The next morning, Candace found me in the waiting room outside of the intensive care unit. I had abandoned conversation with a prim, elderly lady whose husband was undergoing arterial surgery. She’d asked who I was there for and I didn’t know what to say. A near stranger? My friend? My father? I fumbled on my own words so badly I’m sure she thought I had a speech impediment. I finally had mumbled something about a friend getting shot and she turned up her nose to me, probably thinking I frequented cheap honky-tonks with a dangerous crowd. I wasn’t drunk with liquor, but with exhaustion. I’d stayed up all night, pacing the waiting room, then talking on the phone with Junebug after Tamma’s confession, and then wearing out a new track of carpet while I waited for a doctor to tell me whether or not Bob Don would live or die. Candace sat by me on the couch, handing me a cup of coffee, winking and trying gentle teasing to raise my spirits. “You better look out, Jordy. You know us and couches. I may have to take you right here.” The prim lady gathered up her knitting and fled to a remote corner of the room, not wanting to hear about us and acrobatics on furniture. Candace gave me a timid kiss and I kissed back. “Hell of a night,” she said, rubbing my neck. “One way of putting it,” I agreed wearily. “I feel like I could sleep for a week. How are you?” “I’m fine. I was just down seeing Mark. Arlene’s with him still. She said Dr. Meyers said y’all can take him home today.” “Good,” I said. “I’m sure he can’t wait to tell all his friends how his Uncle Jordy nearly got him killed.” Candace ignored that jab of self-recrimination. “And they released Eula Mae last night, of course. She volunteered to stay with Anne this morning while we’re all down here. She said she can’t wait to talk to you.” “So she can pirate all this for her next novel,”
I guessed. Candace looked hard into my eyes. “You can quit with the jokes. You don’t fool me a bit. You going to stay here awhile?” “I can’t leave him, Candace. Not till I know he’s going to be okay. I mean, I don’t think of him as my father, but he got shot trying to help me.” “I know, babe,” she said, patting my hand. “You know, Bob Don’s pretty special. I know you already got a man in your heart that you think of as your daddy, but you got a big heart, Jordy. Could be room in there for two, y’know.” “Junebug told me they arrested Ruth and Matt,” I offered, changing the subject and getting myself in trouble. Candace’s eyes hardened. “They did. They found another videotape in Beta’s house, this one with footage of the pot crop. She must’ve taken that camcorder she stole from Hally and taped the field for evidence. I guess she planned on hitting them up for money, too.”
She coughed. “You know, I did not appreciate you running out on me like that.” “I didn’t want to involve you any more.” “Doofus. Could have gotten yourself killed.” She sniffed, and that was the extent of the fight. At least for the moment. She cleared her throat and continued: “I talked with Arlene. She said the police are talking to Hally, but they don’t think he had anything to do with killing Beta.
And I heard Billy Ray offered Adam Hufnagel a plea bargain to testify against Ruth and Matt. I imagine he’ll take it. He seems to be in deep shock that Tamma did all this.” “He should be. She very nearly got away with it.” “How, for God’s sake? And why resort to murder?”
Candace asked. I leaned back on the couch. “She was a lot smarter than anyone gave her credit for. When Beta found out that Tamma and Hally were lovers-and how she did, who knows, but she did and she found that tape of them-Beta made Tamma start giving her more control over church functions. And therefore church money. Tamma couldn’t do a thing out of fear that Beta would show the tape. So she had to agree to whatever Beta suggested.” “So,” Candace pursed her lips, “the afternoon that Bob Don saw Tamma leaving Beta’s looking so scared and upset-” “Beta had given her the penance to get the tape back. Burning down the library that night. And that’s when Tamma decided to put a stop to the threats. She realized that if it looked as though Beta planned to burn down the library but was killed before she could light the matches, so to speak, I’d be a real big suspect. She decided to frame me for Beta’s murder.” “Bitch,” Candace said tonelessly. She hugged me hard.
“She put out the bat on the path to the library, already wiped clean of prints. She watched and made sure that I’d picked up the bat and then took it inside with me. Perhaps Beta had told her already about threatening me with closing the library, and Tamma made sure she was there to see Beta assault me. She was the one who told Junebug and Billy Ray that I’d said, in anger, that I could’ve killed Beta.” “You do have a mouth on you,” Candace agreed. “So Tamma met Beta at the library and killed her.” “Yeah. According to Tamma’s confession, Beta wanted to pray before they torched it, like the library was going to be some burnt offering before God. Tamma said she put on her gloves and hit Beta halfway through the Lord’s Prayer.” I shivered. “Then she planted the key on Beta’s body. That I don’t get,” Candace said. “She wanted it to look like Beta had managed to get her own key somehow. If she had a key, she didn’t need anyone on the library board to let her in. The story about Beta swiping Adam’s key was pure fluff.” “Beta’s little list, though, put attention on other people besides you.”
“That’s right, sugar. Tamma didn’t know about that list. She did tell Junebug though, that Beta had bragged to her that when her church was built, she was going to have pews in it with contributors’ names plaqued on them, along with an appropriate Bible verse. Sick, isn’t it?” “But how did Tamma know you’d be at the library around the time of the murder?” Candace asked. “She didn’t. That was bad luck on my part. Tamma told Junebug that I’d scared the hell out of her; she had just killed Beta not a minute before I walked in. After I left, Tamma went home and got there before Adam got back from having his therapeutic joint with Matt Blalock. When the police started asking for alibis, Adam made up the story that they’d both been home watching an old John Wayne movie. He never dreamed his wife needed an alibi worse than he did. He was only worried about someone finding out about his smoking dope.” “Tamma must’ve been searching for that videotape when Shannon surprised her,” Candace said. “Tamma claims they fought for the gun and it went off by accident. Of course, it went off in a closed room and nearly deafened Tamma. When I called the Hufnagels to tell them about Shannon being shot, I thought Tamma sounded funny, like she had a cold, and I had to repeat myself for her to hear me. It was from the shock of the gunshot.” “How’s Shannon doing?” Candace asked. She’d gotten out of surgery an hour or so before Bob Don was rushed in. “They’re very hopeful. God, that poor girl.” Candace snuggled next to me. It felt great. “Lord, all this suffering that Beta and Tamma caused.” I grunted in agreement and hugged her close.
Candace murmured, “One of Junebug’s deputies went by the Goertzes’, to see about getting Gretchen to come to the hospital. They found her passed out in bed. She won’t be coming down today, at least.” “I’m not sure Gretchen would come anyway, Candace. I think she hates him now.
Maybe it’s for the best, ’cause I don’t think he ever loved her.” A runty figure lounged in the doorway, watching me. I let Candace go.
“Sugar, would you excuse me? I’d like to talk to Uncle Bid in private, please.” Candace rose and left, murmuring a hello to Bid. He didn’t answer, he just kept staring those glassy dark eyes at me. He lit up a cigarillo. The knitting lady, fuming worse than the smoke, gathered up her yarn and fled. “I see you survived the night,” Bid drawled at me.
“From all accounts, that’s something of a miracle. Perhaps Six Flags Over Texas will design a stunt show after your adventures.” He snickered. I stood and smiled down at him. “Cut the crap with me, Bid.
I know what you are, and although I didn’t think it possible, I dislike you more than ever.” He squinted through smoke with his intimidate-the-prosecution eyes. “Whatever do you mean?” “That extra $25,000 in Beta’s savings account, that I thought for a while either Ruth Wills or Bob Don had paid off Beta with. That’s your money.” “I don’t know what you mean, Jordy.” I pulled the photo and letter I’d found at the back of the Bible in Beta’s house last night. I’d kept them in my back pocket, as close to my heart as a picture of Uncle Bid would ever get. “Not really a good likeness of you, Bidwell. You had a lot of hair then.” I dangled the photo in front of his face, watching his shock, then admired the snapshot myself. It was an old photo, black and white, in a sleeve with a State Fair of Texas border around it, 1960. A younger Beta and a younger Bid, smiling, arms around each other. Beta had a wisp of the famous State Fair cotton candy in the corner of her mouth and she looked like a fun-loving kid. “You’d said you never dated her, that she was too wild for you. But you lied. You got her pregnant and you paid for her to go to Mexico for a quiet little abortion. Then you dumped her. She turned to religion for solace like a drunk turns to the bottle.” “That’s an ugly lie, Jordy,”
Bid observed mildly, puffing on his foul little cigar. “You thought she didn’t have any friends she could dare confide in here, so you were safe. You were wrong. She had a special friend.” I held up the letter that had been with the photo. “She’d confided in letters to her pen pal, Kirsten Koss of Stavenger, Norway. Old Man Renfro told me he remembered Beta having a Scandinavian pen pal. Kirsten wrote this very supportive letter to Beta, calling you by name and telling Beta that she could make it past having an abortion, that it wouldn’t ruin her life.” I eyed the letter. “Kirsten says for Beta to get away from you.
Sounds like good advice.” “Give me that letter!” he snapped, trying to grab for it. I used my Goertz height to keep it from his Poteet hands.
“Naughty, naughty, Bid. So she finally came to you for money, after all these years.” “She came to me,” he spat harshly, “because she knew you were nothing but a common bastard. And she knew I’d want to protect my brother’s good name.” “Spare me,” I interjected. “You never gave a crap about your brother. So you knew, didn’t you? All these years, you knew.” “I told Lloyd he’d be better off without that-” He saw my eyes gleam and he didn’t use a pejorative. “-without Anne, but he didn’t listen to me. The fool, raising you like you were his own.”
“It’s called love, but don’t worry, Bid. You’ll never be inconvenienced by it.” “I don’t know why I wasted money on that woman to protect a bastard like you,” he hissed. “You didn’t protect a soul, you heartless shit. You treated Beta Harcher like crap and she molded herself into the bitterest person alive. You knew the truth about me and you didn’t tell me because you didn’t want shame on your precious Poteet name. You knew Beta was a blackmailer and you stayed silent.
And worst of all, you’ve hated me for years for something that’s beyond my control-my parentage.” I turned my back on him. “Get out of here.” I half expected a burning cigarillo extinguished on the back of my neck, but Bid beat an honorable retreat. I sagged back into the chair and waited some more. Finally a nurse came into the waiting room. “You Mr. Goertz’s son? He’s been asking for you. You can see him now.” I mumbled a vague assent and followed her into intensive care.
The rooms were more like patios, with an open wall that faced out onto the nurses’ station so they could see the patients at all times. Wires made him look like a Christmas tree without lights. There were wires to his heart, his guts, his arms. Calm agreed with Bob Don. His eyes were shut and I stood next to the bed for a long time, studying his face. “Hey,” I finally said. He opened those big blue eyes and blinked at me. “Hey there, Jordy. How you?” “Better than you, Bob Don.” He grinned and I saw it hurt him. They’d taken the bullet out from near his heart last night and mirth didn’t make him feel happy. “But don’t get me wrong,” I said. “You’re going to be okay.” “Anne? Mark?” he whispered. “Fine, both fine.” He eased back into the pillows. “Thank God, thank God.” He glanced to the other side of the bed. “Where’s Gretchen?” I coughed. “Gretchen didn’t feel up to coming, Bob Don. I’m sorry. Maybe tomorrow.” My face tightened. “That was a damned brave thing you did, Bob Don.” He snorted, like a car salesman would at a ridiculous offer. “Damned stupid. I’d been drinking a bit after you stormed out, and I had mostly liquid courage.” “Whatever it was, it worked. You saved us.” “I don’t have the right to say this to you, Jordy, but I’m gonna. I’m old and maybe I won’t make it out of here. I would have died for you.” He choked with emotion and he shut his eyes, leaking tears. “Listen, Bob Don, I’ve been thinking.” I gulped. “You know, I just can’t forget my dad-you know, Lloyd. He was the man who raised me, the one I called Daddy all those years, the man who made me the man I am today. I won’t ever, ever forget him and no one can replace him.” “I don’t want you to forget Lloyd,” Bob Don murmured. “I don’t want to forget him either. I just want… I just want a chance to be a father to you, too.” He opened his eyes, searching for the copies of them in my face. “You’re a lucky fella, y’know. Not many folks get a chance to have two daddies that love ’em. I do love you, Jordy, very much. I always have and no matter how you feel about me, I always will.” I couldn’t answer. My own tears flooded my eyes and I stared down at the sheets covering his wounded body. “Excuse me, Mr. Poteet?” a nasal voice screeched. I looked up, blinking. A bone-thin nurse frowned at me, glancing between me and Bob Don. I recognized her as a regular customer from the library-she liked historical novels. “Are you supposed to be in here, Mr. Poteet?” she demanded, sounding irritated. “Are you immediate family to Mr. Goertz?” I blinked away tears and my hand found Bob Don’s. I cleared my voice before I answered. “Yes, ma’am, I am.”