Hang Fire by Henry Kisor

Author:Henry Kisor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gale, Cengage Learning
Published: 2013-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

It was the end of March, the spring thaw had begun, and I had nearly forgotten all about Geoffrey Armstrong when the phone in my office rang.

“Steve? Bill Koons. We found Armstrong, or what’s left of him.”

“Where?”

“Windbreak at Little Carp Cabin. Looks like something happened and he took shelter inside a pile of slash, probably during the big storm. Most of his bones were picked and scattered in a hundred-yard radius, but so far we’ve found a pack, a muzzle-loading rifle, a hat, one boot, and a coat with ID inside. The rifle had been fired and the spent percussion cap was still under the hammer. No .32 revolver, though.”

“No indication exactly what happened?”

“None. It’s still a preliminary search. But we’ve called the troopers, and Alex is on his way.”

“His bones were already scattered?” I said. “This early in the spring?”

“Yeah,” Bill said. “Remember, there was that long warm spell in January.” There had been a ten-day period of temperatures in the high forties, melting much of the snow cover.

I nodded to myself. “Yeah, that would give enough time for the body to thaw and the predators to do their work.” Eagles, vultures, wolves, and coyotes would have made a quick buffet of the newly exposed corpse.

“We’re still searching for clues along the trails and the lake-shore,” Bill said.

“If you find any, mark the spots and leave ’em alone for Alex, will ya?” I said.

“You think I fell off the paddy wagon yesterday?” Bill said indignantly, and hung up. I laughed.

That night Alex called.

“Tell me you’ve solved the mystery,” I said.

“Nope. We don’t know what happened to Armstrong. We’ve bagged the few other remains we could find, but nothing stands out. Don’t think the forensics guys at Marquette will come up with anything, if they ever get around to it.”

If Alex didn’t think so, they wouldn’t. He had far more experience than any white-coated scientist in the Michigan State Police and knew almost as much as they did. In any case, the state police forensics department was overworked and undermanned, like us all, and I doubted that even the remains of an important congressman would fetch more than a cursory glance from the white coats in the absence of hard evidence pointing to homicide rather than ill fortune.

“One thing, though,” Alex added. “We found Armstrong’s .32 on the Correction Line Trail a little more than two miles south of the lakeshore. It hadn’t been fired, either. A full five rounds in the chambers.”

“Could have fallen out of his pocket,” I said. “That spot on the trail would be a logical place for a hunter to set up a stand in the trees and to field-dress a deer before carrying the carcass back to base on his shoulders. But the lakeshore is awfully far from that spot. Way too far to hump a hundred-pound load back to Summit Peak, if you ask me.”

“Bill said Armstrong’s rifle had been fired. Any deer bones on the trail?”

“We found no deer carcass anywhere near it.

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