Picasso Blues. Lee Lamothe

who made a mistake. That did him and he rushed his confession so she’d get home for the dinner birthday party. He still sent Marty Frost handmade birthday cards from the craft shop up at Craddock.

      Brian Comartin savaged the mayor for snarling traffic, ordering projections guaranteed to put more people on bicycles. When another guy in Comartin’s office suggested the city issue bicycle licences, the mayor had him shipped off to the morning court run. It was a weak story and Marty Frost gave a small shrug to Ray Tate.

      Ray Tate smiled and told about the cop ophidiophobia with who was able to respond to the py-py-pythons call because he’d overcome his arachnophobia.

      Djuna Brown told a sweet story about when she and one of her troopers were chasing a drunken but very fast Native burglar across an ice field one night. The trooper jumped in the cruiser and drove around the ice field to head off the fugitive. While Djuna Brown, awkward in her mukluks, was in pursuit, she slipped on the ice and fell hard with a grunt. The Native dropped his loot, skidded to a stop and ran back to help her up, apologizing, make sure she was all right. I’m sorry, Miss, he said, please. Djuna Brown was smiling, fondly remembering. “We gave him the charge but we didn’t beat him.”

      “Nice one, Djuna.” Martinique Frost recognized the sweet sadness on her face, that she was, by her choice of story, letting everyone know who and what she was about. That she loved policing and she loved the people she policed. “I thought that was a bad posting up there, Indian country. Where the State Police sent you, get you to quit. What do they call it? The Spout?”

      Djuna Brown nodded. “The Spout. Where they drop you in and they pour you out.” She gave them all a gay grin. “They think sending you someplace to police folks who really need help, that that’s punishment. That the work is punishment. You guys, when we get this thing down, with those poor dead women, you’re all coming up there. My treat. We’ll go fishing.”

      Marty Frost said, “Speaking of the poor dead ladies? I talked to a guy at Homicide.” She took a leather-bound police notebook from her purse, then dug out a pair of half-frame bifocals and set them over her flat ears and on her perfect nose and began reading. She glanced up over them at Comartin staring at her. “What?”

      Brian Comartin thought he was going to go into cardiac seizure.