New River Blues by Elizabeth Gunn

Patricia would be jumping to turn off the TV set when that story came on.
    â€˜Then two police cars stopped in front of the Henderson house, I stepped out to talk to them, and by the time I got back inside my phone was ringing. I’ve been on the phone most of the time ever since, it’s crazy.’
    â€˜Listen, I just can’t stay upstairs by myself, I’m too nervous .’ Yvonne Ortman came back down the stairs, talking fast. ‘I’ll wait in the kitchen and I won’t say a word, I promise. I don’t really have anything useful to add anyway. But I need to hear voices near me or I’m going to jump out of my skin. Honestly,’ she turned on Sarah, indignantly, immediately breaking her promise not to talk, ‘what on earth is happening to this town, anyway? I mean, right here on our own street, who’d ever expect . . .’
    â€˜Always hard to believe when it’s close to home.’ The usual bromide only made Yvonne more indignant.
    â€˜Well, but for Heaven’s sake, this isn’t just any street, this is El Encanto!’ Vaguely aware she sounded elitist, she added lamely, ‘Most of these people have lived here for years!’
    â€˜I know.’ Sarah held the woman’s own kitchen door open and waved her through it. Half expecting a reprimand she asked Mike Ortman quickly, ‘Have you lived here a long time too?’
    He shrugged. ‘Eight years. Always wanted to live here. Moved in as soon as I could afford it.’ She took a fresh look at him, liking his blunt, straightforward answer.
    â€˜Do you know the Hendersons well?’
    â€˜Roger and I play golf occasionally. Our wives have never mixed much. Eloise is kind of a . . . social butterfly . . . I guess you’d call it. Gives a lot of parties. Serves on boards, does all those charity and theater things that get your name in the paper.’ Having made social prominence sound vaguely disreputable he tried to take it back. ‘Don’t get me wrong, they’re, you know, nice . Like everybody here.’ He jingled the coins in his pockets and added, ‘This is the first time we’ve ever had any . . . rough stuff.’ Like his wife, he seemed anxious to defend the neighborhood.
    Sarah’s phone rang. Delaney said, in an ominously calm voice, ‘Sarah, can you leave what you’re doing there and come back over here, please?’
    â€˜Sure.’ She closed the phone and told Ortman, ‘I’m sorry, I’ll have to finish this later – or somebody else will. My boss needs me back at the house.’
    â€˜Well, I can’t sit here all day,’ Ortman said.
    â€˜Of course not. But will you wait just a few minutes till I find out what’s going on? Then I’ll either come back or send someone.’ She took his phone numbers and hurried next door, found the owner talking to Greenaway in front of his half-open door. Greenaway gave her a little ironic nod that said plainly, Not going to get much out of this one.
    â€˜When you’re done here,’ she said, ‘will you finish up next door there? Delaney just called me back.’
    â€˜On it,’ Greenaway said, and turned back toward his rock-faced witness as Sarah walked away.
    On her way back through the Henderson house, she ducked through the kitchen and looked in the garage. One white Mercedes convertible stood alone in the stall nearest the kitchen door. Looks like the wife’s car. Jason Peete was in the kitchen, poking his bald head into cupboards. She hurried upstairs.
    Delaney stood facing Oscar Cifuentes in the dressing room. Both men were red in the face and looked ruffled, like fighting birds.
    Cifuentes was the new man in Homicide, a replacement for Eisenstaat, the over-the-hill detective who had retired a couple of years too late to ever be missed. In his place they got Cifuentes, who came so highly recommended by his new