The Good, the Bad, and the Emus(58)

“But if you knew it was murder—”

“Why didn’t I arrest anyone?” She shook her head. “No evidence. I know what happened, more or less. Someone hit her over the head. The medical examiner found traces of the blow on her skull. And then someone poured gasoline on her and set her on fire. Samples we took at the scene can prove that. But there’s no evidence at all to indicate who did it.”

“You never explained this to Miss Annabel?”

“She’s never given me the chance,” she said. “And I doubt she’d have listened if I did, because she’s convinced Theo Weaver is the killer. And even if I agreed with her on that, what good would that do me? I have no evidence. No sane DA would take the case to court. No jury would convict.”

“So there’s nothing you can do?” I asked.

“Nothing except what I’m already doing,” she said. “Keeping my ears and eyes open. If it was murder, the killer will brag about it sooner or later, when he thinks he’s gotten away with it. Or his suddenly ex-girlfriend will waltz in here and tell me about the night he came home, reeking of gasoline, with his eyebrows scorched off. Or something that belonged to Ms. Delia will turn up in a pawn shop. It’s a small town. Something like that happens, I’ll hear about it.”

“And if it happens, you’ll reopen the case?”

“I haven’t actually closed the case,” she said. “And I won’t. You can tell Miss Annabel that. But I’m not going to arrest Mr. Weaver on her say-so. Knowing he and Ms. Delia hated each other’s guts makes me want to keep an eye on him, but it doesn’t give me grounds to arrest him. If anything untoward ever happened to Mr. Weaver, Miss Annabel might appreciate that.”

“There is the fact that she reports seeing him flee the scene.”

“Do you have any idea how unreliable eyewitness testimony is?” the chief asked. “No sane prosecutor goes into court with nothing but a single eyewitness. Especially if your eyewitness is an elderly lady with bad eyesight who saw a fleeing figure from half a football field away. Saw it by firelight and moonlight, and was probably in a state of panic already. And on top of it all, she had a known grudge against the person she claims to have seen. The defense attorney would tear her apart.”

I nodded, conceding her point.

“Look,” she said. “The case isn’t closed. But it’s not going anywhere right now, because I’ve already done what little I can do, and found nothing. Maybe you’ll get lucky—you, or that PI you hired. Either of you comes up with even a shred of evidence I can use, I’d appreciate seeing it.”

“Speaking of evidence, what happened with the LED headlight I found out in the field behind Miss Annabel’s house?”

“We sent it down to Richmond to see if they could get any evidence off of it. Which I hate to say is probably a waste of money. Those things are a dime a dozen around here.”

She opened one of her desk drawers and pulled out two little headlights that looked identical to Miss Annabel’s.

“Ms. Delia was the one who introduced these things,” she said. “But these days, everyone in town uses them. Hardware store stocks them by the case. But we’ll see what the crime lab can do with the one you found.”

“I understand,” I said. “Thanks for your time.”

“Thank you for yours,” she said.

I had the distinct and not unpleasant feeling that having this conversation had been on her to-do list as well as mine.

A thought occurred to me.

“Just one more thing,” I said. “Is it true you’ve given your officers orders to shoot the emus on sight?”

“I see you’ve been talking to Mr. Weaver,” she said. “No, it most definitely is not true. It is true that he has asked me to do so on more than one occasion. And that I told him I’d take his request under advisement. If he’s clueless enough to think that means I agree with him…” She shrugged.

“I figured it would be something like that,” I said. “Thanks.”

On my way out, the dispatcher looked up from a phone call long enough to shove a bottle of cold water into my hands.

“You drink that down,” she ordered. “Don’t want to see you hauled off to the hospital over in the county. They’re full up with heatstroke cases already.”

I didn’t need to be told twice.





Chapter 16



Sipping my cold water, I made my way back to the car. What next? I cruised down the street, checking out the businesses on either side. A few, like the police station, had their doors propped open. One or two seemed to have generators running. Most were closed.