“Not your fault,” he said. “You’re getting a lot of publicity out of this, you know. That’s another reason…” But then his face closed down on the thought. He’d been thinking about Manfred and Xylda again, sure that Xylda was in town to jump on the free ride of publicity the multiple murders would engender. No, I’m not a mind reader. I just know Tolliver very well.

“I’m not above thinking Xylda would cash in under ordinary circumstances,” I said. I was trying to be practical and honest. “But she’s so frail, and Manfred was so reluctant to bring her.”

“He said,” Tolliver pointed out.

“Well, yeah, he said. And you seem to think that Manfred’s capable of dragging a sick woman somewhere she doesn’t need to be just to satisfy his lust for me, but I don’t think that’s true.” I gave Tolliver a very level look. After a second, he looked just a bit abashed.

“Okay, I’ll agree he really loves the old bat,” he said. “And he does take her wherever she wants to go, as far as I know.”

That was as much of a concession as I was going to get, but at least it was something. I hated the idea of Tolliver and Manfred meeting up and getting into it with each other.

“Are they at our motel?”

“Yeah. There aren’t any rooms anywhere else, I can tell you. The road up the mountain is nearly blocked off to traffic because there are so many news trucks and law enforcement vehicles. There’s one lane open with guys with walkie-talkies at either end of the bottleneck.”

Again, I felt a twinge of guilt, as if I were somehow responsible for the disruption of so many peoples’ lives. The responsibility, of course, was the murderer’s, but I doubt he was staying up worrying about it.

I wondered what he was thinking about. He’d vented his rage with me. “He’ll lie low now,” I said. Tolliver didn’t have to ask me who I was talking about.

“He’ll be cautious,” Tolliver agreed. “That turning out to try to get you, that was just rage that his games were ended. He’ll have cooled off now. He’ll be worried about the cops.”

“No time to spare for me.”

“I think not. But this guy has to be a loony, Harper. And you never know what they’re thinking. I hope you get out of the hospital tomorrow. Maybe the cops’ll be through with questions and we can leave this place. If you feel well enough.”

“I hope so,” I said. I was better, but it would be stretching a point to say I felt good enough to travel.