„And I'll look for someone to rescue Wesley while I'm at it,“ Dad said.
„Oh, my God,“ I said. „I forgot all about Wesley!“
„That nosy reporter? What's wrong with him?“ Monty asked, his hand hovering over his gun.
I explained Wesley's plight, and they all had to troop out to the town square to take a look, leaving me and Horace at the crime scene.
I watched, interested in spite of myself, as Horace donned a pair of latex gloves and began collecting evidence. This was a new side of Horace, I realized. He examined things, photographed things, put things in plastic bags, and dusted everything in sight for fingerprints. I wouldn't go so far as to say that he exuded confidence or anything hokey like that, but he didn't drop or break anything the whole time, which had to be a first for Horace.
The others returned, and we all stood around watching and listening to the occasional distant whine of complaint from Wesley. Eventually Dad arrived with the coroner. Who, to no one's surprise, pronounced Roger Benson dead, and scuttled away to let Horace do his forensic chores on and around the body. I watched with fascination as the previously squeamish and mild-mannered Horace fingerprinted the deceased as if he'd been hobnobbing with corpses all his life. Okay, if Monty had even accidentally helped bring about this transformation in Horace, maybe he wasn't all bad.
Dad, prevented from joining in the forensic fun, went off to continue searching for someone with a key to the padlock on the stocks. And the coroner was characteristically cagey about the time of death.
„I can't give you a range of less than three of four hours until I do the postmortem,“ he said. „And maybe not then.“
„We can estimate closer than that even without the postmortem,“ I said. „I left the party at about ten, and I was talking to Benson about fifteen or twenty minutes before I left. Allowing about five minutes for the walk, he couldn't have gotten here much earlier than nine forty-five. And I'm sure you know what time I called 911.“
„Ten thirty-five,“ the sheriff said. „Ricky paged me as soon as he got the call.“
„See? That narrows it down to about forty-five minutes, from nine forty-five to ten thirty.“
„And your own notebook will back that up,“ the sheriff said. „What time was it when you started interrogating Meg here?“
„Ten forty-five,“ Monty said, frowning.
„Are you sure?“ the sheriff said. „It's a good fifteen minutes from the station down here.“
„I wasn't at the station when I got the call,“ Monty said. „I was already heading this way to investigate a noise complaint about those damned cannons.“
„We have our time range, then,“ the sheriff nodded, looking pleased with himself.
„Of course, we only have Ms. Langslow's word that Mr. Benson was still at the party at nine forty-five.“
„Ask around,“ I said. „If no one noticed my quarrel with him – “
„Quarrel? You had a quarrel with the deceased?“
„Yes, I had a quarrel with the deceased; so did several other people,“ I said. „The man was not well liked.“
„Another cousin, I suppose,“ Monty said.
„Mr. Benson?“ the sheriff said. „No, he's no relation. In fact, he's not from around here.“
„Which means he's probably only been here about ten years or so, right?“ Monty said, sounding a little resentful.
„More like ten hours,“ I said. „He came to town for a business meeting with my brother, Rob.“
„Now that's interesting,“ Monty said.
I was afraid he'd think that.
Horace continued patiently scraping and sampling around my booth, like an ant in strange territory, examining every leaf, twig, and dirt clod on the off chance it might be edible. Meanwhile, Monty badgered me into describing every encounter I'd had with Roger Benson during the day. I already didn't like the way this was going. Although I was obviously still Monty's favorite suspect, he showed far too much interest in Rob, Faulk, and Tad. And also far too much interest in leering at my costume, to judge by the increasingly black looks he got from Michael.
The ambulance crew came and left with Benson. Even patient Cousin Horace was running out of forensic steam and still Monty continued questioning me.
„So, can you think of anyone else who might have a reason to dislike the deceased?“ Monty said, finally. He stared intently at me, as if he suspected I was holding something back. Which I was. For the past half hour I'd been fighting the overwhelming urge to say that if disliking someone was reason for murder, Deputy Monty had better hire a bodyguard if he planned to stay in town much longer. Fortunately, Cousin Horace intervened.