“So,” Glenn smiled at Lane, “do we have to go to the Animal Shelter to get a look at your scar?”
Erinn almost choked on a sip of cranberry juice. “Glenn!” Then she laughed despite her disapproval.
Arthur held the baby. Jessica sat in the crook of his arm with her eyes watching the people at the table. She developed a gradual, then total interest in her thumb.
“That's not something I want to see again!” Matt was in a mood not to be outdone by Glenn, who was at least as quick-witted.
“Let's see.” Glenn rolled his eyes. “How does one explain away a wound like that? A macho man would say it was a war wound. Mild-mannered would call it a bummer. An obscene person would call it being rear-ended. I would call it a blast in the â”
“Glenn!” Erinn tried to be stern while giggling.
“
Ass
far as that goes, we could say, in the end it was just a slap on the backside!” Matt sat back with a self-satisfied grin.
“It's not funny.” Christine got up from the table and started to pick up dishes. “He could have been killed! It was just lucky that the bullet hit him there instead of somewhere else.”
Matt laughed. “Yes, a few centimetres one way or the other and he could have been â”
“Shut up! Can't you see how serious this is?” Christine glared at Matt. “You're such a jerk.”
Matt went to reply and closed his mouth. His face turned red.
Erinn caught Lane's eye and mouthed the words, “Talk to her.”
Loraine watched Christine's reaction with clinical interest.
Lisa seemed unable to keep her eyes off Jessica. “Come on Arthur, it's my turn to hold her.”
“It's time to retire to the living room. Christine and I will take care of the dishes.” Lane got up slowly. He was aching in places he hadn't expected to ache: his back, shoulders, arms, and neck.
“I'll help.” Harper stood with his plate. Erinn grabbed his arm and shook her head.
Lane ran the water in the sink and worked next to Christine as they loaded the dishwasher. Lane looked out the window. The dog scratched at the back door.
Christine went to open it.
“Wait a minute, please,” Lane said.
“When are we gonna name the dog?” Christine asked.
“As soon as we agree on a name.” Lane wiped the inside of the sink with a soapy washcloth.
“I don't like the way they joke about you getting shot.” Christine closed the dishwasher and grabbed a tea towel.
“Nobody noticed.” Lane smiled at his niece. “It's just their way of saying they're glad I'm okay. You know,
sometimes you can't make up your mind whether to laugh or cry. So, you laugh.”
“Oh.” Christine leaned against the counter. “I just thought they were making fun of you.”
“What else are you worried about?” Lane began to fill the sink with water and gave it a squirt of dish soap.
“I ⦠well ⦠How do I ask?” Christine's face turned red.
Lane began to scrub the inside of the pot. “Just say it.”
“Loraine and Lisa, are they gay?” “That's right.”
I think I know where this is going
, Lane thought.
“Well, Loraine keeps looking at me.” Christine took the pot from Lane and began to dry.
“She's a psychologist. You're the new person at the table, and she's figuring you out. She's very good at what she does.” Lane realized his mistake too late.
“She thinks I'm crazy?”
“No. Loraine is a people watcher. That's what she does.”
Think fast
, he thought. “And no, Loraine's not trying to pick you up.”
Christine's ears turned red. “This is all so different.”
Lane put a salad bowl in the sink. “I wanted to talk with you about the other day.”
“What do you mean?” Christine's defenses went up all over again.
“The guy you hit. It scared me. When I think back on it, the whole thing scares me.” Lane wiped the inside of the bowl.
“If Matt hadn't flipped him the bird, none of it would have happened. He's such a hothead!” She crossed her arms.
“If I had to do it over again, there are a few things I would change. The thing that's worrying me now is the wooden handle.” Lane rinsed the bowl and handed it to Christine.
“What about it?” She wiped the bowl with her towel.
“What set you off?” Lane looked at his niece.
“It was what the driver said.”
“Well?” Lane pulled a platter from the counter and started to wash it.
“He told you, âGod doesn't like people like you or her for that matter.' That's the kind of thing Whitemore said in church every week for six months before I left. He'd stand up there, look down on me and say, âGod spoke to me. I had a vision. He said that we must be vigilant. He told us that homosexuality and sexual intercourse with the negro is against God's law. God knows those who break this law will have no place in Paradise.' He said âGod knows' so often, I can hear him saying it now. He wanted me to leave. And when he started saying I should leave, that's when it got nasty.”
“What do you mean?” Lane thought,
Maybe this isn't the time to tell her that Eva thinks I had a vision
.
“I'd turn my back and someone would bump into me. Leaving church, after one of his sermons, I'd get elbowed in the ribs. Half the time, I couldn't tell who did it. And no one, not even my mother, said anything. I had bruises on top of bruises.” Christine took the wet platter from Lane.
“I'm sorry.”
“For what? You didn't do anything.” She held the platter and let the water drip into the sink.
Lane kept his hands in the soapy water, fishing for a fork. “That's the problem, I didn't do anything. I listened to what some other people had to say. They believed I wasn't fit to be your uncle. By the time I realized they were wrong, it was too late. You and your mother had disappeared.”
Christine was silent for a moment. “That's really the way you feel?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe we both listened to the wrong people.” Christine rubbed Lane's back then pulled her hand away, leaving a wet mark on his shirt. “Does that hurt?”
He smiled. “Right now, almost everything hurts. Still, it's good to have you around again.”
Christine looked at him. “You mean that?”
“Of course I do.”
After the dishes, they sat down in the living room. Glenn, Christine, and Matt took the dog for a walk.
Erinn looked at the way Arthur sat contented with the sleeping baby. “Arthur? Why won't Lane see the police shrink?”
Arthur looked at Erinn. Conversation died while everyone in the room focused on his answer. “His family sent him to a shrink when he came out. The psychiatrist was a member of the church. He tried to convince Lane that he was making a choice to be gay. That he needed to be deprogrammed.”
Lane followed the conversation, at the same time
thinking about his blood soaking through Eva's tea towel as he sat with Harper on the grass next to her house.
“But, last year Lane worked with Loraine and she's a psychologist. That was no problem,” Harper said.
“That's different. He knew Loraine before and besides, he trusts her.” Arthur looked at Harper. “Like he trusts you.”
Lisa got up and held out her hands.
“Okay. Okay.” Arthur handed her the sleeping baby.
Lisa lifted Jessica, tucked her in the crook of her arm, and sat back down next to Loraine.
Loraine smiled, looked at the detectives and asked, “How are you two feeling about the shooting?”
Harper looked at Lane, who said, “You first.” “I'm having flashbacks about the first time I was shot.” Harper looked at Erinn. She stared back at him with an intensity that forced him to look away.
“The first time?” Loraine asked.
Harper took a long breath. “It was a leg wound.”
“And you?” Loraine turned to Lane.
“Right now, my mind keeps going over the events, trying to figure out what happened. It happened so fast; it's confusing.” Lane looked at the faces watching him.
Erinn said, “We've just had a baby and I'm worried. Whenever I think about what could have happened, I think I'm going to go crazy!”
Harper put his hand on Erinn's.
“I've been doing some reading and your reactions are pretty typical. Events like this leave a scar. It's when the people affected start to shut down or act out
in atypical ways that you have to be careful.” Loraine smiled. “We'll say that the mooning incident at the Animal Shelter was drug induced. Or we could say that it's the first indication of a much larger problem!”
Lane laughed. Jessica was startled awake and began to cry. Lisa stood and rocked the baby. Jessica's eyes closed. Her fists opened as she relaxed.
Harper watched with interest. “You've got the knack.”
Lisa looked pleased with herself. She sat down. “Actually,” Lisa looked at Loraine who nodded, “we've got an announcement of our own. We're expecting.”
Everyone looked at Loraine.
Loraine turned to Lisa.
“How come everyone thinks it's Loraine? I'm thirteen weeks pregnant.” Lisa's eyes filled with tears. “Sorry. Everyone we've told has reacted the same way. Can't see me as the motherly type, I guess. And my hormones are running wild.” She wiped at her eyes.
The front door opened. The dog rushed in. She went immediately to Lisa. The dog put her chin on Lisa's knee.
Glenn was next in the room. “Hey, we've got two new choices for the dog's name. Do you want to vote?”
Christine and Matt stood on either side of Glenn. “We can't decide,” Glenn said. “It's either Babs or Wilde.”
Matt pointed a thumb at Glenn. “His idea.”
“Neither one of the names makes any sense.” Christine shook her head and frowned.
“You know, Streisand; Babs. Wilde; Oscar Wilde,” Glenn said.
“Wilde is a boy's name?” Christine asked.
“Roz. That dog's a Roz if ever I saw one,” Erinn said. “Now, that's settled. After I feed Jessica, we need to figure out how to get us all to the rodeo.”
If anyone else had said it
, Lane thought,
it would have been dismissed out of hand, but because Erinn said it with just the right amount of confidence and enthusiasm, the name stuck
.
Fifteen minutes later, Harper and Lane sat with Lisa and Loraine on the deck. Inside, Erinn fed Jessica while chatting with Christine and Arthur. Matt and Glenn were at the kitchen table deep in their own conversation.
“We were hoping you could give us some background on the Alex Starchild case.” Lane sipped wine and looked through the glass at Lisa.
Harper played with the cap from his bottle of beer.
Lisa sipped a glass of ice water. “There was an extensive investigation. The problem there was the lack of evidence. The eyewitness could not positively identify the truck's license plate. She didn't see the occupants of the vehicle. Aidan, I believe her name was, did remember seeing a front plate with âRepublic of Alberta' on it. Investigating officers checked pickups of the same colour in the area, but there was no consistent body damage on any of them.”
Harper pushed the pop can away. “Were there any promising suspects?”
“We kept getting calls from people in the area who wanted the investigators to take a closer look at a guy named Blake Rogers, but there was no physical
evidence to link him to the boy who was killed.” Lisa sat up in her chair.
“Did you do any of the interviewing?” Lane asked. Lisa shook her head. “The guys investigating the crime kept digging and kept coming up empty. I read over the reports.”
“That's it, then?” Loraine asked.
“Unless there's new information,” Lane said.
“Actually, there is something else.” Harper leaned forward and looked directly at Loraine. “Lane won't go near downtown anymore. Since the fire, he's come to fewer and fewer meetings. He's been downtown maybe once or twice this month. The staff sergeant is asking questions. To make matters worse, it looks like the chief is getting ready to retire. Deputy Chief Calvin Smoke's makin' his move. He figures he's got a shot at becoming the top dog. He's backed by all of his friends in the scotch drinkers' club.”
Lane glared at Harper, who ignored him.
“Scotch drinkers' club?” Loraine asked.
Harper shook his head. “Bunch of cops who meet once a month to drink expensive scotch, pat each other on the back, network. Get the picture?”
Lisa said, “Otherwise known as a misogynists' club?”
Harper pointed a finger and a beer bottle at Lisa. “You got it. Anyway, guess who's a member of the club?”
Lisa shrugged. Loraine shook her head.
“Stockwell,” Lane said.
“And that's why you won't go downtown anymore?” Loraine asked.
Lane took a breath. “I thought we were moving forward, away from the old days. Now it looks like we're going back to the nineteen fifties. You know, the good old days when men were men and women were glad? Where the closet was closed and locked.”
“Oh, I see,” Loraine said without sounding convinced.
“How's staying away gonna make it any better?” Harper asked.
SATURDAY, JULY 6
“You know we have to go back out there,” Harper said. They sat in Kuldeep's coffee shop on the west side of town. Harper wore his jacket and tie.
Lane wore a loose-fitting shirt and a pair of black sweatpants.
Fear gripped Lane. It was an oddly familiar sensation. “This is what you went through after you were shot?”
Harper took a breath. “Yep.”
“And you're going through it again?” Lane took his cup of coffee in two hands.
Harper nodded. “The flashbacks started last night. One shooting gets all mixed up with the other. I keep hearing the ricochet, then the sound of the bullet smacking into flesh. When I look down, there's smoke coming out of my leg. It's weird.”