Divine Evil

Majorettes file by, some of them hardly bigger than their batons, her throat felt tight.
    At that moment it didn't matter that she was an outsider. Clare had been right, she thought. It was a good parade. It was a good town. She turned to speak to her friend, then stopped when she saw Ernie standing just behind Clare.
    He was toying with the pendant he wore. And there was something in his eyes, Angie thought, something too adult and very disturbing. She had a wild and foolish thought, that he would smile and show fangs just before he sank them into Clare's neck.
    Instinctively, Angie put an arm around Clare and drew her forward a few inches. The crowd roared as the Emmitsboro High School Band strutted by, blaring out the theme from an Indiana Jones movie. Ernie glanced up. His eyes fixed on Angie. And he smiled. Though she saw only white, even teeth, the sensation of evil remained.
    It took Cam and both deputies to deal with traffic control after the parade had ended. Bud Hewitt was at the south side of town, enthusiastically using a whistle and snappy hand signals. When the traffic thinned enough to muddle through on its own, Cam left the intersection. He'd just stepped onto the sidewalk when he heard the sound of applause.
    “Nice job, Officer.” Blair grinned at him. “You know, I have a hard time connecting the guy who chained Parker's rear axle to a telephone pole with this tin star.”
    “Does the brass at the
Post
know you once set a skunkloose in the girls′ locker room, then stood outside with a Polaroid?”
    “Sure. I put it on my resume. Want to grab a cup of coffee at Martha's?”
    “Let's live dangerously and try the poison at the office.” Grinning at Blair, he started to walk. “So, did Clare say anything about me?”
    “Not unless you count her asking me if you'd said anything about her.”
    “What did you tell her?”
    “Christ, this feels like high school.”
    Cam opened his office door. “You're telling me.” He went directly to the coffee machine and turned on the warming plate under the sludge already in the pot.
    Blair eyed it with trepidation. “Can I have a tetanus shot first?”
    “Pussy,” Cam said mildly and rounded up two mugs.
    “I heard about Biff.” Blair waited while Cam lighted a cigarette. “Ugly business.”
    “He led an ugly life.” When Blair only lifted a brow, Cam shrugged. “I don't have to like him to find who killed him. It's a job. My mother sold the farm,” he added. He hadn't been able to tell anyone how much that hurt. The thing was, he wouldn't have to say it to Blair. Blair would know. “She's moving south as soon as the deal closes. I went by a couple days ago. She stood in the doorway. She wouldn't even let me in the goddamn house.”
    “I'm sorry, Cam.”
    “You know, I told myself I was coming back here, back to town to look out for her. It was mostly a lie, but not all the way. Guess I wasted my time.”
    “You get itchy feet here, D.C.P.D. would take you back in a heartbeat.”
    “I can't go back.” He glanced down at the coffeepot.“This shit ought to be sterilized by now. Want some chemicals?” He lifted a jar of powdered milk.
    “Sure, load it up.” Blair wandered to the bulletin board, where pictures of felons at large were mixed with announcements for town meetings and a poster showing the Heimlich maneuver. “What can you tell me about Clare's accident?”
    “That Lisa MacDonald was damn lucky Slim was driving down that road at that time.” He handed Blair the coffee, then sat. Briefly, concisely, in the way of cops and journalists, he outlined what he knew.
    By the time Cam finished, Blair had downed half the coffee without tasting it. “Jesus, if someone had attacked the woman, Clare was right there. If she hadn't gotten the woman in the car so quickly and driven away, they both could have been …”
    “I've thought of it.” All too often and all too clearly. “I'm just glad the idea hasn't occurred to her. The town's locking up and loading up. My main concern now is that some asshole is going to shoot his neighbor if he steps off the porch to piss in the bushes.”
    “And the woman didn't see the guy's face?”
    “Not that she remembers.”
    “You don't figure it was a local?”
    “I've got to figure it was a local.” He drank some coffee, winced, then filled Blair in on everything that had happened since he discovered the disturbed grave the month before.
    This time Blair got up and refilled his mug himself.