6. Chaos in the Investigation

 

Sheriff Ericsson arrives at his office a half-hour late Wednesday morning. He says a grumpy good morning greeting to Sue and goes straight into his office. Sue brings his first cup of coffee and says, “It looks like we’re in for another hot day. Were the rumors at the Corner Bar last night helpful, Sir?”

“Not a bit. Some saying he deserved being shot for setting tax assessments too high and others speculating one of the people he and the mayor cheated did it. Just what you’d expect from the crowd that hangs out there. I thought maybe Mary Jane Bloom’s column would have stirred up something new, but I doubt if any of the Corner Bar customers bother to read her columns.”

“The calls you expected started coming in already, Sir. How do you want me to handle them?”

Take this list of names I got from the mayor, add Tom Eyre’s name, and tally how many callers accuse each of them. Keep a second list of each caller’s name and who they accuse. Until I get the medical examiner’s report there’s nothing useful I can do on this investigation. Has Wilson come in?”

“Yes, he stuck his head in first thing and asked me to tell you he hasn’t run into Tom Eyre yet. Then he went on patrol.”

“Okay, that’s what I’m going to do for the rest of the day. If the medical examiner’s report comes in call me on my cell phone rather than my patrol car radio. I don’t want to tip Mary Jane Bloom off. I’m sure she or someone at that paper listens to police radio calls on a scanner. I’ll be back about 4:00 to see if we’ve learned anything from the calls.”

“Are you planning on lunch at the Dinner Pail?”

“How did you guess? I can taste that pecan pie already,” the sheriff replies with a smile as he gulps the last of his coffee and heads out the door.

Sue is cleaning the Black and Decker coffee maker’s vacuum carafe the sheriff insists she uses at 4:30 when the sheriff returns. She says, “How was the pecan pie, Sir?”

“Delicious, as I expected. Do you have the two lists I requested?”

“Here they are. I doubt you’ll find them helpful. I received more than a dozen calls. None of the nine people on the list got more than one accusation. Tom Eyre didn’t get any. The others sounded to me like someone trying to get another person in trouble out of spite.”

The sheriff scans the list carefully then says, “You’re right, Sue. The accusations against people not on the list of nine are all old news. Some spiteful people in our village take every opportunity to get someone they have a grudge against in trouble. I hoped we might get some direction from callers, but this isn’t helpful at all. You didn’t call so I assume the medical examiner’s report didn’t come yet.”

“No, Sir.”

“I’m going home. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day. Good night, Sue.”

“See you tomorrow, Sir.”

Thursday morning the sheriff is finishing his first coffee when Sue comes into his office with papers in her hand. She says, “Here’s the medical examiner’s report, Sheriff.”

“Finally!  Thanks, Sue. Don’t disturb me until I’ve studied this.”

Half an hour later Deputy Wilson comes into his office and says, “Sue says you have the medical examiner’s report. Anything surprising? What about the white packet? Was it narcotics?”

“Nothing surprising, Wilson. Lund was shot somewhere else and dumped where we found him. Something about lividity tells him that. I hope you didn’t waste time looking for a shell casing with a metal detector at the picnic site.”

“Oh, no, I forget you wanted me to do that. What else did the report say?”

“The shot hit his heart as you guessed. No bullet found in the body, it went completely through. The report says the gun must have been a 9mm or bigger to go all the way through Glen. Not a 22 or 32 caliber then. Not a high-velocity bullet from a rifle because it would have damaged the heart more. It had to be a handgun. The killer was close to Glen when he shot him. The report says power residue on Glen’s shirt suggests four to six feet.”

Wilson interrupts, “The killer shot Glen with a 9 mm. Did I forget to put that in my report?  I found a 9 mm bullet in the backseat of Glen’s car. I figured it went through Glen and stopped in his suit jacket lining. It probably fell out during the time the killer moved the body.”

“Yes, you forgot to put that in your report. You had a lot of useless information but not that critical information.”

“Sorry, Sir, what else did the examiner say?”

“The white packet contained cocaine. The examiner didn’t find a trace of cocaine or any other narcotic in Glen’s body. I’ve been trying to think about how this helps, but all it does is confirm what we thought. Glen was killed somewhere else and perhaps the killer tried to make it look drug-related by leaving the cocaine packet. We can’t prove the packet wasn’t dropped by someone else using cocaine at the picnic site. The fingerprints on the packet were smears, nothing useful. Oh, the time of death was between 10:00 and 1:00 on Sunday. Since Glen left the church at 11:00 he must have been shot between 11:30 and 1:00.”

“What about suspicious fibers? Did the examiner find anything like that?”

“No, Wilson, you’ve been watching too many cop shows on TV.”

“Maybe, where does this leave us, Sir?”

“It leaves us right where we were. We’ve got a body, a crime scene, far too many suspects, and no useful clues pointing to any suspect.”

“What do you want me to do, Sheriff?”

“The only thing we can do is check alibis for the nine people on our list of suspects. Keep looking for Tom Eyre and see if you can learn where he was around noon on Sunday. Keep it casual as I suggested before. As far as the other eight, let’s find out where each of them was around noon. No reason to be subtle with them. We’ll try to eliminate suspects one at a time. I’m still hoping the column in the Weekly Journal will provoke someone to give us something useful.”

“Okay, Sir. I know where to find a couple of the people on this list. I’ll check their alibis while Sue is getting the addresses of the others. What are you going to do, Sir, if I may ask?”

“Nothing until alibis eliminate most of these suspects. Then I’ll grill the remaining ones.”

“What about asking the Weekly Journal to put a notice out asking anyone who saw Glen or his car after church last Sunday to call you and tell you where they saw him?”

“Hmmm, yeah, that may be worthwhile. Mary Jane Bloom is likely to call me before she writes her column for next week. I’ll ask her to help. Maybe she won’t be so critical if we ask for her help. On second thought, no. If I ask her for help she’ll make it look like I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t trust her to write anything favorable about me.”

Deputy Wilson is waiting for the sheriff when he gets to his office Friday morning. The sheriff says, “Good morning, Wilson. Why are you waiting for me?”

“I ran into Tom Eyre in the Corner Bar yesterday evening. I struck up a casual conversation and worked it around to what he was doing around noon last Sunday. I acted friendly and casual, but when I asked if he had a good Sunday he got evasive. He got a suspicious look, threw some money on the bar, and left hurriedly. I didn’t learn anything about his alibi other than he doesn’t want to talk about that time on Sunday.”

“Good job, Wilson. That sure makes it look like Eyre doesn’t want us to know where he was or what he was doing at the time of the murder. Bring him in first thing tomorrow if he doesn’t work Saturdays. I’m going to grill him. He has a temper. Maybe I can use it to rattle him and get him to say something that connects him to Glen’s murder. I’ve used that technique before. Do you happen to know if Eyre owns a handgun?”

“I do. He has a 9mm Luger; his dad brought it back from the war. He had it at the gun range once when I was there practicing with my service pistol. Beautiful gun, wish I had one.”

“Okay, no alibi and a gun that’s probably the murder weapon. Lugers are 9 mm aren’t they? That’s enough for me, bring him in tomorrow morning.”

“Okay, Sheriff, I’ll pick him up early.”

“Good, now go back to checking the alibis of the other eight suspects.”