about her interest in the deceased. Why she was out trying to get a look at the body.”
He beamed expansively. “Then I’m sure she’ll give you all the help you need. I’ll be seeing you.”
Church put his hand on Duncan’s shoulder. “Look, Dunk, we need to talk to everyone who might have seen Mr. Garrison before he died. So I’ll be seeing you a lot sooner than we might otherwise.”
“No problem.” Duncan shook his head. “It’s been too long. Time gets away from you, Mark.”
“Sure does.”
Duncan was all business again. “When would be convenient? Just say the word, man.”
Officer Church settled back comfortably. “I’ll give you a call when we’re ready for you.”
“Great. Here’s my room number. If you need anything, any help with anything, let me know. I’ll do what I can to see you get everything you need.”
The way he said it was as though he was modestly understating his importance, while letting it be known just how big a fish he was. As if the cops would need his help with anything. I looked at Church quickly, but was disappointed.
He nodded, pleased. “Thanks, Dunk, I appreciate it.”
The two men shook hands again, and Duncan touched me on the shoulder as if to reassure me or to assert some sort of proprietary rights. I managed to nod, not bite his finger. What was all this about? He knew how I hated to have other people help me.
Whatever it was, Officer Church’s demeanor toward me changed significantly, though I could tell he went to pains to disguise it. He relaxed more, was more sure of what he was going to get now that I had been validated by Duncan. A pause in his gum chewing, and I realized that he could see I was tensed up. I tried to relax.
“So, can you tell me where you were last night? Before your walk.”
“Card game with friends, from about eight to eleven. Then I was in the bar, with Laurel and Sue, and some others. Then I went for a walk. Then I went to my room, then to the slide room. Duncan…saw me there. In the bar again, briefly, after that. Then I called my sister. That was after one.”
He wrote all of this down, noting the names and times especially.
“And you last saw Professor Garrison—when?”
“I think it was at the presentation, and that was before everything else. But I know that Petra Williams saw him later, walked him up to his room,” I said. “You might check with her about the time there, I think she said about nine, so some time after that. And there was a note for him, someone left on the board. They were supposed to meet last night, I guess, and the writer, whoever that was, seemed angry, like he’d been blown off. Maybe you should check that out too.”
“Maybe I already have.” Again came the smile, and it could have sold everything from toothpaste to foreign policy. “And we’ve spoken to Dr. Petra Williams.”
“Oh.” There were no flies on this guy. “So, what’s with the shots that were fired? You know, what we heard on the radios at the reception?”
He tensed, the smile faltered. “Probably some misguided hunter, nothing to worry about.”
I looked at him, waiting.
“That’s my opinion, but we’re looking into it. But other than that, all’s I can tell you so far, is no one thinks you fired them. We need to take a count of who was where, so your friends back there in the ballroom are going to be mighty jealous that you got done so quickly.”
I’ll bet, I thought. “Do you need to know anything else?”
He laughed, and I felt absurdly pleased with myself. “I need to know almost everything, but…why don’t you tell me about the words you had with Garrison.”
Hell, I walked straight into that one. I took a deep breath. “He was asking about my grandfather Oscar’s involvement with the site. Oscar introduced me to the owner—Pauline Westlake—when I was very young, and we’d been good friends. Pauline…Pauline was killed, murdered, a few years ago. He was asking me about that.”
“And that made you angry.”
I held up a braking hand. “I just didn’t want to talk to him about Pauline, or Oscar either. I…I didn’t think he had the right, the way he’d behaved toward Oscar. And I didn’t like him asking me about how my friend died.”
“Really.”
“If he knew that Pauline was murdered, he should have known well enough that it might be a