Free Deep Water by Patricia Highsmith

"Well, I'm looking forward to it," Vic said. "I hope you made it big enough."
           "It's a whopper."
           "Good." Vic stared at her brown, smooth little shoulder crossed by the denim overall straps, thought vaguely of telling her to take a sweater this morning, then returned to the paper in his hand.
     
           The remoteness of the murderer's relationship to his victim and the fact that he left no clues [said the paper] made this a nearly "perfect" crime. It was only after months of patient inquiry into every friend and acquaintance of the murdered man that the police were able to pick up the trail of Olney ...
     
           Whether the story would be in the 'New Wesleyan' this evening or not, Vic thought, many people in Little Wesley received the 'Times' every morning. Everybody who was interested in the story was going to know about it by tonight.
           "Aren't you going to have any bacon and eggs?" Trixie asked.
           Trixie usually claimed one piece of his bacon. He didn't want any bacon and eggs now. He saw that she had a big pool of ketchup in her bowl and that the cereal was probably inedible, even for Trixie. He got up slowly, went into the kitchen, and mechanically lit the fire under a skillet. He put in two pieces of bacon. He felt faintly nauseous.
           "Daddy? I've just got fi-yuv 'min-n-nits'!" Trixie yelled to him in a minatory tone.
           "Coming up, puss," he called back.
           "Hey! Since when do you call 'me' puss?"
           Vic didn't answer. He'd tell Melinda this morning, he thought, before she had a chance to hear it from anybody else.
           He had barely set the bacon down in front of Trixie when he heard the low moan of the school bus coming up the road. Trixie scurried about, collecting her badminton racket and the big red workman's handkerchief she was crazy about and wore around her neck most of the time, holding a piece of bacon in the fingers of one hand. She turned at the door, popped the bacon into her mouth, and Vic heard the crunch of baby teeth on it. "'Bye, Daddy!" and she was gone.
           Vic stared at the sofa in the living room, remembering a time when Mal had passed out there and had had to spend the night—though Mal had revived enough to ask to be put into a guest room, Vic recalled. He thought of Ralph lying there, that last evening, his head in the same spot Mal's head had been. Ralph was going to be amused by the story, Vic thought. Ralph might be back before long.
           Vic went into the kitchen, heated the coffee for a moment, then poured a cup for Melinda, adding a scant teaspoon of sugar. He carried the coffee to her door and knocked.
           "Umm-m?"
           "It's me. I've got some coffee for you."
           "Com-me in-n," she drawled, half with sleepiness, half with n annoyance.
           He went in. She lay on her back, her arms under her head. She wore pajamas, she slept without a pillow, and there was always something peculiarly Spartan about her, to Vic, on the rare occasions when he went into her room to awaken her, and when he saw her lying in her bed alone. There would be the wind sweeping the room, billowing the curtains as he opened the door on the coldest winter mornings. There would be a blanket kicked off onto the floor, because even in a temperature nearly freezing Melinda could keep warm under practically nothing. There was a blanket kicked off on the floor now. Melinda lay under a sheet. Vic handed her the big cup of coffee. It was her own blue and white cup, with her name on it.
           She winced at the first hot sip. "Oh-h-h-ah-h," she groaned, falling back on the bed, letting the cup tip dangerously in her hand.
           Vic sat down on the hard little bench in front of her dressing table. "Read some news this morning," he said.
           "Yes? What?"
           "They found the man who killed Mal."
           She raised