Free One Deadly Sin by Annie Solomon Page B

father. “Dad?”
    “Oh, hey, Holt,” James said.
    “Hey yourself. What’re you watching?”
    “Hmm?”
    “The TV. What are you watching?”
    James looked at the screen. He didn’t even remember turning it on. “Damned if I know.”
    They sat in silence for a while, watching the ring sparkle and circulate. James tried to pull himself together, but his heart had been pumping like a gusher ever since he’d heard from Mimsy, who heard it from Patsy Clark, who was at Claire’s when Runkle plowed into that tree.
    What did Holt know? That was the thing that kept James’s mouth dry and his palms clammy.
    James clutched his hands together and leaned over his knees. He didn’t want to look at Holt while he fished for information. “Heard you had a rough day.”
    “Not the best, no.” There was weariness in Holt’s voice, and James felt sorry for it. But not sorry enough to change the subject.
    “Get everything cleaned up?”
    Holt didn’t even ask how his dad knew what happened. He just nodded, accepting the fact that the town’s informal telegraph system was swift and efficient. “Car’s at Myer’s. Body’s at Ferguson’s.”
    Myer’s meant a search for mechanical problems. Doc Ferguson was the county coroner. So that meant an autopsy. “How fast until you hear the results?”
    “I told both to put a rush on, but you know how things get done around here. When they get done.”
    That meant—what? Days until James could relax. He nodded, stared out at the room again. Didn’t see anything.
    “You okay?” Holt asked. “First I find you at the crack of dawn wandering on other side of town, now you’re watching QVC.”
    Christ, he had to do better than this. He sighed. “Guess it’s unsettling, all this bad news coming one on the heels of the other.”
    “Tell me about it,” Holt murmured. “Look, Dad, how well did you know Dennis Runkle?”
    James froze. “Me?”
    “Whoa, slow down,” his son laughed. “This isn’t an interrogation. Just thought you could, you know, throw some insight my way.”
    James tried to loosen up. “I didn’t know him much at all. Just to say hello to. Or, you know, city business.”
    “Much of a drinker?”
    He told the truth. “Never got a call on him. Never heard he had a problem. Why? Think he was drunk?” Wouldn’t that be helpful.
    “Don’t know. Maybe he was just driving too fast. Man that age should know better.”
    “Hey”—James tried a chuckle, and it came out choked—“one day you’ll be a man that age.”
    “Well, I hope I’ll know better by then,” Holt said dryly.
    James paused. How to bring things around to the next concern? Couldn’t think of any way other than outright asking. He took a breath. “You find anything on that black angel?”
    Holt groaned. “Aw, geez, Dad, you’re not going voodoo on me, too?”
    Voodoo? Was that what the town was saying? “Just asking. Not saying there’s anything to it. But there’s going to be talk until you can come up with an explanation.”
    “Talk I can handle. And I’ll find an explanation. One that doesn’t involve black magic or the devil. You can count on that.”
    James nodded. As long as it didn’t involve him either.

13

    A rlen Mayborne still worked at Hammerbilt, although no longer as an accounting assistant. He was head of the department now and Edie had little trouble getting in touch with him.
    She told him she was a business writer doing a story on the economics of small-town America, and arranged an appointment with him on her first day off. A shift must have ended because cars streamed out of the gates as Edie pulled in.
    The plant itself was a sprawling complex that seemed to stretch for miles on the north side of town. Edie stopped to give her name at the guardhouse and to get directions to the office area. Once there, she asked for Mayborne at the reception desk.
    She sat in a vinyl-covered chair to wait. Copies of
HVAC Today
were scattered over a nearby coffee table. The