Verdict in Blood - By Gail Bowen Page 0,22

finally figured that there was a cheaper, better alternative to prison, and she was prepared to use her chequebook so that other people could figure it out too.”

“But she withdrew her offer of financial support,” Hilda said.

Wayne J. gripped the arms of his chair. Until that moment, I hadn’t noticed how big his hands were. They were huge, and they were taut with the effort to maintain control. “God damn it, she didn’t withdraw the offer,” he said furiously. “She just decided to fucking reconsider.”

The rage in his voice was a shock; so were his eyes, which had darkened terrifyingly. The Old Spice and the self-deprecating chuckle had lulled me, but there was no disputing the fact that only an act of will was preventing the man in front of me from springing out of my grandmother’s chair and smashing everything in sight. My grandmother would have said I had been six kinds of fool to invite Wayne J. Waters into my house, and she would have been right. I began to run through strategies to get him out of the house. Just when I’d decided that none seemed workable, the storm passed.

Wayne J. hung his head in an attitude of abject apology. “Sorry about the language, ladies,” he said. “It’s just that there were so many people pushing Justine to ‘withdraw’ her offer. Miss McCourt, I don’t know if she had a chance to tell you this the other night, but since Justine decided to support Culhane House, people have been lining up to tell her how crazy she is – was.” He made a fist with one hand and pounded it repeatedly into the palm of his other hand. It was the same gesture he’d made when no one answered the door the day he went to Justine’s house on Leopold Crescent. “They tried to tell her she was losing it because she was getting old, but she wasn’t losing it, she was finding it.” He looked at me. His eyes were black and mesmerizing. “Does that make sense?”

Almost against my will, I found myself agreeing. “Yes,” I said. “It makes sense.”

“Good,” he said. “Because no matter what people said, Justine was with the people at Culhane House 110 per cent.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Absolutely trustworthy,” I said.

He didn’t blink. “Except for that last night, absolutely.”

When Wayne J. left, I followed him out. I’d decided to skip the meeting at the Faculty Club and concentrate my efforts on getting to the university in time for my first class. I backed the Volvo down the driveway, but as I turned onto the street, Wayne J. came over. I cranked down my window.

“I forgot to say thanks,” he said.

“For what?”

“For letting me into your house. A lot of ladies wouldn’t have had the balls.” He realized what he’d said and grimaced. “Whoa,” he said, “that didn’t come out right.”

“I took it as a compliment,” I said.

He touched an imaginary cap. “That’s how I meant it.”

I got to the university just in time to run to the Political Science office to check my mail and pick up my class lists. Rosalie Norman, our departmental administrative assistant, was lying in wait. She was dressed in her inevitable twin sweater set, this time the colour of dried mustard. As it had been every morning since I’d come to work at the university, Rosalie’s greeting was minatory.

“It helps to let me know ahead of time if you’re not going to show up for a meeting. That way I don’t order extra at the Faculty Club.”

Wayne J. Waters might have seen me as a lady with balls, but dealing with Rosalie always unmanned me. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Something came up at home. I hope you were able to find someone to eat my bran muffin.” I looked down at my class list for Political Science 110. There were 212 students registered, twice as many as usual. I held it out to her. “Rosalie, something’s wrong with this list.”

She didn’t even favour it with a glance. Instead, she tapped her watch. “Well, you’re going to work it out yourself. When a person decides to come late, she can’t expect the rest of us to pick up the pieces.”

The day continued to run smoothly. My hope that the problem on my list was clerical rather than actual was dashed as soon as I walked into my classroom. More than two hundred students were jammed into a space with desks for a hundred. A computer