Sharyn McCrumb - Sick Of Shadows

Captain Grandfather glanced up from the board. “How is she, Robert?”

Chandler sighed. “Asleep. Finally. I don’t want her disturbed.”

“It’s all right. Sheriff Rountree left a little while ago. Said they’d be back in the morning, and that they should have the lab report by then. I expect they’ll want to talk to us then-and to Amanda as well.”

“Where are Geoffrey and Elizabeth?”

“In the kitchen making sandwiches,” Charles replied.

“And our other-guests?”

“In their own rooms, I believe,” declared Captain Grandfather. “They didn’t seem to know what to say. Bit awkward all around. I for one am glad they’re not underfoot.”

“What do you think, Dad?” asked Charles.

The doctor shook his head. “I don’t know, Charles. I want to believe it was an accident, but I can’t think what she would have been doing in that boat.”

“Maybe she wanted another perspective for the painting,” Charles suggested.

“The painting! That’s another thing. I keep asking myself what’s become of the painting.”

“So do I,” said Captain Grandfather quietly. “So do I.”

“Charles, did you by any chance see the painting she was working on? When you went to the lake at dinner?”

“No, Dad. I didn’t go get her for dinner. That was Alban. You’ll have to ask him if he saw what she was working on, but I doubt it. She wouldn’t let any of us see it. You know how secretive she was.”

“But she kept on painting by the lake,” mused Dr. Chandler. “So it must have been a lake scene. Now, why is the painting missing?”

“How can it be important?” asked Charles. “If she painted the lake, there’s no point in stealing the painting. Anybody could look at the lake and see what Eileen saw.”

The telephone rang insistently. Dr. Chandler hurried from the room to answer it. Charles and Captain Grandfather turned their attention back to their game.

“Fleet: St. Petersburg to Norway,” Charles murmured. “Have you told Alban and Aunt Louisa yet?”

“Still not home last time I checked,” grunted Captain Grandfather.

Charles got up and peered through the curtains. “I see some more lights on. I think they must be back.” He settled back in his chair and studied the board. “You know, it seems strange that they don’t know yet. It’s as if Eileen is still alive in their minds, because they haven’t been told. I believe Hegel deals with that concept-”

“Well, Elizabeth or Geoffrey can tell them,” snapped the old man. “I’m not going to relive it in the telling. She was a sweet little girl, Eileen was. But she grew up so troubled. You couldn’t reach her. When you’d ask her anything, she’d shy away, as if it were an intrusion. Guess we should have insisted. Should have intruded. Maybe things would have been different. This family sets too damn much store on peace and quiet!”

“Sir?” Charles blinked.

“What’s wrong with making a few waves? Good storm clears the air, dammit!”

“Uh-it’s your move, Captain Grandfather.”

“Oh, put it away. I don’t want to play anymore.”

Charles stood up. “Well, then, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go upstairs and do some reading.”

Captain Grandfather waved him away impatiently. “You go on. I’ll put this away myself.”

He was still arranging the wooden blocks in the proper compartments when Dr. Chandler returned, closing the door behind him. “That was Wesley Rountree,” he said. “He’s got the lab results.” He sank down wearily on the sofa.

“So it was murder,” said Captain Grandfather.

“It was murder.”

Wesley Rountree rolled up his napkin and pitched it at the wastebasket beside Clay’s desk. “Bingo! You know, if I keep eating cheeseburgers from Brenner’s for dinner, pretty soon Mitch Cambridge’ll be doing an autopsy on me.”

Clay Taylor stopped typing, his two index fingers poised in midair. “If I were you, Wes, I’d worry about those diet drinks you’ve been having. No telling what’s in those artificial sweeteners.”

Rountree grunted. “Nobody lives forever, Clay. Sometimes I think I’m lucky to have made it this long. My mama was always after me to quit the highway patrol ’cause she was afraid I’d get killed in a highspeed chase, and now you’re trying to take my diet sodas away from me.” He shook his head. “Ain’t nothing safe.”

“Not even getting married,” said Clay.

“Lord, who ever told you that was safe? Oh! You mean the Chandler girl?”

“Is Cambridge sure about the results?”

“Now, you know Mitch Cambridge. If he wasn’t positive, you couldn’t get an answer out of him with a stick! The official cause of death, to which he will testify at the inquest, was the bite of a poisonous snake-”

“Water moccasin?”

“Yep, which bit her four times on her neck and upper back. He thinks she fell on the snake in the boat.” “And it wasn’t an accident?”

“No indeed. See, there’s also a subdural hematoma, which is what Mitch likes to call a bruise, on the back of her head. Skull was fractured due to a sharp blow to the”-he consulted a piece of paper on the desk in front of him-“to the occipital bone.”

“So somebody hit her on the head and threw her in the boat.”

“That’s about the size of it, Clay.”

Rountree scooted forward in his swivel chair, and began to root in the papers that littered the top of his desk. He had what Clay liked to call an archeological filing system: the papers nearest the top were the most recent. He generally managed to find what he was looking for, though. Eventually. Really important items, such as warrants, were kept under the bronze sphinx paperweight at the top center of his desk. Rountree had inherited the desk along with his job from the late Sheriff Miller, who had kept both for thirty years. “I don’t want to change nothing except the calendar,” Rountree had vowed when the office became his. It gave him a sense of continuity with the past, as though Nelse Miller were still around somehow, backing him up.

“Have you seen the mail today?” Rountree asked, momentarily giving up the search.

“Doris always puts it on your desk,” said Clay, between taps at the typewriter.

“I was afraid of that,” sighed Rountree.

He pawed through another stack of papers and pulled out a small bundle of letters bound by a red rubber band. “This must be it,” he muttered, flipping through them. “Hardware store sale, light bill, something from the community college.” He opened the yellow circular and scanned it briefly. “Seems they’re advertising their courses for this fall.”

“Yeah, I got one at home,” said Clay. “They must’ve put me on their mailing list, since I took their scuba diving course.”

“How would you like to take another one?” asked Rountree. “I see one in here that would be mighty useful for a deputy.”

“Oh, the judo course? I’ve been thinking about it.”

“No. That isn’t the one I had in mind,” said Rountree, running his finger down the page. “It’s this one, B-14: Beginning Shorthand.”

Taylor gave him a sour look and went back to typing.

“Well, admit it. You do more note-taking than fighting,” Rountree persisted.

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” said Clay.

“It’s useful, all the same. Is that what you’re typing up now?”

“The notes on the Chandler case, yeah. I thought you might want to see them.”

“That’s the honest truth,” sighed Wesley. “These people not being what I’m used to is sure throwing me off my stride. You take our average cases now. When Vance Wainwright gets drunk and disorderly, where’s he gonna go?”