Who's Sorry Now? by Jill Churchill

Author:Jill Churchill [Churchill, Jill]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Mystery, Historical
Publisher: Avon
Published: 2004-12-31T18:30:00+00:00

Deputy Parker staggered in the door of the greengrocer's shop.

“What's wrong with you, boy?" Mr. Bradley asked. "You look like a wrung-out rag."

“I was babysitting a trash can overnight," Parker said. "That's probably mine," Bradley said. "I went out early this morning and it was gone."

“Do you mind calling Chief Walker and telling him that? He'd like to know.”

But when Bradley called, Walker already knew. He said, "We found an invoice for a crate full of apples in the can. I'm sorry I can't return it yet. I have to hold it for a day or two to have it fingerprinted. It's a bit charred."

“Charred?"

“Someone set fire to the packing slats in the trash bin and then leaned the bin against the front door of the new tailor's shop."

“That's awful!"

“More than awful. It's arson and attempted murder," Howard said.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

ROBERT WAS GOING AROUND TOWN with his much-revised petition to build a mail sorting center at the train station. So far he had twenty signatures. He was approaching Chief Walker next and found him in his office in town, with his feet crossed on the desk and his chair tilted back.

“You're going to kill yourself someday sitting that way. The back feet will slip and you'll crack your head on the windowsill."

“Maybe so," Howard agreed. "But this is my deep-thinking position, and I have some serious thinking to do right now."

“About the fire last night at the tailor's shop?"

“I've been thinking that it was a man who did both the swastika and the fire. He's an avid hater of Germany. But my new deputy suggested that it might be a nasty old woman. That had never crossed my mind."

“Could an old woman have carried that trash can from the back of Mr. Bradley's grocery shop?" Robert asked.

“The crate slats weren't that heavy, and they were all dry because we've had so little rain. And the can wasn't completely full. A strong woman of any age could have carried it by the handles."

“No word yet on fingerprints?"

“Some. I called the expert who got the painted fingerprint and asked if it was necessarily a man's. He said he couldn't tell. It wasn't a small woman's but some men also have smallish hands. He hasn't had time yet to check the trash bin though. But if that same fingerprint is on it, we still don't know the sex of the person."

“Nor do we know if it's somebody local, I'd guess," Robert said.

“I've been thinking about that, too. It's likely, I'm sorry to say, it's someone who lives here and knows their way around. But there are also frequently people who turn up in Voorburg thinking they might find jobs. Those who don't have a car or train fare, and probably camp out in the woods in good weather like this."

“What about that old enemy of McBride's that you interviewed in Yonkers?"

“Nope. His fingerprints didn't match. And it's a whole different crime. But I can't imagine what a German hater would have against a man named McBride," Walker went on.

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