Shakespeares Counselor Page 0,19

but she didn't appear to be exactly conscious.

"She's not really stuck up there, is she? Like the newspaper clippings?" Firella said after a moment. Of course, the white-and-red display on the wall was what we were really thinking about.

"I don't see how the wall could be soft enough to drive the stake in far enough to actually hold her up." Janet's color was awful, a sort of muddy green.

"I see what you're saying. I'm looking behind the desk." Firella, proving she was tougher than I - I guess years of the school system will do it - stood and peered over the top of the desk.

She abruptly sat down on the floor again.

"I think she's kind of propped up," she reported, "with string around her arms in loops, attached to nails that have been driven into the wall. Her bottom half's kind of sitting on the back of Tamsin's rolling chair. There's a wadded-up doctor coat stuck under the wheels to keep the chair from moving."

I couldn't think of anything to say to that.

"I wonder if one person could fix her that way. Seems like it would take two," Firella said thoughtfully.

"I guess if one person had enough time it could be done," I said, so she wouldn't think I was shucking her off. "That's a lot of preparation. The wedge to keep us out until the scene was set, and the coat to keep the chair from moving."

"I'm worried about Tamsin," Firella said next.

"Me, too." That was easy to agree with. I was wondering if Tamsin was in the therapy room. I was wondering if she was alive.

"Janet, help is coming," I told her, not at all sure she could hear me or understand. "You hang on one minute more." It was true that I could hear sirens. I didn't think I'd ever been happier to know they were coming.

I hadn't talked to my friend Claude Friedrich in a while, and I'd just as soon not have talked to him that night. But since he's the chief of police, and since it was a murder scene in the city limits, there wasn't any way around it.

"Lily," he greeted me. He was using his police voice; heavy, grim, a little threatening.

"Claude." I probably sounded the same way.

"What's happened here tonight?" he rumbled.

"You'll have to tell us," I said. "We got here for our therapy group - "

"You're in therapy?" Claude's eyebrows almost met his graying hair.

"Yes," I said shortly.

"Accepting help," he said, amazement written all over him. "This must be some doing of Jack's."

"Yes."

"And where is he, tonight?"

"On the road."

"Ah. Okay, so you were here for your therapy group. You and these women?"

"Yes."

"A group for ... ?"

A very tall African American woman appeared at Claude's shoulder. Her hair was cut close to her scalp. She was truly almost black, and she was wearing a practical khaki pantsuit with a badge pinned to the lapel. A pale yellow tank top under the jacket shone radiantly against her skin. She had broad features and wore huge blue-framed glasses.

"Alicia, listen to the account of this witness. I know her, she's observant," Claude said.

"Yes, sir." The magnified eyes focused on me.

"Lily, this is Detective Stokes. She's just come to us from the Cleveland force."

"Cleveland, Ohio?" Cleveland, Mississippi wouldn't have been surprising.

"Yep."

Alicia Stokes would have to be classified as a mystery.

Focusing on the more pertinent problem, I explained to Claude and Detective Stokes that we were a group composed of rape survivors, that we met every Tuesday night at the health center, that we were led by a woman who was missing and might be somewhere in the building.

"Tamsin Lynd," said Stokes unexpectedly.

I stared at her. "Yes," I said slowly. "Tamsin Lynd."

"I knew it," the detective said to herself, so swiftly and in such a low voice that I wasn't sure I'd understood her correctly.

Stokes turned to a man in uniform and gave him some quick orders. He stared back at her, resentment all over his face and in his posture, but then he turned to obey. I shook my head. Stokes had her work cut out for her.

She caught the headshake and glared at me. I don't know how she interpreted my reaction, but she definitely didn't want sympathy.

Claude made a "go-on" gesture, so I went on to explain how we hadn't been able to get in, had finally managed to do so, what we had found. I was glad to see the ambulance team taking Janet out, before I'd finished my account.

Stokes, who