13. The Detour
Ethan walked up the cracked cement walkway leading to Kelly’s small front porch. When he knocked, Keema barked, then a woman trumpeted over the barking, “Come around the side.”
He walked across the grass to the side of the house. A plus-sized, black-haired woman wearing large black-framed glasses slung the side door open to greet him. A cigarette hung from her mouth, approximating the same rakish angle Humphrey Bogart’s assumed in The Maltese Falcon. She tilted her head back and sideways to scrutinize Ethan through the smoky haze, and then said, “I don’t know you. What do you want?”
Her gruff manner held Ethan hostage, as if he had just been challenged to arm-wrestle for pints of beer. He guessed she was in her midtwenties, but it was difficult to tell through her defensi
