Code of the Hills by Chris Offutt

Author:Chris Offutt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2023-05-24T20:25:57+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Mick parked at the hospital and crossed the lot beside a new two-story structure. It was dark brown with brown shutters, a brown roof, gutters, and downspouts. He assumed it was a medical facility. Most of them were shades of brown, as if someone had mandated the blandest possible color to offset the suffering that brought people there.

Shifty Kissick dozed beside Linda’s bed, awaking when Mick pushed open the door. Linda lay on her back leashed to machines, the soft prongs of an oxygen tube askew below her nose.

“How is she?” Mick said.

“Doctor said good. I reckon she’d be a whole lot better if somebody didn’t come in every hour and poke at her.”

Mick nodded.

“I need a cigarette,” Shifty said. “Be back in a minute.”

“Anybody else been in?”

“Chief of police but the docs made him leave. I was glad. I never liked him as a boy and now he’s a damn grown man cop.”

“So am I, Mrs. Kissick.”

“Well, I didn’t know you when you were little.”

“Johnny Boy come by?”

“No,” Shifty said. “Ray-Ray and J.C. will after their lunch stuff is done.”

“You get along with J.C.?”

“Lord, I do. He treats me like I’m a real good mother, which is a whole lot more than my sons ever did.”

She rose and left. The sound of the closing door woke Linda, who blinked repeatedly, looked around as if ascertaining her whereabouts, and settled her gaze on Mick.

“Catch him yet?” she said in a raspy whisper.

“No. You remember anything?”

“Going across the yard. A gunshot. I ran in the house. Then nothing. Not a damn thing.”

“Anyone in the house?”

“Maybe,” she said. “I can’t remember.”

“We found a man dead. Shot.”

“Was it me?”

“I don’t know.”

Mick watched the brief surge of energy leave her body. The muscles in her neck relaxed. She was asleep. Mick held her hand and shut his eyes. He awoke when Shifty returned, smelling of cigarette smoke and eating chips from a small bag. She offered him some. He shook his head and she held out a candy bar, which he waved away.

“They got a machine down there charges two dollars and fifty cents for everything it sells,” she said. “It kept my damn change.”

“Better than eating hospital food.”

“I might finish off somebody’s fruit cup.”

“J.C.’ll bring you something to eat.”

He stood to let her sit.

“When you find the lowlife who shot her,” she said, “don’t bring him in. Leave him lay and go to the house, hear?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Mick drove to the sheriff’s office and called Sandra from the safety of the parking lot. He liked her—like like, he thought, as if he were a schoolboy. He’d only liked one other woman that way and now she was happily living with another man.

Sandra answered the phone.

“I can see your truck out the window,” she said.

“Uh, yeah. I’m in a rush. Any word from ballistics?”

“Linda did not fire her weapon. They dug a forty-five slug out of a window frame in Gowan’s house.”

“Probably went through his lungs first. You hear from Johnny Boy?”

“No. He’s out chasing down bird fighters.

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