I was already at loose ends. So I went to Body Time and got on the treadmill for a while, and did a little upper body work. Marshall Sedaka, the owner of the gym, came out of his office to talk to me, looking more muscled up than ever. I thanked him for giving me the Jackie Chan movie. After he’d commiserated with me awkwardly over the miscarriage, he told me about the woman he was dating now. I nodded and said, “Oh, really?” at the right intervals, wondering if he’d ever look at Janet Shook, who’d been doing her best to attract him for years.
Tamsin and Cliff were being shown the ropes by one of the young men who seemed to stream through Body Time on a regular basis. They liked working out, Marshall had told me one day when he was feeling discouraged, so they thought they’d like working at Body Time. The fact was, as I’d found myself from my recent experience at the gym in Little Rock, that working for low pay in a gym is just the same as working for low pay at any other job. This particular young man was one I vaguely recognized as being a friend of Amber Jean Winthrop. In fact, I was almost certain he was one of the crowd by the Winthrops’ pool, the day Howell Three had gotten so upset.
Tamsin was looking lumpy and lost in her Wal-Mart workout ensemble of cotton shorts and black sports bra, topped with a huge T-shirt that must have been borrowed from her husband. Cliff was not faring any better, projecting discomfort and uncertainty though he was wearing an old pair of sweatpants that he must have saved from college and an equally ancient T that was full of holes.
“What a role reversal,” Tamsin said, with a wan smile. “Here we are in your place of power, instead of mine.”
She hadn’t taken the words right out of my mouth, since I never would have said that out loud, but she’d taken the thoughts right out of my head. And it was interesting that she thought of the health center as her “place of power.” The assault that had taken place in her own office must have shaken her to her mental and emotional foundations. Considering that, she’d made a great recovery.
“You’re gonna start coming in every morning?”
“Well, we’re going to try. Cliff and I both have been eating too much; we’ve just been so nervous. That’s what I do when I’m nervous, I head for the doughnuts. Jeez, do you have any body fat at all?”
“Sure,” I said, feeling awkward.
“I’m glad you feel well enough to come in this morning,” Tamsin said, her dark eyes uncomfortably sympathetic.
“Thanks for your visit while I was in the hospital,” I said dutifully. “I enjoyed the flowers.”
“When I lost my baby…” she began, to my discomfort. But just at that moment, Cliff gestured to her to rejoin him, since the young man was explaining yet another piece of equipment.
I left before Tamsin could speak to me again, on purpose. At the moment, I didn’t want to assume anyone else’s problems, since my own were bearing down on me.
But later that day, I would’ve been glad to have listened to Tamsin talk her heart out. Correction. Maybe not glad, but I would have tolerated it with a much better grace. Hanging around doing nothing was not a state of affairs I was used to. I cleaned my kitchen cabinets, slowly and carefully, only slightly violating Jack’s dictum. I was in a silent house, since Jack had assumed my stakeout on Beth Crider. He called home once on his cell phone to find out how I was feeling and to tell me he was having no more luck catching her out than I’d had.
That night, when he was drying the dishes while I washed, Jack expressed disgust that we hadn’t closed the books on Beth Crider.
“Maybe she’s really hurt,” I said, without conviction.
“Huh.” Jack didn’t seem troubled by doubt about that. “In the years I’ve been a private detective, I’ve investigated one case where the guy was really hurt as badly as he claimed. One. And every now and then, I still drive by his house to check, because I can’t quite believe it.”
“The level of cynicism here is pretty deep.”
“Absolutely. Did you have any time to check Beth’s credit rating today?”
“Sure did,” I said. Jack had a computer program that seemed able to call up anything about an individual’s financial history. To me, it seemed frightening that he didn’t have to produce any kind of ID, or explain his purpose, in buying this program. Joe Doe could buy one as easily as law enforcement personnel. “If I did everything right, nothing seems to have changed on her credit history.”
“Then she’s smarter than most of them, but we’ll nail her,” he said, confidence running strong in his voice. “Next week, you can take over surveillance, if you feel well enough. I should spend some time in the office, returning phone calls.”
I managed to keep my face still, but I had to acknowledge to myself that I was feeling gloomy. Jack would be spending some nights in Little Rock next week. He had rented a room in his friend Roy Costimiglia’s house, the room vacated by Roy’s son when he’d gotten married the year b t,;e. Jack could come and go as he pleased and not bother with renting an apartment, so the arrangement suited him perfectly. I’d known when Jack moved in with me that he would have to stay in Little Rock some of the time. I just hadn’t counted on missing him.
“Sure,” I said. “Listen, did you find out anything else about Saralynn’s murder?” Jack and Claude had shared a beer the night before while Carrie and I talked. Claude had kind of taken to Jack, since there were few people in town he could talk to freely. Jack, an outsider experienced in law enforcement and married to a woman who didn’t gossip, was heaven-sent to Claude.
“I don’t think they’re making any progress on the case,” Jack said, “though maybe I’m reading in between the lines. And the new detective-well, everyone except the new guy, McClanahan, has come to Claude to complain about her. Too Yankee, too black, too tough.”
“You’d think they’d want a fellow officer to be tough.”
“Not if she’s a woman, apparently. She ought to be able to back them up on the street, but then she ought to let them take the lead in everything else. And she ought not to want to be promoted as much as they do, because they deserve it more, having a wife and children to support.”
“Oh,” I said, enlightened.
“Right.”
“You think she’s crippled as a police officer, down here?”
Jack mulled this over, as he brushed back his hair and secured it at the nape of his neck.
“No, but she’ll have to try like seven times as hard as a guy, and probably twice as hard as a Southern white woman,” Jack said. “I’m glad I’m not in her shoes.”
That very day, who should drop by to see me but Detective Alicia Stokes. I opened the door, hoping I didn’t look as surprised as I felt. Instead of her career clothes, Stokes was looking good in walking shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt, serious walking shoes instead of sandals at the end of her long legs.
“You feeling better?” Stokes asked, but not as if she actually cared.
“I’m fine,” I said with equal enthusiasm.
“I need to talk to you.”
“Okay.” I stood back and let her into the (by now) spotless little house. “Would you like a Coke?” Letting Jack do the grocery buying had had its consequences. He had gotten a bag of Cheetos, too.
“Sure.”
“What kind?”
She stared at me.
“You said Coke. That’s what I want.”
I didn’t bother explaining that I called all soft drinks “Coke,” like most Southerners. I just got her some. I didn’t often drink carbonated drinks, but I joined her in a glass. Once I’d gotten her settled in a chair, and had satisfied the dictates of hospitality, I asked Alicia Stokes what I could do for her.
“You can tell me what you think about Tamsin Lynd.”
“Why do you care what I think?”
“Because everyone in the damn town says you are the one to ask.”
I found that inexplicable. But it seemed to me that it would look like I was being falsely modest if I asked for her to tell me more about that, so I shrugged and told her I hardly knew Tamsin well.
“And she’s your counselor?”
“Yep.”
“Because you were raped.”
“Yes.”
“All right. What kind of job do you think she’s doing?”
