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Flynn. “Doc Allister gets something like a thousand a year from the county to play coroner. He’s about the only doctor we got. At least, he’s the oldest.”
    “Not a qualified pathologist,” said Flynn.
    “He’s best at sending out bills.” Morris came around the counter. “I’ll bring you to them. You going to stay here, Mister Wahler?”
    “Yes.”
    “We don’t have a breakfast room, as you know. There’s a Mister Coffee maker over there by the fireplace.”
    “Thanks.” Hands in the pockets of his suit jacket, to warm himself, Wahler sat in a wicker chair in the lounge.
    As Morris led Flynn through the main door and around the building he said, as if he could hardly wait for the opportunity, “It happened last night. About eleven. I was in the office just watching the late news. I heard the blast of a shotgun from outside the building. I rushed out and there was Huttenbach…”
    There was Huttenbach.
    They had gone a few meters onto unkempt grass from the path surrounding the lodge.
    Face up on the grass lay the body of a young man. His headand upper body were dotted with blood. One eye was still open. The other was half-closed, with a single dot of blood on the lid.
    Two men stood nearby.
    One said, “Inspector Wynn?”
    “Flynn.”
    In gray mountain light of an October Sunday morn, two men shook hands over the corpse.
    “Alfred Jensen. Bellingham Chief of Police. Well, I’m all the police there is in Bellingham. I’m also head of the town road department. Mostly, that means I’m in charge of snow removal. This here is Doc Allister. He’s pretty much in charge of births and deaths ’round here, not much good in-between, if you’re just sick.”
    Doc Allister had a big nose, which he lowered and raised in salute to Flynn.
    “Death was instantaneous,” Doctor Allister stated, showing he was not completely innocent of the formal language of the witness stand. “Result of a shotgun discharge. I would put the hour of death at somewhere around eleven o’clock last night.”
    “Where’s the shotgun?” Flynn asked.
    “In my car,” Jensen said. “It’s a pretty good one. Had his initials on it.
D.H
. It was lying right here when we found it.”
    Jensen pointed to the ground near Huttenbach’s feet.
    “Here’s our funeral director,” Jensen said. The two black-suited men from the hearse had come around the corner of the lodge. They walked in slow parade. “Shaw and son. Shaw’s pa used to be the town drunk,” Jensen said to Flynn. “Now Shaw is. Shaw’s son is workin’ on it. Depressing, undertaking. Hello, Fred!” Jensen said cheerily enough. “Glad you could make it.”
    Shaw’s and son’s blotchy faces nodded.
    “We’ll just let this Inspector inspect around a little, then you can take the body. Got your stretcher, or whatever you call it?”
    Shaw looked at the rough ground.
    “Better get somethin’ to carry him off.”
    Flynn crouched by the body.
    Indeed death had been instantaneous. There had been little bleeding. The young man’s tweed jacket and light woolen shirt,opened at the throat, had been shredded by shotgun pellets. All his clothes, including his light corduroy trousers, socks and loafers, were rain-soaked as he lay. His hair was wet. A hank of hair matted on his forehead.
    He was a slim, well-built young man, not more than thirty years old, if that. Flynn guessed his sports would have been squash racquets, handball, something that required speed, agility and brains rather than weight or brute force. His wrist watch was heavy gold. On his right wrist was a gold identification bracelet. A shotgun pellet had shattered one tooth. Other than that his teeth were white and even.
    The grass around him had been washed by rain and stomped down by Carl Morris, Doctor Allister, Chief Jensen and whoever else.
    Flynn lifted the late Congressman Huttenbach’s left arm, felt it, and let it drop. Putting his death at about eleven the previous night was not far wrong, if