Here Lies a Wicked Man, Chapter 33 – and Get the Book Free

“WHAT’S ALL THIS?” BRADLEY ASKED. HE’D STOPPED by to wash his clothes before the evening performance at Carey Theater.

Across the top of a three-column grid on a large sheet of paper, Booker had penned the headings: 1) Motive: Why kill Chuck? 2) Means: Can they shoot? 3) Opportunity: Where were they? Now he was transferring the napkin list of suspects.

“After you left the inquest this morning, the show heated up a tad. Turns out Fowler may’ve been murdered,” Booker explained. He related his visit with the coroner.

“You have Jeremy’s whole family on that chart,” Bradley protested.

“Along with Melinda and Gary Spiner.” Booker added Ramsey Crawford’s name. “Unfortunately, most murders are done by a family member.”

Bradley’s black t-shirt and jeans seemed to fit better than the ones he’d worn at the courthouse. Maybe theater techies hadn’t adopted the “slouch” look. He flopped in a chair, challenge etched in his scowl. “So, what’s this chart supposed to prove?”

“Doesn’t prove anything, but it’s a method for sorting out possibilities. The sheriff and the coroner narrowed the time of death to Sunday between four pm, when Chuck left Melinda’s house, and eight pm, when darkness takes over the woods in August. Even an expert bowman can’t hit a target he can’t see.”

“He could use infrared.”

Booker had considered that. “Infrared lighting would certainly extend the time frame, but it isn’t exactly standard archery equipment.”

“So?”

“I’ll find out if the Gilded Trout stocks it.”

“The murderer could’ve bought the stuff in Houston or Dallas or online. Can’t the sheriff investigate all the suspects’ recent purchases?”

Possibly, even with the limited manpower Grammon County could invest. Hoping Bradley would hang out so they could noodle ideas together, Booker made a notation in the “opportunity” column.

Under “motive,” he’d filled in every line, mostly with guesswork, not fact. He’d begun to think every resident in the county harbored a reason to kill Fowler. The man had incited people to passion.

Sarabelle’s motive, of course, was to preserve her status as Fowler’s wife and retain control of the family money. In Texas, half the estate became hers automatically unless a prenuptial agreement existed. In light of the thirty years they’d been married, that possibility seemed slim. Booker wondered if Chuck had left a will distributing his half of the estate. He wrote “will” in parentheses beside Sarabelle’s name.

“What happens when you fill in all the blanks? Everybody gathers at the lodge and you make like one of those closet detectives?”

“Closet?”

“Guessing who killed the dead guy behind the locked door.”

“Oh. Closed-room detectives.” Booker hadn’t heard the phrase put exactly that way. “More likely, Sheriff Ringhoffer will make his decision, gain an arrest warrant, and take the killer to jail.”

Killer, when applied to the people on his list, sounded melodramatic. Could any of them actually be a killer? Sarabelle Fowler? Melinda McCray? Gary Spiner? Jeremy? Aaron?

Aaron had wanted his father to invest in the auto dealership, and Fowler had refused. With his father dead, Aaron might inherit substantially, unless Fowler cut him out of the will.

Even then, the boy might figure his mother was an easier touch. He wrote “$40K” under “motive.”

Beside Jeremy’s name, Booker placed a big question mark.

“You don’t really suspect him?” Bradley made it sound like an accusation.

“He’s in the equation until we can rule him out. Jeremy wanted to study theater, while his father insisted he learn the sporting goods business. Maybe he refused to continue paying the boy’s tuition.”

“That sucks, Dad.”

Bradley grabbed a marker and underscored Melinda’s name. “What about her?”

“She’s a suspect. The problem is, she didn’t gain anything from Fowler’s death. Just the opposite, Melinda had hoped to marry the Fowler millions.”

“But she admitted he changed his mind. Maybe she couldn’t take rejection.”

“Seems to me she’d try charming him into reconsidering.” Booker had felt the persuasion of those charms first hand. “But if that didn’t work…” Under “motive,” he added “vengeance.”

“Good.” Bradley used a red marker to underline Ramsey Crawford’s name.

“Wasn’t he that man at the funeral with Ms. McCray?” When Booker nodded, he said, “Looked plenty dangerous. Where was he during the murder?”

“I don’t believe the sheriff has interviewed Crawford yet.”

“Why not?”

Booker bracketed Crawford’s name in black. “Sheriff Ringhoffer seems somewhat overwhelmed.”

“Coroner Birdwell should make the sheriff do his job. He can’t make you do it, can he?”

“I could quit, I suppose.” Once a quitter, always a quitter.

“Then tell him you won’t do it.”

Consulting the napkin list, Booker added Pete Littlehawk’s name to the chart. “I only agreed to lend the sheriff a hand.”

“It’s dangerous!” Bradley’s face flushed. “The killer might come after you next.”

Booker preferred not to think about that. He stared at Littlehawk’s name. Emaline had protested that he wouldn’t slap a gnat, but Pete and Chuck had competed for prize money, and in Littlehawk’s own words, Fowler didn’t like losing.

“Son, Chuck Fowler’s death was a crime of passion and circumstance.” Reluctantly, Booker added Roxanna’s name to the chart and wrote “debt” beside it. “Coming after me would be non-passionate, premeditated murder, requiring a completely different personality. Don’t you think?”

Bradley drew a red star beside Crawford’s name. “Passion or not, I think anybody would find it easier to kill the second time.”

True. “And Crawford’s a stranger, therefore the most appealing suspect. We don’t like to believe that people we know would commit detestable crimes.”

“Dad, I don’t know these other people, but Jeremy doesn’t belong on your list, and that dude Crawford looks like trouble.”

Booker had to agree, yet personal bias led to fallacious thinking. He stared at Roxanna’s name on the grid. No denying her anger about Fowler reneging on their deal, but after his death, Roxanna’s deferred down-payment balance became common knowledge. Eventually, she’d have to pay the estate, so what could she have gained by killing him? And for ten-thousand dollars?

The power of money, however, was always relative.

“You brought up a key factor,” he told Bradley. “Every suspect on our list had both motive and means.” He filled the grid’s “means” column completely with ditto marks and moved his marker to “opportunity,” the third column. “Which person had no alibi for the hours between four and eight on the afternoon of August sixth?”

The doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it.” Bradley hopped up. “I have to head out, anyway.”

“Ride safely.” Booker studied the blanks in the third column. At the inquest, Sarabelle had said she was at home all afternoon, alone. Aaron was in Lowetta, and Jeremy was at the theater in Bryan, working on sets. Both boys’ alibis should be easy enough to check. Melinda also claimed to be at home, alone. And Roxanna—

Sheriff Ringhoffer’s silver pointer flicked the air, landing on the space beside Melinda’s name.

Startled, Booker gritted his teeth, refusing to acknowledge the sheriff’s childish antic. Outside, Bradley’s motorcycle rumbled to life.

“That woman,” Ringhoffer said softly, trailing the pointer around Melinda’s name, “does not sit around waiting for the phone to ring.”

True enough. Booker schooled his irritation into more productive channels.

“Melinda said she and Chuck argued before he went home around three on Sunday morning. Then Sarabelle came to her house before church and threatened to see her and Chuck dead before she’d ever divorce him—”

“All we have is her word that any of it is true,” Ringhoffer said.

“So you’re favoring the notion that Melinda, not one to sit around waiting to hear what her future holds, went to the woods to talk to Chuck?” Booker said.

“Mr. Fowler was known to be stubborn once he’d made up his mind.”

“So later that day, they argue again. When Fowler leaves, Melinda follows him to his target practice in the woods. She wheedles, Fowler stonewalls. When he refuses to make a commitment, Melinda grabs an arrow and strikes out in anger?”

“A woman scorned,” Ringhoffer said, shaking his head and frowning. “Perhaps Ms. McCray didn’t intend to kill him. But seeing what she’d done, she tried to cover up by rolling the body into the lake. Along the way, the arrow shaft breaks off and drifts ashore.”

Booker envisioned Melinda’s fury at seeing her rich lover squirm off her hook.

“The body eventually floats up, catches on a nail under my pier and Pup finds it.” All in all, not a bad summation of the facts.

“A pretty theory. Too bad we have no evidence.” Ringhoffer looked pained.

Since Melinda wasn’t a citizen of Grammon County, Booker suspected the sheriff would be pleased if she turned out to be the killer.

“Wouldn’t that same scenario apply to Sarabelle?” He circled her name in red marker.

“The lady told us her husband had changed his mind.”

“About Melinda, not about divorce.” Booker jotted two more alibis on the chart. Gary Spiner claimed he was at the Gilded Trout, and Roxanna was at the inn.

Studying the grid, Booker was reminded of logic problems. If Mr. Green washes his car on Saturday, and Mr. Brown lives in the house with red shutters, who owns the zebra? In college, he’d been a whiz at solving those brainteasers, just as he’d been damn good at uncovering white-collar crime. Pulling the pieces together, moving them around for the right fit, identifying the missing particles, Booker couldn’t deny he enjoyed the game.

“Mr. Krane, while my deputies and I question the suspects’ neighbors and anyone who might verify their alibis, why don’t you conduct follow-up interviews with the suspects themselves?”

With only a day left to meet his deadline for Southern Affairs, Booker resented covering ground already trod, but reluctantly he nodded. “I suppose I might find holes in their stories.”

“Except for Ms. Larkspur.”

Booker stiffened. “What about Ms. Larkspur?”

“I’m not doubting your professionalism, Mr. Krane, but considering your personal relationship with the lady, I’ll handle her interview.”

Booker didn’t like that at all. Roxanna was a newcomer, therefore a prime target for a sheriff who wanted to keep peace with his constituents. And if Ringhoffer saw the photograph on her office wall suggesting a long-time acquaintance with Fowler, Roxanna would leap to the top of the official suspect list.

“Roxanna’s a Masonville resident,” he protested. So were Melinda and Crawford. “Which falls outside Grammon County jurisdiction.”

“Grammon, Leon, Madison—officers in our area recognize professional courtesy, Mr. Krane.”

Booker’s stomach churned up the meal he’d eaten earlier. Conflict always wreaked havoc with his digestion. Roxanna wasn’t as fragile as she might appear, but he didn’t want her treated roughly.

“Sheriff, suppose we question the lady together?” Booker proposed, drawing himself to a six-foot-five glower. There were times when bullying a smaller man made perfect sense.

Ringhoffer stepped back and whipped the silver pointer shut with a snap.

“Very well. We’ll meet at the inn tomorrow after brunch.” He handed Booker a small spiral tablet. “These are my notes for your follow up. I can see myself out, Mr. Krane.”

Had that been too easy? Booker wondered if calling on Roxanna together was what the sheriff had in mind all along. The man certainly didn’t reveal much.

“What about Crawford and Littlehawk?” he asked. “Have you talked with them?”

Ringhoffer shook his head. Shoving a hand into his pocket, he pulled out a shiny new quarter.

“I’ll take one, you take the other, then we’ll swap for follow-up.”

“Sounds fair. Heads, Crawford, tails, Littlehawk.”

The sheriff flipped the quarter.

Booker called it and, naturally, drew first round with Ramsey Crawford.

Come back next Monday for the next chapter in Here Lies a Wicked Man.

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