Buffalo Bill's Defunct (9781564747112) by Sheila Simonson Read Free Book Online

mother’s death the year he turned ten.
    Hazel Guthrie had not been a demonstrative woman, but he had never been in doubt of her affection. After a few years of post-adolescent revolt, he hadn’t doubted his affection for her, either. They had drawn closer in the last ten years of her life, when he came back to Klalo.
    He fiddled with the recorder, then turned it on. “Resuming at eleven-twenty.” He took Ms. McLean through her arrival in Klalo, her retrieval of the garage key, and her discovery of the rock drawing, with attention to the state of the garage floor and the position of the plywood lid.
    “The victim’s hand was partially exposed when I saw the open doors,” he added. “Weren’t you aware of it earlier?”
    She shuddered. “No. I thought moles had been digging, or rats, but I didn’t know why. There was a bad smell, like a dead animal. My God, how awful.” Tears came to her eyes, and she blinked hard. “I thought there might be a dead cat, something like that.” She sniffed and dug in her purse for a tissue. “Sorry.”
    He waited for her to compose herself. “Okay, thanks, Ms. McLean. Interview ended.” He glanced at the kitchen clock and added the time.
    She blew her nose. “You’re very formal.”
    “I was being official. Thanks, Meg.” He rose and stretched. “And thanks for the coffee.”
    “That’s it?”
    “For the time being.” He slipped the recorder into his jacket pocket and gestured toward the living room where Linda and Jake were moving around audibly. “They’ll be at it awhile yet, and Deputy Jones is checking out the backyard.” He explained why.
    “I guess that makes sense.” She sighed. “This is going to be a nightmare, isn’t it? And to think I just wanted to settle in peacefully and get acquainted before I start work. ‘The best-laid plans…’”
    He dipped into memory. “‘Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are, it might have been.’”
    She laughed and he found himself laughing, too. “Gran and I used to do that, cap each other’s clichés.”
    “The last bastion against Alzheimer’s.”
    “That, at least, was a problem she never had.”
    She said ruefully, “I was thinking of my own descent into oblivion.”

M AY I speak to Charlotte Tichnor?” Rob identified himself, leaned back in the chair, and wriggled his stiff shoulders. He was phoning from home so he’d be handy if something turned up in the search next door.
    The woman at the Seattle end of the line said, “She’s at Harrison Hot Springs for the rest of the week. This is her daughter, Carol Tichnor. Are you calling about my grandfather’s house?”
    “What makes you say that?”
    “The house is our only connection with Latouche County these days. We sold it in August.”
    The royal we irritated Rob. “Your mother sold it, certainly.”
    “She’s out of town,” she repeated.
    “I talked to the realtor who handled the sale. She told me someone borrowed the key to the garage after Ms. McLean’s offer was accepted.” Rob took a sip of cold coffee and his stomach roiled. He supposed he should eat lunch, though the idea wasn’t appealing.
    “That was before the sale closed. We thought some family things might be left in there, so I asked the office to mail us the key. I dropped by, but the garage was empty, so I gave the key back.”
    “There should have been two keys, padlock in front, regular lock in back.”
    She hesitated. “Just one key.”
    “Did you mail it back?” He fiddled with his ballpoint, clicking the nib in and out.
    “I put it into an envelope and slipped it through the agency mail slot on my way out of town.”
    He jotted a note, probably illegible. “I see. Did you enter the garage?”
    “No, I just stuck my head in the back.”
    Meg had said the key didn’t work in that door. Rob noted the discrepancy. “When was that?”
    “Oh, I don’t know. First week of August. Must have been a Friday.”
    “You entered the back door?”
    She gave