was still alive.

I was still sweating and shaking more than a half hour later, sitting in the driver’s seat of the truck with the heat on high, as I repeated for what seemed like the millionth time the details of what I saw to Church. Church, with his red cheeks and turned-up nose, looked like he’d just come in from sledding. The smudges under his eyes told another story.

The racket from the radios eventually confirmed that the massive team that had descended upon the service road had found Widmark alive, and had gotten him into an ambulance and off to a hospital. So far, however, it seemed that they’d found nothing but footprints in the snow down the road, and empty cartridge casings. Whoever had been down there had found a way out and away.

There was a last batch of indecipherable crackling and jargon, and one of the officers looked at me. “The only look that Widmark got of the shooters—there were two of them—was when they rushed across the road, chasing after the crazy broad who dragged him to safety and then took off screaming through the woods.”

I was not screaming, I thought. I was far too busy breathing. And I guess that was about as much of a thank-you as I would get. A second later, I felt sick. I never dreamed they were behind me. Were coming after me. Had seen me. Who the hell were they? “I was lucky that Meg went by when she did.”

“Yes, you were. But the team followed their footprints off to the road. They had a car pointing away from the hotel, and they made themselves scarce pretty quick.” Then Church did a double take: Maybe I looked as ill as I felt. “Thing was, they veered off a ways from where you were,” he admitted. “They moved a lot farther south of where you were, so it seems they were more interested in getting to their car than they were in finding you.”

I nodded; it was about all I was able to do. I wasn’t actu
ally freezing anymore, but every part of me was stiffening up and throbbing. Even places where I wasn’t scratched felt scraped raw from the cold.

We went over what I’d seen, or rather, what I hadn’t seen, up until the point that I’d taken off, and I realized that I was only paying about half attention to my answers. Maybe it was stress and denial, maybe it was cussed curiosity, but I found myself thinking more about the questions I was being asked as a way of determining what the police knew. There were no cars missing from the lot that had been registered by guests; nearly everyone save Meg and me was at the banquet or accounted for in their rooms or at the bar. It seemed the police believed that whoever shot Widmark was an outsider, not a part of the archaeology conference.

“But what is he doing here in the first place?” I said. “I mean, what was he looking for? He might not have been shot by an archaeologist, but apparently we’re what brought him here in the first place. And what does this have to do with Garrison?”

“It looks like Garrison—” one guy said.

That was a bit too much for Church and he broke in. “That’s not something we can discuss with you right now. Suffice it to say, Special Agent Widmark was working on a case and you wandered into the middle of it. Why was that again?”

“Same as I said before,” I said with a sigh. “I wanted to know why he was outside when everyone else was being kept in the ballroom. I thought he might have something to do with Garrison’s death.”

“And you didn’t call us because…?”

“Because he might have just been going for a walk! Because it might have had nothing to do with anything here! And if I hadn’t followed him, he might be dead now. What was he doing out there anyway? Was he following someone?”

“He was working on a case and I’m not at liberty to discuss it with you,” repeated Detective Church.

“Okay, I’m sorry,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I’m sorry I snapped. I’m tired and I feel like…I don’t feel so great. I think you know I wasn’t the one responsible for his shooting—can you at least tell me if they might be coming after
me
again?”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine if you stay inside the hotel. We’re working on it and we’ve got some valuable leads now. I wish I could tell you more, but I’m not—” He stopped at the familiar phrase and shrugged.

I nodded wearily. “I know. Look, like I said, I’m not feeling so hot, and I’m afraid Meg is losing out on her dinner because she stopped to help me. Is it okay if I go now?”

I sounded pathetic, perhaps even as bad as I was starting to feel. Meg did her best to look hungry and waiflike—she was surprisingly good at it—and we were eventually given permission to leave.

We went into the hotel lobby, and it was nearly empty. We could hear the sounds from the banquet taking place in the ballrooms that had been opened up on the second floor.

“What were you doing out there anyway?” I asked Meg. “Not that I’m not grateful. Thanks for being out there.”

She held up a large paper bag. “Liquor store. You’ve seen what they’re charging at the bar.”

As I fumbled getting my key out of my pocket, I looked down at my trembling hands. They were a mess. I could feel that there was a pretty good scratch on my left cheek, and a bunch of scrapes on my chin. My jeans were torn where I’d fallen. They and my boots were soaked through.

Meg was okay. She probably wanted to talk. I guess I wanted to talk too. I was reluctant to bring Meg any further into this, but I owed her something, though I wasn’t sure what it was, outside of thanking her for helping me. Again. She’d acted quickly, not asking questions until she saw that whatever was going on was behind us. She was good in a bad spot.

That was it: I kept being in the right place to get insider information. Meg kept being in the places near me, and had stuck her neck out—literally and figuratively—on more than one occasion to help me. Maybe it didn’t strictly follow, but suddenly I had the notion that if I expected to be accepted as a source of help—professional or not, bystander, insider or whatever—then maybe I should afford Meg the same opportunity.

Besides, it wasn’t as though anyone else was going to tell me about what rumors were flying around, about Garrison, about the conference, about me. Meg would.

“Okay, we’ve missed most of the banquet anyway, and so thanks to me, you’ve missed dinner. Come up to my room and we’ll order food and talk. No one will miss us for an hour or so, not any more than they might have already.”

“Sounds good.”

We got up to my room and, suddenly, I was limping and exhausted. I couldn’t decide what to do first. I stood there, then moved to the phone, then thought of the bathroom and a hot shower, then of cleaning my scratched hands, then moved back toward the phone as my stomach rumbled.

“Why don’t you go clean up and I’ll order the food. Get warmed up,” Meg suggested. I’d almost forgotten she was there, but she was already digging out the room-service menu.

I nodded and turned for the bathroom; she called after me, “What do you want?”

“There’s a steak salad. Blue cheese dressing on the side. A big bottle of water. A glass of red wine, whatever cabernet they have.”

“I’ll have a glass too. Want to get a bottle?”

“Why not?”

“Unless you’d rather have something harder?” She nodded to the bag from the State Liquor Store.

“No thanks. You bought that for the troops; I’m not going to steal it. Wine is fine.”

The scratch wasn’t deep, but there were some other abrasions that I hadn’t noticed, until now. There was also a good scratch on my left cheek that I remembered getting on the way through—rather than around—a sticker bush. I cleaned them out good.

I looked in the mirror. My hair was standing out at angles, sweat plastering it off my face, which was red with exposure and exertion. The scratch gave me a vaguely roguish look that I might have enjoyed any other day. Now I just felt beat up.

It took me a while to peel off my clothing, stuck to me with sweat, slush, and, here and there, a bit of drying blood. I got into the shower, then got back out, and pulled my bathrobe on. I retched over the toilet, as quietly as I could, wiped off my face, and then got back into the shower, shaking as if my arms and legs would come off. Eventually, by adding more and more hot water, I felt warm enough to get out and dry off. I’d stopped shivering so much, but now just felt weak as I put antibiotic ointment on my cuts and scrapes. I tried not to think about the fact that Church had said there were two shooters, tried not to think about the shots coming at me from below the porch roof Friday night. Last night.

“So what are we doing?” Meg asked as I returned. She had the chair by the desk, so I sat on the bed, leaning on the headboard, my feet stuck under the covers. I was still in my robe, a towel wrapped around my head. Apart from my skirt and heels, everything else I had was either dirty, drying, or lying soaking wet in the tub until I had the energy to hang them up.

“We eat, we talk. But here’s the deal,” I said. “I’m not real comfortable talking about what I
do
know, never mind figuring out what the hell Widmark got me into. I don’t like talking about people who you might know, and airing what may or may not be their dirty laundry when it all might be completely innocent. On the other hand, if I don’t tell you, now
that you’ve been seen with me and talking to the cops, you might be in trouble too.”

She shook her head, palms upraised. “That’s my business.”

“I’m not sure I wouldn’t feel responsible.” And more than simply involving another person, I had to keep in mind that Meg was still my student. Until she graduated or left the program, that would complicate our relationship and I had to be aware of it.

Meg shrugged, and pursed her lips. “Too late, Emma. I’m in it. So let’s talk.”

She was right; she was in it as soon as she picked me up. And I owed her. “What I’ll do is give them names to discuss them by,” I said finally, staring at the television cabinet opposite the bed. “If we think we find something incontrovertible, I’ll tell you who it is then. Otherwise…I guess I hope I’m not messing with innocent people too badly.”

“Emma, you got to fish or cut bait,” Meg said. “Either you’re in this, or you aren’t, and you can’t afford to worry about other people. Especially when you might be in danger. Besides, they won’t know you’re talking about them.”

I closed my eyes and tried not to scream at Meg, but she was right.

“Okay, let’s take them one by one.” I paused, saw the dessert menu advertising pie. “We’ll start with Apple.”

She looked at me.

“What? You want vegetables? We’ll throw some vegetables in there too.”

Meg picked up the hotel notepad from beside the phone and marked down
APPLE
.

“Apple,” I began, thinking of Sue, “like everyone I’m going to mention, either had reason to fear, hate, or want something from Garrison. In this case, Garrison had put the kibosh on a major project of Apple’s. That would be fine, Garrison has done this to a lot of people, including yours truly, but—”

Meg looked up sharply.

I shook my head. “Only by association, but Garrison had his finger in
every
pie. Apple’s project had taken up several years and a lot of energy; it was something to expand a career with. Additionally, Apple was also not where his or her original statement said. Apple was seen arguing with Garrison when Apple claimed not to have met with him that night.”

Meg nodded. “Any way of finding out what Apple was up to when Garrison died?”

I shrugged. “I don’t think so.”

“What about…what would the benefit be to killing Garrison after the project was quashed?”

“None, I guess. Call it a crime of passion. Revenge. Apple also stopped talking to me about the same time I mentioned that I was looking into formalizing my role with the investigators. Seeing how I can parley my archaeological skills into some form of forensic investigation.”

Meg’s mouth dropped open.

“Sorry, I forgot that I hadn’t said anything about it to you.”

“What! But…you’re going to keep teaching? Right?”

The alarm in her voice shook me. “Oh, yeah. No doubt about it. Just…going to see…what’s what, that’s all. A sideline.” I realized that people relied on me to keep teaching, and I had to be careful about making them think that I was opting out entirely. “But with regards to this other thing, I wondered whether Apple wasn’t worried that I might find out something and pass it along to the police.”

Meg wrote that down too, and since I was not going to talk any longer about my bombshell, continued. “Okay, what about Banana?”

“Banana,” I said, moving onto Brad, “Banana is a little more tricky. Banana is interested in applying for a job at a place where Garrison had strong connections. Banana claims to have no problem with Garrison, but I’ve discov
ered that there was no way that Garrison would have allowed Banana to get said job.”

“That doesn’t seem like much of a motive,” Meg said, doubtful.

“No, but if Banana was desperate to get this job, well, you know exactly how many opportunities there are in this field. You know how rare they are. If it meant the world to you…?”