Long Upon the Land by Margaret Maron Page A

left on the porch steps. The hot August sun had baked it to such a crust that only a few ants were still interested. No flies or wasps. Nevertheless, they scraped up a sample for the ME.
    One of the department’s cruisers slid in behind Dwight’s truck, and McLamb joined him under the carport. When Dwight left Washington and joined the Colleton County Sheriff’s Department, Ray was one of his first hires and the department’s first African-American detective. Looking cool and trim in khaki trousers, a tan short-sleeved shirt, and mirror sunglasses, he sported short hair and a dapper pencil mustache.
    They had run Vick Earp’s name the day before and several incidents had popped up. Beginning when he was sixteen, there had been an open container citation, several aggravated speeding violations, a couple of DWIs, and a felony assault from six years earlier that had landed him in jail for two days. The restraining order Deborah had issued last year was his second one in four years.
    “Her cousin said someone put a bullet through the windshield of his truck,” Dwight said. “Wonder why he didn’t report that?”
    Ray shrugged. They had put out the word yesterday, but so far the truck was still missing. “Notice anything about this?” A sweep of his arm took in the whole carport, which had none of the usual clutter. “Come look at his tool shed.”
    Dwight followed him to the backyard and watched as Ray unlocked the double doors of the ten-by-ten metal structure. Floor-to-ceiling shelves on the left wall held the usual assortment of paint cans, automotive oils and fluids, insecticides and weed-killers, each grouped according to use. Pegboards filled the other side plus the wall above a workbench at the back and each tool was outlined to fit on a specific hook. A push lawn mower had its space under the workbench.
    Ray shook his head in wonder. “The guy was a neat freak. A place for everything and everything in its place.”
    “Depressing,” Dwight agreed, thinking of his own garage.
    They walked around the house, seeing no signs of violence other than the blood on the back steps. Ray unlocked the front door of the house and the interior was as organized and tidy as the tool shed. Each corner of the blue couch had a geometrically positioned decorative pillow. No scatter of newspapers, no empty cups or saucers on the polished coffee table in the living room. Indeed, no sign of normal living at all until they moved into the kitchen, where a pan of burned bacon strips sat on the stove. The fixings for BLTs were on the counter along with a sliced lemon on a cutting board. On the floor were shards of a blue ceramic sugar bowl and sugar was strewn from the sink to the back door, along with bits and pieces from a broken glass tumbler. A crumpled dishtowel was wadded up on the counter.
    “Nothing out of place in the rest of the house. The bed’s made and the bathroom’s spotless, so this must’ve been where he hit her,” Ray said.
    Dwight nodded. “She said she was making sandwiches for their supper since it was too hot to turn on the oven. He knocked the glass out of her hand and punched her in the eye. That’s when she grabbed her keys and ran. He tried to come after her, but he slipped and fell—probably on the sugar—and that gave her enough time to reach her car and get away.”
    “You reckon that’s her blood or his out there on that step?”
    “Offhand, I’d say his. She had a black eye and there was a cut on her chin, but it didn’t look very deep.”
    Five empty beer cans, each crushed flat, were in the trash can beneath the sink, along with larger pieces of the sugar bowl and some glass. “Doesn’t look like he ate supper here, does it?”
    “More like he drank it,” said Dwight. “And see? Three of those cans are on top of the glass.”
    “Like he started to clean up and then decided to have a couple of beers instead?” said Ray.
    “Maybe.” Dwight lifted the trash bag out of the can and tied