I drive south on Main Street to Vivian’s address. When I find her apartment, I knock but she doesn’t answer. Same response when I try to roust a neighbor. I leave my card under Vivian’s door and write a note, asking her to call me.
On my way through town heading north, I pass the police station. I realize I never thanked Ewing for getting me through security earlier. I can hardly believe it, but a part of me feels bad. Is it possible I’ve been too hard on him? Maybe the backlash he helped deliver was reflexive loyalty to an old friend he’d worked with for years.
It doesn’t make it right, but the fact is he demonstrated civility. I throw my blinker on, turn right, and park on the side street. If it provesto be another ill-fated impulsive decision, at least I’ll be making it with good intentions. For a change.
Allison is at the reception desk. “Hey,” she greets me. “Howareyou?”
“Hanging in there.”
It’s been three days since I showed up with Wallace to report this lunacy. In some ways, they have to be the longest days of my life; in others, they have to be the shortest, the days hurtling along to the killer’s zero hour.
“Are you guys any closer to catching this guy?” she asks. “I heard a couple of agents have flown in from the Salt Lake City field office.”
“They’re working on it. The whole thing is so bizarre.”
“I know. And the news—my God, hon, you are all over it. The latest, with your car. What wasthatabout? I called you, but you didn’t pick up.”
“I know. I’ve just been so, well, crazed.”
“Well, yeah.” She gives me a concerned look.
“I’ll explain when it’s all over. We’ll get lunch soon.”
I want to add,Because you look like you could use some food. Allison was always trying a new diet, even though she didn’t need one. Apparently, she’s now succeeding at shedding the pounds, maybe a little too skeletal. A part of me worries that she has the same disease her sister had, Huntington’s chorea, she had called it, and said she would test at some point to see if she had the gene for it. I’ll need to ask her about it when the madness of this week has passed.IfI’m still around to ask.
“Is Ewing in?”
“Ewing?” She blinks at that, as she well might. “In his office. Want me to ring him?”
“Sure. Tell him it’ll only take a sec.”
I hear her checking in with him, and soon Sergeant Ross escorts me back as he did a few days ago. Ewing stands as I enter.
“What’s going on? You get him?”
“No, afraid not,” I say. “He’s the one that wrote on my car. And my sister’s. I guess taking advantage of the circus to scare me off a case.”
“So what can I do for you now?”
He’s clearly aware he’s done me one single favor. It doesn’t begin to make up for everything else, but it probably does in his pea brain.
“I came by to thank you for getting me in. I appreciate it. Given the status of our relationship? You know? You didn’t need to do that.”
“You’re welcome.” He sighs loudly. He lays his hand flat on his desk as if he’s thinking carefully about what he wants to say next. “Look, Mitchell, what happened with Hartley—it was confusing. He was my partner for years. I felt like I owed him. But what happened to you, if what you say is true—well, it’s not like I condone that.”
“You didn’t just condone it. You went to bat for him. You encouraged everyone here”—I gesture around us—“to wear black armbands to protest against me before you even considered whether what I said was true.”
“I was angry. I didn’t believe you. I thought you were being overdramatic. As I said, he was my partner, my buddy. And, you know. The code.”
“The code.” I roll my eyes. The toxic code.Always protect your fellow officer, at all costs. Loyalty is everything.Corruption sprouts easily with that kind of fertilizer. “Can’t say I miss that.” The energy I find in saying this to his face has its own power, like the snap of a towel. It makes me realize that it’s the real reason for coming, to voice my feelings and not only to thank him.
“I felt like it wasn’t that big of a deal. Like, you know, so what? He’d had a few too many and got sloppy with you. I didn’t think you needed to blow it out of proportion. He’s older, and he grew up in a different culture than you. I felt like there needs to be some give-and-take in the gray areas of personal interactions or we’re all going to go crazy.”
“Trust me, that’s what I told myself, too, even though I shouldn’t havehadto tell myself that. I did anyway, though, figured I’d live with it, right up until Lilly Wickes told me about what happened to her.”
“I know. That’s what I’m trying to tell you here. Now that I’ve had time to think it through, I get it. And now, well, now I realize I owe you an apology.”
I stare in disbelief.
