“Uh-huh. Look, it’s common to put all sorts of ominous meanings into ordinary things when a murder—”
“Don’t make me sound like I’m a few chimes short of a clock. This voice was creepy. Threatening. It made me stop where I stood to try to see who had said it.”
He held up his hands. “Okay. I’m not saying you didn’t hear something. But even if you did, it’s not going to be of any use to us.” Lyle was walking toward them, gesturing questioningly with his arms. “There must have been two hundred people in the park at that time. Maybe more. Whoever did this could have walked right past you, me, the mayor, and Officer Entwhistle, and there wouldn’t be any way of knowing it.”
Lyle ambled up between them. “What’s up?” He bent over and scratched Bob’s head and was rewarded by a tail thump. “Doc Scheeler’s here, and Morin’s waiting with his Baggies to catch anything good. Thought you might like to sit in.”
“Yeah, I do. Reverend Fergusson didn’t see anything.”
“But I heard something,” she said.
Lyle raised his bushy gray eyebrows. “You did? Great.”
Russ shook his head. “Don’t get all excited. She heard someone with a threatening voice say, ‘He’s not gonna be a problem after tonight’ at the demonstration this afternoon. After the race.”
“Oh.” Lyle turned to Clare. “I’m sure it sounded scary, but it really doesn’t tell us anything.”
“If it was the man who killed Bill Ingraham, it tells us this wasn’t some case of gay cruising gone horribly wrong. This was planned out in advance.” Clare folded her arms, her posture challenging them to prove her wrong.
Lyle and Russ looked at each other. “Ingraham was gay?” Lyle asked. Russ nodded. “Well, that puts a different spin on things.”
“A bad pickup was the first thing that popped into my head,” Russ said to him. “Although I think Payson’s Park and out by the old cemetery are the only places we’ve chased off guys cruising before.” He frowned and swung back to Clare. “How do you know about cruising?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Russ, I didn’t spend my entire adult life locked in a seminary. When I was teaching at Fort Rucker, there was a strip where men would cruise for anonymous sex. With other men. There was a murder there, too—a young man from town. Two privates on leave picked him up and then beat him to death.” She looked from him to Lyle and back again. “But if I heard someone talking about murdering Ingraham this afternoon—”
“Reverend, you probably heard someone talking about his blister, not planning a murder,” Lyle said. “That park was filled with the whole crowd from the race and a lot of folks who were going to stay on for the bands and fireworks. The chances the perpetrator was hanging around making threats within earshot are slim to none.”
“You mean it’s unheard of for someone intending murder to follow his victim around? Keep an eye on him? Scout out the best place to do it?”
Lyle looked at Russ and shrugged. “She’s got a point.”
Russ pinched the bridge of his nose. “She always has a point, trust me. Maybe we are looking at a premeditated murder.”
“Which would mean it’s tied in with the two other assaults,” Clare interjected.
“Which would mean no such thing,” Russ said, speaking more loudly. “We don’t have any indication the attacks on Emil Dvorak and Todd MacPherson were planned. In fact, they seem to be pretty clearly crimes of opportunity. Which would argue that if this murder is connected to the previous assaults, it’s more likely to have happened spontaneously as part of a pickup.”
“Why would Bill Ingraham come to a cold, wet park for sex?” she asked. “He’s staying in a comfortable inn run by hosts who wouldn’t blink no matter what guy he brought home with him.”
“Why do guys get trussed up in leather and let someone walk all over them with spike heels? I don’t know! That’s how they get their jollies!”
Lyle broke in: “This is getting real interesting, but if you want to see what Doc Scheeler finds, we’d better get over there now. I get a feeling the body could be bagged and slabbed before you two finish up.”
Russ sighed. He grasped Clare’s upper arms and gave her an imperceptible shake. “I don’t want you walking back to the rectory alone,” he said. “You understand? Stay here and I’ll get someone to take you home.”
“Yes, I understand,” she said, a tinge of exasperation coloring her voice: “Believe me, I don’t have any desire to go wandering off by my lonesome in the dark. Even with these two tagging along.” She glanced down at the Berns, who had risen when Clare had and now stood leaning their broad heads against her blotchy sweatpants.
“Okay.” He released her and strode toward the center of activity, Lyle matching his steps.
“You really think this might be unrelated to the previous assaults?” Lyle asked, pausing before the bushes to put his latex gloves back on.
“No.” Russ tried to tug his gloves on too quickly and got his fingers stuck. He wiggled them partway off and eased them on more carefully. “I don’t believe in coincidences. I think he was targeted. What I want to know is how.” He held an armful of wet spiny-leafed branches out of the way. He and Lyle stepped into the now partially cleared opening where Sergeant Morin and Dr. Scheeler crouched over the body in the trough.
Scheeler glanced up and nodded at Lyle. “Deputy MacAuley. And you must be…”
“Russ Van Alstyne. Chief of police. Whaddya have there?”
The medical examiner gestured with a long probe. “By the temperature, I’m going to say he died within the last two hours. There’s not enough water in here to change his lividity much. You don’t see this very often.” He delicately traced along what used to be Bill Ingraham’s neck. “Cut right through almost to the spine. He must have bled out almost instantly.”
“We were thinking a garrote.”
“Yes, I think you may be right. I’ll need to examine the edges under the microscope, of course, but it doesn’t have the shape characteristic of a knife cut.” The dead man’s hands were already encased in opaque Baggies to preserve possible unseen skin samples trapped under the fingernails. Scheeler slid a probe under one of the plastic-wrapped hands and lifted it slightly. “He had no lacerations or defensive marks here. You’d expect to see those if someone had been coming at him with a knife.” He removed the probe and lightly touched several places on the face. “And see here, and here, where the bruises are? I can’t be sure until I can examine the bone underneath, but I think he was beaten after he was dead.”
“After?” Lyle said.
“The bruises are flat, hardly diffuse at all. There’s been no swelling. Swelling happens fairly quickly to tissue while it’s alive, but it slows down markedly postmortem. I suspect he was killed quickly and then beaten.”
“Uncontrolled rage?” Lyle asked, raising his thick eyebrows at Russ.
“Or he wanted it to look like the other beatings,” Russ said. “It was a he, wasn’t it? It takes a hell of a lot of upper-body strength to pull a wire through someone’s throat.”
“Absolutely. I suppose a particularly muscular woman might have been able to accomplish the feat, but I’d lay my money on an adult male. And the wire or fishing line he used must have either been wrapped around something sturdy he could hold on to or—”
“He wore gloves,” Lyle said, completing the thought. “That’s something I’d like to find.”
“If the glove fits, you must convict,” Russ misquoted. “Can you confirm it was done here, Doc?”
“Oh, yes.” Dr. Scheeler pointed to the edge of the trough, where blood was congealing to the consistency of skim on a pudding. “There’s no doubt in my mind that he was alive when he walked in here. Once he’s in the lab, I may be able to see some markings that will tell me if he was coerced or not,” he added, forestalling Russ’s next question. The doctor unfolded himself from his crouch and stood, snapping his gloves off and pocketing them. “I’m done with the in situ examination. I should have the preliminary report to you within twenty-four hours. Toxicology will take longer—the state lab has been backed up.”