Murder in the Smokies - By Paula Graves Page 0,32

beneath Parsons’s light tone. She dropped heavily into her desk seat.

Yup, a big ol’ barrel of manure.

* * *

THE ONE-STORY clapboard house on Kettle Creek Road hadn’t changed much in fourteen years, Sutton saw. Still shabby, the sun-faded white paint job nearly flaked away by time, leaving weathered gray pine showing in scabrous patches. Just looking at the place made his gut tighten with dread.

But he wasn’t eighteen anymore. He hadn’t come back to get in touch with his past or anything sentimental like that.

He’d come here for answers.

At the top of the cinder-block steps to the rickety front porch, he paused, wondering if the sagging wood slats of the porch floor would hold his weight. They creaked but didn’t snap as he crossed to the ripped screen door that hung by one precarious screw from its hinges. It made a loud groan as he opened it, killing any hope he might have had for a stealthy entrance.

It didn’t matter. He knew who was inside, and he didn’t need sneaky ninja skills to get to the bottom of what was going on.

The front door was unlocked. Not that it would have mattered either way—Sutton knew where to find the spare key.

Some things never changed.

The living room just inside the front door was tidier than Sutton had expected. The old man had never cared much about what the place looked like; he’d saved his concern for first impressions for himself, making sure to wear nice clothes, shave and keep his hair neatly cut. He was selling an image, after all. People had to think they could trust him.

Footsteps sounded on the hardwood floor of the hallway beyond the door on the other side of the living room. Sutton steeled himself for his first glimpse of the old man in over a decade.

But it wasn’t his father who walked through the door. It was the man who’d led him here today. Seth Hammond paused in the doorway, folding his arms over his chest as if to block the way. “Thought you weren’t interested in a family reunion.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not family, so what do you know?” Sutton pushed forward, daring Seth to hold his ground.

For a moment, it seemed as if they might come to blows. Then Seth backed away, making an exaggerated gesture toward the bedroom down the hall. Sutton pushed past him, his shoulder bumping hard against Seth’s, knocking the smaller man backward into the wall.

He didn’t know what he’d expected to find when he finally saw his father again after so many years. An older man, his handsome face a little more lined, his dark hair liberally lined with silver.

Anything but the wheelchair-bound shell of a man who sat hunched and bitter beside the bedroom window, one hand curled into a gnarled claw and both legs thin and atrophied beneath his saggy blue jeans.

“What’s wrong with him?” he asked quietly as Seth entered the room.

Seth’s voice was gentle, tinged with unexpected sympathy. “Five years ago, he suffered a massive stroke. He hasn’t walked or talked since.”

Chapter Eight

“Did I not tell you to keep clear of Sutton Calhoun?” Glen Rayburn had a way of speaking to the officers under his command as if they were stupid, rebellious children, Ivy thought, chafing at his tone. Perhaps she deserved a dressing-down for violating the spirit if not the letter of the captain’s order, but there was no call to treat her like a teenager who’d broken curfew.

“You told Mr. Calhoun not to try to involve any of us in his investigation. He didn’t. I was the one who tailed him last night.”

Rayburn’s face reddened. “Why the hell would you do that?”

“His interest in the case interests me,” she answered honestly. “We’ve been chasing our tails for four murders now, looking for evidence that can’t be found, trying to come up with theories that make sense.” She didn’t add that some of their problems stemmed from Rayburn’s own stubborn refusal to consider linking the murders together. It put them behind on the investigation by the time the second murder was a few hours old.

“And you think Calhoun’s going to give you answers?”

“I think a fresh set of eyes can be beneficial,” she answered carefully.

“Perhaps I should remove your eyes from the case altogether.”

She couldn’t tell if he was bluffing. “Sir, that would only put the investigation that much further behind. You’d have to bring a new detective up to speed.”

“I can’t have you gallivanting all over the Smoky Mountains, getting yourself shot at

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