Page 21 of Dodge

“Let’s take a chance.”

They walked up the corridor filled with the unsettling scents of houses of healing. In the cafeteria Marlowe bought two large cups. “To eat?” she called to Jessica, who’d taken a table by a window, overlooking the stream. She shook her head.

Marlowe joined her and sat. The sugar packets and pods of half-and-half were wasted.

The women sipped.

Jessica’s sharp hazel eyes looked at the walls. “Did you know that orange paint like that makes you eat faster?”

“I didn’t.”

“Our lunchroom at school? Same color. Wasted the paint job. Kidums have twenty minutes. So they better scarf it all down before the bell.” Her voice caught. A moment later she said, “Tony was lucky.” Jessica explained that the bullet had hit his cheek and gone clean through. Missed everything vital, though it had come close and if he had not accelerated as fast as he had, he would have died when Offenbach fired the other shots, which missed him entirely.

“God was looking out for him.” Her eyes were on Marlowe’s. Not the scar. “You like being police as much as Tony does?”

“Suits me.”

“Him too. You’re a detective.”

“Pretty much.”

“That’s what he wanted to be.Wantsto be. He’d be good.” A glance at Marlowe’s naked left ring finger. “Some men have skill by the bucket. They just need to think a little more highly of themselves.”

A nod in response. Then Marlowe said, “You know that somebody was helping Offenbach.”

“I heard. Wexler.” She grimaced.

The coffee was, in truth, not bad. Hunger pinged. But later. “When Sheriff Braddock mentioned Wexler, he gave a reaction, just like that. But didn’t say anything more. What do you know about him?”

Jessica’s lips tightened and the gaze aimed at the brash walls grew cold. Marlowe could just imagine her confronting an out-of-order middle schooler who was armed with a joint or graffiti spray can. “He’s awful. Tony was telling me what he does. Those people in the woods, on meth? We know he sells to them. And there’s been talk about trafficking in Milwaukee. Women and girls. Disgusting,” she spat out. “And he’s got a half brother, Rudy, who’s a mean bully.”

Though a very bad boxer.

“The Falls used to be a nice place. But Tony said that people like Wexler’ve moved out of the cities. They’re in the small towns now. Less police to hassle them.” Concern blossomed in her round face. “Tony can’t talk, but he writes things. He said there was a woman Offenbach was here to kill. Is that you?”

“That’s right.”

“It didn’t work out. Sobothof them, WexlerandOffenbach, can’t be real happy with you. You’ll be careful?”

Watching your back for threats from two people isn’t a lot harder than from one.

Marlowe asked, “Why is Wexler still free?”

Jessica scoffed, disgust in her face. “The word is that he’s really smart and keeps himself insulated from the dirty work. Tony says that. But I don’t know I agree with him. Sheriff Braddock’s been around. He knows his business. No, it’s that Wexler owns half the real estate in the county, and a dozen businesses. He hires people for good jobs, people who could only get work that involves asking what kind of side dish do you want. Gets people jobs in the county government—whether they’re any good or not.”

Marlowe recalled that when Wexler told the motel clerk to hand over the key to Offenbach, he jumped to.

“Tony was on patrol one time and found some meth on a man works for Wexler. The guy was hanging around the high school and that just burned up Tony. But the sheriff let him go. Could’ve been a felony. Tony called him on it. Braddock said, ‘Look, we got water moccasins here. A more dangerous snake you will not find. But we let ’em be. They eat rats andcottonmouths. And to kill one you gotta go into a river or pond, their territory, and that is one job we are not prepared for.’” She sighed.

Marlowe decided Braddock wasn’t a corrupt man but, despite the grizzled gunslinger look, he was weak and didn’t want to risk a plum job in a pleasant enough town by taking on a danger like Wexler. Oh, there’d be justice of sorts for Braddock: the sheriff would have to process crime scenes where high schoolers died with a needle in their arm, and he’d head home to dinner, with his only company on the drive his hot shame.

But for Constant Marlowe, no. Justice of sorts wasn’t enough.

She was not, however, the sheriff of Harbinger County.

The woman started to sip coffee but put the Styrofoam cup down. She crossed her arms and gazed out the window. “And you know the worst of it? About Tony?”

“What’s that?”

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