“No,” he said. “They’re not going to make me chief.”
“Thanks,” I said again. “See you around.”
I OPENED MY EYES AND SWITCHED OFF THE MUSIC IN MY head. Standing in front of me on the other side of the bars was the fingerprint officer. She was on her way back from the coffee hotplate.
“OK,” I said. “Let’s go meet your chief.”
It was true. I wasn’t feeling much of anything. Maybe it was some kind of a weird reaction, but that was how I felt. No point in denying it.
Stevenson still stared at me as the car slowed to yaw into the approach to the station house. A wide semicircle of driveway. I read on a low masonry sign: Margrave Police Headquarters. I thought: should I be worried? I was under arrest. In a town where I’d never been before. Apparently for murder. But I knew two things. First, they couldn’t prove something had happened if it hadn’t happened. And second, I hadn’t killed anybody.