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January 4 (The Dangling Conversation)


Actaeon

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"You crazy son-of-a"

 

Elliot wakes to find a short, auburn young woman standing over him, fists on her hips.

 

"Morning Linda."

 

A frock coat makes a remarkably warm blanket, but as he pulls himself clumsily to his feet, his limbs cry out in numb protest. The woman offers no assistance, and continues to fix him with a steady glare.

 

"I don't suppose you have someplace I could thaw out?"

 

She rolls her eyes and wordlessly escorts him down the hill.

 

***

 

A light breeze rustles the lace curtains of a beautiful Victorian Home. Outside, the air is so crisp that you could almost box it up and store it, sharp teetering on the edge of a chill. In the small front room of the Dalton residence, a tidy fire keeps the wind at bay, though the shutters are thrown wide and the curtains pulled back. The sun streams in through an eastern window, bathing the western wall in golden light and glinting off of a tidy collection of silver framed photographs. In them a common theme repeats itself endlessly: a man and a woman, sometimes alone but usually together, march through their lives hand in hand. Even when they don't touch, their mutual support is apparent. In one photograph, the man, tall with broad shoulders and a broader grin, perhaps thirty, has fixed the camera with such a delighted gaze that his wife, the photographer, might as well be in the picture. She is, in fact, reflected in his twinkling eyes, were any eye sharp enough to note it.

 

The bright, airy room is at odds with the mood that inhabits it. A strange man has intruded on this sacred space. His graying hair, untidy goatee, and worn clothing clash with the ornate wallpaper and delicate antique table. Across the table from him, seated firmly in a casual position she is clearly straining to maintain, the woman from the photographs fixes Elliot Holt with a look of purest revulsion and taps a nine iron against her shoe.

 

There is silence for a long moment. To anyone else, the awkwardness would be obvious, but Holt is too absorbed in the workings of his own mind to pay attention to such social underpinnings, blatant as they might be. He is quite content to sit and drink his tea, taking her in and composing the moving description of a grieving widow he will include in his magnum opus. Without the need for a note pad he logs her blue-green, red rimmed eyes, the new frown lines forming at the corner of her mouth, her disheveled auburn hair. He is dimly aware, as a few simple emotions sift through the reporter mode he has adopted, that he is not looking at the same Linda Dalton he once knew.

 

Finally, he breaks the silence.

 

"So... um... how-"

 

"Drowned."

 

Elliot frowns in confusion. Hank was an enthusiastic kayaker, but knew his own limits, and would not have ventured into the river at this time of year.

 

"Drowned?"

 

"Down by the water treatment plant."

 

That makes a little more sense- Dalton supported his wife with a pair of humiliating part time jobs in water sanitation and garbage pickup."

 

"James said it was ruled an accident."

 

"That's what they're saying. But I spoke with the coroner, and the detective assigned to the case, and I get the sense that they're getting leaned on."

 

"What other options are there? Suicide? You and I both know that Hank would never-"

 

"If Hank was going to throw himself into the river, he'd chose someplace a little more scenic."

 

"But that just leaves..."

 

It's almost inconceivable. Hank Dalton was soft spoken, honest to a fault, and always tipped twenty five percent. What could anyone have against a hard working family man?

 

Even, so, there's a gleam of certainty in Linda's eyes as she leans forward and almost spits:

 

"Murder."

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