Gray Ghost (7 page)

“On account of no blood on the steps or the floor.”

“Right. So the question is—”

“Why was he here?” said Calhoun.

The sheriff arched his eyebrows. “You tell me,” he said. He reached out, picked up his mug, took a sip of coffee, and put the mug down.

“I didn’t expect him,” said Calhoun. “He never called or said he was coming. I didn’t know he even knew where I lived.”

“So why would he come here?” said the sheriff.

Calhoun shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Suppose he came against his will.”

“In that case,” said Calhoun, “there had to’ve been more than one killer. One to drive their car so they could get out of here when they were done, and one in Mr. Vecchio’s vehicle, which they left here.”

“If Vecchio came to see you, then it could’ve been just one shooter who followed him. Vecchio came up on your deck to wait for you, and the shooter came up and plugged him.”

“If it was that way,” said Calhoun, “Vecchio must’ve known the guy who did it.”

The sheriff nodded. “He just sat there and watched the killer walk up to him and shoot him.”

“Like he wasn’t surprised to see him.” Calhoun hesitated. “Like they planned to meet here, maybe.”

The sheriff nodded. “Hmm. Interesting.” He looked up at the sky for a minute. “The big question is why.”

“Why kill Mr. Vecchio, you mean? Or why would they want to meet here ?”

The sheriff shrugged. “Both.”

“You asking me?”

“I’m asking you to speculate,” said the sheriff.

“As far as them planning to meet here,” said Calhoun, “that one’s got me stumped. I mean, the only reason to do that would be to talk to me, and I don’t know why they’d want to do that. Seems more likely that Mr. Vecchio came here to see me, decided to wait here on the deck for me to get home, and the other guy followed him.”

The sheriff nodded. “So why would someone want to kill this man ?”

“Well,” said Calhoun, “he was a writer. He stumbled upon that corpse out on Quarantine Island. Maybe he was researching it and figured something out, and—”

“And the killer got wind of it…”

“And followed him here and shot him.”

“To shut him up,” said the sheriff. “So maybe Vecchio came here to see you, tell you what he’d figured out about that body.”

“Why would he do that?” said Calhoun. “I mean, why me? I only met him that once. It’s not like we were best friends.”

“Well,” said the sheriff, “the other possibility is that the shooter’or shooters—brought him here specifically to your place to kill him.”

“If that’s the case,” said Calhoun, “it means they got some issue with me.”

The sheriff shrugged. “Or maybe they just figured they could pin it on you.”

“As I understand it,” said Calhoun, “for me to be a good murder suspect, I’d have to have the means, the motive, and the opportunity to kill the man. All three.”

The sheriff shrugged. “I already told you, Stoney. You’re not my suspect.”

Calhoun got up from the table, went to the deck railing, and looked out over the yard. He was hoping to see Ralph come trotting into the area that was lit by the floodlights.

“He’ll be back,” said the sheriff.

“I hope to hell you’re right.”

After a minute, the sheriff said, “One way or the other, Stoney, you are involved in this.”

“Because Mr. Vecchio’s body is here.”

“Yes.”

“I ain’t all that worried about it.”

At that moment Calhoun heard a distant siren. He listened to it grow louder, and then he heard the distinctive sounds of four different vehicles approaching on the paved road, then slowing down, and then one by one turning into his driveway.

“Here come the troops,” he said.

“Gonna be a damn zoo,” said the sheriff. “Try to behave yourself.”

Headlights came dancing through the trees, and then four vehicles pulled into the yard and parked at cockeyed angles. There were three dark SUVs and one state police cruiser. A radio crackled from inside at least one of the vehicles.

Calhoun stood there at the deck railing and watched the various homicide officials get out. He recognized the tall redheaded medical examiner, Dr. Surry, who they called Sam. She was lugging an old-fashioned black bag, as she had when she showed up on Quarantine Island. One of the state police detectives and a couple of the foren-sics people from the other body on Quarantine Island were there, too. Three of them—an Asian man with three cameras hanging from his neck, a bearded man wearing a necktie and a sport coat, and a uniformed state police trooper’he had never seen before.

Calhoun never forgot a face.

The sheriff said, “You better come with me.”

Calhoun followed the sheriff down the steps to the parking area.

The others gathered in a kind of semicircle around them. “This is Mr. Calhoun,” said the sheriff. “This is his place. He’s the one who found the body, which is up there.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the deck.

The trooper came over to Calhoun. “Come with me, please, sir.”

Calhoun looked at the sheriff, who gave him a little nod. So he followed the trooper over to his cruiser.

The trooper opened the back door. “Get in, please.”

“My dog’s gone missing,” said Calhoun. “I’d rather stay outside so he can find me. I ain’t going to run away on you.”

“Get in,” said the trooper.

“At least open the damn window so I can talk to my dog if he comes looking for me.”

The trooper nodded. He had a smooth-shaved face, sharp blue eyes, a square jaw, and perfect teeth. Calhoun wondered if they recruited state police troopers based on how well they looked the part.

Calhoun climbed into the backseat of the cruiser. It was separated from the front by steel mesh. The trooper got in behind the wheel and rolled the rear windows halfway down. When he got out, the doors locked with a click.

The trooper leaned against the side of the cruiser. All the others had gathered around the sheriff. He seemed to be doing most of the talking. Calhoun couldn’t hear what any of them was saying. It occurred to him that they were all speaking quietly on his account.

After a few minutes, the medical examiner, Dr. Surry, went up onto the deck with her black bag. The young Asian man with three cameras strapped around his neck followed behind her. The sheriff and one of the others went over to Vecchio’s Subaru. There were a couple of other vehicles parked between the cruiser and the Subaru, so Calhoun couldn’t see what they were doing, but he assumed they were searching it for clues.

The rest of them remained in the parking area, talking among themselves and smoking cigarettes and cigars and shuffling their feet.

Fifteen or twenty minutes passed. Camera flashes kept blinking from up on the deck. Dr. Surry and the Asian man came down. They spoke with the others for a few minutes. Then the doctor came over to the cruiser. “Let him out,” she said to the trooper. “I want to talk to him.”

The trooper unlocked the doors with the remote on his key-chain. Then he came around to Calhoun’s door and opened it.

Calhoun got out and looked all around, hoping to spot Ralph, but Ralph was nowhere to be seen.

The sheriff was leading two of the police officials up the steps onto the deck. A couple of others were prowling around the house with flashlights.

The doctor came over and held out her hand. “Mr. Calhoun,” she said, “I’m Samantha Surry, the medical examiner. They call me Sam.”

Calhoun took her hand. Her grip was firm like a man’s. “Glad to meet you, Doctor.”

Freckles were spattered across the bridge of her nose. She wore a little subtle eye makeup, which looked good on her. She had a shy smile, as if she and Calhoun shared a private secret.

“Let’s go sit,” she said. She turned and went to the edge of the parking area, where Calhoun and Lyle had moved some big boulders out of the way back when they cleared the land for the house, and sat on one of them. She placed her black bag on the ground beside her. She was wearing black pants and a gray hooded sweatshirt. Her tangly red hair was tied back with something that looked like a shoelace. She was wearing no jewelry.

Calhoun sat beside her.

She looked up at the state trooper, who had followed them and was standing there at parade rest watching them. “Give us some space, Officer, would you?”

He shrugged and wandered back to his cruiser.

She turned to Calhoun. “Your dog’s gone missing, huh?”

He nodded. “It ain’t like him.”

“I hope he turns up,” she said. “I love dogs. I’ve got a dog myself. Little springer named Quincy. After the old doctor show on TV. He’s pretty good on woodcock.”

“You hunt?” said Calhoun.

She nodded. “A little. When I can find the time. Birds, mostly. Grouse, woodcock, ducks. Quincy loves to retrieve ducks. What kind of dog you got?”

“Ralph’s a Brittany,” said Calhoun. It occurred to him that Dr. Surry was trying to put him at ease so he’d be off guard when she asked him clever questions, but he didn’t really care. He liked talking with her, and he was pretty sure that he’d never been off guard in his life. “Pointing dog. Damn good hunter. It’s what he lives for. Bird smells and food. I don’t take him out enough.”

She touched his arm. “He’ll show up.” She cleared her throat. “I got a couple questions for you.”

Calhoun nodded.

“Did you touch that man’s body?”

“Nope.”

“You didn’t even touch his skin or the blood?”

“No. I know better than to do that.”

“You didn’t go through his pockets?”

“ ‘Course not.”

She nodded. “You knew him, though, right?”

“I took him fishing a couple days ago.”

“When you found that body out on Quarantine Island.”

“That’s right.”

“Any idea what he was carrying in his pockets that day?”

Calhoun thought for a minute. “He had a cell phone and a camera and car keys and a wallet. It looked like he was carrying a lot of money with him, judging by the thickness of his wallet.”

“That purple bottle of sunscreen belong to you?”

“No. Mr. Vecchio used sunscreen. I guess it was his.”

Dr. Surry was writing in a little notebook. “The cell and the camera,” she said. “Was it your impression that he generally carried them with him ?”

“The phone,” he said. “He kept that in his pants. Not the camera. I wouldn’t let him bring the damn phone on my boat. Why? He doesn’t have them on him now ?”

She cocked her head and looked at him. “Detective Gilsum thinks you did it, you know.”

“Gilsum?”

“He’s the state homicide detective.”

“Well,” said Calhoun, “I didn’t.”

“The sheriff vouches for you. I trust his judgment, which is more than I can say about Gilsum. He’s always looking for the easy way out. I’m only trying to explain why I probably shouldn’t answer any of your questions.”

“It don’t really matter to me, Doctor. I was just curious.”

She smiled. When she smiled her eyes went crinkly, as if she were truly amused by something. “Call me Sam, for Christ’s sake.”

Calhoun nodded. “Okay.”

“I’m just the local on-call ME,” she said. “I show up, figure out if a dead body is truly dead, give it a preliminary examination, and write up my report. I’m not a cop. I don’t do autopsies or anything like that. I don’t participate in police investigations. I just do reports. In my real life, I work at a clinic in Portland.” She smiled. “So, really, I don’t care one way or the other whether they think you and I ought not to have an actual conversation.”

Calhoun smiled, too. “So Mr. Vecchio doesn’t have his phone or his camera on him, huh?”

“No. Nor his wallet or his keys.”

“His car is right over there,” said Calhoun. “He must’ve had keys with him.”

“They’re not in his pockets,” she said, “and they’re not in the car.”

“Killer took ‘em,” he said. “And the other stuff, too, no doubt.”

“He had a lot of money on him, huh?”

Calhoun nodded. “He did the other day when I was with him. You’re not thinking this was a robbery, are you?”

“Not really,” she said. “It doesn’t make much sense.”

“You figure he was shot right there where he’s sitting?”

She nodded. “The way the blood was pooled. The lividity.”

“You got a look at the bullet holes in him?”

She smiled again. “That is a big part of my job. Looking at bullet holes and smashed-in skulls and knife wounds. I’ve come up with this wild hypothesis that one of those three bullets is what killed him.”

“Could you tell what sort of weapon shot him?”

“It wasn’t that .30-30 I saw up there. I’m pretty sure of that. Small caliber. I’d surmise it was a .22.” She arched her eyebrows at him. “You own a .22, Stoney?”

“Sure. I got a Colt Woodsman.”

“I’m going to need it.”

“It’s in the drawer beside the kitchen sink,” he said. “I imagine all those experts up there have come upon it by now. So you can take the bullets out of Mr. Vecchio and compare them to the bullets that come out of my pistol, and you’ll see I didn’t shoot him.”

“Not me,” she said. “But the ballistics experts up in Augusta can do that, and I expect they will. And for that they’ll need your gun.”

“They’ll find it ain’t been fired recently.”

She nodded. “You’ll get it back. Eventually.” She closed her notebook and stuck it into her shirt pocket. “I may need to talk to you again.”

“Okay. I don’t mind.”

68

She gave him one of her quick shy smiles. “You’re a fishing guide, I understand.”

“That’s right.”

“Out of Kate Balaban’s fly shop.”

“Ayuh.”

“And you live here”—she swept her hand around the area, taking in the house and the yard and all of the woods’“by yourself?”

He nodded. “Me and my dog.”

She smiled. “It’s really nice.”

“Except Ralph’s not here.”

“I bet he’ll be back as soon as all the commotion dies down.” She touched his arm. “I might need to know how to find you, is why I’m asking.”

“If I ain’t here or at the shop, I’ll be messing around in my boat. That’s about it.”

“Maybe someday you’ll take me out,” she said. “I’m not much good with the fly rod, but I love fishing.”