The Windsor Knot

official.”

“Wonder what happened last time,” mused Elizabeth.

“Emmet Mason left home, saying he was going to California.” Wesley ticked off the facts one by one on his fingers. “His wife gets a phone call from somebody saying he’s dead. To corroborate this report of his death, she receives a funeral urn, supposedly containing Emmet, but actually filled with-” Wesley made a face.

“Leftovers,” suggested Elizabeth.

“So somebody provided Emmet Mason with a perfect way out. No messy divorce, no recriminations. As far as Chandler Grove, Georgia, is concerned, Emmet is dead. But instead of going to heaven, he went to California.”

“Some people would consider that the other alternative.”

This remark brought Wesley Rountree back to full alert and he decided that he should not be sitting around theorizing with a civilian, expert witness or no. “I want to thank you for your time,” he said solemnly, scooping the evidence back into its container. “You certainly have been helpful.”

“You’re welcome,” said Elizabeth. “And any other time, I’d love to be of any help I could to you in solving this case, but I’m getting married next week. I just don’t have time to get involved.”

Wesley’s eyes twinkled. “I think I can take it from here,” he said gravely.

CHAPTER 10

DEPUTY CLAY TAYLOR arrived at the sheriffs department at 7:53 A.M. to find the coffeepot on and a note on his desk from Wesley Rountree, giving him instructions for the day’s interrogations. Wesley himself, the note explained, had gone off to court. After that he proposed to drive directly out to question the proprietor of the regional crematorium. He had no plans to return to the office in between. In his absence, the deputy was to attempt to ascertain the number of local residents who had been cremated within the last seven years.

“How does he expect me to do that?” grunted Clay in disgust. “Go door-to-door?”

Two cups of coffee later he had given the matter enough thought to figure out how to proceed. The logical person to begin with would be Azzie Todd, manager of Todd and O’Connor Funeral Home in Chandler Grove. He had learned from his telephone inquiries that their firm did not do cremations, but Clay felt that they could advise him on what steps to take next. What he did not want was to look up every obituary in the local newspaper for the last seven years and then contact each family individually.

With some misgivings about the nature of his errand, the deputy set out for the funeral home. Like most Southern mortuaries, the Chandler Grove establishment had begun its existence as a large private home. It stood on Main Street, white-columned and splendid, with spreading oak trees and a perfectly manicured lawn. Its former owners had become customers of Todd and O’Connor too long ago for anyone to remember or care that the house had once been a happier, if less tidy, place.

After a brisk walk out of the business district and into the tree-lined old section of Main Street, Clay found himself outside the wrought-iron fence of Todd and O’Connor, wondering how to conduct the inquiry. Naturally they would want to know why he was asking such questions-and since the perpetrator of the fraud had not been determined, the deputy wasn’t sure that he should tell them.

He hurried up the cement walk to the freshly painted gray porch and prepared to ring the bell. The door was ajar. They probably don’t like a lot of noise here, thought Clay, And it’s not as if anyone would come here to steal anything.

He had been inside a number of times before, but never alone, and he would have been ashamed to admit how uneasy he felt at doing so now. It was the deputy’s experience that people usually went to funerals in groups. He supposed that law enforcement officers in larger districts would have become quite accustomed to death after a few years on the job, but in rural Georgia, murder was no everyday occurrence. Clay had seen enough car wrecks to last him a lifetime, but mercifully few victims of homicide.

As soon as he entered the oak-paneled hallway, a solemn young man in a gray suit materialized from an inner sanctum and in hushed tones inquired whether he could be of help. The boy could have done with less hair grease and more Clearasil, in Clay’s opinion.

“I’d like to see Mr. Todd,” he said in his normal tone of voice. The words seemed to bounce off the walls. “I’m here on official business.”

With a cordial nod, the apparition scuttled back into the offices, and Clay could hear the murmur of lowered voices discussing his arrival. Clay studied the Victorian prints on display in the hall. Todd and O’Connor seemed to favor Landseer animal portraits, along the lines of The Old Shepherd Is Mourned by His Canine Companion. The artist had a way with animals: their expressions made them almost seem human.

The deputy felt the presence of someone behind him and turned so quickly that he almost collided with the velvety person of Azzie Todd. Everything about the funeral director was sleek and molelike, and he had an unfortunate shortsighted gaze over a pointed snout that completed the image. He reminded Clay of the children’s book Wind in the Willows. Idly, the deputy wondered if Mr. O’Connor completed the firm’s literary allusion by resembling a large and aristocratic toad.

He ushered the deputy into a small back office with earth-tone walls (the burrow, thought Clay, fighting to keep a straight face). After he had seated himself behind a cluttered antique desk, Mr. Todd folded his hands primly and asked what he could do for the local constabulary.

“I am conducting an inquiry,” said Clay, answering the formality in kind. “And I need some information-or at least, your advice on how I can obtain it.”

“And that is?”

“I need to know whether anyone was cremated in this county in the last seven years, and if so who. And by whom.”

Concern flickered across Azzie Todd’s talpine features. “We at Todd and O’Connor don’t offer that service,” he said.

“I know. This investigation would have been a whole lot easier if you did.”

The funeral director looked puzzled. “Has there been a murder?”

“Why do you ask that?” asked Clay, thinking that murder had been a strange, and perhaps telling conclusion to reach on the basis of his question.

Todd blushed. “I read detective stories. Cremation is the ideal way to conceal your crime. You poison someone and then have them cremated. No evidence!”

The deputy considered it. “Lord, I hope we don’t have that to contend with. At the moment, it’s more like a case of mistaken identity. I really can’t be any more specific than that.”

“I understand,” said Todd, making a steeple with his fingertips. “Discretion is a byword with us.”

“On the phone the other day, I believe you said that you farm out any cremation requests, so to speak. Would you have a list of any such cases?”

“No. Why should we? Anyway, it doesn’t happen very often. Seven years? I can go back twenty. We’ve had three such requests. One was the Hadley boy, who moved out to the West Coast and left instructions in his will that he was to be cremated. His parents didn’t much care for the idea, but they did it anyway.”

“Was the body cremated here in Georgia?”

“No. Done there, and the ashes mailed here. We made the arrangements by telephone with a firm out there. The second was one of those commune people-Earthling, I think they call their company. One of the fellows out there died in a car wreck and the rest decided to cremate the body and to scatter the ashes in their meadow. I referred them to Elijah’s Chariot, as I always do in these cases, but I must say I did suspect them of doing it out of stinginess. He left them all his money; they spent less than five hundred dollars on his funeral. That young man was an heir to some minor tobacco fortune.” He shook his head in wonder that this was so. “Ever noticed that most of these hippie types that want to live on the land come from well-to-do families?”

“Sure,” said Clay, no stranger to that lifestyle himself. “If poor kids want to eat beans and sleep on the floor, they can stay home and do it. Do you remember the name of the deceased?”

“Christopher Greene. They called him something else, though. Rama-something.”