Blue Moon   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

There was a plain gold wedding band on his left hand and one of those watches that joggers use, big and black and utilitarian. Since I had the lady's version of the same watch on my left wrist, it was hard to criticize.

"What?" I said. "You going to give me the silent treatment until I scream for mercy?"

He gave a very small smile. "Made some phone calls about you, Blake. There's a lot of talk that you'll bend the law if you need to. That maybe you've murdered people."

I just looked at him. I could feel my face thinning out, blanking. Once upon a time, every emotion I'd felt had played along my face, but that was a while ago. I'd perfected my blank cop stare, and it showed nothing.

"Is there a point to this conversation?" I asked.

The smile this time was bigger. "I just like to know who I'm dealing with, Blake, that's all."

"Good to be thorough," I said.

He nodded. "I got calls from a Saint Louis cop, a fed, and a state cop. The state cop says you're a pain in the ass and will bend the law six ways to Sunday."

"Bet that was Freemount," I said. "She's still pissed about a case we worked together."

He nodded, smiling pleasantly. "The fed sort of hinted that if you were detained, he might find a reason to have the local federal office to come take a look around."

I smiled. "Bet you really enjoyed that."

His brown eyes went hard and dark. "I don't want the feebies down here messing in my pond."

"I'll bet you don't, Wilkes."

His face tightened, letting me see just how angry he was. "What the fuck do you care?"

I leaned across the table on my elbows. "You should be more careful who you do a frame-up job on, Wilkes."

"He's a fucking junior high science teacher. How was I supposed to know he was shacking up with the fucking Executioner?"

"We're not shacking up," I said automatically. I sat back in my seat. "What do you want, Wilkes? Why the private talk?"

He ran his hand through his salt-and-pepper hair, and for the first time, I realized how nervous he was. He was scared. Why? What the hell was happening in this tiny town?

"If the rape charges disappear, Zeeman is free to leave town. You and everybody go with him. No harm, no foul."

A sport's metaphor — ooh, I was all a-tingle. "I didn't come down here to sniff around your mess, Wilkes. I'm not a cop. I came down here to get Richard out of trouble."

"He's out of trouble if he leaves."

"I'm not his keeper, Wilkes. I can't promise what Richard will do."

"Why does a schoolteacher have bodyguards?" Wilkes asked.