Grave Secret - Charlaine Harris [86]
Matthew flushed. He couldn’t pretend I wasn’t there. “Harper, I’m trying to be a good father. I know it’s too late, and I know I did things that make me sick to remember, but I’m trying to mend my relationship with my son. I know he ‘loves’ you, but sometimes you just have to butt out and let me talk to him.”
You could hear the quotation marks around “loves.”
Tolliver said, “Harper never has to butt out. I do love her. It is too late, and you did things that made all of us sick to our stomachs. You would have let Harper die if I hadn’t been there that day when the lightning hit.”
I felt a rush of relief. Some small part of me was frightened that someday Tolliver would listen to his dad, would believe him, would be suckered again.
“Mark, at least, will let me talk to him,” Matthew said, getting up.
He was going to leave, and I still hadn’t killed him. I was going to let him walk out.
I had to. I had only my bare hands. And I had to discover what he’d done with Cameron, and why he’d done it. I didn’t think he’d wanted to have Cameron sexually. Some of his friends had wanted to have sex with us, but not Matthew. At least, I was fairly sure of that. But there was a reason, and I had to know it. I stood up, my hands clenched at my sides, debating whether or not to hit him.
Matthew picked up on the hostility in the way I was standing. I guess if you spend time in jail, you’re on the alert for stuff like that. He edged around me on his path to the door. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you today, Harper. I’m just trying to mend fences, here.”
“Not working,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Yeah,” he said, with a nervous laugh. “I can see that. Son, I’ll talk to you later. I hope you’re better. Call me if you need me.” And he was out the door and it shut behind him. And he was still alive.
“Sit here,” Tolliver said, his voice so low I almost didn’t hear him. “Sit here, and tell me what’s in your head.”
“He was at the doctor’s office building,” I said. “Your father was there, this morning, going out the door across the lobby as we were coming in.”
I stood still until Tolliver processed that. Then he patted the couch beside him again. “Okay, let’s figure it out,” he said, and I could have done handstands and cheered, because he got it completely.
I told Tolliver about Dr. Bowden. I related the doctor’s story, adding my own commentary. And he listened, God bless him, he listened to every word without interrupting. He abandoned his snit as quickly as he could toss it overboard. I told him how glad I was that Manfred had been there, had heard the same story, because otherwise I’d find it hard to believe it myself.
“So why did that lead to you wanting to disembowel my dad?”
“Because I don’t believe in coincidences that huge. What was Matthew doing in that office building? He had to have been seeing Tom Bowden. And why would he know about Tom Bowden? He had to have had a connection with the Joyces, or at least whichever of them wanted to keep Mariah’s pregnancy and the birth of the child secret.”
“But did he have to?” Tolliver asked. “I mean, did Dad really have to have been in cahoots with the Joyces, one or all of them? We don’t know who it was who took the doctor to the ranch that night. But we do know, from Victoria’s files, that Chip Moseley was arrested in Texarkana once, so we can assume he was there pretty often. And we know that the Joyce family had some doctors there, according to Tom Bowden, so they had some connections there, too. That’s a slim tie, but it’s a tie.”
“And when we met the Joyces, I thought the two men looked familiar. Just a little.”
“Chip and Drex?”
I nodded. “I know that doesn’t seem as conclusive, because I can’t place them firmly. But most people I’m that fuzzy on, it’s because they came to the trailer, and I hate to remember that time. Plus, I tried not to look, because I knew it was dangerous to know who was buying and selling drugs.”
“Yes,” Tolliver said heavily. “It was dangerous, every day, to be living