I nodded. “I agree. I think the Joyce case is the most likely. If they okay me talking to you, I’ll be glad to tell you all about it. There’s really not much to tell.”

Victoria whipped out her cell phone and made a call, which I was pretty sure you weren’t supposed to do in a hospital. She started talking. A few seconds later, she handed the phone to me.

“Hello,” I said.

“This is Lizzie Joyce.”

“Hi. Did you want me to talk to Victoria?”

“That’s real ethical of you. You have my permission.” Did she sound amused? I didn’t think my morality was funny at all. “I’m sorry about your manager,” Lizzie continued. “I understand it happened at that same motel where we visited you. My God! What do you think happened? Was it just a random shooting?”

A memory surfaced. “One of the cops did tell me there was another shooting a couple of blocks away. So it’s possible. But that’s pretty hard to believe.”

“Well, I’m real sorry. If there’s anything I can do, you just let me know.”

I wondered how sincere the offer was. For one wild minute, I considered saying, “This hospital stay is going to be really expensive, because our insurance is shitty. Can you take care of the bill? Oh, and pick up the tab for his rehab, too, while you’re at it?” But I simply thanked her and handed the phone back to Victoria.

I’d been too preoccupied to think about the financial crunch we were going to face until that moment. I thought unhappy thoughts, while Victoria Flores wound up her conversation with Lizzie Joyce. For the first time, I saw the full scope of the problem in front of me. I realized Tolliver’s injury meant the end of our dream of buying a house, at least in the foreseeable future.

It was possible for me to be more depressed, which I would not have believed ten minutes earlier.

I told Victoria about the visit to Pioneer Rest Cemetery. She asked me a lot of questions I couldn’t answer, but finally she seemed satisfied that she’d wrung every last bit of knowledge and conjecture out of me.

“I hope I can perform like they want me to,” she said, having her own down moment. “I can’t believe they came to me instead of some big agency, but now that I know the details, I can see why they called someone like me.”

“It’s been hard, the move to this area?” I asked.