Running on Empty by Sandra Balzo

revelation, AnnaLise settled for, 'What's
     he been doing since he lost his position as police chief?'
    'Drinking.' Sheree said. 'Honestly, I don't know how Kathleen and he have managed
     to keep their place on the lake this long. It must be mortgaged up the ying-yang.'
    'Certainly is a lot of house.'
    Sheree shrugged. 'Familiar small-town tradition. Rance was a Smoaks and so the "good
     ole boys" down at the bank let him borrow more than he could afford.'
    'I never understood the Smoaks' mystique,' AnnaLise said. 'Rance's nephew River was
     in our class, remember? Girls were always ga-ga over him.'
    'For one thing, he was the only eighth-grader old enough to have a driver's license.'
    'And need a razor.'
    'Even without being held back three times, he'd have been shaving. The male Smoaks
     practically come out of the womb with dark beards.'
    'And the females, big boobs,' AnnaLise agreed.
    'Maybe that's the allure,' Sheree said. 'The whole family is hyper-sexual. They exude
     pheromones.'
    Luring the unwitting. 'Poor Kathleen.'
    'Actually, lucky Kathleen. Believe it or not, Rance's father might have been a Smoaks,
     but his mother was Nanney Estill.'
    'Estill? Like the road?' Estill Trail was a major route on the other side of the interstate.
    'Like the trail. And the mall. Even the golf course,' Sheree said. 'The Estills, my
     girl, have real money.'
    Smarts, too — at least enough to divorce Rance's father. Though, admittedly, Nanney
     Estill had married Roy in the first place.
    'Are you saying some of the Estill estate came to Rance?' That might explain why Kathleen
     and Rance seemed to feel they could live beyond their means. 'I didn't realize Rance
     and his mother were close.'
    'You kidding? Nanney wanted nothing to do with her husband Roy after the divorce.
     Or Rance.'
    'Her own son?'
    'We are
talking about Rance Smoaks, remember?'
    True. 'But―'
    'Anyway,' Sheree continued, 'Nanney married against her family's wishes and apparently
     it didn't take long for her to see the error of her ways.'
    'Meaning her family disowned her.'
    'I couldn't say.'
    Which meant Sheree could, but wouldn't. A rare show of restraint. AnnaLise tried to
     pick up the threads of the story.
    'So Nanney divorced Roy and functionally abandoned little Rance,' — who'd once set
     the middle school on fire — 'yet left him money when she died?'
    'Not on purpose, silly.' Sheree was preoccupied with a rough fingernail. 'Apparently,
     there was this insurance policy she'd forgotten.'
    'With her son being her nearest relation and therefore her beneficiary, unless she
     stipulated otherwise.'
    'Bingo,' Sheree said. 'And now it all goes to his widow. I understand it's a bundle.'
    'Lucky' Kathleen, indeed. A little too lucky? 'Are you sure she lacks... "courage",
     as you put it?'
    'Oh, yeah. Kathleen didn't kill him.' Sheree gave up on the nail. 'Apparently he was
     out shooting with a friend.'
    'Smoaks had a friend?'
    'Of sorts. Joe Palooka.'
    'You're kidding.' But AnnaLise knew that while Joe Palooka was a joke, he was a sad
     one. Born with the distinguished name of Stewart Chapel, going overboard on alcohol
     and food had turned the man into a caricature — an overinflated, misshapen punching
     bag that had gone way too many rounds. But a man who, like the old balloon that was
     his nick-namesake, kept popping back up for more punishment. Especially from fair-weather
     friends like Rance Smoaks. Fair-weather, meaning anytime there was no one else available.
    'Where were they shooting?'
    'At Rance's lake house. Trying to hit liquor bottles at twenty feet.'
    'Let me guess, Rance was drinking straight from one such.'
    'No, but close. The way I heard it, he'd set up a row of empties on the dock so they
     could shoot toward the lake and not hurt anyone.'
    'Safety first. I'm impressed.'
    'Yeah, except one bottle wasn't quite empty. Rance leaned over the line of them to
     remedy the situation and...'
    'Joe didn't see him?' Lovely. Drunken