After 9th A Houston Murder Story

The city of Houston does not sleep easily in July.

The heat lingers past midnight, rising from the asphalt in slow, invisible waves, settling over the bayous and the flatlands like a second skin. By the time the rest of the country has pulled on a light jacket and called the evening cool, Houston is still sweating — still exhaling the day's burn into a sky too thick and close to offer relief.

It was in this kind of heat that Donna died.

And it was in this heat that Bill first understood how qu...