mower.
“Nobody’s home,” he said without our asking. “I tried ringing the bell and knocking on the door because I was hoping to pick up a check. No such luck.”
Mel turned around and marched back down the sidewalk. At first I thought she was leaving. Instead, she went to Dysart’s mailbox. She opened it and pulled out a fistful of mail. After shuffling through it, she returned the stack of mail to the box. Then she came back to me.
“Considering the layers of junk mail and real mail, I’d say his mail hasn’t been picked up since Tuesday.”
Without having to discuss it, we fanned out and talked to the neighbors. Olympia isn’t a small town, but it isn’t a big city, either. People tend to know their neighbors. No one could remember seeing Sam Dysart for several days.
I spoke briefly to a woman who lived across the street.
“If there are three days’ worth of mail in his mailbox,” Agnes Jones said, “then something is definitely wrong. Whenever Sam goes out of town he always has me pick up his mail. He worries about identity theft. He’d never leave his mail in the box like that. Never.”
“So when’s the last time you saw him?”
“Let’s see.” She paused for a moment, frowning. “Now that you mention it, I don’t think I’ve seen him since Monday. I was on my way back from the grocery store. He was driving out as I was driving in. We waved and that was it.”
“You haven’t seen him since then?”
“No, but that’s not indicative of anything. Neither one of us keeps regular hours, so we come and go at odd times. It’s not all that unusual for a week or so to pass without our ever laying eyes on each other.”
“Does he have many visitors?” I asked.
Something about my question must have put her on edge. “Wait a minute,” Agnes said. “Who are you? What’s this all about again?”
I showed her my badge. “We’re investigating a homicide.” You’ll notice I didn’t say what homicide, but the answer seemed to satisfy her.
“I can’t imagine Sam Dysart being mixed up in anything like that,” she declared. “He’s a perfectly nice man-a complete gentleman.”
“And about his visitors?”
“Kids drop by from time to time,” Agnes said. “Good kids,” she added. “Clean-cut kids from the chess club at Olympia High. Did you know Sam was once a championship chess player?”
“Yes,” I said. “So I heard.”
When I crossed the street again, Mel had already finished with her share of the neighborhood canvassing and was waiting for me at the end of Sam Dysart’s carefully edged driveway. By then the gardener had loaded up his tools and grass clippings and had left the premises.
“Anything?”
“The lady across the street claims that the last time she saw him was sometime around noon on Monday.”
“What do you think?” Mel asked. “Is it possible a welfare check is in order?”
“I think so.”
We stepped up onto the front porch. First we rang the bell. When there was no answer to that, we knocked. Again there was no response, so we walked around the side of the house to the backyard. The lot was far deeper than it was wide. In the far back of the property sat a small stand-alone cottage that looked like it had once been a single-car garage before being turned into either a storage shed or a tiny apartment. Ignoring that for the time being, we went to the back door of the main house and repeated the same knocking routine we had performed on the front porch-with similar results. No answer. When I tried the door, it was locked.
We were about to walk away when a telephone began to ring inside the house. I would have bet money it was Agnes from across the street calling to let Sam Dysart know that police officers had been nosing around his place. The phone rang several times and then went silent.
“Answering machine, most likely,” Mel said.
Turning as one, Mel and I headed for the small building at the far end of the lot. On the side facing us there was a single curtained window and an old-fashioned door-an antique door that took an old-fashioned key, a skeleton key.
When I went to knock on the door, it fell open at my touch because it wasn’t locked. It wasn’t even closed all the way. As the door opened, a noxious odor exploded around us. We stood outside, covering our noses with our hands and peering into the stinky gloom of what was evidently a tiny apartment. My first thought was that we had stumbled across a blocked toilet and someone needed to call Roto-Rooter right away.
In the arcane world of Planning and Guessing, as opposed to Planning and Zoning, buildings like this are referred to as ADUs (accessory dwelling units). That’s what bureaucrats call them. Ordinary, nonbureaucrat folks call those same structures mother-in-law apartments.
This one looked like a one-room cabin, complete with a small table-covered by a chessboard-a rumpled, unmade bed, a kitchen area with a sink, fridge, small stove, and microwave, and a closed door that most likely led into the bathroom with a plugged commode.
“Mr. Dysart,” I called out. “Are you in there?”
Mel reached around the door frame and located a light switch. Using a pen from her purse, she flipped on an overhead light. There was no sign of any kind of confrontation-no knocked-over furniture, no broken crockery. Fighting off the foul odor, I walked as far as the bathroom door and knocked on that as well.
“Mr. Dysart, police. Are you in there? Are you all right?”
In answer I heard an eerie croak uttering words that, loosely translated, sounded like “Help me.” Instead of coming from inside the bathroom, the sound came from behind me on the far side of that unmade bed. As soon as I stepped closer, I realized that was where the odor came from as well. A man lay there on the floor, trapped between the wall he was facing and the side of the bed.
I’ve heard all those “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” jokes, and several of them ran through my mind as I wrenched the bed away from the wall. In the background, I heard Mel on the phone calling 911.
“Are you Mr. Dysart?” I asked.
He nodded emphatically. He had been lying on his side, facing the wall. As soon as I moved the bed away from him, he flopped over onto his back with a wrenching groan. Initially I thought he was the victim of some kind of attack. When I reached out to help him, however, I realized that he had lost the use of his entire right side. Instead of dealing with a crime victim, Mel and I had encountered a serious medical emergency. Dysart appeared to have suffered a massive stroke. He had been stuck there on the floor, trapped between the wall and the bed and imprisoned in his own filth, for what must have been several days.
“Water,” he croaked. “Please.”
That much was understandable. I went to the kitchen cupboard, grabbed a glass, filled it, and came back.
“EMTs are on the way,” Mel said.
I picked my way through the stinking mess, knelt at the man’s head, and tried to raise him enough to offer him a sip of water. When I did so, the water ran back out one side of his mouth and dribbled down onto his chest.
Within a matter of minutes, units from the Olympia Fire Department arrived on the scene. They bustled into the room in full firefighting regalia, bringing with them the chatter of radios and bags of equipment. While they worked, Mel stood studying the door to the building.
“What do you think are the chances that the skeleton key Josh was wearing opens this door?” she asked.
“Why don’t we check?”
I plucked my phone out of my pocket and dialed Joan Hoyt.
“What about the key that was found on a chain around Josh’s neck?” I asked her.
“My understanding is that Dr. Mowat has already released the body,” Joan said. “That means his personal effects were sent either to the funeral home or else directly back to the governor’s mansion.”
Remembering the way Marsha Longmire had run me out of the house earlier, I knew which one I was hoping
