Spirit Dances

CHAPTER THREE

There was nothing like a statement of that nature to take one’s mind off the problems at hand, especially when the problem at hand was nearly the polar opposite. My brain dropped out of the slightly shocky slow motion it had been lingering in all day and surged into its more usual mouthy overdrive.

I had done a variety of remarkable things over the past year. Many of them had involved saving peoples’ lives, although most of the time they had looked more like shutting down Seattle’s power, rearranging the Lake Washington landscape, or wrestling monsters of differing sizes and shapes. In the handful of cases where I’d actively saved someone, I usually knew what they looked like.

I’d never seen this woman before in my life. I was searching for a nice way to say that when she continued, “You probably don’t remember. Officer Ray Campbell told me it was you, though, who got the ambulance there in time to sa—”

She kept going, but I said, “Oh! You’re the troll lady!” over her, and only too late realized how awful that sounded. I didn’t mean it badly. It was just that she’d gotten in trouble down by the Fremont Troll, one of Seattle’s more charming landmarks, and I’d never learned her name. I’d only saved her life. I’d been three miles away at the top of the Space Needle, looking for something else entirely, when I’d Seen a flare of rage and violence in Seattle’s city-wide aura. Because of that, the cops had gotten there before aggravated assault turned to murder in the third degree.

She was still smiling. “I am. I’m the troll lady. I know it’s been months, Detective Walker, but I wanted to thank you. I—”

Feeling a little desperate, like I’d become a bad host by way of not recognizing the troll lady, I blurted, “Would you like to sit down?” with too much emphasis on the last two words. I sounded like something dire would happen if she didn’t. A wince crawled over my whole body, caving my shoulders, and I tried for a more modulated tone: “Or go for coffee or something? I mean, it’s great to meet you, but the department’s not very comfortable, we could take a few minutes to talk, we—” I wished someone would come along and stuff a sock in my mouth.

Instead Rita gave me another astonishing smile. It really did take years off her face, and I wondered if she was a hard forty-something instead of the fifties I’d originally pegged her as. “If you have time, I’d like to have coffee. You don’t know me, but I feel like I owe you something. At least a cup of coffee.”

I said, “You don’t,” under my breath, but it didn’t matter to either of us whether she legitimately owed me something or not. I was grateful as hell to get hit in the face with evidence of having done well, and even if I hadn’t been, I also wasn’t callous enough to say “Just doing my job.” Even if that was true, when you’d saved someone’s life, regardless of the madcap fashion, there was an element to it that ran deeper than just doing the job. Humans were like that. We needed connections and stories to make sense of the world, and Rita Wagner had become part of my story. “There’s a terrific coffee shop up the block.”

“The Missing O? I saw it, but I thought it was a doughnut shop.”

I tugged my coat on, hiding the green armband. “It is, but it has good coffee, too, and we call it a coffee shop as to not perpetuate the stereotype of cops and doughnuts.” My indulgence in the stereotype, now that I thought about it, was probably responsible for five or so pounds that had crept up on me the last few months. I made a note to buy vegetables, even though I knew they’d end up melting into brown slime in my fridge’s fruit bin, and held the door for Rita. We escaped the precinct building a minute later, me holding the door for her again. “Not to be rude, but why now?”

“Because I didn’t think you’d like me very much straight off,” she said forthrightly. I did a classic double-take, the second glance offering me a glimpse at her aura as the Sight washed on without my conscious command. That, as much as her mood-altering arrival, was a relief: the soured magic inside me wasn’t so intent on punishing me for my misdeeds that I couldn’t use the Sight. Rita’s colors were mostly brown, earthy and steady, with prickles of yellow poking through. The prickles were nervousness: she was afraid I’d judge her. Or maybe that I’d judge who she’d been three months ago.

It clearly wasn’t necessary. She was doing a fine job of bringing down judgment on herself. I said, “Why not?” with genuine curiosity, though I already had a pretty good idea of the answer.

“I was a drunk living rough and fighting over booze and drugs. I smelled like beer and piss and figured I’d die soon and nobody would care.”

I said, “Someone always cares,” very softly, though I was sadly aware it wasn’t quite true. Still, Rita gave me a quick look that turned into another one of her de-aging smiles. For someone who’d been living on the brink of extinction only a few months earlier, she sure seemed to smile a lot.

Then again, maybe she had reason. “I wouldn’t have agreed with you, the day I got stabbed. I’d have said nobody ever cares. I had blood leaking through my fingers. I could see it freezing on the ice. I knew I was dying, Detective Walker, and I figured that made me one less problem in the world.”

We reached The Missing O as she said that, leaving a nice dramatic moment to pick up from once we’d ordered coffee and doughnuts. Or, more accurately, a hot chocolate with mint for me, pumpkin-spiced tea for her and frosting-covered cinnamon doughnuts called pershings, which were as big as my head, for both of us. Mindful of being in polite company, which was to say someone who didn’t put up with me daily, I tried very hard not to lick the frosting off my pershing like a six-year-old while Rita picked up her story again.

“I still have dreams about the ambulance. All the sirens and lights. I was bleeding a lot and it all seemed loud and bright and I got the idea it was God sending angels to say ‘Not this one, not yet.’” She picked up her tea, hiding behind it as she gave me a wary, hopeful look. “Does that sound crazy?”

Thoughtful as always, I said, “Yes,” then made a face. “Sorry. I’ve heard much crazier things.” I’d done much crazier things, but I didn’t want to get into that. “They say God works in mysterious ways. Ambulances and cops aren’t even all that mysterious, when you get right down to it.”

Her eyebrows, which were almost nonexistent, twitched up. “Do you believe in God?”

Man. There was a question I didn’t want to contemplate, much less give an answer to. I exhaled noisily into my hot chocolate and stared at my doughnut for a while. “Not by nature, no. But there’s a lot more out there than is dreamt of in my philosophy. I know that for a fact.” Because fifteen months ago I hadn’t believed in magic at all, and these days I was a regular practitioner. Which was something else I wasn’t about to lay out for Rita Wagner.

“Me either. Not by nature. If I believed in God at all, it was to have someone to blame. But Officer Campbell said you’d called in the attack before you even got there, and that sounds a lot like a miracle to me. I thought if somebody’s putting out a miracle for me then maybe I’d better get my shit together. The hospital got me into an AA program and I’m doing volunteer work at a shelter.” She finally put her tea down, though she kept her hands wrapped around the cup. Her fingers were thin and sallow, like they’d been frostbitten. “So I thought now was a good time to see you. I thought now you could be glad you saved me.”

Hot chocolate went down the wrong way and I coughed. “I was pretty glad before.” My boss and partner had been gladder. I’d been too fixated on the thing I’d been trying, and failing, to do, to be sufficiently impressed with myself for saving someone from halfway across the city. Yet another data point Rita Wagner probably didn’t need to know. I chewed my lower lip, not wanting to be condescending. “You didn’t have to do all this to make a good impression, but I’m glad you did. You’re kind of amazing, Rita. Maybe I saved your life, but you’re the one turning it around. That’s huge. You should be proud. I am. Is it okay if I say that?”

Pleasure swept her face, like I’d given her some kind of benediction she’d been hoping for. “It’s okay.”

It struck me that Rita was a very lonely woman, and that I might be the only person to whom she could hold herself accountable. I had issues of my own galore, even overlooking the shooting. The idea that I could be someone else’s lifeline back into society would be laughable, if it weren’t also so sad. “Well, then, I’m proud of you. Where do you volunteer?”

“At Solid Ground, downtown. At their new soup kitchen off Pioneer Square, mostly, but that’s the other reason I wanted to visit you now. They just did one of their fundraising drives and had a lot of people with money at their headquarters last week. The volunteers got prizes drawn out of a hat, and I, well, I can’t use mine, so I thought…I thought I could say thank you by giving it to you.” She dug into the pocket of her wool overcoat and came out with a small brown envelope which she pushed across the table to me. “They’re tickets. To a dance performance. Native American dancers, they’re on tour. I didn’t know it before I saw you, but you’re Indian, aren’t you? Maybe you’ll like it.”

My gaze ping-ponged between the envelope and Rita, astonishment at the gift warring with astonishment at what she said. “My dad’s Cherokee, yeah. Hardly anybody sees that in me. My coloring’s all wrong.” I had Dad’s black hair, but I’d gotten sunburnable pale skin and green eyes from my Irish mother, and people rarely saw past that to notice my bone structure. In black and white, I looked Indian. In color, I looked Irish. “Um. God, Rita. I’m not sure I can accept these. I mean, like, legally, ethically, all of that. I had to make the lady who runs my favorite Chinese restaurant stop giving me free food when I became a cop…”

“Take them.” She patted the envelope, then pulled her hands away. “I really can’t use them, percussion makes me crazy. If you can’t use them yourself, you probably know more people who could than I do.” She made a small gesture at herself and added, “Most of the people I know wouldn’t pass the dress code.”

I smiled. “You’re assuming I’ve got something nicer to wear than what I’ve got on.” I did, but even my polyester pants were probably more suitable to an evening out than Rita’s blaze-yellow safety jacket. On the other hand, this was the Pacific Northwest. I doubted they’d throw her out if she turned up in it. I picked up the tickets and tapped them against the table, then nodded and tucked them in my coat pocket. I was sure Morrison wouldn’t approve, but I didn’t want to insult the woman. I’d go back to the office and skulk around until he showed up so I could ask him what to do about them, out of Rita’s sight and hearing. For the moment I said, “Thank you. It’s not at all necessary, you know that, right? But thank you.”

“I know. But I can’t use them, and it made an excuse to meet you.”

She had a smile to break my heart. I wondered what her story was, and couldn’t think of a way to ask without seeming rude. We chatted a few minutes longer, then at the same time glanced toward the clock on the O’s back wall and said, “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to get back.”

I grinned, and Rita added, “The shelter starts serving dinner at four and I help cook, so I need to catch a bus back downtown. I hope you go to the concert, Detective. And thank you for letting me meet with you.”

I shook my head. “Thanks for coming up. We don’t usually get visitors who are just coming to say hi. Usually something terrible’s happened. It’s nice to see something wonderful happening instead.” Especially after today, but that was yet another thing she didn’t need to know. We got up and I figured if I was going back to the office, I might as well return bearing gifts. I ordered Morrison what the menu called a St. Patrick’s Day Latte, and examined the doughnut cabinet, which had an array of mint-to pine-green frosted doughnuts lined up by hue.

The drink that came back was swamp-green and decidedly nasty-looking. Rita gave it, then the doughnut cabinet, a considering look, then smiled at me. “I’ll go catch my bus while you decide if you’re brave enough to bring someone that horrid-looking drink or make people break a bunch of Lenten promises with those doughnuts. It was nice to meet you, Detective Walker.”

“I think I’ll do both.” I ordered one of each shade of doughnut and waved goodbye at Rita at the same time. “It was nice to meet you, too. Visit again sometime, okay?” She nodded on her way out the door, and a couple minutes later we waved again as I hurried past the bus stop back to the precinct building.

Billy had returned by the time I got back and took the latte with a suspicious sniff. I’d meant it for Morrison, but Billy’s grimace after taking a sip made me just as glad he’d swiped it instead. The rest of the Homicide detectives swarmed the doughnut box like a pack of wolves, and I retreated to Morrison’s office, ticket envelope held between my fingers like it might bite.

He was concentrating on paperwork, which gave me a moment to stare at the top of his head and get my nerve up.

I usually thought of him as silvering, but looking at the top of his head made it clear he was really just silver. He wasn’t that old, not yet forty. I wondered when he’d started going gray. Not that it mattered. It looked good on him, playing into the whole aging-superhero look that I thought of as being his thing.

I rattled myself and tapped on his door. Morrison glanced up, curiosity sliding across his face. “You look nervous, Walker. Caldwell said the interview went well. What’s wrong?”

“You said to come by, and besides, I have a ques…” My knees buckled a little as my brain caught up to what he’d said. I caught myself on the door frame. “She said that?”

Morrison elevated an eyebrow. “Did you think other wise?”

“Morrison, I’ve never shot…” I closed the door behind me and sat down, probably signaling to everyone in the open office area outside that I was in trouble again, but for once I didn’t care, possibly because for once I wasn’t actually in trouble. “I’ve never shot anyone before,” I said quietly. “I’ve never spent any significant time talking to a shrink. I had no idea if it went badly or well.”

“I’ve talked to Holliday and Caldwell. They’re both working up their reports, and I saw you already dropped yours off. It was a shit situation, Detective, and from what I’m seeing so far you handled it as well as you could’ve.”

“Even…” I waved a hand, encompassing the whole magi cal aspect of my skill set which I’d utterly failed to use.

“As you said, if it was anyone else, I wouldn’t even have asked. I shouldn’t have asked you. You did what I’d expect any detective to do when her partner was in danger. The suspension is still in effect,” he warned me. “I can’t do anything about that.”

“No, I know, it’s fine. It’s standard procedure. I just…” The last word came out as a shuddering breath and I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying not to let stinging tears overwhelm me. My hands smelled like maple frosting and cinnamon now, a vast improvement over the pre-shower scent of blood. “Sorry. I’m a little up and down. I just, I feel like I made the right choices, but it helps to hear you say that, sir. Thank you. And if there’s anything else I need to do or not do while the incident is being looked into…”

“Just keep your nose clean. You can manage that for three days, right?”

I groaned and pushed the envelope across his desk at him. “I don’t know. Tell me if this qualifies. The woman whose life I saved down at the Fremont Troll in December just gave me these.”

Morrison shook the tickets free of the envelope before eyeing me. “Dance concert tickets?”

“She won them at a…” It didn’t matter. “She gave them to me as a way of saying thank you. I told her she didn’t have to, but she insisted and I didn’t want to insult her and I didn’t know if it was like an ethical breach to take them so, well, I just thought I should take them and then come ask you—”

“Ask what?” Morrison said in amazement, interrupting my breathless explanation. “If I wanted to go with you?”

“—er.” For an excruciatingly long moment that was all I could think to say. Long enough that Morrison figured out that wasn’t at all what I’d meant to ask, and began to look uncomfortable. I followed up my initial witty “er” with a salvo of, “Uh,” then rubbed my nose ferociously. “Actually I’d been going to ask if it was an ethical breach or if it was okay for me to take them. But now that you mention it, um, there’s only two tickets so I can’t invite Billy and Melinda along, and Gary’s out of town, so if it’s okay for me to accept them, um, well. Would you…like to go with me?”

Someone with a modicum of cool wouldn’t have put all the emphasis on like. Sadly, I was not that person. The way I asked it sounded as if the idea that Morrison might want to go out with me was only slightly less unlikely than, say, the idea that a Hollywood producer might walk into the precinct building and randomly choose me to be the next twenty-million-dollar star.

For a few seconds I waited for a Hollywood producer to walk into the room, but it didn’t happen. Instead Morrison glanced at the tickets again, then shrugged. “I don’t have anything planned for tonight, and God knows you probably need some kind of distraction. Just log the tickets as a gift, and if the woman ever needs anything else from you make sure every second of your interactions are observed.”

“Yes, sir.” He could’ve been suggesting I take a long walk off a short pier, for all I was comprehending. I took the tickets back, got up, made it to the door, and said, “Er,” for the second time in our conversation. “Should I pick you up…?”

There was no chance on earth he would agree. My car was a 1969 Mustang named Petite who clocked over a hundred and ninety miles an hour. His was a nameless 2003 Toyota Avalon with the highest safety rating in its class. Ne’er the twain should meet.

Morrison’s expression, almost without changing, suggested the idea was so outrageous it stretched all the way to funny. “I don’t think so, Walker.”

“Well, then, we’ll have to meet there, because I have my pride.” And my smarts. Petite would never forgive me for tarting around with an Avalon. She knew these things.

Minute laugh lines crinkled around Morrison’s blue eyes. “Fair enough. I’ll see you at a quarter to eight, then. Go home and get some rest.”