“I dropped him off with a lady I buy fresh eggs from. She has a baby close to Arthur’s age. She’ll wet-nurse him and look after him until I can pick him up.”
“Good.” Bill paused, then said, “You know the extent of what was done to your sister?”
“I found her, remember?”
“Do you know who attacked her?”
“No.”
“At any point, was she conscious?”
“Conscious but out of her head.”
“Did she say—”
“Did you see her mouth? She couldn’t talk.”
Bill eased away from her, as though sensing, as Thatcher did, that pressuring her wasn’t the tack to take. “Tell us what happened today.”
“Do we have to do this now?”
“Do you want us to catch the man responsible?”
Bill won the stare-off. She took a deep breath. “Today started out like any other. I did chores while Norma tended to Arthur.”
“You told me earlier that the assault took place while you were away from the house.”
She told them about receiving a telephone call from First State Bank. “I don’t remember the man’s name. He asked me to come in and take care of a matter. Something I needed to sign. Arthur was down for a nap. Norma was primping. It was easier to go without her than to wait for her to get ready. She was very particular about her appearance.”
She glanced toward the examination room. Her eyes turned watery. “Norma wouldn’t have wanted to live looking like that. Jesus God.” She shook a cigarette from her pack. When she had difficulty striking the match, Thatcher struck it for her and held it to the tip of the cigarette.
She gave him a nod of thanks.
The men allowed her time to compose herself and take a few puffs before Bill asked, “What time did you leave the house?”
“One-thirty. I was trying to beat it to the bank before it closed. But when I got there, nobody knew anything about a phone call. There wasn’t a problem with my account. I didn’t know what to make of the mix-up, but rather than waste a trip to town, I stopped in Logan’s for some groceries.” Her voice trembled. “I’ll never forgive myself for not going straight home.”
Thatcher noticed that her hand was shaking when she flicked an ash into the ashtray she was holding on her knee.
“I could hear Arthur screaming the minute I pulled up to the house. Norma wouldn’t let him whimper without picking him up, so I knew something was wrong. I ran into the house. Arthur was still in his bassinet, where he’d been when I’d left. He was wet and hungry, but otherwise okay.
“Norma…” She choked up and had to force the words out. ?
?She was facedown on her bed. She wasn’t moving. There was blood. I would have thought she was dead, except that she was making sounds like…like…I don’t know…a wounded animal.”
She took another drag off her cigarette. “I’m not sure she knew it was me who was handling her. She flailed her arms, trying to fight me off. I liked to have never gotten her into the car.”
“No sign of who had been there?”
“Don’t you think I would have told you by now?”
“Was anything missing that you noticed?”
“I didn’t take the time to look, sheriff.”
“I ask only because if the house had been ransacked, it could have been a vagrant.”
“The house hadn’t been ransacked.”