Sheriff Elijah Pew wrinkled his nose as he sniffed the decaying body of farmer Caleb Lampkin. “Stinks as much from alcohol as it does from death,” he said to Coroner Jake Bizby, who was going over the corpse looking for answers.
“Looks like he finally drank himself to death,” Bizby said, acknowledging not only the smell of alcohol but the dried vomit that often accompanied alcohol poisoning. “Can’t be sure until we cut him open, but see the bluish coloring of his skin? Symptomatic of poisoning. He could have strangled on his vomit or simply stopped breathing because alcohol shuts down the autonomic nervous system. Lampkin was a drunk for the past few years, but I won’t really know if that’s what killed him until we do the autopsy. Right now, I’d estimate he’s been dead three or four days.
“Took care of his wife before she passed. In fact, the entire Lampkin family was part of my medical practice for many years, Caleb included.” Bizby continued, “After Martha died, he stopped coming. I heard rumors of his drinking. Felt sorry for the man. First his farm went, then his wife.”
The laconic sheriff grunted a response as he placed latex gloves on his hands before picking up the bottle of Jay McLeish’s whiskey that lay in Lampkin’s right hand. “Funny, Caleb swigging his whiskey with his right hand,” he said.
“Why’s that?” Bizby asked.
“He probably was left handed,” Pew replied. “He’s wearing a watch on his right wrist.”
His training at the FBI’s Academy for Law Enforcement Officers had taught Pew to look for the small things that seemed out of place. These often revealed aspects of a crime not obvious in the initial investigation. This was especially true where death was involved. “Death,” the trainer had told him, “tends to freeze the senses. An investigator has to overcome that kind of paralysis. For example, the bloody hammer was clearly the lethal weapon lying next to a victim whose head was bludgeoned. But the tiny fibers at the base of that hammer indicated the killer was wearing gloves. Thus the killing was likely premeditated, not a spontaneous act of passion. This changes the direction of the investigation.”
“You’re absolutely right,” the coroner replied. “I remember when he was a patient of mine, he always complained that the buttons on his clothes were made for right-handed people.”
A second empty bottle of Jay McLeish’s lay a foot away—again to Lampkin’s right. “Dust these two bottles for fingerprints,” he ordered the deputy who was assisting Bizby. Odd, he thought, two bottles of expensive whiskey at Caleb’s side, yet the trash pail is filled with cheap Sneaky Pete and other rotgut whiskey.
The deputy, a tall, skinny girl named Ida Mae Moore, was a recent graduate of the State University Forensics Program. She had worked for the sheriff’s office for less than a month. She was a quick learner, eager to pick up the things they didn’t teach her in school. Now she was looking at the sheriff as if he had interrupted an anatomy lesson. “I was helping Dr. Bizby,” she mustered.
“You work for me,” Pew shot back. “My name’s at the bottom of your paycheck. When I say jump, you ask ‘how high?’ No lip. Got it? That’s the biggest lesson you’re going to learn today, if you want to keep getting those checks and a chance to watch Bizby do his job.”
Bizby, who was listening with some amusement, knew the sheriff had hired the girl not only because she was dirt cheap as a new graduate, but because she seemed bright. He wouldn’t fire her unless she spilled hot coffee on him or ruined a case because of carelessness. Pew did not like carelessness.
Bizby smiled at the sheriff and said, “If you’re done, I’m going to have the body taken to the autopsy room for a more thorough examination. I’ll send you a report, though it’s pretty clear he died from alcohol poisoning.” The coroner was a soft, round man with a waistline saved from humiliation by large orange suspenders, which seemed to add lift as he rose. “Oh, there is another odd thing,” he said. ‘Both his arms show pre-mortem bruising around the biceps—as if someone had squeezed him real hard.”
“Interesting,” the sheriff said. The odd things were beginning to make him rethink the idea that Caleb had simply drunk himself to death. He pulled open a desk drawer. It was empty. Its contents were neatly piled on the desk directly above the drawer. He pulled out a second drawer. It too was empty, with its contents neatly piled above it on the desk. The drawer in the dining room table also was empty. Its contents, mostly wine bottle corks, fancy napkins, old anniversary cards and a silver flask, rested on the table above. Was somebody looking for something? the sheriff thought to himself.
“That’s strange,” Pew said aloud.
“What’s strange?” Bizby inquired, as much for the girl as for himself. “That the drawers are empty?”
“In part,” the sheriff replied. “But look around this place. Do you see anything neat and orderly? No, nothing but the contents of these drawers. All of them are in neat, orderly piles. That’s really strange. That’s not been Caleb’s way since his wife died.”
He turned to the deputy. “Ida, dust all the drawers and door knobs for prints. On the way back to the office, I want you to stop at liquor stores and ask whether any of them had recently sold two bottles of Jay McLeish’s whisky to Caleb Lampkin.” She nodded obediently.
As they exited the house, Pew looked again at the unusual tire tracks he had seen when he arrived. He always took the precaution of having all law enforcement vehicles park on a road a distance away from a potential crime scene. Driveways could tell stories, especially gravel driveways, where the tiny stones formed storage basins for used tissues, cigarette butts and tire tracks. In this case, the driveway held even more potential because it had not rained for several days. Clues had not been obliterated.
Sheriff Pew quickly noted the two sets of tracks in Lampkin’s driveway. One belonged to the postal truck that had stopped there to deliver a return receipt card. The driver had found Lampkin’s body. He’d immediately called 911 and unthinkingly dropped the receipt on the dining room table. The lawman had spotted it and carefully placed it in a plastic bag for later review. When questioned, the postman explained that it wasn’t like Caleb Lampkin to mail letters requiring return receipts. In fact, Lampkin rarely sent letters.
The other set of tracks had been made by tires that were wide, deep and of a design found on new foreign cars. He told Ida Mae to make a plaster casting of the tracks and see if she could determine the make of the car that had left them. The local FBI office could help her with that. The girl’s face brightened. She had not worked with the FBI before.