The Silver Anniversary Murder Read Online Free PDF Page A

registered?” Jack said.
    “Afraid not.”
    “Well, that’s not unusual. I know a lot of guys on the job who stay away from the polls. Not that they don’t care, they just don’t want a record of affiliation. Let’s see what happens in the canvass.”
    “And Joe will check if they forwarded their mail.”
    “And how they paid their bills. We’ll turn them up.” He sounded confident.
    But I was starting to wonder.
    The next morning, after Eddie went off to school, I drove to the creek, parked off the road, and walked down the mild slope to where crime scene tape had been spread over a sizable area, stretching from tree to tree and stake to stake where there were no trees. A lone local cop sat in his radio car, ostensibly guarding the scene. He was eating a bagel and drinking coffee from a thermos when I got there. I waved to him.
    “Morning, Mrs. Brooks.”
    I didn’t recognize him but I guess I’m better known than I think—always a surprise to a person who keeps to herself. “How long will you be here?” I asked.
    He had opened the window. “Probably another day. They took a thousand pictures when the body was found, but we don’t want the scene disturbed till we’re sure we don’t need any more.”
    “Where was she found?”
    He put his bagel down on the seat, screwed on the top to the thermos, and got out of the car. I followed him to the yellow tape, which he lifted for me to go under. “About there.” He pointed. “It’s kind of sheltered with those bushes growing there. I can’t let you walk any closer than where we’re standing.”
    We were about ten feet from the area he had indicated, a leafy nest with bush branches bending over it. The killer must have raised them somewhat to get the body in snugly. “Do you know where her head was?”
    “Left, I think, toward the water.”
    “Did you see her face at all?”
    “Just for a second.” He looked unhappy.
    “Was she recognizable?”
    “Not to me.”
    It wasn’t the answer I wanted, but I didn’t want to press him. There was no evidence I could see that a body had lain on that sheltered bit of ground. There were just leaves and brush, new green growth on the bushes. “Were there tire tracks?” I asked finally.
    “You’d have to ask the crime scene detectives, ma’am. If she was dumped when she died a couple of weeks ago, it’s unlikely they’d find tracks that were useful.”
    “Thanks, Officer Jennings.” He had his name on a pin on the front of his uniform.
    We walked back under the tape and I returned to my car, leaving him to his bagel and coffee.
    Late in the afternoon, Joe called. “This is a real mystery, Mrs. Brooks,” he began, “the kind that should delight you and drive me up the wall.”
    “What you’re saying is nothing makes sense.”
    “Exactly. We canvassed the apartment building and came up with nothing. The Mitchells, if that’s what their name was, kept to themselves and didn’t get along with the woman across the hall, so no one can tell us anything useful.”
    “Did anyone see them move out?”
    “One man thought he saw people loading an SUV with furniture two or three weeks ago. It’s hard to pinpoint the time at this late date. But as you’ve heard, they didn’t own a motor vehicle under either of their names.”
    “How did they pay their rent?”
    “Cash. Does that surprise you?”
    “Not at this point.”
    “But on time every month. And we’ve talked to a number of banks. There are no accounts in their names.”
    “So they weren’t Peter and Holly Mitchell,” I said. “They had other names, which they kept secret for their own reasons. Once a month they withdrew enough cash to pay their rent. They could have had credit cards in their real names, but no one in that complex would know what that is.”
    “That’s the way I’m thinking.”
    “Joe, has a police artist made a sketch of the dead woman’s face?”
    “In fact he has. I just got it a few minutes ago. I’ll fax it to