No Dominion The Walker Papers - By CE Murphy Page 0,2
man’s head. I waved it off, tryin’ not to feel too pleased. “College ball, back before it turned into a media fest. It’s all about money and glory now.”
“It didn’t used to be?”
“Nah.” I gave her my best grin. “Used ta be about glory and girls.”
She laughed, which was a whole lot better than the tight face and almost-crying from a minute ago. Feelin’ better about myself, I headed for the church—big A-framed thing, nothin’ like the one-room plain wood church I went to when I was a kid—but the fare took off down the parking lot. I bellowed, “Thought your dame was inside!”
“Well, I hope she is! I just want to make sure there’s no blood.”
“Blood?” I’d been teasing about a corpse, but I sure as hell didn’t really want to see one. I bet Joanne didn’t either, even if she was hell bent for leather trying to find one.
“If the guy with the knife caught her—”
“What guy with a knife?” This was gettin’ a whole lot more serious than it had seemed five minutes ago. I followed the fare down the parking lot, where she was lookin’ over the cement. “You didn’t mention nobody with a knife.”
“Didn’t I? I said somebody was chasing the woman—”
“You said somebody was in trouble. You didn’t say nothin’ about a knife!”
“Oh. Well, there was a knife. A guy with a knife, and he was good, graceful with it, like he’d learned to use it on the street.”
She didn’t look crazy. She looked kinda like a supermodel, with the long legs and arms and a kinda big nose that made her interestin’ instead of gorgeous. I guessed nobody said supermodels couldn’t be nuts, though, and if she thought she’d seen all that, a woman and a guy after her and a knife, from a plane, then I figured she was nuts. “Lady, you better have 20/200 vision or something.”
She stood up from surveilling the parking lot. “I wear contacts.”
“Yeah, well, get ‘em checked, ‘cause you mighta seen a guy from a plane, but you missed the tooth fairy’s visit.” I stomped past her to prod a bloody tooth another fifteen feet away.
Joanne said “Ew,” which was pretty fastidious for a dame lookin’ for a corpse. She came past me, looked over the ground, and pointed. “Somebody got cut, too. There’s spatter like blood off a knife.”
“From your dame in the church.”
“Maybe. I hope not.”
“Lady, if your broad’s in the church, what’re we doin’ lookin’ around out here?”
She wrinkled her nose, and kinda hopefully said “The light’s better over here?”
I couldn’t help but grin. “That joke was old an’ dumb when I was a kid, doll.” I threw her a quarter and we both went into the church.
It was worse inside than out. There was nothing homey about the place, nothing welcoming. Christ on the cross hung up there like an accusation above a plain white pulpit and an altar that looked big enough to sacrifice a bull on. Joanne tip-toed like she was afraid to make any sound on the hardwood floors. Me, I wasn’t so fussy. A house of God had to be either older than me or have some heart to get respect. I stomped along behind her, making extra sure be noisy and off-set her quiet.
There wasn’t a soul in the place besides the two of us, though, which didn’t seem too positive for the broad she’d seen. She caught my eye, and, looking none-too-happy about it, said, “I don’t know. I thought she’d be here. Hello? Hello?”
Turned out the church had one thing going for it: great acoustics. Joanne’s voice bounced to the rafters and rang around up there. She looked up like she could see the words themselves. “Wow. I’d love to sing in here.”
“You sing?” Dunno why it surprised me. She just didn’t seem like the singing type, not with the crazy gotta-save-the-girl thing she had going on.
She shrugged. “I don’t scare the horses.”
The way she said it made me think she probably had a great set of pipes and didn’t like admitting she was proud of it. People were funny like that. No skin off my nose either way. I took a look under the pews. “Yeah, well, maybe you can sing yourself up a dame, ‘cause there’s nobody here, Jo.”
Her spine stiffened like somebody’d pushed an iron rod up it. “Nobody calls me that but my dad.”
“Yeah? What, did he want a boy?”
“Not exactly.”
Compared to that, the scarin’ the horses tone of voice had been