Free Turn to Stone by Brian Freeman Page B

live here for 20 years, you’re bound to hear it. Somehow the Devil is scarier in German, don’t you think? He lives in der Schwarzwald , eating children and spitting out the bones.” Gandy laughed.
    “Not too far from the truth in this case,” Stride said, which wiped the smile off the coroner’s face. “Did you know Hamlin?” he added.
    “I knew who he was, sure,” Gandy said, “but I don’t think I’ve said a word to Mr. Hamlin in twenty years.”
    “What about Percy? Did he have any kind of relationship with him?”
    “If he did, Percy never mentioned it. Hamlin was a real estate guy. I don’t think Percy ran in those circles. Now Hamlin’s wife, that’s another story. Most people bump into Hope at the bank. If you’re looking for money, you’ll end up talking to her.”
    “The disappearance of Greg Hamlin landed on Percy’s desk,” Stride said. “That’s quite a coincidence if he was the one who killed him.”
    “Not really,” Gandy replied. “Percy was the senior general investigator. A case like that—a guy goes missing—that would always wind up with him. You could count on it.”
    Stride frowned. He didn’t know if it was an important fact or not, but he thought that was interesting. Anyone who knew the local police—and that was probably most of the people in Shawano—knew that a missing persons investigation would end up on the desk of Percy Andrews.
    He realized he was looking for excuses. Alternate explanations for Hamlin’s death and Percy’s role in it. That wasn’t his usual approach, and it went against all his instincts. Any seasoned police officer knew that the most likely solution was almost always the right one. Percy killed Hamlin. Percy killed himself. End of story.
    Even so, something didn’t fit.
    “Hamlin vanished a month ago, but Mike Black said he saw Percy coming out of the woods only two weeks ago. Why the gap?”
    Gandy shrugged. “You saw the state of the body. Must have been a long two weeks for Hamlin.”
    “Maybe. Or maybe Hamlin was already dead when Percy found him.”
    “Well, we’ll know more when we fix the time of death, but having the body outdoors in the cold for so long is going to make that difficult. I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to say for sure.”
    “No.”
    “If you think Percy didn’t kill him, Lieutenant, then who did? And if he was innocent, why would Percy bother to hide the body?”
    “I don’t know,” Stride said. “You’re assuming that’s what he did.”
    “What, you think Mike Black made it up? He didn’t really see Percy here?”
    “It’s possible. Maybe not likely, but possible. Mike’s the only witness tying Percy to Hamlin’s body. There’s no other evidence that Percy was involved with Hamlin at all.”
    Gandy cocked his fingers like a gun and put it to his head. “Bang.”
    “Yes, I know, the suicide,” Stride said, “but suicide isn’t murder.”
    “Fair enough. I see your point. Look, I don’t know Mike Black, but my daughter Sophie does. She likes him, and that goes a long way with me. Still, no way around it, the kid’s been through a lot. Your dad does something terrible and gets killed? You carry that with you forever. Plus, small towns can be cruel. Sophie says Mike still gets bullied. Sometimes kids grow out of it, sometimes you get Columbine, know what I mean?”
    Stride nodded. “Ginnie Black says it started that way with Jet, too.”
    “Sure. Back in the old days, Jet was a decent enough kid. Good athlete. Everybody starts out innocent, right? Then shit happens. You just never know.”
    “Childhood screws us up,” Stride said, “and we spend the rest of our lives trying to fix it.”
    “Damn straight,” Gandy said. “I worry about this kind of stuff. When my wife and I got divorced, it was hard on Sophie. I’d like to tell you we were mature about it, but we weren’t. I said bad things about my ex. She said even worse things about me. Sophie was in the middle. You