Silent Witness by Collin Wilcox Read Free Book Online

moment passed, punctuated by another grunt, this one more decisive, signifying that the conversation was almost finished. “I already told you I don’t deal in theories. It’s a sucker’s game.”
    Accepting the autocratic disclaimer, resigned, Bernhardt nodded. Then: “Have you turned up any suspects?”
    “Afraid not. We talked to a couple of drifters, and a few local characters who’re mean enough or crazy enough to’ve done it, but we didn’t turn up anything.”
    “What about fingerprints? Blood types? Any match-ups from the computer in Sacramento?”
    Fowler shook his head. “There was lots of blood, but it was all the victim’s type. As for fingerprints—” He shook his head. “So far, nothing. There wasn’t any flesh under her fingernails, either, nothing easy like that.”
    “So—” Deliberately, Bernhardt let a calculated beat pass. Then, deftly planting the barb, he said, “So are you pretty much waiting to see what happens next?”
    Fowler’s china-blue eyes seemed to grow visibly smaller. Sunk in the smooth pink flesh of his cheeks and chin, his cupid’s mouth stirred, gently up-curving. Except for the coldness around the eyes, it might have been a smile. Fowler’s voice was very soft. “We plan to find the killer, Mr. Bernhardt. We aren’t waiting. We’re watching.”
    Signifying that he was about to leave, Bernhardt moved forward in his chair as he said, “I just have one more question, Sheriff.”
    “Oh?” Grunting, this time with the effort it required, Fowler leaned forward to grasp the contents of his “in” basket, which he began spreading out on the littered desk.
    “Is Dennis Price a suspect?”
    “Naturally,” Fowler answered. “The husband’s always the number-one suspect.”
    “But you aren’t—” He hesitated, once more searching for the phrase. “But you aren’t leaning on Price, I gather.”
    “As to that,” Fowler answered, “I have no comment.” He forked the black-rimmed reading glasses to his temples. Mouth pursed, eyes even smaller behind the glasses, he began reading. As before, his lips moved.

3:30 P.M.
    W ITH THE SUN SINKING toward the ridge of hills to the west, the light was softening. Between the pines and the oaks that shielded the Price home from the two-lane macadam county road that bordered the property, the late afternoon sunlight was slanting golden through the tree trunks. As Bernhardt down-shifted the Corolla, a fragment of memory flashed: summer camp in the Berkshires: the long, fragrant summer evenings, the mountains to the west turning purple as the sunset above them turned golden. Were those the best times of his life? Sometimes he thought they were. Every summer, the same group of noisy kids clustered around the Camp Chippewa sign in Grand Central Station. They piled into a decrepit train and began the journey to the Berkshires. With every mile, as inhibitions fell away, the volume of youthful voices rose. Camp Chippewa … his mother with her dancing … his grandparents with the big house in Jersey … his own huge room in his mother’s loft … The Nutcracker, during the holidays … they all defined him. Several times he’d tried to write about it all, a one-act play, a slice of life, maybe beginning at Grand Central Station, maybe on the train, to save a scene change, all those raucous kids, most of them Jewish. Even so young, some of them only seven or eight, they played the “What’s your father do?” game. He’d felt uneasy, somehow, that his father had been a bombardier, killed in the war. All the other kids had fathers who went to offices and had secretaries.
    It was his third time, driving slowly past the entrance to the tree-shaded lane that served both the house and the winery buildings. Decision time, the first decision of many, he suspected, in the matter of Janice Hale versus Dennis Price. Should he opt for the high profile, flashing the plastic ID, watching the eyes flicker when the words “private