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woman.”
    “Well, if you’re okay and she’s okay, I’ll be on my way,” I said. “Just let me say hello.” I knocked on the door. Ruthie came up to the screen, but didn’t invite me in.
    “You all right?” I asked. She nodded.
    “Do me a favor, will you? Stop trying to shoot him.” She nodded.
    The third time I had been called out, Ruthie was washing her face and hair in the kitchen sink. There was a lot of blood. Little Bubba was nowhere to be seen, and his truck was gone as well.
    “Can you tell me what happened?” I asked.
    “He cut me,” she said, still washing up. “Not bad, I don’t think. Look at it and tell me, will you?”
    I looked. “It’s not bad, but you’re going to need some stitches. You want me to take you to the hospital?”
    “Nah. I can do it myself.”
    “What about Little Bubba? Did you shoot him?” I asked.
    “Missed him. I hit the truck, though.”
    “You know, I can arrest him if you’ll press charges.”
    “How long will you keep him locked up?” she asked.
    I had to answer honestly. “Probably a couple of weeks if we’re lucky. Then I can get a judge’s order to keep him away from you.”
    “You think that’ll work out here?”
    “No, not really.”
    “Don’t do it then. It’d just make him madder,” she said.
    That was a couple of weeks ago. I had heard from Ardine that he’d come back and that they were getting along. But now, apparently, she’d killed him. I hoped it was justifiable. I liked Ruthie.

Chapter 5

    I was about three minutes behind Nancy when I left the station, but her lead had increased to about ten minutes by the time I drove up to the Haggarty trailer. I would have beaten her in the winter; my ’62 Chevy pickup truck making pretty good time on these mountain roads. In the winter, Nancy drove a little Nissan whose four-cylinder engine could barely make it up her driveway. When the snow was off the roads, though, Nancy took to her motorcycle, a Harley-Davidson Dyna Super Glide. She was the fastest thing in Watauga County on these mountain roads.
    Nancy was already inside. I could see her through the screen door with her pad out, taking notes. I walked up to the door and pulled it open, surveying the inside of the small living room. There was an old couch, a lamp, and a big-screen TV that served as a display for all kinds of religious objets d’art — everything from a Virgin Mary TV antenna to a prayer cloth blessed by Reverend Ike himself. But it was Little Bubba, as the designers say, that was the focal point of the décor. He was sitting in a blue recliner, the footstool flipped out, the chair pushed slightly back. He had half a cookie in one hand and a remote control in the other. There were scraps of paper scattered around the chair. His eyes were open and so was his mouth. I had seen dead folks before, and this was one of them.
    “He’s dead, ain’t he?” said Ruthie, asking for confirmation. “Nancy said he was.”
    “I believe so,” I said. “Did you tell Nancy what happened?”
    “Sort of,” Ruthie answered.
    “Well, if you don’t mind, could you tell it again so I can hear it?”
    Ruthie nodded and took a long breath.
    “Little Bubba hadn’t been back here for a few days. I guess he was staying with his girlfriend up in Sugar Grove. So anyway, he comes back, and I’m in the kitchen making Easter cookies for church.”
    “Easter cookies?” Nancy asked.
    “You know. Shaped like bunnies and eggs and such. So anyway, I had this idea to make one shaped like Jesus on the cross. It turned out pretty well, so I made enough for the whole Sunday School class. I thought we’d decorate them at our party this Sunday. Look here. I’ve got red-hots for the blood and all colors of sparkles.”
    “Hmm,” I said.
    “Then I wrote up all these devotions to wrap around the cookies. I thought we could keep these by our beds and read the devotions while we nibbled on the cookies. I get very hungry while I’m talking to