Under the Lake

32

Howell heard the siren from the moment Bo left the sheriffs office. After a minute, the butler began to stir and wanted to get up. Howell helped him to his feet and walked him to a living room sofa as the siren grew louder and louder. He had just settled Alfred there when Bo strode through the open front door.

“Where?” he asked.

Howell pointed to the study and followed the sheriff in.

“Jesus Christ,” Bo said.

“Yeah.”

Bo stood and looked at the corpse for a long moment. “Well,” he said, finally, “we had our differences, I guess, but I sure wouldn’t have wanted him to end up that way.”

Howell wondered how Bo would have liked for Sutherland to end up. “You see the pencil,” he said. “I reckon he took off his slippers, there, put the pencil through the trigger guard, holding it in his toes, and pushed it against the trigger with both feet.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Bo said, still rooted to the spot. “He couldn’t have put the barrel in his mouth and still reached the trigger with his hand.” He was quiet again for another moment, then he took a breath and shook himself. He picked up the phone and dialed. “Scotty, give me Mike. Mike? Get on the horn and get everybody over to Sutherland’s house. Yeah, he’s dead. I don’t know, yet, just hold your horses and listen. Call Dr. Murphy and ask him to get out here right away. Call Herman McWilliam and tell him to get over here with his wagon; we’re going to have to take the body over to Gainesville for a proper post mortem. Then you round up the fingerprint kit, a lot of evidence bags and the camera – the Polaroid and the 35 millimeter – everything we could possibly need to work a scene, and get over here. Tell Scotty and Sally to handle the radio and the office, and not to leave until they hear from me. I don’t think anybody knows about this, yet, so tell them to keep things as normal as possible, okay? Tell the guys to park around back, then stand at each entrance to the drive. Nobody gets in unless I invited them. I’ll want you inside with me. Got that? Any questions? Okay, move it.”

He hung up the phone and turned to Howell. “All right, John, what were you doing here?”

Howell had thought about that one. “I dropped by to ask Mr. Sutherland some questions about local history.”

“Why didn’t you go to the library?”

“They were questions I thought only Mr. Sutherland could answer. Or would.”

Bo glared at him. “You’re still after that, are you?”

Howell looked him in the eye. “You bet.”

Bo shrugged. “All right, give me this morning from the top.”

Howell ran through his morning for the sheriff, seeing Scotty off to work, running out of gas, Benny Pope’s visit, stopping at the post office, and his arrival at the house. He stretched the time a little to cover his search of the study. Bo made copious notes as he talked.

“What did you touch?”

“The phone, the cushions to make Alfred comfortable… that’s it, I think.”

“Not the doorknobs?”

“Let’s see; the front door was ajar, I touched the door, but not the knob. I touched the back doorknobs, inside and out, when I went out there. The study door was open, one side of the shotgun case was open; I remember I saw my reflection in just the one door.”

The sheriff looked at him sharply. “John, I know you well enough to know that you didn’t just stand here when you found the body. Did you touch the desk or the safe or the filing cabinets or anything else at all?”

Howell felt tiny sweat beads breaking on his forehead. He hoped Bo didn’t notice. “I stood here in my tracks and looked at the room real hard for about… I guess, a minute. My first thought was that there might be a note.”

“Was there a note? Did you find anything like that?”

“No. The room is exactly the way I found it.” It was, too. Everything in its place.

“John, listen to me. Nobody else is here yet. I haven’t even read you your rights. If there’s anything else you want to tell me, anything you might just have forgotten or overlooked, anything you might have done, now’s the time to tell me, unofficially, if you want. In a minute this place is going to be swarming with people, and it’ll be too late for me to help you.”

Howell blinked. “Help me? I don’t need any help. Jesus, Bo, you don’t think for a moment this is anything but a suicide, do you? Come on, you’re not going to play me like a suspect.“

“All right, all right, it looks like a suicide, but you know I’ve got to be thorough.” He looked again at what was left of Eric Sutherland’s body. “More thorough than I’ve ever been in my life.” He looked back at Howell. “Did you go upstairs or into any of the other rooms?”

“No, I made it a suicide right away. I reckoned if there’d been anybody in the house, they’d have heard it. If I’d thought there was a murderer hiding upstairs, I’m not so sure I’d have looked, anyway.”

“When was the last time you saw Eric Sutherland alive?”

“At his party. Not since.”

“Not anywhere? Not here, not in the town, not anywhere?”

“Nope. In fact, I only ever spoke to Sutherland twice; the day I arrived in town, when I saw him and stopped to introduce myself, and the day of the party. That was it.”

“You ever have harsh words with him?”

“Nope. He was a little cool when I met him the first time, but at the party he was all charm.”

“Apart from the time you broke into Sutherland’s office, did you ever come to this house when he wasn’t here?”

Howell waited for a moment before answering. “I think you must be referring to the time when Scotty lost her credit card at Sutherland’s party, and Sutherland thought somebody had broken into his office. I have never visited this house when Sutherland was not here. Do I make myself absolutely clear on that point?”

“Yeah, okay, we’ll forget about the credit card. You’ve explained that well enough, and I think it’s best forgotten.”

“Fine. I know you’ve got a doctor on the way, Bo, but for what it’s worth, this looks hours old to me. The blood and the other stuff are partly dried.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right.” Bo looked up as a car came to a halt outside the house. “Look, John, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t go phoning this in to any of your newspaper buddies, and if you’d keep Scotty from doing that, too. I want to have this thing covered from every angle before the press gets onto it, okay?”

“Sure, Bo.”

Mike came into the study carrying two briefcases, saw Sutherland’s body, put down the cases, and fled to the driveway. They could hear him retching.

“He’s going to be a lot of help,” Bo said, wryly.

Howell laughed. “He’ll get used to it. First time’s the worst.”

“Well, John, we’ve got a lot of work to do around here. I’ll call you if I have any more questions.”

“Okay, I’ll let you get on with it.” Howell turned and started for the door.

“Oh, John,” Bo called out.

Howell stopped. “Yeah?”

“Like they say in the movies, don’t leave town.”