Act V (9 page)

“
Yeah,” Brice said. “Seems
like a pretty gruesome way to off your spouse anyway. A woman,
especially a wife, might use poison or maybe…”

Addison was thinking along the same
lines. “Or hire somebody.”

“
It doesn’t ring true
though. By all accounts they were very loving and she seemed to be
genuinely upset when we saw her. No, we’ll keep that on the back
burner though. What else have we got?”

“
Mrs. Danning says she saw a
car drive off in a real hurry as she was driving in. Could be the
guy.”

“
Did she give a
description?”

“
You know women. ‘It was a
blue car.’ But the boy did better.”

“
Oh yeah?”

“
Yeah. We’re looking for a
blue or maybe black, sedan. Boy said it looked like an older Ford,
he thought it was a Mustang. He said he noticed it because it was
‘cool’. This is the best part though—he got the first three letters
of the tag—BRL something.”

“
Sharp kid.” Brice was about
to take another bite when Karen Rogers called over. “Hey guys,
Captain Ferguson wants to see you right now.”

“
Naturally he’d want to see
us during lunch,” growled Addison. “We’re coming.”

“
Do you think he’s gonna
ream us about going over to the Danning place when it wasn’t our
case?” Addison asked.

“
Without a
doubt.”

They strode to the
glassed-in office and knocked. With the captain, it was better to
get it over quickly, whatever
it
was. The voice from inside answered, “Come in,
fellows.”

“
He sounds okay,” Brice
observed.

“
He’s sneaky. Plays poker a
lot.”

They sat down opposite the desk,
waiting. The captain looked at them both for at least thirty
seconds before speaking. When he did speak, he sounded almost
chummy, but neither Brice nor Addy were fooled. “I hear you boys
checked out the Danning house this morning.” Captain Ferguson’s
ruddy complexion and short red hair were dead give-a-ways to a
Scottish heritage but he was as southern as the next guy. His face
and tone became deadly serious. “You reckon you should’ve been
there seeing as it’s Handy’s and Hawkins’ case and all?”

That was a rhetorical question but
Brice answered anyway. “Sir, we were asked to observe the crime
scene because we had a strange report before the fact
and…”

“
Yeah, I know all about the
psychic woman with the legs. Everybody in the place has heard about
her by now.” He put one foot up on his desk and retied a loose
shoe-lace. “Did you interview her yet…since the murder I
mean?”

“
Yes sir,” Addison told him.
“I can’t say how helpful it was but…”

“
I’m gonna cut to the chase
here.” The captain waved off the response. “This is the first,
honest to God murder we’ve had here in a long time outside of open
and closed redneck gets piss-drunk and offs his father-in-law
stuff. What we’ve got here, gentlemen, is a true, for real, mystery
on our hands. No real good leads yet except for that car thing, and
we need more than one team on this one. So since you two are
already involved, even though I don’t recall asking you to be, I
guess you’re in. You can work on it days while Handy and Hawkins
take the nights. There’s a bunch of pressure coming down on this
one seeing as Danning was such a fine, upstanding citizen, pillar
of the community kind of guy and all. So I want it handled fast and
with a great deal of finesse. You two understand?”

“
Yes sir,” both men
agreed.

“
Police services has got
intell for you and so does the M.E., so move your
asses.”

They did.

*****

Andy Wofford had been with
the Medical Examiner’s office since God’s dog first got fleas. He
was old enough to have voted for Eisenhower and was happy to tell
you all about it if you asked. He was also one of the finest
coroners in the state. When Andy took office, most coroners didn’t
have a medical degree. In South Carolina, it still wasn’t required.
Andy, always the curious type, didn’t buy into the
I’m old as water so naturally I know more than you
ever will
school. He kept up with current
forensic techniques by taking as much coursework on forensic
medicine as he could and learning from experience, too. He didn’t
miss much.

“
This,” he told Addison and
Brice, “is a classic stab wound.” He pointed to the body which was
now laid out on the table, covered by a sheet. “I’m not sure of the
weapon yet, but you can bet it was big. It’s hard to tell thickness
because the skin is elastic and tries to shrink in once the weapon
is removed, but it’s roughly diamond shaped and at least long
enough to go from the entrance, here,” he pointed to the obvious
wound on the belly, “through the small intestine, nicking a bit of
the large intestine, and out the back, here.” He tilted the corpse
with both hands and nodded to the exit wound. “It missed the spinal
cord, but I understand that the chair wasn’t so lucky.”

“
True,” said Brice.
“Anything else?”

“
Yep,” Wofford rolled the
body back into the original position. “You see this bruise right
here at the entry point?”

They nodded.

“
It’s 17.8 cm in width.
That’s about 7 inches to those of you who dislike the metric
system. In other words, whatever went through our boy’s gut here,
had one heck of a stopper.”

“
Are we talking about the
hand-guard of a sword?” Addison asked.

“
Could be, but I suppose
something else might have done it. Don’t know what
though.”

“
Did the stab wound kill
him?” Brice asked.

“
It looks like it, but there
are a couple of other elements here.” He walked to the head of the
corpse. “Take a look at these marks on the chest.”

“
Taser?” Brice touched the
burns. “Is that how he was subdued?”

“
That would be my guess.
There’s a goose-egg on the back of the head, too; blunt force
trauma. And there’s this as well. Do you see that there’s some kind
of white residue wherever the wine dried up on his face? There’s
probably some on the clothes too. I haven’t gone back over them to
check.” He scraped a bit of it off with a file and pushed it into a
plastic evidence bag. “I can’t identify it until I run a tox
screen, but it could be a drug or some other toxin.”

“
So he might have been hit
with a taser, knocked in the head, stabbed
and
poisoned?” Addison asked.
“Somebody really wanted him dead.”

“
Maybe, or it could be
powdered sugar from his last donut.” He winked. “I’ll let you
know.”

*****

The report from police services was
pretty straight forward. Only one set of prints was found that
didn’t belong in the house. It was being checked for a match. In
addition, the rug had revealed a great deal of hair, all human,
most of it matching the occupants of the house. The three other
samples might have been recent guests in the house. One of them
might also have belonged to the killer. Fortunately, the
housekeeper had vacuumed just the day before, so the choices were
limited. They would send the results on those when they had
them.

Brice looked over the report again.
“There’s just one thing here that doesn’t make any
sense.”

“
Just one?”

“
One big thing. Police
services found something weird in the bottom of the wine
glass.”

“
You mean like some kind of
poison? We already know he had some kind of white residue left over
from the wine.”

Brice gave him a perplexed look. “They
could be connected.”

“
What could?”

“
The residue and what they
found in the wine glass. It was a pearl.”

“
Like from an
oyster?”

“
You got it.”

“
Well just sauté me a
seashell. This is getting weirder by the minute.”

*****

Brice followed up on the dark colored
sedan while Addison hit the phones in search of anyone who might
have wanted Claude Danning to die. It seemed there were several.
Mrs. Danning had already told the other detectives that a man in
her husband’s position was bound to have enemies. There were plenty
of people at Janico that didn’t care for his management style and
some that Danning had dismissed when he’d taken over the business.
Any one of them might have tried to kill him.

Addison went through the list of
disgruntled employees and former employees one by one, checking
motives and alibis. In the mean-time, Brice picked up a hit on the
dark sedan. “Get this,” he told his partner. “There’s only one dark
Mustang in the area that matches the BRL tag.”

“
That’s the best news I’ve
heard all day. Do you have a name?”

“
Yes, and our winner is…one
Dorsey Timmons, of 305 Raymond Blvd, Apt 127.”

“
That name sounds familiar.
Wait a minute.” Addison dug through the list in his lap. “Well I’ll
be a stinkin’ son-of-a-gun. Our friend Mr. Timmons used to work for
Claude Danning. He got himself fired about three days
back.”

“
What are we waiting
for?”

*****

Dorsey Timmons looked like he’d been
drinking for two days. His eyes were baggy, his face was dirty, and
he smelled like a mix between a men’s locker room and a brewery.
They had picked him up at his apartment, sound asleep on the couch.
He had gone with them willingly.

“
Mr. Timmons, I was hoping
you could answer a few questions for us.” Brice began. “Do you
recall being in the neighborhood of Hickory Bridge Road last
night?”

He turned his eyes slowly toward Brice.
“Have you got something for a headache?”

“
Mr. Timmons, answer the
question please.” Brice prompted.

“
Yeah, I was there. I guess
it was last night. I think I’ve lost some time.”

Brice and Addy exchanged glances. “What
were you doing there?” It was Addy’s turn.

“
I went…this is
embarrassing. I mean…what was I thinking?”

Brice nudged his arm. “Mr.
Timmons?”

“
I got into an argument with
my boss a few days ago and got fired.”

Brice wanted more. “It must have been a
pretty bad argument to get you fired.”

“
Yeah, I ended up calling
him a lazy jerk and told him he could never be as good a man as his
brother.”

Brice winced. Addison pushed further.
“I’m just not gettin’ the connection between you being fired and
ending up where you were last night.”

“
Oh,” said Timmons, “that’s
easy enough. I was drunk and figured I could go and apologize to
Mr. Danning, maybe get my job back. I almost did it too. I went up
to the door and knocked. I think I tried the knob, but it was
locked. Then I chickened out and went home. He’s never gonna give
me my job back anyway. Not after what I said.”

Addison mumbled under his breath. “I
don’t reckon he’ll be giving anybody’s job back now.”

“
What time was that, Mr.
Timmons?” Brice asked, ignoring his partner.

“
I was pretty far gone, but
I think it was late, like eleven o’clock or so. I feel like an
idiot.”

Brice tended to agree but didn’t say
so. “Mr. Timmons, are you aware that Claude Danning was killed last
night at about the same time you were in the
neighborhood?”

Timmons’ face dropped and his mouth
went slack. He couldn’t have shown more shock. Either he was a very
good actor or this was the first he’d heard of his former
employer’s death. “He’s dead? You’ve got to be kidding me. Is this
why you wanted me here? You think I killed him?”

“
We’re just checking out all
the angles.”

“
You’ve got to believe me. I
mean…I was mad but I’m already looking another job. I never even
went inside. I guess that’s why he didn’t answer the
door.”

“
Could be,” said Addison.
“Death tends to make you a bit anti-social.”

*****

They did a voluntary fingerprinting and
sent Dorsey Timmons home with the promise that they’d be watching
him. Just being in the area and holding a grudge against somebody
didn’t make you a murderer. “Saint Croix on a Cracker!” said
Addison. “I thought we had our guy but I don’t think he had the
smarts to do it. At least he didn’t last night. This thing looks
planned and our buddy, Timmons, was too soused to plan
anything.”

“
I don’t know, he could have
gotten drunk after he killed Danning.” Brice told him. “I wonder
how smart he is when he’s sober and not fighting a
hangover.”

“
I guess we’ll just have to
wait and find out. But as far as I can tell, he’d have to add on a
whole lot of IQ points to do what this guy did.”

*****

Saturday was not a rehearsal day, and
Glynnis found she had time to catch up on straightening the house.
She had to do something to keep busy and get her mind off the
Danning murder. She felt somehow responsible, even though her brain
told her she was no more responsible for his death than a rooster
was for the sunrise. Still, she had to think about other things or
go nuts in the process.