“She did look like Tamsin, didn’t she?”
Detective Stokes laid her pen down on top of her yellow tablet. “Just what do you mean, Miss Bard?”
“You know what I mean. The dead woman. She looked like Tamsin.”
“Who mentioned that to you?” Her interest was keen now.
“No one. I’m not blind. She was pale, she was plump, she was brunette. She looked like Tamsin.”
I had no idea what the detective was thinking as she regarded me.
“But as you know, I was told by…” she checked a note on the tablet, “Melanie Kleinhoff that the dead woman was her sister-in-law, that is, the wife of her husband’s brother.”
“Melanie did say that,” I admitted. “Saralynn, wasn’t that her name?”
“And yet you told me last night you didn’t know the name of the dead woman.”
“No, I told you I hadn’t known her. You asked me if the others had recognized her, and I told you to ask them.” Splitting hairs, but I had technically told her the truth. “I don’t like repeating what other people tell me, when I don’t know it for myself.”
Detective Stokes’s face told me what she thought of that, and for once I wondered if I wasn’t just being balky, like a stubborn mule.
“So where is Saralynn’s husband, the one who raped Melanie?” I asked. “I guess he raped Saralynn, too, since she was going to join our group?”
“Tom Kleinhoff’s in jail,” Detective Stokes said, not confirming and not denying my assumption. “He didn’t make bail on the rape charge, because he already had other charges pending.”
It would have been good if he had been the guilty one. That would have been simple, direct, and over.
“Too bad it wasn’t him, isn’t it?” said Stokes, echoing my thoughts. I guess that wasn’t too great a leap to take.
I nodded.
“So let me just ask you, Miss Bard. Since your boyfriend, I understand, is a private eye.” The distaste in her voice told me she knew all about the circumstances of Jack’s becoming a private eye; he’d left the police force in Memphis under a black cloud. “If you think the dead woman was killed in mistake for Tamsin Lynd… why? Was that supposed to send a message to Tamsin Lynd herself, that a woman resembling her was killed in her office? Was it a genuine mistake-the killer finds a dark-haired fat woman in the right place so he’s sure he has the right victim? Or was the message for your group?”
I hadn’t speculated that far, wasn’t sure if that was a conclusion I’d have reached.
“Hadn’t thought about that? Well, maybe you’d better.” Alicia Stokes’s expression was definitely on the cold and hard side. “Someone thinks they’ve killed the woman supposed to be helping five rape victims, you’ve got to ask yourself why.”
She was so far ahead of me all I could do was gape at her.
“How does your boyfriend feel about you being in this group?” she asked, pounding on down the track.
“He was the one who wanted me to go to it.”
“You sure he doesn’t resent you giving such a big part of your time to a group of women? Maybe he doesn’t like some of the advice Tamsin gave you? Maybe Tamsin told you to stand up to him? How long has he lived here?”
Scrabbling for the most recent question, I said, “He’s lived here in Shakespeare for only a few weeks. He lived in Little Rock for a few years.”
Angry with myself for babbling, I realized just how battered I felt.
Then I began feeling angry.
Even as I tried to remember all the other questions she’d asked so I could begin to respond, I thought, Why bother? I got up.
“You sit your butt back down in that chair,” Alicia Stokes told me.
I fixed my eyes on her face.
“Before I make you,” she added.
Rage hit me like fireball. “You can’t make me do shit,” I said, slow and low. “I came in to give a statement. I gave it. Unless you arrest me, I don’t have to sit here and answer any questions.”
Stokes loomed over me, leaning across her desk, her knuckles resting on its surface. A patrolman I’d never met, a wiry freckled man, peered in the entrance to the cubicle, went wide eyed, and backed away.
“This looks like the gunfight at the O.K. Corral,” Claude’s voice said behind me.
I let out my breath in a long gust. I speculated on what could’ve happened if the new patrolman hadn’t fetched him- would Stokes have launched herself across her desk at me? Would I have hit a police officer?
“I was just leaving,” I told Claude. I edged past him and strode out the front door, picking my way through the desks and chairs and a few assorted people with my eyes fixed on the floor. The freckled patrolman held open the front door for me. His nametag read “G. McClanahan.” I made a mental note that I owed G. McClanahan a free house cleaning. Right now, getting in the car and driving away appeared to be my best move.
I wondered if Claude would have a talk with Stokes now, and what that talk would be like. I knew she would have no cause to like me any better afterward, that was for sure, and I didn’t know if I’d care or not. What was more certain was the fact that as fast as I could think, the detective could think faster, and I added that to the list of her sins, as I was sure her fellow officers would. Stokes was northern, black, a woman, aggressive, very tall (and I’d bet strong), and smart as hell. She would have to perform like a one-woman band to be popular, or even tolerated.
How would she live in Shakespeare? Why had she taken the job?
To my mind, that was as much a puzzle as the woman pinned to the wall in the health center. Maybe the city paid better than I’d assumed, or maybe Stokes had a master plan that included some time in a small force-a very small force. Maybe Stokes had family in the area.
But it hadn’t escaped my attention that a puzzling and bizarre murder had occurred in Shakespeare (where the norm was a Saturday night knifing) just when a puzzling and mysterious detective had turned up to solve it.
Some might think that suspicious, too.
I felt groggy when I woke up. I had to force myself to obey the clock. This was one of my days in Shakespeare, and I had to clean Carrie’s office in addition to putting in a stint at the Winthrops’ house. Forcing myself every step of the way, I got dressed and ate; though my head was aching and the rest of me felt exhausted already, as if I’d already put in a hard day. I wondered if I had dreamed a lot-dreams that were best forgotten-and had therefore slept restlessly. I caught no echoes of it as I cleaned my teeth and fluffed my hair. I expected my new sneakers to make me perk up; I don’t often get new things, and these black high-tops had been on extreme sale. But after they were laced and tied I stared down at them as if I’d never seen them before; or my feet, either, for that matter.
I saw a car already parked in the lot to the rear of Carrie’s office, and I had a feeling I’d seen it before. I just couldn’t place where and when. It was an hour earlier than any of the staff should appear. When I tried the back door, it was already unlocked.
“Hello?” I said cautiously, not wanting to scare anyone.
“Good morning!” called a horribly happy voice. Cliff Eggers stuck his head out of one of the doors on the left. “Carrie left a message you’d be coming in.”
I brought in my cleaning caddy and a few other things. I didn’t know what Carrie’s new cleaner kept here, so I’d piled my car with stuff. I had to do a great job for Carrie.
“And you’re here so early to do medical transcriptions?” I said in a voice that would carry down the hall as I deposited my burdens.
“That’s right.” Cliff appeared in the doorway again, beaming at me as though I’d said something very clever. “It works out better for me this way. I can do the rest of my doctors at home.”
“And you like your job,” I prodded.
“It’s fascinating. I learn something every day. Well, I’d better get back to it.” Cliff retreated to his desk, and I started with the waiting room. Dust, straighten, polish, vacuum, mop. In short order, the magazines were lined up on the square table in the middle of the room; the chairs were sitting in neat rows against the wall. The large mat in front of the door where most of the dirt from patients’ shoes was supposed to fall had been shaken out the front door and replaced, exactly square with the door.
