the door before they rang. Short and sturdy with dark
brown skin, wiry salt-and-pepper hair pulled back in
a bun, and intelligent brown eyes, Jincy Samuelson
wore a spotless white bib apron over a long-sleeved
blue denim dress. She brushed aside the search war-
rant they tried to give her and led them immediately to
her employer’s home office. Paneled in dark wood, the
room looked more like a decorator’s idea of a gentle-
man farmer’s office than a place where real work was
done by a roughneck, up-from-the-soil, self-made mil-
lionaire. The only authentic signs that he actually used
the room were a rump-sprung leather executive chair
behind the polished walnut desk, a couple of mounted
deer heads, a desktop littered with papers, and a framed
snapshot of a child who sat on a man’s lap as he drove
a huge tractor.
“That him?” Richards asked.
The housekeeper nodded. “And his daughter when
she was a little girl.”
147
MARGARET MARON
It was their first look at the victim’s face and the two
deputies stared long and hard at it. He was dressed in
sweaty work clothes, and only one hand was on the
steering wheel. The other arm was curved protectively
around the child who smiled up at him.
“He doesn’t want anybody to do anything in here
except run a dust cloth over the surfaces, vacuum the
rug, and wash the windows twice a year,” said Mrs.
Samuelson. “Once in a while his secretary from over in
New Bern might come by, but for the most part, he’s
the only one who uses this room. If you want to be sure
it’s just his fingerprints . . .”
“Not his bedroom or his bathroom?” Mayleen won-
dered aloud.
“Those rooms the maid or I clean regularly. Besides,”
she added with a small tight frown, “he occasionally
takes—
Percy Denning had brought a small field kit and was
soon lifting prints from the desk items.
Dwight Bryant arrived while they were questioning
Mrs. Samuelson about Buck Harris’s usual routine. He
found them in the kitchen, a kitchen so immaculate that
it might never have cooked a meal or had grease pop
from a pan even though he could smell vanilla and the
rich aroma of freshly brewed coffee. Heavy-duty stain-
less steel appliances and cherry cabinets lined the walls
and the floor was paved with terra cotta tiles. Only the
long walnut table that sat in the middle of the room
