The Skeleton's Knee by Archer Mayor Read Free Book Online Page B

place?”
    “Only on that ambulance.”
    “You ever hear a gunshot?”
    “Nope.”
    “And you never suspected he’d been hit by a bullet?”
    “Nope.” He was shaking his head almost continuously now, as if trying to throw off where my questions were leading. I doubted at this point if the truth meant a whole lot to him. It was more important to pacify me, to get me off his back.
    For the moment, I would play along, although we had more ground to cover. “Mr. Coyner, some of my men’ll be coming to join me soon, to look through that house more carefully. We’ll try to be as unobtrusive as possible.” I reached into my pocket and handed him the search warrant.
    He glanced at it and handed it back without a word.
    He turned to leave again. I let him go a few feet before I called out a final question. “What did Fuller mean when he accused you of a breach of faith for calling that ambulance?”
    The old man looked back at me for a long, measured silence, his face as impenetrable as ever. “Don’t know; didn’t know what the hell he was talking about most of the time.”
    I doubted that, just as I doubted his relationship with Fuller was as uncomplicated as he made it out to be. But I had time. We would talk again.
    I returned to the cottage in the clearing, pausing this time to absorb fully the uniqueness of the garden. Every inch of its several acres had been manicured in some way, even if only to make it look untouched. Here and there, as if to give the emotions a rest, a patch or strip of ground had been left alone—pauses in a symphony of color and shape. But even those were cultured and contoured, free of weeds and distracting blemishes. In their emptiness, they were as complex and satisfying as the horticultural riot around them. I envisioned Fuller spending season after season out here, steeped in the pursuit of perfection, applying a near-fanatical concentration in his efforts.
    I re-entered the house, still feeling like I was on the wrong side of a glass wall, retracing my steps of a half hour ago. The place was basically as I’d found it, as attractive and sterile as a monastery cell.
    There was one difference, however, a change that hit me like a hammer, smashing the tidy myth of a crime long past.
    As I stepped away from the ladder after climbing to the sleeping loft, my eyes went to the one item I felt instinctively had the most to offer.
    But the chart over the bed had been removed.

5
    J.P. TYLER, WILLY KUNKLE , and Ron Klesczewski found me pacing in front of the cottage a half hour later, boiling over with anger and frustration.
    “Where the hell have you guys been?”
    Each of them reacted true to form at my outburst. Tyler silently raised his eyebrows, Kunkle smirked and ignored me, and Klesczewski looked worried.
    “We left as soon as you called,” he answered.
    “Did you see an old guy in a red-and-black-checked wool shirt when you drove up?”
    Tyler answered crisply, “Nope. Is this the place you want checked out?”
    I began walking quickly toward Coyner’s house. “Yeah, but wait ’til I get back. Ron, come with me. You guys just keep an eye out.”
    I heard Kunkle’s “So much for bustin’ our butts to get here” as I led Klesczewski back down the trail.
    “What’s goin’ on?” he asked in a tentative voice. Ron Klesczewski was my second-in-command, a senior detective sergeant still in his twenties, serious, sober, and hard-working, a little shy of using his authority, and a man in dire need of a good sense of humor.
    Not that I would have appreciated one had he chosen to display it now. “While I was using the phone to get you three up here, somebody ripped off a major piece of evidence.”
    “The guy in the wool shirt?”
    “His name’s Coyner. He owns this whole place. Did Harriet give you any idea of what’s going on here?”
    “Pretty much.”
    By the time I got to the edge of the woods, within sight of Coyner’s house, I’d cooled down considerably from my