Free HIGHWAY HOMICIDE by Bill WENHAM Page B

Caspar had identified her sister Maria’s body, shedding many more tears in the process. She was now back at Judy’s place, having an evening meal with Carl and Judy. Almost had dropped by to introduce himself, offer his condolences and to arrange a pick up time for her in the morning. He’d be driving her back to Rutland.
    Once the initial shock of losing her sister had worn off a bit, Erica was both pleasant and talkative. The two women got along very well, with Erica helping Judy to prepare the meal.
    Carl and Almost put their heads together in the meantime, sharing what each had learned so far.
    “So, Almost,” Carl said, “This body out at the Finlay place, you reckon it was a homicide then?”
    “No doubt about it, Carl. The victim was shot, single bullet through the center of the forehead. Hard shot for a suicide to make with a rifle. An inch or so lower and it would have been right between the eyes. Whoever took this dude out was deadly serious. The rifle was lying on the floor beside the foot of the bed. Throwing it back there would be another tricky thing for a suicide to do after he’d just shot himself through the head, wouldn’t it?”
    “You’re saying ‘he’, Almost. You think the victim was male then?” Carl asked.
    “No, Carl, ‘he’ was just a figure of speech. It was impossible to tell, but the Burlington boys were all over it. I’m sure their pathologist will have that info for us by tomorrow and can tell us how long the victim’s been dead,” Almost told them. “From what I saw of the condition of the body, I’d say it must have been several years. Five or six would be my guess.”
    “That would have been around the time Dolly Cook took off with her fancy man, wouldn’t it? I always had Jack Finlay slated for that, since they both took off at the same time. Though Lord knows why she would have preferred Jack to Errol.”
    Judy said, “Errol wasn’t drinking until after Dolly left either, but Jack had been a dirty old bum for years.”
    “He owned that dilapidated old house, but it was all he ever had going for him,” Carl said. “No one in their right mind would ever have bought it off of him either. So it was no wonder he just walked away from it, was it?”
    Almost and Judy nodded their agreement as Carl continued.
    “I always thought, like everyone else in town, he’d taken off to California with Dolly and had just deserted that old dump of his. That was what the gossip of the day was all about, and you know how accurate that can be, don’t you?”
    The other two nodded again.
    “Strange to now find an old dead body in Jack’s place, though, don’t you think?” Carl said. “I’ve always felt sorrier for poor old Errol though. He’s been trying to forget his Dolly with the help of a bottle for over five years now.”
    Several miles away, another man would have agreed with him completely. It was actually five years, six months and, what was it? Yeah, twelve days.
    He could have even told Carl and Almost the time of day, the type of murder weapon, the victim’s name and even what the reason had been for killing him.
    It was all over a woman, naturally, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it always over women or money? It was always one or the other. The ironical part of it all was neither of them had gotten the woman in the end. What had been even more ironical was that her death had been purely accidental.
    For over five years he’d been trying to forget what had happened, but he couldn’t. He’d taken other measures to help him forget but they hadn’t worked worth a damn either. He also had the nightmares, drunken ones, but still nightmares all the same.
    He’d killed a man for nothing. Absolutely nothing!
    His wife had told him, in no uncertain terms, that she was going away with Jack Finlay, and he’d gone to Finlay’s dump of a place to confront them both.
    Without even thinking rationally, he’d forced open a window in Finlay’s house and had climbed inside. He’d