“No, not me. I gather there was some problem in Montana while you worked up there, last year?”

“Yeah, but it was all resolved. There’s no warrant for Tolliver’s arrest. I’d know for sure. And we didn’t have a busted light this morning when we got up.”

“Did you see him do it?”

“No, we didn’t.”

“If Marv made all this up, he would have some way to stop you,” Hollis said, sitting down heavily on the foot of my bed. He caught my eyes, and said hesitantly, “I thought I better stop by to see how you were doing. I got the impression you depend a lot on your brother.”

“I do,” I said simply. “But I’m going to be okay. I’ve already called a lawyer in Little Rock. She’s going to call me back.”

“That’s good,” Hollis said heartily. “You’re doing real good.” Again, the encouragement was too overdone.

I was well aware that I wasn’t, you know, Miss Stability. But there’s a difference between knowing you have a flaw and seeing other people reacting to it. “You can’t hide how weird you are,” was the unspoken message. “You require special handling and careful treatment.” I began to tense up all over again.

“Hollis,” I said, hearing my voice come out as a growl. “You make sure nothing happens to Tolliver in that jail. You hear me?”

I could see his resentment at the implication, but at the moment, that wasn’t important to me. What mattered to me was that I see in his face the assurance that nothing could happen to my brother in that jail, that he would be treated fairly and guarded well.

I could not find that in Hollis’s expression.

“Hollis, you listen to me,” I said, in the quietest voice I could manage. “I know you love this town and you love the life you have here. But something’s going on in Sarne, there’s a rotten apple somewhere spoiling things. There’s a lot we don’t know about these deaths. Someone you know murdered Dell Teague and Teenie Hopkins. Someone you know killed your wife Sally and beat Helen Hopkins to death. And someone you know doesn’t want my brother and me to leave, for some reason. Now, we have to find out who that someone is. I came here, and I did my job, and I did it quick and I did it right. Now, Tolliver and I should be able to leave you all to solve your own damn problems.”

“You were beginning to care about me until this happened,” Hollis said, completely to my surprise. It seemed more like the kind of thing men expect women to say; if life were like a sitcom, that would have been my line.

“Yes,” I said. “I was.”