Blood Rites (The Dresden Files #6) - Jim Butcher Page 0,93

begging food from anyone who seemed to have some. The air smelled like charcoal, mesquite, and insect repellent, and buzzed with happy chatter.

I stood there for a minute, watching the festivities. Spotting Murphy in a crowd of a couple of hundred people wasn't easy. I tried to be methodical, sweeping the area with my gaze from left to right. I didn't spot Murphy, but as I stood there it occurred to me that a bruised and battered man better than six and a half feet tall in a black leather duster didn't exactly blend in with the crowd at the Murphy picnic. A couple of the men around the television had spotted me with the kind of attention that made me think that they were with the law.

Another man walking by with a white Styrofoam cooler on one shoulder noticed the men at the television and followed their gaze to me. He was in his mid-thirties and about an inch or two over average height. His brown hair was cut short, as was a neatly cropped goatee. He had the kind of build that dangerous men seem to develop—not enormous, pretty muscle, but the kind of lean sinew that indicated speed and endurance as well as strength. And he was a cop. Don't ask me how I could tell—it was just something about the way he held himself, the way he kept track of his surroundings.

He promptly changed course, walked up to me, and said, "Hey, there."

"Hey," I said.

His tone was overtly friendly, but I could taste the suspicion in it. "Mind if I ask what you're doing here?"

I didn't have time for this crap. "Yes."

He dropped the fake friendliness. "Listen, buddy. This is a family get-together. Maybe you could find another part of the park to stand around looking foreboding."

"Free country," I said. "Public park."

"Which has been reserved by the Murphy family for the day," he said. "Look, buddy, you're scaring the kids. Walk."

"Or you'll call the cops?" I asked.

He set the cooler down and squared off facing me, just barely far enough away to avoid a sucker punch. He looked relaxed, too. He knew what he was doing. "I'll do you a favor and call the ambulance first."

By this time we were getting more attention from the football fans. I was frustrated enough to be tempted to push him a little bit more, but there was no sense in it. I assumed that the cops in the family were off today, but if I got beaten up someone might call in and find out about Emma's death. That was a good way to get bogged down in a holding cell and dead.

The guy faced me with confidence, even though I had a head and shoulders on him and outweighed him by forty or fifty pounds. He knew if anything happened, he'd have a ton of help.

Must be a nice feeling.

I lifted a hand by way of capitulation. "I'll go. I just need to speak to Karrin Murphy for a moment. Business."

His expression flickered with surprise that was quickly hidden. "Oh." He looked around. "Over there," he said. "She's reffing the soccer game."

"Thanks."

"Sure," the man said. "You know, it wouldn't kill you to be a little more polite."

"Why take chances," I muttered, turning my back on him and heading over to the makeshift soccer field. There were a bunch of rugrats too big for playground equipment and too young for pimples playing with what could kindly be construed as abundant enthusiasm while a few motherly types looked on. But I didn't see Murphy.

I began to turn around and start another sweep. At this rate I would have to ask someone for directions.

"Harry?" Murphy's voice called from behind me.

I turned around. My jaw dropped open. I was lucky none of the kids kicked their soccer ball into my exposed uvula. It took me a minute to stammer, "You're wearing a dress."

She glowered up at me. Murphy wasn't going to qualify under anyone's definition of willowy or svelte, but she had the build of a gymnast—tough, flexible, and strong. Generally speaking, being five-nothing, a hundred and nothing, and female had made her professional life less than pleasant, including getting her landed in charge of Special Investigations—a post that was the career equivalent to being exiled to the Bastille, or maybe left out for the ants.

Murphy had excelled at her new job, much to the distress of the folks who had gotten her put there. Partly, to be sure, because she had