by Carolyn Hart
I stared, too. All I saw were the place settings and, of course, that cunning small telephone.
Emotions rippled over her face, recollection, shock, panic. “Daryl’s cell!”
I was bewildered. Cell? Did he have monastic interests? Surely she’d not visited him in a cell. Was she confusing the mausoleum with a cell?
She banged the lid back on the pot, whirled, and started for the back door. “I’ve got to get it. He took pictures of me when I was at the cabin, and if they find it and see, I’ll be in a terrible mess.”
I plunged after her, grabbed her arm as she tugged at the door handle. “Cell? He isn’t in a cell.”
She tried to wriggle free. “His cell phone. His cell takes pictures.”
I made the connection. I’d heard the ring and even picked it up.
How amazing. A little phone could take pictures? But it must be so. Nothing but the hideous reality of images captured in the phone would explain her panic.
“Let go.” She yanked her arm free. “I have to get that phone or I’m ruined.”
As the door banged open, I grabbed her hand. “The police are there.”
She stumbled to a stop, her face despairing. “The police are there? Already? They’ve found him?”
I explained about Marvin and Buzzy’s good citizenship. I glanced at the clock. “The police have been there a good twenty minutes now. The chief had just arrived when I left. They were expecting someone else.” I couldn’t remember. “Something about a laboratory.”
She leaned against the wall, unable to move.
“Daryl’s phone has pictures of you?” I wanted to be sure I understood.
“He laughed, asked me if I wanted him to put them on the church Web site. I knew he wouldn’t because of his wife. But there they are, in his phone. The police—oh, what am I going to tell them? What am I going to tell Bill? He knows I loathed Daryl and wouldn’t have gone to his cabin unless I had to.”
Web site? That conjured up an odd and ominous picture of a gauzy web. I didn’t have time to ask for an explanation. “You stay here. I’ll go to the cemetery and see what I can do.”
Obviously, I didn’t intend to walk. Time was clearly of the essence.
I disappeared. Kathleen shuddered. Poor Kathleen. She should be getting the hang of it. I was.
I landed on a tree above the body. I shivered and and wished I’d brought the red-and-black plaid jacket. Oh, how nice. I welcomed its warmth. I buttoned the front, felt much more comfortable.
Now, where was Daryl’s cell phone and how was I going to get it?
CHAPTER 5
Isat on the branch of a cottonwood and watched the scene below in fascination. Bobby Mac would be impressed when I told him. The activity under way was as taut with suspense as any battle with a tarpon. Brilliant spotlights arranged in a square illuminated Daryl Murdoch’s resting place. Yellow tape fluttered from poles jammed into the ground. A slender man in a French-blue uniform stood on the mausoleum steps. He held a camera and slowly panned the area.
Just inside the fluttering tape, a big man with grizzled black hair stared down at the body. He stood with hands jammed in the pockets of his crumpled brown suit. His hairline receded from a rounded forehead, now creased in concentration. His eyes were deep set in a heavy face with a large nose large and blunt chin.
I studied him, trying to recall . . . Oh yes. He reminded me strongly of Broderick Crawford in All the King’s Men, the same open countenance and burly build, the same aura of power. A man to be reckoned with.
A rustle sounded in the bushes. An officer stepped toward the man in the brown suit. “Hey, Chief. Take a look at this.”
The police chief strode near. “What you got?”
The officer pointed a flashlight beam toward the ground. “Crowbar. No rust. Doesn’t look like it’s been here long.”
The chief frowned. “Get pics. Measure. Bag it up.”
I supposed many extraneous objects were gathered up in the search of a crime scene. I turned back to the body. As far as I could tell, it had not been moved. Did that mean the picture mechanism was still in his pocket? Kathleen had called it his cell phone, which was certainly a curious use of the word. A walkabout telephone that took pictures seemed quite remarkable to me.
A half-dozen cars were parked on the road on the other side of the Pritchard mausoleum. Most had their lights on and the beams illuminated trees with thinned leaves and old tombstones. A yellow convertible with the top down pulled up behind a white van. The driver’s door opened. A youngish man in a navy pullover sweater, faded jeans, and tennis shoes swung out. He shaded his eyes. “A cadaver in the cemetery? You guys pulling my leg, putting on a special Halloween party for me?”
The chief glanced down at the body. “Not even for you, Doc, would we go to this much trouble. We got a body. Daryl Murdoch.”
He spoke the name without pleasure.
The young man gave a whistle. He jumped lightly over the tape, but he took care to land on the sidewalk. “Daryl the mighty? Has the dancing begun?” As he spoke, he moved to the body, knelt. For a long moment he observed. “Somebody have second thoughts?” He pointed at the bouquet I’d placed in those lax hands.
The chief nodded. “Yeah. We’d noticed. Odd.”
The doctor scanned the ground nearby. “You find a gun?”
“Nope.” The big man reached in his suit-jacket pocket, pulled out a package of spearmint.
I wafted close, sniffed. Some things never change, the smell of spearmint, the way leaves crackle underfoot in winter, the need to handle harsh reality with nonchalance. And, of course, the incredible intimacy of a small town. Everybody didn’t know everybody, but if you had any prominence at all, you were known. Even more important was the fact that someone always saw you. It was that simple. No matter where you were or what time or with whom or why, somebody saw you.
Kathleen didn’t understand how anyone had been privy to her visit to the bachelor professor’s apartment. She was the rector’s wife.
She was known. Perhaps the apartment manager saw her. Or the postman. Or Raoul’s next-door neighbor. Or a bicyclist. Or . . .
The big man sighed heavily. “Already got a call from the Gazette and from the Oklahoma City paper and a couple of TV stations.” He sounded aggrieved. “What can I tell ’em, Doc?”
“DOA.” A chortle.
There was no answering smile. “Yeah. And?”
The doctor pulled a tubular flashlight from his pocket, trained it on the small crusted circular wound in Murdoch’s left temple. A fine red line had trickled and dried from the wound to his cheekbone. “It isn’t official until I do the autopsy, but you can say preliminary examination suggests he was shot to death by a small-caliber weapon.”
He turned the grayish face to one side. “No sign of an exit wound. Probably means it was a twenty-two and the bullet lodged in the skull. That’s all I can tell you for now, Chief.”
The chief snapped his gum. “Killed here?”
The doctor shrugged. “Can’t say. No rigor yet, so he probably died within the last couple of hours, which means there won’t be any lividity. The blood pattern on the cheek would be more consistent with the body lying on its left side, not the back. Might have died here, but he could have been moved.”
Another heavy sigh. “On TV the doc can tell you he was sitting up when he was shot and he fell down on his left side, and from the way the blood settled, he was moved twice.”
The young doctor bounced to his feet. “Go watch TV. It’s always good for a laugh.” He jerked a thumb at the corpse. “Send him along.” He was thudding toward his car when the chief called after him. “Suicide?”
The doctor stopped, looked around. “Thought you didn’t find a gun.”
“Right.” The chief moved out of the way as the slender man who had taken pictures stepped past him. Now he held a sketch pad. I craned to look. The camera rested on one of the mausoleum steps. I’d have liked to get a close look at his camera. Bobby Mac loved to film
the family, but our camera had been huge in comparison.
The chief unwrapped another stick of gum. “The squeal came from a kid. Maybe he heisted the gun. Cool souvenir.”
The doctor was skeptical. “I played tennis with Daryl. He cheated on line calls.” A cool glance at the dead man. “Anyway, he was righthanded. It’s a challenge for a right-handed person to shoot himself in the left side of the head.” He trotted back to Daryl, squatted on his heels. “Doesn’t look like the slug went in on a slant. I’ll check it out.”
He came to his feet, headed for his car. He called over his shoulder, “Since you didn’t find a gun, it’s probably homicide.”
I wafted back to my branch, rocked by what I’d learned. My initial assumption may have been absolutely wrong. I’d decided Murdoch had died elsewhere because there was no blood and mess on Kathleen’s porch. That may not have been the case. He may have been shot on the rectory porch, the bullet remaining in his skull.
If Murdoch was shot on the porch, it suggested the unpleasant possibility that the murderer accompanied Murdoch to the rectory and shot him there for the express purpose of ensnaring Kathleen.
The rectory seemed an unlikely place for a spontaneous quarrel and attack.
Did Kathleen have a bitter enemy? Or was she simply an attractive candidate for suspect number one?
The doctor strolled toward his car, whistling through his teeth. The slender man continued to sketch on his pad. Every so often, Anita, one of the first police personnel to arrive, called out information to her fellow patrol officer. “. . . four feet nine inches south of the steps . . .” I was impressed by the meticulous record that was being made.
However, this record was irrelevant. Oh dear. What had I wrought? Words danced in my mind. It was almost as if Wiggins were at my elbow, reciting: impulsive, rash . . .
Well, what was done was done and I had to focus on what I should do to rectify my possible error. At this point, only I—and, of course, Kathleen—knew the investigation was beginning from the wrong place.
Oh yes, someone else knew. The murderer.
I didn’t see any way to point the authorities to the true locale of the crime without involving Kathleen. Yet if the investigation went in the wrong direction, there was no one to blame but me. That made it my solemn responsibility to provide aid and encouragement to these hardworking officials.
I can only stress my absorption in the shouldering of this task to defend myself from responsibility in what followed. I was, in fact, so consumed with concern that it took a long moment for the ripple of music to register.
When it did, I gasped aloud. Fortunately, no one heard me. I suppose a puff of sound from a tree branch wasn’t noticeable in the creaking of limbs in the wind and the crunch of leaves underfoot on the periphery of the scene.
I realized perhaps an instant before the chief that Daryl’s phone was ringing. Of course I’d heard it before and even held it in my hand.
Panic swept me. Inchoate thoughts bounced in my mind, unruly as flung marbles: . . . got to get it . . . Kathleen’s picture . . . mustn’t be seen . . . if I’d paid attention to business . . .
I reached the body at the same time as the chief. He pulled on plastic gloves of some sort as he knelt.
I plunged my hand into Daryl’s jacket pocket. As I did, the pocket visibly moved.
The chief ’s hand stopped inches away. He had the air of a man who refuses to accept what his eyes are telling him.
I edged out the phone.
He shook his head, blinked, grabbed for it.
The chief’s hand closed around mine.
I held tight.
The chief grunted, tightening his grip around my hand. “Funny shape to this damn thing.”
My fingers crunched against metal. “Ouch.”
He shot a startled glance at the young policewoman standing near. “Was that you, Anita? Something wrong?” He didn’t ease the pressure on my hand.
“Chief?” She stepped closer, her face attentive.
“You hurt yourself?” He looked up in concern.
“Not me. Jake?”
Jake strode forward, bent toward the chief. “Anything wrong, sir?”
I dug my heels into the ground, but I was losing the battle. There was only one solution. With my left hand, I gave the chief’s fanny a big pinch.
Startled, he let go of the phone and my hand and shot to his feet like a man poked by a pitchfork. “What the heck!” His exclamation brought everyone to a standstill. All eyes focused on him.
He looked around, frowning. “Something poked me in the rear. I guess a bug or something got me.” He gave Jake, who was nearest him, an odd glance.
By this time I was once again on my tree limb. My heart raced.
Obtaining the phone had been touch and go. I held tight to it, but I was far from home free. What if it rang again? All eyes would swing up. Probably there was a means of forestalling that occurrence, but I didn’t have any idea what it might be. I couldn’t simply secrete it up here in the tree. The ding-dong ring would reveal its hiding place immediately.
“Jake, did you jab me with something sharp?”
Jake looked shocked. “No, sir. There was nothing close to you. Absolutely nothing.”
The chief shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Let’s see. Oh yeah, that phone.”
I worried about taking the phone to the rectory. If it were found there, Kathleen would be in direr straits than she’d ever imagined.
However, I had no expertise with the cunning little machine and I needed Kathleen’s help. Wafting through the air with the phone in hand posed a danger. Even though it was dark, someone might glimpse an airborne object in the glare of a passing headlight or in the radiance of a streetlamp. That would cause comment.
I had an instant’s qualm. Had I undertaken a task beyond my capabilities? Sternly, I quelled my misgivings. I was on a mission.
If there were unfortunate repercussions, odd incidents that would go down in Adelaide folklore as the peculiar occurrences attendant upon the discovery of Daryl Murdoch’s body in the cemetery one wind-whipped night shortly before Halloween, so be it.
Below, flashlights crisscrossed the ground. The chief knelt again by the body. “The damn phone has to be here. Everybody stay where you are. Jake, grab me a Maglite.”
All eyes were on the ground. I made my move.
———
I was learning more and more about my invisible state. When unencumbered by objects, if I were in one spot and desired to be in another, I promptly found myself there. Material possessions required passage through the material world. That is to say, when I was on the branch and resolved that, whatever the risk, I must confer with Kathleen, I did not make an instantaneous leap to the rectory kitchen as I had from the rectory kitchen to the crime scene. Instead I swooped from the branch to the rectory and, in consequence, passed over the church parking lot.
Below me two elderly women were progressing slowly toward a large white car. One leaned on a cane. The other bobbed beside her, speaking in a club woman’s clarion voice. “Absolutely a disgrace that the rector—”
The ding-dong bell of Daryl’s phone pealed, its shrillness emphasized in the quiet of the parking lot.
The woman with the cane jolted to a stop. She looked up, startled.
“Look, Maisie.” She pointed her cane at the sky.
The smaller woman’s gaze rose, but, fortunately, I was beyond the bright circle from the light pole. “What?” The voice was loud.
The older woman bellowed, “Maisie, don’t you have your hearing aid turned on? There was a bell and something flew by right up there.” She gestured with the cane. “It sounded like a cell phone. It looked like a cell phone. Up there all by itself!”
Maisie looked huffy. Her voice had the loudness of the hard of hearing. “I declare, Virginia, you don’t need to try and fool me with any Halloween nonsense just to make me turn on that fool hearing aid that makes me feel like I’m inside a washing m
achine. And— Virginia, look over there. All those lights in the cemetery. Oh, my goodness, something’s happened. We’d better go see.” Maisie headed for the path to the cemetery.
Virginia couldn’t keep up with her short plump friend. Her progress was also slowed because she kept pausing to look back, her face a study in bewilderment tinged by shock.
I wished I could reassure Virginia. Obviously, she was a woman who knew what she had seen. But I had problems of my own. I waited in the darkness near the trunk of the big sweet gum behind the rectory. At all costs, I hoped to prevent anyone else from glimpsing the phone. I was tempted to appear so I could slip the thing in my pocket. I started to appear, changed my mind. It would be just as detrimental for me to be seen as for the airborne phone. Adelaide was a small town. I would immediately be noted as a stranger and, once seen, an interesting subject for discussion.
I could imagine the conversations now: “Who was that redheaded woman in the backyard of the rectory Thursday night?” “She was there and then she seemed to disappear. Do you suppose she was visiting Kathleen?” “Did you ask her name?” ”I was hurrying toward her and then she was gone.”
I know small towns. I was positive calls had already begun, spreading word of Daryl Murdoch’s demise to almost every household in Adelaide. Virginia and Maisie wouldn’t waste an instant in sharing the exciting news about a body in the cemetery.
I dared not appear where I might be glimpsed by anyone other than Kathleen. The best I could do was lurk in deep shadow until I could slip unremarked into the rectory and find her. I was beginning to feel frazzled.
Suddenly a deep voice boomed, “Bailey Ruth.”
I shrieked.
“Bailey Ruth, please.”
I felt instant empathy with Kathleen. I would be more understanding in the future if she exhibited distress at an unexpected voice apparently coming from nowhere. I looked frantically around, struggling to breathe without hiccuping. I saw only shifting shadows made more ominous by the moan of the wind.
“Wiggins?” My voice wobbled.
He cleared his throat. “Forgive me for catching you unaware, but you’ve been dashing about.” He sounded plaintive. “In and out. Here and there.”
