'I agree.'
She finished sponging the horse and began to rinse him with the hose.
'It's just that everybody lets me down,' she said. 'I keep hoping and I keep being disappointed.'
There was birdsong in the still heat. No whisper of wind. Only the sound of the water running and, now and then, the exhausted buzz of an especially intrepid insect.
'I spend too much time,' she said, 'thinking about things.'
'The mayor and some people have hired me, too.'
'To do what?'
'To sanitize the Dell.'
'The Dell? You mean run them out?'
'Something like that.'
'What about Steve?'
'If you're right, the tasks may be synergistic.'
She laughed, though not very warmly.
'Synergistic,' she said. 'My God! You don't talk like someone who nearly killed two men this afternoon.'
'Clean mind, sound body,' I said. 'I'm going to leave for awhile.'
'Leave?'
'Yes, I… '
'You're running away. You're afraid that The Preacher will get you for this afternoon.'
'I'll be back,' I said.
'You won't be back,' she said. 'I don't even blame you. You can't face down the Dell by yourself.'
'No,' I said, 'I can't. I'm going home to recruit some people.'
She shook her head.
'I don't believe you,' she said.
'Nothing I can do about that,' I said.
'I won't pay you any more,' she said. 'You earned what I've paid you this afternoon. But no more.'
'Sure,' I said. 'While I'm gone, maybe you can count more on the Potshot cops than you think you can.'
'About as much,' she said, 'as I can count on you
Chapter 14
IT WAS MORNING, early. I was drinking coffee with the chief of the Potshot police in an unmarked airconditioned four-door black Ford Explorer, parked outside the bank on Main Street. There was a rifle and a shotgun on the back seat. Between us in the front seat was the inevitable computer rig.
'When I started with the Middlesex DA's office,' I said, 'there wasn't a cop in the country would have known what the hell that was.'
'Modern crime fighting,' Walker said.
'You been a cop before?' I said.
'Yep.'
'Where?'
'Someplace else.'
'So why'd you end up here?'
'I like it here.'
'Sort of hot,' I said.
'At least you don't have to shovel it,' he said.
'Yeah, but it doesn't melt in the spring either.'
'You get used to it,' Walker said.
'You get used to it,' I said.
Walker shrugged and drank some coffee.
'I hear that Roscoe and friends hired you,' he said.
'You got somebody undercover at the Rotary Club?' I said.
'Small town,' Walker said. 'I heard they want you to clean up the Dell.'
I didn't say anything.
