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everything that happened that night in detail.” Andy half smiled. “Too much detail.”
That was Michele. She was forthright and downright. Her mom was the same way. I’d gone to vacation
Bible school one summer when Mrs. Schubert was teaching my age group. “Tell the truth and shame the
devil,” she’d advised us. Michele had taken that adage to heart, though maybe not in the way her mother
had intended it.
“I’m glad you believe her,” I said.
“We also talked to Calvin.” Andy leaned on his elbows. “He gave us the background on Dove and
Crystal. According to him, Jason knew all about their affair.”
“He did.” I shut my mouth tight. I wasn’t going to talk about that incident if I could help it.
“And we talked to Dove.”
“Of course.”
“Dove Beck,” Lattesta said, reading from his own notes. “He’s twenty-six, married, two kids.”
Since I knew all that, I had nothing to say.
“His cousin Alcee insisted on being there when we talked to him,” Lattesta said. “Dove says he was
home all that night, and his wife corroborates that.”
“I don’t think Dove did it,” I said, and they both looked surprised.
“But you gave us the lead that she and Dove had had an affair,” Andy said.
I flushed with mortification. “I’m sorry I did. I hated it when everyone looked at Jason like they were
sure he’d done it, when I knew he hadn’t. I don’t think Dove murdered Crystal. I don’t think he cared
enough about her to do that to her.”
“But maybe she ruined his marriage.”
“Still, he wouldn’t do that. Dove would be mad at himself, not at her. And she was pregnant. Dove
wouldn’t kill a pregnant woman.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Because I can read his mind and see his innocence, I thought. But the vampires and Weres had come
out, not me. I was hardly a supernatural creature. I was just a variation on human. “I don’t think that’s in
Dove,” I said. “I don’t see it.”
“And we’re supposed to accept that as proof?” Lattesta said.
“I don’t care what you do with it,” I said, stopping short of offering a suggestion as to exactly what he
might try. “You asked me; I answered you.”
“So you do think this was a hate crime?”
It was my turn to look down at the table. I didn’t have a notepad to scribble on, but I wanted to consider
what I was about to say. “Yes,” I told them finally. “I think it was a hate crime. But I don’t know if it
was personal hate, because Crystal was a slut . . . or racial hate, because she was a werepanther.” I
shrugged. “If I hear anything, I’ll tell you. I want this solved.”
“Hear anything? In the bar?” Lattesta’s expression was avid. Finally, a human man saw me as intensely
valuable. Just my luck he was happily married and thought I was a freak.
“Yes,” I said. “I might hear something in the bar.”
They left after that, and I was glad to see them go. It was my day off. I felt I should do something special
today to celebrate, since I was coming off such a difficult time, but I couldn’t think of anything to do. I
looked at the Weather Channel and saw the high for today was supposed to be in the sixties. I decided
winter was officially over, even though it was still January. It would get cold again, but I was going to
enjoy the day.
I got my old chaise longue out of the storage shed and set it up in the backyard. I slicked my hair up in a
ponytail and doubled it over so it wouldn’t hang down. I put on my smallest bikini, which was bright
orange and turquoise. I covered myself in tanning lotion. I took a radio and the book I was reading and a
towel, and went out to the yard. Yep, it was cool. Yep, I got goose bumps when a breeze came up. But
this was always a happy day on my calendar, the first day I got to sun-bathe. I was going to enjoy it. I
needed it.
Every year I thought of all the reasons I shouldn’t lie out in the sun. Every year I added up my virtues: I
