I doubt if the grave had been intended for double occupancy, but that’s how things had turned out.
An old man in a denim work shirt lay face down in the dirt at the bottom of the hole. From the look of things, someone had whacked him across the back of the head with a shovel and started to fill the hole back in.
“Oh, Lordy!” George exclaimed. He had apparently been prepared for the possibility that someone might have made off with one of his bodies, but certainly not for an extra one’s being dropped off in so informal a manner. He hiccupped, pulled the flask from his back pocket, and drained off what remained in three clearly audible gulps.
I slid down into the hole. My first impression had told me that the old man was dead. A quick check for a pulse confirmed it.
“Better radio for an ambulance,” I said to Walts. “You can tell them there’s no hurry.”
“Right.” Walts trotted off toward the car.
“Who do you s’pose he is?” George whispered.
“One of your body snatchers, I guess.” I clambered up out of the grave, with George helping by tugging on my coat sleeve. After I was up, he kept hanging on to it.
“What do you s’pose they were up to?”
I recoiled, shaking him off my sleeve. If old George happened to breathe on an open flame, he’d be in serious trouble.
“Beats the hell outta me, George.”
Things had decidedly taken a turn for the worse. To begin with, we’d had some nefarious creep digging up cemeteries by moonlight. I’ll admit that had gotten me a little riled, but I could live with it. A guy had to. Nefarious creeps just aren’t all that uncommon nowadays.
Murder, though, was another matter entirely. A murderer running around loose in Constantine County was something I simply couldn’t tolerate.
Walts approached from the direction of the squad car. “They’ll be out in about twenty minutes. I told Bernice to call Jerry, too. Figured you’d want some first-class pictures on this one.”
“Good idea,” I said. “I saw some footprints and tire tracks over by the other grave. Why don’t you get out the kit and make some casts before everything gets ruined.”
“Sure thing.” He turned back toward the car.
Old George was watching the proceedings now with considerable interest. He still had something in his hand — the something I’d seen him pick up just before Walts had found the body.
“What did you find, George?” I asked
“Huh?” He looked down at his hand, then extended whatever it was in my direction.
I reached out and took it.
It was an old nickel-plated pocket watch, all corroded around the edges. It had been the unbroken crystal that had reflected the moonlight. I turned it over under the beam of my flashlight, wiping the dirt away with my thumb.
There was an inscription on the back, faint but still legible. The name “Wilcox” filled the center, inscribed large in an engraver’s ornate cursive. Smaller words circled the rim. I read them aloud: “To Clyde on your fiftieth birthday. Your loving wife, Emma. June 14, 1927.”
The grave where we’d just found the body of the old man belonged to one Clyde Wilcox, born June 14, 1887, died November 15, 1939. So much for its being a clue to the identity of our victim. Or for providing a hint at the killer’s motive, for that matter. It wasn’t exactly Tut’s burial treasure. It certainly wasn’t something you’d knock a man’s head in to possess.
I stuck it in my pocket.
We didn’t get out of there until well after sunrise. By then I was beginning to feel the effects of having had only four hours of sleep. I had Walts drop me off at home, intending to do something about that.
By the time I was back under the covers, our “unknown male Caucasian, age approximately seventy years” was already resting comfortably on a slab over in Doc McIlroy’s office, awaiting the good doctor’s attentions later in the morning. So far, the only remarkable thing about his latest guest was a complete lack of identification.
Doc seemed to have been unusually interested in the old man’s teeth when he’d first examined the body at the scene of the murder. If he’d noticed something significant, though, he’d kept it to himself.
Doc’s like that. He plays for effect, and likes nothing better than giving the appearance of pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
I was hoping he would manage something along those lines fairly soon. Luther Kroger, our illustrious county prosecutor, would be breathing down my neck before the day was out, demanding that I arrest somebody for murder.
Hell — I didn’t even know who was dead yet.
I won’t go so far as to say that I don’t believe in coincidences, but I do hold them to be highly suspect. When a report came in late Thursday night from an elderly woman who thought she had seen a prowler, the fact that her last name was Wilcox certainly wasn’t lost on me.
Melinda Wilcox lived in Corinth, a flyspeck on the map some twenty miles southeast of Mecklin. Her big old house sat on the edge of town and belonged to a bygone era. It differed from its closest neighbors only in that, at nearly eleven o’clock at night, its every window was ablaze with light.
I pulled up to the curb and turned on the spotlight, probing the recesses at either side of the house from the safety of the squad car. As I slammed the door and started up the walk, I had a glimpse of someone peeking out at me through the lace curtains inside the front door.
I knocked and stood waiting. There was the sound of a latch being turned and of someone fumbling with a safety chain — two devices with little more than psychological value on a door with so many glass panes.
The door opened a crack.
“Yes?” The voice was small and tremulous.
“I’m Sheriff Bigelow, ma’am. Are you the party that reported a prowler?”
“Yes, I am.” She unfastened the chain and opened the door a little wider. “Won’t you please come in?”
“I think I’d better have a look around first. Where was it that you saw him?”
“Out in the back. I didn’t actually see anybody. I just heard some glass break. I think someone may have been trying to get into my cellar.”
“Go ahead and lock back up,” I said. “I’ll knock again when I’m done.”
The front door closed, and the latch clicked.
I went around toward the back between the side of the house and a tall hedge, flashlight in my left hand and gun in my right. Had I been following procedure, my gun would have been holstered.
There are times, I have learned, when following the prescribed procedure can get a man in very serious trouble.
I wished Walts had come with me, then chided myself for the thought. It wouldn’t have been fair to wake him up over something as trivial as a prowler call, especially since he’d covered for me all morning and most of the afternoon while I caught up on my sleep.
As it turned out, the back yard was empty. At the far end a gate stood open, hinges creaking in the wind. It led out to a narrow lane that ran along a field. I went over to have a look.
I played my flashlight over the ground. There were fresh tire tracks. Maybe I’d slop some plaster around, I thought. Why not? The stuff is cheap.
I turned my attention to the cellar door, four steps down and set into a cut stone foundation. A pane of glass had been broken out, and the heavy brass padlock that secured the door showed definite signs of an attempted forced entry.
I went around to the front of the house by way of the other side, holstering my .38 before knocking at the front door.
“Did you find anything, sheriff?”
“Looks like somebody tried to pry the lock off your cellar door. They broke a pane of glass, but there doesn’t seem to be any other damage.”