Free Injustice for All by J. A. Jance Page B

full-service resort. While we were busy, the kitchen packed us a picnic lunch, complete with basket and tablecloth. Ginger’s enthusiasm was unrestrained. She practically skipped on her way to the parking lot. A genuine Ford Pinto, white with splotches of rust, was parked next to my bright red Porsche 928. As I went to unlock the rider’s side, Ginger >assumed I was going to the junker. She started for the rider’s side of that one, stopping in dismay when I opened the Porsche. She came around the Pinto grinning sheepishly. “Isn’t this a little high-toned for a homicide cop?”
    I placed the picnic basket in the back and helped her inside. “Conspicuous consumption never hurt anybody,” I said. With a switch of the key, the powerful engine turned over. When she was alive, Anne Corley drove the car with casual assurance. I always feel just a little out of my league, as though the car is driving me. “Have you seen Moran State Park?” I asked. Ginger shook her head. “Why don’t we try that? This late in October it isn’t crowded. ” “You’re changing the subject, Beau,” she accused.
    I feigned innocence. “What do you mean?”
    “Tell me about the car,” she insisted.
    And so I told her about the car. About finding Anne Corley and losing Anne Corley.
    One by one I pulled the memories out and held them up in the diffused autumn light so Ginger and I could look at them together. We drove and walked and talked. We climbed the stairs in the musty obelisk without really noticing our surroundings. It was my turn to talk and Ginger’s to listen.
    By the time I finished, we were seated at a picnic table in a patch of dappled sunlight with the food laid out before us. There was a long pause. “You loved her very much, didn’t you?” Ginger said at last. “I didn’t think I’d ever get over her. “
    “But you have?”
    “I’m starting to, a little.”
    “Meaning me?” From someone else, that question might have sounded cynical, but not from Ginger.
    I nodded. “Today is the first I’ve felt like my old self. Peters attributed it to my getting enough sleep.”
    “That shows how much he knows.”
    “He’s young. What can I tell you?”
    “And I’m the first, since Anne Corley?”
    “Yes. “
    “And I was good?” It was a pathetic question. She was looking for the kind of reassurance most women don’t need after age eighteen or so. We were alone in the park. I came around the table and sat behind her, my hands massaging her tight shoulders, rubbing the rigid muscles of her neck. Her body moved under the pressure of my kneading fingers, relaxing as stiffness succumbed to the balm of human touch. “You were terrific,” I whispered in her ear.
    She turned to me, two huge teardrops welling in her eyes. “That was stupid. I shouldn’t have asked.”
    She leaned against me, and I continued to rub her neck, feeling her tension soften and disappear.
    “No one’s ever done that to me before,” she said. “Done what?”
    “Rubbed my neck like that.”
    I kissed her forehead. “All I can say, sweetheart, is you’ve been married to a first-class bastard.”
    Unexpectedly, she burst out laughing. I don’t think anyone had ever referred to Darrell Watkins in quite those terms in her presence. She turned her neck languidly from side to side like a cat stretching in the sun. “That felt good,” she murmured.
    We repacked the picnic basket. “Could I stop by your room for a little while before I go? The meeting doesn’t start until eight. ” “Sure,” I said. “By the way, how do you plan to get to that meeting?” She clapped .her hand over her mouth. “I forgot.I don’t have my car. I can probably catch a ride with the van that goes to the ferry.”
    “Don’t be silly. Take the Porsche,” I said.
    “I couldn’t do that. “
    “Oh yes you can.”
    It was almost our first quarrel, but finally she knuckled under to my superior intellect and judgment. Besides, I had the clinching