Angels Fall

out here, not in the city."
    "Yeah, no guns out here.
    Rick's jaw firmed. "People around here value their constitutional right to bear arms. And they respect it. City slicker."
    "You forgot the pinko liberal part."
    "I was being polite."
    "Sure you were," Brody said mildly. "You right-wing lunatic."
    Rick let out a rumble of laughter. "Don't know how I got to be friends with some urban elitist." He angled his head. "I'm surprised you didn't hear about this business, Brody. Being a big-city reporter."
    Brody calculated the timing. If it happened right after he quit the paper, he would have been baking out his bitterness in the sun and surf of Aruba. He hadn't read a paper for nearly eight weeks, and had boycotted CNN. Just on principle.
    "I took what we'll call a moratorium from the news for a couple of months after I left the Trib ."
    "Well. I guess the media business of it would have petered out in that length of time. Always something else to bombard the public with."
    "Constitutionally, the First Amendment comes before the Second." "And it's a damn shame about that. But to get back to it, I gotta say, what happened to Reece? That's a goddamn hell of a thing for anyone to come back from, and it could be she's not all the way back." "So she, what, hallucinated a murder? Screw that, Rick." "Might've fallen asleep, just nodded off for a few minutes and had a bad dream. Cop who worked the case told me she was prone to them. It's a long way up that trail for a novice, and she'd have been tired by the time she got all the way up to where she stopped. Could've been light-headed on top of it.Joanie says the girl hardly eats unless she shoves a plate at her. Got some nerves, too. Dragged the dresser in front of the door of the adjoining room in her hotel, kept it like that the whole time she was there. Never unpacked." "Overly cautious isn't crazy."
    "Now. Brody, I never said crazy . But I think it's likely she's still emotionally disturbed." He shot up both hands immediately. "Let me take back disturbed and say fragile . That's how I'm seeing it because, when it comes down to it, that's all I have to see. Not that I'm not going to keep looking into this, but I'm not calling in State at this point. Nothing for them to do here. I'll make inquiries into missing persons, see it I find anyone matches what description she could give me of the woman she saw. Can't do more than that."
    "Is that what you're going to tell her? You can't do any more?" Rick took off his hat, raked fingers through his hair. "You seeing what I'm seeing here? Which is nothing? If you've got the time I'd like you to go with me while I check out the other cabins in the vicinity." "I've got the time. But why me instead of one of the deputies?" "You were with her." Face set, Rick settled his hat back on his head. "We'll call you a secondary witness." "Covering your ass, Rick?"
    "You want to call it that," Rick said without rancor. "Look here, I believe she thinks she saw something. But there's no evidence to support it. What I think is she fell asleep, had a bad dream, and you've got to at least entertain the possibility that's just what happened. I don't want to add to her troubles, whatever they may be, and I've got to work with facts. The fact is, there's no sign of foul play here. No sign anyone's been here at all, conic to that, certainly not in the last twenty-four hours. We'll do another sweep on the way back and check out the cabins in this section. We find anything—hell, we come across a ball of fucking lint—I'll call up State and pursue this. Otherwise all I can do is check with Missing Persons off and on."
    "You just don't believe her."
    "At this point, Brody?" Rick looked across the river, up to the rocks. "No. I surely don't."
     
    WHEN THE BREAKFAST rush was over, Reece dove straight into the prep for the soup of the day. She simmered beans, cubed left-oxer ham, diced onions. Joanie's didn't run to fresh herbs, so she made do with dried.
    Better with fresh basil and rosemary. And coarsely ground black pepper would be an improvement over the damn gray powder in a can on the shelf. And for Christ's sake, how was she supposed to cook with garlic powder? She wished she had some sea salt. And wasn't there anywhere around here that had tomatoes this time of year with some taste ?
    "Sure are full of complaints." Joanie walked over to the pot, sniffed. "Looks good enough to me."
    Talking to myself again. Recce realized. "Sorry. It's fine; it'll be