Blood on Lake Louisa by Baynard Kendrick

Author:Baynard Kendrick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2020-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XVI

The small room which served as a chapel in Pryor’s undertaking parlours was crowded to capacity when we arrived. By dint of placing the collapsible chairs so close together that there was hardly room to move, seventy-five people had been seated in acute discomfort in a space designed to accommodate thirty at the most. We had to force our way through the idlers gathered round the entrance, drawn there by the holiday, Washington’s Birthday, and by a morbid eagerness to be the first to hear news which might leak out of the proceedings within.

The crowd was of a different type from that which had attended the inquest of David Mitchell such a short time before. The death of the banker had been a terrible shock to the town, but the inquest had been held before the news of his murder had spread abroad over the country-side. Then the death of a wealthy citizen of Orange Crest was an event more or less detached from the lives of the people who lived and worked in the woods and on the farms, while the killing of Red Salmon in his lonely shack on Tiger Creek was a threat which struck directly at the safety of their own homes. Lean, wrinkle-faced men, overalled and high booted, tanned by wind and sun, inflexible and unsmiling, had been trickling into town since early morning by battered Ford and mule-team. As we made our way down to the front, where seats had been reserved for witnesses and the jury, Crossley whispered in my ear: ‘There’s a long-barrelled horse-pistol stuck in every waistband in the place.’

An ordinary kitchen table had been placed at the end of the room to serve as a desk for the Justice of the Peace, Donald Atwater, who presided over the Court. There are no regular coroners in Florida, and in the cases where an inquest is necessary the duties fall on the local Justice. Atwater, an elderly attorney whose failing health had caused him to abandon a lucrative practice in one of the larger cities, was a capable man, and highly respected in our community. He took the office of J.P., which he had held in an honorary capacity for some years, very seriously. Anything which fell under his jurisdiction was assured of a fair and impartial handling. Miss Phillips, Crossley’s secretary, was acting as Court stenographer. She was seated at the table when we entered. Atwater’s chair and the six chairs placed to one side for the jury were vacant.

‘They’re inside,’ Luke Pomeroy informed us, with a nod towards a door which led to the embalming-room at the rear. We seated ourselves beside him and immediately had to rise, for the door opened and Atwater entered, followed by the six jurors. They took their places rather stiffly, a gavel sounded, and we seated ourselves again.

The necessary formalities were gone through quickly. Lawrence Rogers, my next-door neighbour, was sworn in first as foreman of the jury, and the other five were given a shorter form of oath.

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