Shakespeares Champion Page 0,28

race. I thought about the ugly scrawl on Deedra's car. I thought about Tom David Meicklejohn's scarcely concealed glee that September night in the parking lot. I remembered glimpsing, through the windows of the limousine following the hearse, Mary Lee Elgin's face as the funeral cortege passed by. And then, banal in its wrong-headedness, but no less vicious for its banality, the sheet of blue paper under Claude's windshield wiper.

Surely it was stretching credulity to think that Del Packard's death in the gym was totally unrelated to the deaths of Darnell Glass and Len Elgin. How could three men be done to death in a town the size of Shakespeare in a space of two months and the killings all be mysterious? If Darnell Glass had been knifed behind a local bar during a fight over a girl, if Len Elgin had been shot in Erica Moore's bed, if Del had been in the habit of lifting alone and maybe had some undiagnosed physical weakness...

I was making another circuit by the apartments. I looked up at Claude's window, thinking sadly about the man inside. Would I change my mind about what I'd said, given another chance? I was genuinely fond of Claude, and grateful to him, and he had a lot on his shoulders.

But that was his chosen job. And Darnell Glass's death had taken place in the county, so that investigation was Sheriff Marty Schuster's headache. I didn't know too much about the sheriff, except that he was good at politicking and was a Vietnam veteran. I wondered if Schuster could calm the rising storm that was rattling Shakespeare's windows.

I had to walk another hour before I could sleep.

Chapter Four

I woke up and looked out at sheets of rain, a chilly autumnal gray rain. I'd slept a little late since I'd had such a hard time getting to bed the night before. I'd have to hurry to make it to Body Time. Before I dressed, I poured myself a cup of coffee and drank it at the kitchen table, the morning paper unopened beside me. I had a lot to think about.

I worked out without talking to anyone. I drove home feeling a lot better.

I showered, dressed, put on my makeup, and fluffed my hair.

I wondered if the black-haired man had been out walking in the night, too.

As my car lurched slowly along the driveway that led to the back of the small Shakespeare Clinic, an uninspiring yellow brick office structure dating from the early sixties, I was betting that Carrie Thrush would be working today.

Sure enough, Carrie's aging white Subaru was in its usual place behind the building. I used my key and called "Hi!" down the hall. Carrie's clinic was depressing. The walls were painted an uninspiring tan and the floors were covered with a pitted brown linoleum. There wasn't enough money yet for renovation. The doctor had massive debts to pay off.

Carrie's answer came floating back, and I stepped into the doorway of her office. The best thing you could say about Carrie's office was that it was large enough. She did a lot of scut work herself, to save money to pay back the loans that had gotten her through med school. The doctor was in black denims and a rust-red sweater. Carrie is short, rounded, pale, and serious, and she hasn't had a date in the two years since she's come to Shakespeare.

For one thing, she's all too likely to be interrupted in any free time she might manage. Then, too, men are intimidated by Carrie's calm intelligence and competence. At least that was what I figured.

"Anything interesting happen this week?" she asked, as if she wanted to take her mind off the heap of paper. She shoved her brown chin-length hair behind her ears, resettled her glasses on her snub nose. Her beautiful brown eyes were magnified many times by the lenses.

"Becca Whitley, the niece, is living in Pardon's apartment," I said, after some thought. "The man who's taken Del Packard's place at Winthrop Sporting is living in Norvel Whitbread's old apartment. And Marcus Jefferson moved out in a hurry after the Deedra Dean car-painting incident." I'd seen the U-Haul trailer attached to Marcus's car the morning before.

"That was probably a good move," Carrie said. "Sad though that state of affairs is."

I tried to think of other items of interest. "I ate out in Montrose with the chief of police," I told her. Carrie hungered for something frivolous after being a sober,