Free Death Climbs a Tree by Sara Hoskinson Frommer Page A

Andrew and his cans. Nothing to do with Sylvia.”
    â€œSo you’re not going to do anything about it?”
    â€œNot much to do.” But he pulled a camera out of his jeans and snapped several shots, including a couple that showed the distance of the stone from Andrew’s tree. Then he pulled plastic gloves from another pocket, picked up the stone, and put it in an evidence bag, which he marked before tucking it in the pocket. “Just in case.”
    He came prepared, she thought. So he had taken her seriously. “If someone did that on purpose, or even by accident, I think we ought to know, don’t you?”
    â€œYou planning to join the force?”
    â€œOh, Fred.” At least he wasn’t laughing at her. Or was he?
    â€œCome on home, woman. Feed me breakfast.”
    All right, he was, but she didn’t care. Arm in arm, they walked past Andrew’s tree and out into the clearing. Still no sound from Andrew. Fine. He didn’t need to know she’d been checking on him.

8
    Showered and shaved, Fred arrived at the station only a little later than usual. When he walked in, Ketcham put down the phone and looked up, his eyes serious behind his wire rims. “She’s dead.”
    â€œWho?” But he knew.
    â€œSylvia Purcell.”
    â€œAny word from her sister?”
    â€œAccording to the ICU nurse, she decided to drive and didn’t make it in time. The nurse thinks she’ll arrive later today.”
    â€œToo bad. You told her not to release the information until she gets here?” Not that hospitals needed to be told about privacy these days, but Sylvia was news, and leaks happened. Hearing it on the car radio would be a hell of a way to learn your sister was dead.
    â€œYeah,” Ketcham said. “And I called Henshaw.”
    Dr. Henshaw was Alcorn County coroner, in charge of investigating accidental deaths, homicides, and any death under dubious circumstances. Fred appreciated his quiet competence. Not every county elected a coroner who knew what he was doing. For that matter, not every county had a forensic pathologist available to elect. But Henshaw lived in a small college town by choice and didn’t seem to mind being called out of bed to the scene of a bloody highway accident. No longer young, he’d said more than once that he hoped to die with his boots on.
    â€œThe nurse was kicking herself,” Ketcham said. “She talked to the doctor and told Linda Smith they thought she had time to drive.”
    She may not be the only one kicking herself, Fred thought, if it wasn’t an accident, after all. He held out the evidence bag containing the smooth gray stone with the markings like cell walls on a microscope slide. It was about two inches long. “Get someone to check this for prints.” The thing looked smooth enough to take them. “Then turn it over to Henshaw for comparison.”
    â€œA Petoskey stone?” Ketcham said.
    â€œYou know about them?”
    â€œWe go up there sometimes. My wife used to polish them, when she was on a jewelry-making kick.”
    â€œThis one was in Yocum’s Woods. Near the tree sit.”
    â€œOdd. Could be someone’s souvenir, even Sylvia’s.”
    â€œI’m hoping we can find her prints on it.”
    â€œBut?” Ketcham always could read his mind.
    â€œIt’s possible she was shot down with the thing, from a powerful slingshot.”
    Ketcham nodded. “My oldest kid had one of those Wrist-Rockets. Drove us nuts till I finally made a target for him, out back, away from anything else.”
    â€œIf she was shot down, we might even find some DNA evidence, though I’d expect the rock that hit her to be closer to where she landed.”
    â€œMaybe even on the platform.”
    Which would mean Andrew had spent the night in the middle of a crime scene. They’d have to get him down sooner now, rather than later, and send up a young, agile