up a jolting path and across a soft meadow. Tucked beneath the pines fringing the open space sat a small cabin built of dark logs and railroad ties and roofed with rusting sheet metal. A rain-speckled cardboard sign was nailed to the door: CRIME SCENE KEEP OUT UNDER PENALTY OF THE LAW. D. L. TICE GRANT COUNTY SHERIFF . A still-shiny chain and padlock dangled across the door; Yates found the key and unlocked it and let Wager into the single room cluttered with the years of debris of a man’s isolated life. On plank shelves spiked along one wall, piles of old magazines and newspapers slowly yellowed; a black iron stove, used for both heating and cooking, sat with its firebox door sagging open; a half-dozen pots and pans hung within easy reach. Over a steel sink resting in an iron frame, a pump nozzle drooped; the corners of the room were crammed with cardboard boxes holding tools, license plates going back thirty years, scraps of electric wire and baling cord, jars and cans of food, old clothes that smelled of stale dirt, letters and legal papers dating from the 1940s and brittle to the touch. A twisting avenue led from the front door to a large sofa, its upholstery split, past a tasseled lamp, to the rumpled blankets of the sheetless mattress, to a table whose planks were cleared at one end for use and whose other end was crammed with more magazines, an old clock, a pad of Indian Head lined paper, pencil stubs, an old-fashioned radio with a cathedral front, and dishes and tin silverware, more or less clean, and finally to the stove sagging beneath its rusty chimney pipe.
“He was one old packrat, wasn’t he?” Yates said. “I had to inventory this whole pile of crap.”
Wager had seen a copy of the wearisome long list in the victim’s file. He sidled down the aisle looking at this and that. “How’d you find out about him?”
“He had a job to do over at the Lazy J ranch—fencing, roofing; when he was more than a couple days late, Mr. Connell, the ranch manager, came over and found him.”
So Mueller had been dead for a couple of days before he was discovered. That explained the lingering and half-familiar odor that blended with the general damp mustiness of the cabin. Wager studied the corner Yates had pointed out. It was behind the table and away from the door. He knew from the crime report that Mueller had been shot once in the back of the head with a large-caliber weapon, probably a pistol, and that the slug had not been found either in the body or in the log walls.
“You didn’t outline the body with chalk?”
Even in the dim light of the unshaded ceiling bulb, Wager could see Yates’s sallow neck turn red with embarrassment. “Where the hell would I get chalk? I took pictures, is what I did. You seen the pictures, didn’t you? That shows you where the body was.”
You couldn’t measure distances from a picture; you couldn’t get as clear an idea of the body’s position, either. But Wager nodded silently and stepped carefully to a location that might have been where the killer stood when he fired into the man’s head. Given the narrow alleys between boxes and piles, there weren’t many other places the gunman could have stood. In one of the railroad ties, near eye level, three or four gouges showed freshly splintered wood. “Is that where you looked for the slug?”
Yates said yes. “I stood right where you’re standing, Gabe—I figure that’s where the killer stood. And then I went and dug into every hole in that wall. I even used a metal detector on the floor and along the chinks. But all I found were nails and screws and such.”
He expected Wager to tell him he did the right thing. “That was the right thing to do.”
“Well I didn’t need chalk for something like that.”
“But the slug should still be here somewhere.”
“I looked. Sheriff Tice looked. Even the coroner. Every crack in the logs, floor, even the roof. The only thing we can figure is it angled off Mueller’s
“He was one old packrat, wasn’t he?” Yates said. “I had to inventory this whole pile of crap.”
Wager had seen a copy of the wearisome long list in the victim’s file. He sidled down the aisle looking at this and that. “How’d you find out about him?”
“He had a job to do over at the Lazy J ranch—fencing, roofing; when he was more than a couple days late, Mr. Connell, the ranch manager, came over and found him.”
So Mueller had been dead for a couple of days before he was discovered. That explained the lingering and half-familiar odor that blended with the general damp mustiness of the cabin. Wager studied the corner Yates had pointed out. It was behind the table and away from the door. He knew from the crime report that Mueller had been shot once in the back of the head with a large-caliber weapon, probably a pistol, and that the slug had not been found either in the body or in the log walls.
“You didn’t outline the body with chalk?”
Even in the dim light of the unshaded ceiling bulb, Wager could see Yates’s sallow neck turn red with embarrassment. “Where the hell would I get chalk? I took pictures, is what I did. You seen the pictures, didn’t you? That shows you where the body was.”
You couldn’t measure distances from a picture; you couldn’t get as clear an idea of the body’s position, either. But Wager nodded silently and stepped carefully to a location that might have been where the killer stood when he fired into the man’s head. Given the narrow alleys between boxes and piles, there weren’t many other places the gunman could have stood. In one of the railroad ties, near eye level, three or four gouges showed freshly splintered wood. “Is that where you looked for the slug?”
Yates said yes. “I stood right where you’re standing, Gabe—I figure that’s where the killer stood. And then I went and dug into every hole in that wall. I even used a metal detector on the floor and along the chinks. But all I found were nails and screws and such.”
He expected Wager to tell him he did the right thing. “That was the right thing to do.”
“Well I didn’t need chalk for something like that.”
“But the slug should still be here somewhere.”
“I looked. Sheriff Tice looked. Even the coroner. Every crack in the logs, floor, even the roof. The only thing we can figure is it angled off Mueller’s
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