Burn- pigeon 16 by Nevada Barr Page B

one kind or another. He kept a tuxedo there as well as a couple of suits.
    Beneath a streetlamp, she came to a stop. Standing in the pooling yellow light on a deserted corner, she suddenly saw herself from above: Harvey. The movie, not the play. Seven years ago Clare played the psychiatric nurse. Now she watched herself slipping into the skin of Elwood P. Dowd.
    Jimmy Stewart, patting his pockets. Looking for what? Channeling the tall actor in stance and posture, she frisked herself. As it often did onstage, action informed motivation: She was looking for tools, if any, that were hers to work with.
    In the breast pocket of the coat--once on the inside, now on the out--was David's cell phone. It took up less space than the foreshortened pack of unfiltered cigarettes she'd bought. Dare she use it? On television and in the movies the police could find a person from a cell phone call; they could blow up a pinhead-sized picture to perfect clarity, break passwords in seconds, and hack into anything in minutes. What worked in the real world? The Seattle police couldn't know she wore her husband's coat, carried his wallet, and had his cell phone. Could they?
    She'd dialed 911 from his cell, and with modern magic they'd come up with his name and address. Or had she given it to the operator? She couldn't remember. The EMTs and cops at the fire, they'd seen the coat. Not the phone, though, not the wallet, and Clare was tall, nearly as tall as David. There was no way they could know it wasn't her coat. One Burberry trench coat is much like another. The cell phone question wasn't pressing. Who would she call? Her sister, Gretchen, was in Japan teaching English for the next seven months. Friends she trusted, she wouldn't endanger by asking them to harbor a fugitive. Those she didn't might believe she was a child-murderer. A lifetime of not killing and eating the neighborhood children would do her no good. Everyone knew it was always the quiet ones.
    There'd been so much madness in the night, for a gaping instant she wondered if she had killed her children and her husband and fired the house. People went crazy all the time. The devil or the family dog told them to do unspeakable things and they did them. Had she murdered Vee and Dana?
    A cry grated from her lips, and she fell against the rough brick. Mackie put his paws on her thigh and howled like a dust mop deluding itself that it's a wolf. He didn't do it often. It was too dear to waste on everyday performances. The effort was not in vain; Clare rose to the surface of the poisonous thoughts drifting over her soul.
    "Stop it!" she ordered herself. Believing she spoke to him, Mack was shocked back onto four paws.
    Clare knew she could not have hurt the girls. David, maybe. The girls, never. "That way madness lies," she murmured and shook herself, a palsy that ran from her heels to her head. One thing at a time. One day at a time. Like an alcoholic. One minute at a time. She'd get through one minute at a time doing only what that minute demanded.
    This minute demanded she assess her resources.
    David's wallet was more a purse than the sleek leather envelope one might expect from a well-dressed man. Clare had never looked inside. Her husband wasn't the sort to leave it lying about. As far as she could remember, tonight was the first time he'd ever forgotten it. When she'd gone out for Vee's cough medicine, she had not taken it simply because it happened to be in the pocket of the raincoat, she'd taken it because he and Jalila had run off in such a peculiar and insulting manner. Spending his money wasn't much of a revenge, but spending it from his sacrosanct secret wallet was.
    There was cash, four or five hundred dollars at least, the bills fanned out from a brass clip in the middle. The expected credit cards were in place, as well as three she hadn't known they--he--had. A key she recognized as a spare to the back door of the Laggert Street house was beneath a flap. On the other side of the