Shakespeares Counselor Page 0,49

face became hard as she listened, and the fire burned hotter in her eyes. "I'll be there," she said abruptly. The phone went back into the depths of her purse. "Take me to Tamsin Lynd's house," she said.

So she'd walked to my place. As I grabbed my keys, I looked back at the detective. Oddly, Stokes looked almost happy - or at least, less angry.

"Is Tamsin all right?" I asked, venturing onto shaky ground.

"Oh, yes, little Miss Counselor is just fine. It's her husband, Cliff, who's hurting." Stokes was positively grinning.

I could find out what had happened without leaving my car, as it turned out. Cliff was on the lawn bleeding, and the ambulance attendants were bent over him, when we arrived within three minutes of the call.

"Stay here," Alicia ordered, so I sat in the car and watched. I think her goal had been to keep me out of the crime scene, or the situation, whatever it was. If she'd been thinking straight, instead of being so intent on the scene, she would've sent me home. What did she need me for, now that I'd provided transportation?

It wasn't too hard to read the evidence. Cliff's leg was gashed and bleeding, as they say, profusely. In fact, the medics had cut away his pants leg. I could see that one of the steps going up to the side door of the house, the door nearest the garage, was missing its top. Splintered wood painted the same color as the other step was lying on the ground.

Well, this could have been an accident. Hefty man meets weak board. Cliff's leg could have gone through the step, scraping his shin in the process. However, that wouldn't really fit the facts. The leg was gashed, not scraped; I could see that much, more clearly than I really wanted to. And surely, for that kind of ordinary accident, one wouldn't call an ambulance.

Someone tapped on my window, making me almost jump out of my skin. It was the new policeman, Officer... there was his nametag, McClanahan. I lowered the window and waited.

"Ma'am? You need to move on," he said apologetically. He laid his hand on the door. He was wearing a heavy gold ring, and he tapped it against the car door as he stared off at the paramedics' activities.

I looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time. He wasn't tall, or fat, or pumped, or handsome. In fact, he was a plain pale man with freckles and red hair, a narrow mouth, and light green eyes that were much the color of a Coke bottle. But there was intelligence there, and assurance, too, and then there was the odd coincidence of his always being at hand whenever I was with Detective Stokes.

"Then you will have to tell Detective Stokes that you told me to go home, since she told me to stay right here," I said.

We took each other's measure.

"Oh, really," he said.

"Really."

"Lily Bard, isn't it?"

"You know who I am?" People never looked at me in the same way once they knew. There was always some added element there: pity, or horror, or a kind of prurient wonder - sometimes even disgust. Curiosity, too. McClanahan was one of the curious ones.

"Yes. Why did the detective ask you to wait here?"

"I have no idea." I suspected she'd just plain forgotten she didn't need me any more, but I held the knowledge to myself.

He turned away.

"Where are you from?"

It was his turn to jump. "I haven't lived here long," he said noncommittally. His bottle green eyes were steady and calm.

"You're not..." But I had to stop. To say, "You're not an ordinary cop," would be unbearably patronizing, but it was true that Officer McClanahan was out of the general run of small town cop. He wasn't from around here; he wasn't from below the Mason-Dixon Line at all, or I'd lost my ear completely. Granted, the accents I heard every day were far more watered down than the ones I'd heard in my youth; a mobile population and television were taking care of that.

"Yes, ma'am?" He waited, looking faintly amused.

"I'll leave," I said, and started the car. I had lost my taste for sparring with this man. "If Detective Stokes needs me to come back, I'll be at home."

"Not working today?"

"No."

"No cleaning jobs?"

"No."

"Been ill?" He seemed curious, mildly amused.

"I lost a baby," I said. I knew I was trying to erase "Lily Bard, the victim" from his mental pigeonhole, but replacing