An End to a Silence: A mystery novel (The Montana Trilogy Book 1) Read Free Page A

suggest that McNeely and myself go on
with this crime scene and then we’ll look at what we’ve got.”
    Newton
clasped his hands together and bit his thumbs. “You’re right, you’re right.
I’ll be… I’ll get out of your way,” he said, and he stood up to leave. “Thing
is, it was my case,” he said. “It was my case.”
     
     
    Ward had
stared at the picture of Bermuda for going on five minutes. And then he noticed
the extra pushpin at the bottom, offset to the right-hand side. Then McNeely took
his attention away.
    “What
have we got here?” She was staring at the windowsill with hands on hips. All
the fingerprints that the dust had revealed. “Only a whole load of latents. The
cleanest crime scene ever apart from this windowsill. Not just one set of
prints but a whole load of them.” She reached into her bag and took out a
magnifying glass.
    Ward went
over to take a look. “All pointing inwards. Into the room.”
    “Mostly.”
    “What
does that tell us?”
    “Well,
all the prints look like they’re from the same person. So it tells us that
somebody repeatedly entered the room through this window.”
    Ward took
a closer look. “Are these palm prints facing the other way? In and out prints?
Is this our guy?” He was thinking out loud, but McNeely replied.
    “In the
absence of any other prints in this room it’s a good place to start. This is
going to take a while.”
    “You need
a hand?” Ward asked.
    “We’ll
just get in each other’s way.”
    Ward
looked out of the window. The room, south-facing, looked over two thirds of the
town, yesterday offering views of a crisp winter scene with remnants of snow
clinging to rooftops and pavements hedged with dirty shoveled-up snow heaps
from earlier clearing efforts. Today, the freezing mist blurred everything. An
icy wind blew down from the hills which started ten miles north, the tail end
of a small mountain range that snaked towards Canada, and brought a
harder-than-average winter this year. Fifteen Fahrenheit was normal for a
January day like today: it was five, and long icicles hung like silent wind
chimes from the old man’s window frame.
    Ward
returned to the picture. He considered the pushpin for a moment and then
removed it. Expected something to drop from behind the Bermuda picture but
nothing did.
    “I think
there was something here,” Ward said. He got up close to the picture to see if
there were any signs that something had been concealed behind it. He peeled
back the corner of the picture and he could see a slight discoloring of the
wall. Something had been pinned there. Something small. He did a rough
measurement with his thumb and forefinger. About the size of a photograph.
    “It’s
gone now,” McNeely said.
    “We need
the old man’s possessions. We also need to know who’s been in this room since
he died. We need to find out what this pin was holding.”

7
    The man
holds the boy in his arms. The boy’s eyes are open but don’t see. The man’s
eyes are closed but tears spring from them. He rocks the boy, then pulls him in
close. For minutes he stands there but he knows nothing of time. He holds him and
he wants to for an eternity. He yearns to swap places with the boy, and a groan
from the deepest depths of his soul escapes him. He sobs and looks towards
heaven, an attempt at a prayer, a plea for forgiveness and mercy. He suddenly
fears his final judgment. He stares into infinity and pities himself.

8
    The
conversation with the nursing home manager, Grainger, had been brief. Ward had
asked him about any comings and goings on the day of the homicide, and Grainger
had sweated his way through the questions, ending each answer with a “yes,
sir.” Said there was a girl with the victim shortly before he died. Paid
regular visits. Ward had asked him about security and Grainger had pointed out
surveillance cameras and had told Ward that all visitors were obliged to sign
in on arrival and to sign out on departure. Yes,