LITMIR.BIZ

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quiet.

      I slapped his face. No response. Worried this was more than a drunken coma, I checked his pulse and thankfully felt life. I reached around his chest and tried to prop him against the car. I almost had him upright when I felt something sticky and wet. Startled, I loosened my grip and saw a dark stain spreading across his tattered flannel shirt. Covering the back of the driver’s seat was a similar stain, glistening red in the light.

      “Hélène! Come here! Quick! I need your help!” I called out, expecting her to be right behind me. But the answering silence told me she’d vanished as suddenly as she’d appeared this night. No doubt she was tired of dealing with drunks.

      Not knowing what else to do, I frantically tried Tommy’s pulse again. He was still alive. Then his eyelids fluttered. With a painful groan, he opened his eyes. Unfocussed blue looked out at me. Across his forehead stretched a dark angry welt.

      “Tommy? You have to try and help me get you into my truck.”

      But his only reply was a faint twitching of his lips. He tried to raise his trembling hand to his face, but it fell back with a thud to his side. I attempted once more to raise his body into an upright position, so I could half-carry, half-walk him to my truck. Impossible. He weighed a ton.

      I ran back to my truck and drove it closer. Straining to keep his upper body off the ground, I slowly dragged him towards the passenger side. His boots left two shallow creases in the dirt. Between them dribbled a line of blood.

      Finally, I manoeuvered him into the front seat through a combination of pushing and pulling with some feeble assistance on his part. I covered him with the dirty blanket used to protect the seat from muddy paws.

      “Tommy? I’m going to take you into the hospital in Somerset. Can you hang in?”

      The blue eyes opened. “Yes . . . I’ll . . . try . . .” And closed again.

      I drove as fast as I dared while trying to minimize the jolts in the road. I had no idea what the injury was or what had caused it. I only knew he was still losing blood, a significant amount judging by the growing patch on the blanket.

      Except for his ragged breathing, he was quiet the entire trip. He cried out only once, when the truck was jolted by an unseen bump in the road. Normally a thirty minute trip to Somerset, this time it took me just under twenty minutes to reach the emergency entrance of the town’s hospital.

      While the hospital staff was transferring him to the stretcher, he opened his eyes and looked directly into mine. “Found the money,” he whispered and closed them again.

      Before I had a chance to ask “What money?”, he was whisked beyond a set of doors that proclaimed “No admittance”.

      I phoned Eric, who promised to come immediately. Then I got myself a strong cup of coffee and sat down to begin the agonizing wait to learn if he would survive. Within the hour, Eric joined me. We waited several tense hours in the sterile waiting room, before the doctor finally came out. “He’s going to live,” she announced with a smile.

      Thank God, I thought, and smiled at Eric who obviously felt the same. And then I felt my hand squeezed, and realized with surprise that he’d been holding it. I squeezed back.

      The doctor continued, “Although he has lost a significant amount of blood, the wound is not life-threatening. Fortunately, the bullet didn’t lodge in his body but passed through cleanly, missing vital organs. He was very fortunate. Usually a bullet entering the upper thorax of the back is fatal.”

      I felt Eric stiffen beside me as I too thought over the implications of what she’d just said. But neither of us interrupted the doctor.

      “The wound on his forehead is probably from falling on a hard object after being shot. As a result, he has a concussion. It will be some time before he is fully conscious and able to talk.”

      When she finished, Eric asked, “Are you saying that Tommy was shot in the back?”

      “Yes,” she replied grimly. “I’ve called in the police.”

      Neither Eric nor I said anything. But we both knew what this meant. I’d made a terrible mistake. Tommy hadn’t killed his parents. In fact, their killer had probably just tried to kill him. And if I hadn’t been so cocksure that my evidence pointed to Tommy, he would be lying safe in his bed with the police hot on the trail of the real killer. Instead, he was lying here in this hospital with a bullet hole though his back.

      I hastily apologized to Eric, but he brushed it aside, saying that in light of my evidence, he had suspected Tommy too. Nevertheless, I still felt very guilty for having thought that Marie’s son could have been her murderer.

      For the next couple of hours, I found myself closeted with my old buddy Sgt. LaFramboise. His manner was no less arrogant than in our previous confrontations. In fact, when he glowered at me and said, “Not again” in his surly French, I received the distinct impression he was adding me to his list of possible suspects. However, despite his insolence, I told him everything. That is, except for my suspicions about Tommy. I was too embarrassed.

      Once finished with the policeman, I then had to take on Eric, who was now concerned for my safety. He reasoned that with a killer on the loose, remaining alone at Three Deer Point might not be healthy. He insisted I stay at the Fishing Camp. But I quickly quashed his concern by emphasizing that the killings were directed towards Tommy’s family and had nothing to do with me.

      Eventually, he relented and I headed to Three Deer Point. By the time I reached home, day was fully underway. Thinking only of sleep, I dragged my tired body to bed, where I was greeted by the message light flashing on my bedroom phone.

      “Hi, dear. It’s your mother calling. Sorry I’ve missed you, but I’ve found William Watson. And I was right. Well, dear, since you’re not home, I’ll put it in the mail right away. Ta.”

      THIRTY-SEVEN

      I frantically dialled Mother’s number only to hear: “Sorry I’m not at home to take your call, but please—”

      Frustrated, I slammed the receiver down. I waited a couple of minutes, tried again and got the same insipid greeting. With my eyes swimming from exhaustion, I decided a couple of hours sleep was required. Perhaps by the time I woke up, Mother would finally be home. However, when I woke up midway through the morning, feeling somewhat revitalized, I failed to reach her again. This time I left her a message to phone me immediately.

      I had slightly better success with the hospital. A talkative nurse told me that although Tommy was steadily improving, he was under heavy sedation. Unfortunately, she anticipated it would be at least another day, if not two, before he would be able to talk.

      I received this news with mixed emotions. Although very glad he was improving, I worried that any delay in Tommy’s identification of his assailant would be too late. This would-be killer, who I strongly suspected was the murderer of Marie and Louis, would be halfway across the continent by the time Tommy woke up.

      Tommy had almost died because of me. When I’d seen the elongated “y” footprint of Marie’s killer by Tommy’s doorstep, I should’ve gone straight to Decontie. Unlike me, he wouldn’t have jumped to a knee-jerk accusation. He would’ve recognized the possibility that the killer was after Tommy and kept him safe.

      I felt I had to do something to help, but I didn’t know what. I knew I couldn’t just sit there and wait. So I decided to drive to Tommy’s house, where I assumed the police were carrying out their investigation. As I’d told LaFramboise early that morning, since Tommy’s car was only a short distance beyond the driveway when I found him, it was likely he’d been shot at home.

      Although I was surprised to see Tommy’s car still parked at the side of the main road where I’d left it the night before, I figured Sgt. LaFramboise had decided to investigate the site of the shooting first. However, to my dismay and disgust, I didn’t find any police vehicles parked out in front of the shack, nor was there indication they’d even checked it out. I felt my temperature rise at the thought

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