Eric Flint: Grantville Gazette .Volume XXIII

"And still no answer." Byron was pulling on his chin, a sign that Gotthilf recognized that meant the up-timer was thinking hard.

"Aye. I waited a few more minutes, not wanting to needlessly anger the master by destroying the doorway, but finally I sent Johan," Lutterodt gestured to the other accountant, "to bring one of the warehousemen with a pry bar."

"Is that the bar?" Gotthilf pointed to a length of metal lying next to the wall.

"Yes."

Byron picked it up and compared the end of the bar to the marks on the door frame. They matched. He handed it to Gotthilf. "Tag it." Gotthilf pulled a piece of heavy paper on a string loop out of one of his pockets, and a pencil out of another. He wrote "Bunemann" followed by the date on the tag, then looped it around the bar and tucked it under his arm.

The up-timer reached out and pushed the sprung door open, revealing a surprisingly large room dimly lit by two small windows set up high in the wall across from the door.

Gotthilf followed Byron into the office. The corpse was obvious, lying on a sofa across from the desk. One arm was folded up on the chest, the other trailed to the floor.

Byron stopped them just inside the door. "When you first broke in, Herr Lutterodt, did anything in the room seem strange?"

"Other than the body?"

"Other than the body." Byron's tone was dry.

"No, but I didn't take time to look."

"Take time now," Byron instructed. "Take all the time you need."

Gotthilf watched Lutterodt as he surveyed the room. The accountant, hands in pockets, made a slow turn as he scanned everything, even stepping forward to look over the desk and its chair. He turned again to face the detectives.

"I cannot swear that everything is as it was before he locked the door, but everything that I know should be here is present, and I see nothing that should not be here."

Byron turned to the door. "I assume this is the master's key in the lock."

"It must be. He never gave me a key to this door."

"Are there any others?"

"The master told me once that his wife has one, but I have never seen it."

Byron took the key from the lock, knelt and tried to pass the key on its ring under the door. The space was too narrow for the bulk of the key, not to mention the ring with the other keys on it. "Well, that didn't work. Not that it would prove anything or help us any if it did." He stood again and handed the keys to his partner. "Tag them." Gotthilf did so, and handed them back to Byron.

The up-timer now moved to the sofa and touched the face of Herr Bunemann's corpse, then lifted the trailing arm and set it on the sofa. "Hmm. Rigor mortis is already setting in. That would match death sometime after noon. Did you close his eyes, Herr Lutterodt?"

"Yes."

In Gotthilf's eyes, Herr Bunemann was not a prepossessing man. His frame was small; he wasn't much taller than Gotthilf, which made him short. At least Gotthilf was stocky, but the merchant by comparison was rather slender. His hands were small, short-fingered, and looked soft. His face was reasonably handsome, with regular features and no pock marks or other scars, but his hair was thin and receding, which left him looking like a dyspeptic school master. All in all, Gotthilf was reasonably glad he hadn't been on familiar terms with the man.

Gotthilf turned to Lutterodt, who was hovering behind them. "You said earlier Herr Bunemann had a wife?"

"Yes. He was married to Frau Sarah Diebes."

"Did they have children?"

"No."

Gotthilf pulled out his notebook again and made more notes. "Are there any legitimate kin that should be notified?"

"No. The master had a younger brother, Karl, who died when Tilly's soldiers sacked the city. He was not married. Their father was an only child. There may be some distant cousins somewhere, but I do not know who they would be."

Lutterodt pulled his kerchief out for another coughing spell. When it subsided, Gotthilf murmured, "Just a few more questions. Has Frau Sarah Diebes been notified of her husband's death?"

"I believe so." Lutterodt's voice was weak and shaky. "The City Watch said they would notify her." He stopped and took a heavy breath. "I am surprised she is not here already."

"And did the master have any illegitimate kin?"

Lutterodt grimaced. "Yes." He began coughing again.

"Children?"

"Yes."

"Can you tell me who they were?"

Lutterodt grimaced again. "No. I simply knew he had them. He made no great secret about it."

Byron had been crouched over the body this entire time, shining the beam of a small pocket flashlight on the neck and turning the head this way and that against the increasing stiffness of the advancing rigor. He flicked the light off and straightened. Gotthilf turned and raised his eyebrows.

"No doubt about it," Byron spread his hands. "He was strangled. And since there's no way that you can strangle yourself, we seem to have a murder."

The room seemed to darken at that pronouncement.

Byron looked to Gotthilf. "We've got to examine the body and see if there is anything else about it that might be important."

"Right." Gotthilf nodded, anticipating the next question.

"So, where do we do it?"

"There's that back room at the police house."

"I guess that's better than nothing." Byron muttered something. All Gotthilf could catch was "… city council…" He decided not to ask Byron to repeat it. "Okay," the up-timer said, "your drawing is better than mine, so you make a sketch of the body in the room while I get us some wheels."

Gotthilf turned to a fresh page in his notebook and began sketching as Byron left the room. He heard the outer door shut.

It didn't take long to make the drawing of the body and its placement. Gotthilf was actually pretty competent at sketching. He took a little bit of pride in that, smiling as he thought of how poor Byron was at it. On the other hand, he definitely sympathized with Byron's opinion of the city council; he wished they'd quit delaying and arguing and get the photography gear they had been promising the fledgling police department. It would be so much better than these drawings at showing exactly how things stood in a crime scene.

He turned to a fresh page, anticipating the next need, and began making a sketch of the room as a whole. Good progress had been made with it when the outer door opened again. Byron entered the room a moment later, followed by Georg the patrolman.

"How's it coming?"

Gotthilf flipped back and showed him the drawing of the body.

"Good. Well, I've got a cab, and the cabbie had a spare horse blanket, so we can wrap him up and get him out of here." Georg shook the blanket out on the floor, then he and Byron lifted the body and set it down on the blanket. A few moments later, the corpse was swaddled and not visible. Gotthilf watched as the two men bent. "Hup!" Byron exclaimed as they lifted the dead weight. Gotthilf returned to his sketching as Georg led the way out of the office, walking backward and looking over his shoulder.

A few minutes later Byron came back in. "Well, that's done. Georg's on his way to the police house with the body. He'll get somebody to help him carry it in, then he'll come back here."

Gotthilf finished the sketch of the room, closed his notebook and put it back into his pocket. "Well, I think we have an appointment with a corpse," he remarked.

"So we do," Byron agreed. "So we do, after we ask a few more questions."

They exited the office, and Byron turned and pulled the office door closed. Testing it, he found that it still latched well, so he took the merchant's keys from his pocked and locked it. "Keep everyone out of that room until we say otherwise." Lutterodt nodded just as the outside door opened. Framed in the doorway was a woman with a sodden cloak thrown over a green dress.