C.E. Murphy – Spirit Dances (страница 6)

I shook my head. “Thanks for coming up. We don’t usually get visitors who are just coming to say hi. Usually something terrible’s happened. It’s nice to see something wonderful happening instead.” Especially after today, but that was yet another thing she didn’t need to know. We got up and I figured if I was going back to the office, I might as well return bearing gifts. I ordered Morrison what the menu called a St. Patrick’s Day Latte, and examined the doughnut cabinet, which had an array of mint-to pine-green frosted doughnuts lined up by hue.

The drink that came back was swamp-green and decidedly nasty-looking. Rita gave it, then the doughnut cabinet, a considering look, then smiled at me. “I’ll go catch my bus while you decide if you’re brave enough to bring someone that horrid-looking drink or make people break a bunch of Lenten promises with those doughnuts. It was nice to meet you, Detective Walker.”

“I think I’ll do both.” I ordered one of each shade of doughnut and waved goodbye at Rita at the same time. “It was nice to meet you, too. Visit again sometime, okay?” She nodded on her way out the door, and a couple minutes later we waved again as I hurried past the bus stop back to the precinct building.

Billy had returned by the time I got back and took the latte with a suspicious sniff. I’d meant it for Morrison, but Billy’s grimace after taking a sip made me just as glad he’d swiped it instead. The rest of the Homicide detectives swarmed the doughnut box like a pack of wolves, and I retreated to Morrison’s office, ticket envelope held between my fingers like it might bite.

He was concentrating on paperwork, which gave me a moment to stare at the top of his head and get my nerve up.

I usually thought of him as silvering, but looking at the top of his head made it clear he was really just silver. He wasn’t that old, not yet forty. I wondered when he’d started going gray. Not that it mattered. It looked good on him, playing into the whole aging-superhero look that I thought of as being his thing.

I rattled myself and tapped on his door. Morrison glanced up, curiosity sliding across his face. “You look nervous, Walker. Caldwell said the interview went well. What’s wrong?”

“You said to come by, and besides, I have a ques…” My knees buckled a little as my brain caught up to what he’d said. I caught myself on the door frame. “She said that?”

Morrison elevated an eyebrow. “Did you think other wise?”

“Morrison, I’ve never shot…” I closed the door behind me and sat down, probably signaling to everyone in the open office area outside that I was in trouble again, but for once I didn’t care, possibly because for once I wasn’t actually in trouble. “I’ve never shot anyone before,” I said quietly. “I’ve never spent any significant time talking to a shrink. I had no idea if it went badly or well.”

“I’ve talked to Holliday and Caldwell. They’re both working up their reports, and I saw you already dropped yours off. It was a shit situation, Detective, and from what I’m seeing so far you handled it as well as you could’ve.”

“Even…” I waved a hand, encompassing the whole magical aspect of my skill set which I’d utterly failed to use.

“As you said, if it was anyone else, I wouldn’t even have asked. I shouldn’t have asked you. You did what I’d expect any detective to do when her partner was in danger. The suspension is still in effect,” he warned me. “I can’t do anything about that.”

“No, I know, it’s fine. It’s standard procedure. I just…” The last word came out as a shuddering breath and I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying not to let stinging tears overwhelm me. My hands smelled like maple frosting and cinnamon now, a vast improvement over the pre-shower scent of blood. “Sorry. I’m a little up and down. I just, I feel like I made the right choices, but it helps to hear you say that, sir. Thank you. And if there’s anything else I need to do or not do while the incident is being looked into…”

“Just keep your nose clean. You can manage that for three days, right?”

I groaned and pushed the envelope across his desk at him. “I don’t know. Tell me if this qualifies. The woman whose life I saved down at the Fremont Troll in December just gave me these.”

Morrison shook the tickets free of the envelope before eyeing me. “Dance concert tickets?”

“She won them at a…” It didn’t matter. “She gave them to me as a way of saying thank you. I told her she didn’t have to, but she insisted and I didn’t want to insult her and I didn’t know if it was like an ethical breach to take them so, well, I just thought I should take them and then come ask you—”

“Ask what?” Morrison said in amazement, interrupting my breathless explanation. “If I wanted to go with you?”

“—er.” For an excruciatingly long moment that was all I could think to say. Long enough that Morrison figured out that wasn’t at all what I’d meant to ask, and began to look uncomfortable. I followed up my initial witty “er” with a salvo of, “Uh,” then rubbed my nose ferociously. “Actually I’d been going to ask if it was an ethical breach or if it was okay for me to take them. But now that you mention it, um, there’s only two tickets so I can’t invite Billy and Melinda along, and Gary’s out of town, so if it’s okay for me to accept them, um, well. Would you…like to go with me?”

Someone with a modicum of cool wouldn’t have put all the emphasis on like. Sadly, I was not that person. The way I asked it sounded as if the idea that Morrison might want to go out with me was only slightly less unlikely than, say, the idea that a Hollywood producer might walk into the precinct building and randomly choose me to be the next twenty-million-dollar star.

For a few seconds I waited for a Hollywood producer to walk into the room, but it didn’t happen. Instead Morrison glanced at the tickets again, then shrugged. “I don’t have anything planned for tonight, and God knows you probably need some kind of distraction. Just log the tickets as a gift, and if the woman ever needs anything else from you make sure every second of your interactions are observed.”

“Yes, sir.” He could’ve been suggesting I take a long walk off a short pier, for all I was comprehending. I took the tickets back, got up, made it to the door, and said, “Er,” for the second time in our conversation. “Should I pick you up…?”

There was no chance on earth he would agree. My car was a 1969 Mustang named Petite who clocked over a hundred and ninety miles an hour. His was a nameless 2003 Toyota Avalon with the highest safety rating in its class. Ne’er the twain should meet.

Morrison’s expression, almost without changing, suggested the idea was so outrageous it stretched all the way to funny. “I don’t think so, Walker.”

“Well, then, we’ll have to meet there, because I have my pride.” And my smarts. Petite would never forgive me for tarting around with an Avalon. She knew these things.

Minute laugh lines crinkled around Morrison’s blue eyes. “Fair enough. I’ll see you at a quarter to eight, then. Go home and get some rest.”

CHAPTER FOUR

I scurried back up to Homicide, where, fortunately, all the doughnuts had already been eaten. I’d have gone on a panic-inspired binge if they hadn’t been. Instead I seized Billy’s arm and hauled him off to the broom closet which doubled as a crash pad for cops whose shifts had gone on too long.

He came along willingly enough, though he did say, “Do I need to tell Melinda you’re dragging me off to bed?” as I banged the closet door open and propelled him inside.

“Please don’t. She may be little, but she be fierce, and she’d kick my ass. Billy, something has gone terribly wrong. Somebody gave me concert tickets and now I’ve got a…a… like a date with Morrison!”

My partner was a steady soul. A good man. The sort, in fact, who could walk away from nearly getting a nail through the skull and still remain a bastion of calm. I was sure he, too, had seen Dr. Caldwell this afternoon, but there was nothing in his demeanor which suggested he’d had a bad day. That’s how glued-together he was.

So I hardly expected him to fall into a fit of what could only be called giggles, even if men who stood well over six feet tall were not normally prone to giggling. Offended, I stared at him, which upgraded his giggles to whoops. He staggered back, sat on the army-corners bed and leaned against the far wall while gales of laughter shook his body. It took over a minute for him to catch his breath, and I thought perhaps he was just a leeeettle more on edge about the morning’s events than he’d been letting on. Still, it was with genuine merriment that he said, “Sorry, Joanie, it’s just that when something’s gone wrong around you it usually runs to the apocalyptic. The captain having a date, even with you, probably isn’t a sign of the end times. Besides, isn’t it about time?”

My head heated up. I hated to think what color my cheeks were. “It’s not that kind of date!”

“Of course it is.” Billy wiped his eyes, looking as happy as I’d ever seen him. “For one thing, if you didn’t think it was, you wouldn’t be having a meltdown.”