The Ranger - Ace Atkins [67]
“The doctor said I would’ve died if I’d stayed.”
“Dr. Stevens said everyone was feeling great stress during the birth,” Lamar said. “Is that correct?”
Lena just stared at him, the lawyer standing over her, rocking up on his shoes and smiling down at her.
“Mr. Lamar has prepared a statement,” Stagg said. “We’d like you to look it over and sign it. It makes sure you don’t hold anything against Mr. Gowrie.”
“What’s in it for me?”
Lamar looked over to Stagg and grinned. Stagg nodded to Brother Davis.
The preacher with the gold teeth sat down at the end of Lena’s bed and smiled at her, looking content and confused at the same time. He reached over to her finished plate and ran a finger through the last bit of whipped cream and licked it. “We got a special fund for women in your sit-ation. Money and such that can buy clothes, get a baby the right kind of nutrition.”
Lena rolled to her back and tried to find the controls to raise the bed.
“That’s all you got?” Lena asked.
“She sure is a pretty thing,” Brother Davis said. “I just been watchin’ her down in the nursery. Got to hold her. So little, and cute as a bug.”
Lena tried to get out of the bed, but as she tried to stand her feet disappeared from under her. She fell right onto Stagg’s lap, and his bony hands helped her get some balance and sit back down. He held her hand and rubbed it. “You’re not in the right mind. Givin’ birth is hard on a woman.”
Lena pulled back her foot and kicked as hard as she could, knocking Brother Davis to the floor. “Y’all get the fuck out of here. And if you step back into this room or go near my baby again, I swear to God I’ll kill you.”
“Now, that’s a pretty picture,” Quinn said, watching the exit to the hospital from the passenger seat of Lillie’s Jeep.
“I never doubted Johnny was a shitbag,” Lillie said, “but to show up at the hospital.”
“They’re leaning on the girl,” Quinn said, remaining quiet for a long while. “Why would Stagg be such a friend to Gowrie? What’s in it for him?”
“Money.”
“He doesn’t need money.”
“You want to bet?”
“I thought Johnny was moving up in the world.”
“He was.”
“And?”
“He got into some development project that screwed him.”
“How’d that go?”
“I don’t know much about it,” Lillie said. “I know he got the whole town fired up that all this business was headed our way.”
“What happened?”
“Stagg says it’s still in the works. All I know is, the site’s still empty, and no big companies are knocking on the door of Tibbehah County.”
“Who’d know more about it?”
“The old woman,” Lillie said. “You remember Miz Mize?”
23
For as long as Quinn could recall, Betty Jo Mize had been the owner, publisher, managing editor, and lead reporter for the Tibbehah County Monitor. The thin paper was published twice a week, her standard column taking up most of the front page, and, when she was truly moved, the text flowed inside, next to the advertisements for specials at the Piggly Wiggly, church notes, and legal announcements. She was the master of the prayer chain, the potluck supper menu, the special Christmas memory, and endless tales of when Jericho had been a prosperous town. Quinn had made her column dozens of times, Betty Jo still calling him Jason and Jean Colson’s boy, although his parents had been divorced for more than fifteen years.
She was small and frail and white-haired, standing a few inches over five feet, and had been rumored to have been on death’s door since 1986. She often credited her faith in Jesus and the prayers of the community for her good fortune. She was a regular at the First Baptist Church, a member of every women’s club in Tibbehah and its two adjoining counties, a great-grandmother, an avid gardener, and a vicious gossip with a taste for Jack Daniel’s, cigarettes, and filthy jokes.
Quinn liked her a lot.
“I’m glad you didn’t go and get yourself killed, Quinn.”
“I appreciate that, Miz Mize.”
“Have you seen your daddy lately?”
“No, ma’am. It’s been years.”
“That’s right,” she said. “He was