Faye shook her head. “I’ll be fine, as long as I don’t spook myself tonight, sitting alone in my fancy cabin.”
“Those are nice cabins where the state’s putting you and your crew up. Brand-new and ready to rent. After you all leave, people are going to pay good money to stay there.”
“They’ll be building more soon. That’s why I’m here. They want me to check out the building site and make sure they won’t be destroying anything historically interesting when they break ground. That’s presuming I ever get a chance to start this job.”
He stuck out a hand and shook hers. “Give me and my forensic people till Monday with the crime scene to look for evidence, then you’re free to start excavating, okay? Unless we find something that changes things, obviously. Will that cramp your style too much?”
“I’ve got some things for them to do at the museum and the library. Keeping my crew busy will be a trick, but I’ll manage.” She turned to go, but he stopped her with a word.
“Faye.” He started to speak, then caught himself short. Clearing his throat to cover the awkwardness, he said, “I mean Dr. Longchamp-Mantooth.”
“You can call me Faye.”
“Thanks, Faye. I’d say you should call me Harold, but nobody does. They just say McDaniel, which I like better because it doesn’t sound like somebody’s grandfather.”
“McDaniel works for me.”
“Look, do you even know how to get back to your car?”
She laughed. “Actually, no.”
“Let me take you.”
As she settled herself in his passenger seat, McDaniel cranked the engine, eyes straight ahead. He kept them straight ahead as he steered it slowly down a city street pocked with potholes and lined with a network of cracks. The people who owned the houses on either side of this street paid taxes like everybody else, and Faye got more pissed off on their behalf every time the car’s suspension screamed in pain.
McDaniel drove for a while without speaking. When he did speak, it was slowly, as if he was choosing his words carefully. “If you think of anything else, or if Kali tells you anything else, you’ll tell me? I’m willing to give the two of you some space, because I know she’ll say things to you that she’d never say to me. So will Laneer and Sylvia. They all will.”
“Because you’re a cop and I’m not?”
“That’s part of it.”
“And the other part?”
Silence settled over a man who didn’t want to say out loud what he was thinking.
She spoke for him. “Is it because you’re white and I’m not?”
“You said it. I didn’t. But anybody with eyes can see that I’m in the minority here. On any given workday, I might not cross paths with a solitary soul who looks like me. I don’t blame them for mistrusting me. Honest. I don’t. But it keeps me from doing my job, and my job is to help people.”
Faye wanted to say that starting from a presumption of innocence might help, but she didn’t want to remind him about his harsh treatment of her that morning. They seemed to be getting along better and she didn’t want to spoil it. She wanted to be on good terms with the person who was trying to get justice for Frida. And for Kali.
“Do you want something from me?” she asked. “It sure sounds like it.”
He took his own sweet time to answer her. They were nearing the parking lot where she’d left her car, and he stayed silent until he’d steered his own car into the slot beside it. Then he was silent for another moment. Faye used the time to look around at the beautiful trees. It had been early morning when she’d last seen them and it was only afternoon now, but they had lost their hazy beauty. She knew that they were no different than they’d been when she last saw them, leafy and green, but she was a different person now. She’d done her best to save someone who needed her, and she’d failed.
“I’m not asking you to do anything dishonest or unethical, Faye. I don’t want you to do anything out of the ordinary. I’m just telling you that this is a case where doing your duty as a citizen is pretty damn important. That child, for whatever reason, is willing to talk to you. My guess is that her community will be a lot more willing to talk to you than to me. And, yes, it’s because of the color of your skin. So shoot me for saying so.”
Faye started to interrupt him, but he held up his hand, asking her wordlessly to hear him out.
“I can’t emphasize this enough. Don’t go playing detective like someone who’s watched too much TV. Don’t run around questioning suspects and, for God’s sake, don’t poke around in the business of dangerous people. But I get the sense that you’re not going to walk away from Kali, or even Laneer and Sylvia. If one of them tells you something that might help me crack this case, remember that I am asking you personally to help me do that. Bring me the information and then get out of the way, because there are dangerous people around us.”
Faye remembered Frida’s injuries and said, “No kidding.”
“Get me any information you can, but beyond that? Stay safe. Please.”
Faye noticed as McDaniel backed out that he was angling his car so that he had a good view of her car door as she unlocked it. Then he lingered while she tucked her purse under the passenger seat, started the car, put it in gear, and backed out.
Faye’s nutritional choices weren’t always the best, and today she was feeling downright self-destructive. It was mid-afternoon, she’d had a hellish day, and she was hungry. She wanted a greasy piece of pizza and she wanted a Hershey bar and she wanted a frosty can of Coca-Cola, and she wanted them immediately.
She’d seen a
