Free Wall-To-Wall Dead by Jennie Bentley Page A

upstairs and got a screwdriver and then we took the lock off the door.”
    There was a slight pause. “I see,” Wayne said.
    “It’s not a problem to put it back on again.”
    “I’m not worried about the lock. Did you go inside?”
    I said I hadn’t.
    “Did Derek?”
    I said he had.
    “Put him on,” Wayne ordered.
    I did, and stood there listening to the singularly unhelpful half of the conversation that came out of Derek’s mouth.It went something like this: “Uh-huh…. Uh-huh…. Yes, I know…. That’s right…. Uh-huh…. Yes…. Yes…. Probably not…. No idea…. Of course…. We’ll be here.”
    He gave the phone back to me. “He’s on his way.”
    I stuck it in my pocket. “What did he say?”
    “Nothing,” Derek said, which seemed a rather blatant disregard of the truth. Wayne had said a lot. But it was possible he’d said nothing I needed to know right now. Or nothing Derek thought Amelia Easton needed to know.
    He turned to her. “You don’t have to stand here. It smells bad, I know.”
    Amelia nodded, biting her lip, but she seemed reluctant to leave. “I’d be happy to wait with you if you want.”
    Derek shook his head. “That’s not necessary. You didn’t go inside, and I’m sure you’d be happier upstairs. If Wayne wants to talk to you, he knows where to find you.”
    “OK,” Amelia said, but she was dragging her feet reluctantly up the stairs, and just before she disappeared, she looked back at us over her shoulder, still gnawing on her bottom lip.
    We kept silent until we’d heard the door on the top floor close behind her. Then I turned to Derek.
    “What did Wayne say?”
    “Nothing,” Derek said, looking surprised. “I told you.”
    “I thought maybe you said that because Amelia was standing here.”
    He shook his head. “What was there to say, Avery? He called the ME’s office and he’s on his way. With Brandon.”
    Brandon Thomas is Wayne’s youngest and most gung-ho deputy. He’d like to spend all of his time fiddling with forensic evidence and crime scene investigations, but Waterfield has a minuscule police department, and everyone has to do their share of patrolling and directing traffic. Whenever he gets the chance to gather hairs and fibers and spread fingerprint dust, he’s like a kid in a candy store, though.
    “He said to stay out,” Derek added, “and make sure noone else went in, and not to do anything to disturb the scene. You know the drill.”
    I did. “And that’s it?”
    “That’s it. He’s on his way. We wait.”
    “Fine.” I put my back to the wall and slid down until my butt was on the cold concrete of the floor. Derek followed suit, and there we sat, side by side, until I broke the silence again.
    “I knew something was wrong.”
    Derek turned to look at me, and I clarified, “This morning. When she wasn’t at the kitchen window. She was always there. Every morning when we got here, and every night when we left.”
    “It’s only been a few days, Avery.”
    “I know that. But if I’d made you open the door this morning, maybe…”
    Derek shook his head. “It wouldn’t have made a difference. She was dead before we got here today.”
    I sniffed, and then wished I hadn’t, as the smell permeated my nostrils. Better to breathe through my mouth for a while. “How do you know?”
    “Do you really want me to explain rigor mortis and all the other things that happen to a body after death?”
    Not really, no. “So she died last night?”
    “The medical examiner will be able to make that determination better than I can,” Derek said. “I was just a general practitioner, and not for very long, and I dealt mostly with patients who were still alive. We lost one every once in a while, especially when I rotated in and out of the ER, but I’ve never had to do much on the forensic side. But if I had to guess, I’d say she probably died around nine o’clock last night.”
    I swallowed. At nine o’clock, we’d been at Aunt