Dream Man by Linda Howard Page B

any visitors?”
    he stressed. “Ever?”
    Lou and Bill looked at each other and shrugged helplessly, shaking their heads.
    “No family? Brothers, sisters?”
    More head shaking.
    “Girlfriends?” he growled.
    “No,” Lou repeated a bit testily. “No one. She even takes care of the yard work herself, instead of hiring a neighbor-hood boy. I’ve never seen anyone over there except for the mailman.”
    Dead end. He was frankly puzzled by it. He glanced at Trammell and saw the small frown that said his partner was just as baffled. Men could be loners, but women seldom were. He tried another tack. “Does she go out much?”
    “Not often, no. She sees an occasional movie, I think. I can’t believe she’s in any sort of trouble. Why, when Bill broke his leg two years ago, she’d stay with him whenever I had to go out.” Lou glared at him. Dane noticed that she was saving it all for him, rather than including Trammell in her bad graces. He flipped his notebook shut. “Thanks for your help.” Some help.
    The neighbors on the right had basically the same comments, except the lady of the house had two squalling rug rats hanging on her legs and couldn’t be expected to pay a lot of attention to the comings and goings next door. No, she’d never seen anyone visiting Marlie.
    They went back to the car and got in, both sitting in silence and staring at 2411 Hazel wood. It was a neat, solid little bungalow, typical of houses built in the fifties, though it had been spruced up with a cool, sand-colored paint and enlivened with the kind of touches women put on their nests, the trim done in what he thought of as ice cream colors, which only women and gays knew the names for. The front porch was decorated with a couple of ferns and some pinkish flowers, all in pots hanging from hooks. So what had they just found out? That their most likely suspect sounded like some kind of nun?
    “That big thud we just heard was us, hitting a blank wall,” Trammell finally said. Dane scowled, but there was no denying it. He felt frustrated and angry, but underlying it was a certain… relief? Damn, what was wrong with him? He was feeling relieved because a murder case was turning into one big headache, and he couldn’t come up with anything on the best lead they’d had?
    “She had to have been there,” he said. “She knew too much.”
    Trammell shrugged. “There’s another possibility.”
    “Like what?”
    “Maybe she’s psychic,” he suggested lightly.
    “Give me a break.”
    “Then you explain it some other way. I can’t. I’ve been thinking about it, and nothing that we’ve been able to find out about her even hints that she’d be involved in something like this. Weird as it sounds, maybe there’s something to it.”
    “Yeah. And maybe aliens are going to land on the White House lawn.”
    “Face it, buddy. That neighbor lady is the type who peeps out the window every time a pizza delivery car goes down the street. If Marlie Keen went out, or had anyone over, you can bet it would have been noticed.”
    “We still haven’t checked out her friends at work, who she has lunch with.”
    “Yeah, well, let me know how it goes. I for one know how to recognize a dead end when I see one.”

Chapter 5
    She saw him immediately when she left the bank. He was alone in his car, just sitting there, watching for her. The late afternoon sunshine glinted off the windshield and prevented her from clearly seeing his face, but she knew it was him. Detective Hollister. Though she could really only discern the width of those heavy shoulders and the shape of his head, some primal sense of self-preservation, an alertness to danger, recognized him.
    He didn’t get out of the car, didn’t call to her. Just watched her. Marlie strode to her car, stonily refusing to react to his presence. When she pulled out of the parking lot, he pulled out right behind her.
    He stayed there, tight on her rear bumper, as she threaded her way through the normal