Zeroing in on the empty bottle at her side, he frowned like a principal preparing to issue a detention, then spoke firmly. “I won’t tell you to calm down, because if you get any calmer, you’ll pass out.”
“I came, I saw, I took her pulse and headed for happy hour.” Scattered thoughts outraced her manners. Following routine, Steve made her repeat the narrative. How many times would she have to tell this ugly story?
“Her pulse, right,” he said. Meanwhile Dr. Graveline, the invisible man, pulled on plastic gloves for the examination. She had been unaware he had remained in the room, so quiet and efficient were his movements.
“She might have fainted. I didn’t notice her stick at first,” Belle said, feeling foolish as she pointed to the end table.
“Hers, eh? Bag that when the doctor’s finished,” he said, with a motion to an officer hovering with an evidence kit. “What’s the wound like, Mitch? Could it have been a fall?”
“Trauma to the back of the head.” Gingerly the physician examined the stick, its knob darkened. “Let’s see now.”
One corner of Steve’s mouth rose. “The traditional blunt instrument?”
Graveline retrieved a giant magnifying glass and rotated the stick under a table lamp, examining the grain. “I’d say so. Oak’s a tough wood. Won’t split like pine. There’s minimal damage to the skull and little bleeding. We’ll know more later, but one solid crack in the right place would have done the job.”
“Only one?” Belle asked with blurry astonishment. “I know she was old, but wouldn’t the blow have to be pretty lucky? Or rather, unlucky?”
The doctor scribbled into his notebook and gazed up with the innocent liquid eyes of a Jersey calf. “Tell you a story made the rounds in Medical School. Seems that a band was playing ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’ when a trombone player got so carried away with Dixieland spirit that he rammed his slide into a trumpet player’s head. Smack into the most vulnerable spot behind the ear. One more saint joined the chorus.”
“Murder by ragtime,” Belle said with a thin smile.
Steve cleared his throat pointedly. “How long ago?”
Sheltered partially by a wing chair, Graveline removed a thermometer he had placed unseen. Then he tested the flex of the joints. “Rigor is a temperaturmental creature, pardon the pun. So many variables. On average, it’s well underway after twelve hours. Offhand I’d say sometime last night, if no elves fiddled with the furnace or turned on an air conditioner. And with the consistent lividity, I think we can conclude that the body wasn’t moved.”
The atmosphere turned from laboratory to kindergarten when a stocky young woman clumped in, chewing like a mad cow. “No broken glass, forced locks. Nothing out of place outside. Doesn’t look like no robbery.” She blew an enormous bubble. “Those mutts are stupid. Could care less who runs around.”
Steve flashed her a punishing look. “That’s all, Officer. Check the grounds and make your report. First thing in the morning on my desk.”
Hoping that the bubble would splatter all over her ungrammatical and vacuous lips, Belle glared at her without effect. A woman was dead, for God’s sake. Then a bark sounded from the yard. She stood with the hint of a totter, the perennial animal lover. “The dogs are probably hungry. Missed a couple of meals. May I give them some food, Steve? I doubt if their prints will be a factor.”
At his nod, she left to rummage in the kitchen’s obvious places, locating a large bag of kibble, but when she took their bowls to the porch, they turned their heads away, same as Freya would react under serious stress.
Steve tapped his watch and flipped through notes as she returned to the couch. “All right. Dinner’s over. And mine’s getting colder somewhere between here and town. So much for a quiet Sunday afternoon shift. Let’s start at the beginning.”
Belle began with the bear-baiting, the campaign to foil the hunters, her innocuous day, ending with the sherry overdose turning her mouth into a sugary cesspool.
“Get serious. Are you saying that she caught someone in the act? And if so, why come back here? More logical that with all the attention they would simply have packed up and found a more remote spot.” Suddenly Steve rose from the couch and moved around Graveline to look at Anni’s shoes.
“Moccasins. But household ones. No sign of outside wear. So we’re clear there. She wasn’t marched back at gunpoint.” He raised a coal-black, expressive eyebrow. “What exactly did the woman do? Did she damage any vehicles like she threatened?”
“She said that she had torn the place down. I don’t know about any other sabotage. It’s been a while since we talked.” A picture of Anni on a mission impossible flashed through her mind. “She’d have told me. We had a kind of compact, a stew . . . ardship.” Sobering fast, she thought, flexing her vocabulary.
“A dangerous one. Playing Rambo. Could have made big trouble.”
Belle bristled, her eyes beginning to refocus. “So she was furious. You would be, too, if you were worried about pot shots at you or your family.” Yet “furious” was the wrong word, she thought. Anni was far too methodical and organized. For her, revenge would be a dish best eaten cold.
“OK, I get the point. But what else do we have? Nothing seems to have been taken. Break-ins are common, except that in cottage country, robbers don’t arrive when people are home. Most places are isolated enough for them to wait until the owners are away.” He paused. “Change the channel. Who might want her dead? This house on the lake is expensive property. And whose van is that, anyway? Don’t tell me she drove that monster?”
“Hold on. My head is hurting. One question at a time. The new van doesn’t fit, Steve, because all I’ve seen is a tubercular Geo that could hardly make the big hill. Small pensions. As a realtor, I’d estimate that this place is probably her best asset. Just a guess, though. She didn’t flash bank statements. Anni was a private lady.”
He gestured like an irritated director speeding the pace. “What about relatives?”
“She’s a widow, no children, but there is a nephew. Zack Meredith, a local man.”
“And what’s our nephew like?”
She pointed at the picture on the mantel. College graduation maybe. Short dark hair with a glint of fashionable styling gel. An open face. Boyish more than handsome. “That’s the fellow. I’ve never met him, but she described him as a wannabe entrepreneur. Hare-brained plans that he’s always urging her to bankroll. She was worried about that last time we talked.”
Steve’s scribbling speed increased with this disclosure, making her uncomfortable. “It’s not as bad as that. He gave her a lot of help with chores, and I know she loved him. Still, if nothing turns up, he’s your number one suspect. Cui bono?”
“Stop showing off. We’ll see who’s Mr. Bono when we find out if she left a will, which, at a conservative guess, she probably did. If we don’t find it here, we’ll contact the local law firms. She’s not new to the area, is she?”
Given Graveline’s smooth movements and her own bleary concentration, Belle had almost forgotten that a body lay nearby. Suddenly the back door opened and slammed, and figures moved into the room, rolling a gurney. Even though the attendants performed with surprising grace and dignity, Belle hit nine out of ten on the screaming mimi scale as a still, sheeted form was placed on a stretcher. I’m on the nerge of a vervous breakdown, she told herself.
Then they were alone again, after what seemed like a hideous dream. She swallowed hard and forced her gaze back to Steve. “I think she and her husband had lived here twenty, twenty-five years. Built the place themselves.” She looked