“You did know Mrs. Turner personally then, Mr. Summers?”
Ernie Staffsmith certainly wouldn’t have taken kindly to being usurped by a counterpart from the city.
“My wife and I run the grocery shop,” said Percy. “We’ve been supplying food and sundries up the hill for as long as the Turners have lived on Willner Road.”
“And how long is that?”
“Fourteen years or so. They arrived after the war.”
“Your wife was a friend to Mrs. Turner?”
“Meg is a friend to everyone.”
Sergeant Duke made a note and then drew a slow, straight line across the page. His shirtsleeves had been rolled up to his elbows, a concession to the heat and the storm humidity, revealing a pale, twisted scar running the length of his left forearm. “So you saw the family, the picnic laid out under the tree, and you went to say hello.”
Percy nodded. “It seemed rude not to, particularly as I’d brought Blaze onto their land for a swim.”
“Was that unusual?”
He had already explained all of this. He’d already said that now and then he took Blaze along the creek when he was returning from a delivery down south. Percy was a patient man, but he felt a surge of frustration. When they left the Wentworth place, he’d heard Sergeant Kelly talking about rounding up some of the local men. He wanted to be out there with them, helping to search before the weather broke. Not here, in this small, stifling interview room.
“Mr. Summers?”
“No. It wasn’t unusual. But I didn’t often see anyone else while I was there.”
“You said earlier that you could tell from the start things weren’t right.” Sergeant Duke leaned forward. “A ‘sixth sense’ is how you put it.”
Even now, Percy’s skin crawled as he remembered that walk up the hill toward the gathering. “I got a strange feeling. I’ve had it once or twice before. Out in the bush. Everything was so still. Lifeless, you know?”
Sergeant Duke’s face remained neutral. “Was there anything in particular out of order? Anything specific?”
“Not that I can remember.”
“You didn’t see any evidence that the picnic had been disturbed?”
“How do you mean?”
“Was there any sign that someone else had been there?”
Percy considered the scene, picking over his memory of it. “I don’t think so.”
“Did you notice any prints?”
Some of the men at the Wentworth place had been talking about dogs, Percy remembered. At the time, their words had drifted and dissipated. Any relevance to the horrific event by the water hole had been lost on him. Now, though, he thought of the recent attacks in town, hens taken right from their coops—even a lamb one night, over at the McKenzie place. He thought, too, of the men out searching. The implication of why, precisely, the sergeant was asking was suddenly clear, and Percy felt sick. “I can’t remember. I didn’t notice, I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right, Mr. Summers. If you remember something later, you can always come back to us. Talk me through your movements once you reached the family. You said you went immediately to Mrs. Turner and ascertained she wasn’t breathing.”
Percy’s left hand brushed the fingers of his right. Strange the way the absence of something could leave an imprint. “Yes.”
“Did you check any of the children?”
“No.”
“What about the baby’s basket? A woven thing, hanging in the tree?”
“No.”
“What’s that, Mr. Summers?”
