Free Deadliest of Sins by Sallie Bissell Page A

into the Bryan Taylor case.”
    As Galloway scanned the sheet of paper, she scanned Galloway. Like her, he had olive skin and black hair. Unlike her, his eyes were a fierce blue, his body rangy and muscular. She felt, oddly, that she’d seen him somewhere before.
    â€œOkay.” He looked up from Drake’s letter. “Have a seat and I’ll get you up to speed.”
    She lifted a heavy packing box from his one chair and pulled it up to the desk.
    â€œSorry about all the clutter,” he said. “I just moved up here from Georgia.”
    â€œReally? Where in Georgia?” asked Mary.
    â€œCobb County. I got my detective shield in Marietta.”
    Mary smiled. “I used to be a prosecutor in Deckard County. How’d you wind up here in Carolina?”
    â€œGot tired of Atlanta traffic and Marietta politics.” He laughed. “When two newer guys got promoted over me, I saw the writing on the wall. This little force put out a call for a detective who could hablo Español , so I answered the ad. Took a big cut in pay, but at least I’m not spending three hours a day stuck in traffic.”
    â€œWhy Español here?”
    â€œLots of Latino-on-Latino crime along Jackson Highway. The chief got tired of his conviction rate sinking because his cops had misunderstood the Spanish.” He shrugged. “ Aquí estoy yo .”
    She nodded, wondering if Galloway shared the same macho distaste for investigating gay crimes that most cops did. “So they put you undercover, in the middle of a gay murder investigation?”
    Galloway smiled. “I was perfect to go deep—too new for anybody to recognize.”
    â€œOkay—what can you tell me about this case?”
    He rifled through a stack of papers on his desk and pulled out a thick envelope. “You can read it, or I can tell you the basics.”
    â€œLet’s do both,” said Mary. “You start first.”
    Galloway opened the file. “Bryan Taylor, twenty-seven-year-old white male, found dead along Jackson Highway. He was a resident of Brooklyn, New York, here visiting his parents.”
    He handed Mary two photographs—one of a handsome young man with sandy brown hair and several days’ worth of beard on his cheeks. The second was a crime scene photo where that handsome face was bloodied beyond recognition. “Geez,” said Mary. “Did someone take a tire iron to his head?”
    â€œWe think it was a baseball bat. He’d just subbed in a church league softball game. Bryan had played on St. Alban’s team before and was a pretty good short stop in high school.”
    â€œSo did he make the winning play at second base and then get beaten to death?”
    â€œActually, his team lost,” said Galloway. “After the game they went over to Clancy’s Grill—it’s a popular place with ball players. His teammates said Bryan ordered a hamburger, drank a couple of beers, and then left. We think somebody followed him, killed him, and dumped his body a couple of miles down the road.”
    â€œHe wasn’t killed at the scene?” asked Mary.
    â€œNo, he was dumped. Wasn’t a shred of evidence along that highway.”
    â€œHad he hit on anybody at the bar?”
    Galloway shook his head. “According to his teammates, he ate, drank his beer, and left. Said he had an early flight back to New York the next day.”
    â€œWhere was his car?”
    â€œHere’s the odd part … his car was parked at an I-85 truck stop, twenty miles east of his home. And no,” he continued, answering the question Mary was about to ask, “it hadn’t been wiped. It was lousy with his and his mother’s fingerprints … it was her car. There was also a partial print of somebody who isn’t in the system. And a single black hair was found on the driver’s seat.”
    â€œPubic hair?”
    â€œNope. Head hair. But we didn’t