Halfway to Half Way

by Suzann Ledbetter

  "Why stop with the cars, Dave? Ask the city council to change Sanity to Mayberry, why don' tcha? Make deputies carry a bullet in their shirt pockets like Barney Fife."

  Knox's jibes echoed the county commissioners' when David presented the idea to repaint the county motor pool. Not one of them glanced at the studies, surveys, testimonials and cost estimates he'd submitted.

  Ruby delivered a heaping plate of eggs, toast and bowls of butter and homemade strawberry preserves. "You sure that's all you want, Sheriff?"

  David nodded. Aromas wafting upward that should have had his taste buds slapping high fives, revolted him. Somehow, he had to choke down every bite.

  "What's the matter, Dave?" Knox said. "I'm just funnin' with you. Can't you take a joke anymore?"

  Thinking a swallow of coffee he didn't want might open his throat enough for the food he didn't want, David was reaching for the cup when his pager went off. He'd never doubted the Almighty's existence, but a little divine intervention now and then was a beautiful thing.

  Marlin Andrik's badge number appeared on the LED screen. The chief of detectives wanted a return call, stat, and in private, not broadcast on the radio or out a cell phone's speaker.

  "What's up?" Knox angled his head for a peek at the numeric message.

  Marlin didn't send his personal bat signal just to chat. David stood and pulled out his wallet. Three singles and two twenties. Shit. Ruby was in the back somewhere. There wasn't time to wait for change. Throw an Andy Jackson on the table and his unworthy opponent would happily report that David pissed away his own money the same as he did the county's.

  His eyes flicked to Knox. Laying the three ones beside his untouched plate for a tip, David said, "Thanks for picking up the check, ol' buddy."

  Someday, he'd feel bad for sticking Elvis with the tab. In his next life. Maybe the one after that.

  * * *

  "Good morning. Clancy Construction and Development. How can I direct your call?"

  Another day, Hannah thought, another new receptionist. Considering this one's voice and eastern accent, she was younger than Hannah's bathrobe and a native St. Louisan.

  "Jack Clancy, please," she said, and gave her name.

  "Do you want to leave a message on Mr. Clancy's voice mail?"

  "No, thanks. Anyone who knows Mr. Clancy knows better than to leave a message on his voice mail. He just hasn't figured out we're on to him yet."

  "Then I have to put you on hold." The receptionist's tone suggested that Hannah was one of many stuck listening to a canned instrumental version of Streisand's Greatest Hits. She tipped back the handset, as though it would keep "People" from looping in her brain the rest of the day.

  Chin resting on her palm, she surveyed the great room. Replacing the desk phone with a cordless model was supposed to enable multitasking during times like these. Dusting, for instance. De-humping the area rug where Malcolm played ostrich and buried chew bones the size of a brontosaurus's femur.

  From this perspective, the leather couch appeared in need of a shave. She hadn't slathered conditioning cream on it since well, never.

  There were recipes to clip from the stack of magazines on the trunk used as a coffee table. Books, CDs, DVDs and videos on the shelves beside the fireplace crying to be alphabetized. The patched bullethole in the corner of the ceiling had a cobweb goatee. And look, just look at the—

  "Hey, sweet pea," Jack said in her ear. "Sorry you were on hold for so long."

  "No problem." Hannah slumped in the chair, exhausted. "It gave me the chance to do a little housecleaning."

  "Mental? Or actual?"

  She held out the phone and glared at it. Fifteen-year friendships were such a pain in the ass sometimes. Clapping the phone to her ear again, she said, sweetly and sincerely, "Up yours, Clancy."

  "So, this cottage you aren't cleaning. It's still in Missouri, I presume."

  "Uh-huh. We stayed mostly on the southern edge of the storm front. A little hail, a lot of wind and rain. Nothing that me and Toto couldn't handle."

  "Be glad Malcolm isn't a poodle. Mother said she had to double Itsy's and Bitsy's recommended daily dose of Valium."

  "No offense to IdaClare," she said, "but teacup poodles aren't dogs. They're pot scrubbers with feet."

  "They're Furwads from Hell. You're just their aunt Hannah. I'm even-Steven with them in the will. And I bought her the damned things."

  "Live and learn," she said, grinning. "And speaking of Stephen, how's the best OB/GYN in St. Louis? Besides too busy to call me once in a while to dish about you."

  A lengthy pause deflated her smile. She'd sensed Jack's relationship with Stephen Riverton had become less than blissful, despite their many years together. Or because of them. Staying in the closet socially, purporting to be career-centric bachelors who lived in the same condo, not the same loft, must be emotionally equivalent to water gradually wearing down stone.

  Jack cleared his throat. "He's fine. I'll tell him you said hello."

  Hannah heard a No Trespassing sign being posted. Until recently, few ever had been, by either of them. Now the inflection was almost routine and it hurt.

  They hadn't anticipated that her move to Valhalla Springs would affect their friendship. Why would they have? If a long-ago, impulsive, horribly failed attempt at being lovers hadn't destroyed it, nothing ever could.

  Or so they'd believed. The first hairline fractures appeared almost immediately. Soon after, Jack's brief, impromptu visit mended them, only for a larger crack to emerge and branch into deeper, wider ones.

  Once upon a time, he'd considered Hannah an equal. If asked, he'd say he still did and always would. She'd like to think when he was no longer her employer, they'd rekindle that platonic, no-holds-barred, two-Musketeers friendship they'd both taken for granted. Except what would a sheriff's wife and a resort developer have in common?

  Hannah recognized the quiet creaks she heard in the background. The toes of Jack's Italian shoes, crossed on a corner of his desk, were tapping impazientemente. Perpetual motion in some form came naturally to a man forever on the run from himself.

  "We're still on for Saturday, aren't we?" she asked.

  "Saturday?" Jack's voice rose, as if the conversation had suddenly veered into obscure territory.

  "The day after tomorrow," she prompted helpfully. Then, "Last clue, Einstein. Your birthday."

  "Thanks, but I know when my birthday is. The same day I finalize a golf course development in Michigan."

  Wonderful. The timing of her planned face-to-face-off about employment qualifications wouldn't have been optimal, but David would have been there for the birthday cake cutting, and he always had a gun somewhere on his person.

  "Spare me the guilt trip about the birthday party," Jack said. "Mother already laid a huge one on me."

  Not huge enough, Hannah thought. She squared her shoulders, which would put them almost eye to eye, if Jack were a couple of hundred miles closer.

  Rifts in their friendship aside, he was a silver-haired Irish teddy bear. One with nuclear capabilities, but a teddy bear, nonetheless. Her approach to compromise was key: a smooth, steady balance of experience, confidence and touch, like hitting the tarmac's black marks in a 757.

  "Anything else?" he said.

  "Nothing major," she stalled. "Wilma probably told you about yesterday's interview."

  "First thing. She's still mad at herself for letting Ms. Mom slip by her."

  "Well, I had a few reservations about Juline Shelton, even before I found out about her kids, but—"

  "Fuhgeddaboudit, sweet pea." A scraping sound and a thump indicated two hand-cobbled shoes had hit the floor. "I won't authorize using a two-bedroom resident's cottage for manager's quarters." Jack chuckled. "And yes, I know you too well."

  Hannah ducked down to examine the desk's knee hole, suspecting a bug had picked up last night's heart-to-heart with Malcolm, who'd taken refuge there until the weather calmed. No button mics were visible. Possibly because the des
k's underside could use a shave, too.

  "What if I'd had a kid, Jack? C'mon, one lousy kid. Old enough to feed and dress himself. Old enough to eat, dress and drive himself to school, even."

  "If you did, you wouldn't have quit Friedlich & Friedlich."

  "The hell I wouldn't have." She paced the narrow aisle between the desk and built-in credenza. "As much as I traveled? The hours I put in? Nights. Weekends. National freakin' holidays. How could I possibly have raised a kid—in Chicago, no less—in a condo where you had to squash your head against a window to see a damned tree?"

  Aware she was ranting and enjoying it, despite Clancy's laughter, she went on, "If me having a child when you were desperate to hire a manager four months ago wouldn't have mattered, it shouldn't matter now that I'm the desperate one, trying after forty-three years to have a life, while you're free to fly off to Michigan on your birthday."

  The swirling optical dots common to the oxygen deprived had dwindled by the time Jack caught his own breath. "Okay, all right. You win, as usual. I'll tell Wilma one child isn't an automatic out-skie."

  "Oh, Jack." Hannah puckered and smacked a sloppy kiss into the receiver. "Thank you, I really—"

  "If the kid's over ten," he said. "Make that twelve. And both kid and parent have to come to the interview. And Valhalla Springs' board of directors has to approve it. And if absolutely necessary, a two-bedroom cottage is a loaner, until an addition is built on the manager's cottage. Agreed?"

  Before Hannah responded, he tacked on, "No pets, ATVs, motorcycles, scooters, go-carts, skimobiles or pubescent wannabe Paris Hiltons, either."

  "That's it?" She leaned against the credenza and tipped back her head as far as her vertebrae allowed. "Gee, this widens the employment field so much, I can almost hear the organist tuning up for the Wedding March."

  "Musicians. Christ. I don't want any electric guitars, keyboards, drums—"

  "Goodbye, Jack." She pressed End, hesitated, then docked the handset. She hadn't talked to David since midnight, but the news of Jack's extremely conditional surrender could wait. By now, David was sleeping off one of Ruby Amyx's fabulous five-pound breakfast specials.

  And life being metabolically sexist, he'd weigh the same when he wakened as he did before his head hit the pillow.

  5

  An electric utility bucket truck and a cable-TV repair van narrowed the mouth of the cul-de-sac to a single lane. David threaded his patrol unit through the aperture, then dodged a branch severed by last night's armada of thunderstorms.

  None of the cloud rotations weather-spotters had reported had developed into tornados, but torrential rain, micro-burst winds and sixty-mile-an-hour gusts had downed power lines and caused minor property damage from the southwest corner of the county to the northeast.

  Clear skies and the cool breeze blowing through the cruiser's open window lent a surreality to the shingles scattered across the pavement. Leaves and grass clippings plastered the windward side of a late-model pickup. On the opposite side of Greenaway Circle, a mature Bartlett pear tree was snapped off at the ground, smothering a flower bed.

  Residents of the keyhole-shaped development clustered in their driveways and front lawns pretending to assess the damage. All eyes were riveted on the vehicles arrayed in the cul-de-sac's turnaround. David angled the Crown Victoria alongside Marlin Andrik's unmarked Chevy and behind the coroner's hearse.

  On the right side of the horseshoe, crime-scene tape blocked entry to a split-level rancher. Uniformed deputies flanked the open garage to chase away those who couldn't parse Police Line Do Not Cross, or assumed it didn't apply to them.

  David recalled the backyard barbecues he'd attended here, a holiday open house, the condolence call he'd made a few weeks afterward, then the number of times since that he'd intended to drop by.

  Something had always cropped up and taken precedence. Nothing memorable. Just the stuff and nonsense that shifted today's list of priorities to tomorrow's. Before you know it, a month or two has flown by.

  As David started for the house, Chase Wingate exited a minivan with Sanity Examiner in old English lettering on its doors. Before Marlin kiboshed radio transmissions, the county weekly's owner-publisher must have intercepted dispatch reporting a 10-18 at this address. Delbert Bisbee wasn't the only scanner-junkie who knew a dead body ten-code when he heard it. Far from it, unfortunately.

  "Sheriff," Wingate said, "if you'll fax a personal quote about this sometime before Sunday, I'd appreciate it."

  "Will do." David slipped Wingate's business card in his shirt pocket as a reminder. The newspaperman could be as persistent as his big-city brethren; he was just smart enough to know that anything he asked now, including the victim's ID, would foster a "No comment."

  Veteran Deputy Bill Eustace directed David to the front door, saying, "They haven't had time to process the garage yet."

  "You were responding officer?"

  Eustace jerked his head at the rookie stationed on the other side of the garage. "It was kind of a tie between me and Vaughn."

  "The garage door was up when you arrived?"

  "Yessir. After the neighbor lady across the street couldn't raise anybody on the phone, she went in through the garage, then ran home and called 911. Me and Vaughn went in that way, too."

  That meant at least three people had tracked in and out of the garage. If the killer had, as well, that portion of the scene was already contaminated. It couldn't be helped, but David's chief of detectives wasn't the forgiving type.

  Eustace turned and waved at the garage's concrete apron and the white sedan parked inside. "Judging from the trash, leaves and twigs scattered around, I'd guess the door was open all night long."

  David reserved judgment. Power outages and lightning can trip an older-model automatic garage door mechanism. So can a misaimed neighbor's remote control set at the same frequency. Or one from a burglar's private collection, often bought at garage sales for a quarter—battery not included.

  Shaggy evergreens encroached on the home's curved walkway. The tips brushed David's slacks as he sidled past, toward a concrete stoop. Above it, the guttering sagged under a couple of seasons' debris. The wrought-iron handrail wobbled; a house number plaque dangled from a lone, rusty chain. The metal storm door's upper glass panel was sparkling clean, inside and out.

  David peeled on latex gloves that proved the fallacy in one-size-fits-all. Anticipating the unmistakable stench of death, he thumbed the storm door's latch.

  The outrushing air wasn't pleasant, but bearable. It was the foyer's refrigerated chill that raised the hair on the back of David's neck. Considerably colder than Hannah's cottage was yesterday. Enough that if he'd walked in blindfolded, he'd swear he was in a morgue.

  To the right, the combined living room and dining room were as he remembered: as formal, uncluttered and spotless as a high-priced furniture store's showroom. Which, he admitted, was essentially what they were.

  A carpeted stairway divided those company-only rooms from the family room at the back. The solemn voices, cryptic remarks and camera flashes revealed that the heart of the home was the primary crime scene.

  Beginning just inside the archway, a field of plastic evidence markers resembled a miniature tent city. A coffee table had been overturned with enough force to crack one of the legs. Fanned across the carpet were magazines, a vinyl cigarette case, a paperback book, cork coasters, the TV remote. A filtered cigarette butt and ashes had spilled from a plastic ashtray. Mascara and lipstick streaked a wad of tissues.

  Foreknowledge of the victim's identity and cause of death didn't prepare David for the sight of Beverly Beauford's corpse. The former sheriff's widow lay sprawled on her stomach. The exposed side of her face and neck were cherry red, and her chin slightly tucked. Impact with the floor had twisted her glasses upward. One lens magnified a bulging blue eye.

  Junior Duckworth crouched beside her. The third-generation funeral home owner and three-term county coroner was shock-pale, his features taut.
David knew Junior's wife and Bev Beauford had been high school classmates.

  Opposite him, Marlin Andrik leaned in for a close-up photo of the lace scarf used as a garrote. The chief of detectives' customary emotional range went from inscrutably grim to inscrutably grimmer. Today, he looked as sick as David felt.

  "I hate this fuckin' job," he snarled.

  Marlin had said it before. Many times, yet never quite as savagely. Grief, rage and fear lacerated his voice. He took all homicides personally. This one hit too close to home.

  Sheriff Larry Beauford had been an elected bureaucrat for whom crime scenes were photo ops, but Bev was still a cop's wife. Her murder crossed a blue line everyone in law enforcement wanted to believe was inviolate. Sacrosanct. An unalienable quid pro quo for putting their own lives at risk.