Free Cop Town by Karin Slaughter Page A

minute?”
    “Sure.” Maggie felt Chuck’s hand on her arm, but she kept moving. She followed Rick as he cut a path toward the back. Everybody liked Rick. He was funny and good-natured and always laughed at everybody’s jokes.
    He looked over his shoulder to make sure she was still there. “You holding up okay?”
    “Sure,” she repeated. “Jimmy’s great.”
    “I wasn’t asking about Jimmy.”
    Unreasonably, Maggie felt the urge to cry. She couldn’t remember the last time anybody had asked her how she was doing. “I’m good. Thanks.”
    “Madam.” He bowed slightly, indicating the door marked ladies. They both ignored the crude drawing of an ejaculating penis taped under the sign.
    “Thank you.”
    Maggie cracked the door just enough to slide through in case anyone was indecent.
    Good thing, because Charlaine Compton had her pants off. She was dabbing clear fingernail polish on the ladder working its way up the back of her pantyhose. She saw Maggie and said, “I just bought these.”
    “I have an extra pair.” Maggie had to turn sideways to get past Charlaine. The women’s locker room was an afterthought, a narrow bowling alley of a space meant to store cleaning supplies. There were no toilets or sinks. If they needed to use the facilities, they had to go up a flight of stairs and use the public restrooms.
    Maggie spun the combination on her lock. “Chuck cornered me.”
    “Did he touch you?”
    Maggie shuddered. “Rick Anderson saved me before he could.”
    “Rick’s one of the nice ones.” Charlaine studied her. “Jimmy okay?”
    “He’s mad. He wants to catch the guy.” She handed Charlaine the white plastic egg from her locker. “Don was a good cop. He deserved better than that.”
    “True on all points.” Charlaine rolled the pantyhose so she could put them on. “You shoulda heard my mother on the phone this morning. ‘Why’re you doin’ that job when you could get killed? What’s wrong with you?’ ”
    Maggie was familiar with the questions. She floated out an idea. “Maybe they’ll let us work some of the leads.”
    “Maybe Princess Grace will come scrub my toilet.”
    Maggie thought about Gail’s suggestion that they work the case together. More like a challenge. Gail knew how to push Maggie’s buttons. As awful as it sounded, thinking about helping solve Don’s murder was an exciting prospect. But then there was the other component, which was that Maggie would have to turn the name over to Terry. She wouldn’t just be giving Terry a name. She would be signing a man’s death warrant.
    Then again, she could always feed the information to Rick Anderson and his partner, Jake Coffee. They weren’t Terry’s kind of cops. They actually followed the law. Which brought up another problem. If Terry found out that Maggie had gone behind his back, she wouldn’t be anybody’s kind of cop. Terry was losing his power on the force, but he still had enough pull to keep her behind a desk or, worse, make her work night shift at the jail until she either got stabbed or quit.
    “Good morning, ladies!” Wanda Clack squeezed through the half-open door. She had a big smile on her face that dropped the minute the door shut. “Another cock drawing?” she asked. “Honestly. Don’t these boys have mothers?”
    Charlaine asked, “How was your date this weekend?”
    “I told him I’m a cop and he stuck me with the check.” Wanda rolled her eyes. “Maybe I should tell the next one I’m a stewardess.”
    “He’ll think you’re fast.”
    “That’s exactly what I want him to think. I haven’t been laid in two months.”
    The door opened wide.
    “Hey!” Charlaine screamed, clutching her pants around her waist.
    “Jesus, lady!” Wanda pushed the door closed on the ensuing whistles and catcalls. “What the hell?”
    They all stared at the blonde who’d stumbled into the room. She looked panicked. Her chest was heaving. At least Maggie thought her chest was heaving. Her uniform