Sharyn McCrumb - The Windsor Knot

In a few minutes he reappeared at the counter of the records office. “Will you let me in now?”

Susan’s expression suggested that he was still a nuisance, but that she would have to put up with him. She opened the wooden barrier and motioned him in. “What do you want?” she asked in tones suggesting complete indifference.

“I need to see the death records in the county for the last five or six years. Can I use your computer?”

Her frown deepened. “No, you can’t use my computer. I have work to do! And besides those records haven’t been put on disk yet.”

“Why not?” asked Clay without thinking.

“Because I’m too busy to get around to it, what with people coming in and wasting my time asking stupid questions!”

“Well, where are the records then?”

“In a drawer, of course! Come on, I’ll show you where it is.” Her expression suggested that this would involve a four-hour trek through a swamp. In fact they ended up no more than twenty feet from Susan’s desk. She jerked the file drawer open for him and started to stalk away.

“What if somebody lived in this county, but didn’t die here?”

She gave him a withering glare. “Then they won’t be here, will they?”

“But the obituaries would be in the newspaper,” said Clay, thinking aloud.

“That’s not my problem!” said Susan, going back to her desk.

“Okay, I’ll check here first, and then look in the archives at the Scout office.”

“Bully for you.”

Clay began to examine the death records for 1985. He wondered if Susan’s personality would change when she was no longer young and pretty, or if her nearest and dearest were already looking into untraceable poisons.

Elijah’s Chariot, Inc., was a modest-looking building of whitewashed cinder block set in a field among boxwood shrubs and cedar trees. One white Nissan hatchback was parked on the circular gravel driveway. There were no other cars in sight. Wesley supposed that the business would require only part-time help, if that, and that one person would be sufficient to mind the store. They didn’t seem to be too busy today. He noted with relief that no smoke was issuing from the vent pipe in the roof.

Wesley parked his sheriff’s car behind the Nissan and went in search of the proprietor. Since it was a place of business, Wesley decided that it would be unnecessary to knock at the front door. He eased it open and went in, calling out, “Hello? Anybody here?”

The front room was an ordinary office. There was an old wooden desk and office fixtures on one side of the room, and the other side contained couches and Queen Anne chairs, much like a doctor’s waiting room. The waiting-room walls were decorated with landscapes in the Starving Artist school of hasty realism, while the office portion of the premises was adorned with framed travel posters. A brass plate on the desk announced it to be the domain of Jasper Willis, but Mr. Willis was not in any state to receive visitors. Judging from the amount of blood on the floor beside him, Mr. Willis had just become a prospective client for his own services.

“Well, damn!” said Wesley. He pulled out his handkerchief and draped it over the telephone receiver as he lifted it. “Now I’ve got to get Wayne Dupree in on this case, and he’ll probably make me come testify in court for him. Pigheaded so-and-so. Hello, this is Sheriff Wesley Rountree here, from over in Chandler Grove. Let me speak to your sheriff, please. Wayne? That you, good buddy? Great to talk to you!”

In the privacy of his bedroom, Charles Chandler stared at the letter as if he were afraid it might explode. Finally, after days of silence, the lovely blonde from the Highlander ad had answered his letter. He was almost afraid to open it. He didn’t suppose that anyone would waste a twenty-five-cent stamp just to tell him to go to blazes. How odd, he thought, that even though this was an essentially financial transaction on his part, he still had the pounding heart and sweaty palms of a lovesick adolescent. There was barely a week left until the wedding.

“I hope she’s desperate,” he muttered, opening the letter.

It was written in ink, in that rounded handwriting that young women usually outgrow before they are thirty. She wasn’t lying about her age, he decided. There was no return address or phone number given, he noticed, but all the same it didn’t seem to be a rejection. The lady was wary. Charles decided that she was wise to be cautious, considering the nature of the communication. After all, anybody could buy a magazine and answer the ads. He thought that she would be wise not to answer letters postmarked Leavenworth or San Quentin. Charles read the letter through twice, once for content and once for clues.

Dear Charles Chandler ,

This is a reply to the letter that you sent to Snow White at the Highlander magazine .

Since there aren’t too many people in this region, I thought I’d know every person who answered my ad, at least by name, but I’ve never heard of you. (Are you related to Geoffrey Chandler, by any chance?) And you didn’t say whether you worked around here, or what you did. At first I thought it might be some kind of alias or a joke from one of my friends, but your letter sounded sweet, and I decided to answer it anyway .

If this does turn out to be a practical joke, I’ll be very mad .

Shouldn’t you tell me more about who you really are? Well, never mind. I was very interested to hear that you are a scientest [Charles winced at the spelling] and although we seem to have rather different interests, you certainly sound like a nice enough person. I have decided that it wouldn’t do any harm to meet you, and see if we hit it off. I’m kind of busy right now (as ever!), but I could manage to meet you for a drink at Bubba’s in Milton’s Forge. If that is all right with you, meet me there at seven Wednesday evening at the bar .

Since I’m still not sure that this isn’t a joke, I don’t believe I’ll tell you who I am until I see you. But I do hope you are for real .

I’ll see you Wednesday, then, at Bubba’s, if you decide to go through with this. I’ll be wearing a white jacket with a rose on the lapel and carrying an umbrella .

See you soon, I hope!

Snow White

IF SHERIFF WAYNE Dupree was delighted to see his friend and colleague from the neighboring county, he managed to conceal it with admirable restraint. After receiving the unexpected summons from Wesley Rountree, he had dispatched the mobile crime lab and set out for the crematorium, where he intended to get some answers as to what Wesley thought he was doing discovering dead bodies in someone else’s jurisdiction.

He found Sheriff Rountree sitting in his patrol car on the gravel driveway, listening to a Statler Brothers tape. Motioning for his men to cordon off the crime scene and get to work, Wayne Dupree ambled over to Rountree’s patrol car to discuss the situation.

“’Afternoon, Wayne,” said Wesley amiably. “You gonna read me my rights? I got my Miranda card here if you’d like to borrow it.”

Wayne Dupree’s frown deepened. “You wanna tell me what’s going on here?” he growled. It was his opinion that Wesley Rountree was almost as clever as he thought he was. This combination of arrogance and cunning always made Wayne a little uneasy. He suspected Wesley of being up to something at nearly every encounter they had, be it sheriff’s-association politics or a jurisdictional dispute over a suspect.