Free Power Slide by Susan Dunlap Page A

not a beach dog. The slap of the waves on his low-slung stomach irritates him, but he trotted along the sand and when we came to the grassy dunes beyond the Great Highway, he was in his element, barking and burrowing. Later I ate some of Mom’s beef stew and was back in bed in shortly after sunset. I felt like I could sleep forever.
    The next morning I woke up angry. Now all the energy someone else might spend in grief surged into fury. In zazen I could barely sit still, barely wait till the bell rang me free. I wasn’t through mourning, but I was done with moping. Dammit, I had to do something. I could have gone for a long run. Instead, I sat on the steps between Leo’s room and mine and called John.
    “What did the medical examiner say about the wounds? That bruise? What’s the report on the crime scene? Did the neighbors see anything?”
    “It’s not my case any more.”
    “Couldn’t you even—”
    “Not my choice.”
    “But you have to be running it. No one’s in a position to know as much about Guthrie as you are. I can give you inside stuff, the people to talk to, tell you what makes sense and what’s just blather. Gracie talked to the ER docs and she—”
    “Right. But here’s the irony. After the last Lott-related blowup—the one I orchestrated—the department’s got new rules.”
    “That’s crazy! None of us is going to be as free with a stranger—”
    “She won’t be a stranger long. She’s probably on the horn to you this minute.”

    He was right. The instant I hung up, the message light blinked.
    Half an hour later an unmarked car disgorged a thick white woman in a blue slacks suit. She had blonde hair pushed behind her ears, but it was too short to stay put. Clumps hung in front of her ears like surviving trees in a clear-cut forest. She strode across the zendo courtyard to the bench where I was drinking an espresso. There was something familiar about her.
    “Darcy Lott?” She had one of those voices that isn’t loud but cuts through all other conversations. She stared down, assessing me in a guilty-till-proved-otherwise way.
    Now I recognized her. Remembering a trick I learned in an acting class, I thought of a pineapple, saw the pineapple with its rind mostly green though beginning to go to yellow at the top, its leaves thick and healthy. My face showed nothing when I said, “You’re an inspector now, Higgins?”
    “Damon Guthrie. I need to know everything you know about him. You were his girlfriend?”
    “I guess.”
    “You don’t know?”
    “Girlfriend is such a kid term.”
    “You tell me what your relationship was, then.” She pulled a notebook out of her purse. “Is there a more private place?”
    “No.” Quickly, I added, “This is very private.” I could have asked if she’d like me to get her coffee. But, no, I couldn’t. The most I could manage was not to take a swallow of my own. Higgins had been on guard at an apartment when I’d used my police connections to push past her and chat up the detective in charge. And when she left I’d sneered—to myself, I’d wanted to believe—at her large, square, and sagging butt. I’d figured her for a rookie, but either she’d flown up through the ranks, or I’d erred. Maybe my sneer had had an effect. She had the look of not only having
lost weight but of going the all-out gym route. She’d lopped off her pony tail and bleached the remains. I wondered how much she recalled of our encounter. Too much?
    “You know the deceased through stunt work?”
    The deceased! How could that be Guthrie? “Yes.”
    “How long have you known him?”
    “Ten years, give or take.”
    “And you’ve been intimate how long?”
    I made myself respond. “Six, seven years.”
    “The address on his driver’s license is no longer valid.”
    “Why is that?”
    “He doesn’t live there. Ms. Lott, where does he live?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You’ve been intimate with him for years and you don’t know where he lives?”
    I