Sugar and Spite by G. A. McKevett

tools, used to solve the county’s most serious crimes.
    And Eileen Bradley and her team of technicians ran the place with the organized regime of a military academy and yet retained their sense of humor—grim though it might be at times.
    “So,” Eileen said, “Dirk Coulter got tired of paying alimony, huh?”
    Savannah wasn’t in the mood for Eileen’s dark jokes, especially those that were made at her friend’s expense. But she fought back her temper. Eileen wasn’t being cruel, just insensitive. Savannah knew she liked Dirk, too. They were all hard-bitten characters, and curmudgeons had to stick together in a world of sweeter, kinder souls who didn’t appreciate the joy of needling their fellowman.
    “Dirk didn’t do it,” Savannah said quietly. “And I have to find out who did before those bastards Hillquist and Jeffries nail him with it.”
    Nothing more needed to be said. Both Hillquist and Jeffries were persona non grata in their own departments. Neither would ever be given “Mr. Congeniality” awards by those who served under them. Both had started getting their own coffee from the community pot, after receiving tips about what disgruntled underlings had used to stir their cups.
    “How can we help you?” Eileen asked.
    “Give me anything you’ve got.”
    “That’s not much.” Eileen sighed, and Savannah noticed she had aged considerably in the past three years, since she had been promoted to head technician. This sort of work could make you old quick. Sometimes Savannah felt older than her octogenarian grandmother, just from all the meanness she had seen in the world.
    “Latent prints?” Savannah asked, knowing what the depressing answer would be.
    “On the gun, sure,” Eileen said. “Dirk’s.”
    “It was his gun.”
    “Exactly. And a couple of smeared ones. Couldn’t read those.”
    “There were a few on the door and doorknob, and we’re identifying those now.”
    She led Savannah to her own desk, which was slightly larger and centered in the back of the room, near the laboratory equipment. Pulling a chair from a nearby, empty desk, she offered Savannah a seat, then plopped down on her own chair. She propped her white tractor tread nurse shoes on a nearby metal file cabinet and ran her fingers through her gray mop of hair, making it, if possible, more unruly than before.
    “Some of the prints on the door may be mine,” Savannah told her. “I was there earlier in the day… and many times before.”
    Eileen gave her a smug grin. “Yeah, I know. Yours was the first one we matched. Then there was another that’s probably Dirk’s. We’re working on the last three.”
    “I doubt that either one belongs to the killer. Dirk says he was wearing gloves.”
    “Mmmm.”
    Savannah didn’t like the nonresponse or the cynical gleam in Eileen’s eye. Why was everyone having a hard time believing the unknown-intruder story? Hadn’t they learned anything from poor old Dr. Richard Kimball?
    “How about fiber or other trace evidence?” Savannah felt like she was grasping for straws… or at least hanging on to threads.
    “Dr. Liu hasn’t sent the victim’s clothing over yet. We didn’t see anything outstanding on the body when we looked her over. We haven’t processed the rape kit yet, either, but we just talked to the doc and she said she expects it to be negative.”
    “Raped? Well, of course she wasn’t raped. She was with Dirk and…”
    The distasteful thought occurred to Savannah that Polly and Dirk might have gotten down and dirty sometime that day, before the killing. And if they did, that would mean that his DNA was… No, she didn’t even want to wander down that mental path. It would just be one more nail hammered into Dirk’s coffin lid.
    Besides, the thought of Dirk and Polly together made her feel like cold, slippery, slimy eels were slithering up her back. And she didn’t want to get into any Freudian analysis about why. It wasn’t that she had a thing for Dirk;