Dream Man

At least she’d given him something interesting to check out. If a patrolman had stopped to investigate a suspicious vehicle, it wouldn’t be difficult to verify. He had the location and date, and he knew it was on third shift. Piece of cake.

He went back to the office and started making phone calls. It took him an hour to get the name of the patrolman in question, Jim Ewan, a six-year street veteran. When he called Officer Ewan’s home, there was no answer.

He waited another hour, calling Officer Ewan four more times, without results. He checked his watch; it was almost eight o’clock, and he was hungry. He supposed he could get up early in the morning and catch Officer Ewan as he was coming off his shift, but he’d never been very good at waiting when he wanted something. What the hell; Ewan would be reporting in to work in less than three hours, so Dane figured he might as well get something to eat, then come back and talk to the officer tonight. Whatever he found out, it would give him the night to think about it.

He drove home and slapped together a couple of sandwiches, then checked his messages while he munched and caught up on the scores of the new baseball season. He was still pissed at the San Francisco Giants, and wanted anyone but them to win.

Baseball couldn’t hold his attention, and his thoughts kept slipping back to Marlie Keen, to deep blue eyes that held more shadows than a graveyard. Whatever scheme she was running, she wasn’t entirely comfortable with it; she became visibly upset every time she talked about Friday night. Not even an Oscar-winning actress could make herself go as white as chalk, the way Marlie had been this afternoon.

He remembered how her slender frame had been shaking, and the urge welled up again to put his arms around her, cradle her close to him and tell her everything would be all right. What was with this crazy protectiveness? He accepted his natural male instinct to take care of a woman; he was bigger and stronger, so why shouldn’t he put himself between a woman and any danger that might threaten her? Why shouldn’t he guard her when she went up or down stairs, always ready to catch her if those treacherous high heels women wore caused her to trip? Why shouldn’t he do any grunt work for her when he could, schedule permitting? When he’d been a patrolman, investigating car accidents, he had always gone first to check on any woman or child involved, without even thinking about it. But damn it, his protectiveness had never before extended to someone he suspected of murder.

He was a cop; she was a suspect. He couldn’t allow himself to touch her in any way, except those necessary in his job. Cuddling her wasn’t included on that list.

But he wanted to. Damn, he wanted to. He wanted to let her rest her head on his shoulder, he wanted to stroke her cheek, her neck, then let his hand drop lower to investigate her breasts, the curve of her belly, the soft notch between her legs.

He surged to his feet, cursing to himself. He’d seen her for the first time that morning, and hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her since. That good old physical chemistry had sure blindsided him with this one.

He checked the time: nine-fifteen. Hell, he might as well go down to the station and wait for Officer Ewan. At least the usual bullshit going on would keep him from thinking about her so much. He paced restlessly for a moment, then got his car keys and put the plan into action.

As he had hoped, Officer Ewan came in early, as a lot of policemen did, so he would have plenty of time to change clothes and drink coffee, kind of settle into routine before the shift began. Jim Ewan was average in almost every way: average height, average weight, average features. His eyes, though, were the alert, cynical eyes of a cop, someone used to seeing everything and expecting anything.

He remembered the incident Friday night very clearly.

“It was a little spooky,” he said, thinking about it. “She was just sitting there, like a statue. Her eyes were open and fixed; at first I thought I had a stiff. I turned on the flashlight, but couldn’t see anything suspicious in the car, and I could tell then that she was breathing. I rapped on the window with the flash, but it took her a while to come around.”

Dane felt an uneasy tingle up his spine. “Had she fainted, maybe?”

Officer Ewan shrugged. “Only people I’ve ever seen with their eyes fixed like that were stiffs or crazies. The eyes close when it’s just a faint.”

“So what happened then?”

“It was like she was real confused, and she looked scared at first. She had trouble moving, like someone coming out of anesthesia. But then she managed to get the window rolled down, and she said that she was an epileptic and must have had a seizure. I asked her to get out of the car, and she did. She was shaky, trembling all over. I couldn’t smell any alcohol, and she didn’t seem to be on anything; I’d already called in her plate number, and it had checked out okay, so there wasn’t any reason to hold her. Like I said, she was pretty wobbly, so I followed her home to make sure she made it.”

“What time was this?” Dane asked.

“Let’s see. I can check my paperwork for that night to give you the exact time, if you need it, but I think it was a little after midnight, maybe twelve-fifteen.”

“Thanks,” Dane said. “You’ve helped a lot.”

“My pleasure.”

He drove back home, mulling over everything Officer Ewan had said. For such a brief meeting, it had given him a lot of information.

For one thing, Marlie Keen had been on the opposite side of town from the Vinick residence at about the same time Nadine Vinick was being murdered.

Officer Ewan’s observations pretty much verified what Marlie had told him about how the “vision” affected her.