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After that dramatic exchange,
the party sputtered to an end. The moms hurriedly took their leave. I thanked Jennifer, as she stood there alone with a table full of food and a stunned expression on her face. I headed toward my car.

As I climbed into the BMW, Detweiler text-messaged me. “Big Dawg’s? 12?”

If I hurried, I could get there. I texted back, “Yes.” I wanted to share the many names that had been flying around Jennifer’s house. I also wanted to tell him why Stevie Moore should be struck off his list of suspects.

I drove along the shady lane, enjoying the strobing effect of sunlight through the branches. I glanced ahead to a small blind lane on my right. Immediately following that intersection was a one-lane bridge with wooden planking. The structure was old, sound enough to handle a bigger car, but too open and fragile for my taste. Someone had added wooden guardrails, only for show. I’d paid scant attention to the structure on my way to the meeting.

As I passed the crossroad, my peripheral vision caught a dark blur. A car traveled at a right angle toward me. Overgrown bushes obscured most of the vehicle. But I heard the whine of a large engine. The car was moving fast.

I glanced around.

My cell phone rang. I slowed down and grabbed at it.

“Hello?”

Nothing.

The hesitation cost me.

I looked up.

A huge black car was coming right at my side.

My front wheels faced the bridge. If the big black car smacked my back wheels now, I’d be knocked sidewise into the culvert. Beneath me swirled a swollen creek.

If I were hit, I’d go down the embankment. I’d tumble end over end. My ragtop wouldn’t protect me. My car was too old to have a roll bar. I’d land upside down in the water. And I’d drown.

My heart skipped a beat. Sweat broke out on my upper lip.

My mind raced through various scenarios. Stop? Go? My impulse was to slam the brakes. But my mind overrode my instincts. If I stopped, I’d be hit, and hit hard.

My pulse quickened. I swallowed. My palms were wet with perspiration. I froze.

If that car hit me, I would go over the side. My car would flip. I would die. A slow, lonely death.

I thought of Anya. I remembered how she’d reacted to George’s death.

I didn’t want to die.

I stomped the gas.

My wheels spun. Gravel
pinged the back bumper. The car stuttered. I mashed my accelerator hard. I gripped the steering wheel. My car slid a foot or so to one side. The wheels couldn’t catch traction. A cloud of dust flew up around me. The spinning stopped. I moved forward.

I shot out the other side of the bridge like a spit wad from a kid’s mouth. Once I cleared the bridge, my right foot jumped to the middle. I literally stood on the brake pedal. My body fought the seat belt as I rose up.

But my car skidded to a stop.

Behind me, the black vehicle zoomed past the spot where I’d been and into an adjacent blind lane.

The steering wheel bucked my grip as the car reacted. For a heartbeat, my car skidded out of my control. The backside fishtailed, this way and that. But it stopped. Thank God, it stopped. I closed my eyes and said a prayer of thanksgiving. Then I heard a honk. Another mother had pulled up behind me. Judy was waiting for me to drive on. I had blocked the lane. Raising my trembling hand, I gave her a weak wave and continued on my way.

“St. Louis. Second only to Boston for bad drivers,” I muttered to myself.

Burned into my brain was a sensation of panic. I kept imagining that fatal plunge to the water. I blinked and brought up a sensation of vertigo, of being turned topsy-turvey.

I could have been killed.

All the way to Big Dawg’s, I trembled like a leaf in a tornado.

Big Dawg’s is a hole in the wall. Fluorescent paint highlights menu items and welcomes customers with “We are Glad to See and Serve You.”

Detweiler was waiting for me right inside the door. Other cops were scattered around the seating area. I sighed with relief. I was glad the place was crowded. No way did I want to start trouble with his wife, Brenda. She was muscular and athletic, and frankly, she scared me. She’d showed up at the store to “talk with me,” and Dodie had shooed her away.

I’m a lover not a fighter. Well, mainly mostly.

Cigarette smoke prickled my nostrils. I wheezed. St. Louis has the distinction of being the #1 Worst City for Asthmatics in the nation. The fact we don’t have a cohesive non-smoking in restaurant legislation is one reason. Another is pollen. But you can’t arrest a tree.

I glanced down to see a duo of crushed Marlboros in the ashcan. You could puff away at Big Dawg’s. Rats. I hoped the offending smoker had already left. Otherwise, my allergies would really kick in, and I’d be mopping my nose for the next hour. Detweiler motioned to a seat at the far end of the counter, beyond the State Street sign, and underneath a black and white of Marilyn Monroe with pursed lips. I think Marilyn was reacting to the cigarette smoke, too.

The smell of frying onions overpowered Detweiler’s cologne, but still … he smelled like a guy on a date.

Boy, I wished that date was with me.

My brain said, “Are you NUTS?” But other parts of my self were not so logical. Between the adrenaline from my near miss and my hormones, I felt woozy. I needed to sit down or prop myself up, fast. Added to the general mayhem, my stomach rumbled. After that buzz saw of a book club meeting, I’d left without sampling Jennifer’s offerings. Except for one cookie. And one cookie didn’t put a dent in my empty tummy. I wanted food. REAL food.

I climbed onto the stool and studied the menu board. Detweiler offered to buy. “Union employees get a discount,” he said.

He stepped to the window and gave our orders to a tough-looking girl with a Slovakian accent, a tattoo, and a “don’t mess with me” attitude. Definitely not a Wendy Ward’s Charm School graduate. (Which I am. I even made a scrapbook page with my diploma. It’s really cute, too.) She shoved a pair of Styrofoam cups toward him and gestured to the fountain drinks dispenser. I took my cup and walked to the dispenser.

My hand was shaky. I poured diet cola all over my fist.

“Self-serve not your bag?” He said as we settled onto our seats.

“Um, I was almost hit on my way back from the book club meeting. Close call.” I explained about the bridge. What I didn’t say was that being near him made me jittery. My heart pounded in my chest. My eyes measured the space between us at the counter, and I leaned away from him. If we touched, I feared we’d both go up in flames.

Boy, I had it bad.

Detweiler sipped his soda and shook his head. “Drivers here run stop signs all the time.”

“Ah, the famous ‘St. Louis stops,’ right? If everyone else stops, why should I?” I watched him wince. “What’s up with Coach Johnson?”

Detweiler ran a hand through his hair. “He’s out.”

“No kidding! That’s good news, right?”

“Maybe.” Detweiler lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “He’s not talking to anyone, not even me, on the advice of his attorney. I have no idea who paid his bail.”

His voice carried a touch of hurt. While Corey staying quiet made sense, Detweiler felt excluded. Worst of all, I wondered if Corey knew his old friend was working overtime trying to exonerate him? I started to ask, but realized, how could the coach know? If Detweiler talked to Corey’s lawyer, he’d be going behind the back of his captain in the Major Case Squad. He’d be telegraphing how weak the department’s case was. And since he couldn’t talk to Corey, Detweiler couldn’t pick up any new leads from his friend. A real Catch-22.

The wild card was whatever I could dig up from my snooping around.

“How’s Anya?” The detective’s voice was gruff with emotion. “She okay?”

I filled him in on her nightmare. Repeating it made me more tired. I shook my head as I said, “I hope she’s safe.”

He nodded. “She’s safer at school and school events, with all the attention being paid to security, than she would be at your house. I flashed her photo to the security guards, so they’ve promised to be extra vigilant. A lot of them are off-duty cops. We watch out for each other’s families.”

Families. I swallowed hard. So that was what he considered my daughter? A member of his family? A pricking started behind my eyes and I gulped my drink to push down the pain in my throat. I set down my cup carefully and studied him from under my lashes. A patch of beard had been missed when he shaved. His fingers drummed restlessly on the counter and his leg jiggled frantically. Under his eyes were puffy half-circles, and his lips were chapped. He was definitely not himself. The last time he’d been on a case, I’d been attracted to how calm, cool, and collected he’d seemed.

This one was making him a wreck.

Then I realized. He also thought of Corey Johnson as family. I’d bet my Fiskars Personal Paper Trimmer on it. This new insight warmed me to him all over again. What a good man he was. At the core, decent and loyal.

Except, if that were true, why did he kiss me? Come visit me? When he was married?

I rubbed my eyes hard. “Allergies,” I mumbled. “What’s the department’s response to Corey getting out?”

“What you’d expect. The captain admits we don’t have a lot. Chief Holmes is keeping up a PR front. Sorry. I can’t tell you more.”

I shrugged. I’d sort of expected as much. “I’ll tell you what I heard at book club, but what else can I do? Anything? I’m flying blind here.”

He repeated how Sissy had dropped her son Christopher off at kindergarten at roughly nine-thirty, and her first class didn’t start that particular day until eleven a.m. CALA used a rotating class schedule designed to compensate for the many Mondays that are national holidays. The students adjusted to its quirks quickly, but to me and most parents, it was difficult to keep track.

Corey Johnson hadn’t verified his whereabouts for the suspicious timeframe. Detweiler said the man seemed too distraught to think clearly. None of the teachers stepped forward to say they’d seen the coach. So he had no alibi.

“Lots of people had keys to the balcony. Anyone walking the hall—as Anya and her friends did—could have slipped in and out. The amount of blood spatter was minimal, our forensics examiner says. We thought about searching nearby lockers, but that would take a court order,” he said as he wiped his mouth with his napkin. “There’s that sports booster meeting. We’re working our way through a makeshift list of attendees, but folks aren’t being helpful.”

Our meal was ready at the window. Detweiler hopped up to get it. He slid my red basket with the kid’s meal—a hot dog and fries—toward me. “They’re all out of toys.”

Well, shoot. Now my day was totally ruined.

“Start with the book club.” He bit into the first of his two smoked bratwursts. The man had a half pound of pork and veal to plow through, plus a generous helping of fries.

I listed the names I’d heard. I explained about Stevie Moore.

Detweiler’s eyes clouded with concern. “But maybe Stevie didn’t do it and his mother did. To keep his, um, preferences quiet.”

I couldn’t believe that of Jennifer. I realized, too, that since Anya was spending a lot of time at the Moores’ house, I really needed to know the family better.

I wished Anya hung around more with Tilly, but I couldn’t force a friendship on my daughter. I’d tried that before and it had backfired. Anya had bitten the other preschooler during a playdate.

“You know the headmaster’s wife? Connie McMahan? Heard she was ticked at her hubby because of Sissy. We don’t know the details, but a secretary reported a heated discussion between the McMahans the day before Ms. Gilchrist was killed. A Ladue cop interviewed Mrs. McMahan, with the school’s attorney. Didn’t get much.” His voice lowered. “Could she be the one we’re looking for?”

“I know Connie a little. I can’t see her doing it.”

“Yeah, I was afraid you’d say that. No one saw her the morning of the murder. But she could have slipped in and out. The headmaster’s house is on the school grounds.”

“She’d’ve had to walk past the construction workers.”

“Right. We’re talking to the union workers. Breaks are part of their contract.”

Connie had left the book club rather quickly. If memory served me correctly, later today Connie would be planting flowers in preparation for homecoming celebrations. Even though CALA employed a fleet of gardeners, it was a tradition for the women of the school to plant mums along the winding driveway to welcome back the alums.

“I could probably talk to her this afternoon,” I told him. “Maybe I can find out what she was upset about. I’ve got to get to work.”

He started to say something. I could tell it was personal. I turned away and wadded up my trash. I kept my back to him, and started toward the door without turning. I could hear him speak my name, in a voice almost pleading. But I didn’t stop. I let the hustle and bustle of the restaurant cover for my cowardice.

We walked to our cars. After I climbed in, I looked up to see Detweiler staring at me thoughtfully as he started the engine on his big Chevrolet. It might have been a trick of the light, but he seemed wistful. A dull ache started in my chest, right below my throat. I turned over my BMW and pulled away.

His eyes were on me as I drove out of the parking lot.