“What?” I looked from the doctor to the bones.
“These bones don’t belong to a female,” he repeated, slower.
“I heard you,” I said. “So where is Amy?”
“That is a question for the police. Though I have yet to inform them of my findings, so they don’t even know this isn’t her. Chief Strawn made the same incorrect assumption when he brought the remains to me as you did. I was going to call him and then Agnes. Then I saw you driving young Mary’s vehicle, and I expected you were coming for answers on her behalf.”
“Doctor, can you hold off on breaking this news to anyone, please?”
Like he was auditioning for the part of Hamlet, he held up the skull. It looked brittle; it had already begun to crack. There was a hole in the forehead the size of my little finger.
“Why should I do that, young man?” He indicated the hole and then turned the skull around to where there was a bigger hole. “This is where the bullet exited. I am not a ballistics expert by any means, but if I had to hazard a guess, which is what most science is, I would say it was caused by a 9-mm bullet. This is something the police will want to know.”
I hesitated. “Doctor, I believe there is something nefarious in the police force. I don’t know whom we can trust at the moment.”
He paused and looked at me like I was a student asking permission for the bathroom. “Such has been my hypothesis. I can wait, perhaps,” he said.
I nodded. I had a couple more questions. “Did you
know Arlene Kirk?” I asked.
“Yes, I did. I have been here a long time.”
“What did you think when she was killed?”
He blinked, set the skull down gently, and looked at me. “I don’t know that I thought anything. Thoughts have absolutely no influence on facts. And the fact is that her death was a tragedy and entirely unnecessary. I wish I had been there.”
“Because you could have saved her?” I said.
“Seattle is well-known for having good doctors and better nurses, particularly at the Children’s Hospital. I don’t know that I am much better, but being personally invested can lend significant strength. It can, of course, also compromise one’s reason. I like to think I could have done something differently, something better, but the past is the past, and I cannot change it. In such cases doctors often choose the mother over the infant—a terrible choice—but as I understand it, Arlene was beyond saving.”
“She gave her life for her baby,” I said.
“A courageous woman. It was what any woman would do, I wish I could say, but we live in a time in which women kill babies instead and think themselves brave for it or entitled to it.”
I liked the doctor.
“Any idea who did it?”
“Again, that is a job for the police. Forensics weren’t what they are now. I wasn’t there.”
I nodded. It had been twenty-five years ago. “But you might have had an idea?” I asked, hopefully, desperately, really, for
any clue.
The doctor answered, “If I had to guess, which as I said, is only half of the scientific process, I would say it was either a weak man who lost control or a strong man who exercised it.”
“How do you figure?”
“It was a man, certainly, because it usually is. And he was either a weak man because he was not able to kill her, not immediately, that is. I suspect the weak man because a stronger attacker likely would have killed her with one blow to the head. But there was no uniformity to the wounds, which seems to eliminate any degree of control or precision.”
“One more question, Doc.”
He held up a hand. “You’re going to ask me why I am being so forthcoming in matters of an ongoing investigation, with a complete stranger at that. My answer is this: I seek righteousness, Mr. Sawyer. And you are helping Agnes. And she is my friend, so what is good enough for her is good enough for me.”
“Actually I was going to ask something else, but thank you, Doctor, for the vote of confidence. I was going to ask if you know everyone in town.”
“I try to provide care and compassion to everybody, but there are those who prefer berries and poultices and vinegar. Home remedies, in short.”
“Do you know where Chief Strawn lives?”
He gave me the address, and I thanked him. Then he asked me to keep him informed, and I said I would. We came back up to the warm main level, and he saw me to the door. As we stood in the entryway the doctor put a hand on my shoulder. “Young man, be careful. I expect you can handle yourself, but there is a cold-blooded killer on the loose.”
“I’ll be careful,” I lied.
“And be careful with Officer Roca. I don’t presume to know the particulars of your feud with him, but it was evident at the restaurant. Be advised he was sent for SWAT training in Helena, if I am not mistaken.”
I nodded, walked back to the Jeep, and drove away, my hunger moving once again to the back burner. I was happy to be out of the morgue.
I drove Mary’s Jeep through the snow, glancing from the road to the screen and back again, until I came to Cluff’s inner ring and found the turn onto the seven o’clock spoke.
I found Strawn’s place; it was a nice piece of property with plenty of acreage. A house, a shed, and a barn were set in a loose triangle, each about a hundred yards from the other. No cars were parked out front, and I figured Strawn was still working. There was no mailbox demarking the driveway. Just a fence that stopped and started at either side of the entrance. There was no smoke rising from the brick chimney, which assured me further that nobody was home. It was still snowing heavily, like powdered sugar on pancakes. It looked like it would keep snowing forever. There was plenty of fresh powder obscuring the earth. There were no fresh tracks anywhere in sight, so I decided to just walk right up to the house like I was just some guy asking for directions or a salesman or a missionary.
The house itself was a one-story ranch with a two-car garage bumped out on the side, not brand-new, not dilapidated. The paint on the siding and the shingles on the roof were old but looked to be mostly maintained, as did the outbuildings.
Trudging through the snow, I stopped between the house and the shed, listening. Nothing.
I looked at the barn. It was dormant and still, under a load
of snow.
I went back to the house.
The front door was locked.
Maybe there was a spare key. I felt along the lintel. Nothing. I looked under the mat. Still nothing.
Most people do not look up. Maybe it is an evolutionary thing. Most dangers come from below—snakes and pits and stumbling blocks. It’s not like people walk around worrying about pterodactyls carrying them away.
So I guessed a spare key would be up high, somewhere likely to not be immediately recognized as a logical place but still accessible on the off chance of Strawn being locked out in a storm.
I went back down to the shed and felt the top of the door. Nothing.
The shed was unlocked, so I stepped inside.
It was much like Agnes’s shed but a little better stocked, a little better used, and a little more meticulous. It was dusty though. I looked through some drawers and cans and panned through some trays of screws and nails.
I was beginning to think maybe the chief didn’t have a
spare key.
On the wall were some fishing trophies mounted on plaques. None of them compared to the giant arapaima in Peru, but they were all right. I recognized several smallmouth bass, a trout, a walleye, and a northern pike. It made me think of the doctor. All the fish were crafted to be turned, slightly open-mouthed, toward me, but the walleye was angled up, its pose reminiscent of Dr. Pike’s mailbox.
I had an idea.
I stepped around some boxes and went to the fish. When I turned it upside down, a little brass key fell out.
Bingo.
I went and unlocked the door to the house and then hustled back to the shed, replacing the key. It was a clever spot, and I was sure that without some inspiration, I never would have thought to look there.
Returning to the house, I stepped inside. It was clean and organized—cold, without a fire burning on the hearth, but neat and tidy. There were no dirty dishes in the sink, no stains or gouges in the hardwood floor or furniture. Everything was all squared away in a comfortable, unpretentious manner that almost beguiled me into kindling a blaze and waiting patiently for the master of the house to arrive so we might sit down together
and talk.
But I didn’t do that, because I suspected I might be standing in the home of an accessory to murder. Maybe.
I started searching, not really with anything in mind—just a fool’s hope of finding something to set me on the right course. I opened the drawers in the kitchen. There were dish towels and utensils, assorted teas, and sandwich bags. One drawer was filled with loose batteries, tape, rubber bands, screwdrivers, and other hand tools that might be needed on a regular basis—a utility drawer. Growing up, my family had such a drawer. We called it the futility drawer because we could never find exactly what we were looking for.
There were no antlers hanging on the walls, which surprised me, given the station’s decor. Maybe he was more of a subsistence hunter. I checked the freezer and found plenty of packaged venison.
I moved on through the house. Nothing jumped out at me, literally or figuratively.
I stayed in the middle of rooms, moving fast around corners so I couldn’t be blindsided if someone was lying in wait. Nothing caught my interest. Nothing stood out. There was a glass case with a couple shotguns and rifles. The bed was made, and no one was hiding underneath it. On the dresser I came across a giant leather-bound photo album. I brought it with me into the living room, sat down like I owned the place, and flipped through the pages. I once heard someone more cynical than me describe photo albums as journals for illiterate people, which I disagree with. I think journals and photographs are both essential. A picture is worth a thousand words and all that. And words, well-crafted, paint the prettiest pictures. So, all in all, I think words and pictures come out just about evenly.
That is when I realized I wasn’t alone.