Free One Deadly Sin by Annie Solomon

starched uniform? Sam never did understand that whole wrinkled look. If you couldn’t make yourself neat and presentable, how were you going to make the world around you that way?
    She let herself into the office. Frowned at the clutter on Holt’s desk. He might be movie-star cute, but they’d never suit. She’d always be running behind him, straightening up the mess he left. Just looking at his desk, she was tempted. But she resisted. He left her alone, only right she do the same.
    She got out the report forms and started filling them out. She’d seen her share of bodies, but thought she was all through with that when she came home. She’d imagined a life of corralling Terry Bishops—drunks and drifters mostly. But here she was, two dead men in less than two weeks. And both with black angels.
    She looked up from the form, stared into space. A coincidence or a connection? She wondered what Holt thought. In all the time she’d been his deputy, they’d never had a real case. Was this the first? Goose bumps ran up her arms. A real investigation. Wouldn’t it be sweet to go after the bad guys again?
    When Holt finally made it home, Mimsy had dinner waiting. She sat him down at the kitchen table, the same table he’d eaten at his whole life, and put a cold beer and bowl of chili in front of him. How many meals had she made for him? He looked around at the kitchen. Saw the nick in the counter where an illegally thrown football had knocked over a glass bowl. The corner by the phone where messages, store circulars, and coupons had mounded into a junk pile. Home. Family. The natural order of things.
    Dennis Runkle’s smashed-up body invaded the scene in his head. Stroke? Another Redbud VIP felled by a heart attack?
    It could be the car. Something mechanical, either accidental or…
    Or what? Murder didn’t happen in Redbud.
    And yet…
    Two deaths. Two black angels.
    Unnatural. Supernatural?
    He pushed the bowl of chili away. Man, oh man, now they had him thinking crazy.
    Miranda rushed in, dressed for bed in her favorite nightgown with the lace ruffle around the edge. No one could accuse his child of not being a girl. “Daddy!” She hopped on his lap, and his gloom vanished. Hard to be gloomy when Miranda was around.
    She put her arms against his neck and squeezed. “You’re late.”
    “Sorry, darlin’. I was working.”
    “I got a fattoo.”
    “A what?”
    “A fattoo. Look.” She pulled the neck of her nightgown down to bare her shoulder. Showed him some kind of picture she’d drawn there. “It’s a swan.”
    He laughed. “Why in the world—”
    “Don’t worry, it’s just marker.” His mother bustled into the kitchen. “It’ll wash right off.” She shot Miranda a long-suffering look.
    “I don’t want to wash it. Do I have to, Daddy?”
    “That’s what life’s all about, baby girl. Doing stuff you don’t want to do.” He nicked the tip of her nose. “So why a tattoo?”
    “Miranda made a new friend today,” Mimsy said.
    “Really.” Holt could only think of one person with tattoos. But where on this planet Earth could Miranda have met Edie? “A new kid?”
    “Oh, it wasn’t a child,” Mimsy said. “It was… well honestly, I don’t know what she was. A phantom from past.
My
past. Black hair all teased up and going every which way. Thick black eye makeup. I used to know a dozen girls like that.”
    He looked down at Miranda. “So you met my friend, Edie.”
    “Friend?” Mimsy said. Her eyes bored right into him. Matchmaking was one of her favorite hobbies.
    To put any ideas to rest, he explained, “She’s Red’s new bartender. Where did you meet her?”
    “In the library,” Miranda said, oblivious of the undercurrents running between her grandmother and her dad. “Playing with the big machines.” She drew the size in the air with two hands.
    Holt looked up to his mother.
    “Microfilm,” she explained.
    What was Edie doing digging in the library’s microfilm room? She