Drowning Barbie by Frederick Ramsay Read Free Book Online Page A

least have a rough time frame and a phone number from the time to look up. He’d have it tested. No area code with the phone number, so it could be for anybody and from anywhere. Still, it was worth a try. The dead man’s clothes, the ME said, had been purchased in New York. That narrowed the search area somewhat. He’d have someone look for the phone number in the Connecticut, New York, Long Island, and New Jersey directories for the years the bill had been in circulation. Maybe something would jump out.
    Then there were the dental records the ME was cooking up. He should have an ID soon enough. There was no way all or any of this could be linked to either killing with certainty, but the fact they were found at the scene might lead to something. One hoped so.
    The techs had made a plaster cast of a footprint, boot print actually. It could be either that of a child or a woman and the tread indicated the boot had been recently purchased. He’d need to identify the maker and survey the local stores for a recent sale of that particular boot. So, progress. As soon as Billy and the intern returned, he’d get them cracking on this stuff.
    He stared at the yellowed photo, leaning back in his ancient oak desk chair which, mercifully, had responded to oil and lost its squeal.

Chapter Eight
    In mid-June the scent of hundreds of flowers and shrubs compete with each other for attention, particularly in the morning when the air is cooler and the dew still adorns the petals. In a few weeks or perhaps days and, if you haven’t planned your plantings carefully, only honeysuckle will be in bloom and by July, that will be the only relaxing scent anywhere. Aromatherapy is not a New Age invention. Gardeners have known about it for millennia.
    Ike and Ruth sat in his car on the parking lot of Stonewall Jackson Memorial Episcopal Church with the windows rolled down. They’d had their hour with The Reverend Blake Fisher and now stared through the windscreen seeing, but otherwise not appreciating, the flowers that bordered the graveled lot.
    â€œHe said ‘No.’ Do you believe that?” Ruth asked.
    â€œHe did, and I do.”
    â€œI can’t believe it. I mean, we have known him since he arrived as a wet-behind-the ears vicar with enough baggage to keep a shrink busy for a year. You solved a murder that practically shut his church down and could have sent him packing. And, as you pointed out, I very nearly made him a faculty member. Well, thank God that didn’t happen.’
    â€œSlight exaggeration on the baggage quotient there, Harris, and it’s his church. I guess he can do anything he wants. Maybe if you had given him an appointment of some sort, he’d have to have accommodated. Hell, you’re the president.”
    â€œNuts. How could he not marry us?”
    â€œListen, he does have a point.”
    â€œWhich was? Remind me.”
    â€œHe said a church wedding is a sacrament and not to be taken lightly. In his line of work I guess that’s important. He said he loved us both but he also knew that the wedding would be just for show and to cover our asses—actually he didn’t say asses—embarrassment at the circumstances of our foray into matrimony in Vegas. But doing it for us certainly did not represent a commitment by either of us to a religious point of view, lifestyle, or the sacrament involved.”
    â€œI don’t care. He could have done us a favor and ignored his scruples.”
    â€œHe could have, but let’s face it, he knew neither of us would ever darken his door again except for an occasional drop-in for someone else’s wedding or funeral. We are not members of his congregation, never will be, and I guess he didn’t want to turn his church into an East Coast version of the Budding Rose Wedding Chapel.”
    â€œHe didn’t say that.”
    â€œNot in so many words, no, but that was the gist.”
    â€œI don’t care,