“How long has it been since you saw Jack Burns?” Lanier asked me. “Seems to me as though you and he never got along too well, am I right?”

“I never had any quarrel with Mr. Burns,” I said steadily. That was the truth. Jack Burns’s dislike of me had not had its basis in any one incident, but in cumulative distrust. “And I haven’t seen him in-maybe years.” Which had been fine with me; I’d feared Jack, with his blind zeal for his own brand of justice. It’s bad to have a policeman as an enemy.

“And you, Mrs. Youngblood?”

“We did have a run-in a couple of weeks ago,” Angel said calmly, though her color betrayed her. I tried not to show any surprise.

“And just what was that about-?”

“He ticketed my car downtown, for some completely bullshit city ordinance he’d looked up in the books.”

“Now why would he do that?”

Angel put her hands on her hips, and her arm muscles rippled. “I came out of the bank and found him putting a ticket on my car and we had a little talk, kind of sharp.”

“Anyone around during this little talk?”

“Sure,” Angel said wearily. “It was downtown on a Friday morning. I saw that man that works at the library with Roe-Perry Allison-and I saw that pretty round woman who works at Marcus Hatfield, the one with the dark hair who has the little girl.”

“Carey Osland,” Lanier decided.

“Right, if you say so.” Angel seemed indifferent to the question of the woman’s name.

Martin looked at me, his eyebrows arched: Did you know about this? I shook my head almost imperceptibly.

“Why do you think, Mrs. Youngblood, that a detective sergeant would give a parking ticket?”

“Because he thought it was Roe’s car,” Angel said bluntly. “We both have blue Chevettes. Mine’s the same age, I got it used. Though mine’s a slightly different shade of blue, we basically have the same car.”