Point Of Departure. Laurie Breton

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      “Need I remind you that fieldwork is an inexact science? I can give you a more accurate assessment once we get Mr. Doe into the lab.”

      “Ballpark?” Lorna asked.

      “Couple of hours, tops. I’d say he died no more than a half hour before Mr. Armentrout found him.” Neena stood and pulled off her rubber gloves with a snap. “I’m done here.”

      “Thanks,” Lorna said. To Policzki she added, “And I actually thought I might get home on time tonight.”

      “With your vast experience, you of all people should know better than that.”

      She rolled her eyes. “Right. Thanks for setting me straight. I have to get somebody out there to talk to the neighbors. Find out if anybody saw or heard anything. Then we’ll try to locate Ms. Winslow. If we don’t find her lickety-split, we’ll have to issue an APB. She could be the perpetrator. Or…” Lorna paused, met Policzki’s eyes and shrugged.

      The message that passed between them was unspoken, but clear. If Winslow wasn’t the perpetrator, chances were good that she was either dead or in serious trouble. “Want me to talk to Armentrout?” he said.

      “Have at it. After that, you can check Winslow’s ID for next of kin.”

      While Lorna headed outside to rally the troops, Policzki considered how best to address Philip Armentrout. The gentleman in question sat hunched over, his elbows braced on his knees, his head hung low between his shoulders. Obviously not a happy camper. Straightforward and sincere seemed the most appropriate route. “Mr. Armentrout?” Policzki said.

      Armentrout looked up, focused on his face, recognized that this was yet another stranger, and scowled. “When can I leave?” he said.

      “I’m Detective Policzki. Mind if I ask you a few questions?”

      “I already answered questions. Twice. Don’t you people ever talk to each other? This is ridiculous. I already told you everything. I’m a busy man. I have work to get back to.”

      Policzki hunched down in front of him, balancing on the balls of his feet. “I understand how busy you are,” he said. “And I realize this has inconvenienced you. But it won’t take long, and when we’re done, you can get back to your busy life. Unfortunately…” he paused, and in the silence he heard the rasp of a zipper as one of the EMTs maneuvered the DOA into a body bag “…the victim over there won’t be able to do that.”

      Armentrout winced and closed his eyes. Sighing, he said, “Fine. What do you want to know?”

      “Why don’t you tell me everything that happened, starting with the time you arrived?”

      “We had a two-thirty appointment. I was twenty minutes late because my one o’clock meeting ran over. I got here about ten of three, knocked on the door. Nobody answered. It was unlocked, so I let myself in. I figured the Winslow woman was somewhere in the house and hadn’t heard me knock. I called her name a couple of times, came down the hallway and around the corner and saw this guy’s feet sticking out from behind the kitchen island. Hell of a shock.”

      “I imagine it was. What did you do then?”

      Armentrout rubbed the back of his neck with a beefy hand. His eyes were a little bloodshot. “I walked around to check. I thought somebody’d passed out or something, and maybe needed medical attention. I didn’t realized the guy was dead until I saw the blood.”

      “How’d you know he was dead?”

      Armentrout gave Policzki a long, level look. “I wasn’t born yesterday. It was pretty obvious.”

      Fair enough. “What did you do when you realized he was dead?”

      “I got the hell out. If there was a killer on the premises, I wasn’t about to hang around and wait to become his next victim. I hightailed it out of there and called 911 from the park across the street. I waited there until the cops arrived.”

      “All right. Did you, at any time, touch anything?”

      “Just the doorknob.”

      “Were you acquainted with the victim? Was he anybody you’d met before?”

      Armentrout shook his head. “I figured he was one of Kaye Winslow’s associates. I don’t know who the hell he is. Maybe she can tell you.”

      She probably could, Policzki thought, if they could just locate her. “All right, Mr. Armentrout,” he said, “I think we’re done. I’ll need verification of your whereabouts earlier this afternoon, and a number where I can reach you in case I have more questions.”

      “Verification of my—what the hell, am I a suspect?”

      “It’s routine, sir. You’re the person who found the body. In the absence of a smoking gun or a signed confession, we have to consider you a suspect until we can rule you out. Hopefully that’ll happen sooner rather than later.”

      “I don’t believe this.” Armentrout fished in his pocket for his wallet. He pulled out a business card and shoved it into Policzki’s hand. “I go out to look at a house and end up in the middle of a mess like this. My whole goddamn afternoon’s been screwed up. You’d better believe I’ll be crossing this mausoleum off my list of possibilities.” Glowering, he slid the wallet back into his pocket. “Matter of fact, I wouldn’t buy a house in Boston if somebody paid me to take it off their hands. Not after this insanity. Maybe I’ll find something in Newton or Andover. I hear Lexington’s nice.”

      He left in a huff, this short, self-important businessman whose schedule had been hopelessly derailed by his discovery of a dead body. Hell of an inconvenience, Policzki thought as he watched him go. A real shame that murder had disrupted the guy’s busy day.

      The door slammed shut behind Armentrout. Across the room, O’Connell, the forensics tech, closed up his fingerprint kit. “That went well,” he said.

      “Right,” Policzki said. “He didn’t pull a weapon on me, or threaten to have me fired, so I guess in the greater scheme of things, it could have been worse.”

      “Oh, yeah. It could’ve been a lot worse.” O’Connell nodded in the direction of the black plastic bag the two EMTs were wheeling toward the front door. “You could’ve been that guy.”

      

      The setting sun poured like honey through the closed windows of the lecture hall, infusing it with the ambience of a sauna. The dog days of summer were a thing of the past, but so was the air-conditioning that had rendered them tolerable. Cheap construction, minimal insulation and a simpleminded administration that insisted the heating system be turned on according to the calendar instead of the thermometer all conspired to ensure that learning take place in the most hostile environment imaginable. In the midst of this tropical paradise, Assistant Professor Sam Winslow sat reading the latest Dan Brown paperback while his art history students waded through the first exam of the semester. Fifty-eight heads leaned over fifty-eight blue books as fifty-eight pens scratched diligently against paper.

      Sam had come to this job six years ago with the zealous idealism of a new convert. It had taken him awhile to accept the irrefutable truth that ninety-eight point eight percent of his students simply didn’t СКАЧАТЬ