5 - Choker: Ike Schwartz Mystery 5 by Frederick Ramsay Read Free Book Online Page B

year, and a blow-up of a bit of shoreline.”
    “I’d need to know where on the shore.”
    “Right, hold on a minute.” Ike opened his laptop, clicked on Google Earth, and found the scrap of beach where Trent had indicated he’d seen the tail piece. He rattled off the coordinates. “I need the pictures for the three days following Nick’s disappearance.”
    “Anything else?”
    “Yeah. If your sister has not reset the time stamp on her answering machine, I want to know how accurate it is compared to the atomic clock.”
    “My sister’s answering machine is important?”
    “Very. I want to know exactly how many minutes and seconds elapsed from the time Nick dropped off the radar to when he made that call. That could produce a smaller area for us to look at.”
    “You’re onto something, Ike.”
    “I’m just digging, Charlie. It may be something and it may be nothing. Stay tuned. Oh, and light a candle for me, while you’re at it.”
    “Candle?”
    “In church. You said you were—”
    Charlie hung up.
    ***
    Frank spread the photos the evidence techs had provided him of the sinkhole. He laid them out on his desk and opened a topographical map. The sinkhole appeared obvious on that map. He marked the spot where he’d seen the bones and the path up the hill, and then down to the bottom of the hole. Then he tried to place the fire pits. He didn’t know why, but he figured since they were equidistant, it might be important. He squinted at the photos, searched for and found a magnifying glass. Next to one fire pit he saw what looked like a surveyor’s marker. He drew a circle and then spaced the other four in a pentagon. He drew in the bench at the center.
    His mother called him to dinner. She wanted to tell him about Esther Peepers’ cat and the missing silver from the church.
    Essie and his brothers, Billy and Henry, were already at the table. Essie’s face seemed locked in a chronic blush, but she had her hundred-watt smile on high beam. Apparently, Ma had filled her in on the probable cause of her bathroom addiction.
    There would be a celebration that he guessed would last for the whole year. Grandbaby, Ma had said.
    Well, good.

Chapter 10
    Blake had interviewed the altar guild members after church. His confrontation with Barbara Starkey had taken time and he missed a few, but he felt certain that one of them knew where or how the silverware might have disappeared. The following morning, he called the Sheriff’s office. By then, Frank Sutherlin had already heard about the possible theft from his mother. He said he’d look at the safe and check the building security that morning. Blake had to smile. The church, as everyone except Frank seemed to know, was a sieve when it came to security. He’d ordered the locks changed once the previous year, much to the consternation of over half the congregation, who believed that they had an intrinsic, if not canonical, right to possess a key to their church. Within six months, the number of keys in circulation had returned to, indeed, exceeded the original number, and any hope of security went away.
    The unhappy truth was that within their memories, churches had never been locked. In the past, sacred places were considered safe from pilfering and petty theft. Not so anymore. Now churches routinely locked their doors and in many cases had installed elaborate security systems. Blake knew of one that had a pressure sensor placed under the church’s expensive antique chalice, which had been on display in the side chapel. Lift it from its spot, and it triggered an earsplitting siren. One night a thief stole both the chalice and the alarm system that went with it.
    Frank Sutherlin was as soft-spoken as his mother was loud. He looked at the safe, declared it pointless to take fingerprints, and said he’d ask around. He suggested a preliminary call to the insurance company might be in order.
    “You know anybody missing a cat?” he added.
    “A cat? What kind of