"Bet that was Freemount," I said. "She's still pissed about a case we worked together."
He nodded, smiling pleasantly. "The fed sort of hinted that if you were detained, he might find a reason to have the local federal office to come take a look around."
I smiled. "Bet you really enjoyed that."
His brown eyes went hard and dark. "I don't want the feebies down here messing in my pond."
"I'll bet you don't, Wilkes."
His face tightened, letting me see just how angry he was. "What the f**k do you care?"
I leaned across the table on my elbows. "You should be more careful who you do a frame-up job on, Wilkes."
"He's a f**king junior high science teacher. How was I supposed to know he was shacking up with the f**king Executioner?"
"We're not shacking up," I said automatically. I sat back in my seat. "What do you want, Wilkes? Why the private talk?"
He ran his hand through his salt-and-pepper hair, and for the first time, I realized how nervous he was. He was scared. Why? What the hell was happening in this tiny town?
"If the rape charges disappear, Zeeman is free to leave town. You and everybody go with him. No harm, no foul."
A sport's metaphor -- ooh, I was all a-tingle. "I didn't come down here to sniff around your mess, Wilkes. I'm not a cop. I came down here to get Richard out of trouble."
"He's out of trouble if he leaves."
"I'm not his keeper, Wilkes. I can't promise what Richard will do."
"Why does a schoolteacher have bodyguards?" Wilkes asked.
I shrugged. "Why do you want the schoolteacher out of the way bad enough to frame him for rape?"
"We've all got our secrets, Blake. You make sure he leaves town and takes his assassins with him, and we can all keep our secrets."
I looked at my hands spread on the smooth tabletop. I looked back up, met his eyes. "I'll talk to Richard, see what I can do. But I can't promise anything until after I've talked to him."
"Make him listen, Blake. Zeeman is so clean he squeaks, but you and I know the score."
I shook my head. "Yeah, I know the score, and I know what people say about me." I stood up.
He stood up. We looked at each other.
"I don't always pay attention to the letter of the law, that's true. One of the reasons Richard and I aren't dating anymore is that he is so f**king squeaking clean it makes my teeth hurt. But we have one thing in common."
"What's that?" Wilkes asked.
"Push us, and we push back. Richard usually for moral grounds, because it's the right thing to do. Me, because I am just that unpleasant."
"Unpleasant," Wilkes said. "Mel Cooper may never walk right again or have the full use of his left arm."
"He shouldn't have pulled a knife on me," I said.
"If there hadn't been witnesses, would you have killed him?"
I smiled, and even to me, it felt like a strange smile, not humorous, unpleasant maybe. "I'll talk to Richard. Hopefully, we'll be out of your hair before tomorrow night."
"I wasn't always a small-town cop, Blake. Don't let the surroundings fool you. I will not let you and your people f**k with me."
"Funny," I said. "I was thinking the very same thing."