“Tom Reeder.Came to the lodge to use it for the day.I took a statement.He said he knew something was wrong when he saw Warren’s truck sitting right there so early.”
Arnold nodded toward the pickup.
Connor moved closer and saw the deer in the bed, legs stiff, hide already drawing flies at the edges.Two ropes held it down.One had been tightened clumsily near the rear leg.
“Cheryl said it’s a possible suicide?”
“Looks like it,” Arnold said.“We found a handgun on the floor near the chair.”
“Near the chair?”
“Few feet away.”
Connor looked at him.
Arnold shifted.“That’s what Matt said.I haven’t touched anything.”
“Good.”
“I took the outside, secured the front, then waited for you.”
Connor nodded, but his gaze stayed on the lodge.“None of this sounds like Warren.”
“To shoot himself?”
“To drive all the way up here, drag a deer with him, sit down, and shoot himself before taking care of it.”
Arnold rubbed one thumb across his belt buckle.“People do strange things when they’re low.Remember Mrs.Ealing jumping in the river when her husband left?”
“At least we were able to saveher.”
Connor held his breath without realizing.
The porch boards complained under Connor’s weight as he moved into the lodge.
Inside, the lodge smelled of old timber and fireplace ash.Morning light came through dirty windows, cutting across scuffed floors and old furniture.A camera clicked from the dining room.
“In here,” Matt Price called.
The dining room held a long table, six chairs, and Warren Holt, folded forward at the far end, face down.
Connor took one look and felt grief strike in an unexpected place, steady and sure.He knew he had to not show it.But that was hard.
Dammit, Warren, he thought.Why?
Warren’s cheek rested against the table, one eye visible beneath the slack weight of death.Blood had spread under him and across a sheet of paper pinned beneath one hand.More had run down the table edge and dried in a dark line toward the floor.A chair lay tipped behind him.
Matt Price stood to one side with a camera in hand.
Slim and wiry, Matt looked less like the county’s crime scene technician than a man who had wandered in from a band nobody in town had paid to hear.Tattoos ran over both forearms and climbed from his collar toward the left side of his neck.Two silver rings marked one ear, and a small stud sat in his nose.Connor’s older deputies still didn’t know what to make of him, but Matt did clean work.
At the sight of Connor, Matt lowered the camera.“Sheriff.”
Connor kept his voice controlled.“Dr.Blethan not covering this?”
Matt gave a small shrug.“Says his knee’s playing up and he has a fever.”
“Is that so?”
