seven or eight cartons of old time cards, and sitting in the top half of Bannerman’s in/out basket were Frank Dodd’s cards, going back to 1971, when he had joined the sheriff’s department. The chart looked like this:
“No, it doesn’t prove anything,” Johnny agreed, rubbing his temples. “But it doesn’t exactly rule him out, either.”
Bannerman tapped the chart. “When Miss Ringgold was killed, he was on duty.”
“Yeah, if she really was killed on the twenty-ninth of October. But it might have been the twenty-eighth, or the twenty-seventh. And even if he was on duty, who suspects a cop?”
Bannerman was looking at the little chart very carefully.
“What about the gap?” Johnny said. “The two-year gap?”
Bannerman thumbed the time cards. “Frank was right here on duty all during 1973 and 1974. You saw that.”
“So maybe the urge didn’t come on him that year. At least, so far as we know.”
“So far as we know, we don’t know anything,” Bannerman contradicted quickly.
“But what about 1972? Late 1972 and early 1973? There are no time cards for that period. Was he on vacation?”
“No,” Bannerman said. “Frank and a guy named Tom Harrison took a semester course in Rural Law Enforcement at a branch of the University of Colorado in Pueblo. It’s the only place in the country where they offer a deal like that. It’s an eight-week course. Frank and Tom were out there from October 15 until just about Christmas. The state pays part, the county pays part, and the U.S. government pays part under the Law Enforcement Act of 1971. I picked Harrison—he’s chief of police over in Gates Falls now—and Frank. Frank almost didn’t go, because he was worried about his mother being alone. To tell you the truth, I think she tried to persuade him to stay home. I talked him into it. He wants to be a career officer, and something like the Rural Law Enforcement course looks damn good on your record. I remember that when he and Tom got back in December, Frank had a lowgrade virus and he looked terrible. He’d lost twenty pounds. Claimed no one out there in cow country could cook like his mom.”
Bannerman fell silent. Something in what he had just said seemed to disturb him.
“He took a week’s sick leave around the holidays and then he was okay,” Bannerman resumed, almost defensively. “He was back by the fifteenth of January at the latest. Check the time cards for yourself.”
“I don’t have to. Any more than I have to tell you what your next step is.”
“No,” Bannerman said. He looked at his hands. “I told you that you had a head for this stuff. Maybe I was righter than I knew. Or wanted to be.”
He picked up the telephone and pulled out a thick directory with a plain blue cover from the bottom drawer of his desk. Paging through it without looking up, he told Johnny, “This is courtesy of that same Law Enforcement Act. Every sheriff’s office in every county of the United States.” He found the number he wanted and made his call.
Johnny shifted in his seat.
“Hello,” Bannerman said. “Am I talking to the Pueblo sheriff’s office? ... All right. My name is George Bannerman, I’m the county sheriff of Castle County, in western Maine ... yes, that’s what I said. State of Maine. Who am I talking to, please? ... All right, Officer Taylor, this is the situation. We’ve had a series of murders out here, rape-stranglings, six of them in the past five years. All of them have taken place in the late fall or early winter. We have a ...” He looked up at Johnny for a moment, his eyes hurt and helpless. Then he looked down at the home phone again. “We have a suspect who was in Pueblo from October 15 of 1972 until ... uh, December 17, I think. What I’d like to know is if you have an unsolved homicide on your books during that period, victim female, no particular age, raped, cause of death, strangulation. Further, I would like to know the perpetrator’s sperm type if you have had such a crime and a sperm sample was obtained. What? ... Yes, okay. Thanks ... I’ll be right here, waiting. Good-bye, Officer Taylor.”
He hung up. “He’s going to verify my bona fides, then check it through, then call me back. You want a cup of ... no, you don’t drink it, do you?”
“No,” Johnny said. “I’ll settle for a glass of water.”