The Whiskey Tide (45 page)

     
"We're preparing to open a dress shop," Mrs. Hinshaw elaborated. "We... worked out arrangements yesterday, and we've just come from seeing a perfect location. We can't afford full time, but we'd like to have a woman who can do custom work as well as alterations. I thought perhaps...."

     
She stopped, overcome by her own forwardness.

     
"I've got a cousin who's an excellent seamstress," Joe said, almost dumbfounded by this opportunity. "She worked in a shop before she was married."

     
Arrangements were made for him to bring Arliss to meet them the following evening. When they got there, Arliss clutched the dress she'd brought to show them and stared nervously up at the grand white house. Joe had been inside only once, by the back door the night Kate was shot. He rang the front bell and Kate let them into a wide front hall. For Arliss' sake he was glad when they went to the comfortable room he'd been in before at the back of the house.

     
Arliss took in the colorful chintz, the perfect curtains, the pictures on the walls and figurines. Then the exclamations started over the mauve dress she'd unwrapped, and Arliss glowed.

     
"The workmanship is exquisite!"

     
"I've never seen buttonholes so perfect."

     
"You say you made this flower at the collar?"

     
Joe relaxed. Woody was fairly bursting for his attention, so Joe sat down and heard about his new friend Aaron. Kate sat midway between where her mother and sisters admired the dress and where he talked with Woody, and it struck Joe that she most likely often found herself on the edge of things.

     
When the doorbell rang he saw Mrs. Hinshaw's look of alarm and offered to answer. It made his aunties nervous hearing a bell at night if they weren't expecting anyone. Opening the door he saw a black man who looked at him in surprise.

     
"I chauffeur Mrs. Hinshaw's nephew," the man said. "I need to see Miss Kate if I could, sir."

     
Joe motioned him in and returned to the back parlor.

     
"Kate. It's someone to see you. He says he's your cousin's chauffeur."

     
The others looked up curiously. Kate followed him back down the hall.

     
"Pierce?" she said, uneasiness in her voice.

     
"I knocked at the back door, Miss Hinshaw, but nobody answered—"

     
"Yes, that's fine. Is something the matter?"

     
Pierce turned the uniform cap in his hand.

     
"I don't know, Miss. It's the lieutenant. Mr. Fletcher. He — well, he had me do something odd. I thought maybe you or your sister might know what he was up to, the three of you being so thick, and if you do, I'll just go on home like he said."

     
Strain showed in his face and Joe noted the carefully hidden intelligence in his eyes.

     
"Pierce, I have no idea what Theo's up to. What do you mean do something odd?"

     
Pierce studied his cap, unsure about violating the privacy of the man who employed him.

     
"He had me drive him outside of town, to a field where there's nothing but trees and brush. He got out and told me to leave him."

     
"What?"

     
Joe saw the alarm in her face.

     
"He said he was meeting someone and would get a ride back."

     
Her hand went to her mouth. She looked to Joe in panic.

     
"He... tried to kill himself at Christmastime. Oh, God, Pierce! Take me there!"

     
"I'll come too." Joe touched her elbow. "Just let me tell Arliss she needs to go on home without me."

     
Kate's sister Aggie pushed past him as he returned.

     
"Kate! What is it? What's happened to Theo?"

     
"I don't know."

     
"I'm coming too."

     
"No."

     
"Yes!"

     
"Quit wasting time," Joe said sharply. If Kate's cousin had put a gun to his head, she'd be better having someone with her.

     
The car that was waiting was large and comfortable. Pierce, loping ahead of them, had the engine turning before they were all inside. It was after nine now. They tore as fast as the big sedan would go, ignoring the honks of cars that they passed.

     
"How far out?" Joe asked.

     
"About two miles."

     
In the back seat Aggie was gripping Kate's hand.

     
The road grew narrower. A lay-by appeared at the right. Pierce slowed as they passed it and drove for another forty-five seconds before coasting onto the shoulder.

     
"Here," he said. "When I turned around to go back to town he was standing right there under that tree."

     
Kate bounded out as the motor went silent. "Theo?" she called cupping her hands. "Theo, are you there? It's Kate. Aggie's with me."

     
The only answer was the rhythmic cadence of spring peepers.

     
"Swing the car around and shine the headlights in," Joe ordered. Pierce obeyed. "Wait here," Joe said to Kate and Aggie, but they stuck to his side as he started forward. Behind them Pierce jumped out and followed too.

     
They had gone scarcely forty feet when Joe came to a standstill. They'd outdistanced of the headlights, but the yellow illumination behind them seemed to make the darkness less dense. He saw something on the ground. He started forward. A man lay sprawled on his back, one leg twisted beneath him. There was just enough light to see the dark sheen covering his face.
     
Aggie gave a cry and turned away. "He's shot himself, hasn't he?"

     
Kate stood still as a statue.

     
"He hasn't been shot." Joe was on his knees. "He's been beaten."

     
Kate knelt beside him, or maybe her knees gave way. She stared in horror. Blood soaked her cousin's neck, his shoulders, the front of his shirt. His face was split in places. At first Joe thought his eyes were missing, but then he realized they were lost under mounds of swollen flesh. Above them Aggie's dry sobs filled the night.

     
"Theo...." Level headed, Kate was fighting to hold back her own tears. "Theo, can you hear me?"

     
Joe felt for a pulse. A moment later he met Kate's eyes.

     
"He's in a bad way. He might not survive the ride to the hospital. But he sure won't last long enough for us to get back to town and send help."

     
She nodded, their decision already made by mutual consent.

     
"Pierce?" Joe's voice acquired a note of brisk authority. "Is there a blanket in the car?"

     
"Yes, sir."

     
"Run fetch it fast." His fingers tested Theo's torn flesh. "He's bleeding bad," he announced to the women. "If you have handkerchiefs we could fold, it might help some."

     
He already was pressing his own to a spot at Theo's temple. Aggie and Kate stared helplessly at each other. Pierce returned at a run. Joe guessed the black man had been in the war. He was quick and efficient as they made the blanket into a stretcher. They lifted Theo's motionless form and carried him to the car.

     
"He's not breathing!" Aggie cried when they'd laid him across the back seat.

     
"Yes, he is," Joe answered. "Sit next to him and keep him from sliding as much as you can. Pierce, you drive like hell. Kate, if the police come after us, you put your head out the window and shout 'emergency'."

Thirty-three

     
"The doctors say he may not make it." Kate scarcely could speak as she left the curtained-off room where doctors worked over Theo. She felt as if an explosion had gone off beneath her feet, the light in the hallway blinding, the voices she heard incoherent particles, everything around her tilting. She thought she was shivering. She thought her cheeks were wet. She wasn't sure.

     
"They say... he's lost so much blood... and his head is injured."

     
She looked at Joe in a daze. Aggie had fled at the doctor's news and leaned against a window at the far end of the hall sobbing brokenly. Kate wanted to comfort her, but she felt too drained. Joe's presence was the only thing which made sense. The only thing giving her hope. She wasn't sure why he had waited through this long interval while doctors worked urgently and Aunt Helène and Uncle Finney arrived, faces drawn with alarm, but she was glad he had.

     
"Look, Kate. He's a healthy fellow." Joe reached hesitantly for her hands. His warmth flowed into her as he pressed them awkwardly. "He's had good nourishment all his life. He's getting the best of medical treatment. He'll make it."

     
She longed desperately to step into the solid, sheltering circle of his arm and close her eyes and lean against him. She knew she was crying now. His thumbs, calloused by hard work, smoothed the backs of her hands.

     
"Kate, don't. I can't bear it." His voice was strained.

     
"It's my fault this happened to him."

     
"Your fault? How in hell could it possibly be?"

     
"I know who did it. I'm sure I do. That thug Felix Garvey who's been dating my sister. He hit her — gave her an awful bruise — and yesterday Theo saw it. God! He must have challenged Felix! I'm the one who got Aggie mixed up with crooks — and if Theo—"

     
She choked on the words. And now, at last, Joe did gather her to him, rocking her like a child. She thought for an instant she felt his chin on her hair.

     
"Kate, listen. You and all the saints can't stop somebody doing something they're dead set on. You're not so different from your sister when it comes to that."

     
She laughed through her tears. Pa had sometimes accused them of being alike. They had both been indignant.

     
"She tried to break things off with Felix. She told me while we were with Theo. He — Felix — threatened to harm the rest of us if she did."

     
With the telling of it bleakness overwhelmed her. By trying to help her family she had gotten them mired in something dark and ugly.

     
Joe stepped back and held her at arm's length. His voice was firm.

     
"Okay, Kate. Here's what I want you to do. Go see Vogel. Tell him I sent you. Tell him you want him to get you a dog. A big one that's gentle as a baby with your family but will scare the living daylights out of anyone else."