After Midnight by Merline Lovelace Read Free Book Online Page A

the Lord.”
    The faith that had formed the core of her husband’s life sustained his widow now. Her fingers shaking, she reached out to grasp the young pastor’s hand.
    “Delbert’s in the arms of his Savior now. I can’t grieve over that. Will you say the service for him?”
    “Of course. When do you want it?”
    “I don’t know.” Confused, she looked to Steve. “Where’s my husband’s body? When can we bury him?”
    “The Medical Examiner will have to conduct an autopsy. It’s required in every unexplained death.”
    Steve didn’t go into details. He saw no need to bring up the gash in McConnell’s skull until they were reasonably certain what caused it. The shoe bothered him, though. Big time.
    “When you first reported your husband missing, you indicated that he hadn’t mentioned taking his boat out that day.”
    “No, he didn’t. But he would sneak in a sail whenever he could. It was his release, his way of communing with the Almighty. He always said he saw things clearer out there on the bay, with just the wind and the sun and the boat cutting through the water.”
    Steve could relate to that. He’d spent a good number of solitary hours out on the Choctawhatchee, too.
    “I used to go with him when he first bought the boat, but…” The widow swallowed, fighting tears again. “But I didn’t enjoy it as much as he did and I always had so many things to do around the house.”
    She bit her lip, no doubt thinking she’d have time now for every small task she might have put aside to go sailing with her husband.
    “You also indicated the reverend kept a change of clothing on the boat.”
    “Yes. Some shorts and an old, sleeveless sweatshirt. A windbreaker, too, I think.”
    “What about boat shoes?”
    “Yes, of course.”
    “Apparently he was wearing black leather wing-tips when he went overboard, Mrs. McConnell.”
    She looked surprised, but could offer no explanation of why a man who sailed as much as her husband would attempt to negotiate a wet, slippery deck wearing leather-soled street shoes.
     
     
    Tugging off his tie, Steve popped the top button on his uniform shirt and cranked up the air conditioning for the drive to his office. From the McConnell’s house in South Walton, he retraced his route of the night before. Across the Bay Bridge. Though Villa Tasso and Choctaw Bay. Past the intersection of Highway 20 and the dirt road that led to Harry’s Bayou.
    It the bright light of noon, the vine-covered clumps that had once been the roadhouse were more easily discernible. Steve gave them a once-over as he drove past, wondering idly what caused the place to burn down. Just out of curiosity, he’d pull the old reports.
    Twenty minutes later he cruised under the I-10 overpass and hit the city limits of DeFuniak Springs. Steve always felt as though he entered a time warp each time passed under the interstate. He hadn’t exaggerated when he’d described Walton County’s schizophrenic nature to Jessica Blackwell. The beaches and touristy bustle to the south were another universe. Here, in the town constructed around a small, perfect, spring-fed lake, the Victoria era still thrived in all its gingerbread glory. Gabled and turreted houses circled the lake. The massive Chatauqua “Hall of Brotherhood”, which had brought a flourish of educational, cultural, and religious enlightenment to the area around the turn of the last century, still stood in all its white, columned majesty. The hall was only one of the forty or so structures in DeFuniak Springs listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
    The county courthouse dominated the sleepy downtown. A jarringly modern addition to the granite courthouse housed the county jail and the offices of the sheriff. When Steve wheeled into his reserved parking spot behind the jail, a handful of prisoners in the black and white striped shirts he’d insisted on were clipping the hedges around the building. The rest, he knew, were chowing