The Buzzard Table - By Margaret Maron Page 0,55

it’s teenage thoughtlessness and that he’s not sticking his nose in things that don’t concern him.”

Following her mother’s train of thought, Sigrid said, “Like that woman they found out near Martin’s place?”

Anne nodded. “If he got it in his head to investigate on his own…”

Her voice trailed off in uncertainty and concern.

Sigrid immediately thought of the homicide Dwight and Deborah had stumbled into when they were in New York last month. A boy had gone missing in that case, too, and his mother’s pain was too fresh in her mind to let her tell Anne not to worry. “Have another cinnamon bun,” she said.

The second call was a 911 logged in at 10:14. An accidental death out at the Clarenden Arms Motel on Highway 48 near Cotton Grove. A man had slipped in the bathtub and managed to break his neck.

“On our way,” Dwight said.

Twenty minutes later, he stood in the bathroom with the local medical examiner and stared down at the nude body of a middle-aged, well-nourished white male who looked as if he had fallen backwards into the tub while standing under the shower and hadn’t moved since.

Richards came to the doorway holding a wallet in her gloved hand. “According to his driver license, he’s Frank Alexander, fifty-three. From McLean, Virginia. The manager says he’s a private pilot who’s stayed here before.”

Dwight nodded and turned back to the ME, who lived in Cotton Grove and had arrived several minutes before them. “In a fall like this,” he said, “you usually just get a partial break. Looks to me like his neck snapped like a stick, almost as if he went over backwards and banged his neck on the edge of the tub without trying to break his fall. If it’s between the C-2 and C-3 vertebrae, that would cause almost instant death. We’ll know better when we take a look at his neck.”

“Time of death?”

“Too soon to know. No rigor, but that doesn’t mean much. The maid said the shower was still on when she came in to clean the room at ten. As soon as she found him, she called the manager, who turned it off. Warm water, so it’s hard to get an accurate reading of his temperature. Cleanest corpse I ever saw.” He gestured to a nail clipper on the sink. “One fingernail torn into the quick, the rest trimmed down to the nub. You can bag his hands, but I can guaran-damn-tee you there’s nothing there.”

Dwight automatically scanned the bathroom floor but saw no nail clippings. The wastebasket was empty, too, not even the usual plastic liner.

“Any defense marks?”

“None that I can see. No sign of a struggle either unless you count the torn nail, and that could have happened earlier. Right now, I’d call it an accident pure and simple.”

He half turned the body so that Dwight could see where the blood had pooled in the man’s buttocks. “And that reminds me. You’ll be getting the report in the next couple of days on the Jowett woman.”

“Any surprises?” Dwight asked as his eyes roamed the bathroom.

“Naw. What you saw was what we got. Two strong blows to the head. We found her facedown, but her butt looked just like this, too, so she was moved.”

“Well, we knew she wasn’t killed out there at the dump.”

Dwight stepped back into the bedroom just as Deputy Richards lifted a greasy white bag from the wastebasket. The stiff paper crackled when she opened the bag with her gloved hands. “Looks like he had a couple of beers and takeout from the Pit,” she said. “Want me to run by and ask?”

“We’ll do that,” someone said.

Dwight turned and saw a tall black man who filled the outside doorway. Two equally large white men were directly behind him. “And you would be?” he asked mildly.

“FBI,” the man said and held up his badge. “Agent Sherman Pritchard. Mr. Franklin was one of ours.”

“Franklin?” Richards looked at him dubiously. “His driver license says Alexander. Frank Alexander.”

Agent Pritchard just smiled. “Right. Like I said. One of ours.”

Dwight’s own boss edged around the big men. “Sorry, Dwight. I had a call from the AG himself. It’s theirs now.”

Despite the departmental budget crunch, Sheriff Bowman Poole was not one to give up jurisdiction lightly. That he was turning this over to the feds without a fight must mean that strong words had come down from above.

Acknowledging the inevitable, Dwight nodded. “Fine. You’ll share the results of your investigation with us?”

“Anything pertinent?” the FBI agent