‘Betty Jo Dean,’ Mac said.
Wiley’s smile remained carefully in place, but his cheeks darkened beneath the rouge. ‘A horrible thing. So many years ago.’
‘You were involved.’
The smile tightened. ‘What can you mean?’
‘Her body was brought here directly from the Devil’s Backbone.’
Luther’s smile relaxed in relief. ‘I only drove the hearse. That’s all I did. My uncle loaded and unloaded her.’
‘No ambulance?’
‘One wasn’t necessary.’
‘The autopsy was done here?’
‘Not really an autopsy. The wound was obvious. We – my uncle, I mean – merely prepared the body for interment.’
‘The next day.’
‘Pardon me?’
‘She was buried fast. The next day.’
‘After a brief service here, yes. Closed casket, of course.’
‘To be sure: the coroner conducted no examination?’
‘Doc Farmont and Randy, his assistant, came over and spent time on her. Other people could have been in and out, but I wasn’t around to notice. There was no doubt as to the cause of death, Mac.’
‘She was decomposed, her sister Bella said.’
‘Badly, according to my uncle.’
‘Bella said she never actually viewed the body.’
The pasted smile flickered. ‘I wasn’t around when Bella came by.’
‘She said you were.’ Bella hadn’t been sure, but it wouldn’t hurt to jab Luther. He was dodging.
‘Bella’s memory is playing tricks. Obviously, she’d been distraught.’
‘A shame, that Betty Jo’s body was in such bad shape. There was no chance to learn what had happened to her?’
‘Doc Farmont said she wasn’t raped, if that’s what you’re getting at.’
‘It’s this fuss about decomposition that bothers me, Luther. I saw the discovery site photo. There was no bloating, no signs of animals marking her. Just a bunch of leaves arranged to hide her head.’
‘Arranged? Surely not, though I’ve never actually seen the photo.’
‘It’s a strange picture, worthless as documentation of a crime scene.’
‘What are you doing, Mac? Why the sudden interest?’
‘Some constituents are concerned.’
‘About those old murders?’
‘I’d never heard about them.’
‘You’re new. Us old-timers want to forget.’ Again, the smile.
‘She was dirty, like Pribilski?’
‘She was lovely-’ He stopped. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Was she cleaned up fast, too?’
‘We always do what we can.’
‘I think you folks did much more than that, with both of them.’
Mac left without looking again at Luther’s red face.
The second one had gone well, too.
Mac had never met Doc Farmont. The doctor had retired several years before Mac moved to Grand Point. He lived north of town, in a white cottage along the river. Mac found his way around the back.
A tall, thin man with white hair, dressed in paint-splattered khakis and a yellow T-shirt, was brushing white paint onto the wood hull of an old cabin cruiser set up on rusty metal racks.
‘It’s going to be a fine boat,’ Mac said, walking up.
‘I’ve been expecting you, Mr Mayor,’ Farmont said, keeping his eyes on his brush.
‘You’ve heard?’
‘That you’re sniffing around those old murders? The whole town’s heard. People are upset. Few, I’m sure, have been encouraging.’
‘Will you be encouraging?’
‘I won’t be around to be anything. I’m putting this in the water next week and sailing downriver to balmier climes.’
‘You did the autopsies.’
‘I never saw Pribilski. I briefly examined Betty Jo. She’d been shot.’
‘What did you conclude?’
‘That she was dead. Since I was in the county’s employ for that examination, you’ll have to see Sheriff Bales if you want to know anything more of what I found.’
‘Speaking of sheriffs, how did Delbert Milner die?’
The doctor started toward the other side of the boat without answering.
‘And Dougie Peterson? Was his head bashed before or after he drowned?’
The doctor had moved out of sight.
There was no point in chasing him around the boat. Mac walked away.
The third one had been a draw.
He called the sheriff’s department from his truck. They told him Clamp Reems was off that day.
The chief deputy lived on a horse farm in a faded gray farmhouse two miles northwest of Grand Point. Red flowers bloomed in stone pots on either side of the green front door.
The curtains were drawn against the summer heat. He walked up to the front door and rang the bell. After a minute, he knocked twice. No one came. He went back to his car.
As he backed out of the drive, something white flickered low in the house. A curtain had fluttered on the first floor. Someone was home, someone who might have been alerted by a telephone call. The only question was whether there’d been one caller, or two, or all three.
Mac didn’t know whether to call that a win, a loss, or a draw.
It was four o’clock, and time. He drove to the Willow Tree. As he expected, the restaurant was deserted. He sat at his usual booth, in the back, and ordered coffee and a club sandwich.
As the waitress walked away, he got up and walked toward the men’s room, but stopped short. The door to the empty private dining room was open, as it always was, except when there were private banquets. Or those special breakfasts on Tuesdays and Fridays. He looked around the restaurant. No one looked back. He ducked inside.
As he’d told Pam Canton, not that many days before, he knew the room. He especially remembered one wall, where large, antique toy trains were lined up on a high shelf. He pulled the digital recorder out of his pocket, set it to the voice-activated mode and hid it behind a red-painted boxcar. Its microphone was sensitive; it would catch anything said in the room.
He went back to his booth. His club sandwich had arrived. He ate what he could and left.
He’d poked at the publisher, the mortician and the doctor. He’d parked in front of Clamp Reems’ house long enough to flutter a curtain. Likely enough, two or more of them would show up tomorrow for their usual Tuesday breakfasts. Likely enough, they’d be talking about why the mayor was sticking his nose in where it surely did not belong.
He could only hope they’d say something more.
THIRTY-NINE
Mac sat upstairs in the Bird’s Nest the next morning, Tuesday, reshuffling invoices to see who could be put off and trying not to imagine what was being said into the voice recorder he’d hidden at the Willow Tree.
A car crunched onto the gravel lot across the highway. He got to the window in time to see a second car, a beige Crown Victoria, pull in and park next to an older red Mustang fastback.
The driver of the Mustang got out. He was tall and lanky, and in his mid-thirties. He wore pressed denims, an embroidered western shirt and a NASCAR cap.
Sheriff Jimmy Bales got out of the Crown Victoria and the two men walked together across the street.
Mac went to the door and held it open. ‘Good to see you again so soon, Jimmy.’
Bales came in first. ‘We’re wondering if we might chat for a few minutes, Mac.’
The younger man said nothing as Mac led them to a table in the darkened dining room.
Both declined Mac’s offer of Cokes or coffees. They weren’t expecting to be there long.
‘Mac, this here’s Reed Dean, Betty Jo’s younger brother.’
‘Welcome, Mr Dean,’ Mac said.
‘That Pam Canton over at the Willow Tree stirred all this up?’ Bales said abruptly. ‘Hell, Mac, she didn’t even live in Grand Point, let alone Peering County.’