They saw him coming. One of the private guards stepped forward, saying, “You’re the captain, right?”
“That’s right. I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner, but I wasn’t notified till twenty minutes ago.”
“Then you made good time. Come on over, and take a look at this.”
It was ugly. Thrown away on the ground was another uniform like the ones worn by the two private guards. But this one was streaked and stained and torn, and inside it were the broken parts of a man.
“Edward Cranshaw,” said the guard. “That was his name. I notified the home office already.”
“Identification,” Sondgard started, and then he had to stop. He turned away and swallowed, glad he hadn’t had time to eat breakfast before coming out here. His mouth was full of a brackish taste, but nothing more solid than that was coming up. After a second, he tried again. “Identification can’t be easy,” he said.
“Yeah, the face, I know. I didn’t identify him by the face. Last two fingers of the left hand, see? Gone. Blown off in the war.”
“Oh. Yes, I see.”
Sondgard drifted back away from the body toward the other two men, and the guard trailed along with him, saying, “At first, I figured it was an animal got him. I don’t know what you get around here, maybe mountain lion or bear, I don’t know. I figured maybe that’s what it was, but it don’t look right. No bites. He’s pretty broken up, but he hasn’t been bit at all, so I figure it must be a man.”
“Yes,” said Sondgard.
“This rape-killing you had out to the theater yesterday. You figure this connects?”
“I suppose it does. And it was the other way around.”
The guard looked puzzled. “What was the other way around?”
“Not rape-killing. Killing-rape. He killed her first.”
“Christ on a crutch.” The guard looked back toward the body, shaking his head. “It didn’t figure to be a personal thing,” he said. “Eddie wasn’t from around this neck of the woods at all. Nobody knew him but Frank and me. Oh, yeah, by the way. I’m Harry Downs, and that’s Frank Reilly.”
“Eric Sondgard.”
They shook hands all around. Larry Temple said, “I don’t know if I did the right thing, Dr. Sondgard.” He wasn’t used yet to the new title, still spoke to him as a student speaks to a professor rather than as a patrolman speaks to his captain. “I didn’t know your number, and it isn’t in the book, and Miss Ravenfield was the only one I could think of.”
“You did fine, Larry.” Sondgard was thinking he really should get his phone number listed. The company didn’t list the numbers of the summer residents, whose phones were only in operation three months of the year, unless the resident paid an additional fee. Sondgard hadn’t ever thought the fee was worth it, since everyone who might want to call him already knew his number or could get in touch with him through the office, but now he was no longer sure. He’d talk to Walter Ravenfield, the Mayor, this afternoon; maybe he could get the town to pay the fee for him, as a necessary police expense.
Harry Downs, the talkative guard, was saying, “Eddie fired off one shot, but I can’t tell if he hit the guy or not. There’s blood all over the place, but it could all be Eddie’s.”
“No one heard the shot?”
“Nope. Frank was in the car most of the night, checking the property on the other side of the road there. That’s where we get the most trouble with neckers and kids looking to raise a little hell. They know better than to come in on this side of the road, toward the lake, but they figure anything over on the other side is just left alone all night. So Eddie was on foot, sticking close to the gate here, and Frank was over on the other side in the car, and I was back in the house, asleep.”
“What time did you find him?”
“Frank found him about five-thirty. That right, Frank? Five-thirty?”
“Five thirty-two,” said Frank. He was lighting a cigarette, cupping the match though there was only the faintest of breezes.
“So the first thing,” said Harry Downs, “he come on down to the house and got me. We went through the house first, but nobody was around and nothing was taken and no windows or doors had been forced, so then we come back and checked Eddie out, and then Harry took off in the Merc and found your boy there and clued him in.”
“That was five-forty,” said Larry, “just exactly.” He seemed pleased that he too could give an exact time, and slightly embarrassed that the rest of them might think he was putting on. “I followed the Mercury back here,” he said, “and saw the body, and then asked to use a phone. I went down to the house and called Miss Ravenfield, and then I came back here and waited. She called on the car radio a little while ago, and said you’d be coming right out.”
“Dr. Walsh should be along, too.” Sondgard turned back to the two guards. To Frank, the silent one, he said, “You didn’t see anybody at all during the night? Not out on the road there, or anywhere?”
Frank shook his head. “Nobody,” he said. “And I was awake. I don’t sleep in a car in the woods. One thing, I thought I heard somebody singing one time. I was stopped, you know, and out of the car, looking around. Heard it way off. Might of been on the road, maybe a car radio.”
“When was this?”
“Somewhere around three o’clock, I guess. I didn’t pay much attention. It didn’t sound like anything right on the property.”
“Singing.” Sondgard looked over toward the body, then quickly looked away again. He asked, “Was the gate open or closed when you came back and found him?”
“Closed. Whoever done it climbed over.”
The other guard, Harry, said, “I checked around outside. No tire tracks. Nobody pulled off the road along here last night, or it would have showed.”
“He probably walked, then. And he didn’t go down to the house?”
“I don’t know if he did or not. He didn’t get in, that’s all I know. Didn’t even try.”
“Windows and doors are kept locked.”
“One hundred per cent,” said Harry. “I check that out every night before I hit the sack.”
Sondgard looked at the gate, glanced over at the body, then down the private road toward the house and the lake. “He came over the fence. He killed. Then he turned around and went back over the fence again.”
“He was either teed off or crazy,” said Harry. “You seen what he done to Eddie.”
“Crazy,” said Sondgard, not liking the word but using it because it was handiest.
A telephone rang. Sondgard blinked, and looked around at the woods, for the moment completely baffled.
Harry said, “Excuse me,” and walked casually over to the Mercury. He opened the door on the driver’s side, reached in, and took out from under the dashboard a telephone receiver. “Downs here,” he said. He listened. “Check. We’ll be right there.” He put the phone away again and looked over at Sondgard. “You want to come along? That was old man Lowndes himself. He’s found something.”
“Of course. Larry, wait here for Dr. Walsh. I’ll be right back.”
Larry nodded, reluctantly. It was clear he didn’t like the idea of their force being divided in half. He was only twenty, a junior, one of Sondgard’s “specials,” those few students every year who give the impression they know they don’t know everything, want to learn everything, and are willing to believe their teachers know some of the things they want to learn. He had come here expecting to be a traffic cop for the summer, and Sondgard had expected the same thing. Sondgard had given him the night duty because it was normally quieter and simpler than day duty, and also because he thought Larry would take a romantic delight in the job. Neither of them had expected the job to include standing guard over a brutally murdered human being. Larry was holding up far better than Sondgard could have expected. Partially, he supposed, because Harry and Frank were here. Obvious professionals they were, and the boy would surely give anything to keep from seeming young and useless to them.