The opposite wall was covered with a four-foot-by-six-foot dry-erase board enclosed by burnished oak doors. The inside panels of the doors were covered in cork. A rolled screen was mounted above the dry-erase surface. Mason was a visual thinker. He kept track of ideas, questions, and answers by writing them in different colors on the dry-erase board. He pinned similar notes written while out of the office onto the cork surface. When a problem was solved, he erased it. He preferred working out difficult cases by studying the notes on his board until order emerged from the chaos.
The exterior wall of the office widened out in a three-sided windowed alcove, the center section of which was occupied by his desk. The desk was flanked on one side by a computer workstation housing a combination printer, fax, scanner, and copier, and a small refrigerator on the other that was usually empty except for a six-pack of Bud. Mason didn't have enough room or business to support a secretary. He gave thanks every day to his eighth-grade typing teacher who had threatened to hold him back if he didn't learn to touch-type.
A faded Persian rug covered the center of the hardwood floor. Mason knew that his aunt Claire was right about men and their stuff. His office was cluttered, but it was a comfortable clutter.
Mason opened the doors to the dry-erase board, picked up a red marker, and began writing. Next to Jack Cullan's name he wrote victim/fixer and the questions Who's afraid of Jack? and Who wins if Jack dies?
Switching to black, he wrote Blues-at the scene?-connection to Cullan?
Still using the black marker, he wrote on the next line Harry-why so certain about Blues? Who's pushing Harry?
Mason picked up the blue marker and wrote Beth Harrell-why with Cullan? His last entry was in red. Who else?
Mason was sitting in his desk chair, reading the police reports and deciding what to add to the board, when there was a sharp knock at the door, followed immediately by Rachel Firestone's entrance. She looked first at Mason and then the board before she even said hello. Mason was too far from the board to close the doors and prevent her from reading everything he'd written, so he pretended not to care rather than give her the satisfaction of thinking she'd seen something she shouldn't have.
"I don't suppose there's any point in asking you if you had an appointment," Mason said.
"I don't suppose there was any reason to ask for one since you'd just tell me no," Rachel answered.
"Can't argue with that. How about I just tell you no and you leave?"
"Give it up, Lou. I'm on this story and you're on this case. We can't avoid each other. It won't be that bad. You'll get used to me. You'll probably even get a crush on me, make a stupid pass, and I'll break your heart and make your testicles shrivel like raisins in one fell swoop."
Mason took a good look at her as she posed for him, hands on her hips, her chin punched out at him in a devilish, take-your-best-shot angle. She was luminescent, inviting, and somehow unattainable. Mason felt a surge that had been dormant since he'd broken up with Kelly Holt, the woman who had investigated the murders of his former partners. It was the jolting combination of need, desire, and unexpected opportunity. He'd dated a few women since Kelly, but in each case they'd been using each other to satisfy their needs of the moment, and he hadn't made more than a glandular connection.
"And why would you do that? The testicles part, I mean."
"Can't be helped, Lou. I'm gay. I'm a boots, jeans, flannel-shirt-wearing, short-haired lipstick lesbian. Though I'm a knockout in a simple black dress I keep in my closet for special occasions."
"That would do it," he conceded as his rising sap retreated to its roots. "Thanks for sparing me."
"Not a problem. I like getting that out of the way up front. Fewer complications," she added as she picked up the football and made a place for herself on the sofa. She tossed the ball back and forth between her hands, frowning at its odd feel.
"It's for rugby," Mason explained.
"That's a hard-hitting game. You play?" she asked.
"Not as much as I used to. I'm getting a little old by rugby standards to dive into a bunch of maniacs going after the ball. I'll take you to a game in the spring," he offered without understanding why.
"Great. I'd like that," she said with a smile that filled him with regret. "So Beth Harrell was with Jack Cullan the night he was killed," Rachel said, pointing to Mason's board.
"You heard that too?" Mason asked her.
"Yup. I tried to talk with her, but she keeps her door locked. Any idea why they were out together?"
