Dead Meat (13 page)

Tiny went to him, and the two of them muttered together in grumbly voices for several minutes. Tiny jerked his head in my direction, and the sheriff peered beady-eyed at me. Then he nodded to Tiny and came over to where I was sitting.

“Mr. Coyne?” he said. His mouth barely moved when he spoke. He did not show his teeth.

“Yes.”

“I’m Thurl Harris. I’m the sheriff. You prob’ly already figured that out. Can we talk?”

“Sure.”

We went into Tiny’s office. Harris sat behind the desk. I took the same chair I had used when Tiny and I had our discussion with Rolando.

“So you’re a lawyer, Mr. Coyne.”

It was a statement, not a question. I nodded.

“From Boston, huh.”

“Yes.”

“And you found the body.”

“Right.” I lit a cigarette.

“What can you tell me about this?”

“This is a tricky line of questioning, Sheriff.”

He cocked his head and smiled, showing his teeth. They were terrible teeth—gapped, crooked, stained the color of tobacco juice. They were backwoods teeth. Rural, impoverished teeth. Thurl Harris’s teeth gave away his origins. “There’s no reason to try to raise my hackles, Mr. Coyne.”

I nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“It’s upsetting. So. Why don’t you try to tell me what you can.”

I took a deep breath and explained to him what I’d seen.

When I’d finished he nodded his head sympathetically. “How well did you know this Philip Rolando?”

“Just from being up here. He was looking for his brother, Ken. You know about his brother.”

“He’s missing. Did you talk with Rolando at all?”

“Sure. When he got here, he wanted to know all about his brother. Tiny asked me to be there.” I lifted my hands and let them fall. “So he asked about his brother. Natural enough. And I saw him again yesterday, out in the woods.”

“You went out with him?”

“No. I went out by myself.” I proceeded to tell Harris what had happened at the Indian burial ground.

“So Rolando was hiding by this dead moose, huh?”

“Yes. And he had a gun. A Colt Python .357, he told me it was. We talked about the possibility of his brother being killed by poachers. It seemed pretty farfetched.”

“And now this one is killed, too, with an arrow wound through the neck just like that dead old moose. What do you make out of that, Mr. Coyne?”

I shrugged. “If it had something to do with finding that moose yesterday…”

“Yes? What if it did?”

“Well,” I said, “I was there, too. Do you understand?”

He smiled. It was a quick, automatic expression, a facial shrug, without any humor in it. “I understand.” He stared at his hands, which were resting motionless on Tiny’s desk. Then he suddenly lifted his gaze to my face. “Did you kill him, Mr. Coyne?”

“No.”

“Who did?”

I hesitated. I thought of the argument Woody and Rolando had had the previous evening. “I don’t know,” I said. “But you’ll hear about an argument Rolando had with the Indian guide. I can guarantee that Woody didn’t kill him.”

“An argument, huh?”

I nodded. “I came in on the tail end of it. Look, Sheriff. Woody’s no killer. I’m sure of that.”

“Nobody’s a killer, Mr. Coyne.” He sighed. “It seems to me that whoever killed that moose just might’ve killed our Mr. Rolando. Wouldn’t you say so?”

“It’s a workable hypothesis, I suppose.”

“Of course,” continued Harris, “if someone wanted to kill Rolando, the argument with the Indian and the story of the moose might’ve been just a convenience, if you follow me.”

“Pin it on Woody,” I said. “Sure.”

Harris cocked his head at me. “You’re pretty sure the Indian didn’t do it, huh?”

I nodded. “Just from knowing him.”

“What do you make of the fact that this moose was at the Indian graveyard?”

I shrugged. “Are you suggesting something?”

“Another reason for the Indian to be offended, maybe.”

“Not Woody,” I said. “That wouldn’t offend Woody.”

He leaned back in his chair. “I value your opinion,” he said. He sat forward again and peered at me. “You okay, Mr. Coyne?”

I shrugged. “I guess so.”

“Good. Because I need your help.”

“Okay.”

“I’ve got a trooper out there by the body. I’ve got another one out in the big room there. The coroner will be coming by jeep. Should be here in an hour or so. There’ll be some forensic guys along about then, too. In the meantime I need to talk with everybody here. I’d like for you to be present. Okay? Just so nothing comes back on us later, assuming we can come up with something. Do you follow me?”

“Makes sense,” I said.

“Good.” He got up and went to the door. The state trooper came over, and they whispered for a minute. Then Harris went back to his seat behind Tiny’s desk.

And one by one he interrogated every person at Raven Lake Lodge. He had a gentle, almost apologetic way of doing it. He never raised his voice or leveled an accusation. And yet he seemed to treat every person as an equally likely suspect.

He queried them on their whereabouts the night the moose was probably killed. He learned that anyone could have walked the hundred yards or so to where the lodge trucks were parked and driven around the lake and back without being noticed. The keys were always in the ignitions. From the lodge nobody could hear them starting up. Anybody might have killed the moose.

But no one admitted doing that.

He asked them where they were the night of Rolando’s murder. Some of them had been together. Most of the guests shared a cabin with at least one other person.

The guides, except for Woody, bunked together and could account for each other’s whereabouts.

Woody readily admitted the anger he felt at what he believed to be Rolando’s insult. He said he’d spent the evening in his cabin reading and fell asleep early. No, he didn’t recall seeing anybody after he walked away from Rolando at happy hour. He missed dinner. He often missed dinner, he said. And no, by Jesus, he said, he never killed no cow moose in the springtime, this year or any year.

The newly married Fishers had been with each other. Mrs. Fisher blushed when Harris asked what they had been doing, and her husband’s Adam’s apple bobbed.

The two older couples had played bridge by lantern light until midnight, when they went to bed.

Tiny and Bud and Gib had been together until they retired.

Polly admitted that she had seen Rolando briefly after dinner, but heedful of her mother’s feelings, she had gone to bed early. Harris queried her closely, but she didn’t have much to contribute.

The three guys from Boston said they played poker late in the cabin they shared. They had done quite a bit of drinking, they confessed. When they finally went to bed, they slept the sleep of the drunk. No one had seen or heard anything.

Everybody had heard Rolando and Woody argue. Although nobody reported it exactly the same way, all agreed that Woody had demanded an apology and had received none.

By the time the last person had been questioned, the coroner and a gang of other policemen had arrived, and the sheriff sent them off on a variety of chores. All the guests and guides and other Raven Lake folks remained in the lodge.

Harris sat back and sighed. “What do you think, Mr. Coyne?”

“Anybody could have done it, really,” I said. “Some of them don’t have anybody to corroborate their story. Others—well, if it was the work of more than one person, then they could just be covering for each other. But there doesn’t seem to be anybody with a sufficient motive to kill Rolando. Hell, nobody even knew the guy. He just got here night before last.”

“What about the Indian? He had a motive.”

“Not a motive to kill.”

He nodded. “What about the missing brother?”

“Obviously he could have been killed, too.”

“Obviously.”

There was a knock on the door. Harris said, “Yeah? What is it?”

A trooper pushed open the door and glanced at me. “Thurl, we’ve found something.”

Harris said, “You can come in.”

The trooper entered the room and stood stiffly in front of the desk. “Shut the door,” said Harris. “And sit down.”

The trooper did as he was instructed. He was carrying something in a big red handkerchief. He put it on the desk in front of the sheriff. “We found this.”

Harris gingerly unfolded the handkerchief. I sat forward to look. It was a hunting knife. There was blood caked on the handle. The sheriff glanced sharply up at the policeman. “Where did you find this?”

“In the Indian’s cabin. The first place we looked. Logical, see? I mean, since the dead guy was scalped, you think about the Indian first, right?”

Harris nodded impatiently. “Did you find anything else?”

The trooper glanced at me and then looked at the sheriff and grinned. “Matter of fact, yeah. He had a crossbow under his bunk.”

“Did you look in the other cabins?” I said.

The trooper opened his mouth, but Harris quickly said, “Don’t look like there’s a need, does there?”

I shook my head slowly back and forth. “Are you kidding?”

Harris shrugged.

“Do you have search warrants?” I persisted.

“Don’t need ’em. Tiny said we could look. They’re his cabins. Right?”

“Jesus Christ,” I muttered.

Harris peered at me, then looked up at the trooper. “Bring the Indian back in here.”

The trooper got up and left the room. Harris smiled carefully. “Looks like we’ve got something here; after all, now, don’t it?”

I shook my head. “Not much.”

“You’ve got to admit, Mr. Coyne, that the evidence is what you city lawyers would call compelling.”

“We city lawyers would call it circumstantial.”

“A couple of murder weapons—”

“You don’t know that.”

“—and a big fight the night of the murder—”

“An argument, not a fight. A disagreement.”

“In my book,” said Harris, “they add up to something.”

“In my book,” I said, “they add up to a case of racial discrimination.”

“Oh, Christ,” he said.

“You better go carefully,” I said.

He smiled without showing his teeth. “Oh, I’ll sure be careful, believe me. I know how to be careful.”

A moment later Woody came into the room. “Have a seat, please,” said Harris to him. Woody remained standing.

Harris shrugged. “Explain his rights to him, Mr. Coyne.”

“You,” I said.

Harris grinned. “Wanna see if I screw it up, huh?”

“Right.”

He did it perfectly, then looked at me. I nodded and spoke to Woody. “Do you understand all that?” I said to him.

He stared straight ahead and did not respond.

“Woody,” I said, “you have been charged with a crime. You don’t have to answer any questions. I recommend that you don’t. I can serve as your attorney for now. If you want, I’ll stay with you through this. Okay?”

He turned his head and looked impassively at me. Then he nodded his head once.

“Good,” said Harris. “So you understand all your rights. But listen. If you’ll just answer some questions, maybe we can clear this all up. What do you say?”

Woody neither spoke nor nodded. His face was stone, stolid and unyielding.

Harris shrugged. “Do you recognize this?” He opened up the handkerchief and showed Woody the knife.

Woody gave no sign that he had even heard the question. He didn’t glance at the knife.

“Do you own a crossbow?”

No response.

“Tell me again where you were last night.”

“He already told you that,” I said.

“He told me he went to bed early and slept all night. I want him to think some more about it.”

Woody made no reply.

“Did you kill Rolando?”

“He’s not going to answer that,” I said. “He said he didn’t before. Look, Sheriff. Aren’t you going to search the other cabins? What does the coroner say? This is very premature, I think.”

Harris ignored me. “You are under arrest for this murder,” he said to Woody. “Mr. Coyne, do you want to come along?”

I touched Woody on the arm. “Do you want me to?”

His seamed old face turned to look at me. I could read nothing in his expression. “No,” he said. “I know a good lawyer. An Indian lawyer.”

“Woody, I hope you don’t think…”

But he turned away from me to face the sheriff. He held his hands out in front of himself, palms together. Harris stood up and came around from behind the desk. “I won’t handcuff you,” he said. “It’s not necessary.”

He opened the door, and a moment later the trooper appeared. “Take him down to the plane,” said Harris. “There’s no need to hold a weapon on him.”

Woody left, and the sheriff turned to me. “I appreciate your help, Mr. Coyne.” He held his hand to me.

I did not take it. “You’ve got the wrong man.”

“We’ll see.” He shrugged and dropped his hand.

“I’m telling you. Woody didn’t do it. It’s obvious he’s been framed.”

“Well, let’s see, now.” He gouged at his ear with his forefinger. “We’ve got a dead body, so I figure we’ve got ourselves a crime. We’ve got opportunity. Looks like we even got a couple weapons. Now, as for motive, I know for a fact that Indians’ll do most anything when they think they’ve been insulted, and by God I’ve got a whole roomful of folks who’ll attest to the fact that this Indian thought he got himself insulted. That’s not even to mention the fact that this dead guy might’ve profaned a place the Indian thinks is sacred. I dunno, I think maybe I got enough to take the man in. We’ll see what happens after that.”

“Have you investigated a lot of murders, Sheriff?”

He lifted his eyebrows. “Have you, Mr. Coyne?”

“I’m not a law officer.”

He smiled. “Let’s put it this way. I’ve investigated a hell of a lot of homicides. Not a deer season goes by but what we don’t have six or eight fellas get themselves shot, mostly by someone else. Usually by their friends or relations. We investigate ’em all. So, yes, I guess I’ve had my share.”

“This is different.”

“Maybe.”

“That knife and crossbow could easily have been planted in Woody’s cabin. And did it occur to you that somebody might scalp the man precisely to make people think an Indian did it?”