Halfway to Half Way by Suzann Ledbetter Page A

home. Six hours later, he'd wakened with no memory of the drive, shucking down to his underwear and falling into bed. Blackouts were known to scare drunks into sobriety. All David could do was hope his luck held, thank God he hadn't had to drive clear to Valhalla Springs for some shut-eye, and vow for the umpteenth time to cut back on voluntary double shifts.
     
     
A long, hot shower and a home-grilled cheeseburger had him feeling almost human again—eager for anything besides half-listening to radio chatter on the scanner behind him and staring at the nascent bald spot on the top of Marlin's head.
     
     
"The fingerprints lifted from Bev's vehicle," David said, as though the conversational thread hadn't dangled for upward of five boring minutes. "You don't expect them to amount to much?"
     
     
Marlin looked from the photos on his desk to their corresponding documentation. "They're few, which helps. If Bev hadn't taken it through the car wash, we'd have eight thousand latents to run."
     
     
He tapped several close-up shots of Bev's sedan. "It's the far-between that doesn't have me juiced. The rear passenger door, trunk lid, back of the interior mirror…" Pulling off his reading glasses, he chewed on a mangled earpiece. "All different fingerprints. All in places that don't correspond to a perp along for the ride home."
     
     
Drivers adjusted rearview mirrors, not passengers. There were no other indications that anyone aside from Bev had driven her car, since it was cleaned.
     
     
At the desk behind David, Josh Phelps was transmitting the latents to the Automated Fingerprint Identification System. AFIS's computerized database didn't read fingerprints, but numerically identified similarities. The more the markers, the higher the probability of a match. Phelps would then compare each of the system's mechanically selected candidates to the unknown one.
     
     
From Marlin's remarks, if AFIS did provide a hit, the follow-up was more likely to waste time than identify a suspect.
     
     
The phone rang, and Marlin snapped up the receiver. "Yo. Andrik." His eyes flicked to David. "Yes, Ms. Beauford. No, please don't apologize. I realize what a shock it was and appreciate you calling me back."
     
     
He listened a moment. Grimaced. "I know what I'm asking, but it really can't wait until morning." A pause, then, "Uh-huh. Yeah, we sure can. Thank you, Ms. Beauford. See you in a few."
     
     
He was on his feet before the receiver stopped wobbling in its cradle. "Interesting."
     
     
"Wild guess. That was Bev and Larry's daughter."
     
     
"Kimmie Sue Beauford, the never-was, never-gonna-be movie star." Marlin lifted his sport coat off the back of his chair. "She's meeting us at the house in fifteen minutes."
     
     
"I thought she lived in Los Angeles."
     
     
"She does. That's where I thought she was when I called to tell her about her mother." Marlin's jaw cocked as he tightened his tie. "Lo and behold, the contact number we had was a cell phone. Kimmie Sue was eating lunch in Joplin when she answered it."
     
     
"Joplin, Missouri?" David said, as though every state between here and the Pacific Ocean had at least one. "That's what, a hundred and twenty miles from Sanity?"
     
     
"Three hours travel time, give or take. About half interstate, half two-lane." Marlin lit a cigarette, in violation of city, county and state ordinance, but in keeping with the Thank You for Smoking sign on his desk. "She said Bev didn't know she was coming to town. Wanted it to be a surprise."
     
     
David leveraged himself out of the molded plastic vice clamped to his hips and thighs. "Helluva coincidence."
     
     
"Ain't it, though? That solo nuke-a-meal in Bev's grocery sack says she didn't expect company, but who drives cross-country to drop in on somebody?"
     
     
A detective adjusting a shoulder holster bears a striking resemblance to a woman adjusting a bra strap—an observation David thought was better kept to himself.
     
     
"My mom