“Or someone wants the authorities to believe it's all part of some bizarre shit.”
“I knew you'd love it.”
“You did, huh?” She had indeed read his record, he surmised. She simply knew too much about him. From the start, she had known all about Dallas as well. She was playing him like a fiddle, and he liked it.
They were back at Tank's Place, the shabby little neighborhood bar with the unlit neon Schlitz sign in the window and the peeling tiles and the raunchy awning. Meredyth pulled in beside Lucas's car, an olive-green, departmental issue, unremarkable, and unmarked Ford. Lucas remained cautious, unsure of her motives or if he ought to get involved, so he promised that he'd make no promises beyond going over the files she'd logged in and out during the past week. “Can't promise you much beyond that, since all I am is a rookie in care of dead files in the necromancy chamber.”
“Thanks, that's all I ask, Lucas.”
“Until I scan the files, I'll reserve judgment.”
“Fair enough.”
He slid from her car and closed the door and leaned in when she automatically lowered the window. “My ancestors teach me caution in all matters…”
“Oh, in all matters, no exceptions?”
“A careless step can leave a man without a moccasin and perhaps some other vital items,” he joked.
She liked his easy way, how he joked about his heritage. “Such as?”
A heart, he wanted to say. “You name it,” he said. “All things in moderation, angels rush in where fools fear to tread…”
“Now I know that's not sage Cherokee wisdom.” She smiled wryly. “And besides, you've got it backwards. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”
“Maybe it's not so backwards.”
“What're you giving me, a compliment and a lecture? Rather backhanded of you.”
“Did I say all that?” He quickly stepped away from her car and limped to his own.
Something about him made the limp almost admirable, certainly distinguishable; he wore it like a badge of honor, something he'd earned, she thought, despite the fact that in earning it, he'd almost died, and he had lost a partner, a wife, a home, and a career in one fell swoop. The facial scar, too, disappeared once she'd gotten to know him a little better, and she had enjoyed watching this big, powerful man talk to the animals as he doled out tiny food pellets like a Scrooge. She liked the way he had shown respect for the trapped, domesticated zoo animals, as if each had a soul.
Meredyth now watched his car pull from the curb, allowing Lucas to move off well ahead before she pulled into traffic. She wasn't any more anxious for people to see her with him than he was to be seen with her. She certainly didn't want anyone at the station house to see them returning together. God only knew what great palaver that'd create around the water cooler. Besides, the less others knew of her plans at this point, the better, including Lucas Stonecoat. “And another besides,” she told herself and the empty car, “he's dangerous.”
She had heard and read enough about his accident, and his run at suing the City of Dallas for damages, to know that he was indeed a dangerous ally, and she knew enough about herself to know that she liked having a little danger in her life. She knew that this particular, tall, handsome Cherokee man was a tinderbox ready to explode at the slightest provocation. If rumors started flying that he was seeing her personally, there was little telling what might happen. One thing was certain. She didn't want to frighten him off now.
Despite the automobile accident that had nearly cost him his life, Lucas Stonecoat barked his tires and rammed home his fist into his horn at every turn. He drove with the abandon of a man who truly believed that every other driver on the road was completely insane, and that to escape any injury or accident, he must race ahead or around the maniacs surrounding him. He had long since lost any sight of Dr. Sanger's vehicle.
Lucas thought about Dr. Meredyth Sanger all the way back to the Thirty-first Precinct house. Meeting her in a social setting, opening up to her, strolling about the city zoo alongside her… it almost made going back to his cell bearable. The two bourbons hadn't harmed him any, either. Maybe there was hope for him here in Houston, despite the shock of the Cold Room and the rather nasty possibility that Phil Lawrence had placed him there due to both his past history and his genes.
But it had to figure that Dr. Meredyth Sanger-Mere, as he liked to think of her-also had her ulterior motives, since she was both white and a shrink. He'd had his fill of shrinks and others who talked in riddles and circles and never-ending meanderings, their meaningless loops like so many petroglyphs so far as he was concerned. Not that his own race wasn't guilty of the same. Some of his grandfather's talk was like falling into a bottomless spiral, the riddles within riddles endless. When it confused an enemy, true Indian gibberish was a thing of beauty, he told himself now.
Maybe Sanger was different, maybe not. Either way, she certainly seemed to delight in challenging him at every turn, and how gracefully she carried that disquieting little smirk which magically turned into a disarming smile whenever she wanted her way. As charming as a multicolored diamondback rattler; he thought. The more colorful, the more poisonous, and she could mean plenty more trouble than he'd been looking to find-in more ways than one.
Maybe if she wasn't a psychiatrist… then there might be a snowflake's chance; since she was, he wondered why the question was even wafting through his head. It was a preposterous notion, that maybe he and Dr. Sanger could be more than just friends, when in fact they weren't even friends and weren't likely to become friends… ever.
Still, she wanted an alliance against Phil Lawrence, who represented a threat to her. “And that's all she wants, you fool,” he told himself, “an alliance, backup, to build her case… possibly a fall guy if things go badly, and that's all she's interested in.”
He wheeled the car sharply at the next corner, squealing already burning tires. The police band calls rattled about the cab, still nothing he might reasonably respond to.
Lucas was just glad that he'd remained cautiously aloof, and wary of her motives-the reserved Indian. There was little telling what her hidden agenda might be.
He didn't care for her constant need to know everything about him, her prying questions, yet he'd volunteered much. Still, what was there to volunteer? She had known it all before in one form or another. On the drive back to the bar, she'd asked him where he had grown up.
“Born and raised on the Coushatta Indian Reserve,” he had replied.
“But you got out… ahh, off, I mean?”
“Scholarship to Yale,” he'd joked, making her laugh again. He liked teasing a laugh from her.
“You'll have to tell me about it sometime.” Which translated to: You'll have to tell me the truth sometime.
He made no such promises.
For all he knew now, an alliance of any sort with Meredyth Sanger could make matters worse for them both, and he was particularly concerned about his rookie standing, and the fact that one day he wanted very much to get shed of the Cold Room and all the duties that went along with it. After all, Lawrence was holding the cards, yanking the chains, in charge in toto, so pissing the man off would be sheer suicide. Maybe if he played by the rules for a while… maybe if he could impress Lawrence…
Obviously, he wasn't going to impress Lawrence by joining Meredyth Sanger in some crusade to declare Mootry's death one of several in a series, the work of the same killer.
Dr. Sanger had obviously never been turned down by a man before, or perhaps she'd never known a real man before. Most certainly she'd never lost a fight-or perhaps anything else, for that matter-in her life. He guessed she came from money; old or new, it mattered little to him. She was white and upper-crust. Used to getting her way, having others do what she said was best. Spoiled, well-off, no dirt ever beneath the nails.