“Nobody?s blaming you. This isn?t the first time a pony with a bad leg has been Buted up.”
The door opened behind me and Harry Raines came in. His kelly-green steward?s jacket seemed out
of place in the sterile white room, but my rumpled sports jacket didn?t add anything either.
A barrage of emotions hit me the instant he entered the room. In forty-one years I had never made
love to another man?s wife, and suddenly I was standing ten feet away from a man whom I had
dishonoured and toward whom I felt resentment and anger. I wanted to disappear, I felt that
uncomfortable when he entered.
I had a fleeting thought that perhaps he knew about Doe and me, that maybe one of the Tagliani gang
had anonymously informed on us. Too many people either knew or had guessed about us, Harry
Nesbitt had made that clear to me. I almost expected Raines to point an accusing finger at me, perhaps
draw an “A” on my forehead with his fountain pen. I could feel sweat popping out of my neck around
my collar and for an instant I blamed Doe for my discomfort, transferring my anger and jealously to
her because she had married him.
All that in just a moment, and then the feelings vanished when I got a good look at him. I was shocked
at what I saw. He seemed not as tall as when I had seen him at the track two days earlier, as if he were
being crushed by an invisible weight. His face was drawn and haggard, his office pallor had changed
to a pasty gray. Dark circles underlined his eyes. The man seemed to have aged a dozen years in two
days.
Is he really the success-driven robot others have made him out to be? I wondered. He looked more
like a man hanging over a cliff, waiting for the rope to break.
Quite suddenly he no longer threatened me.
My fears were unfounded. He didn?t pay any attention to me at first. He was more concerned with the
dead horse. When he did notice me, he was simply annoyed and somewhat perplexed by my presence.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, looking at Callahan as he said it, as if he didn?t think I knew the
answer.
“That?s Jake Kilmer. We?re working on this thing together” was all the big cop told him.
“Jake, this is Harry Raines.” That seemed to satisfy Raines who dismissed it from his mind, If he
recognized my name he didn?t show it. He turned his attention back to the business at hand. “I don?t
mean to push you, Doc. Did he just break a leg?”
“Two places. He was also on Butes.”
“What!”
“He had a cold.”
“According to who?”
