Shakespeares Counselor Page 0,47

I was feeling gloomy. Jack would be spending some nights in Little Rock next week. He had rented a room in his friend Roy Costimiglia's house, the room vacated by Roy's son when he'd gotten married the year b t ,;e. Jack could come and go as he pleased and not bother with renting an apartment, so the arrangement suited him perfectly. I'd known when Jack moved in with me that he would have to stay in Little Rock some of the time. I just hadn't counted on missing him.

"Sure," I said. "Listen, did you find out anything else about Saralynn's murder?" Jack and Claude had shared a beer the night before while Carrie and I talked. Claude had kind of taken to Jack, since there were few people in town he could talk to freely. Jack, an outsider experienced in law enforcement and married to a woman who didn't gossip, was heaven-sent to Claude.

"I don't think they're making any progress on the case," Jack said, "though maybe I'm reading in between the lines. And the new detective - well, everyone except the new guy, McClanahan, has come to Claude to complain about her. Too Yankee, too black, too tough."

"You'd think they'd want a fellow officer to be tough."

"Not if she's a woman, apparently. She ought to be able to back them up on the street, but then she ought to let them take the lead in everything else. And she ought not to want to be promoted as much as they do, because they deserve it more, having a wife and children to support."

"Oh," I said, enlightened.

"Right."

"You think she's crippled as a police officer, down here?"

Jack mulled this over, as he brushed back his hair and secured it at the nape of his neck.

"No, but she'll have to try like seven times as hard as a guy, and probably twice as hard as a Southern white woman," Jack said. "I'm glad I'm not in her shoes."

That very day, who should drop by to see me but Detective Alicia Stokes. I opened the door, hoping I didn't look as surprised as I felt. Instead of her career clothes, Stokes was looking good in walking shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt, serious walking shoes instead of sandals at the end of her long legs.

"You feeling better?" Stokes asked, but not as if she actually cared.

"I'm fine," I said with equal enthusiasm.

"I need to talk to you."

"Okay." I stood back and let her into the (by now) spotless little house. "Would you like a Coke?" Letting Jack do the grocery buying had had its consequences. He had gotten a bag of Cheetos, too.

"Sure."

"What kind?"

She stared at me.

"You said Coke. That's what I want."

I didn't bother explaining that I called all soft drinks "Coke," like most Southerners. I just got her some. I didn't often drink carbonated drinks, but I joined her in a glass. Once I'd gotten her settled in a chair, and had satisfied the dictates of hospitality, I asked Alicia Stokes what I could do for her.

"You can tell me what you think about Tamsin Lynd."

"Why do you care what I think?"

"Because everyone in the damn town says you are the one to ask."

I found that inexplicable. But it seemed to me that it would look like I was being falsely modest if I asked for her to tell me more about that, so I shrugged and told her I hardly knew Tamsin well.

"And she's your counselor?"

"Yep."

"Because you were raped."

"Yes."

"All right. What kind of job do you think she's doing?"

"A pretty good one."

"How do you figure that?"

I said carefully, "Those of us who weren't talking at the beginning are talking now. I don't know how she did it, and maybe she didn't have a lot to do with it at all, but it's a fact that we're all dealing with what happened to us, in some way or another." There, hadn't I put that well?

"You think I'd fit in the group?"

"No."

"Why not? Cause I'm Yankee? Cause I'm black?"

"Tamsin's a Yankee. Firella is black."

"Then why?"

"Because you haven't been raped."

"How do you know that?"

I shook my head. "You wouldn't have to worry about fitting in with the counseling group if you had been raped." And that mark just wasn't on her, though I wasn't about to say that. She'd ask me how I knew, and I just couldn't tell her. The mark was not on her.

"So, in your opinion, how can I get close to this woman?"

"Why do you want to?"

"I need to