Death of a Wolfman (A Lily Gayle Lambert Mystery Book 1) (6 page)

Doc chuckled. “Hits some people that way. Can’t stand to be in the same room with a corpse that isn’t in a casket all prettied up for public viewing.” He looked down at the man on the autopsy table. “Although I suppose this poor man won’t be on public view because we don’t have any idea who he is or who to notify he’s dead.” The doc sighed, then picked up a covered bowl from a nearby shelf. “Young Todd will miss my most astonishing piece of evidence.”

“I’ll catch him up on it later,” Ben said. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Doc pulled the white cloth from the bowl. I couldn’t make heads or tails of the mashed-up piece of metal in the bowl, but Ben’s sudden loud intake of breath told me it was something important.

CHAPTER FIVE

“Is that what I think it is?”

“Yep. The first in my long, long career. An honest-to-goodness silver bullet.”

A silver bullet. This case just kept getting more and more interesting. Halloween night. A werewolf. And now a silver bullet. Good thing I’d crossed my fingers when promising Ben I’d stay out of police business after this meeting.

Where would someone get a silver bullet? Could you just walk into a store that sold ammunition and buy one? I didn’t think so. What would be the purpose of that, other than killing a werewolf? Something like that would probably be pretty expensive too. Maybe a specialty shop in Memphis would sell something like that. Or it could probably be obtained over the Internet. Not something someone would buy just on a whim. I’d been only half-listening to the rest of the conversation between Ben and the doc, but the word
homemade
brought my attention right back into the discussion.

“Did you say homemade?”

Ben glared at me. “I thought we had an agreement.”

“Oh, stuff it, Ben. We agreed I’d stay out after this meeting. It’s not over just yet.” I turned back to Doc Hallowell. “How do you know the bullet is homemade?”

Doc gazed between the two of us, obviously not wanting to upset the sheriff. Ben waved his hands. “Go ahead. I doubt it’ll do any harm for her to hear.”

“I can tell it’s homemade because it’s almost pure silver. Nothing on the market is made out of almost pure silver. Probably the shooter melted down a piece of jewelry or maybe some knickknack to make this.” Doc adjusted his glasses. “Also I’d say the killer is a crack shot. If your boys didn’t find any evidence of other bullets fired close to the area where the body was found, this poor creature was done in with a single shot to the heart.”

Puzzled, I said, “If I was standing directly in front of somebody, wouldn’t I be able to hit them right in the heart with one shot?”

Doc gave me a disappointed look. As though I was a star student who’d missed the bus in this conversation. “I’m not saying the shooter was face-to-face with the victim. Otherwise the bullet would have passed all the way through the body and we might have lost this piece of evidence.”

“How far away could the shooter have been and still been successful in the kill?” Ben asked.

Doc scratched his chin. “Based on what I’ve got here, I’d say he was no more than twenty feet away. Oh, and the shooter wasn’t up a tree. Trajectory of the bullet is from straight on. You’ve sent Todd and Mark on a wild-goose chase going up trees for evidence.”

Ben shrugged. “Not necessarily. The killer could have been waiting for the vic and didn’t want to be seen. Not a lot of cover out there this time of year with most of the trees and shrubs having lost just about all their leaves.”

“But that would mean the killer knew the victim would be coming that way,” I interjected. “I had the impression from…” At Ben’s cough I changed tacks. “From information you already have. Ben, I think the killer was chasing the victim, not hiding up a tree.”

Ben scowled. “Maybe you’re both right, but it won’t hurt those boys to be climbing a few trees to see if anything valuable turns up. Have you got anything else for me, Doc?”

“Nope. That pretty well covers it. I’ll have JJ give you a set of prints, but I’m thinking you won’t find this guy in any database. He didn’t have any other distinguishing marks—other than the excessive hair. Couldn’t be from around here or somebody would’ve known about him. Wasn’t carrying any ID on him either. No clothes, no pockets.”

As we turned toward the door, the doc called to us. “You won’t find anybody around here that makes bullets admitting to making silver ones once word of this gets out. I’d advise you to move fast on that particular part of your investigation.”

Ben frowned. “The only ones who know about the silver bullet are the three of us.” He paused, waiting for the doc to speak, then groaned. “Don’t tell me you told someone else about the bullet.”

Doc got a defensive look on his face. “You know Samantha Taylor?” Ben and I nodded. Samantha came from a dirt-poor family out in the county and was trying to make her dream of becoming a doctor come true. With the limited financial aid she’d managed to get, she was sitting out the current semester of school due to lack of money. “Well,” Doc continued, “I’ve been letting her help me out around the morgue to get some practical experience. Trying to help her keep her dream alive, if you know what I mean. Anyway, she helped me with the postmortem. So she knows about the bullet.”

Ben scratched his five-o’clock shadow, making scruffing sounds. “Reckon I’d better head out to the Taylor place to talk to her first thing. See who all she’s told and make sure she understands not to tell anyone else.”

“Aren’t the Taylors real big on hunting?” I asked. “I’m pretty sure several of them have been fined for hunting out of season. Wonder if they make their own bullets.”

Ben glared at me. “You stop that right now. I’m the one doing the investigating here. I don’t want to hear that you’ve paid a visit to the Taylors’. Do you understand me, cousin?”

I stepped closer and got eye to eye with him. “I didn’t have any intention of making a trip out to the Taylor place. I was just speaking out loud.”

Ben hugged me. “I’m sorry, Lil. You just worry me so much, running around asking a bunch of questions. I’m afraid you could put yourself in real danger with this one. You have to keep your promise to me.”

I stepped back away from his touch. “I’ll be fine. I know you’re concerned and worried, but just don’t pull a stunt like that again.”

Ben directed his attention back to the doc. “I’ll be back in touch with you if any other questions come up. And keep the bullet mystery under your hat. It could be the most important piece of evidence we have. Meanwhile, I guess we just keep this guy in a cooler till we find out who he is.” He motioned to me. “Come on. I’ve got some investigating to do and you’re done with this.”

I followed the sheriff out into the hallway. “Well, I guess this is where we part ways. I’ve got some investigating of my own to do.”

Ben’s eyes darkened, his eyebrows pulling together. I let him get his dander up to the exploding point, then said, “LizBeth Mitchell commissioned me to do a thorough family history for her.” I smiled my sweetest smile. “That means documentation. I’m off to the library.”

Trotting along the hallway to the exit, I thought I detected the sound of Ben kicking the cinder-block walls. My internal glee disappeared as soon as I came in sight of Jimmy John, still manning the entryway desk.

I couldn’t resist one little jab as I exited the building. “Hey, Jimmy John. Aren’t you real big on hunting?”

He half-stood. “Git on out of here, Lily Gayle. Cousin to the sheriff or not, I won’t take no insinuations from you that I might’ve shot that animal in there. I was out to the roadhouse last night and have a whole bar full of witnesses to prove it.”

Letting the door slam behind me, I got out of there before Jimmy John could come out from behind his desk. My bicycle still leaned against the building. Mounting, I pedaled off in the direction of the library to get started on my job for LizBeth Mitchell.

I sincerely doubted it would be anywhere near as interesting as the murder case. Turning over events in my mind, I realized Ben was right. The silver bullet would be the piece of evidence that convicted the killer. Because just about every male over the age of ten in the county could handle a gun, finding a hunter—or even a crack shot—wouldn’t be all that helpful in solving the case. Comforting myself with the thought I’d find a way to stay informed, and maybe involved, I rounded the corner from Yancey Street back onto Main.

This time without nearly getting run down by a moving vehicle.

CHAPTER SIX

I inhaled the scent of old books and dust. Was there any place better in the world than the library for scenting the past? Well, maybe the basement at the courthouse, where all the deeds and wills and criminal records were kept. But I liked to start at the library. Find interesting information about people through the various online genealogical search sites and skim through old newspapers on microfilm before proceeding to the courthouse for pay dirt on the interesting info I’d picked up at the library.

My home office had a computer where I could connect with online genealogical sites and groups, but I preferred to work at the library. Didn’t want to get a reputation as some kind of housebound nutcase, did I? Besides, many a night when I couldn’t sleep I’d been online at home only to discover an interesting piece of information I’d wanted to follow up on and had to wait till the library opened the next morning to pursue the elusive sliver. Talk about making for a night of insomnia. I’d have myself so worked up over the possibilities of what I might have found that my eyes never closed all night and I’d be at the library as soon as the doors opened.

You’d think because I’d lived in Mercy all my life, the librarian had known my family right back to my grandparents and because my cousin was the sheriff, I’d be able to get my own key and use the library any time I felt the need. But nope. Rules were rules was the motto of Miss Jamerson, who’d been the librarian since I was a little girl. And the woman had seemed old then.

Was it just the fact that she was a librarian, with her hair in a bun and dumpy dresses, that had made her seem old even back then? Surely there was some kind of mandatory retirement age. If so, that meant Miss Jamerson couldn’t be more than twenty or twenty-five years older than me. I shuddered and made a mental note never to let my appearance and personality get so far gone that everyone thought I might be Methuselah’s grandmother.

I settled in my favorite chair. The one that let me observe everyone coming and going in the library and meant no one could sneak up behind me to see whose family history I might be looking in to.

Confidentiality of information was something I guaranteed all my customers, be they local or the descendant of someone who’d moved away generations ago. I might be known around town for being nosy, but I’d never been known to gossip about anything I found in the history records.

The Mitchells were the founding family of Mercy so I decided to start with the history of the town itself, see what I could glean about the founders in the old newspapers. Too bad I had to go to Miss Jamerson to get the microfilm from the oldest ones. So precious were they that very few were allowed to look at them, and then only after a long list of stern warnings from Miss Jamerson.

Because I used the library much more than any other citizen of the town, I felt more than a little peeved that Miss Jamerson always gave me the once-over when I asked to look at the old microfilms. As though I might be some hooligan bent on destroying the films or something.

With a sigh, I made my way to the front desk to request the films, which were kept in a locked cabinet under Miss Jamerson’s gimlet eye.

Having obtained the oldest newspapers from the basilisk Miss Jamerson, I seated myself at one of the machines and carefully threaded the film into the machine. This could prove to be truly interesting. I hadn’t looked at the oldest of the Mercy information in years.

Of course the earliest newspaper dated quite a few years after the Mitchell family had built their home, but they were the premier family so their every move would have been covered in the pages of
The Argus
, as the first newspaper in town had been called. Funny, that. Argus seemed to be a common name for early newspapers. No doubt due to the fact that Argus was one of the old Greek gods, who’d had a hundred eyes. The newspapermen must have felt they were the eyes of the community, and it was their responsibility to report everything those eyes saw.

I sighed at the irony of that. Small-town newspapers never printed the really juicy stuff. That got around by word of mouth and never saw print. A shame really, because I felt sure the same had been true nearly two hundred years ago, when
The Argus
was being printed.