Homer smiled at that. He looked from the phone to Selma and back again. The phone was on the counter in the kitchen. It rang a second time.
“You going to get that?” he asked calmly.
“No. ”
“You should. It could be that reporter again. Don’t want to make them suspicious. ”
Selma stared at him as the phone rang a third time.
“Go ahead,” Homer prompted.
Selma reached out for the wooden chair that stood in the corner. She pulled herself up slowly, her joints creaking and popping.
“You got old,” Homer said.
She said nothing, grunting with the effort. The phone rang again and again before she tottered into the kitchen and picked it up.
“Hello?”
There was no sound behind her, nothing to let her know that Homer had also gotten up, but suddenly he was there, his body pressing against her. When he was a baby his skin was always furnace hot. Now he was cold. So cold.
“I would like to speak with Selma Conroy,” said a voice. A stranger’s voice. Male, accented. And hesitant.
“This is she,” murmured Selma, her voice still small. “Who’s calling, please?”
Homer bent close to listen. Selma could barely feel his breath, but what little there was stank of corruption. It was like the open mouth of a sewer.
The caller said, “My name is Dr. Herman Volker from the State Correctional Institution at Rockview. ”
The breath caught in Selma’s throat.
“I would like to speak with you about Homer Gibbon. ”
The breath in Selma’s throat wanted to burst out of her as a scream. God, how she needed to scream.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
ON THE ROAD
STEBBINS COUNTY
Trout called Marcia to get an update on the Volker research and put the call on speaker.
“Marcia, we got what you sent but—”
She cut him off. “Where are you idiots?”
“Heading to Dr. Volker’s place. Why, what’s up?”
“I don’t know but all hell seems to be breaking loose around here. I called you a dozen times. Murray’s been on my ass about you. The police are keeping it off the regular channels, but all I hear are sirens, and Nell over at the diner says that about a dozen state police cars and half as many ambulances have gone by in the last fifteen minutes. ”
“Heading where?”
“Doc Hartnup’s. Whatever’s going on there is getting worse. ”
“I know,” Trout said. “I can try going back there, but Dez will just run me off again. ”
“Mm,” grunted Marcia. “I still can’t understand what you see in that piece of trailer trash. I mean, sure, she’s got the body and the face, but she is seriously damaged goods. You’d need to win the lottery just to pay her therapy bills. Providing she ever got her head out of her ass long enough to go to therapy. ”