Halfway to Half Way by Suzann Ledbetter

floret in his mouth. "Don't call you," she said to Hannah. "You'll call me."
     
     
Hannah grinned. "Bingo."
     
     
Outside, the afternoon heat and mugginess had thinned pedestrian traffic. Awnings cast shady rectangles on the boardwalk, but seemed to trap the air, like striped canvas lids. Flowers in window boxes and stone tubs along the cobbled street looked as wilted as Hannah felt when she entered Valhalla Springs' postal substation.
     
     
The alcove housing the post office boxes resembled a bank's safety deposit vault with an arched oak trellis and a gate, instead of a door. Hannah keyed box number two; box one belonged to IdaClare Clancy.
     
     
Banded inside a large clasp envelope was the typical assortment of bills, handbills, winning sweepstakes notifications addressed to occupant and information requests from retirees seeking an alternative to Florida, the southwest and the Gulf coast.
     
     
Valhalla Springs couldn't compete with an endless summer. Hannah batted the hair off her neck, wondering why anyone would want a permanent July. Here, you had four seasons—sometimes a touch of two in as many days—plus a Victorian village atmosphere, peace, quiet and a genuine sense of community.
     
     
She dropped the mail packet into her shoulder bag to sort through later. On average, one in ten inquiries netted a personal tour. One percent of those added new tenants to the population.
     
     
"To see Valhalla Springs," she said wistfully, "is to never want to leave."
     
     
Thankfully, Luke and Claudina had. A scooter and a Miata were parked where his Beemer had straddled two spaces. Fearing that Luke might attempt a second offensive at the cottage, Hannah thought she'd do some casual window-shopping at Carla Forsythe's boutique.
     
     
Most of the shops, stores and eateries along Main Street had larger counterparts in Sanity. Carla's clothing store in town had a selection of wedding gowns, but aside from special requests and holiday wear, her annex catered to less formal ladies' attire.
     
     
Not that Hannah was in the market for anything long, lacy and white, by God. At least not in the next three weeks, as opposed to someday in the foreseeable future. After David was reelected. After a new operations manager was hired. After David's house was move-in ready. After his rottweiler, Rambo, bonded with Malcolm, instead of picturing him fried, fricasseed, roasted, stewed and barbecued.
     
     
After all those afters, then they'd get married and live happily ever…after.
     
     
Hannah groaned and started down the boardwalk to where her Blazer was parked, yielding to the deliveryman pushing a loaded handcart into the mercantile. Momentary inertia let thoughts she'd tried to outwalk catch up with her. She glanced over her shoulder at the boutique, then at her truck.
     
     
Eeny, meeny, miny… On mo, she shrugged, smiled and headed back the way she came. "Just browsing," she'd say. And if Carla brought out the photo catalog with both stores' full inventory? Well, what was the harm in looking? A little virtual retail therapy, as it were.
     
     
    * * *
When yet another bond issue to build a new sheriff's department met with defeat, the county commissioners leased a narrow storefront on the west side of the square for the detective division's headquarters.
     
     
The commission's generosity didn't include replacing the long-vacant storefront's fake walnut paneling, matted shag carpeting, water-stained suspended ceiling tiles and ancient fluorescent lighting. On the day of the detective unit's official ribbon-cutting, Marlin Andrik took one look at—and sniff of—his new domain and dubbed it the Outhouse.
     
     
A kindness, David thought, squirming in the molded plastic lawn chair on the visitor's side of Marlin's desk. It would be a small miracle if the seat defied physics and gravity long enough for Marlin to finish his progress report on the Beauford homicide.
     
     
David had left the scene around noon and gone