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“Call on the devil to save you, you limb of Satan,” Doyle yelled down at her. “God couldn’t see you if he tried, you black-hearted whore.”
“The team thing works for me,” Agnes said, holding her bruised ribs, and went to call the cops while Doyle stomped back to his house painting, Carpenter took Garth aside to talk to him soberly and give comfort, Shane took a shaken Joey to get the weapons out of sight, Brenda continued to shriek from the cut, and Four Wheels moldered beneath her ruined Caddy.
Shane leaned against the front rail of the Two Rivers porch, watching a couple of deputies try to make a crime scene of the remains of the old bridge under Hammond’s direction. Hammond did pretty well, once he stopped asking if Maria was around. An ambulance was parked nearby where an EMT had just finished wrapping Agnes’s ribs and was now trying to check out old Doyle, who was resisting removing his shirt with all the vigor of a maiden aunt, while Xavier focused on Agnes, which made Shane tense.
“Go arrest Brenda,” Agnes told Xavier. “She just murdered that old man.”
“I talked to her,” Xavier said. “Now I’m talking to you.” His eyes slid around to look at Shane, and Shane stared back, biting back the urge to drag him away from Agnes. Any fool could see that Agnes wasn’t the one the law should be talking to, and Xavier was no fool. And yet...
He looked over at Brenda, who seemed unconcerned that she’d just killed a man. She was sitting on the swing twenty feet away, drinking deeply from something a lot stronger than lemonade, her shapely legs kicking back and forth, and smiling tensely at a clueless young deputy whom Shane had a feeling Xavier was going to smack upside his crew cut head as soon as he got him out of sight.
“Mrs. Dupres says Thibault was threatening you with a shotgun, Miz Agnes,” Xavier went on. “She seems to think you were in imminent danger.”
Shane spoke up at that. “We had it under control.”
Xavier looked up at Shane. “You did now, son?”
“There was no need for Mrs. Dupres to kill the old man,” Shane said.
“She says it was an accident,” Xavier said. “What?” Agnes almost fell off the porch.
Xavier continued. “She was so horrified because that old man was going to shoot you that her foot slipped off the brake, and when she went to stomp the brake back on to keep the car from rolling into you, she hit the gas instead.”
“Fuckin’ bitch,” Joey said.
“She lies,” Agnes said.
“She wouldn’t be the first person on this porch to do that,” Xavier said, looking at her with intent.
Shane moved closer. “You throw a lot of accusations around, Detective. You accused my uncle of killing his best friend. Now you’re going after Agnes. I think it’s time to drop the good ole boy bullshit and do some real police work.”
Xavier stiffened as if he’d been punched. “You think you know how to do my job?”
Shane could see Carpenter looking at him, eyebrows raised in question. Yeah, Wilson wouldn’t be happy about him getting involved with the local law. But it was Agnes and Joey on the line here?—
There was a stir at the end of the porch as Brenda stood up, taking in everyone on the porch. “Can I go now?” she asked. “I have had a terrible day, a terrible accident, trapped in my car for hours, left unaided by callous, uncaring?—”
“Go to hell, you fucking bitch,” Doyle called from around the corner, where he was painting the house.
“—inhuman people, and I really am simply unable to continue.”
“Yes, Mrs. Dupres, you can go, but don’t leave town,” Xavier warned her.
Brenda blinked at him. “How could I, Detective Xavier? My little Maria is getting married Saturday. Although how the wedding can take place here, after this gruesome accident, I simply do not know.”
She met Agnes’s eyes for a long moment, and then she added, “Of course, with the bridge out, it’s impossible to have the wedding here anyway.” Then she went down the steps and around the side of the house away from Doyle, heading for the path to the dock. “Where’s she going?” Xavier said.
“She’s docked her boat out back,” Agnes said with blood in her voice.
The honking in the background got louder. “Flamingos?” Xavier said to Agnes. “Yes. They hate her, too.”
Xavier turned to go. “The boys will be here awhile, getting things in order, but I think I have everything I need to do some real police work.”
Agnes looked at him steadily. “You’re not going to arrest Brenda, are you?”
“Do you have proof she did it on purpose?”
“No,” Agnes said.
