‘It’s crap. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.’
He headed back into the bar. ‘I assume you want me to resume paying on the mortgage?’
A tiny line of concern appeared on the kid’s otherwise unmarked forehead.
‘I’ve had some distractions,’ Mac said. ‘I’ll begin paying soon.’
The picture on the screen changed to an establishing shot of the Bird’s Nest. He pressed the remote to turn up the volume.
A young anchor appeared on the screen. She looked to be the same age as the boy banker. ‘The mystery of two unsolved 1982 Grand Point murders took a bizarre turn this afternoon. The town’s mayor, Mac Bassett, announced that he has proof that Betty Jo Dean, one of the victims, was decapitated and buried with someone else’s skull.’
The screen flashed to a high-school photo of Betty Jo Dean. ‘According to Bassett, a forensics expert at the University of Illinois is preparing a report that will prove that the skull buried with Ms Dean is not hers.
‘Peering County Sheriff Bales, however, strongly disputed Mayor Bassett’s assertion.’
Jimmy Bales appeared, red-faced, on the screen. ‘Who knows what skull they’re examining?’ he blustered.
Reed appeared in the next shot, sitting at the table during the press conference. ‘Anticipating such questions, Reed Dean, the dead girl’s brother, distributed copies of the X-rays made at the Rochelle Hospital which, he claims, can be used to verify that the skull and vertebrae taken from the casket are those now being examined at the University of Illinois.’
The screen switched to a new story. Mac switched off the set.
‘Your loan has been in technical default for quite some time,’ the young man said.
‘I’ll work diligently to catch up on my payments.’
‘I’m afraid it’s gone beyond that.’
Anger at the sanctimonius young man prickled the top of Mac’s scalp. ‘Well, we can’t have that. You must work at calming your fears.’
‘Sir-’
‘Do you really believe your being sent here, so late on a Saturday, is coincidental?’
‘We sent you a registered letter-’
‘Luther Wiley. Isn’t he the chairman of your board of directors?’
‘Yes, but-’
Mac hustled him to the door and the young man retreated across the street, to the parking lot. But he, or one of his fellow bankers, would be back. All the stops were being pulled out now.
Mac Bassett had to be driven from town.
SEVENTY
The rain was torrential on Sunday, hard enough to blur the shapes of the houses along Mac’s street.
By one o’clock that afternoon Mac had heard from a total of twenty-two reporters. Some had called the day before at the Bird’s Nest; some had called him that morning, at home. All had called for his reaction to Sheriff Jimmy Bales’s assertion that Mac and Reed Dean had switched the skulls.
‘Mr Dean handed out the X-rays from the hospital,’ Mac told each of the twenty-two. ‘They can be used to verify that the skeletal parts taken to Rochelle by the state police are the same ones examined at the University of Illinois.’
‘Sheriff Bales says there are other ways to corrupt those findings,’ most reporters shot back.
‘I respect the sheriff’s expertise on corrupting evidence, but on this he’s wrong.’
‘The sheriff also suggested that action may be taken against Mr Dean because the skull and vertebrae were released into his custody solely on condition that they be immediately interred with the rest of his sister’s body,’ most said, as well.
‘You mean buried like the truth has been? Did Sheriff Bales mention harassing Mr Dean about Horace Wiggins’s murder? Did Bales tell you he hauled Mr Dean into the sheriff’s department in the middle of the night without cause?’
‘Murder? Wiggins’s death is being treated as a homicide?’ every one of the twenty-two reporters asked.
‘I’d watch Bales closely, to see if he ever comes up with a suspect, or if he’s covering up again,’ Mac said to each of the twenty-two.
But then came the twenty-third call. It was not from a reporter. It was from Darrell Thompson, the man who prepared the state’s forensics report.
He’d called to whine. ‘Reporters have been harassing me since yesterday afternoon.’
‘I’m delighted. You prepared a sloppy, erroneous report.’
‘I was told it was shot through the nose.’
‘“Told?”’
‘They say I misplaced Doctor Brown’s file. I didn’t. I just can’t find it. There was pressure to release a report, so I got the information verbally.’
‘From whom?’
‘I called up there, talked to a sheriff named Bales. He said he was at the autopsy. He filled me in.’
‘The skull didn’t fit the vertebrae.’
‘There have been cutbacks down here. Our pensions are underfunded by billions. I have no idea what things will be like when it comes time for me to retire.’
‘Why didn’t you verify the fit between the vertebrae and the head?’
‘I’m not a forensic examiner; I’m in media relations. Look, I’m holding no hard feelings. I’ve written up another report, detailing what the reporters told me you said at your press conference. I’m putting it in the file along with my earlier report and the 1982 report.’
‘There was a 1982 report?’
‘We’re not yokels, Mr Bassett. There’s been a file ever since those stupid bullets were sent down for ballistic examination, like they wouldn’t match, surprise, surprise.’
‘Surprise, surprise?’ Maybe the man wasn’t just calling to whine. ‘Are you telling me something?’
‘I don’t know; am I? Or am I not the only one who doesn’t understand things?’ He paused, his petulance sagging. ‘People from Grand Point have been playing us for chumps since the beginning.’
‘What’s wrong with the bullets?’
‘Nothing, and that’s the problem. You fire a bullet into something, it almost always gets nicked. Even if you fire it into water, or cotton, it comes out marked from the gun barrel. In the case of these bullets, you’d expect at least one of them would have changed shape from hitting bone or even tissue. The bullets we got in 1982 for testing were pristine. No nicks, cuts, or scratches on the five from Mr Pribilski, or the one from Miss Dean.’
‘Like they were never fired at all?’
‘Someone sent us the wrong bullets.’
Mac breathed in slowly. The skull now made perfect sense.
‘Does your file say who submitted the bullets?’ he asked.
‘No, sir, it does not. I’ll add a brief summary of this conversation to the file, to show my impartial objectivity. And Mr Bassett?’
‘Yes?’
‘You’re welcome.’
Pristine bullets.
He sat in his living room, drinking coffee. He needed to think, over and over, about what could only be true.
Pristine bullets.
Finally he called the sheriff’s department. He left a message for Jimmy Bales. Bales returned the call from his home five minutes later.
‘What’s the bullshit, now?’ the sheriff asked.
‘Those suspects interviewed back in 1982. Do you think most of them lived on farms?’
‘What the damned hell? You’re talking Betty Jo Dean?’
‘We’re rural here, right, Jimmy? Most everyone either lives on a farm or is close to someone who does?’
‘What the hell are you getting at, Bassett?’
‘If a police officer wanted bullets from a particular suspect’s gun for a ballistics comparison, and that suspect lived on a farm, the officer could simply go out to that suspect’s property, find a fence post or a side of a barn that the suspect had used for target practice and dig out as many as he wanted, right?’
‘This sounds nuts.’
‘Don’t you want to understand what I’m talking about, Sheriff?’
Bales swore and hung up. Mac wasn’t surprised.
Mac dialed Bales’s home number. It was busy. He wasn’t surprised about that, either. Bales was calling someone who’d shot at fence posts and barn boards, back in the day.