Halfway to Half Way by Suzann Ledbetter Page B

and dad sprang an unannounced visit on me a few months ago," he said. He'd answered that early morning pounding at his front door with a towel wrapped around his waist, a major league hard-on and Hannah wet and waiting for him in the shower. "But they never had before, and I kind of doubt they ever will again."
     
     
Marlin's expectant look eventually deflated. He was itching for the middle of the story. He did, in fact, scratch his neck, but he wouldn't ask and David wouldn't tell. Hannah might someday—when it struck her as funny, not near the top of life's most mortifying moments.
     
     
David glanced at his watch. Seven-forty. "Where's Kimmie Sue been since you reached her on her cell phone?"
     
     
"The Wishing Well Motel. We were still processing the scene when she hit town." He chuffed. "Jesus, you feel like a ten-pound turd telling the next of kin to relax, gimme a jingle when that migraine backs off, then we'll go to Mom's and figure out what the dirtbag ripped off, before or after he killed her."
     
     
"You're back to a burglary gone bad?"
     
     
"I'm not in love with it," Marlin said, "but I haven't ruled it out."
     
     
A press of a button disengaged the Outhouse's electronic lock mechanism. Access from the outside required a magnetized key card. The hole-in-the-wall detective division was also wired with interior and exterior surveillance cameras, silent alarms and motion-sensitive lights.
     
     
A similar system was installed at the courthouse to restrict access after business hours. Necessary evils, David allowed, but a can of spray paint would surely improve the can't-miss donor plaques that bragged: Protected By Fort Knox Security; Jessup Knox, Owner and Certified Specialist.
     
     
What Knox specialized in, apart from pissing off the sheriff, was open to speculation.
     
     
David lost the curbside who's-driving argument before he pulled his keys out of his pocket. Marlin's beater, gunmetal-gray Chevy smelled like an ashtray and decomposed French fries. By all appearances, a file cabinet had detonated inside, but it was the detective's mobile office and you just never knew when you might need a Brattleboro, Vermont, city directory.
     
     
While David settled into the passenger side, Marlin told him that Cletus Orr was witnessing the autopsy at the state lab in Columbia. Because Bev was a sheriff's widow, the assistant medical examiner had waived the standard first-come, first-served policy and moved her to the front of the line.
     
     
The ride to Greenaway Circle passed in silence, neither David nor Marlin being disposed toward small talk, or a verbal postmortem of a case laden with questions and precious few facts.
     
     
A block from the cul-de-sac's entrance, Marlin banged the steering wheel with the flat of his hand. "Damn it. We should have brought both cars."
     
     
David couldn't imagine why, was reluctant to find out, and doubted he'd like the answer.
     
     
"Kimmie Sue leaned on you pretty heavy after Larry's funeral," Marlin said. "If you had wheels, you could have asked her out for coffee after we finish at the house."
     
     
"And why would I do that?"
     
     
"Well, let's see, kemosabe. We've confirmed that Bev was strangled with her own scarf. Thirty-one percent of female homicide victims are killed by a family member, friend, lover—someone known to them. Bev's only child was conveniently two hundred miles from the scene. And when Kimmie Sue's dad died, it was obvious she was interested in more than your clean hankie and an arm to hang on to."
     
     
David reserved judgment. Everyone handled death differently—sudden, or not. Kimmie Sue's clinginess and blatant flirting had made him extremely uncomfortable. Maybe losing the daddy she'd adored in the blink of an eye was no excuse, but David refused to condemn her, then or now.
     
     
"So," he said, "in your twisted mind, she's a suspect."
     
     
"It's automatic for next of kin. And she sees you as one of Papa's good old boys,