Switchback. Ch14 pt1

Still in her white Hazmat suit, complete with hood and mask, Grace Hunter rustled her way downstairs and out the front door of the old Evans place with two plastic evidence bags, one of which held a snapped-off hammer that belonged to a Colt 45, the other a child’s ring she’d found in the clenched fist of Helen Ferris’ left hand.

          Her two assistants, now with their suits half off and knotted around their waists by the sleeves, were loading halogen lighting equipment into one of two white vans along with the Mini-Gen used to power them. Grace took the bags to the second van and placed them in an aluminium chest with eleven others, she snapped shut the catches and then removed her own suit.

          As a medical examiner she’d seen some of the worst things humans could do to one another, but never twice in the exact same location. She’d first attended the Evans house at the age of thirty-one on her initial assignment as a qualified medical examiner, and even though ten years of training prepares you for the worst there is, she had spent half her time that morning throwing up after seeing the mutilated corpses of Karl Evans’ victims out in Elijah Forest. That part of the job you gradually become accustomed to. Emotionally, however, you find it a little more difficult.

          Once free of the suit she crumpled it and placed it in the plastic bag marked “Waste”. She straightened her white blouse, brushed-off blue jeans, and un-fashioned her ponytail before she fingered back brown hair.

          She turned to look at Dorothy Winkle’s house to see Howie Larkin remove his hat as he walked toward her. It was alcohol that had caused the fire, more like methylated spirit than alcohol, a tired old woman, a dropped match. Just an unfortunate accident is what Dennis Meade had told her some twelve hours earlier. Felt more like twelve-hundred.             

          ‘Miss Hunter, I …’ said Larkin. His soot-covered face had run in rivulets of sweat, his khaki shirt had smears wiped over the chest, and his hands looked like they’d been painted black.

Grace smiled up at him. ‘Afternoon, Howie, you okay?’

          ‘I’m fine, Miss Hunter, it’s just that, well, I wondered if there was any news on Mitch?’

          ‘I haven’t heard, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Have you checked with the hospital?’

          He looked down, dejected. ‘Yeah, but they say they can’t tell me if I ain’t a relative.’

          She placed a reassuring hand on his arm. ‘Mitch is a strong man, Howie, I’m sure he’ll be fine,’ she said.

          He shrugged. ‘Well, I guess so.’

          ‘Tell you what, I’ll call in on him when I’m there, if there’s any news I’ll let you know, but I’ve got to go now, Howie, got a lot to get through.’ She turned to leave.

          ‘Miss Hunter, Sheriff Spooner reckons Mitch might, well, he might be the one who done all this, shootin’ the Ferris’ and a whole bunch o’ other stuff. Is that what it looks like to you?’

          She turned round, poker-faced. ‘Mitch is the only one who can tell us exactly what happened here, and until we get his side of the story, anything else is supposition. Abe Spooner has a job to do, and I’m sure he feels the same way you do about Mitch, the same way we all do.’

          ‘I guess so, but…’

          ‘You’ll just have to trust the system, Howie,’ she said, then saw what looked like a flattened black pebble in his hand. ‘What’s that?’

          ‘Nothin’,’ he said, and made the nothin’ disappear into his back pocket. ‘I gotta go now.’ He replaced his hat and nodded. ‘Good afternoon, Miss Hunter.’

          ‘Yeah, see ya, Howie.’

          Grace looked over at the charred remains of Mrs Winkle’s house. The roof hadn’t escaped the blaze but hadn’t collapsed either. Every window frame had burned away along with the front door, and the decorative plaster that once covered the outside had crumbled into a small pile all along the foot of the house. She wondered what Howie could have been looking for, and what, indeed, he’d inevitably found in there. She turned to see him glance over his shoulder a number of times as he made off in a hurry.

          ‘You ready, Grace?’

          She turned to the voice. ‘Yeah, coming.’

Go to school, his pa said, come home and do your chores, his pa said, attend church every Sunday, his pa said, always work hard, his pa said, listen to your Mother, listen to me, always do the right thing and never let a chance to help someone slip by. And never, no matter how much trouble it will get you in, his pa said, are you to tell a lie.

          Right now Howie Larkin had never been so shit-scared in all his life. He’d found something in Mr’s Winkles front hall that said Mitch could be guilty of the Ferris murders and setting the fire in an attempt to cover his tracks. He didn’t want to believe Mitch could do those things, he was a good man, had helped him with his schooling when his Pa was too busy working the farm, had given him a job when no one else would.

          Should he give it to Spooner? No, he can’t, even if Spooner didn’t want to charge Mitch he would have to. Should he get rid of it and tell Spooner he’d found nothing? No, he should wait; keep hold of it until he’d spoken with Mitch. He pulled it out, looked at it, turned it over, turned it back, opened it, its golden colour still shining; he read the fancy inscription engraved inside the lid:

“Presented to Mitchell Cunningham for 25 years service”