Free Lucky Day by Barry Lyga

a knock at the door distracted him. Hanson poked his head in.
    “Sheriff? You wanted me to give you a lift when I was off duty?”
    Right. He’d asked Hanson to drive him to Roscoe’s to retrieve his car.
    Special Agent Morales could wait a half hour, he decided. “Let’s go.”
      
    His car was in the parking lot at Roscoe’s, right where he’d left it the night before. He thanked Hanson for the ride, then went to unlock the driver’s side. As he did so, Maribeth slipped outside for a smoke break.
    “Evenin’, Sheriff.” She blew a cool ring into the darkling air.
    With a scowl, G. William leaned against his car’s roof. “You better get a grip on your customers, Maribeth.”
    Shocked, she almost forgot to exhale. “What do you mean?”
    “You had no business lettin’ Billy Dent get behind a wheel last night. You can bet I’m gonna talk to Roscoe about—”
    “What are you talking about?” Maribeth’s lower lip trembled, but G. William had seen better criers in his line of work.
    “A customer gets lit up like he did, like I did, you don’t let ’em behind the wheel. Just common sense, Maribeth. For God’s sake.”
    She flicked ash from the cigarette, her hand shaking just a bit. “But…but Billy wasn’t drunk! He was stone-cold sober! I swear.”
    “Don’t give me that. I outweigh him by a hundred pounds, and the man matched me drink for drink.”
    “Right.” Her head bobbed in eager agreement. “His usual. All Billy has is tonic with a spritz of cola and some grenadine. That’s all he ever has.”
    G. William stared into the middle distance for so long that he didn’t even realize Maribeth was openly weeping now. “I need this job, Sheriff. Please, I didn’t mean to do anything wrong. He was sober and he said—”
    Abashed, G. William harrumphed and came around the car to take her hands in his own. He cooed apologies and reassurances to her until she’d settled down, then shifted his frame behind the wheel of his car.
    Billy had been sober last night.
    Why did that surprise him so much? Why did it matter?
    He kept ordering rounds for us. It was like—
    No.
    It was like he was trying to get me drunk.
    Men get women drunk to get into their pants. Why would a man get another man drunk?
    “Ain’t no shame in losing to a better man.”
    It floated up from the previous evening’s (half-)drunken confab.
    “Ain’t no shame in losing to a better man.”
    Why did he even say that? Billy had said he didn’t think Mr. Sweep-in-the-New was a better man. He’d called him a dilettante. Why had he said…
    Unless he wasn’t talking about my opponent.
    “Ain’t no shame in losing to a better man.”
    Why had he said it? And why was it bothering G. William so much? He sat in the car, the door still ajar, his hands gripping the steering wheel as he focused mightily.
    Why?
    G. William swallowed hard. No. It was impossible. Not Billy Dent. Not the goddamned father of the year, aw-poor-single-dad, oh-my-look-at-him-ladies Billy Dent !
    He gunned the engine and drove back to the sheriff’s office. By the time he arrived, he’d convinced himself how wrong he was. Dead-dog wrong, his father used to say. As in, “You think that dead dog can hunt? You ain’t just wrong, boy—you’re dead-dog wrong.”
    Billy Dent could not be the Hand-in-Glove Killer.
    He sat in his office, the door closed, the only light coming from the ancient desk lamp. Other than Loralynn out at the reception desk, he was alone. Everyone else was on patrol or on a call.
    So he said it out loud: “Billy Dent cannot be the Hand-in-Glove Killer.”
    He felt ashamed when he heard the words, the suspicion. He thought of how he’d had Hanson dig into Henry Reed, how they both now knew the man was an alcoholic. It wasn’t his job to know that about an innocent man, but he did.
    And he thought of his own secret investigation of Doug Weathers. Pulling strings and skulking around. Plotting every damn grocery trip the man made with