He thrust his arm in the desk drawer. When he pulled it out, he was holding a handgun. I thought I must be dreaming. Who brings a gun to a party?
Suzanne stood still as a statue, her hand deep inside the brown bag hanging off her elbow.
When Cary said, “You drop that bag on the floor. You won’t be bringing it along,” she followed his order.
She dropped the bag. I watched it fall to the floor. It tipped onto its side, and her cell phone spilled out, close to my shoe.
But when I looked up, she held something in front of her, clutching it with both hands.
Suzanne and Cary shouted at the same time, but I couldn’t make out what they said. Because there were fireworks. Lights flashing, rockets going off.
That’s when I slid out of the chair and passed out.
Chapter 70
WHEN MY EYES opened, I focused on the pattern of ceiling tiles overhead, trying to remember where I was.
I was lying on a narrow mattress, covered with a sheet. My head was fuzzy. And my stomach hurt. A blue nylon curtain surrounded me. The curtain was ripped aside so abruptly that it frightened me, and I nearly rolled off the bed.
Before I could escape, I was snatched up into a fierce hug that smelled of tobacco and Estée Lauder. My eyes closed as I sagged into Suzanne’s embrace.
“They said you were coming around, honey.” She released me and stood back, examining me over her glasses. “How are you feeling?”
“Not great.”
Suzanne hugged me again and kissed my cheek. The gesture made me tear up. I hadn’t experienced a hug and kiss like that since my mama passed. Suzanne grabbed a stool in the corner, rolled it next to my bedside, and sat down.
She stroked my hair. It eased the ache in my head. “Well, they pumped your stomach. I expect that took the sap out of you.”
My head was clearing. As the clouds parted, I grasped the reason that I was in a hospital bed. My nerves jangled with delayed fight-or-flight instinct.
“Good Lord, Suzanne. What happened?”
“Do you recall anything? The police tried to take a statement from you, but you were too woozy.”
The scene came back to me. Sitting in Cary Reynolds’s office. Drinking a weak Scotch and water. Getting blind drunk from one drink.
Not drunk. I don’t pass out from one drink.
“Did he drug me?”
She took my hand in a warm grasp. “Slipped you a mickey, honey.”
“Oh, my God.” My frazzled brain struggled to piece it together. He didn’t slip a pill into the glass; I would have seen that. Was it in the Scotch? But Cary drank the Scotch, too. And Potts.
My heart started to hammer in my chest. “Suzanne, that deputy was there. The one from Rosedale. Potts.”
“Yeah—originally from Vicksburg, till he left about six months ago, the police tell me. I’m guessing that the late Detective Guion had caught on to Potts’s employment sideline. He’s in custody. The police got him, running down the highway, holding a big old bag of cash. There was a van running in the back. With the back open. For you, I reckon.”
My head was pounding again. I rubbed my forehead, trying to remember. “Potts was there. Reynolds sent him out back. I had a drink. That’s all I remember.”
“Nothing else?”
A vision floated up: Suzanne in the doorway. Pulling something from her purse. I sat up so fast my head began to spin.
“Suzanne. Did you have a gun?”
“Yes, sugar. It’s all legal. I have a concealed-carry permit.”
My throat was dry, but I tried to swallow before asking, “Did you kill Cary Reynolds?”
She reached out and patted the sheet where it covered my knee. “No, honey. I got him in the chest, but he’s still breathing. Worthless son of a bitch.”
I lay back on the hard mattress as I tried to absorb Suzanne’s revelations. “Was I in danger?”
“What do you think?” Suzanne rummaged in her bag, pulled out a flowered handkerchief, and wiped her glasses with it.
She said, “When I walked in there, you were sliding out of that little chair. Why, I hadn’t left you there for twenty minutes. I knew he’d done a number on you when I set eyes on you. And when I barged in, he reached for a gun in his desk drawer. But I had my Smith and Wesson.”
I was reeling. Reynolds had drugged me. Suzanne came to my rescue and shot him. I was still processing when the metal rings on the blue curtain jingled again. A woman dressed in scrubs gave me a genuine smile. “You’re awake.”
“Yeah. Trying to get my head to wake up.” I pulled the sheet up to my neck, as bashful as if I’d ended up in the ER due to intentional overindulgence.
She ripped the Velcro of a blood pressure cuff and wrapped it around my arm. “I’m going to take your vitals. Then a police officer would like to talk to you. Are you up for that?”
My stomach twisted, but I ignored it. “Sure.”
The nurse slipped a plastic clip onto my fingertip. I lay back, quiet, until Suzanne announced that she was stepping out.
As she hooked her bag over her shoulder, the vision of the prior night returned.
“Suzanne! How do you know what to do with a handgun?”
She returned to my bedside, ignoring the nurse’s warning look, and tucked the sheet around me with a gentle hand. “My daddy taught me how to shoot. It’s a Greene family tradition.”
Giving the sheet a final pat, she added, “He taught me how to drink, too. Always take it neat. You and my nephew could stand to take a lesson from him.”
As she swept through the curtain, my weary brain finally made the connection.
Lee Greene’s memory loss. My incapacity. Monae Prince’s death.
It was in the water.
Chapter 71
AT NOON ON Friday, I was back in the Ben Franklin, poring over reports. I’d received a fortuitous email from Judge Ashley that morning; his wife required follow-up tests, so he informed Isaac Keet and me that the Greene trial would be delayed until Monday morning.
I should have taken the opportunity to sleep, but I was too wired. After I was released from the ER in Vicksburg, Suzanne and I spent the wee hours of Friday morning at the Vicksburg police department, providing witness statements to the detective division. The police indicated that Suzanne’s use of her firearm was justifiable self-defense; moreover, while we were at the PD, the cops were performing a search of Cary Reynolds’s car lot. I was wild to know what the search revealed, and kept my phone near at hand.
An unwrapped Clif Bar sat on my desk. The sight of it made me want to gag. I needed something soft on my stomach. A scrambled egg, maybe. Or grits.
The vision of a dish of grits made me reach for my phone for the umpteenth time. Still no word from Shorty, though I had called and texted repeatedly.
“Some boyfriend,” I muttered, petulant.
I tossed the phone in my bag and left the office. If he wasn’t answering the phone, I’d hunt him down at the diner. I was so intent on my injured feelings that I didn’t notice that the neon bulbs that ordinarily greeted me were turned off.
And when I reached the entrance, I saw that inside the glass door was a sign that was never displayed at noon: SORRY! WE’RE CLOSED!
My disappointment was so profound that tears blurred my vision. I blinked them back, wondering when I’d become such a crybaby. I tried the door, but the dead bolt held it fast. Pounding my fist on the glass didn’t raise anyone.
I turned to walk back to the Ben Franklin, moving in slow motion. Then I noticed Shorty’s car, parked on a side street beside the alley that ran behind the diner.
Picking up my pace, I headed for the alley. When I pushed the screen door that led into the kitchen, it opened wide. “Shorty? You in here?”
He appeared, wearing a smile. At the sight of him, I jumped over the threshold, grabbed him, and held on tight. Then I started to bawl.
“What?” He tried to lift my chin with his hand, but I buried my face in his shoulder. “Ruby, honey. What’s wrong?”
When I was able to speak, my voice came out in a whine. “Where were you?”
“Arkansas.”