Нэнси Пикард - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 128, No. 6. Whole No. 784, December 2006

“Just being practical.”

“Well, things seemed to have worked out in one respect,” Brad said. “Sheriff told me you killed King. So now he’s out of the way and I presume his wife got a lot more than just alimony. Only problem is, she’s out there with all the money and you’re in here rolling your own cigarettes. And facing the hot seat.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t do it!” Bliss declared angrily.

“Who did, then?”

“Had to have been Diane. Wasn’t nobody else in the picture. She must have figured that if she sued for divorce, he would countersue, name me, and then she’d get nothing. If she got nothing, she wouldn’t get me, because I wasn’t about to run off with her unless she had some dough.”

“You and her plan the thing together?” Brad asked bluntly.

“No! I didn’t have nothing to do with it!”

“You telling me it was all her? Her idea, her plan, her killing?”

“Like I said, had to have been. Look here, at my trial, Diane testified that her husband was supposed to have been in Copiah County buying cotton, and stayed there overnight. That wasn’t true; he had left there around six o’clock to drive back home. Hell, it idn’t but about a hunnerd miles down there; no reason for him not to come back home, him driving a brand-new Cadillac Sedan DeVille with one of them V-8 engines in it.

“Anyway, Diane’s story was that he had not come home. Next morning, she had their cook serve her breakfast on the east patio, which was her favorite side of the mansion; I had ringed the whole patio with yellow roses, which was also her favorite. So she testified that she was having breakfast, looking across the east grounds of the estate, when she noticed a lot of activity among some blackbirds down there where the boundary hedge separates the property from the road. She was curious, she said, so she walked across the lawn to see what the birds was so excited about. She claimed she found her husband’s body just beyond the hedge, in a gully by the side of the road. He’d been stabbed in the chest.”

“Oh?” Brad’s eyebrows went up innocently. “Stabbed with what?”

Bliss looked down at the jail floor. “Coroner said it was probably an ice pick.”

“Surprise, surprise,” said Brad.

“Yeah. The story made the papers in Jackson, Tupelo, Oxford, all over, saying I was among the people being questioned. Couple days later, some smart-ass reporter on the Commercial Appeal up in Memphis tipped the law down here about my old trial up there. I got locked up down here real quick and charged with the killings.”

“I see. Now you’re trying to tell me the victim’s wife did it. With an ice pick. Did she know about the case up in Memphis?”

Bliss shook his head. “No.”

Brad stared starkly at him. “Then this has to be one hell of a great big coincidence, wouldn’t you say so, Bliss?”

The prisoner sighed heavily. “I guess so,” he said wearily. Then his square jaw clenched. “But — I — did — not — do — it!”

“All right, then,” Brad said patiently. “Tell me what you think happened.”

Bliss drew a deep breath. “I think King did come home that night. I think maybe he was out walking the grounds of the estate; they was all well lighted, and I mean, he was a real nut about those grounds; used to walk around admiring the flowerbeds, the hedges, the fruit trees, the lawn. I think he might have been down by that hedge and Diane got him with an ice pick.”

“What about the servants, wouldn’t they have known it if he had come home?”

Bliss shook his head. “They only had two: a cook and a housekeeper. Colored women, sisters; they mostly kept to the other side of the mansion, where the kitchen and linen pantry was at, and they always went home when they finished cleaning up after supper. King could’ve come home late without either one of them knowing it.”

“What about his Cadillac?”

“It was parked uptown at his office. Not unusual; he frequently parked it there and walked to and from the office and the mansion; it was only about half a mile. He probably stopped in his office for something when he got back from Copiah County, then just walked on home from there.”

Brad fell silent for several long moments, lips pursed reflectively, eyes fixed on Edward Bliss. Finally, he asked quietly, “What is it you think I can do for you?”

“I don’t know, just investigate what I’ve told you. Everybody down here is so goddamned sure that the killer had to be me, nobody did any real looking anywhere else. I’d be setting here with nobody in the world to help me if I hadn’t come across that story about you in that ratty old magazine. Look, maybe if you talk to Diane, you can trick her into telling you something. Maybe if you look at the police reports, the autopsy report, check out his car if you can, look at where they found the body — you know, see if there’s anything that points to Diane or anybody else.” He looked pleadingly at Lon Bradford. “You can at least try, Mr. Bradford, to keep an innocent man from going to the electric chair.”

Brad took his foot off the stool and stood up. “All right, I’ll check around, see what I can find. But not for the reason you just gave. Because you and I both know that you’re not an innocent man, Bliss. You haven’t been since Memphis.”

Brad left the jail and crossed the town square to the Farmers Bank of Temple, where he cashed the check Bliss had given him. Then he stood out on the street for a few minutes, having a look around. Temple wasn’t much different from the little town of Lamont, Tennessee, where Brad himself had once been a county sheriff. Temple looked like a nice little town. A county courthouse occupied the center of the square, in front of which stood a statue of Confederate Colonel Travis Temple, the local hero. It was surrounded on four sides by a bank, dry goods store, five-and-dime, drugstore, picture show, and numerous other small businesses that make up a small town in the South. Across the way was a two-story red-brick building with an aged wooden sign across the front that read: TEMPLE TIMES — SERVING YOAKUM COUNTY SINCE 1895.

Crossing to the courthouse, and noticing the absence of a building directory when he got there, Brad roamed the corridors until he found a door with a sign that read: COUNTY CORONER. Inside, he smiled pleasantly at a young woman behind the counter.

“I’d like to get a copy of the autopsy findings on the death of Lyle King, please.”

The clerk frowned, but said, “Yes, sir, fill this out, please,” and gave Brad a single-sheet form and a pencil. As he proceeded to fill out the form, she left the counter and went to an office near the center of the room. Presently, a small, dapper man in starched shirt and bow tie, wearing wire-rimmed spectacles, came up to the counter with the clerk. He waited until Brad had completed the form, then took it from him and carefully perused it.

“Mr. Bradford, you neglected to fill in the line where it asks: Reason for Requesting Report.”

“It wasn’t neglect,” Brad replied affably. “I purposely left the line blank, since I am under the impression that legally it isn’t required for a person to give a reason to acquire a public record. Am I correct in that, sir?”

The little man’s lips tightened and he flushed slightly. “The information is for our own internal statistics,” he said primly.

“I see. Well, then.” Brad retrieved the form, wrote “Curiosity” on the line in question, and returned it.

The little man flushed even more and handed the form to his clerk. “There is a one-dollar fee,” he said, and walked back to his office, where he immediately picked up the telephone.