“The Historical Society is totally out of line,” Ryan snapped at Scotty. “They can’t have the gall to…”

But they could, Clyde thought, watching her. Everyone knew that the city historical committee could be incredibly high-handed and officious. When Ryan hung up at last, Rock pressed quietly against her, looking up at her with concern, his pale yellow eyes almost human. The big silver hound might be rowdy, and an aggressive protector of those he loved, but he was supersensitive and highly responsive to Ryan’s moods.

“Maybe,” Clyde said, “the two public school teachers who pitched such a fit when children began to transfer to the Patty Rose School, maybe they’re responsible for this.”

“If they are,” Ryan said, kneeling down to hug Rock, “that’s even more maddening-a personal vendetta. Small-minded personal rage, aimed at hurting the school and hurting those children.

“But,” she said, looking up at him, “it isn’t the teachers that make the public school so dull and ineffective-not all the teachers. It’s the policies, the administration, the red tape and constrictions and their morass of stupid rules.”

“And whose fault is that?” Clyde said.

“Ours.” Rising, Ryan moved to the table and finished slapping her sandwich together. “The city, the state. The voters,” she said, sighing with frustration.

Clyde, watching her, knew that that kind of bureaucratic control upset Ryan perhaps even more than most people. When Ryan moved down from San Francisco about a year ago, a big change in her life, it was to end the cold patronization of an emotionally brutal marriage. He put his arm around her.

“Slow down,” he said softly. She was almost crying, and Ryan never cried. He took her sandwich plate from her, set it down, and held her tight. She had worked so hard on this redesign for the old Stanhope studio, so intent on retaining its historic character while creating the needed classrooms. She had endured endless meetings, endless bureaucratic rejections, each of which sent her back yet again to the drawing board. She had put up with senseless arguments that had little to do with the quality and integrity of the designs and a lot to do with people’s desire to control.

She looked up at him, swiping at a tear. “I didn’t come down here to fight another bunch of small-minded, shortsighted, selfish…I thought I got away from all that.” She pressed her face against him. “I’m so tired of this damned squabbling, I don’t even want to do the renovation.”

Clyde held her away. “You’d let the city win? Let the city make you back down, and beat you?”

“Screw them,” she snapped. “I don’t care.”

“Lori and Dillon didn’t back down. They fought the city and won. Two little girls…”

“Two little girls and three adults. And I said, Clyde, I don’t care!”

Clyde hugged Ryan harder, knowing that she would rally. But he had to wonder about the reason for the harassment. Was it only the small-minded teachers? Or was there something else, besides the petty backbiting and power struggles? And that thought stirred his own cold and protective anger.

L UCINDA GREENLAW, leaving the house earlier that morning with the pottery shards safe in her pocket, smiled again thinking of Pedric wandering down the hill like some distinguished-looking mushroom hunter, kneeling among the neighbors’ wet leaves and digging out the plastic bag of broken shards; as soon as he returned, she’d called Chief Harper. Her call had just caught him, he’d just come in and was about to leave again. She’d hurried down to the station, parking hastily among the courthouse gardens. As she headed in through the heavy glass door of the police wing, Mabel Farthy looked up from her realm of electronic communications.

“Lucinda!” Mabel swung out through the little gate to give her a hug, the pudgy blonde laughing, her dark uniform a bit tighter around the middle, Lucinda thought, not unkindly. “It’s been a long time.” Mabel sniffed at the white plastic bag that Lucinda had laid on the counter. “What did you bring? Some of your good Christmas cookies?”

Lucinda laughed. “Not this time. This is…” She did her best to look embarrassed. “I think it might be evidence. Well, fingerprints,” she said hesitantly. “This is so…so busybody of me, Mabel. I…”

Max came up the hall as they were talking, took the bag she offered, and led her back to his office. The tall lean chief poured her a cup of coffee and made her comfortable on the couch, sitting down beside her. She opened the plastic bag, still trying to appear embarrassed when, in fact, she wasn’t at all, she was having a fine time. But her story required a certain shy reluctance, she was not in the habit of bringing in evidence, and she had to make this look good.

Well, she thought, amused at herself, she’d always wanted to do a little acting. As she laid out her story, she knew she was letting the three cats off the hook-Joe Grey was right, the timing would have been way too pat if the snitch had called about this evidence: The cats are in the office, the chief says he’d give a lot for Betty Wicken’s fingerprints, and not an hour later the snitch calls, telling him where to find those prints. “With that scenario,” Joe had said, “everything would hit the fan.”

“I know it’s meddling,” Lucinda said now, looking at Max shyly. “But that woman in the rental, the woman our housebreaker was spying on? You said last night, if you could get information on her…Well, I was afraid if I didn’t slip right over there when I saw her break this flowerpot, if I didn’t snatch up the pieces before she threw them away…I don’t even know if a flowerpot can hold fingerprints, but…Am I making any sense…?”

Max looked into the bag, didn’t touch the broken shards.

“When she dropped it on the drive…She looked in such a hurry…It shattered and she just left it there, got in her car and drove off. Can you take fingerprints from this? Will that help find out about her?”

Max was silent for so long that Lucinda began to get nervous. She looked at him uncertainly, and sipped the coffee he’d poured for her. “Those photographs of the children, Max. I worried about that all night, I find that really frightening.”

“As do we,” Max said. He watched Lucinda so intently that she grew increasingly uneasy. She knew she was gushing, and that wasn’t like her. Max put his arm around her as if, she thought, he meant to humor her, to tell her kindly that what she had done was very clever of her, and then send her away.

But instead, he had beeen interested in what she told him about Evina Woods.

“If we can lift some prints,” he said, “and if we can get anything from AFIS on them, if the woman turns out to have a record, we’ll have something to work with.”

Max rose to refill their coffee cups. “So far, on those three tenants, we have false names, false IDs, falsified car registration. That in itself might give us reason to bring them in for questioning, but it leaves a lot of holes.” He picked up the plastic bag. “We have a call in to Arkansas, to check on Evina Woods’s story. I’ll take this back to Dallas, see if he can lift clear prints. If not, we’ll send it along to the lab, where they have more sophisticated equipment.”

“I feel so sure,” Lucinda said, “that Evina was telling the truth.”

Max took her hand, helping her up. “You were bold to go down there and talk with her, Lucinda-I won’t say foolish.”

“She didn’t threaten me, Max, she seemed really scared. When she saw I wasn’t going to call the police, she calmed down. I know that could all have been an act, but…Call it a gut feeling. I think she’s telling the truth.”

She looked intently at him. “I’m not a soft touch, but once in a while, you have to take a chance on someone. This is one of the times…If I’m wrong, I expect I’ll pay for it. This gamble,” she said, “is one I choose to take.”