Divine Evil

you.”
    “Tell me here.”
    “I hit her.” She snapped the words off and paced a few feet away. “There was this awful thud.”
    He played his light on the road again, following the trail of blood that ended beside the skid mark Clare's right tire had made.
    “She was conscious?”
    She dragged on the cigarette again, struggling not to hate him. “Yes, she asked me to help her. She was scared, really scared. Whatever she'd been running from was worse for her than her injuries.”
    “She had keys.”
    “What?”
    “She had keys in her pocket.” He pulled out a little plastic bag that contained them. “One's a car key.” He scanned the road. “Let's take a ride.”
    As they drove, he was silent, thinking. She'd had no purse, no backpack, no I.D. Pretty blondes didn't go unnoticed in a small town like Emmitsboro, so he was betting she wasn't a local. When he spotted the Volvo parked on the shoulder a mile from the accident site, he wasn't surprised.
    Clare said nothing as she watched him work. He took out a bandanna, using it to cover his fingers as he opened the glove box and sifted through its contents.
    “Lisa MacDonald.” He read from the registration card before he glanced up at Clare. “Now we know her name.”
    “Lisa MacDonald,” Clare repeated. It was a name she wouldn't forget.
    He found a map as well, and neatly printed directions from Philadelphia to Williamsport, a town about fifteen miles from Emmitsboro. Still using the bandanna, he took the keys from the evidence bag and slid one into the ignition. The engine sputtered.
    “Looks like she had a breakdown.”
    “But why would she have gone into the woods?”
    Maybe someone took her there, Cam thought, and pocketed the registration. “That's what I'll have to find out.” He closed the car door. The sun was beginning to rise above the mountains to the east. In its ghostly light, Clare looked pale and exhausted. “I'll take you home.”
    “Cam, I want to help. I want to
do
something.”
    “The best thing you can do now is take Doc's pills and get some sleep. They'll call me when she wakes up. I'll let you know.”
    He had shifted completely into his cop mode, and she didn't like it. “What are you going to do now?”
    “Make some phone calls. File a report. Come on.”
    “I'll go with you,” she said as he pulled her back to his car. “I can help.”
    “Clare, this is my job. I can't see you letting me hold your welding torch.”
    “This is different. I'm involved.”
    “The difference is this is official business.” He pulled open the car door and nudged her inside. “And you're a witness.”
    “A witness to what?”
    “I'll let you know.” He closed the door.
    * * *
    The news spread like wildfire. Doc Crampton told his wife when he finally climbed into bed. His wife told Alice during their morning phone call. Alice hunted down Bud before the breakfast shift was over. By noon, when Cam arranged for George Howard to use his tow truck to bring the Volvo into the back lot of Jerry's Auto Sales and Repairs, the story was spreading through town like a fast-mutating virus.
    Min Atherton didn't waste any time hustling over to the Kimball house with her prizewinning orange-and-marshmallow Jell-O mold and a nose itching for gossip. When she was turned away by an immovable Angie, who told her Clare was resting and couldn't be disturbed, she clumped off to Betty's House of Beauty to complain about that uppity black woman.
    By the second lunch shift at Emmitsboro High, the rumor being passed out like the Steak Nuggets and Tater Rounds was that a psycho was loose in Dopper's Woods.
    Others said the woman had run into Junior Dopper's ghost, but most favored the psycho.
    They speculated in the market, over the iceburg lettuce, about whether Sheriff Rafferty was covering up for Clare, seeing as they'd gotten so cozy. After all, he wasn't turning up much on Biff Stokey's murder either, though it was hard to blame him for that.
    And wasn't it too bad about Jane Stokey selling her farm and getting ready to move down to Tennessee? The Rafferty place-it had been the Rafferty place for close to a hundred years and would always be the Rafferty place in local minds-would probably be sliced up for building lots. Just wait and see. Lord, look at the price on these tomatoes. Hothouse, too. Got no taste.
    Wasn't it something about those calves of Matt Dopper's? Had to be drug addicts from down in the city. Same ones that killed old Biff. Sheriff