Victims Read Free

coroner’s station wagon followed, with two men inside. Checking my watch, I calculated that it had probably taken them an hour and a half to respond, about average for a Friday night. At the curb, I counted three black-and-white police units and two unmarked inspector’s cars.
    Canelli was waiting for me in the foyer. Sitting in an enormous carved wooden armchair that could have come from a throne room, Canelli looked lumpy and ill at ease. He was wearing run-over shoes, shapeless brown corduroy slacks, and a nylon windbreaker that bulged tight across his stomach.
    “Hi, Lieutenant.” On his feet, he came toward me. He looked and acted like he’d gone out to buy a six-pack of beer, got caught in a time warp and somehow wandered into the entryway of an English manor house. Obviously, he was awed by his surroundings. His voice was hushed, his eyes round with wonder. As I clipped my plastic identification badge to the lapel of my sports jacket I asked, “How many men have we got on the scene?”
    “I’m the only one from our squad,” he answered. “There’re five uniformed men securing the premises—four patrolmen and Sergeant MacFarland.”
    “Did you get Alexander Guest’s complaint?”
    “Yessir.” From an inside pocket he withdrew an unsealed envelope containing a single sheet of stationery. Beneath his letterhead, in his own handwriting, Guest stated that he believed Gordon Kramer had murdered Charles Quade inside the Guesthouse and would so depose. He further stated that Quade had been employed by him to guard said premises. Both Canelli and Sergeant MacFarland had witnessed the statement.
    “Good.” I put the envelope in my own pocket. “How long has the A.P.B. been on the air?”
    “Maybe fifteen minutes.”
    “Do you have any kind of a time frame for the crime?”
    He took a notebook from another pocket, frowned as he thumbed the pages backward and forward, and finally found the entry he wanted. “As near as I can tell, several shots were fired—three shots, at least—just a little after 1:00 A.M . Like, maybe five minutes after. Guest called 911, and the first black-and-white unit was on the scene at about 1:25. They verified the crime and called Dispatch. The dispatcher called Homicide. I was the only one catching. I got here about ten minutes to two. By that time another black-and-white was on the scene, and the premises were secure. I took a look at the victim. At first I didn’t recognize him. That’s because he was on his face, see. Then I talked to Guest. Or, more like it, he talked to me.”
    “How do you mean?”
    “I mean that—”
    A hallway door opened, revealing John MacFarland, a big, amiable, powerfully built man in his middle fifties, with a ruddy face seamed by twenty years spent riding a motorcycle.
    “Hello, Frank.”
    “Hello, Johnny. How’ve you been?”
    “No complaints.” He smiled. “I’m a grandfather. Just a week ago. Sally had a baby boy.”
    “I know. Kennedy told me. Congratulations.”
    “Thanks. The coroner’s team is here. They want to know whether they can move the body.”
    “No, they can’t. The lab technicians aren’t on the scene yet.” Inquiringly, I looked at Canelli. He spread his hands and shook his head.
    “I called them as soon as I got here, Lieutenant. But it’s Friday night, you know. They’re out on another call: a wino, dead in a church, if you can believe that. I was just going to tell you.”
    “Then I don’t want anyone within ten feet of the body,” I said, speaking to MacFarland. “This one, we’ve got to do right. Just exactly right.”
    MacFarland nodded and turned away, closing the hallway door as he went.
    “Where were we?” I asked Canelli.
    “I was telling you about Guest.”
    “Where is he, by the way?”
    Canelli gestured to a carved oak staircase that curved gracefully up from the central entry hall to the mansion’s second floor. “He’s in his bedroom, at the top of those stairs. He says for you to