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“You think I’m being too hard on you?” he asked.
“You have to do what you think is right.”
“You’re probably the best cop we ever had in this department. Don’t walk out of here thinking my opinion is otherwise, Dave. But you’ve got a way of kicking it up into overdrive.”
“Then the bottom line is we’re cutting Bobby Earl some slack.”
“You once told me the best pitch in baseball is a change of pace. Why not ease up on the batter and see what happens?”
“Ease up on the wrong guy and he’ll drill a hole in your sternum with it.”
He turned his hands up on the blotter.
“I tried,” he said, and smiled.
When I left the room, the back of my neck felt as though someone had held a lighted match to it.
DREW ANSWERED HER door in a print sundress covered with yellow flowers. Her tan shoulders were spotted with freckles the size of pennies. Even though her left hand was swathed in bandages as thick as a boxing glove, she had put on eye shadow, lipstick, and dangling earrings set with scarlet stones, and she looked absolutely stunning as she stood with one plump hip pressed against the doorjamb.
I had called fifteen minutes earlier.
“I don’t want to keep you if you’re on your way out, Drew,” I said.
“No, it’s fine. Let’s sit on the porch. I fixed some tea with mint leaves in it.”
“I just need to look around back.”
“What for?”
“I might have missed something when I was out before.”
“I thought you might like some tea.”
“Thanks just the same.”
“I appreciated the flowers.”
“What flowers?”
“The ones you sent up to my hospital room with the Amnesty International card. One of the pink ladies saw you buy them.”
“She must have been mistaken.”
“I wanted to act nice toward you.”
“I need to look around back. If you don’t want to give me your permission, I have to get a warrant.”
“Who lit your fuse today?”
“The law’s impersonal sometimes.”
“You think I’m trying to get you in the sack?”
“Give it a break, Drew.”
“No, give me an honest answer. You think I’m all heated up for you, that I’m going to walk you into my bedroom and ruin your marriage? Do you think your old girlfriends are lining up to ruin your marriage?”
“Can I go in back?”
