Keep Me Safe

Chapter Seven

She watched for a while as Lottie was dragged around the crowd. All the women, young and old, immediately began to fawn over her. All the men were greeting her just a little too graciously, and it made Agnes quickly jealous.

To distract herself, she set out on the mission of tracking Floyd down. Her curiosity was growing greater by the minute, and she felt compelled to question him about the previous night's conversation.

She found him leaning on an oak tree, his white church shirt pressed against the dirty bark. He was talking to Bill Johnson and Doctor Smith, and the air was filled with the sound of their laughter.

He stopped talking as soon as he noticed Agnes approaching him. Holding up the food in his hands, he called out, "These fried green tomatoes taste horrible, Red! Did you make them?"

She ignored his teasing and said, "Can we talk?"

He sobered up and straightened his back. "What's up?"

"We need to talk."

Bill and the doctor, seeing they were unwanted, politely excused themselves. Smith nodded to Agnes on his way past.

"You look troubled," Floyd noted. "What's up?" He finished up his tomato slice and wiped his hands on his trousers. He began to walk towards the edge of the yard where there were no people and gestured for her to follow.

As soon as they were alone, Agnes dove head first into her interrogation.

"Who did Lottie kill and why?"

Floyd reeled back in shock. "Red, what in the world are you talking about?" His eyebrows furrowed and his lips turned down into a deep frown.

"Don't play dumb with me." She jabbed an accusing finger into his chest, an equally upset frown on her lips. "I heard the conversation last night. I know she's not your fiance, but I don't know why. Spill the beans."

He placed his hands on his hips and leaned in close to her face. Through gritted teeth, he said, "What the hell were you doing eavesdropping on our conversation?"

"I'm the one asking the questions! Now tell me what's going on."

In a fit of anger, Floyd shoved her aside and tried to stomp away. Every muscle in his body appeared to be clenched and he was muttering to himself.

Agnes didn't let him get far. She jumped onto his back and wrapped her arms around his neck. This was the move she always used on the rare occasions he made her mad. It was impossible to get her scrawny body off of his. No amount of cursing, flailing, and hitting her against a tree could knock her off; she was a leech that could not be shaken.

They tussled for less than a minute before Floyd gave up. He held his hands in the air and gasped out, "I'll tell you!"

She relinquished her death grip and rolled off his back. She watched intently as he caught his breath. "I just want to know what her story is. Hell is more likely to freeze over than you are to lie, so I want to know what's making you do all this."

"Are you sure you want me to tell you?"

"I wouldn't have asked if I didn't want you to."

He sighed and looked around. "Alright, fine. Let's get closer to the woods; I don't want anybody overhearing this."

She gladly followed him until they were in the shadow of the dense foliage. The closest person was a hundred feet away, and no one was paying them any attention.

"Before I tell you this," he said in a low voice, "I need you to understand that Lottie is not a bad person. She's got a good heart, but bad things keep happening to her."

"I'm not five, so you don't have to sound so patronizing. Just tell me what's going on, and I'll leave you alone."

Floyd continued to shift uneasily, eyes darting around as if he was continuously making sure that no one was listening in. Finally, he sighed.

"I met Lottie about two months ago at a party just off of campus. At the time, her older sister, Catherine, had a lot of connections and was really popular at get-togethers around town. Lottie wasn't a big fan of the whole scene, but Catherine would drag her out. Well, Lottie and I got to talking, and we hit it off pretty quickly. She was interested in the medical field and thought it was neat that I was going to be a doctor. She told me she was never able to get much of an education because she lives with her aunt, who doesn't believe in girls going to school.

"Now, I'm buddies with a guy who is engaged to this girl that was super close to Catherine, and eventually I started going to lunches with the three of them. Catherine's real sweet, but she was kind of dull. Sometimes she would drag Lottie along, so she and I got to be pretty close. I'll admit that from the start I was pretty into her, but she told me right away she wasn't really looking for a man. I was upset, but didn't want to lose her friendship.

"She started to confide in me, and pretty quickly I learned that she was worried about Catherine, who had married a man named Daniel Blackwell. Daniel was about ten years older than her and relatively well liked. The problem was that everyone had the suspicion that he and his brother, Cecil, were involved in shady stuff. Both men could also have quite a temper and were known for their mean streaks. From day one, Lottie said, the Blackwells rubbed her the wrong way and she pleaded with Catherine not to marry into the family. Lottie just knew that something bad was going to happen.

"Lo and behold, about a month and a half after we first met, Lottie shows up at my house in the middle of the night in the poring rain, covered in blood. She was shaking so badly that I was afraid she was going to misfire the pistol she was carrying. I took her inside, got her dried off, and then she started telling me about what had happened. She was clearly traumatized and it took about a whole hour for the story to come out.

"Basically, she had gone to the house Lottie and Daniel shared to drop off some clothes she had borrowed and stumbled in on both the Blackwell brothers beating her sister. From how she described it, Catherine was pretty much dead when she arrived. Long story short, they assaulted Lottie and she ran into the bedroom and grabbed the pistol she knows they keep under the bed. She shot Daniel dead and wounded Cecil pretty bad, though at the time she thought she'd killed them both.

"Cecil's one of those guys who you just knows has connections. He's real shady and Lottie was terrified that he was going to get revenge. She kept insisting I let her turn herself into the police, but I know that would've been just about suicide. I hid her at my place for a few days until I could get ahold of Mama and Papa and make arrangements to bring her down here. If the college hadn't been on break, I don't know what I would've done."

Throughout the entire story Agnes could feel herself deflating. By the end, the only thing she wanted to do was collapse on the ground and curl into a ball. Never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined this. She had thought Lottie had shot a burglar or perhaps a boyfriend with a side fling. This was so much worse.

"I can't believe it," was all she could say.

Floyd placed a firm hand on her shoulder and looked her in the eyes. "Don't tell anyone I told you this," he pleaded. "Mama, Papa, and Franny are the only ones who know about Lottie. She'd be furious if she knew I told you."

"She seemed so normal." Agnes shook her head. She looked to the party-goers, her eyes scanning the crowd for those familiar brown locks.

Floyd grabbed her elbow and began to tug her back towards the gathering. A deep frown troubled his smooth face and his eyes were stormy. "Don't let her know that I told you. Just act like nothing's wrong."

There was no way Agnes was going to be able to act normal.