The Woman Who Fell From Grace by David Handler

Author:David Handler [Handler, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9780553289145
Publisher: Crimeline
Published: 1991-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

POLK FOUR PULLED HIS car right out onto the lawn next to the trees. Two more sheriff’s cars and an emergency medical services van were right behind him. So was a local news radio crew, until one of Polk’s deputies chased them off.

Richard and Charlotte had been home with Pam. Frederick and Edward arrived from their offices within minutes. They brought Mercy with them from school. All of them stood there on the lawn in silence, gray faced.

Polk wouldn’t let them anywhere near Mavis. He didn’t want them to see her like that. He was polite, but firm. He handled it well, considering how upset he was himself.

“I told her a million times to wear a helmet,” he said to me hoarsely, his blue eyes moist, as we stood over her body. “I told her it doesn’t matter how slow you’re going on these paths, you never know when you’ll run into a stump or a rock or a —”

“Trip wire?”

He shot me an angry look and squared his jaw. “You already know I don’t care for what you’ve got to say, Mr. Hoag. Right now is a particularly inappropriate time to —”

“Take a look, Sheriff.”

His face reddened. He looked dangerous. “Get the heck away from me!” he snapped. “I mean it. Get away or I’ll —”

“Take a look. That’s all I ask. One look.”

He hesitated. His shoulders relaxed a bit. Reluctantly he said, “Okay. One look.”

I led him back up the path a ways to a slender, young redbud tree growing alongside it in the brush. A foot up from its base something had been wound tightly around its trunk, tight enough to cut through the bark, exposing the live green growth underneath.

Polk crouched next to me and examined the tree. “The bike probably did this when she lost control. So what?”

“The bike would have left a gash in one side of the tree, or broken it clean. It wouldn’t have damaged the bark all the way around like that.” I got to my feet. “Besides, there’s another one just like it over here.” I showed him the matching wound in a tree directly across the path. “A wire did this, Sheriff. A wire stretched across her path. It stopped the bike cold. She went flying. She was murdered — same way Fern was. They were both murdered. You know it and I know it.”

Polk stared down at his shoes. He swallowed uneasily. The emergency people were lifting Mavis’s covered body onto a stretcher now. He glanced at them, motioned for me to follow him. We moved farther down the path to the rough old wooden gazebo where, fifty years ago, Alma Glaze had sat writing in her diary.

He sat down heavily at the weathered pine table, removed his trooper’s hat, and smoothed his short blond hair, not that it needed smoothing. “I was going to come out and talk to you today,” he said quietly. “Seems a couple of boys in a Ford pickup got themselves toasted on their way down Jack Mountain yesterday.

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