O ne of the crime-scene people opened the back door. 'Captain,' she said. 'Something you should see.' 'Come on,' Quirk said, and we went back into the house. A small bookcase against the far wall had been moved aside and Belson was squatting on his heels. He was shining a flashlight on the wall just above the baseboard.
'Fresh patch here,' Belson said. 'Little one.'
Q uirk and I bent over. The baseboard and wall were painted burgundy. About three inches up from the baseboard was a small white circle of something that looked like joint compound.
'Could be a bullet hole,' Quirk said. 'Or a phone jack, or a gouge in the plaster.'
'Behind the bookcase?' Quirk said. 'Dig it out.'
I t was a bullet. Belson dug it out and dusted it off and rolled it around a little in the palm of his hand.
'There's a fireplace on the other side,' Belson said. 'Slug was up against the firebox.'
Q uirk nodded. He bent over, looking at the slug in Belson's upturned palm.
'Looks like a nine to me,' Belson said.
Q uirk nodded again and looked at the bookcase. 'No hole in the furniture,' Quirk said.
'So the bookcase was moved.'
'Or it wasn't there in the first place,' Quirk said. 'When the shot was fired.'
'Patching compound is fresh,' Belson said. 'Surface is hard, but you dig in and it's not dry yet.'
'So it's recent,' Quirk said.
'We can call the manufacturer,' Belson said. 'Get a drythrough time. Then we'll know how recent.'
Q uirk glanced at Gavin's body on the floor.
'Can't be the bullet that killed him,' Quirk said. 'Unless he was standing on his head when he shot himself.'
'The other slug, the one that killed him was high on the wall,' Bclson said. 'About where it should have been.' Quirk looked at the wall where the first bullet had been dug out.
'Forensics will help us with that,' Quirk said.
The three of us were quiet, looking at the dug-out bullet hole, low in the wall, behind where the bookcase had stood. Then Quirk went and sat on his heels beside the body and moved Gavin's right hand. He looked at it and looked at the bullet hole. He dropped the hand and stood.
'Let's not treat this as a suicide yet,' he said.
36
Wilma Cooper was gardening in the vast backyard of her home in Lincoln.
'I always garden in the morning,' she had said without looking at me. 'Summers are so short.'
I walked up the long curve of the driveway and across a brick patio bigger than my apartment and around to the back of the house where she had told me she'd be.
A nd there she was, in a halter top, an ankle-length blue denim sundress, a huge straw hat, big yellow gardening gloves, and battered brown sandals. She was, in fact, big. Tall, rawboned, angular, with weathered skin and a pinched face that made her look worried. The gray hair that showed under her hat looked permed.
She took off her gloves to shake hands with me, and looked off to the left over my right shoulder while she did so. There was iced tea in a big pitcher on a lacy green metal table, with four lacy green metal chairs. Beside the tea was a small plate of Oreo cookies. We sat.
'I really don't see how I can be of help to you,' she said. 'I know little of my husband's business affairs.'
'It was nice of you to make the iced tea,' I said.
'What? Oh. Yes. I mean, I ... thank you.'
This was not a good sign. If she had trouble with thanks for the iced tea, how would she do with, did your husband kill anybody? I decided to be circumspect. She poured us each some iced tea.
'Terrible thing about Mr. Gavin,' I said.
I drank a little of my iced tea. It was made from a mix, I was pretty sure. Pre-sweetened. Diet. She looked at hers. Then sort of obliquely at me, and smiled vaguely. At what?
'Yes,' she said after a while.
'Did you know him well?'
She thought about that for a little while. Far below us at the distant bottom of the backyard, a sprinkler went on by itself.
'Ah . . . Steve ... was in our wedding.'
'Really?'
She nodded. There was nothing else to drink so I swilled in a bit more of the ersatz iced tea.
'So you've been friends for a long time,' I said.
