The Edge of Justice by Clinton McKinzie

for the addresses given for Chris Braddock and Billy Heller in the probation paperwork. Not available by computer are the addresses for the out-of-state charges against Bradley Karge and Sierra Calloway, but Kristi promises to send out some faxes requesting them. I ask her to print out everything she has found and courier it to me at the Holiday Inn.
    “I'll do better than that—since it's so slow around here I'll drive it out. Everyone is just sitting on their butts, glued to the television, waiting for a verdict in the Lee case. And it's just an hour from the office anyway.” DCI's headquarters are in Cheyenne, Wyoming, just fifty miles over the low mountains to the east. “Besides, buddy, I haven't seen you in a while,” she adds.
    I tell her it isn't at all necessary, but thank her. I'm not thrilled with the idea of her coming. I'd just barely escaped having a relationship with her when I was assigned to the main office in Cheyenne. At a party we both drank too much and she clung to me the entire evening, demonstrating her availability by lifting her shirt to show me the faint ridges of gym-earned muscles on her stomach and the lower edges of her black lace bra. Only with great difficulty had I managed to elude the temptation that night and go home alone. Now, eighteen months later and emotionally damaged, I don't know if I'll have the will to ward off a second assault.
    There's no answer at the number I had gotten out of the phone book for Cindy Topper. On the map at the front of the directory I find the street where she lives, mark it, and tear out the page. While I'm at it I look up the address of a local mountaineering shop. I will need a climbing guidebook in order to figure out directions to the rock from which Kate Danning fell.
    Outside my window the reporters are beginning to frolic in the pool. When Oso and I go out the door, I feel the wind, warmer and stronger still, heated and gathering speed from its short journey across the dry plains on the way to Laramie. I wonder if I'll have time today to return to Vedauwoo and climb shirtless again with the sun on my back. The thought is too hopeful for the trouble the wind is blowing my way.

FIVE
    T IM ' S OUTDOOR STORE is just a half block off Third Street on Grand Avenue, almost directly across the street from the sandstone courthouse. Activists, protesters, and the curious are already gathered there on the lawn. Curious myself, I glance at the crowd to see if the Klansmen are back before going into the store. They aren't; apparently one of their numbers had embarrassed the Klan enough the night before. The fact that they can be humiliated restores a little of my faith in humanity.
    Inside, amid crowded racks of clothes, bikes, packs, and gear, I recognize the small, slender figure sorting climbing shoes and hiking boots against one wall. Lynn. She's wearing a pair of khaki shorts and a too-large V-necked shirt. Her small feet are bare beneath thin brown ankles. I smile at another girl behind the counter as I walk toward the shoes. It's the third time I've come across Lynn in just two days. Maybe my luck is changing.
    She looks up and sees me as I wander over, and smiles. “Hey, Anton. You stalking me or what?”
    “You're the stalker. You watched me climb, gave my dog a lei, even came up to me in the bar last night. Now you show up when I go shopping.”
    She laughs and says, “Well, don't become a stalker then, I already got one.” The corners of her lips drop a quarter inch or so.
    “What's that about?”
    She looks back at the shoes she's arranging and doesn't answer my question. “So what are you doing here?”
    “Shopping for a Vedauwoo guidebook. You work here?”
    “Yeah, man, I run this place.”
    “Do you give discounts to climbing partners?”
    “You're not a partner.”
    “Maybe I will be soon.”
    She looks back up at me, amused and speculating.
    “How soon, Anton? You want to meet my friends and me up at the 'Voo? Like tomorrow