throbbing beneath her. She headed out to Myers Park, the wealthiest, oldest
neighborhood, where huge mansions with slate roofs gathered their cobblestone skirts
around them lest they be splashed by the dirtier elements of the city.
Myers Park Methodist Church was gray stone and rose from the horizon like a castle.
Goode had never been to a service here, but the parking lot she knew very well, for she
worshiped in it regularly. Brent Webb was on his break after the six o’clock news, his
Porsche idling beneath a large magnolia tree in a far corner. He shut down the engine as
his other one got going. He got out of his car, looking each way, as if about to cross
traffic, and slid inside Goode’s Miata.
Rarely did they talk, unless she had a scoop he must know. Their lips locked, sucked, bit,
probed, and invaded, as did tongues and hands.
They drove each other farther than either had ever been, each time more primitive and
special, each frenzied by the other’s power. Webb had secret fantasies of Goode in
uniform, whipping out her handcuffs, and her gun. She liked to watch him on TV, when
she was alone at home, savoring his every syllable as he alluded to her, and secretly
quoted her to the world.
T assume you know about the casket problem. ” Goode could barely talk.
“Whose?” asked Webb, who never knew anything unless the information was stolen or
leaked.
“Never mind.”
They were breathing heavily, the Pointer Sisters jumping on the radio.
They made out in the front seat, maneuvering around the stick shift as best they could.
Through the front windshield the lit-up city skyline was close, the US Bank Corporate
Center very much a symbol of Webb’s good mood. He unfastened her bra, never sure
why he bothered, and he imagined her tie, her police belt, and his excitement grew.
Y^^?
W Officer Jenny Frankel was typically excited, as well, for she was young and still
enthusiastic about her job. She looked for trouble, begged, and even prayed for it, so
when she noticed two vehicles pulled off in a remote corner of the Myers Park Methodist
Church parking lot, she had to check it out. In the first place, choir practice was
yesterday, and AA didn’t meet until Thursday. Plus, there were drug dealers everywhere,
threatening to take over. Fuck no, was her position. She would take the city back, return
it to decent, hard-working men and women if it was the last thing she did in life.
She pulled into shadows and stopped, now close enough to notice movement in the front
seat of a late-model black Miata that looked vaguely familiar, for some reason. Frankel
suspected the active silhouettes were two men, based on the hair. She typed plate
numbers into her MDT and patiently waited as the two guys kissed, fondled, and sucked.
When Deputy Chief Goode’s and Brent Webb’s Department of Motor Vehicle
information returned to the video display, Frankel rapidly left the area. Other than her
sergeant, with whom she went out drinking several times a week, Frankel told no one
what she had observed this night. The sergeant also told only one person, and this
discreetly went on.
W Brazil’s day had been long, but he did not want to go home. After working traffic, he had changed his clothes and done his eight hours for the Observer. Now it was almost
one a. m. The late shift had been slow. For a while he had hung around the press room
watching newspapers race towards their final destination of puppy crates and recycling
bins. He had stood, mesmerized, unable to see his byline this time because all he had
been able to bring in was a local metro story about a pedestrian run over in Mint Hill. The
victim was a known drunk and night editor Cutler didn’t think the story merited more
than three inches.
Brazil got in his BMW and headed back toward Trade Street. This was not a safe thing
to do, and no one need tell him that. He rumbled past the stadium and the Duke Power
transfer station, stopping at a dead end at West Third where the old crumbling building