I’d been a first-rate typist. I followed his fingers. He typed cougar into the box with asterisks. A few more clicks and he was looking at a list of messages. He clicked the first one.
To: Chief Cobb
From: Jacob Brandt, M.D.
Subject: Autopsy Report Daryl Murdoch Autopsy file attached. Cutting to the chase: Death resulted from gunshot to the left temple. .22 slug recovered, sent to OSBI laboratory. Probable time of death between 4 and 6:30
P.M. Preliminary survey shows no evidence drug use. Definitive toxicology tests under way. Victim right-handed. No trace of gunpowder residue on hand(s) of deceased. Suicide improbable.
The chief clicked. Information appeared on the screen superim-posed on the message, instructions on how to print. Another click.
Paper edged from a small square machine on the floor. The chief clicked again. The message disappeared. I studied the legend to the left of the screen. Apparently, the messages came into an in-box. One click and they appeared. Another click, a message was printed. Another click, the message disappeared. The chief reached down for the sheet, placed it in a folder.
Who would have thought such marvels were possible? I remembered how excited I’d been to have an electric typewriter. To think Wiggins still depended upon a Teletype. I would have to bring him up-to-date.
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Chief Cobb pressed a key and the message from the medical examiner disappeared. He swung a meaty hand toward his telephone, punched a couple of buttons, and leaned back in his chair.
I bent nearer the luminous screen. One ping. A line announced: One message in your mailbox.
Suddenly a dour voice sounded. “Lab.” As I turned toward the sound, I accidentally touched the chief’s shoulder.
Chief Cobb’s head jerked. Looking puzzled, he lifted a hand and brushed his shoulder. He peered behind him.
I eased away.
The chief shrugged and spoke in the general direction of his telephone. “Sam here. What you got on the Murdoch slug?”
“Slammed into bone.” A gloomy voice, turgid as a silt-laden river, emanated from the squat rectangular plastic box beneath the telephone.
Conversing over a telephone without picking up the receiver. Another wonder.
The chief wrinkled his nose. “Too damaged to make an ID?”
“Yeah.”
“Twenty-two?”
“Yeah.”
Cobb’s eyes slitted. “You got anything helpful, Felix?”
“Some dust balls on the back of his suit coat. No dust balls in cemeteries.” A hoarse chuckle. “At least, not aboveground.”
“Dust balls?” Cobb glanced toward a register near the ceiling.
Little clumps of dirt wavered between vents.
“Yeah. Like when you clean up an attic or closet. House dirt.”
“Anything special about it?”
“Nope. Ordinary, everyday dirt fluff. Got some cat fur in it. He either wallowed around on a floor somewhere just before he got wasted or the body was moved to the cemetery. Look for a dusty floor and a black cat.”
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I pictured the rectory back porch. Certainly there could have been dust on the tarp. Perhaps it was a favorite spot for Spoofer to nap.
“Yeah.” Chief Cobb grasped a pencil and drew a woolly blob.
“Thanks, Felix.” He reached forward, poked a button. His face was thoughtful as he turned to his desk. He pulled a notebook near.
I looked over his shoulder.
He wrote, Dust???
A brisk tattoo sounded on the hall door.
The chief called out, “Come in.”
A ruggedly handsome man in a baggy red sweater and gray slacks moved toward the chief’s desk like a fresh-launched torpedo.
A cotton-top blond with slate-blue eyes, he was a shade under six feet tall and loose-jointed, with large hands and feet. His craggy face looked intense and intelligent. I liked him instinctively.
Cobb gestured toward a chair. “What you got, Hal?“ Hal pulled the chair back, dropped into it. He pulled a notebook from his pocket, opened it, talked fast as if he had much to say and too little time. “Daryl Murdoch’s son, Kirby, moved out two weeks ago. Senior at Adelaide High. Swim team. Math whiz. Waits tables at Garcia’s. He’s been camping out and going to friends’ houses to shower. His girlfriend is Lily Mendoza. His dad didn’t want him to date Lily. Next-door neighbor Wilbur Schmidt said all hell broke loose a couple of weeks ago, Kirby and Daryl yelling at each other.
Kirby slammed out of the house and took his stuff.
“I talked to a friend of Kirby’s, Hack Thurston. Kept it low-key, asked the usual, how long he’d known him, school, hobbies, et cetera.
Turns out Kirby likes to target-practice with a twenty-two revolver out on the river bottom near Schooner Creek on his day off. Gets Thursdays off. Murder occurred Thursday afternoon. Checked Murdoch house this morning. No one home. Officer Leland is hunting for him.”
Cobb nodded. “Good work. Find the kid’s twenty-two.” 107
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Hal nodded. “I surveyed the crime scene again, including the Pritchard mausoleum. Somebody tried to prize loose that marble greyhound. I checked the crowbar we found under a bush. It had traces of marble dust. We could figure some kids—the first tip call came from a kid, right?—were in the mausoleum and maybe Murdoch saw some lights there and went to investigate and it ended up him getting shot.”
The chief drummed the fingers of one hand on his desktop. “So some kids out to heist a marble dog from the cemetery just happened to have a twenty-two with them, and when Murdoch showed up, they shot him instead of running like hell? I don’t think so. No, I got a gut feeling it’s a lot closer to the church. Look at the lab report.” He shoved it across the desk to the detective. “I don’t think Murdoch went to the cemetery and got shot. I think he was shot somewhere else and dumped there.”
Hal swiftly read the report. He immediately understood the significance of the dust balls. “Murdoch’s car is in the parking lot of the church. Probably means he got that far alive. So where does that leave us? From the dust, I’d say he was shot inside. Maybe the church?” The chief looked thoughtful. “Maybe. I’ll need more before I can get a search warrant. And”—he rubbed his nose—“do they keep a cat in the church?”
The young detective shrugged. “I wouldn’t think so. How about the preacher’s house?”
Chief Cobb’s eyes glinted. “We got a tip the gun was on the back porch of the rectory.” He frowned. “I can hear the judge right now.
‘What’s this? Warrant to search the rectory at St. Mildred’s? Because of a dust ball?’ ”
The younger detective’s mouth turned down in a grimace. “You got that right. You better have evidence on a silver platter before you take that one before the judge.”
Cobb looked determined. “Get the crime van and check out Mur-108
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doch’s car from top to bottom. We better be sure there’s no cat fur in it before I try for a warrant. Also check the Murdoch house for a black cat. When that’s out of the way, maybe it will be time to try for a search warrant.”
Hal bounded to his feet. “On my way.” I toyed with the idea of getting to Daryl’s car and placing some dust balls and cat fur inside. But perhaps creating fake evidence wasn’t exactly what Wiggins had in mind. However, I was truly worried. It was beginning to look as though our removal of the body from the rectory hadn’t solved Kathleen’s problem.
The chief swung back to his machine and clicked on a message with a red exclamation point in the margin.
To: Chief Cobb
From: Dispatcher
Subject: Crime Stoppers Call re Daryl Murdoch Call received from pay phone outside Wal-Mart, 1023 Snodgrass, at 9:07 A.M. Text follows: