enforcement agency under repeated siege due to sexual harassment charges that could no longer be ignored.
So what good was her mental medicine here? What possible good could she do here? Men like Lawrence hid their prejudices well for appearance' sake, allowing underlings like his detectives to do their talking for them. Perhaps no psychiatrist-male, female or neuter-could be of any damned use whatsoever to a man living out a fantasy of being Wyatt Earp or Matt Dillon. God, she hoped Stonecoat wasn't a Geronimo wanna-be.
Both her sex and her profession irked the captain, but she didn't work for him, not strictly speaking, and while she hadn't wanted to go over his head-another cop taboo- Phil didn't exactly leave her with any choice. She was damned if she did and damned if she didn't, but also damned if she'd sit another day in her office while Lawrence casually, unassumingly, even cunningly assured his men that appointments with her were made to be broken- despite his lip service, despite what he called policy, as when he'd told Lucas to submit to her scrutiny on a routine basis. It was all hogwash.
She realized that Texas was part of the Bible Belt, that it was ten, maybe twenty years behind in both the civil rights movement and in women's rights issues, and that men like Lawrence were on every old-boy circuit in the bloody state, but it was high time someone explained the facts of life to “Cap'n Phil,” as his boys called him. She'd gone to top brass officials and had quoted their offical manuals to them. She had not only blown the whistle on Captain Lawrence's out-of-date practices, but had also pointed a finger at his ineptness and incompetence. She had gone out on a lengthy, shaky, narrow limb.
She still fumed from what he'd said to her behind the closed door of his office this morning. After getting assurances that he wasn't being put on tape by a hidden recording device, he had half-kiddingly and sanctimoniously dared ask her if she'd take exception to his frisking her. She did take exception and promised their discussion was strictly private. “Good,” he'd replied to this, coming around his desk and pressing his body close to hers, searching her eyes for a rise. She instead glared and stepped back, giving off no uncertain signs.
“Look,” he said, his voice quivering, “no pussy with a Ph. D. is going to screw me over in my own department and get away with it.”
“Is that a threat, Captain?”
“Consider it fair warning.”
“Consider this, then. I'll file charges against you if you so much as come near me again.”
She'd stormed from Lawrence's office, driven by anger and frustration to chase out after the only man in the department who didn't appear to be under Lawrence's thumb, yet-Lucas Stonecoat.
“Right, you are,” a small voice told her. “He's not under Phil's thumb now, but give him time.” She realized the bastard had gotten to her, that she was talking to herself now.
She didn't know precisely how Lucas Stonecoat and Lawrence were getting on, but she knew Lawrence was just bigoted enough to rub Lucas the wrong way. A feud between them was as likely as water rolling down a rocky slope. Perhaps she could usher in the feud between them a little sooner with a few well-placed words, all to her advantage. It wasn't a pleasant alternative and certainly called her ethics into question, but it was feminine, after all, and she damned sure had to do something. She was grasping at straws, and the largest one to come along in some time was the tall, imposing Lucas Stonecoat.
She considered his size as he climbed from the car across and down from her. She thought Lucas strong looking, handsome, save for the scar, but even this added an element of mystery that lured her on. His voice, so like a whiskey-drinking blues singer, reminded her of her father's cracked tones.
Maybe she'd best get to know Lucas Stonecoat, she thought, see if he could provide some assistance. After all, he'd once been a detective. His insights on the Mootry case might prove invaluable.
To this end, she'd stalked him from the precinct like a cub following a lumbering grizzly bear. This grizzly drove like a crazy man, a good deal more fleet of wheel than he was of foot, given the pronounced limp. He was already ducking out of sight ahead of her. Damn, he really was going into a bar this time of day, while on duty. What kind of a fool was he?
She hesitated now, debating with herself. Should she boldly go inside, confront him, or see him another time? Time was a luxury she could ill afford, especially now that Lawrence had taken off the gloves. At bedrock of all the rumors she'd heard about Lucas Stonecoat, there seemed a grudging admiration on the part of others that Lucas was a badger once he clamped down on a case, the kind of tenacious, tough detective who'd make for a useful ally, if only she could get him to listen to her.
She pulled up, passing his vehicle, U-turning and placing her own car right in behind his. Taking a deep breath, thinking of all that had brought her to this time and place-her father, her mother, her uncle Bill, all pushing her to be the best at whatever she chose to do in life-she got out of the car and marched in to find this supposedly crazy Indian cop to learn firsthand his story, tired of the secondhand crap she'd been handed. All this effort put forth, all this dangerous activity in which she risked so much, she thought. Perhaps she liked it, the intrigue; perhaps it was just what Lawrence had said it was, “A self-serving attempt to further your career.”
“No, no!” she'd fended off the allegation. “It's to build a bridge of connections between the Mootry case and case files I've found in the Cold Room dating back some ten years, possibly more.”
The old pain had come back like a rodent sniffing out prey: quietly at first, before pouncing. It was the pain that made his already pronounced limp, due to the stiffness in his hip, even more pronounced. He wondered how he'd ever hidden the true extent of his continuing physical ailments from the training officers all through his trainee period. It hadn't been easy, relying on painkillers and trying to remain alert at the same time. In the end, he'd made it, and despite the hellhole to which he'd been assigned, he was, at the very least, carrying a shield again. It wasn't a detective's shield, not even second-class; it was the silver of the uniformed street cop, but it was something.
Still, Lucas did have his first-class Dallas gold shield, along with the gold watch they'd foisted upon him… along with his damnable disability retirement. And although being reactivated to duty in Houston meant the loss of his retirement funds from Dallas, his forced departure and the endless days back home on the reservation had been driving him insane, so coming out of retirement was worth it at any price.
He opened his wallet and placed his two badges onto the bar side by side, the gold and the silver, weighing them out in his mind as he sipped at his bourbon.
He lifted and studied the Dallas gold shield, which looked liked most any gold shield in any city in America, save for the lettering. He superstitiously rubbed it between his large fingers for good luck before tossing it face up on the bar, where he stared into its gleaming, reflective light.
His silver HPD shield was better than no shield at all, he rationalized; it had gotten him in charge of the damn Cold Room, hadn't it? It gave him slightly more weight than status as a former Dallas Police Department cripple with three-quarter Texas Cherokee premium red pumping through his battered body. Hadn't it?
He couldn't let them see his pain, so he forced it back with a second shot of bourbon where he stood at the bar, not anxious to sit again for some time. He took the bourbon straight up and neat-best way for the pain, he kept telling himself. But also for the pain that claimed him and told him daily it'd be with him until his grave, Lucas knew to utilize that strict code of the ancient Zen-like masters of his tobacco-twisting, magic-making race.
He just had to control it.
Had to be smart.
Had to second-guess the department. Beat them at their so-called spot-testing program.
He could do it. If anyone could. He was smart.
When he lowered the shot glass and saw her in the mirror, standing in the middle of the bar behind him, he brought the tumbler down with the sound of a gunshot. He wheeled, and his anger shone as thunderbolts flitting maniacally across each dark iris.
“What're you, following me?”
“I had to,” she pleaded, her arms wide, palms up as she approached.
“Did that bastard, Lawrence, sic you on me?”
“Christ, Stonecoat, I'm not an attack dog! And no, quite the contrary; he warned me to steer clear of you.”
“Said that, did he?”
“That's right,” she lied, but it felt right.
“So you disobey him, like-”
“Disobey? I'm not a child, and I don't take orders from the likes of Phil Lawrence. Technically speaking, I'm a civilian and not part of his paramilitary organization.”
