“Yes.”
“Can you think of anybody else she could have given up?” Lucas asked.
“Well, Natalie...”
“She didn’t do that. Anyone else?”
She couldn’t think of anyone.
—
THEIR SON,Doug, had taken a chair in a corner and had listened to the conversation, and when Marilyn Campbell said she had no more to give, Lucas turned to him and said, “Tell me what you did this morning.”
“I’m still kinda scared,” he said.
“That’s normal. Sounds to me like you did a heck of a job,” Lucas said.
Doug Campbell told about being awakened by his mother’s screams, about rolling off the bed, about getting the gun, about loading up the rifle, about going to the balcony above the living room and opening up on the man and woman who were hurting his mother, and about chasing them out of the house and down the road.
Lucas: “They never fired a gun at you?”
Doug shook his head and said, “No...” but then touched his lips and said, “Oh my God. They did. I never thought about it—the guy shot his gun. I think, only one time.”
“At you?”
Doug frowned. “Sort of at me. Didn’t hit me or anything. Might have hit the house.”
He didn’t know for sure if he’d hit either of the killers, but thought he might have shot the woman in the butt. “She was trying to get away and I was tracking her with the gun, but I couldn’t keep up, but this one shot, she sorta... jumped... and I think I might have hit her.”
Andy reached over and scrubbed his kid on the head: “I’m proud of you, Dougie.”
Marilyn jumped in: “You know what? I thought of another name... another person, anyway, who Margery Poole might have known.” She looked at her husband and asked, “What was the name of that guy that came up to John’s party, the guy from down in Alabama? The farmer guy with the cowboy hat? He had a nice wife, I remember. I think her name was Janice.”
Andy turned his head to one side and squinted out the window, thinking, then said, “I can’t... was it Steve?”
Marilyn shook her head. “Not Steve, but like that... it was something a little unusual.” They stared at each other for a moment, then Andy snapped his fingers and said, “Sturgill? Was it Sturgill? Like the country singer?”
Marilyn pointed a finger at him: “Yes. I think it was. I don’t remember his last name.”
Andy said to Lucas, “John told us that Sturgill and Gar were ‘asshole buddies.’ Those were his words. He said that Sturgill had never been arrested for anything, though. He was more of a thinker.”
Lucas thought,Ah.
He needed to talk with Sturgill.
—
A COUPLE OF MINUTES LATER,a Franklin deputy chief showed up and introduced himself as Chuck Lamy, the head of the Criminal Investigation Division. He said to Lucas, “We oughta talk, if you got a minute.”
“I’m pretty much done here,” Lucas said. “Let’s find a place to sit.”
—
MARILYN CAMPBELLhad told him that her leg had been stabilized by an orthopod when she came into the emergency room that morning, but that she’d be undergoing another procedure in the next day or two to repair her lower leg bone. She wouldn’t be back home for several days.
Lucas said good-bye, and Lamy led him to the hospital café, where they got coffee. As they sat down, Lucas said, “Before we do anything else... would I talk to you or the TBI about getting a pen register on Miz Campbell’s room phone?”
“We can do that, if you tell me why,” Lamy said.
