Murder in the Choir (The Jazz Phillips Mystery Series) Read Online Free PDF Page A

it could help. We might still be peckerwoods from Little Rock, but not city boys in suits, and in the eyes of rural folks, there is a difference. The way we dressed might give the Fat Boys reason to view us as hicks, but we stood a chance of getting information they never would.
    I asked Dee to park his cruiser in the parking lot by the church, and we got out. From where we stood, it was less than a hundred feet to the porch of the community center, and I could see at least a dozen places where the shooter might hide. Given what I knew, one of the best spots would be right where we were standing.
    The problem was that on the day Smiley was killed, a lot of people were in town. Some of them were strangers, but most were relatives of people living there or folks from similar little settlements within twenty or thirty miles. They were there to help Smiley celebrate his birthday, which actually took place three days before. That meant the bush telegraph was overwhelmed. There were simply too many different faces there at once, and it would take the Oak Grove folks months to sort them all out. Even then, some of these would certainly be overlooked.
    “I imagine you checked out the parking lot,” I asked Dee. “From here it looks like the best angle.”
    “Yeah, but it was a mess,” he told me. “It rained hard that afternoon and there wasn’t anything left by the time I got here.”
    “We might get lucky if he shot from a car,” I said, mostly to myself. “Assuming we know whose car to look at.”
    Dee nodded and we walked across the square toward the community center. As we did, I kept an eye out for anything that might have been overlooked. That was force of habit. I didn’t expect to find anything, and I didn’t. Sloppy discipline breeds sloppy evidence, and I smiled to myself when I saw Dee doing the same. I had taught him well, and I had learned a lot from him, too.
    When we got to the center, Dee walked to the east end of the gallery porch and pointed to a faint chalk outline on the unpainted boards. “This is where the body fell. Or maybe I should say, this is where the deputy found it. Smiley was moved around a lot when they tried to revive him.” He pointed to dark brown smudges on the unpainted wood. I could see at least three places where the body might have been.  
    “Tell me how you see it going down,” I asked him.
    “As far as I can tell, Smiley was out here when it happened. It was warm that afternoon and he had his coat off. It was draped over the rail there, and there’s no blood soak or bullet hole in it. There was some blood splatter.”
    “You think the splatter was from the shot?” I interrupted.
    “I don’t think so, but it’s hard to tell. Even if it was, the jacket had been moved by the time we got here. It was in the deputy’s cruiser.”
    I nodded. “All right, what about the body?”
    “You can see where it was and how it was lying when the deputy found it. He had the sense to move everyone back, but it was too late by then. The people who found him moved him around a lot.” He pointed to the grass in front of the porch. “There was a large stain out there, too, but the rain washed it away.”“
    “So he may have been shot out there?”
    “I don’t think so. One witness said that was where they laid him down when the EMS got here. They were carrying him to a car to take him to the hospital.” He shrugged. “That’s the only explanation that makes sense.”
    I nodded. The simplest explanation is normally the best, but this wasn’t a normal case. “You’re probably right, but we need to check that out with other witnesses. I take it the deputy took names and addresses?”
    “Yeah, but why would the shooter stick around?” Before I could answer, he held up both hands. “I know. I have someone checking it out.”
    I nodded. I would’ve been surprised if he hadn’t. “You’re right on both counts. No one heard the shooting?”
    ”No, not a one, but they were all