Zero at the Bone by Mary Willis Walker Page B

for him in return.”
    “What was that?” the attorney asked.
    “He didn’t say. He was going to tell me when I came to see him.”
    They were both silent for a minute. Then Katherine asked a question that had been on her mind ever since she had received the letter from her father. “Mr. Hammond, did you tell my father where he could write to me, or anything about me? I’m wondering how he got that information.”
    “Oh, I may have mentioned to him you were in Boerne. I kept in touch with your mother, you know. It would have been easy enough for him to get your address, I think.”
    Travis Hammond sat down next to her on the sofa and opened the file on the table in front of them. “Let me show you everything. I don’t like being the bearer of bad news, but here we go.”
    Katherine sighed and settled back to listen. She was getting accustomed to hearing bad news.
    *   *   *
    When she got off the elevator on the fourth floor of the Austin Police Headquarters, Katherine thought the day had brought more unpleasant surprises than her system could take. And it was only five o’clock. There was still time for more.
    She caught sight of Lieutenant Sharb in a glass cubicle at the end of the hall. Now there was a man, she thought, capable of delivering endless amounts of bad news. He was typing at a computer terminal, so engrossed that he didn’t hear her approaching. She stood in the doorway for several seconds before he looked up.
    “Wait. Let me save this,” he said in greeting. After punching some keys and grunting a few times, he stood up, rising only a few inches from his sitting height.
    “Here. Sit down,” he said, snatching a stack of file folders from a molded plastic chair.
    He sat back at his desk and folded his hands in front of him. The rims of his small black eyes were red and puffy. “Miss Driscoll, I need to hear in detail why you came to see your father today.”
    She had had time to give this answer some thought. “Because he wrote me a letter asking me to come. I got it Friday.”
    “But why now? I wonder. He sure hadn’t been in any great hurry to see you before.”
    Katherine gritted her teeth. There was no avoiding telling it. “He said he wanted to give me some financial help. I’ve had trouble with a loan at the bank in Boerne where I live and he said he could help.”
    “Got that letter with you?”
    “No,” she lied, trying not to grip her bag tighter as she said it. She had resisted telling Travis Hammond about the key and she didn’t see any reason to tell this little man. It wasn’t any of his business. Not until she had a chance to see what was there first.
    He said, “You’ve just been to see Mr. Travis Hammond over at his office?”
    “Yes.”
    He waited for her to go on, but she sat silent. If he wanted to know something, let him ask for it.
    Finally he said, “Well, you inheriting?”
    She had a moment of confusion. “No. Yes. But there’s nothing to inherit.”
    He nodded knowingly and opened a steno book in front of him. “Too bad. I wonder how he was planning to help you with that big loan if he was broke.”
    “How do you know it was a big loan?”
    “Oh, from your bank. It’s been posted. It’s public record now, but we can get information like that from the banks anyway.”
    Katherine was breathless with shock. He’d been investigating her, prying. It was outrageous. The man was insufferable.
    He picked up a ballpoint pen and clicked it in and out rapidly. “An amazing coincidence that you arrive at your father’s place of employment only hours after he’s killed—after not seeing him for thirty-one years. Don’t you think?”
    “Yes,” she said, agreeing in spite of herself. “Yes, I do.”
    “Did McElroy show you the scene?”
    “Yes.”
    He took a tiny plastic bottle from his breast pocket, tilted his head back and squeezed a few drops into each eye. He lifted his head and looked at her with eyes streaming. “Lemme ask you something. Do