“Security,” Cora Lee said.
“Why? Pa didn’t do anything.”
“The other guy did. They’re protecting your pa.” Cora Lee looked down at her, her brown eyes concerned for her. They watched the prisoners march in, glimpses of them between the pillars as they moved down the table to take their seats facing their visitors. Pa arrived in a wheelchair pushed by a nurse. It shocked her to see a woman in the men’s prison, though she knew women worked there. Pa’s legs were covered by a brown blanket. He looked so frail. But as he was wheeled up to the table, he grinned at her through the glass. She hated that glass, she hated the phone that filtered their every word, their whole visit wasted on meaningless questions and canned answers: “How are you feeling?” “Much better, it doesn’t hurt so much. How’re you doing in school?” “Fine.” “How’s your pony?” “He’s fine. I’ve been riding with Charlie Harper.” So stiff and unreal, eating up their precious time. She could see Pa wanted to tell them something, something he couldn’t say with the phone monitored. Was this another message for Max Harper? She wanted to crawl through the glass so they could talk—like Alice stepping through the looking glass—so she could hug him and tell him she loved him. She wanted to tell him Harper had gotten his first message all right, Cora Lee had seen to that.
“Thanks from our friend,” Lori said, “from Charlie’s husband.”
Pa smiled and nodded, and looked relieved. Whatever more he wanted to say, he kept to himself, until, Lori thought, they could be back in the family visitors’ room again, where they might not be monitored. She hoped that wouldn’t be long, she hated this, hated being listened to, with no privacy; she hated it more for Pa, even, than for herself.
THE LAST JACK saw of Lori was her rigid, angry back, angry at the rules, he thought as she and Cora Lee filed out of the visiting room, Lori’s long brown hair shining in the overhead lights. On his side of the glass the line of prisoners marched out, too, and he was wheeled away to the infirmary, his message for Max Harper unspoken. He knew Harper would figure it out when the pieces started coming together, but meantime who knew how much damage Arlie Risso would do? He felt worn out, even with only that short time in the visiting room. With the stress of being unable to talk freely, to let Max know about Risso—about Marlin Dorriss. The doc said it was normal to tire out easily while his body was healing. Well, he didn’t have to like it, he was done in. Not since he’d tried to protect Lori when she was just a little girl had he felt so damned useless.
33
CATS WEREN’T OFFICIALLY barred from city council meetings but only because no one had ever imagined that a cat would want to attend. It was Ryan who’d insisted they bring Joe. She’d hung tough until she won the argument, and just for an instant Joe was chagrined to be the cause of the newlyweds’ heated conflict. But if the two had to battle, what more urgent subject was there than the happiness of the family cat?
“He’ll be good,” she’d told Clyde, fixing Joe with a threatening gaze that made his fur twitch. He’d tried to look innocent, but they all three knew his behavior would depend on the situation of the moment, on his anger as a few biased citizens rose to criticize Max Harper and make trouble for the chief.
The city hall had begun life, early in the last century, as a village church. The peak of the handsome redwood building rose steeply between two lower wings that now housed a variety of city offices, from administrator to public works and zoning. The gnarled branches of a twisted oak sheltered the deep porch, which was reached by a sturdy ramp to accommodate the occasional wheelchair. Beside the front door stood two ceramic pots of holly bushes heavy with red berries. Taped to the rail were paper cutout Santas and reindeer, hand-colored by the local schoolchildren. Within the wide entry foyer stood a six-foot Christmas tree, thick and dense, decorated with silver and white bells. Deeper in, against a long expanse of wall, the crèche had been arranged, the wise men as tall as six-year-old children, the little Christ child snuggled in his crib. The wooden figures, carved by hand nearly a hundred years before, were still celebrating the traditional spirit of Christmas despite a few hard-nosed citizens who didn’t approve of such sentiments.
Joe, concealed within the leather tote that Ryan carried, could see only the high, raftered ceiling as they entered the meeting room. Ryan tucked the bag on the seat of the wooden pew beside her, where he listened to the reading of the minutes; he yawned and dozed off during a tedious discussion of city business. He came wide awake when members of the audience began to file up, one at a time, to the little side podium that featured its own microphone. Each citizen speaker stood at the side of the room facing both the audience and the council that sat behind the polished wood barrier: a council of three men and one woman, and the woman mayor, her white hair knotted at the nape of her neck, her navy blazer well cut over a white silk blouse. Each citizen to come forward talked about the home invasions, venting considerable anger toward the police. It was amazing to Joe that the speakers would rant so vehemently about the department’s incompetence when Chief Harper sat not three feet from them, just beside their small podium.
Max wasn’t there to make a rebuttal, this was a traditional part of the chief’s job. The city charter required his presence to keep order, though there’d never been a fistfight in a Molena Point meeting. Max, in uniform and wearing a sidearm, listened without expression, an enforcer of the law, a guardian against some outbreak of unbridled rage. Hard to imagine, Joe thought, in this small village. In San Francisco or Detroit, matters might deteriorate as had indeed happened in several large cities, one even evolving into a near-fatal shooting. In most Molena Point council meetings, the tomcat suspected, one was more likely to die from boredom.
But not this afternoon. Despite Max’s disinterested expression, the tomcat would give a year’s supply of deli takeout to know what the chief was thinking as a dozen misinformed and angry diatribes were laid on the council members and audience, and on the chief. Peering discreetly over the top of the bag, he watched the tiny crease at the side of Max’s mouth, just the ghost of a smile. As each speaker questioned the competence of MPPD, the male council members maintained suitably blank expressions; only Pansy Nitonski, her thin face framed by straight, chin-length brown hair, smirked with ill-concealed pleasure at the insults, making Joe want to slash her smug face.
Well, but nothing would be decided at this meeting, no decision would be made here about whether Max was competent in his job. That issue would be resolved in private session; this display was all smoke and mirrors, because the city council had no final authority in the matter. They were advisors; they couldn’t directly fire Max though they certainly had input with the city manager. He was the one responsible for hiring and firing the chief, often advised by a board of experts that could include police chiefs from other central coast cities—but these accusations were so trumped up they were laughable. Joe burned to leap to the podium and have his own say, tell these airheads just how wrong they were.