Murder in the Smokies by Paula Graves Page B

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 and making this department look like a clown act to our fellow law enforcement agencies.”
    A clown act? She bristled, trying not to show it. “Sir, someone deliberately targeted Sutton Calhoun for murder. He could have just as easily succeeded as failed last night.”
    “Didn’t happen in our jurisdiction.”
    “It happened to me,” she snapped back, clamping her lips closed to get her mouth under control. “I believe it’s connected.”
    “I don’t see it,” Rayburn disagreed.
    She tried changing directions. “Mr. Calhoun and I are not collaborating on the murder investigation.” Well, not directly. She’d probably shared a little more information with him last night while waiting for the cops than she should have, but it didn’t really seem to be much he didn’t know already.
    “And yet, he’s staying at your house, isn’t he?”
    She stared back at the captain, wondering how on earth he knew that.
    “After my visit with Deputy Chief Logan I made a call to