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shook his head. “ D octor said n othing appeared to have happened below her waist. We’ll have to wait until the autopsy to be sure. Her shoes were off, and tossed into the grass next to her. Tazewell figures the guy strangled her , started to drag her, and her shoes came off. So he put her down, grabbed the shoes, then picked her up and carried her the rest of the way.”
    Karen looked at him. “Tazewell figures ?”
    “We call in the s heriff’s o ffice to assist in crime scene processing . They’ve got a mobile unit for forensic investigation and a couple of detectives who have a lot better training and experience in evidence collection than we do. They did the scene for us Saturday night and also did Donaghue’s motel room afterward .”
    “Then they should have already told you that he had nothing to do with what happened.”
    Branham shrugged. “We’re still waiting for their reports.”
    “I suppose it’s too much to ask that the bar would have video surveillance cameras.”
    “Not a chance. ”
    After a few minutes of silence they reached the outskirts of Tazewell. He eased onto a n off- ramp and took the underpass south onto a two-lane road.
    “ Just ahead we’ll take a left onto Highway 61 ,” Branham explained . “That take s us around the mountain up to Gratton, where we’ll turn onto Route 623. That’s the only road into Burkes Garden.”
    Karen grunted . She didn’t have a tourist mentality and really didn’t give a damn about local points of interest. She had a sense that Branham wanted to play tour guide and she wasn’t going to sit there and let him drone on .
    “Where are you from, Branham?” she asked. “ You’re not a local , are you? ”
    “ Louisa, Kentucky ,” he replied, glancing at her. “ Up on the Big Sandy, in Lawrence County. Not all that far from here, really .”
    “How’d you end up d eputy c hief of p olice in Harmony?”
    “I started out in the Kentucky State Police. My grandfather lived alone here in Tazewell and when he became sick I got into the Virginia State Police out of Claypool Hill so I could move here and look after him. Then he passed away. I applied for an opening on the town force in Harmony and got in. That was in ' 01 , and I’ve been here ever since.”
    Branham stopped at a n intersection and put on his left-hand turn signal. “This is the junction of Highway 61. It ’ll take us to Gratton.”
    “ P retty small-time around here . You must be bored out of your skull.”
    “Not really . ” S mile lines creas ed the corners of his eyes as he waited for a break in the oncoming traffic. “It’s a nice spot. T here’s not a whole lot of crime to handle, but the p eople aren ’ t bad. I do most of the administrative stuff for the department, including the budget, shift schedul e , that kind of thing. I wanted the experience because it’ll help my career if I want to go s tat i e again at a higher level down the road.”
    “ You responsible for t raining , as well ?”
    “ Ye ah .”
    “Well, your boys need a refresher on firearms care and maintenance. Louden’s carrying a Beretta 92 that needs to be scrapped before he hurts himself with it.”
    Branham said nothing, concentrat ing on his driving.
    “Where’d you go to college?” Karen asked.
    “Eastern Kentucky.”
    Karen nodded. “EKU is good for police studies, I’ve heard.”
    “You heard that, did you? Well, it’s true.” He glanced at her again. “What about yourself, Detective Stainer? What’s your story?”
    Karen shrugged. “Not much to tell. Been a cop for sixteen years, the last year in Homicide. Before that there was a long stint in Family - Related Crime, and before that I rode in a patrol car like everybody else for what felt like an eternity.”
    “Family - R elated? That must have been a chore.”
    “You could say that.”
    “What’s your case load in Homicide like?”
    “Heavy. There’ve been fifty-two h omicides in the last six months .”
    “ Wow.