Free Silent Son by Gallatin Warfield Page A

click.
    “Damn!” Miller smashed the phone against the metal hook, bouncing it off and making it jump and twist like a headless snake.
    How could he have gotten himself into this? He was a tough guy. Always in charge. Always ahead of the game. But things had
     been switched around. He’d lost control, and there was not a hell of a lot he could do about it now.
    * * *
    Bowers Corner looked eerie at night. With no interior lights to soften the outline, it was as imposing as a witch’s castle
     on a stony mountaintop. The roofline jutted with sharp angles where the gables joined the structure, and the antique glass
     in the attic windows reflected a rippled moon.
    Brownie parked his van by the porch and got out. His meeting with Jenneane had exceeded any possible expectations. For some
     reason, the child had absorbed the day of the shooting like a sponge. All it took was a gentle squeeze, and the details had
     squirted out like rainwater.
    The Miller angle was puzzling. If it
was
Roscoe, why was he riding in the back of his truck? He guarded that piece of junk like a Rolls-Royce. It would be odd for
     him to turn it over to someone else, and then to take a seat in the bed. That didn’t sound like the Miller he knew. But it
     was a beginning. Maybe now he could start to put together a case that was more than speculation.
    Brownie mounted the porch and inserted a key into the lock. The tumblers clicked, and the glass door creaked open. He shone
     his flashlight into the room and looked for the switch that would illuminate the brass fixtures on the wall. He found it and
     threw the small toggle. Nothing. He crossed to the far side and tried the one by the back door. Again, nothing. There was
     no power. Someone had shut it off.
    Brownie beamed his flashlight around the room. Somewhere in there was the evidence of a third shot. The field detectives had
     assumed only two shots and never scoured the perimeter for another bullet. Brownie had thought the same thing and had not
     wasted time poking around the shelves. But Jenneane’s recollection was not to be ignored.
    Brownie walked to the position where the bodies were found, and began sighting possible trajectories. The shooter’s back had
     been to the rear wall. That much was obvious. The bodies had both lain with their heads toward the front door. Brownie sighted
     forward and down, to the place where the fragments were found, on the floor several feet past the victims. Brownie turned
     slightly and aligned himself with the chalk mark where Granville had fallen. It was at right angles to the other bodies. The
     officer stepped back and imagined the gun barrel pointed at Granville’s head. Then he sighted twenty degrees to either side.
     Then ninety degrees up. Then ninety degrees down. Following those sight lines he walked to the shelves that intersected the
     path. But nothing had been disturbed.
    Brownie walked back and adjusted the angle so that Granville would have been facing directly toward the spot where Addie was
     shot. Projecting trajectories from that location brought several additional shelves into view. He carefully examined each
     one, finally arriving at a high wall shelf by the front door. Using a chair as a stepladder, he slowly went from bottom to
     top, turning cans, moving boxes, looking for any sign of a bullet’s path.
    When he reached the top shelf, his light picked up a metallic glint on the side of a soup can. He grabbed it and pulled it
     out. There was a slight crease on the side, enough to cut the red paper label and expose the silver of the can. He pushed
     the other cans aside and illuminated the wall behind the shelf. There was a hole! A jagged hole blasted into the plaster.
     Brownie had a sudden vision of Addie’s and Henry’s shattered heads at the morgue. He swallowed hard and directed his light
     into the hole. As far as he could see, it was empty. He pulled out his penknife and inserted it into the opening. He probed
     and probed,