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"What's with you? What happened after I left Reed's?" Clyde said, tearing up greens for a salad.
"They arrested Reed. What else?"
Clyde turned to look at him. "I provide you with taxi service direct to an in-progress police raid. Chauffeur you right to the scene. Don't tell me, 'They arrested Reed'! What happened?"
"I hardly saw any action. Place was swarming with cops. Medics. The coroner."
"Medics, Joe? The coroner?" Clyde waited, his hand raised as if he'd swat Joe.
Joe gri
Clyde smiled, lowered his threatening hand, and opened the oven to test the corn bread. "And they took Reed in?" Joe nodded. Clyde pulled out the oven rack, slipped a knife down into the middle of one golden mound, and held the knife up to the light. "And I suppose you hightailed it right on back to the department, heard the whole interrogation." Joe glanced at Dulcie, crouched beside him on the deep windowsill. She smiled, and kept her silence.
Clyde turned around to look at Joe. "Well? What did Reed say?" He checked the other loaf, then removed them, setting them on a rack to cool.
Joe shrugged. "Jack talked about Fe
"She's with Lucinda and Pedric," Dulcie said. "They'll be along. They brought us down from Harper's earlier. No one wants to miss the fun; Charlie doesn't get a new car every day." Charlie had needed reliable wheels for a long time. When her crew used her cleaning van, which was fitted out with every possible cleaning apparatus and with tools for household repairs, Charlie had to drive an ancient car of Max's that was less than dependable.
"I wonder," Dulcie said, "without the kit, would the cops have found Fe
"Slick," Joe said, watching Clyde toss the salad. "Or lucky. He must have ducked every time he smelled a uniform."
Clyde smiled knowingly.
"What?" Joe said.
"Street patrol picked up Fe
"Kit sure didn't see him in those duds," Joe said. "She'd have told Harper that."
But Dulcie was shifting impatiently from paw to paw. "You said you heard it all, the whole interrogation. What else did he Reed say?"
Joe watched Clyde stir the bean soup. It smelled good on this cold winter night. "Harper's going to tell you, he'll walk you through the whole interrogation. Doesn't he always? I'd just be repeating it."
"Come on, Joe."
Joe sighed. "He killed Fe
Clyde was still scowling. "You have to balance civilized human law against the fire in your belly, Joe. If we all went by the fire in your belly, we'd be living like cavemen. Look at some countries-torture and rape because there's more corruption than civil-" A loud knocking at the door caused Clyde to immediately turn on the kitchen TV in case anyone had noticed voices; they heard the front door open. "Di
"In the kitchen," Clyde yelled over a newscast. And their friends came crowding in, bringing the wet, icy wind in with them, pulling off boots and coats in the kitchen. Max and Charlie, and Dallas, then Lucinda and Pedric and Wilma directly behind them, Lucinda carrying the kit inside her coat, warm and snug. Joe heard Ryan Fla
"New project?" Charlie said to Clyde, nodding toward the front drive where a canvas-covered vehicle sat, presumably a newly purchased antique car in need of tender attention. Clyde was always buying a "new" relic-rusty, neglected, begging to be restored.
Clyde nodded. "New baby. Didn't have room at the shop." He turned away, setting a covered tureen on the table. The newly remodeled kitchen was twice the size of the old one, and a great place for company. Ryan had not only torn out the wall to the unused dining room, she had added a handsome Mexican tile floor, redone the kitchen cabinets, and installed a bay window over the sink where the cats could supervise the cooking while remaining out of the way.
Joe watched his friends fixing drinks-wine for Lucinda and Pedric-and wondered when Max would unveil Charlie's new car. Watched them gather around the big table to dish up bean soup and salad and corn bread. Joe and Dulcie and Kit, settled in the bay window with their three bowls of soup and crumbled corn bread, glanced at each other with satisfaction.
Lori Reed was safe again, and Fe
33
"What will happen to Lori Reed?" Lucinda asked after supper, as the little party crowded around the warming blaze in Clyde's living room. "If Jack Reed gets life, or the death sentence, does she have anyone else?"
"No other family," Wilma said. "And I don't think the child will tolerate being sucked back into the welfare system." This statement from Wilma drew startled looks. "But," Wilma said, "I don't think she'll have to; I think Cora Lee would be delighted to give Lori a home."
"What kind of sentence is Reed likely to get?" Lucinda said.
Wilma shook her head, as did Max and Dallas. There was no telling, given the circumstances. "Anything from ten years," Harper said, "for manslaughter, to life for two counts of second-degree murder."
"How's Lori taking it?" Charlie said.
"Stoic," Wilma said. "Quiet. She's with Cora Lee now, but when Genelle is out of the hospital, Lori wants to stay with her." Wilma had chosen to sit just beside the hearth, in Joe's personal, clawed chair that Clyde had covered with a blanket for the occasion. "Lori knows the whole story," Wilma said. "Hal's fishing trips, the L.A. murders. But she seems all right about it; she's a strong child."