Fifth Son Read Free

him this morning, partially hidden in the tall weeds at the base of the church.”
    â€œWhich coroner did they call in?”
    â€œMacPhail should already be out there. I called him.”
    Green looked at Sullivan shrewdly. To have called in the city’s foremost forensic pathologist instead of one of the regular coroners, Sullivan had to have some suspicion lurking in the back of his implacable mind.
    â€œWhat the hell aren’t you telling me, Brian?”
    Sullivan’s smile broadened, and he shook his head as if in reluctant admiration. “Okay, there are some things that bothered my buddy. But I don’t want to tell you, because I want you to see the scene fresh, to make sure it’s not just the rural boys’ imagination working overtime.”
    Brian Sullivan expecting me to be the voice of rational restraint? That’s a first, thought Green. Sullivan was the most pragmatic, down-to-earth investigator he knew, whereas Green was the one with the fondness for the wild blue yonder. But as soon as he laid eyes on the scene, he understood what Sullivan meant.
    The village appeared suddenly over the crest of a hill—a small cluster of century-old buildings snuggled on the bank of the river. Glimpses of broad verandas and steeply pitched roofs showed through the canopy of trees, and battered pick-ups adorned the drives. Three old churches surrounded the square at the centre of the village. Two had tall, stately belfries, immaculate lawns, and freshly painted signs announcing the hours of worship. The third, the one surrounded by squad cars, yellow tape and gawking villagers, was abandoned and boarded up tight. Furthermore, the front door sported a padlock big enough for Green to see it clear across the road.
    It looked as if no one had been near it in years.
    Sullivan drew his car up behind the white forensics van, and the two detectives climbed out into the crisp fall air. Green leaned against the car to take in the scene. The village had looked idyllic from the hill crest, but close up, its faded signs and peeling paint bore witness to the harshness of rural life, and the big “For Sale” sign nailed to the wall of the deserted church looked as if it had weathered many storms. The diminutive limestone church sat amidst tall, withered weeds, bordered on one side by a small cemetery and on the other by woods. Its steeply pitched roof glinted silver in the noon sun, and a heavy stone archway framed its dark oak door.
    There were a number of curious aspects to the scene. First was the obvious question of why that particular bell tower, which was the shortest and ugliest on the square. If the man had been looking for a view, there were taller, more promising ones, and if he had been looking for architectural charm, the red brick church across the square, with its stately gothic spire, offered far more. Secondly and more importantly, with all the windows boarded up and the front door padlocked, how the hell had the man got in?
    A pair of Ident officers in white bunny suits prowled around in the grass at the base of the tower, obscuring the body from Green’s view. Green recognized one of them as Lyle Cunningham, a neat freak with a passion for high tech gadgetry and sterile crime scenes. No doubt he wouldn’t let either detective within fifty feet of the body, so Green was about to call him over when Dr. Alexander MacPhail himself emerged around the corner of the tower, closing his coroner’s bag and plucking burrs from his pant legs. He cast Green a jaunty grin as he strode towards them, and his rich brogue boomed across the square.
    â€œWell, this is a wee bonnie town, isn’t it, lads? Nice drive into the country, with the maples turning and all.”
    Green braced himself as MacPhail engulfed his hand in a bone-crushing grip. “Seems a weird place to end it all, that’s for sure,” Green replied. “What does it look like?”
    â€œI’ve left