The 13th by John Everson Page A

Today she looked like a sultry coed who’d donned a uniform for a costume party. The uniform couldn’t constrain or contain the organic ease of her attraction.
    “Um, yeah,” was all he came up with. He wiped his face once more with the towel and wondered how deep the sweat stains around his pits had leached. He wondered if she could smell him across the room.
    “David, this officer wants to talk to you about a girl you were with last night?” his aunt said.
    “We’ve met,” Christy said.
    Aunt Elsie looked confused.
    “This is the woman who sideswiped me yesterday,” David explained.
    His aunt suddenly put folded two arms over the orange hibiscus flowers of her housedress and looked suitably perturbed at the cop.
    David put a hand up to calm her. “It’s okay,” he said. “It was an accident.”
    He looked at the formal uniform again, and gestured at the couch. “Do you want to have a seat? Can I get you something to drink?”
    Christy shook her head. “I just need to ask you a few questions about last night.” She looked pointedly at his aunt, who got the point.
    “I’ll be in the kitchen,” she volunteered, and then slipped from the room.
    “What’s up?” he said.
    “You look none the worse,” she said, sizing him up.
    “Best way to get over a spill is to get back on the horse.”
    “Last night, you spent some time with a girl at the Clam Shack.”
    “And this is a crime?”
    Her dark eyes flared at him in disgust. “Don’t be cute. Who was she? How well do you know her?”
    David felt uncomfortable suddenly. Why were the police concerned with whom he’d been talking to in a bar?
    “Her name was Brenda. I met her last night and we talked a while. What of it?”
    “Her parents called the police because she never came home last night.”
    “Yeah, well you can ask my aunt—she didn’t come here.”
    “Well, when was the last time you saw her?”
    David wiped his face again; he could feel theblood still pulsing in his temples, and he couldn’t stand any more. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to sit,” he said.
    She followed suit in the chair across from the couch. David couldn’t help but notice when she flicked a strand of almost amber blonde hair back across the uniform blue. He’d been too shocked yesterday to appreciate it, but…
    “Tell me about last night,” Christy prompted.
    “Look, after you knocked me around, I went to the bar to drown my sorrows a bit. Figured I wouldn’t be training anymore this week after that and I was going to lose time.”
    “Obviously you went out today,” she countered.
    “Figured it was the best way to burn off a hangover,” he laughed. “But I wouldn’t call it training. Just a ride.
    “Anyway…I met her while I was at the bar. She said her name was Brenda, and we got on pretty good. Talked for about three hours, and she kept buying me Guinness and got me so drunk we had to walk around the bar outside.”
    “So you took her outside alone?”
    “Yeah, but we went back to the bar after, so I could have some water. I chugged the first one, and when she went to get me a second glass, I laid down on the table to rest. That’s the last I saw of her. Next thing I knew, Joe, the bartender, was shaking me and tossing me out. Not much of a story.”
    Christy nodded and jotted down something in a small notebook. “Jibes with what Joe told me,” she said. “Just wanted to check it out.”
    She rose to leave.
    “She seemed really nice. I hope she’s okay,” David said.
    Christy shrugged. “She may be sleeping it off at someone else’s house. Are you all right with comingdown to the station to give a formal statement if need be? We’ll see if she turns up in the next twenty-four first.”
    “Sure,” he said.
    “Thanks,” Christy said, and then looked him hard in the eye. “Watch yourself,” she said. “You seem to be in the wrong place at the wrong time lately.”

C HAPTER E LEVEN
    The fuckin’ piece of shit Nova. Carrie