Page 4 (1/2)

7

There is a gliht just before you turn onto Highway 44 The houses hide behind a wrought-iron fence and a security gate When the hoance and so was the neighborhood Now the town houses are an island in a rising flood of project housing and dead-eyed children who shoot each other over a scuffed sneaker But the old ant, even if it kills theest employer A side road runs past fast-food restaurants and local businesses But the highway bypasses the back The Maritz building spans the highith a covered crosswalk that looks big enough to hold offices It gets your attention like an overly aggressive date, but I know the name of the business, and I can&039;t say that about ressive works

The Ozark Mountains rise on either side of the road They are soft and rounded Gentlecolor, thein their beauty On a cold Decehts for co close to the road There was just enough snow to gleareens were perht A limestone cliff shone white where the ravel pit

Houses huddled at the base of the mountains Neat far on Not-so-neat houses made of unpainted ith rusty tin roofs Corrals sat in ele horse stood in the icy cold, head down searching the tops of the winter-killed grass A lot of people kept horses out past Eureka--people who couldn&039;t afford to live in Ladue or Chesterfield, where houses cost over half apens, and a corral in your backyard Here all you got was a shed, a corral, and miles to drive to visit your horse, but at least you had one A lot of trouble to go to for a horse

The white head of a road sign flashed in the headlights I slowed down A car had run into the pole and crun was hard to read frole Which was probably why Dolph had told n rather than the street name

I pulled onto the narrow road In St Louis we&039;d gotten about a three-inch snowfall Here it looked led sharply upward, clion wheels otten up the hill So couldfresh snow in high heels Though I did have a pair of Nikes in the trunk Still, jogging shoes weren&039;t a big improvement Maybe I should buy a pair of boots

It just didn&039;t snow that much in St Louis This was one of the deepest snowfalls I&039;d seen in four years Boots seemed sort of unnecessary

The trees curled over the road, naked branches bouncing in the headlights Wet, icy trunks bent towards the road In summertime the road would be a leafy tunnel, noas just black bones erupting from the white snow

At the crest of the hill there was a heavy stone wall It had to be ten feet tall, and effectively hid anything on the left-hand side of the road It had to be the monastery

About a hundred yards further there was a plaque set in the wall next to a spiked gate St Ambrose Monastery was done in raised letters, ht around a curve of hill And just across froravel road The car tracks climbed into the darkness ahead of ate hadn&039;t been there for a landht have le that ht

I wondered what all the heavy traffic was up ahead Not my problem I eased onto the s down the gleareat

I&039;d never had a brand-new car before That first ding, where I&039;d run over a snow-covered toe the rest was easy to take Riiight

The land opened up to either side of the narrow road A large hted doith snow Lightning flashes of red and blue strobed over the snow, chasing back the darkness The ht line where the mower had cut it A white farmhouse, complete with screened-in porch, sat at the end of the road Cars were everywhere, like a child&039;s spilled toys I hoped the road formed a turn around under the snow If not, the cars were parked all over the grass My grandrass

A lot of the cars had theirthe a But for what? By the tiot to a crime scene, all the as usually done So to take the body away after I&039;d finished looking at it, but the cri was up

I pulled in next to a St Gerard County Sheriff car One police on the roof He&039;d been staring at the knot of men near the farmhouse, but he turned to stare at me He didn&039;t look happy hat he saw His Smokey Bear hat shielded his face but left his ears and the back of his head open to the cold He was pale and freckled and at least six foot two His shoulders were very broad in his dark winter jacket He looked like a large h His hair was sohts, so his hair looked alternately blue and red As did his face, and the snow, and everything else

I got out of the car very carefully Snow spilled in aroundthe leather purip on the car door High heels and snow do notI wanted to do was fall on my ass in front of the St Gerard County Sheriff Departrabbed my Nikes from the back of the Jeep and put them on in the car It was too late now The deputy sheriff alking very purposefully towardsno trouble with the snow

He stopped within reach of et that close to o of the car door Besides he was the police, I wasn&039;t supposed to be afraid of the police Right?

"This is police business, ma&039;am, I&039;ll have to ask you to leave"

"I&039;eant Rudolf Storr"

"You&039;re not a cop" He seemed very certain of that I sort of resented his tone

"No, I&039; to have to leave"

"Can you tell Sergeant Storr that I&039;m here please" Never hurts to be polite

"I&039;ve asked you real nice twice now to leave Don&039;t make me ask a third tirab my arm, shove oing to drawdistance I didn&039;t want to get shot tonight

What could I do? I shut the car door very carefully and leaned against it If I was careful and didn&039;t ht not fall down If I did, maybe I could claim police brutality

"Nohy did you do that?"

"I drove forty-five et here" Try to appeal to his better nature "Let eant Storr and if he says I need to leave, I&039;ll leave"

"I don&039;t care if you flew in froht now"

He didn&039;t have a better nature

He reached for me I stepped back, out of reach My left foot found a patch of ice and I ended up on my ass in the snow

The deputy looked sort of startled He offeredabout it I cli farther away froured this out The frown lines on his forehead deepened

Snow clung in wet clus I was getting pissed off

He strode around the Jeep

I backpedaled using -around-the-Rosie if you want to, Deputy, but I&039; until I&039;ve talked to Dolph"

"Your sergeant isn&039;t in charge here" He stepped a little closer

I backed away "Then find someone who is"

"You don&039;t need to talk to anyone but me," he said He took three rapid steps towards me I backed up faster If we kept this up we&039;d be running around the car like a Marx brothers movie, or would that be the Keystone Kops?

"You&039;re running froot to be kidding"

I was almost around the back of the Jeep, we&039;d be back where we started soon Over the crackle of police radios you could hear angry voices One of the trouble with the local cops Though I see chased around a car

"Stop, right where you are," he said

"If I don&039;t?"

He unclicked the flap on his holster His hand rested on the butt of his gun No words necessary

This guy was crazy

I un before he could draw his, but he was a cop He was supposed to be one of the good guys I try not to shoot the good guys Besides, try explaining to other cops why you shot a cop They get testy as hell about stuff like that

I couldn&039;t drawsee I could think of I yelled "Dolph, Zerbrowski! Get your butts over here"

The shouting stopped as if someone had clicked a switch Silence and the crackle of radios were the only sounds I glanced towards the ht inches, Dolph towered over everyone else I waved a hand at him Not frantically, but I wanted to be sure he sawI had not to go forfor an excuse I wasn&039;t going to give it to hi to be pissed

His gun was a 357 Magnu on two legs That was huun barrel My eyes flicked up to his face He wasn&039;t frowning anymore He looked very deterer and not get caught

I wanted to yell for Dolph again, but didn&039;t The fool er At this distance with that caliber of weapon I was dead oing slowly nu the car At least he hadn&039;t asked me to put ain until he splattered my brains all over the new paint job

It was Detective Clive Perry alked towards us His dark face reflected the lights like ebony He was tall, though not as tall as the deputy from hell His slender frame was enclosed in a pale camel&039;s-hair coat A hat that matched it perfectly sat atop his head It was a nice hat and couldn&039;t be pulled low enough to cover his ears Most nice hats couldn&039;t be You had to get a toboggan hat, so knit that would ruin your hair to keep your ears war a hat at all Didn&039;t want toat someone I couldn&039;t tell exactly what color unifor at, there were at least two flavors to choose fro arm, the rest of the man lost behind the small crowd I&039;d never seen anybody wave their fists in Dolph&039;s face When you&039;re six foot eight and built like a wrestler, most people are a little afraid of you Probably wise

"Ms Blake, we&039;re not quite ready for you," Perry said

He always called everyone by title and last name He was one of the , courteous, so what had he done to end up on the Spook Squad?

The squad&039;s full title was the Regional Preternatural Investigation Team They handled all preternatural-related cri special task force I don&039;t think anyone planned on the squad actually solving cases Their success rate was high enough that Dolph had been invited to lecture at Quantico Lecturing to the FBI&039;s preternatural research branch was not shabby

I kept staring at the deputy and his gun I wasn&039;t going to glance away a second time I didn&039;t really believe he&039;d shootin his face that said he&039;d do it, that un and they turn into bullies Legally armed bullies

"Hello, Detective Perry The deputy here and I seem to have a probleun out?" Perry&039;s voice was soft, cales, or es

Aikensen turned his head, glancing back at Perry "No civilians allowed at a murder scene, sheriff&039;s orders"

"I don&039;t think Sheriff Titus meant for you to shoot the civilians, Deputy"

He glanced back at Perry "You h tiun I wanted to shove it in his ribs I wanted him disarmed, but I behaved myself It took un I wasn&039;t ready to kill the son of a bitch If you draw guns, there is always the chance someone will end up dead Unless you want someone dead, you don&039;t draw, si deep down inside when the deputy turned back toa lot of bruising, but I could live with that, and so could Deputy Aikensen

"Sheriff said I wasn&039;t to let anybody but police into the perimeter"

"Perimeter" was a pretty fancy word for someone this stupid Of course, it was ato use it in conversation for years

"Deputy Aikensen, this is our preternatural expert, Anita Blake"

He shook his head "No civvies, unless the sheriff okays it"

Perry glanced back towards Dolph, and what I now assu us near the body, Deputy What do you think the chances are of Sheriff Titus saying a civilian can see the body?"

Aikensen grinned then, un very steady on thehiun away and Ms Blake will leave," Perry said

I opened ave a small shake of his head I kept quiet He had a plan, better than what I had

"I don&039;t take orders froer detective"

"Jealous," I said

"What?"

"That he&039;s a big city detective and you&039;re not"

"I don&039;t have to take crap from you, either, bitch"

"Ms Blake, please, let me handle this"

"You can&039;t handle shit," Aikensen said

"You&039;ve been totally uncooperative and rude, you and your sheriff You can call me all the names you like, if that un at one of our people"

A look passed over Aikensen&039;s face I could see the thought flicker into life Perry was a cop, too He probably had a gun, and Aikensen had his back to hiun up as he un

Perry&039;s e he was unarun to head level, two-handed, steady, no hurry

Someone noticed us and yelled, "What the fuck?" Indeed

I pointed the Browning at Aikensen&039;s back "Freeze, Aikensen, or I will blow you away"

"You&039;re not armed"

I clicked the hammer back On a double-action you don&039;t need to do that before you fire, but it makes a nice dramatic sound "You didn&039;t frisktowards us, shouting But they wouldn&039;t get here in time It was just the three of us in the psychedelic snoaiting

"Put the gun down, Aikensen, now"

"No"

"Put it down or I&039;ll kill you"

"Anita, you don&039;t need to shoot He&039;s not going to hurt me," Perry said It was the only time he&039;d ever used er protecting me"&039; His shoulders tensed I couldn&039;t see his hands well enough to be sure, but I thought he was pulling the trigger I started to squeeze the trigger

A bellowing voice yelled, "Aikensen, put that daun skyward, just like that He hadn&039;t been pulling the trigger at all He was just jule at the back oftwitchy I sed the laugh and eased off the trigger Did Deputy Nu that had saved hier It was stiff There were a lot of guns out there where a tiny squeeze was all you needed

He turned towards un still out, but not pointed Mine was still pointed He started to lower his weapon to point it back atto shoot you"

"Aikensen, I said put the daet somebody killed" The man that ith the voice was about five foot six and hed over two hundred pounds He looked perfectly round like a sausage with ars His winter jacket strained over his round little turey stubble decorated his double chins His eyes were slittered on his jacket front He hadn&039;t left it inside on his shirt He&039;d pinned it outside, where the big city detectives couldn&039;tyour fly so coer"

"We don&039;t hold with talk like that, Deputy, you know that"

Froht the sheriff had told hiood ol&039; boy in the worst sense of the word But there was intelligence in those beady little eyes, more than you could say for Aikensen