Angels Fall

light of approval in her eyes. Joanie nodded. "Good for you." Reece left her apron on, took the water with her. Rick was loitering by the counter, and straightened when she came out. "Reece. Why don't we go sit in the back?"
    "Out here's fine. Table five's empty, Linda-gail," Reece called without taking her eyes from Rick's.
    "Would you bring the sheriff some coffee? 'Table five."
    She led the way, sat. "Is Min pressing charges?"
    "No." He took out his notebook." Talked to her again this morning, and she allows as you didn't so much hit her as get pushed into her. And on some rethinking, witnesses agree you didn't push over a table, but fell on one when other people scrambled to get awav or join in the brawl. Before we move on from that, the consensus, you could say, is that the business at Clancy's was a result of a series of lamebrain actions by a number of people."
    "Me included."

    "Well." He smiled, just a little around the edges. "You do seem to draw… responses. Now." He paused, looked toward the plastic and the noise of drywall being hammered in place. "Why don't you tell me about this one'"
    "After I left your office, Brody drove me back here. We went upstairs. I heard water running, and when we went in, the bathroom door was closed. Water leaking under it. Someone had turned the water on in the tub, plugged it up. It flooded."
    "Someone? "
    She'd prepared for this, and kept her gaze level. Kept her voice clear and firm. "It wasn't me. I wasn't there. You know I wasn't there because you know I was at Clancy's, then at your office."
    "I know you were at Clancy's a couple hours, at my office a couple hours. From what I've been told, what I can see, the water was running for some time. Hard to pin down just how long."
    "I didn't turn the water on. After my shift. I went upstairs to change my shoes and…"
    "And?"
    Check the locks, the windows. "Nothing. I changed my shoes, and I went back down to meet Linda-gail. I couldn't have been upstairs for more than three minutes."
    "Did you go in the bathroom?"
    "Yes. I used the bathroom, and I checked the clothes I had hanging; on the shower rod to see how well they were drying. That's it. I had no reason to turn the water on."
    "The clothes you took to the laundry at the hotel earlier?" Okay, she thought. All right. "Yes. And, yes, someone took the clothes I'd washed and put in the dryer  out  of the dryer and put them back in the washer. I'd taken them down there, put them in to wash, went home, came back, put them in the dryer, came home again. And when I went back to get them, they were in the washer."
    He glanced up as Linda-gail brought his coffee, and a poached egg on toast for Reece. "Joanie says you're to eat that, Reece. Can I get you something else. Sheriff?"
    "No, just the coffee, thanks."
    "Linda-gail can tell you I wasn't upstairs more than a couple minutes before we went to Clancys."
    "Sure." The confirmation came after only a whisper of hesitation. "She was up and down, two shakes."
    "You didn't go up with her?" Rick asked.
    "Well, no. I just went in the bathroom here, fixed up my makeup and fiddled with my hair a little. Reece was right here waiting for me when I came out. Couldn't have been but a few minutes. Somebody played a stupid trick, a mean one. That's what happened."
    "Why would I turn the water on?" Reece demanded. "I was going out."
    "I'm not saying you did. And I'm not saying if you did you turned it on to cause any of this." He pulled at his ear. "Sometimes, when you've got a lot on your mind, you forget. Pot on the stove, phone off the hook. It's natural enough."
    "It wouldn't be natural to run a bath when you had no intention of taking one, then walk out and leave the water on. And that's not what I did."
    "'Course you didn't." Linda-gail laid a hand on Reece's shoulder, rubbed. And Reece wondered if there was a hint of doubt along with the comfort of the gesture.
    "Someone's been in my apartment," Reece said. ''This isn't the first time." Rick leveled his gaze at Reece. "First I'm hearing about it. Thanks, Linda-gail. I'll let you know if we need anything else."
    "All right. Reece, you eat now. You haven't had anything all day, and if that plate comes back untouched, Joanie's going to be mad."
    "It started right after I saw the murder." Reece began. She told him: the guidebook, the door, the bathroom, finding her things packed, the boots and the bowls. The pills, the photograph album. She forced herself to eat a little, hoping the