The preceding summer had been a peaceful one, a year since Robertson had nearly died in a fire at a roadside accident. Robertson’s long recuperation from the burns and subsequent infections had forced a hiatus, and, in the year and a half that he was out, the operation of the small-town sheriff’s office had been in the hands of Administrative Captain Bobby Newell and Chief Deputy Kessler. Several promotions had taken place, most notably Lieutenant Dan Wilsher to Patrol Captain, and the odd corporal here and there to sergeant. By the time Professor Branden had taken chalk in hand for the fall term at Millersburg College, Robertson had assumed full-time command again, keeping the peace among the many Amish and Mennonite sects of rural Holmes County, Ohio.
By Branden’s reckoning, in the year and a half since their last major case together, there had been, in all of Holmes County, only five assaults and twenty-two burglaries or thefts, a crime rate typical of a single day in Cleveland, some seventy miles to the north. Ominous, then, Branden thought in the cold morning light, that murder had once again found sleepy Millersburg. Even more so that it had invaded the repose of one of Ohio’s several dozen small colleges.
Branden crossed through heavily tracked snow on the front porch, took off his gloves, and pushed the front doorbell. As Sergeant Ricky Niell opened the heavy wood and glass door to him, Branden slid back the hood of his winter coat and stepped into the large foyer of the house.
Ricky Niell was dressed in a neatly pressed brown and black uniform, his black hair and thin mustache trimmed fastidiously.
Sheriff Robertson stood opposite the front door, at the top of the grand staircase, in a gray suit, with his red tie loosened over a white shirt whose collar seemed a size too small. He bellowed, “Mike, wait there!” and started down the staircase, careful to sidestep yellow plastic number markers that had been laid in several places on the beige carpet.
Branden turned to Niell, offered his hand, and said, “Congratulations, Ricky.”
Niell fingered the sergeant’s stripes on his left sleeve and said, “Thanks.”
Branden eyed the insignia and said, “Well, yes. That too, but I meant on your marriage to Ellie Troyer.”
Niell nodded and smiled. He looked down at his shoes, and again said, “Thanks.”
“You’re going to hear from Caroline about this,” Branden teased.
Ricky watched the sheriff descend the last few steps and said, “We eloped. Thought that was best.”
“Yeah, I know,” the professor said, “but that didn’t give anyone a chance to throw Ellie a shower.”
Niell shifted his weight nervously.
Branden said, “You got out of the wedding, but now you’re going to have to sit through a couple of wedding showers. You and all those women. It might have been better to have had a nice little wedding and get it all over with at once.”
Niell chuckled and said, “She’s worth it, Doc.”
Robertson crossed the entryway to them and asked, “Who’s worth it?” He hitched his pants up awkwardly and pulled on the front of his ill-fitting suit coat to align it as best he could.
“You’ve put on some weight, Bruce,” Branden observed dryly.
“It’s nothing,” Robertson said, sounding annoyed. “Who’s worth it?” he repeated.
“Ellie Troyer-Niell,” Branden answered.
“Don’t I know it!” Robertson blustered. “She’s got me broke in about where I like it.” He pointed to Niell’s sleeve and added, “Did you see these sergeant’s stripes, Mike?”
“Yes,” Branden murmured, distracted. He moved away from the front door to look at an area that had been marked off with crime scene tape on the black marble floor. Eric Shetler, Robertson’s photographer, was kneeling there, taking low-angle photos of the small area.
“Some significance here?” Branden asked, looking back at Robertson.
“That’s gonna be where Juliet Favor died,” the sheriff said. “There was a fight here, and you can see where she cracked her head on the floor. Then, someone carried her up the stairs, there, and there are blood drops on the carpet, leading up to her bedroom.”
Staying outside the tape, Branden got down on his hands and knees and studied a small star crack in the black floor. If it hadn’t been marked, he would not have seen it. He got back on his feet, took off his heavy coat, and draped it over an upholstered chair in the corner of the large entryway. “What else do you have?” he asked.
Robertson led the way up the stairs to the hallway outside Juliet Favor’s bedroom. Looking in, Branden saw Coroner Missy Taggert and two lab technicians bent over Favor’s body, studying a small patch of blood at the back of her skull. Favor was lying on her side, head on a pillow, as if she had simply fallen asleep there. The covers were pulled up over her shoulders.
Back downstairs, in the front foyer with Ricky Niell, Branden asked, “Have you talked with any witnesses, people who came out, that sort of thing?”
“We’ve just started,” Robertson said and frowned. He turned to Niell and quietly said, “Niell, put one of your deputies on each of the doors. Nobody gets upstairs except us, got it?”
Niell nodded, “Yes, sir.”
On reflection, Robertson added, “Look, Ricky, this one’s going to be a mess. There’ll be a regular stampede out here once word gets around. Anyone who insists on staying, you send around to the kitchen door in back. Have Armbruster take them all into the dining room from there. They can each wait there until we get statements. I’ll want to know what they’re doing here this morning. Why they came out. And whether they were here last night. How many’s that going to be, Doc?”
“Probably a dozen at dinner. Kitchen staff makes for more.”
“Get a list started, Ricky,” Robertson said. “We’re gonna do this one by the book.”
“I’ve got one for the staff already,” Niell said. He took a spiral notebook out of a creased uniform breast pocket. “The butler already gave me the staff on duty last night.”
“OK. Good,” Robertson said. “Let’s get Armbruster started making a list like that for this morning. The whole campus will probably be out here before the day’s over.”
Robertson said to Branden, “You’ll be an asset on this case, Mike, with so many college people involved. Without you, we’d need a program and a scorecard to keep all the players straight.”
“You might consider me a suspect, Bruce.”
“Get real, Doc.”
“Hey, I was out here last night like everyone else.”
“I’ll kick you off the case as soon as you screw up. But maybe you don’t like the idea of working a case during the school year.”
“Doesn’t bother me.”
“OK, then. I can use your help on this one.”
“I hoped you’d say that,” Branden said.
“Then how’s about you and I go interview the butler?” Robertson asked. He glanced back to Niell for a name.
Niell flipped a page in his notebook and said, “Daniel Bliss.”
BLISS was seated at his small desk, wearing a trim blue blazer and matching bow tie over a white shirt. He made a show of rising slowly to greet the sheriff and the professor.
“Daniel Bliss, butler to the Favors,” he said formally. “Sheriff, I see no reason for your captain to have detained young Miss Sally, much less to