Merry, Merry Ghost

“Three: Time of death is tricky, but I would have estimated around nine P.M. based on temp, lividity, stomach contents. However, Price said she was last seen about twelve-fifteen.”

Chief Cobb’s face corrugated in a heavy frown. “If you had to testify at a trial, when would you put the outer limits on time of death?”

“If it will help you sleep any better at night, I can equivocate like a politician. On the one hand, on the other hand…The defense expert medical witness could read the report and say in the range of his experience with the facts as presented, the outer limit is ten o’clock. My gut feeling? She was probably dead an hour earlier. But, on the other hand…”

Chief Cobb looked morose. “I got to deal with facts, Doc. She was seen around twelve-fifteen by an officer who positively ID’d her.”

“Hallucination?”

Cobb returned to the open file on his desk.

I bent nearer his shoulder.

As he scanned Johnny Cain’s report, he highlighted in canary yellow:

…light must have been funny in the car. When I first approached no one seemed to be in the front seat. By the time I got to the door, Mrs. Flynn was there in a black fur coat. She said she was sorry she’d driven so fast and she said, “We got to talking.” I looked in the passenger seat and it was empty and then Mrs. Flynn said she saw a fox and pointed at the road. I turned that way. When I looked back there was a redheaded woman in the passenger seat in a brown fur coat. I don’t see how I could have missed seeing her the first time, but I did. She told Mrs. Flynn to get her purse. She talked a lot.

Was there an aura of desperation about Officer Cain’s claims? I admired his painful honesty. How easy it would have been for him simply to report that Susan Flynn was the driver. Instead, he tried to be accurate as to what he saw. Or didn’t see.

I wondered if Chief Cobb foresaw Officer Cain on the witness stand, describing his post-midnight encounter with Susan Flynn. Defense attorney: Officer, tell us how you approached the car?…You immediately saw Mrs. Flynn?…Oh, you didn’t see Mrs. Flynn at first?…How many feet are there, Officer, from the back of the car to the driver’s window?…Was your view unobstructed?…Can you account for your inability to see Mrs. Flynn as you first approached the car?…What did you see in the passenger seat?…I see, at first the seat was empty and then it was occupied by a redheaded woman?

“Chief, you there?”

“Yeah.” Cobb rubbed at his neck as if it were stiff. “Problem is, there are some unusual aspects to the whereabouts of Mrs. Flynn after midnight. But that blue Ford’s a fact. It was abandoned at the foot of Persimmon Hill. The warning ticket issued to Susan Flynn was found in the front seat.”

“Yeah.” There was doubt in the M.E.’s voice. “Maybe the timing works out. Although if he’d seen her at eleven, I could buy it a lot easier than after midnight.”

Cobb cleared his throat. “Can digitalis in that amount be administered in hot chocolate?”

“Sure. If somebody put it in the drink, she’d never notice. If it was suicide, she probably popped them into the cup and drank it down and went off to bye-bye land. Maybe the easy answer’s the best. She must have felt lousy. She knew she didn’t have much time left anyway. Drop the pills into cocoa, give it a stir, no more pain.”

The chief circled: Suicide?

The M.E. was brisk. “Check out her mental state. If she’d been depressed, talked a lot about death, you can close the investigation.”

Cobb loosened his tie. “Can I? What about the fact that she was found on the floor, pillow on her face? Like you said, she didn’t get there by herself.”

“Looks like you have a few loose ends. Anyway”—the M.E. was blithe—“I’ve attached the file and emailed you. As soon as I have a double shot of espresso, I’m on my way to pick up my hot date and drive to Stillwater. Go, Cowboys.”

I wafted away. I wrung my hands. Oddly enough, specters purportedly are often seen pacing and twining their hands in desperation. I hated to be a cliche but this turn of events was ghastly. I had to alert the chief that Susan’s death was murder.

Cobb punched off the speakerphone. He looked like a man trying to piece together a broken vase, but several of the pieces were pulverized. He turned to his computer, opened the medical examiner’s report, printed it out.

He clicked another file, opened it.

I read the title of that report on his screen: Preliminary report homicide lab re: cup and china pot with cocoa residue from bedroom of deceased Susan Flynn.

He punched Print, gathered up both the autopsy and lab reports, and placed them on his desk. On the legal pad, he wrote:

What was Susan Flynn’s mental state?

Interview persons who saw her in the last few days.

Who inherits?

Who moved the body after death and why?

Who prepared the cocoa that she drank shortly before death?

Are there fingerprints—

A perfunctory knock sounded on his office door. The door was opened and in came a heavyset blonde in a silver-gray wool-silk suit with a Peter Pan collar. The dropped bodice wasn’t flattering to the age spots on her upper torso. Her short skirt revealed dimpled knees that deserved merciful covering.

I hadn’t liked Mayor Neva Lumpkin on my earlier visit to Adelaide. I doubted she would charm me this