The Hunt Club_ A Novel - Bret Lott [18]
But all I was thinking on was the paperweight in my right hand, under the sheet, my mind set on how I was going to get my clothes and go to the bathroom and change without either of them seeing it.
“If you’d get out of here,” I said, “we can head home all the quicker.”
Mom stood, gave me this look, rolled her eyes: Who do you think you are?
But I covered it, gave her my shit-eating grin, the one any kid with half a brain has figured out by the time he’s three.
“Well,” she said, and smiled. “A young man’s got to have his privacy, I guess,” she said.
“Damn straight,” I said, and gave it another good smile, her skinny and pitiful and only child here in a hospital bed.
It was in my pocket. I knew that. But I felt like everybody in the hospital knew it too, though we’d only wheeled out of the room, were only a few doors down the hallway. I glanced into each room as we passed, expecting to see a nurse who’d call out to me, ask who that lady was who came into my room late last night. I saw nobody, just the same oak and brass and wooden blinds as back in my room.
We made it to the elevator, to my left an oak desk on an oriental rug. A woman in a gold suit coat and white blouse sat behind it, hands together on the desktop, smiling like a real estate agent in a TV commercial. She said, “I hope you enjoyed your stay with us.”
I just looked at her. She tilted her head one way, still smiling at me.
I felt Mom’s hand at my shoulder, squeezing. I smiled at the woman, said, “Thank you,” then looked forward, my eyes to the lighted numbers above the elevator doors. We were almost out of here.
Then the doors opened up.
Two men stood inside, both with buzz cuts, both with black windbreakers on. They didn’t even have to turn around, show me SLED in big yellow letters across their backs, for me to figure out who they were. Or why they were here.
It was in my pocket. I knew that. But they didn’t.
They stepped out, smiled at us as fake as Dr. Buck’s redneck words.
“Mrs. Dillard?” one of them said to Mom. He was blond, thick-necked, and had on a red polo shirt, the sleeves of his windbreaker pushed up to his elbows.
“Yes?” Mom said. She turned, nodded at the nurse. “I’ll take it from here, Dorinda. I’m a hospital employee, so if something happens while I’m pushing him out, I can sue me, and win.” She smiled, shrugged.
“Sound like a plan,” Dorinda said, and let go.
Mom pushed me between them and inside the elevator, then wheeled me around, so that now we were inside, looking out at them. She knew something was up.
The second one, black hair and with just as thick a neck, only with a white dress shirt and tie on, put his hand to the elevator door, held it so it wouldn’t close.
“We need to talk to Huger Dillard,” he said, and looked at me, smiling.
Mom touched the button for the ground floor.
“We’re going home,” she said.
“Ma’am, this is official business,” the blond said, and took out a billfold from his back pocket, flashed a badge and ID card. “I’m Agent Hampton, this is Agent Elliot, State Law Enforcement Division.” The other man, still with one hand holding the door open, took out his billfold, too, showed his badge.
“You don’t think I know who you are?” she said, and I could hear in her voice where she was headed.
“Ma’am,” the black-haired one said, “all we need is a few minutes to go through some questions. You can make it easy on yourself and your son, and just give us that time, or we can waste all our time, and make this harder than it has to be.” He smiled at her.
She took in a deep breath, let it out. “We’re going home,” she said, “and if you’d take your hand off that door, we’d all be spending our time a little more wisely.”
They looked at each other, then stepped in.
The door closed.
The black-haired one smiled down at me. He said, “Just a routine interview. He was there at the discovery of the body, and it’s SLED policy to interview everyone present at the crime scene.” He looked at Mom. “He’s the next-to-last one we have to interview. We got everybody else already.