Pity and a Shame

Chapter 2

He sat at his desk busily writing up everything he could think of that pertained to the evidence gathered so far. Brian knew that if the doctor established the death as a homicide, he would have to contact the Ingersol police and turn it over to their investigative squad.

He had handled deaths before - drownings, an occasional hunting mishap and two particularly ugly traffic accidents, but never a murder. If he admitted the truth, he would like the chance to solve a real murder, after all, this was a small town and the killer was very likely someone local. That realization brought a cloud over his otherwise pleasant face.

Doc Butler came in, dropping his file folder on Brian's desk and flopped down in the only other chair, stretching his long thin legs out to their limit.

"Smoke?" He waved the package at Brian who shook his head. "Looks like you got yourself a real, bona fide murder, Brian." He lit his cigarette with a disposable lighter and inhaled deeply, tapping the file folder.

"Keep smokin' like that, Doc, and I'll also have a suicide."

"Bunk. Bin doin' it since I was twelve and I can still do thirty push-ups and swim eight laps each and every day."

Brian snorted, picking up the file. "Laps. Where the hell do you do laps around here? And the push-ups you're talkin' about are from the back booth at Gillys." He grinned at the expression on the doctor's face and flipped open the file, reading it carefully. "Says here cause of death was multiple blows to the head, but you also found a stab wound in his stomach."

"Right."

"Well any thoughts on that, Doc?"

"Nope."

"Care to help me out with a guess?"

The doctor dragged an ashtray toward the edge of the table and carefully wiped the ash from his cigarette on the edge. "Head wounds are too irregular to determine the type of weapon, but a few less whacks would still have done the trick. Stab wound was postmortem as far as I can tell, so your guess is as good as mine. Death occurred sometime Wednesday night. Can't be much more specific, weather's bin up and down near freezin', so it could even be longer." He finished his smoke and jabbed it out, dusting his fingers and grunting up out of the chair.

"Who would bother stabbing a corpse?" Brian made an annoyed sound.

"Somebody who was real mad, I'd say. Guess you'll be callin' Ingersol, eh."

"Not much choice, but I'd like to have another look around first. Be nice if we didn't need outside help for this."

Butler gripped his jacket lapels and appraised the young sheriff. "Don't go getting' romantic on me son, neither of us is qualified for somethin' like this. I'm a plain and simple country doctor not a pathologist, and you're just a nice young man - usually with a good dose of common sense - time to use some of it." He punctuated his comment with a terse nod and shambled out of the office.

Brian sighed and nodded a silent agreement, his eyes drifting back to the medical report. Still, he thought, reading it over, why not give the Ingersol police the most information possible. Who knows, maybe some diligent work could lead to better things. He grabbed his jacket and keys, tucked the report under his arm and headed out to the official police vehicle, a dark blue, three-year old Toyota sedan.

Three roads led from the highway up into Oak Mountain; one curved northwest from beside the service station, another from the south end of the town and the one Brian was on, which ran straight up from behind the courthouse, eventually curving south and crossing the other two.

The drive to Gough's farm took him through tall stands of pine, spruce and sugar maple, already blushing red and pink with autumn's brash approach; a barrier left to help protect the town from winter winds and snow.