I added it up for myself. If Rico had gotten up just in time for our noon meeting, she’d been awake for fourteen hours. Not so bad, if she hadn’t spent all of them working. I hadn’t really expected to find her there, but it would have been so easy if I had; and suddenly I wished things were a little easier. I dropped into the nearest chair, a straight one drawn up to one of the long oak tables by the wall, and hoped that my strength would catch up to me. Must have left it out on the steps.

“I’m sort of… I’m helping Rico with this thing she’s working on.” It occurred to me that she could be working on more than one thing, but the cop on duty nodded. “I’ve got something that might be a lead. So I thought I’d let you guys know, and you could take it from there.”

“I can take a statement, but…” He made a paper-tossing gesture with both hands. “I’ve got three people out sick tonight, and I’ve got to hold down dispatch. I hope like hell it’s not an emergency.”

“It won’t spoil,” I assured him. I really should have let it wait until morning.

This guy was part of the proof that there’s no such thing as a typical B-town cop. He would have looked right at home in the clothes of a working cowboy, except that his hair might have spoiled the effect when he took off his hat. Even that, I wouldn’t have sworn to. For all I know, lots of cowboys have black hair an inch long, except for the horizontal strip at each temple left long and braided with seed beads close to the scalp, from the hairline to the back of the head. There was no gray in his hair, but his face had been crossed by a lot of weather. If I ran that sort of carnival booth, I’d have guessed his age at someplace in the late twenties.

“You’re Orient, right?” asked the point man on the dawn patrol.

I nodded, a little surprised that he knew.

“Toby Saquash. Pleased to meet you. A lot more pleased if you help solve this fucker before Rico reams us all new assholes.” I must have looked startled. He shrugged. “Sorry. She got in my face last night, is all, so it’s kind of fresh. But she’s been going off like a pushbutton lighter for the last couple weeks.”

“I don’t think I’ll be much help with that.”

“Maybe not. She should take a goddamn vacation. Ah, it’s not that bad. Sorry, if she’s a friend of yours…”

I had the feeling this had all been weighing heavily on his chest. “Not exactly.”

“Yeah. She and I haven’t ever been buddies, but she’s okay. She’s a good cop.”