Shakespeare's Counselor by Charlaine Harris Page B

her.
    â€œI don’t think we better wander around here looking for her,” Firella said sensibly. “I think we better call the cops, like Lily said. Janet needs an ambulance bad.”
    Carla, Melanie, and Sandy turned to go, when Firella said, “Just for the hell of it, any of you know this woman?”
    â€œI do,” Melanie said. She started out, not looking back. “That’s my sister-in-law, who was married to the man who raped me.”
    After a moment of stunned silence, Carla and Sandy hurried after her, down the hall and out into the parking lot. They stood holding open the door so we wouldn’t be shut off from them, a piece of thoughtfulness I appreciated. I could hear Carla placing the phone call, having to repeat herself a few times. Firella and I stared at each other, sideswiped by the identification of the dead woman and uncertain how to react to it.
    I turned my attention from what I couldn’t understand to what I could, the fact that my friend had been attacked. But there didn’t seem to be much I could do for her. Janet made little movements from time to time, but she didn’t appear to be exactly conscious.
    â€œShe’s not really stuck up there, is she? Like the newspaper clippings?” Firella said after a moment. Of course, the white-and-red display on the wall was what we were really thinking about.
    â€œI don’t see how the wall could be soft enough to drive the stake in far enough to actually hold her up.” Janet’s color was awful, a sort of muddy green.
    â€œI see what you’re saying. I’m looking behind the desk.” Firella, proving she was tougher than I—I guess years of the school system will do it—stood and peered over the top of the desk.
    She abruptly sat down on the floor again.
    â€œI think she’s kind of propped up,” she reported, “with string around her arms in loops, attached to nails that have been driven into the wall. Her bottom half’s kind of sitting on the back of Tamsin’s rolling chair. There’s a wadded-up doctor coat stuck under the wheels to keep the chair from moving.”
    I couldn’t think of anything to say to that.
    â€œI wonder if one person could fix her that way. Seems like it would take two,” Firella said thoughtfully.
    â€œI guess if one person had enough time it could be done,” I said, so she wouldn’t think I was shucking her off. “That’s a lot of preparation. The wedge to keep us out until the scene was set, and the coat to keep the chair from moving.”
    â€œI’m worried about Tamsin,” Firella said next.
    â€œMe, too.” That was easy to agree with. I was wondering if Tamsin was in the therapy room. I was wondering if she was alive.
    â€œJanet, help is coming,” I told her, not at all sure she could hear me or understand. “You hang on one minute more.” It was true that I could hear sirens. I didn’t think I’d ever been happier to know they were coming.
    Â 
    I hadn’t talked to my friend Claude Friedrich in a while, and I’d just as soon not have talked to him that night. But since he’s the chief of police, and since it was a murder scene in the city limits, there wasn’t any way around it.
    â€œLily,” he greeted me. He was using his police voice; heavy, grim, a little threatening.
    â€œClaude.” I probably sounded the same way.
    â€œWhat’s happened here tonight?” he rumbled.
    â€œYou’ll have to tell us,” I said. “We got here for our therapy group—”
    â€œYou’re in therapy?” Claude’s eyebrows almost met his graying hair.
    â€œYes,” I said shortly.
    â€œAccepting help,” he said, amazement written all over him. “This must be some doing of Jack’s.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnd where is he, tonight?”
    â€œOn the road.”
    â€œAh. Okay, so you were here for