Denton - 01 - Dead Folks' Blues
Page 26
We walked out into the driveway just as a uniformed Metro shut the door to his cruiser with Walter in back. He was staring straight ahead, stone cold.
“Sad, isn’t it?” Marsha said.
“Yeah.”
“Look at it this way, though,” she said brightly. “You’ve solved your first big case.”
I looked at her. Talk about skewed perspective. “Yeah,” I said. “Nothing like getting what you want, is there?”
We walked down the driveway toward the black Porsche. The end was sticking out, and I almost laughed out loud at the DED FLKS plate.
“I’m not going to bleed all over your car, am I?”
She stopped, looked at the top of my head without having to stand on tiptoe.
“I’ve got some tissues in the car. It’s only oozing now. You’ll be okay.”
“Say,” I said, as we walked toward the car, “you ever take on live patients?”
She turned to me. “Gee, I don’t know. It’s been awhile. Maybe I’m out of practice.”
“I’m awful sore,” I said. “I could use a little TLC.”
“Well, I had a course in physical therapy back in med school. Let me do a little reviewing. Then we can talk about it later.”
“Maybe over dinner,” I suggested. “Real soon.”
“Yeah,” she said, walking straight ahead without looking atme. “I’d like that.”
“One thing, though.”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t know about this rigor mortis stuff.”
She stopped, looked at me funny, questioning.
“You know,” I said, “the all-over …”
Marsha went blank for a moment, then a gorgeous grin spread across her face, and I felt alive again. She broke out laughing. Heads around us turned.
“Well, we’ll just have to see what we can do about that.”
“Dr. Helms,” I said, holding the driver’s door of the Porsche open for her, “I’m in your hands.”
Don’t miss a single
Harry James Denton
mystery!
TORCH TOWN
BOOGIE
by Steven Womack
NOMINATED FOR THE SHAMUS AWARD
A magnificent mansion in the funky part of town is torched, and though it looks like a typical arson case, this time someone has been murdered. The bludgeoned victim was a well-known psychotherapist and the fiancé of Harry’s ex-wife, Lanie. Lanie’s fingered as the suspect thanks to her beloved’s generous will in her favor. So Harry must match wits with the firebug before Lanie’s life goes up in flames.
From Edgar Award winner
Steven Womack
come the further adventures of Nashville private eye Harry James Denton in
WAY PAST DEAD
Denton has his hands full tracking down the killer of a sexy singer-songwriter. Then Dr. Marsha Helms, his girlfriend, is taken hostage by the Pentecostal Evangelical Enochians, a radical fringe cult. The mean streets of Music City, U.S.A. are about to explode in Harry James Denton’s face.
Coming soon to your local bookstore.
Published by Ballantine Books.
CHAIN OF FOOLS
by Steven Womack
Harry James Denton is no fool. But his search for a rich runaway teen, Stacey Jameson, takes him to the seamy and very wild side of Nashville. “Nobody’s chain lays straight,” a friend tells Harry. But Stacey’s is especially twisted, with links that lead back to a family filled with secrets. Even a hardboiled P.I. like Harry isn’t prepared for what awaits him in the depths of hard-core hell, where only he can save a lost girl before she destroys herself—or lets a ruthless murderer do it for her.