For a moment I thought she was teasing, trying to see how much a naive flatland foreigner would believe.

“A cross between a bear and a wildcat?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am. You hear that noise, you want to get away quick.”

She was serious.

The staff of the Blount County Medical Center emergency room was expecting us. Luke was whisked off and I was ushered into a small glass cubicle to answer all of the questions that I could.

“Bye.” Tammy stuck her head in the doorway. “She don’t know about the snakes, Irene. The booger, neither.”

Irene waved. “Just as well, Tammy. Bye.”

Irene was a middle-aged woman whose head fit right on her shoulders. Whoever had broken the girl’s neck at the church would have had trouble with Irene. I shivered, pushing the thought aside.

“You want some coffee, Mrs. Nelson?”

I nodded. We’d get the name straightened out soon enough. When Irene got up, I saw that she was built like a box. Not only was there no neck, there was no discernible waist. She was back in a moment with a Styrofoam cup of coffee, though, and the nicest smile. Irene, I decided gratefully, was the perfect person for this job, sturdy and comforting.

It took several minutes after I explained to her that I was Luke’s cousin, not his wife, for her to locate his insurance cards. She called the treatment room where they had taken him, and a nurse brought Luke’s wallet out. Irene had me go through it to find his cards. The first card I pulled out was his driver’s license. Luke looked startled in the picture. Vulnerable. I suddenly felt like crying.

“Here.” I handed Irene the insurance card.

“Trash!” she said.

“Blue Cross?”

“Of course not. Look what just walked in. Don’t turn around. Just look.”

Between jet lag and everything that had already happened that day, I was totally confused.

“What?”

“Well, just turn around a little bit and look. You won’t believe this.”

A tall bearded man had walked into the emergency room. He was wearing a black short-sleeved T-shirt that had KILL THEM ALL. LET GOD SORT THEM OUT emblazoned in large white letters below a death’s head that was wearing a pirate’s hat.

“My God!”

He was here to rob the emergency room of its drugs. And there was nothing between us and his semiautomatic but glass. This was it. This was Death. I waited.

Death sat down and glanced through a Southern Living magazine.

“Comes in here every afternoon to pick up his wife,” Irene sniffed. “She’s nice as she can be. One of our best nurses. Just no sense.”

My heart began to beat again. I could feel it drumming against my ribs.

“Well, it’s none of my business she wants to be a fool,” Irene said. She picked up the card. “Okay, let’s see what we’ve got here.”