Part 26 (1/2)

”I don't know,” Eli admitted. ”But I do think she fought with him that day. The autopsy report showed bruising on the wrists that happened hours before the death.”

”Do you think . . .” Ross swallowed. ”Do you think he killed her some other way and then made it look like a hanging?”

”No. The autopsy proves it, and the photographs . . . well, anyway, the answer is no. Plus, those photos I enlarged-on the sawdust, beneath where the body was found hanging-there are two sets of footprints. One boot sole is smaller, and seems to correspond to the footwear taken off the victim's body. The other sole is larger, presumably a man's. Now, Pike admits to cutting down his wife's body. But he also says that someone else hanged her. So then where are Gray Wolf's footprints?” Swearing, Eli put down the magnifying gla.s.s and pushed away the fingerprint cards. ”Shoot. Pike wasn't the one holding the pipe.”

Ross pulled the card closer, staring at the whirlpool of parallel lines. He was familiar with crime-scene linkage, which said that any person who came into contact with an object or another person left a piece of himself behind. Detectives, like Eli, would use this to doc.u.ment that a suspect was in a certain place at a certain time, to find the cause that led to this particular effect. But the same theory could be used to prove the existence of a ghost. Or to make a man rethink suicide. Or to explain why love felt like a phantom limb, long after it was over.

Forensic detectives already knew what most people spent a lifetime learning: you couldn't pa.s.s through this world without affecting someone else.

Ross's chest suddenly felt so tight he thought he might pa.s.s out. ”You okay?” Eli asked, staring at him curiously. Even the dog c.o.c.ked its head. Ross grabbed the first thing he could on the table-another set of prints that had been tucked underneath some crime-scene photos. He bent down, pretending to be absorbed by the lines and dips that made up the fingerprints.

”This is what I'm thinking,” Eli mused. ”Pike's an influential guy. He told the investigating officers a story, and they believed it because it was far easier to blame an Indian than to stand up to a guy who was so well-respected in the town. The question, of course, is why Pike killed his wife, if that's the way it went down.” He snapped on latex gloves and began to pack the gla.s.s for transport to his DNA scientist. ”Money, maybe. He did did inherit the land.” inherit the land.”

Frowning, Ross glanced from one of the index cards to the print that had come off the pipe. ”Uh, I'm not sure about this . . . but don't these two match?”

Eli took the cards out of his hands and began to bob his head back and forth. ”Hmmph.” Settling down on a stool, he picked up his magnifying gla.s.s and began to scrutinize them. After about five minutes, he rubbed his jaw. ”I'll be d.a.m.ned. I'm going to have to have the experts at the lab take a second glance, but yeah, I'd say this is a match.”

”So whose prints are they?”

Eli looked at him. ”Cecelia Pike's. They were rolled postmortem. Standard procedure.”

”If Gray Wolf wasn't even there, what was she doing with his pipe?”

”Holding onto it, apparently,” Eli said. ”Among other things.”

”Like?”

”Maybe Gray Wolf himself. Say the wife was having an affair . . . getting rid of her and framing her lover would kill two birds with one stone.”

”Shut up,” Ross said, his voice rising. ”Just shut up, all right? There was no lover. There was no one. You have no idea what you're talking about.”

”Easy . . .” Eli held up his palms, placating. ”I'm not the bad guy here.”

Ross forced himself to relax, realizing how crazy he must have sounded. ”It's just . . . she was not not having an affair. You didn't know her.” having an affair. You didn't know her.”

Eli stared at him. ”Neither did you.”

WITNESS STATEMENT.

Date: September 22, 1932 Time: 8:15 AM INTERVIEW OF: Lemuel Tollande INTERVIEW BY: Officer Duley Wiggs and Detective F. Olivette of the Comtosook Police Department LOCATION: Comtosook PD SUBJECT:1. Q. State your name and address for the record, please.A. Lemuel Tollande, 45A Chestnut Street, Burlington.2. Q. Where do you work, Mr. Tollande?A. The Rat Hole in Winooski. I tend bar.3. Q. Do you know John Delacour, aka Gray Wolf?A. Sure. He's a friend, a regular.4. Q. Did you see this man on the night of September 18th?A. Yeah. He came in about eight, eight-thirty, and left near one.5. Q. At any point did he leave the bar during that time?A. I think he went out to get some smokes . . .6. Q. How long was he gone?A. I can't say. The bar was awful busy that night.7. Q. Well, are we talking five minutes? An hour?A. I . . . I really can't tell you. All's I know is he was gone and then he was back.8. Q. Did he tell you he'd been fired from his job?A. No . . . but Gray Wolf's a pretty private fella.

He keeps his business to himself. [Pause] He ain't no murderer, though. Wasn't the first time around, and not this time neither.9. Q. Mr. Tollande, have you seen Gray Wolf lately?A. Not since that night in the bar.10. Q. Do you know where we might find him?A. He moves around a lot.11. Q. Your people always do. And you lie, too, don't you?

What Eli first thought, stepping into the musty, stuffed room that made up the Comtosook Public Library, was that someone with all the bright bloom of Shelby Wakeman didn't belong in a such a closeted place. He imagined her sitting, instead, among a kaleidoscope of tulips in the Netherlands, or swimming with a rainbow of Caribbean fish, and then drew himself up short at being caught in such a flight of fancy.

Watson, unused to being on a leash, yanked so hard all of a sudden that Eli went flying, nearly jackknifing himself on the front desk. The resulting noise caused Shelby to look up from the computer terminal where she sat. ”Well, h.e.l.lo,” she said, getting up and coming around the counter. She looked at Watson, who was wagging his ridiculous tail so hard it made his face shake. ”You aren't allowed in here,” she scolded, but she was patting him all the same. ”Then again, who am I to tell a cop what to do.” aren't allowed in here,” she scolded, but she was patting him all the same. ”Then again, who am I to tell a cop what to do.”

When she smiled at him, Eli's heart raced like a Roman candle. ”Hey,” he managed.

Brilliant, Rochert. She works in a library, she knows the whole dictionary, and that's the only word you can sc.r.a.pe out?

”Were you looking for something in particular?” Shelby asked, and Eli opened his mouth only to realize that she was speaking to Watson. ”Hound of the Baskervilles, maybe, with your namesake? Or Robert Stone's Dog Soldiers Dog Soldiers?”

”Actually, he just came to keep me company,” Eli said. ”I was looking for town records from the thirties.”

He was not particularly looking for town records from the thirties. In fact, he'd come expressly to see if Shelby was working today. But the murder case was on his mind, and that excuse was the first to pop into his head. It occurred to Eli that, between his investigation of a seventy-year-old murder case and his itch to see this woman, he was clocking precious little time for police work.

She was staring at him curiously, wondering, no doubt, why a policeman wouldn't know that all munic.i.p.al records were stored next door to the department in the town clerk's office. ”I know exactly where they are . . . but it's not here.”

”Any chance you can show me?”

Before Shelby could even pose the question, the other librarian on duty-one who'd been so still and wrinkled Eli hadn't realized she was animate-waved her along. They walked down the steps with Watson between them, Shelby squinting in the sun.

”Beautiful out, isn't it?”

She nodded. ”I forget how bright it gets, sometimes.”

”You mean working in the library all day?”

”That, and staying up all night with Ethan. It's the only time he can go out to play.” They began to walk down Main Street, Watson sniffing at cracks in the sidewalk and patches of gum stuck to the ground.

”When do you sleep? You must be exhausted.”

She smiled tightly. ”You do what you have to do.”

A kid on a scooter pa.s.sed them on the left, pus.h.i.+ng Shelby toward Eli. He felt the charge that came from being so close. He could trip, blame it on Watson, and brush up against her. He could even push Watson into her, and then catch her when she fell.

What would she feel like in his arms?

Then they were at the munic.i.p.al offices, and Eli felt a slow roll of frustration. Had the buildings in this town always been so close together? He followed Shelby up the stone steps and into the first room on the right. ”Lottie,” she said to the colossal town clerk, ”have you lost weight?”

If she'd lost an ounce, Eli would eat Watson's grain for a week. But the woman beamed. ”I think that diet's working,” she t.i.ttered, waving them into the bowels of the building without question.

The bas.e.m.e.nt was dark and moldy, with spiderwebs festooning the ceiling. Watson immediately tugged free of his leash to chase a rodent behind a stack of boxes. Unerringly, Shelby crawled over a small bunker of crates into a narrow aisle of filing cabinets that had not seen the better half of this century. She opened a drawer and pulled out a yellowed stack of cards. ”These are from 1932.”

Stupefied, Eli could only stare at her. ”Are you psychic too?”

”Ross isn't psychic,” Shelby corrected. ”And no, I'm not either. I found them the hard way the last time I was here- by going through every other drawer before I hit this one.”

He moved into the narrow aisle to stand beside her, only to realize there wasn't really s.p.a.ce for two. They were pressed up against each other from chest to hip; Eli could feel her breath against his shoulder. In this bas.e.m.e.nt, with the air thick as blood around them, Eli thought time might have stopped. After all, lately, stranger things had happened.

”Why are you doing this?” Shelby asked quietly. ”It isn't going to solve anything.”

It took him a moment to realize she was talking about the murder case. Eli shrugged. ”People do all sorts of crazy things every day.” A shaft of sunlight fell onto her cheek from the one window in this cellar, as if it had sought and found the only object of beauty worth illuminating. Eli leaned forward, toward that halo. Would it be warm, there?

Shelby reared back so suddenly that a short wall of boxes tumbled to the ground, spilling their contents. She thrust the stack of cards into Eli's hand. From across the room, Watson sneezed. ”The one, um, that you want should be in front,” she murmured.