Spirit Dances. C.E. Murphy
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I opened my mouth to argue, then slumped. My friend Phoebe was a fencing teacher by vocation, but a fashionista in her heart of hearts. Tall, generally slender me was her idea of a perfect model. She loved dressing me up. Moreover, she had vastly better taste in clothes and style than I did, and I had the entire remainder of the afternoon, thanks to the suspension of duty. There was no chance she couldn’t make me presentable. “Okay, but I’m blaming you if this is a disaster.”
“It won’t be a disaster.”
That was our cue to leave the broom closet, but I only nodded moodily and sat there, slouched, for a minute before nerving myself up to say, “So how’re you doing?” in a much more subdued tone.
Billy pushed out a huge breath of air and said, “Okay,” after a while. “You?”
I bobbed my head around in a noncommittal okay of my own. “I haven’t heard how she is, yet.”
“Stable. She’s going to be fine. You did good, Joanie. The neighbor—not the one with the kids—said he thought she’d been hiding in their doghouse.”
“Big dog.”
“German shepherd.”
That was big enough, all right. “How’d she get into the yard?”
“Hole in the fence. The kids use it to go back and forth to play.”
I said, “Shit,” and put my face in my hands. “I should’ve looked beyond the Raleigh property. I’m sorry, Billy.”
“We weren’t supposed to be checking out anybody else’s property. You did fine. You saved my life.”
This time I managed the tiny joke I’d been reaching for earlier: “Had to. Who else on the force is going to put up with my bizarre life?”
He knocked his shoulder against mine again, a familiar and comforting action. “Nobody, that’s who. Don’t think I don’t know it.”
I wobbled from the impact. “Don’t think I don’t.” I had, for most of the four years we’d known each other, given him endless hell about his belief in the paranormal, right up until the paranormal came and bit me on the ass. Since then he’d put up with my shenanigans, held his tongue time and again and generally been as stalwart a companion as a girl could ask for. Nobody would have treated me as well as he did, past, present or future. I didn’t deserve him, but I was grateful as hell to have him. “You call Mel yet?”
“No. Morrison’s sent me home for the afternoon, soon as I get my report in. I thought it’d be better to talk to her face-to-face. She can’t panic about me being dead if I’m standing right there.”
“As long as the news isn’t reporting a North Precinct cop involved in a shooting incident yet, that’s probably a good idea.”
Billy looked pained and stood up. “I better check on that. You heading out?”
“Yeah. To let Phoebe dress me, I guess.”
My partner grinned. “Get a photo. ’Cause I promise, it won’t be a disaster.”
FRIDAY, MARCH 17, 7:53 P.M.
It wasn’t a disaster.
Phoebe had slicked my short hair back in that wet look that either really works or really doesn’t. To my surprise, it worked: without any bits of hair to soften them, my cheekbones looked sculpted. Then she’d applied just enough makeup to smooth my skin and emphasize my eyes, so I almost didn’t look like I was wearing makeup, a trick I’d never myself learned. At my insistence, she’d left my eclectic jewelry—ivory coyote earrings, a silver choker necklace and a copper bracelet—alone.
The jewelry, though, was the only decision I could pretend was my own. I wouldn’t have dared put me into a forest-green velvet sheath that bared my broad shoulders and made my waist look improbably small. Also, any dress I would have chosen would’ve come to my ankles, whereas this one stopped somewhere just beyond fingertip-length. My legs were long to begin with. A dress that quit that far above my feet, coupled with three-inch strappy gold heels, made them go on forever. Every time I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror, I didn’t know who I was, which made me accept the possibility that I was smokin’ hot. I owed Phoebe one.
The advantage to being a smidge under six feet tall in bare feet was that if I wore three-inch heels, there was almost no one I couldn’t see over. Beautifully dressed theater-goers milled around me and I stared over their heads, watching the front doors. In another two minutes I was leaving. The insurance I’d taken out on my nerves to make myself leave the apartment in my fancy new dress didn’t cover being stood up. It wasn’t a scenario I’d even considered.
Anticipated humiliation was getting my heart rate up when Morrison walked in. I’d never seen him in a tux. In fact, of all the people I interacted with regularly, the only one I’d seen in a tux was Billy’s wife Melinda. She’d been nine months pregnant and cute in a penguinlike way.
I had, therefore, kind of forgotten that men tended to be more devastating than cute in a tuxedo. Particularly if they looked comfortable in one, which Morrison did. It got a whole James Bond thing going, like he was slightly ruffled because he’d stopped to casually beat up forty-seven bad guys on his way to meet the girl.
Maybe that’s why he was late.
He saw me from across the room, which would have sounded a lot more romantic if I didn’t tower over everyone around me. We nodded at each other and I let him come to me, based on me being much closer to the theater doors than he was. It took him a minute to get to me, during which time I watched a couple dozen admiring women, and at least two equally admiring men, shift slightly so they could get a better look as he passed. I gave myself two points for having the best-looking date at the theater. Then I gave him two points for having a none-too-shabby date himself, when some of those lingering glances followed his trajectory and came to land, with hints of bitterness or approval, on me.
He had a shamrock pinned to his lapel. I touched it with a fingertip. “I think that’s cheating. You’re supposed to wear green, not be nominally adorned by it.”
“Are you going to pinch me?”
“Would I get fired?”
Morrison laughed aloud, which I didn’t think I’d ever heard him do before. While I gaped, he offered me his elbow. “Don’t risk it. You clean up good, Walker.”
“You’re not half bad yourself, sir.” I tucked my hand into his elbow and, unable to resist, added, “Except unusually short.”
“You didn’t warn me you were wearing platform heels.”
“If I was wearing platform heels your nose would be in my clea—” I cleared my throat, and Morrison, God bless him, slid a glance at the half-mentioned décolletage. We were exactly the same height, he and I, and in police-issue shoes neither of us ever had the height advantage. Back when we were still pissing in each other’s cereal for the crime of existing, I’d been known to wear extra-stompy thick-soled boots for the sheer glee of looking down on him. In retrospect, which I was only applying right now at this very moment, it had never seemed to bother him at all. “Right. Rented tux?”
“Will it damage your perception of me if I say I own it?” Morrison guided me to the theater doors, where I handed over the tickets, and then he walked me down the long aisle as though he had a great deal of practice at it. I, who wore heels seldomly, clung to him like an ingénue and couldn’t answer the question until he had me safely seated.
Then I couldn’t answer it anyway, because I was too busy gazing around the theater. We were twelve rows from center stage, just where the seating’s rake started to pick up speed. “Holy crap, these seats are fabulous. I’m going to have to go down to Solid Ground and thank Rita again. Wow.”
Morrison agreed, “Not bad,” and settled down to glance through the program, which gave me a few seconds to examine him surreptitiously. I always thought