New York to Dallas

bitch.”
    “Bet your ass.”

5
     
    T hey found Stibble in a shoe-box storefront he used for addiction counseling. He looked, Eve decided, even more like a ferret in person than in his ID documents. The short, curly beard he sported didn’t do anything to soften his pointy chin, and the rosetinted shades on his short hook of a nose only added an element of silly.
    Those, the skinny braid down the back of his white, hooded tunic, and the pair of leather bracelets around his bony ankles combined to fall somewhere between affected Free-Ager and urban monk.
    Which, she supposed, was what he’d aimed for.
    He sat with three people on the floor in a circle. Some sort of pyramid-shaped paperweight stood in the center. Harps and gongs trilled and bonged.
    He paused, beamed a welcoming smile at Eve and Peabody.
    “Welcome! We’ve begun our visualization exercise. Please, join us. Share your first name if you feel comfortable doing so.”
    “That would be Lieutenant,” Eve said, and took out her badge. “And you can visualize taking a trip down to Cop Central.”
    “Is there a problem?”
    “Isaac McQueen’s a big one. You arranging his auditions for a new partner while collecting a fee from the State’s another big one for you.”
    Stibble folded his hands at his waist. “It sounds as if you have inaccurate information. We’ll need to straighten this out. I have another forty minutes in this session, so if you’d come back—”
    “Would you like to stand up voluntarily?” Eve asked pleasantly, “or would you like me to help you? Class is dismissed,” she said to the trio on the floor.
    “Hey, I paid for the hour.”
    She studied the man who’d objected, the scruff of beard, the exhausted eyes.
    “What’s the damage?”
    “Charge is seventy-five. Special introductory fee.”
    “Buddy, you’re so getting hosed. Peabody, give this gentleman the address for the closest Get Straight location. It’s free,” she said to the man. “They don’t make you sit on the floor or look at pyramids. And they serve halfway decent coffee and cookies.”
    “I really object to you insinuating I—”
    “Button it,” she advised Stibble. “I apologize for the inconvenience,” she told everyone else. “Your counselor’s required elsewhere.”
    “I’m happy to reschedule.” As his group filed out, Stibble hurried after them. “Please don’t let this minor problem cause you to stumble on your journey to health and well-being!”
    “Close it up, Stibble.”
    “I have other patients due in—”
    “His rights, Peabody.”
    “Wait, wait!” He waved his hands in the air, danced on his toes, did a couple of agitated circles while Peabody recited the Revised Miranda.
    “Do you understand your rights and obligations, Mr. Stibble?”
    “You can’t arrest me! I haven’t done anything.”
    “Answer the question,” Eve ordered.
    “Yes, I understand my rights, but I don’t understand what this is all about. Isaac McQueen attended a number of my sessions. I’ve conducted them at the prison for years. I know he’s escaped, and that’s terrible. But it doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
    “Deb Bracken. Ring a bell?”
    “I-I—I’m not sure.”
    “She didn’t have any problem remembering you, or the hundred dollars a visit you gave her after she agreed to meet McQueen. I’ve got a whole list of names, and I bet every one of them points a finger at you.”
    “Human contact and talk therapy are essential tools in rehabilitation counseling. It’s not illegal.”
    “Taking a bribe from an inmate to set him up with women is. You didn’t shell out a hundred out of compassion and generosity, Stibble. How did McQueen pay you?”
    “That’s ridiculous.” Behind the rose-colored glasses his eyes jittered with panic. “I’m afraid Ms. Bracken was under the influence of her addiction at the time. She’s misremembering, that’s all.”
    “I’m about to charge you with accessory in the forced imprisonment of two people, the assault and rape of one of them.”
    “You can’t possibly be serious.” Panic morphed into fear as he backed up several steps. “I’ve never laid a hand on another human being in my life.”
    “McQueen has. You’ve been aiding and abetting him for years.”
    “This is a big misunderstanding. I feel very upset to be threatened in this way. I think we should all take several deep, cleansing breaths.”
    “Cuff him, Peabody.”
    “Now wait, just wait.” He waved his