As it happened, this was why filling the latest open position for a full-time deputy had proved so difficult. It was the reason she had ultimately passed on the application from the animal control guy, Frank Geary, and hired a young vet named Dan Treater instead, even though Treater had almost no experience in law enforcement. Smart and well-spoken as Geary obviously was, his job-file was too big—he’d generated too much paperwork, written up too many fines. The message between the lines was one of confrontation; this was not the kind of guy who could let the small shit slide. That was no good.
Not that her staff as a whole was some kind of crackerjack crime-fighting squad, and so what, big deal, welcome to real life. You got the best people you could, then tried to help them along. Roger Elway and Terry Coombs, for instance. Roger had probably absorbed one hit too many as a lineman for Coach Wittstock’s Dooling High School football team in the early aughts. Terry was smarter, but could become dispirited and sullen if things weren’t going his way, and he drank too much at parties. On the other hand, both men had fairly long fuses, which meant she could trust them. Mostly.
Lila harbored an unspoken belief that motherhood was the best possible rehearsal for a prospective police officer. (Unspoken especially to Clint, who would have had a field day with it; she could picture how he’d cock his head and twist his mouth in that rather tiresome way of his and say, “That’s interesting,” or “Could be.”) Mothers were naturals for law enforcement, because toddlers, like criminals, were often belligerent and destructive.
If you could get through those early years without losing your cool or blowing your top, you might be able to deal with grown-up crime. The key was to not react, to stay adult—and was she thinking about the naked woman covered in blood who had something to do with the violent deaths of two, or was she thinking about how to handle someone closer to home, much closer, the fellow who rested his head on the pillow next to hers? (When the clock clicked to 00:00, the gymnasium horn had blared, and the boys and girls cheered. The final score: Bridger County Girls AAU 42–Fayette Girls AAU 34.) As Clint might say, “Huh, that’s interesting. Want to tell me a bit more?”
“So many good sales right now,” Evie rattled on. “Washer-dryer. Grills. Babies that eat plastic food and poop it out again. Savings galore all over the store.”
“I see,” said Lila, as if the woman was making sense. “What’s your name?”
“Evie.”
Lila twisted around. “And a last name? How about that?”
The woman’s cheekbones were strong and straight. The pale brown eyes glowed. Her skin had what Lila thought of as a Mediterranean tint, and that dark hair, ooh. A splotch of blood had dried on her forehead.
“Do I need one?” Evie asked.
As far as Lila was concerned, that carried the motion: her new acquaintance was definitively, catastrophically high.
She faced forward, tapped the gas, and popped loose the mic. “Base, this is Unit One. I’ve got a woman in custody, found her walking north from the area of the lumberyard on Ball’s Hill. She’s got a lot of blood on her, so we need the kit to take some samples. She also needs a Tyvek suit. And call for an ambulance to meet us. She’s on something.”
“Roger that,” said Linny. “Terry says it’s a real mess at that trailer.”
“Roger that.” Evie laughed cheerily. “A real mess. Bring extra towels. Not the good ones, though, ha-ha-ha. Roger that.”
“One, out.” Lila racked the mic. She glanced at Evie in the mirror. “You should sit quiet, ma’am. I’m arresting you on suspicion of murder. This is serious.”
They were approaching the town line. Lila rolled the cruiser to a pause at the stop sign that brokered the Ball’s Hill–West Lavin intersection. West Lavin led to the prison. Visible on the opposite side of the road was a sign that warned against stopping for hitchhikers.
“Are you injured, ma’am?”
“Not yet,” said Evie. “But, hey! Triple-double. Pretty good.”
Something flickered in Lila’s mind, the mental equivalent of a glittering fleck in the sand, quickly washed over by a frothing wave.
She looked in the rearview again. Evie had shut her eyes and settled back. Was she coming down?
“Ma’am, are you going to be sick?”
“You better kiss your man before you go to sleep. You better kiss him goodbye while you still have the chance.”
“Sure thi—” Lila began, but then the woman bolted forward, headfirst into the dividing mesh. Lila flinched away instinctively as the impact of Evie’s head caused the barrier to rattle and vibrate.
“Stop that!” she cried, just before Evie smashed against the mesh a second time. Lila caught the flash of a grin on her face, fresh blood on her teeth, and then she battered against the mesh a third time.
Hand on the door, Lila was about to get out and go around to the rear, tase the woman for her own safety, settle her down, but the third strike was the last. Evie had crumpled down to the seat, gasping in a happy way, a runner who had just ripped through the finish line. There was blood around her mouth and nose, and a gash on her forehead.
“Triple-double! All right!” Evie cried out. “Triple-double! Busy day!”
Lila unracked the mic and radioed Linny: change of plans. The public defender needed to meet them at the station just as soon-as. And Judge Silver, too, if the old fellow could be persuaded to come down and do them a favor.
2
Belly-deep in a clutch of sweet-fern, a fox watched Essie unpack her cart.
He did not think of her as Essie, of course, did not have a name for her at all. She was just another human. The fox had in any case been observing her for a long while—moons and suns—and recognized clearly her ramshackle lean-to of plastic sheeting and canvas draping for the foxhole that it was. The fox also understood that the four chunks of green glass that she organized in a semi-circle and referred to as “The Girls” held great meaning to her. At times when Essie was not present, the fox had smelled them—no life there—and sifted through her possessions, which were negligible, except for a few discarded cans of soup that he had licked clean.
He believed that she represented no threat, but he was an old fox, and one did not become an old fox by proceeding too confidently on any matter. One became an old fox by being careful and opportunistic, by mating as frequently as possible while avoiding entanglements, by never crossing roads in daylight, and by digging deeply in good soft loam.
This morning, his prudence appeared to be unnecessary. Essie’s behavior was entirely in character. After she removed the bags and sundry mysterious items from her cart, she informed the glass fragments that mother needed a snooze. “No tomfoolery, you girls,” Essie said, and entered the lean-to to lie on the pile of mover’s quilts she used as a mattress. Though the lean-to covered her body, her head poked out into the light.