Death Beyond the Go-Thru by Baynard Kendrick

Author:Baynard Kendrick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2020-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter XVIII

Linton brown made the first move toward breaking up the meeting. He detached himself from his place in the corner, picked some of the papers out of the safe and smelled them. He put them back in again and said, “That’s not a bad idea, is it, Mr Rice, if you could prove it. I’m going to bed!”

He wore an enigmatic half smile, as though enjoying some secret jest of his own, when he nodded to the others and left the office.

Kellogg said, “I’d like to speak to you and the sheriff, Stan, if you’ll step out to my car.”

Stan nodded to Hyde and the three of them followed Linton Brown.

The sales manager was waiting on the porchlike platform which ran the length of the building outside. “The air smells good after that room,” he remarked briefly. He thrust his hands into his pockets and strolled off leisurely past the commissary door to the other end of the platform.

“I never could figure that fellow out,” said the sheriff as the doctor led the way to his car. “It beats all tarnation how he ever sells anything to anybody.”

“Maybe he has a pleasant personality reserved for customers,” Stan retorted absently. “I’ll admit he isn’t the type I’d like housed up on the Bobcat with me for more than a couple of days.”

The doctor climbed in his sedan, switched on the dash light and reached into a pocket of the car. He took out two long white envelopes, handing one to the sheriff and one to Stan. “Copies of my report on Dawes,” he explained.

The sheriff got in beside Kellogg but kept one foot on the running board holding the door beside him open with his hand. Stan stood on the other side of the car watching the office over the top.

“Did you find anything important?” asked Hyde.

“There were thirteen shot wounds in him around the head and neck. It’s all in the report.”

Hyde put the envelope in his inside pocket. “I’ll read it in the morning.”

“Did you notice the injuries to his right hand when you saw him today?”

“He looked bunged up all over to me,” said Hyde.

Stan bent slightly lower and spoke through the window of the car. “I saw those injuries, Doc. I didn’t comment on them this morning because I wanted to see what you’d say.”

The doctor wet the end of a cigarette with his tongue and lighted it from a lighter on the dash. The glowing light touched his face with uncanny crimson giving an illusion that the simple act of lighting a smoke was a strain. Connie and Angus passed by and called good night. Stan noticed that Linton Brown was still at the far end of the platform.

“I don’t know what to make of it!” Kellogg inhaled deeply. “At first, I thought he’d been in a fight, but they’re too bad for that. It looks as though somebody beat him with the edge of a board. One of his knuckles is nearly torn away. His stay in the water didn’t make it any easier to reach an accurate conclusion.

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