Sick Of Shadows

CHAPTER NINE

AMANDA CHANDLER SURVEYED the breakfast table with the air of a general conducting an inspection. In honor of the houseguests and the forthcoming wedding, this breakfast would be a family occasion, like those on weekends, when she would set aside time for getting together to discuss the plans for the day-usually her plans for their day. Despite the protests of Captain Grandfather and Dr. Chandler, who had to juggle early appointments, the meal was served at exactly ten o’clock-the shocking lateness being a concession to Geoffrey, who maintained that nothing short of Armageddon would arouse him earlier.

“And where is Eileen?” Amanda asked crisply, her eyes on Michael.

He looked away, murmuring something unintelligible.

“Elizabeth, would you please go upstairs and knock on her door? Tell her that we are waiting.”

Elizabeth hurried from the dining room, hoping that Eileen had just overslept. If she had decided to prolong her hysterics for another day, everyone’s nerves would start to go. She reached the upstairs hall. Eileen’s door was closed. Elizabeth tapped gently. “Eileen! Are you awake? It’s breakfast time!”

There was no sound from within.

Elizabeth tried the door. The handle turned easily, and she peeped inside. The bed was neatly made, and its occupant was not in the room. Elizabeth went back to the dining room and reported this to Amanda, who received the news in tight-lipped silence.

“I expect she’s out painting,” said Captain Grandfather. “When I got up at the sensible hour of seven”-he paused to glare at Geoffrey’s rumpled dressing gown-“I found a box of cereal and a used bowl on the table here. I expect she got an early start today.”

“She needs time to work on it,” mumbled Geoffrey sleepily. “Why not just leave her alone?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it!” snapped Amanda. “This is one of my little girl’s last family breakfasts as a-as a-”

“Chandler,” suggested her husband softly.

“Thank you, Robert. As a Chandler.” She turned to Dr. Shepherd with a careful smile. “Dr. Shepherd, you must think we have shocking manners! But I’m sure you know what a special time like this can do to the nerves of a sensitive girl like Eileen. But I do apologize for her.”

Shepherd murmured that he quite understood and went on eating his eggs.

“Charles,” Amanda continued, “go and fetch your sister, please. Or, perhaps Michael would like to have a few moments-”

Charles stood up quickly. “Now, Mother, you know she especially doesn’t want him to see the painting before it’s finished. I’ll go get her. Save me some toast.”

“Have you talked to her since last night?” Elizabeth whispered to Michael.

He shook his head. “I thought I’d just leave her alone,” he muttered.

Amanda interrupted them at this point to deliver a monologue on wedding rehearsal plans, and Carlsen Shepherd began to talk quietly to Captain Grandfather, moving the silverware around in positions suspiciously resembling the armada of the previous evening’s game.

“Who won?” asked Dr. Chandler, indicating his coffee spoon, which had just been turned into a Turkish fleet.

“Well, I did,” said Shepherd, “but it was probably luck.”

Elizabeth wondered if Eileen had intentionally skipped the family gathering. She found herself staring at the dying stag in the painting, and wondering whose eyes they reminded her of.

“Dad! Captain Grandfather!” Charles appeared in the doorway, panting for breath. “Could you come down to the lake, please?”

The last thing Wesley Rountree wanted in his county was a murder. County sheriffs do not keep their elected positions by brilliantly solving cases the way cops do on TV. They keep them by staying on good terms with the majority of the voting populace; and if there was one thing that Wesley Rountree knew about murders, it was that they caused hard feelings, no matter what. A conviction cost you the votes of the killer’s family; an acquittal alienated the victim’s family. It was a no-win situation.

Whenever there was a murder in Rountree’s district, he always hoped that a migrant worker had gone berserk and committed the crime, but that was never the case. Marauding tramps were incredibly rare; jealous husbands and drunken good-old-boys were fatally common.

It wasn’t that Rountree condoned murder or wanted to see the perpetrator go unpunished. He faithfully brought to justice the local killers, regardless of personal consequences, but whenever a murder was reported to his office, his first reaction was invariably indignation that someone would be so inconsiderate of his feelings as to commit homicide in his county.

Aside from that, the job of sheriff suited Rountree just fine. He had lived all his life in the county, except for college and a four-year stint as an M.P. with the air force in Thailand. After his discharge, he had spent a couple of years with the highway patrol, and then when old Sheriff Miller had a heart attack and died, Rountree went back home to Chandler Grove and was elected sheriff in an uncontested election.

Now, five years later, in his second term as sheriff, Rountree was beginning to think of the job as a permanent thing. At thirty-six, he was a stocky blond who fought his cowlick with a crew cut and his beer belly with diet cola. Outdoor work and pale skin had kept him perpetually red-faced and freckled. The consensus of opinion around Chandler Grove was that Wesley Rountree was “doing okay.” As a home-boy, he suited the community down to the ground; they wouldn’t have traded him for Sherlock Holmes.

In a small rural county, where everybody knows everybody else, law enforcement is a personal matter. The voters wanted a father image, and one of the cleverest moves of Rountree’s life had been perceiving that need and filling it.

He remembered the time that Floyd Rogers had been shot in the parking lot of Brenner’s Cafe. There wasn’t much of a mystery about it. Half a dozen people had seen Wayne Smith’s red pickup leaving the scene of the crime.

It was pretty common knowledge that Smith had been fooling around with Pearl Rogers. “The boyfriend shot the husband?” asked Rountree when they called him. “It’s supposed to be the other way around. Don’t he watch television?”

Rogers was in critical condition in the county hospital, and Smith had to be brought in before some of the Rogers kinfolk decided to handle it themselves. Wyatt Earp might have organized a posse; Wesley Rountree preferred to use the telephone. He picked up the phone and dialed the number of Wayne Smith’s farm.

After six rings, the fugitive himself answered.

“Hello, Wayne? This is Wesley Rountree. How you doing? That calf of yours going to make it? Glad to hear it. Listen, Wayne… we have a little problem here. I understand you shot Floyd Rogers a little while ago. What? Well, he told me himself, as a matter of fact. He was still conscious when the rescue squad got there. Say what? Dead? No, but he’s laid up pretty bad in county hospital. I think he’ll pull through, though. And Pearl, she’s about to run us all crazy. Seems to think there’s gonna be a shoot-out or some such foolishness. What, Wayne? Well, you’ve sobered up some now, haven’t you? I thought you had. Listen, we need to have a talk about all this, Wayne. You need to come on down here so we can get this straightened out. No, you don’t have to do that. I’ll come out and get you in the county car. You just wait there, okay? Maybe you could put a few things in a canvas bag; we might have to keep you here. Your razor, change of underwear, things like that. Then you just go out on the porch and wait, okay? Right. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Stay calm, Wayne. Bye, now.”

Case closed. Floyd Rogers had pulled through all right, and Bryce had got Wayne Smith off with two years’ probation. Rountree hadn’t lost either of their votes.

When the call came in about the death at the Chandler place, Rountree took down the particulars with a heavy heart. “Please, Lord,” he muttered. “Let it be an accident, or all hell’s going to break loose!”

“What’s that, Wes?” asked his deputy.

Rountree looked sourly at Clay Taylor, with the law enforcement degree from the community college, and the rimless glasses, and the peculiar idea that a cop was a social worker.

“I think we got us a homicide,” he grunted. “Chandler place.”

Clay Taylor whistled softly. Cases involving the county gentry were rare. Occasional reports of trespassers or petty larcenies, that was about it. “The old man?” he asked.

“No. The daughter. They found her in a boat on the lake. Cause of death undetermined. We better get out there.”

“Right, Wes. Want me to call the coroner?”

“Oh, Taylor, you asshole! Dr. Chandler is the coroner! What the hell you think I’m worried about? The damned coroner is a damned suspect!”

In a time of crisis, did people really never suspect what had happened, or did they show surprise because it was expected of them? When Charles appeared in the doorway asking them to come down to the lake, Elizabeth’s mind framed the thought that Eileen was dead. Drowned in the lake, perhaps-images of Geoffrey’s description of Eileen as a Vogue Ophelia flashed in her mind-or slumped down before her easel dead from heart failure. Still, if anyone had asked her later, she would have insisted that she had no idea what had happened to upset Charles. Perhaps she would even have believed it herself, because when people appeared upset, she always did imagine the worst, and she was almost always wrong. Almost always-but not this time.

Orders from Dr. Chandler and Captain Grandfather for the rest of the family to remain in the house were ignored. Indeed, Amanda led the group, while the others trailed at a respectful distance, murmuring among themselves.

Charles was talking in quiet, worried tones to his father. “I don’t know. I can’t find her,” Elizabeth heard him say. “But I’m pretty sure something is wrong.”

Elizabeth relaxed. False alarm, she thought. Another Chandler dramatization. Eileen will come wandering out of the woods with a handful of daisies and profess to wonder what all the fuss is about. And everyone will make a fuss over her, and call it “wedding nerves.” It was becoming very annoying.

When they reached the lake, there was still no sign of Eileen.

As if echoing Elizabeth’s thoughts, Geoffrey walked into the woods, calling for Eileen to come out. Amanda strode purposefully toward the easel, which was set up a few feet from the water’s edge. There was no canvas on it.

“Robert!” she called. “The painting is gone!”

“Maybe she took it to show to someone,” Elizabeth suggested.

Amanda ignored her.

If the painting is gone, Eileen must be all right, Elizabeth decided. She knew we’d come looking for her, and she wanted to make sure that we didn’t see it.

Captain Grandfather caught Charles by the arm and pointed to the lake. “What’s that doing out there?”

In the middle of the lake, barely afloat, was a half-rotted rowboat. Abandoned years ago, it had stayed pushed up into the reeds at the edge of the lake. A blue fiberglass speedboat had taken its place at the old boathouse on the western shore of the lake; but now the old punt had left its mooring in the marsh and had somehow managed to stay afloat long enough to reach mid-lake.

“We’ll get the other boat,” said Robert Chandler quietly.

He and Charles walked toward the boathouse, ignoring Amanda’s demands to know the meaning of all this and the murmured offers of assistance from Shepherd and Satisky.

“But if she’s in the boat, she’s all right,” Elizabeth said aloud. “You can’t drown in a boat.”

“Why are they wasting their time?” Satisky demanded. “You can see that there’s nobody in it.”

Dr. Shepherd gave a slight cough. “Nobody in it-sitting up.”

The implications of this remark left them all speechless. They watched in silence as Dr. Chandler and Charles untied the speedboat, and pulled the rope to start the motor. Minutes later they had maneuvered their craft within reach of the old rowboat. They pulled the derelict alongside their own boat, and Dr. Chandler leaned over to look inside.

“They’ve found her,” said Captain Grandfather.

They began to walk slowly toward the boathouse, arriving at the small pier at the same time the boats did. Dr. Chandler waved them away as if he were warding off a blow, but they had only to look down into the sodden rowboat to see what had been found.

“Shall I get your medical bag, sir?” asked Shepherd.

Chandler hesitated, and then nodded. He had nearly said that it was useless, but the formality must be upheld, as it was in every case. Shepherd ran for the house.

Geoffrey had come out of the woods when the speedboat motor had started up, and he joined them on the pier, elbowing his way past Elizabeth and Satisky to look into the boat.

Eileen Chandler lay sprawled at the bottom of the boat as if she had fallen on her back, with her legs apart and one arm flung back over her head. An inch of water in the bottom of the boat lapped at the edges of her painting smock and turned her hair into limp dark weeds floating gently around her shoulders. Her face was calm. Except for the pallor and the plastic look of her skin, she might have been asleep. Her eyes were closed, and her lips slightly parted, as if she might at any moment yawn and stretch. But she was very still-too still to be breathing.

No one had spoken. Amanda Chandler was clinging to Captain Grandfather as though she were afraid of falling into the water. Dr. Chandler and Charles had turned away and were securing the boats, tying one to each of the end pilings. Without wanting to, Elizabeth turned to look at Michael Satisky. He was staring open-mouthed at the lifeless form below them, oblivious to the others beside him. Finally he knelt jerkily on the pier, and leaning toward Eileen’s still body, he croaked: “She has a lovely face; God in his mercy lend her grace.”

And Geoffrey started to laugh.

Wesley Rountree swung his white Datsun around the curve, and glared at the two houses just coming into view.

“That’s a doozy, isn’t it?” he remarked with a snort.

Clay Taylor grunted without glancing up from his well-worn copy of Anatomy of a Revolution. The castle was a familiar sight to everyone in the county by now; hardly worth getting upset over anymore. Even in a khaki uniform Clay managed to look counter-establishment. His brown curly hair was a briar patch, and his face, behind small wire-rimmed glasses, wore a perpetually mild expression. His friends, who ran pottery shops or worked in social services programs with low-income people, always expressed surprise upon learning Taylor’s occupation. He himself considered it just another way of working with the poor, and he did what he could to keep peace all the way around. When he spent his own money to buy groceries for migrant workers between jobs, he always said that he was “preventing shoplifting,” and he joked that he was really trying to save himself some work. He had little sympathy for speeding tourists or middle-class teenage vandals, but the crimes of the real poor always struck him as symptoms of an even larger crime, of which they were only victims. He wouldn’t knowingly permit an offender to get away, but he did his best in “preventive measures,” such as keeping in close touch with the migrant workers or arranging for his friends in social services to help the needy before they became truly desperate. Apparently, his efforts to deter crime were appreciated by those who had been determined to commit them: in the last two years the county burglary rate had decreased by 5 percent, while that of the neighboring county had risen accordingly. He considered it a tribute, of sorts; although if anyone had asked, he would have insisted that it was pure coincidence, which it might have been.

In theory, Deputy Taylor and Sheriff Rountree were ideological enemies, each one representing all the things the other held most in contempt; but actually, they got along well enough. Rountree still sneered at leftist demonstrators on the six o’clock news, but he allowed as how his deputy was all right. Couldn’t fault a man for being nice to people, he’d grumble. Taylor still saw the establishment personified by a fat and drawling old man in a white suit (though he had never seen one), but he generously classified his boss as a well-meaning but unenlightened tool of the system. He made efforts from time to time to make Rountree see the error of his ways-so far, without notable success.

“Bet that house cost quite a bit,” remarked Rountree with a hint of a smile.

Clay sighed. “And I’m supposed to say that it isn’t fair, one person having so much money, while the sharecroppers sleep five in a room.”

Rountree frowned at having his conversational bait so easily spotted. “Just making chitchat,” he said hastily. “Did you tell Doris to call the state boys?”

“Yeah, but you never did say why. We haven’t even seen the body yet, Wes. Might just be a drowning.”

“Well, we got to be sure, whatever happened. They said they found her in a boat. That sound like a drowning to you? Anyway, when the victim is the coroner’s own daughter, I don’t see what else we can do but go for outside help,” growled Rountree. “Not that I don’t trust the doctor, mind you. He’s a mighty fine man, but it’ll look better at the inquest to have somebody else stating the particulars.”

Taylor nodded. “Anyway, I don’t think doctors work on their own relatives. I know I couldn’t. What will they do?”

“Who? The state boys? We’ll do the routine lab work here, like we always do, and then we’ll send the body to the state medical lab for an autopsy. You brought the kit, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. In the trunk.”

Rountree swung the car into the driveway of the red brick mansion. “I’ll just stop in at the house and tell them we’re here. You go on out to the lake.”

Wesley Rountree straightened his holster, adjusted his tan Stetson, and headed for the front door. He had worked with Dr. Chandler before, on the inevitable county death cases: summer drownings, wrecks, and hunting accidents; but never on a murder case. The doctor had always been quietly competent, easy to work with. He wondered what to expect this time, with the case so much more personal.

The Chandler family had assembled in the library, where Captain Grandfather had herded them, and where he now stood guard over them, dispensing coffee and sternly discouraging any attempts at hysteria.

Charles and Dr. Chandler had remained by the lake to wait for the sheriff, leaving the old man in charge of the family.

“Someone should call Louisa,” Amanda kept saying, making ineffectual gestures toward the telephone.

“Not yet you won’t,” growled Captain Grandfather. “You’re quite enough to contend with as it is. I won’t have two caterwauling women on my hands. Or do you want her questioned, too?”

Amanda sniffled that she couldn’t be expected to think of things like that, but surely someone ought to realize that arrangements must be made.

“I’ll call her myself later, Amanda; and Margaret, too, if you want me to. Now you get hold of yourself!”

Amanda dabbed her eyes, and looked around the room. “Dr. Shepherd! I should like you to prescribe a sedative for me, please!”

Shepherd, who had been sitting in a corner talking quietly to Elizabeth, looked up at the sound of his name. “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Chandler?”

Amanda repeated her request in the crisp tones of a command.

Shepherd shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You are not under my care. Professional ethics, you know.”

Amanda bristled. “Young man, I should think that in a crisis such as this, your physician’s instinct would compel you to-”

“Aunt Amanda!” Elizabeth interrupted. “There’s some brandy in the dining room. Shall I get you some?”

“Yes, thank you, Elizabeth.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Geoffrey quickly. “Let’s all just be brave, shall we? More coffee, Mother?”

“I wish I knew what to do,” Elizabeth whispered to Shepherd.

“It’s perfectly normal to feel inadequate in a crisis,” he whispered back. “Just don’t create any more problems than there already are.”

“Well, at least I wish I could do something about him.” She nodded toward the bereaved groom, curled up in the wing chair and leafing methodically through the Oxford Book of Verse.

Dr. Shepherd frowned. “I know; but if you try to talk to him, you’ll only force him to try to think up things to say. It can be a great strain for some people-trying to act bereaved. It would be much kinder to leave him alone.”

“Trying to act?” Elizabeth echoed. “Don’t you think he really is?”

Wesley Rountree opened the door, hat in hand. “Afternoon, everybody. Captain, sir. Sure am sorry to be here under these circumstances.” He looked around, embarrassed at his own calm in a room that radiated strain, perhaps grief. “Is Dr. Robert down with the-er, down at the lake?”

Captain Grandfather set down his coffee and went over to shake hands with the sheriff. “I’ll walk you down there, sir, while I tell you what we know. This way.” He turned back to his daughter, who sat on the sofa twisting her handkerchief. “Amanda, you’re to stay here. Don’t do anything until we get back.” Without waiting for an answer, he turned to go.

Wesley Rountree edged past him and said to the others, “Y’all please stay close at hand, if you don’t mind. I’ll be back directly to take statements.” He closed the door behind him.

“It couldn’t be called ungentle, but how thoroughly departmental,” Geoffrey remarked.

“Robert Frost,” said Satisky, without looking up from his book.

Amanda Chandler rose majestically. “I am going to my room,” she announced, glaring in the direction of the wing chair. “When Mr. Rountree returns, tell him that I may be up to seeing him tomorrow.” She swept out of the room.

“I guess I’d better try to reach my folks,” murmured Elizabeth.

“Better wait until we know more,” Shepherd suggested. “You’ll only worry them without being able to tell them anything for sure. And, remember, you won’t be able to leave yet.”

Elizabeth sighed. “Is there some stationery in that desk?”

Wesley Rountree stared down at the small figure crumpled in the bottom of the boat. After a respectful silence of several minutes, he said softly, “You don’t know the cause of death, do you, Doctor?”

Robert Chandler shook his head. “We didn’t touch anything-except that I touched her to confirm that-” He turned away.

“You did right,” Rountree assured him. “And just as soon as Clay takes some pictures, we’ll get her out of there. You want to go on back to the house now?”

“No. No. I’ll stay here,” the doctor replied. “She was going to be married, you know. Next Saturday.”

“Pretty girl,” said Rountree politely. “It’s a pitiful shame. Now, you don’t have to talk about it right now, if you’d rather not, Dr. Robert. Clay and me have to do some routine stuff right now; taping, measuring-you know, the same stuff we always do. I understand she was painting down here. Is that the easel over there?”

“Yes. We haven’t disturbed it either.” He straightened up to look at the easel and shook his head. “I just don’t understand how this could have happened. This boat is never used. Eileen didn’t even care for boats.”

“You say she was painting,” said Rountree quickly. “Painting what? I don’t see a picture on that easel.”

“That’s just it,” Charles put in. “It’s gone.”

“You’re the one that found her?”

“This is my son Charles, Wesley,” said Dr. Chandler.

Wesley nodded. “Uh-huh. And you found her, did you?”

“Well, when she didn’t come down for breakfast, Mother sent me to look for her. I got here and she was gone. So I went back to the house and got Dad, we took the boat out and-and we found her.”

“But the painting was not there when you first came looking for her?”

“Right.”

Clay Taylor lowered his camera and stared at Charles. “Are you saying that somebody stole the painting?”

Charles shrugged.

“Get over to that easel, Clay,” said Rountree impatiently. “I want a shot of it, and also one of the ground around it. Look sharp for footprints. If you see any, give a holler.”

Taylor nodded, and left the dock.

“Now, Dr. Chandler, do you mind if I just start filling out this report? I know you want it done as quick as possible.”

“Go ahead, Wes,” sighed Robert Chandler.

“Name of the deceased?”

“Eileen Amanda Chandler.”

When he had filled in the preliminary data-age, date of birth, and so forth-Rountree asked, “Now, Dr. Chandler, did your daughter have any medical problems that might explain this? Heart or something?”

“No. Nothing.”

“You wanna speculate on the cause of death? Can we rule out drowning?”

Chandler waved him away. “Please… I’d rather have the state lab do it.”

“They’re on the case,” said Rountree. “Called ’em before we left the office. They said for us to bring them the body in the station wagon, and they’ll do the autopsy there. I thought I’d have Clay do it when I finish here.”

“Fine.”

“Oh-I’ll have to schedule an inquest. Would Tuesday be all right for that? You’ll need to be making arrangements with Mr. Todd down at the funeral home, I reckon.”

“Yes, of course,” whispered Dr. Chandler. “Excuse me. My wife will be needing me.” He turned away from the lake and hurried up the path toward the house.

“She would have been married next week,” Charles explained. “Now, instead of a wedding, we have to plan a funeral.”

Wesley Rountree heaved a sigh of discomfort. This case was going to be a sticky one! What a case! Hysterical women, grief-stricken relatives, and not a hope in hell of getting any straight answers. He gazed at the blank white face below him. What had she really been like? Crazy, according to the local gossip. Suicide, maybe? If so, you’d never catch the family admitting it. If there had been a note, it sure wouldn’t have been left for him to find. A lot of spiteful things were said in suicide notes; a person getting the last word wanted to make it worthwhile. People were funny about suicides, anyhow. Took it as a criticism of the family; well, maybe it was a lot of times. Still, a girl a week away from getting married wasn’t a likely candidate for suicide. He’d known a few grooms that might have considered it, but brides were different. Unless there was something about this couple that hadn’t come to light. He made a mental note to ask the medical examiner about the possibility of pregnancy.

Turning to Captain Grandfather and Charles, Rountree said, “Y’all go back to the house now. Clay and I will finish up here and get the body loaded in the car, and we’ll take it on out to the lab. I’ll be back later this evening. I want to get preliminary statements while it’s still fresh in everybody’s mind.”

“I assure you, Sheriff, we are not likely to forget,” said Captain Grandfather. He turned and followed Charles up the path.

Clay Taylor set the camera down carefully in the grass, and began to examine the ground around the easel. The family had pretty much trampled the place looking for the girl, so he couldn’t really tell if there had been an intruder or not. Still, he guessed he’d better do his stuff while the evidence was still there-just in case it turned out to be a homicide.

“What do you know about these people, Clay?” asked Wesley Rountree when they were alone. “Aren’t you about the same age as the Chandler boys?”

“Yeah, but I never knew them,” said Clay. “They went off to private school. I’ve seen ’em around.”

“What about the daughter? Didn’t I hear some story about her being crazy?”

“I think they’d prefer to call it a nervous breakdown,” said Clay impassively.

“Whatever. You ever hear anything about suicidal tendencies?”

“No. But you’d do better to ask the family,” said Clay.

Wesley Rountree gave his deputy a pitying look. “Oh, son, if you believe that, you got a lot to learn about police work.”

When they had finished the crime-scene work, Clay drove the car into the Chandlers’ backyard, parking it as close to the path and as far from the house as he could. He took the body bag from the trunk and carried it down to the lake, where Wesley was waiting beside the body. Together they lifted Eileen’s body out of the boat and fitted it into the canvas carrier.

“Let’s get this loaded and get on out of here,” said Wesley. “I don’t think the family needs to see this. You want some help?”

“Not really,” said Clay. “She’s real light.”

They walked in silence up the path. Rountree occasionally went ahead to clear branches out of the deputy’s way. When they reached the car, Clay said, “You want me to transfer her to the station wagon at the office and take it on up to the lab?”

Rountree shook his head. “What the hell,” he said. “Let’s go from here. I’d like to have a word or two with Mitch Cambridge on this one. Seeing as how it’s Dr. Robert’s daughter, and all.”

“Okay.”

“That ought to put us back here late this afternoon to talk to these people. I hope they’ve calmed down some by then.”

The Chandler house was silent for most of the afternoon. The family and guests had followed Amanda’s example and retired to their rooms, except for Captain Grandfather, who had remained in the study. He had tried to call Elizabeth’s parents, but there was no answer; they were still away at the sales convention. When he telephoned Louisa, Mrs. Murphy had answered the phone and informed him that Alban had driven his mother to a garden show in Milton’s Forge. They were not expected back until early evening. He spent the remainder of the afternoon sketching designs for a sailing vessel, with the name “Eileen” carefully pencilled on the prow.

When Rountree and Taylor returned late that afternoon, the Captain answered the door himself and ushered them into the library.

“Now, we don’t know a thing yet,” Rountree cautioned him, interrupting a spate of questions. “I’ve asked Dr. Cambridge to get on it right away and to call me as soon as he knows anything. I promise you, I’ll let y’all know just as soon as I hear. Now, would you be good enough to get everybody together for me? Right here in this room would be fine.”

A few minutes later, Rountree addressed the small group assembled in the library. “This is going to be a purely preliminary investigation,” he announced. “We don’t know the cause of death yet, but I can tell you that there will be an inquest, so I’m going to need a few facts from y’all: information about that little girl’s state of mind; when she was last seen; that kind of thing. Clay, do you have everybody’s name, and so forth?”

Taylor handed him the list of persons present, and Rountree glanced over it. “Mrs. Chandler?” he inquired, looking around the room.

“My daughter is upstairs,” said Captain Grandfather with a trace of disapproval. “Her husband is attending her.”

Rountree nodded and went back to the list. “Miss MacPherson? That must be you. Only lady present.” He smiled reassuringly at Elizabeth, and then returned to the names. His finger stopped at the next name. “Dr. Carlsen Shepherd. Doctor? There’s another doctor here! Why didn’t somebody-”

Carlsen Shepherd half rose from his seat. “I am a psychiatrist, Sheriff, and if you were referring to an examination of the body just now, I assure you that you did the wisest thing by consulting your state pathology department. It’s been a long time since I did anatomy.”

“Not too long, from the look of you,” Rountree grumbled. “Psychiatrist, huh? Was the deceased, by any chance, your patient?”

“Well, yes, she was, but-”

“Now we’re getting somewhere!”

“But, Sheriff-”

“In a minute, doctor. Excuse me, could I just get everybody to clear out of here for a little bit and let me talk to this fellow? I’ll call you back if I need to talk to you. Go on now, please.” He shooed them with reassuring noises and comments about the routine nature of the proceedings, but with the oak doors firmly shut behind the last of them, the genial county lawman was transformed into an unsmiling, efficient investigator.

“Now, Doctor, you were about to tell me about your patient.”

“Well… it depends,” said Shepherd, shifting uneasily in his chair. “I’ve never had to discuss a patient with the police before. What do you want to know?”

“Pertinent facts, Doctor, that’s all,” said Rountree. Catching Shepherd’s look of surprise, he grinned. “Were you surprised at that five-dollar word? Don’t be. My accent may slip a little now that we’re alone. When I was in the air force, I discovered that folks just naturally relax around a country accent. They seem to think a fellow can’t know much if he talks so funny, and that little discovery proved to be such an asset to my chosen profession that I have done my durndest ever since to see that I keep one.”

“That’s an interesting psychological phenomenon, Sheriff. I wonder if it has ever been studied.”

“Oh, I don’t know if you fellas are on to it, but politicians have known it for years. Now, to get back to what we were talking about before, I just want to have a little unofficial talk. And don’t be afraid of using any of your big words on me. I expect I’ll tag right along.”

“He has a degree from Georgia Tech,” Clay murmured.

“Dr. Shepherd, this is my deputy, Clay Taylor. Clay, will you take notes during this session, please? Doctor, would you like to lie down on the couch while you talk?”

“People always think we do that,” sighed Shepherd. “Mostly, people just sit in chairs, you know.”

“I understand,” said Rountree, with a trace of a smile. “Now-about Eileen Chandler…”

“Well, I’m connected with the university clinic, and when Eileen enrolled at the university this fall, she came to the clinic. She had been referred by her previous physician, Dr. Nancy Kimble.”

“Why was that?”

“Oh, for several reasons, I think. Eileen had just been released from Cherry Hill, and Dr. Kimble was going on sabbatical to Europe this year, so she would have been unable to follow up on Eileen personally.”

“Uh-huh. And what were you treating her for?”

“Well, she was recovering from schizophrenia, but I dealt mostly with her adjustment problems. Dr. Kimble had already worked through everything major. I mean, Eileen was well enough to attend school and to lead a normal life. Seeing me was more of a safeguard than anything else. So she wouldn’t feel completely alone in her new surroundings.”

“Were you treating her for depression?”

“No. I wouldn’t call her adjustment problems depression…”

“Well, would you say she was depressed? Capable of suicide?”

Shepherd hesitated. “It is possible, of course. But I can’t say that I foresaw it. Not depression.”

“All right then, Doctor, why are you here?” asked Rountree gently.

“I was invited to the wedding. I’m not here professionally.”

“And who invited you?”

“Eileen Chandler. She didn’t have too many friends, poor kid. She was extremely shy. And from what I heard about this whole setup, I thought it might be a nice thing to do.”

“I see. Well, anyway, you can tell me something about her state of mind as you’ve observed it since you’ve been here.”

“Er-no. I really can’t. I saw Eileen for less than a minute.” He shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

Rountree leaned forward with quickened interest. “Now, why is that?”

Dr. Shepherd was silent for a moment, framing his answer. Finally he said, “Sheriff, it beats the hell outta me. I had been here less than an hour, and I was out in the hall talking to her Cousin Elizabeth, when Eileen walked in, screamed that she didn’t want me here, and went charging off upstairs.”

“And why did she do that?”

Shepherd shrugged. “I’m a psychiatrist, not a mind reader. All I know is, she fled when she saw me, then broke a mirror in the upstairs hall. Her family said it was just wedding nerves, and that may be as true as anything. She wasn’t a stable girl.”

“Should she have been getting married?”

Shepherd grinned. “That, Sheriff, is one form of insanity I don’t deal with. I told you: she was no longer a mental patient. We would have classified her as neurotic. And surely you know that neurotics get married all the time.”

Rountree grunted. “Did she have any reason to resent you being here?”

“I wouldn’t think so, Sheriff. Remember, she invited me herself. Handwritten invitation.”

Rountree sighed. “Well, I’ll have to look into it. You got all that down, Clay?”

The deputy, hunched over his notepad, nodded briefly, and went back to writing.

“So, we’ve established that she was upset, but we don’t know why. Of course, I reckon there’s the obvious. You want to tell me what you thought of the groom?”

“I didn’t know him. I mean, I’d met him, of course, but only once. He came by to pick her up one afternoon after our session, that’s all.”

“But she’d have talked about him, wouldn’t she? Must have been pretty important to her.”

Shepherd grimaced. “Did she talk about him? Constantly! But you see, Sheriff, her viewpoint was hardly objective. According to Eileen, Michael Satisky was a knight in shining armor. She talked like a bride, in fact.”

“Which she was-or almost was. Well, if this turns out to be a suicide, we may have to check the shining armor for rust spots. Reckon I’ll have a talk with the young man. All right, Dr. Shepherd, that’s all I can think of. Is there anything else you want to tell us?”

“Well, let me remind you that I knew Eileen when she was away at school. Away from her family, I mean. That change of environment could make a big difference in her state of mind.”

“How’s that?” asked Rountree.

“Well, Eileen seemed anxious about coming home. As if she were dreading something.”

“You want to take a guess at what that was?”

“Well… offhand…” Shepherd glanced up at the ceiling. “Have you ever met her mother?”