Web site? That conjured up an odd and ominous picture of a gauzy web. I didn’t have time to ask for an explanation. “You stay here. I’ll go to the cemetery and see what I can do.” Obviously, I didn’t intend to walk. Time was clearly of the essence.
I disappeared. Kathleen shuddered. Poor Kathleen. She should be getting the hang of it. I was.
I landed on a tree above the body. I shivered and and wished I’d brought the red-and-black plaid jacket. Oh, how nice. I welcomed its warmth. I buttoned the front, felt much more comfortable.
Now, where was Daryl’s cell phone and how was I going to get it?
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Isat on the branch of a cottonwood and watched the scene below in fascination. Bobby Mac would be impressed when I told him. The activity under way was as taut with suspense as any battle with a tarpon. Brilliant spotlights arranged in a square illuminated Daryl Murdoch’s resting place. Yellow tape fluttered from poles jammed into the ground. A slender man in a French-blue uniform stood on the mausoleum steps. He held a camera and slowly panned the area.
Just inside the fluttering tape, a big man with grizzled black hair stared down at the body. He stood with hands jammed in the pockets of his crumpled brown suit. His hairline receded from a rounded forehead, now creased in concentration. His eyes were deep set in a heavy face with a large nose large and blunt chin.
I studied him, trying to recall . . . Oh yes. He reminded me strongly of Broderick Crawford in All the King’s Men, the same open countenance and burly build, the same aura of power. A man to be reckoned with.
A rustle sounded in the bushes. An officer stepped toward the man in the brown suit. “Hey, Chief. Take a look at this.” Ca ro ly n H a rt
The police chief strode near. “What you got?” The officer pointed a flashlight beam toward the ground. “Crowbar. No rust. Doesn’t look like it’s been here long.” The chief frowned. “Get pics. Measure. Bag it up.” I supposed many extraneous objects were gathered up in the search of a crime scene. I turned back to the body. As far as I could tell, it had not been moved. Did that mean the picture mechanism was still in his pocket? Kathleen had called it his cell phone, which was certainly a curious use of the word. A walkabout telephone that took pictures seemed quite remarkable to me.
A half-dozen cars were parked on the road on the other side of the Pritchard mausoleum. Most had their lights on and the beams illuminated trees with thinned leaves and old tombstones. A yellow convertible with the top down pulled up behind a white van. The driver’s door opened. A youngish man in a navy pullover sweater, faded jeans, and tennis shoes swung out. He shaded his eyes. “A ca-daver in the cemetery? You guys pulling my leg, putting on a special Halloween party for me?”
The chief glanced down at the body. “Not even for you, Doc, would we go to this much trouble. We got a body. Daryl Murdoch.” He spoke the name without pleasure.
The young man gave a whistle. He jumped lightly over the tape, but he took care to land on the sidewalk. “Daryl the mighty? Has the dancing begun?” As he spoke, he moved to the body, knelt. For a long moment he observed. “Somebody have second thoughts?” He pointed at the bouquet I’d placed in those lax hands.
The chief nodded. “Yeah. We’d noticed. Odd.” The doctor scanned the ground nearby. “You find a gun?”
“Nope.” The big man reached in his suit-jacket pocket, pulled out a package of spearmint.
I wafted close, sniffed. Some things never change, the smell of spearmint, the way leaves crackle underfoot in winter, the need to 54
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handle harsh reality with nonchalance. And, of course, the incredible intimacy of a small town. Everybody didn’t know everybody, but if you had any prominence at all, you were known. Even more important was the fact that someone always saw you. It was that simple. No matter where you were or what time or with whom or why, somebody saw you.
Kathleen didn’t understand how anyone had been privy to her visit to the bachelor professor’s apartment. She was the rector’s wife.
She was known. Perhaps the apartment manager saw her. Or the postman. Or Raoul’s next-door neighbor. Or a bicyclist. Or . . .
The big man sighed heavily. “Already got a call from the Gazette and from the Oklahoma City paper and a couple of TV stations.” He sounded aggrieved. “What can I tell ’em, Doc?”
“DOA.” A chortle.
There was no answering smile. “Yeah. And?” The doctor pulled a tubular flashlight from his pocket, trained it on the small crusted circular wound in Murdoch’s left temple. A fine red line had trickled and dried from the wound to his cheekbone. “It isn’t official until I do the autopsy, but you can say preliminary examination suggests he was shot to death by a small-caliber weapon.” He turned the grayish face to one side. “No sign of an exit wound.
Probably means it was a twenty-two and the bullet lodged in the skull. That’s all I can tell you for now, Chief.” The chief snapped his gum. “Killed here?” The doctor shrugged. “Can’t say. No rigor yet, so he probably died within the last couple of hours, which means there won’t be any livid-ity. The blood pattern on the cheek would be more consistent with the body lying on its left side, not the back. Might have died here, but he could have been moved.”
Another heavy sigh. “On TV the doc can tell you he was sitting up when he was shot and he fell down on his left side, and from the way the blood settled, he was moved twice.” 55
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The young doctor bounced to his feet. “Go watch TV. It’s always good for a laugh.” He jerked a thumb at the corpse. “Send him along.” He was thudding toward his car when the chief called after him. “Suicide?”
The doctor stopped, looked around. “Thought you didn’t find a gun.”
“Right.” The chief moved out of the way as the slender man who had taken pictures stepped past him. Now he held a sketch pad. I craned to look. The camera rested on one of the mausoleum steps. I’d have liked to get a close look at his camera. Bobby Mac loved to film the family, but our camera had been huge in comparison.
The chief unwrapped another stick of gum. “The squeal came from a kid. Maybe he heisted the gun. Cool souvenir.” The doctor was skeptical. “I played tennis with Daryl. He cheated on line calls.” A cool glance at the dead man. “Anyway, he was right-handed. It’s a challenge for a right-handed person to shoot himself in the left side of the head.” He trotted back to Daryl, squatted on his heels. “Doesn’t look like the slug went in on a slant. I’ll check it out.” He came to his feet, headed for his car. He called over his shoulder,
“Since you didn’t find a gun, it’s probably homicide.” I wafted back to my branch, rocked by what I’d learned. My initial assumption may have been absolutely wrong. I’d decided Murdoch had died elsewhere because there was no blood and mess on Kathleen’s porch. That may not have been the case. He may have been shot on the rectory porch, the bullet remaining in his skull.
If Murdoch was shot on the porch, it suggested the unpleasant possibility that the murderer accompanied Murdoch to the rectory and shot him there for the express purpose of ensnaring Kathleen.
The rectory seemed an unlikely place for a spontaneous quarrel and attack.
Did Kathleen have a bitter enemy? Or was she simply an attractive candidate for suspect number one?
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The doctor strolled toward his car, whistling through his teeth. The slender man continued to sketch on his pad. Every so often, Anita, one of the first police personnel to arrive, called out information to her fellow patrol officer. “. . . four feet nine inches south of the steps . . .” I was impressed by the meticulous record that was being made.