P Deutermann - The Cat Dancers

“So he didn’t actually go with her?”

Frank shrugged. “It was Arnold. He’s a second-year probationer, just off his tour at the LEC. She was a judge. He did what he was told.”

“And then?”

“The outside deputy was Merriweather. He got the word, saw the backyard spotlights come on, saw the judge walk across the drive, heading back toward the garage. He said his night vision was shot to hell by all the spots, so he drifted back toward the front wall to get some trees between him and the house. Heard the garage doors go up, thinks he heard the car start, then doesn’t remember anything after that. The EmTs say he got hit with a piece of the roof. They’re fixing to transport him now.”

“Badly injured?”

“Whacked in the head,” Frank said. “Who the hell knows.”

“And Arnold?”

“Physically, he’s fine,” Frank said pointedly, giving Cam a look that said, Don’t go out there and beat up on him for not going with Annie to the garage. Because if he had…

“Okay, okay,” Cam said. “He didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Yeah, that’s how we see it right now. If anything, they should have had the outside guy go look in the garage, make sure there were no bad guys lurking in there. Of course they’d never have seen this coming.”

“I should have,” Cam said. “They did this before.”

“They’? “What’re you talking about?”

“Diversion. The night they shot up the house. One guy in the alley, making noise, while the shooter pulls up front and pops the real cap. Same deal here. They deliver a fake bomb, we go off on it, find out it’s a fake, stand down. Then the real deal. Plus, the bomb squad swept the house, but none of the other buildings.”

“I don’t know, Cam,” Frank said after a moment. Cam thought Frank was being obtuse, but then he realized that he was still looking for someone to blame-that is, besides himself. “Whoever did this couldn’t have known she’d want to go out for a drive on the spur of the moment.”

“Depends on who it is and how well he knew Annie,” Cam said. He’d meant to say “the judge.” He hesitated, but Frank was a totally straight-ahead guy. “I-we-thought we were keeping what we had going… well, something of a secret.”

Frank looked down at the grass for a moment. “Probably not, Cam,” he said. “This ain’t the LAPD, you know? I mean, hell, there was nothing improper about it. You’d been married before. Most of your friends thought it was probably a good thing-for both of you.”

“You think this”-Cam pointed with his chin to the smoldering remains of the three-car garage-“was about her decision to dismiss on the minimart?”

Frank’s face settled back into a professional mask. “I have no fucking idea what this was about, Cam,” he said. “You do understand that you can’t work this one, right? Plus, this is most definitely for the feds.”

Cam nodded. Then he said he needed to go over to that darkened ambulance. Frank gave him an appraising look and then nodded, but they went together.

The ambulance’s emergency lights were dark, but the medical examiner’s staff people were there. One of them recognized Cam and nudged the other people. They closed the back doors and stood back as Cam approached. Hell’s bells, he thought, who hadn’t known?

They reached the side of the vehicle and Frank left Cam alone after signaling the ME’s people to back on out. Cam knew he wasn’t going to open those back doors. The lights were on inside the unit, but he didn’t dare look inside, either. Keep what you got, Cam, he told himself, remembering Frank’s words. He just stood there for what seemed like a very long time, leaning his head on the boxy white sides of the ambulance. The metal was cool against his forehead, and the sounds of the crime-scene activities faded behind him. A part of his mind sensed that he might be going into shock. Then suddenly, Bobby Lee was there, putting his arm around him and walking him firmly away from that ambulance and the mortal remains of Annie Bellamy.

They took Cam home about two hours later. One of the county hospital doctors who tended to the Sheriff’s Office gave him some pills, and Bobby Lee stood there to make sure that he took one, and only then did he allow Cam to be driven home. There were no lights on in the house when they arrived, and the deputy offered to go in and light the place up. Cam told him no, he preferred darkness right now. He let himself in, thanked the guy for the ride, and was shucking his tie when he discovered that Kenny Cox was sitting there in his darkened living room, the two-German shepherds flanking his chair comfortably. Cam realized then that he’d seen Kenny’s pickup truck out front when the cruiser dropped him off but that it simply hadn’t registered. Not much was registering right at the moment, and he knew that pill was beginning to take effect.

“I take it you heard,” Cam said, peeling off his gun belt and turning on some more lights. There must have been something in his voice modulating the combination of fatigue, hurt, loss, and whatever meds the doc had given him, because Kenny didn’t get up. Cam thought he saw the glint of a glass in Kenny’s hand, and then he heard the tinkle of ice cubes. Cam wanted a drink right then, too, but the doc had told him in no uncertain terms: no booze with these pills. He flopped down into one of the living room chairs and stared at nothing.

“I came to make sure you were okay,” Kenny said.

“I’m not okay,” Cam said. “Not even close, although this pill is starting to work. Surprised the hell out of me, to tell the truth.” The two shepherds, well used to Kenny, heard the pain in Cam’s voice and quickly surrounded him, pressing noses into his hands and making small noises.

“Didn’t know you loved her.”

Cam smiled in the darkness and told his dogs to lie down. “ Love ’s too strong a word,” he said. “But-”

“Yeah,” Kenny said. “‘But.’ I hear you.”

“I hear myself,” Cam said. “It’s baffling the shit out of me.”

“Another thing I’ve heard,” Kenny said finally, “is that you think cops are doing this shit.”

“Doing what shit?” Cam asked somewhat disingenously. There was a warm fog at the edge of his brain. C’mon, fog, he thought.

“The chair. The threatening messages to the judge. Now this bombing. Killing Annie Bellamy.”

Fucking Kenny, Cam thought. The consummate ear to the ground. Calling her Annie, too, like they’d been big buddies. He closed his eyes and didn’t say anything. He realized he was that tired, and, in addition, the blessed fog was gaining ground.

“Do you?”

“It’s possible, Kenny,” Cam said. “The threats, the bombing-all that would require access, the kind of access cops have.”

“You think maybe I’m one of them?”

“Of course not,” Cam said quickly. Maybe too quickly, he thought. “It’s been a bad night, Kenny,” he said. “And I’ve got no evidence. Besides, you of all people are too smart for that kind of shit.”

The ice cubes tinkled again. “I hated that woman,” Kenny said. “No, that’s not right. I didn’t really know her, not in a personal sense. I hated what she stood for. For what she did in the courtroom-to me and to other cops. That’s what I hated.”

“But not enough to screw up your whole life.”

“Killing a judge? No, even I’m not that stupid.”

“I didn’t think so.” Cam sighed.

“Glad to hear it, boss,” Kenny said evenly. “But you still think it could be cops?”

Cam leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. At the moment, he didn’t give a shit about anything. He opened his eyes when he heard Kenny’s truck start up outside, but then he closed them again and let the world go away.