walk up the steps and follow Devo inside. The smell of death and old blood grows stronger and as soon as we pass through a mudroom, Devo reaches along the wall and finds a light switch. When he flips it, the scene it reveals is a stark one, the kind most people only see in their nightmares.
We are at the threshold of a kitchen and there is a large, oval wooden table in the center of the room. To my right is a big, double porcelain sink and cabinetry that looks like it was built in place about a half century ago. The countertops are blue tile, several of them broken or missing in spots. Dirty dishes are stacked in the sink and there is a dishrack on the counter with a red and white striped kitchen towel beneath it. To my immediate left are more cabinets going to the corner, and against the next wall is an old-fashioned wooden hutch with several drawers and doors in the bottom, a flat work area in the middle, and two cabinet storage areas at the top.
I take all of this in in a split second and then focus my attention on the elephant in the room: the dead man seated at the table. His head is lolled back, and I can see a dark hole in the soft spot under his chin. Tufts of dark hair protrude from his head around his ears, and the top of his head is a bloody mess that appears oddly misshapen, too flat. He looks like the old Dick Tracy villain Flat-top. Both of his arms are hanging at his sides and beneath the hand of the right one, the one closest to me, I see a handgun resting on the floor. He is dressed in pajamas. The only sounds I can hear are that of Devo’s heavy breathing and the low buzz of flies, several of which are darting in and around the man’s gaping mouth and bloodied scalp.
Devo mutters, “Aw crap,” and then grabs for his radio to call for backup. Except he doesn’t. He hesitates, and when I look over at him, I see that his eyes are focused on the ceiling. He grimaces, swallowing so hard that his Adam’s apple bounces spastically for a second. I follow his gaze and see something dark on the ceiling. At first, I can’t figure out what it is because despite what appears to be a solid center a couple of inches wide, the sides are very irregular and thready looking. It resembles a paramecium I remember seeing through a microscope in a biology class once. Was it in high school? Or college? Like it matters. The mind takes some weird side trips at times like these.
I let my eyes drift back to the dead man, to the odd shape of his head. And then, with a sickening start, I realize what’s on the ceiling. It’s the top of his head.
I look over at Devo, worried. Rumors run through the police department like rats in a catacomb and one of the ones I’ve heard repeated several times is that Devo has a weak stomach. It’s said to be even odds whether he’ll toss his cookies at a grim crime scene and this one certainly qualifies as grim. I feel my own stomach lurch a bit and try to distract myself.
“Think it’s a suicide?” I say, hoping to maybe distract Devo some, too.
He doesn’t answer.
I divert my eyes away from the ceiling and look back at the hutch. Doing my best to focus on something, anything other than the dead man and that paramecium on the ceiling, I zero in on a whimsical cookie jar sitting at the back of the hutch’s middle work area. My gut does another flip-flop, but for a different reason this time.
“Uh, we have a problem, Devo,” I say, and I hear the tremor in my voice.
He glances over at me and makes a face. He licks his lips and exhales through pursed lips.
“You okay?” I say. “You’re not going to barf, are you?”
“No, of course not,” he shoots back irritably. “Are you? If that’s the problem, go back outside.”
“That’s not the problem.” I take a few careful steps toward the hutch, making sure I don’t step on any blood or other material, and point to the cookie jar. “This is.”
Devo looks at the cookie jar, then at me, his expression suggesting that he thinks I’ve lost my mind. “I’m not following you, Hildy.”
“Remember what Danny kept saying at the house when we first got there?”
“Yeah, he was babbling some nonsense about seeing ghosts. The guy’s a nutter. So what?”
“So, when I was talking with Allie some more about it later, she told me about the stuff Danny was saying before we got there, stuff that made no sense and led us to believe that in addition to his usual auditory hallucinations, he might be having visual ones, too. One of the things he said was that he saw a man get killed and a spotted purple and pink dinosaur watched the whole thing.”
Devo snorts a quick laugh, but the humor quickly fades from his expression as he looks again at the cookie jar. I’d bet it’s an antique, probably dating back to the forties or fifties. The main body of the jar is purple with little pink spots on it, and it has four feet at the bottom. Attached to one end is a green plate and protruding from that plate are three pink horns. Two eyes are painted on the green plate below and between two of the horns. It looks like a cartoonish triceratops.
“I think our gentleman here might have been murdered,” I tell Devo. “And what’s more, I think Danny Hildebrand saw it happen.”
Chapter 4
The little dinosaur cookie jar distracts Devo enough to get him back on track. He radios dispatch and asks to have the sheriff’s department send someone out to the site. He also requests the medical examiner’s office, at least one more uniformed police officer, and an evidence technician.
When he’s done with that, Devo tells me to stay put so he can do a quick check of the rest of the house to make sure it’s empty. I do as I’m told, resisting an urge to go back outside where the air is fresh. After Devo returns and declares the house secure, the two of us stand there at the entry to the kitchen, staring at the scene.
“I’m not convinced it’s a homicide,” Devo says after a moment. “It looks like a suicide.”
“It does,” I agree.
“Maybe Danny saw the guy shoot himself,” Devo suggests. “With as twisted as his thought processes are, he could segue that into a murder in his mind, couldn’t he?”
I shrug. It’s possible, except I don’t think that’s what happened here, though I can’t support my theory. Yet.
“I suppose that could be the case,” I admit reluctantly. “I’ll have to talk to his sister and see if Danny had anything to do with this man, or this farm. Why would he even be here?”
“Maybe he’s the one who killed him,” Devo tosses out in a slightly mocking tone that tells me he doesn’t favor this theory. He looks at the victim for a moment and his color pales. Wanting to distract him, I glance around the room.
“What’s that?” I say, pointing toward the counter on the far right.
Devo dutifully looks where I’ve pointed and then the two of us venture slowly around the perimeter of the room, taking care not to step in any blood spatter. The thing I pointed to is on the counter between the stove and the sink. It’s a torn square of paper towel with a spoon on top of it, and there is a carton of milk and a half-full bottle of Jack Daniels behind it. There is a microwave mounted above the stove, and when I stand on tiptoe, I see through the glass that there is something inside.
“Hey, Devo,” I say. “There’s a mug in this microwave and judging from the spoon and paper towel, it looks like our victim was preparing himself a hot toddy. Maybe some warm milk to help him sleep?
