Dwight called Richards to say that he was coming out
to the Buckley place. “Tell Mrs. Samuelson we want to
speak to her again.”
“Should I try questioning Sanaugustin’s wife when
she gets here?”
“Not if the men are around. If she’s going to talk at
all, it’ll probably be when they’re not there.”
Despite the gory murder and the puzzle of Mitchiner’s
hand, Dwight felt almost lighthearted as he drove out
along Ward Dairy Road. The sun was breaking through
the clouds, trees were beginning to bud and more
than one yard sported bright bursts of yellow forsythia
bushes. The rains would have settled the dirt around
the roots of the trees they had planted this weekend,
and whatever the problems with Cal, Deborah seemed
to be taking them in stride.
He was not particularly superstitious but he caught
himself checking the cab of the truck for some wood to
touch.
227
MARGARET MARON
Just to be on the safe side.
After years of wanting what he thought he could
never have, these last few months had been so good that
he was almost afraid he was going to jinx his luck by
even acknowledging it. He told himself to concentrate
instead on the cases at hand.
Start with Mitchiner. An old man with a fading grasp
on reality. Had he wandered away on his own or had
someone taken him? The hand proved that someone
knew where his body was because it had been cut loose
and carried from that isolated spot on Black Creek
downstream to a more frequented place on Apple
Creek. Why?
Because they wanted the hand to be found? Because
they knew it would lead back to the body further up-
stream?
Deborah was fond of asking “Who profits?” but on
the face of it, no one. Yes, Mitchiner’s daughter was
suing the rest home, but that was almost reflexive these
days even though most such cases no longer generated
large settlements. Besides, everyone said that she and
her son were devoted to the old man. Before he got his
driver’s license, the kid rode his bicycle over there after
school almost every afternoon to play checkers with
him; after he turned sixteen, he came as regularly to
take his grandfather out for a drive around town. The
daughter was there a couple of nights a week and again
on the weekends. On Saturdays, she had seen to his
