Holy Ghost (Virgil Flowers #11)(86)

“I can.” She knew what was happening and hustled back to her house to make the call. Virgil was already on his cell phone to Zimmer: “Barry Osborne’s been killed. At his house. A woman named Lou Simpson’s going to call nine-one-one in a minute and ask you to send some deputies. She let us in Osborne’s house, and we’re getting her out of the way, but we do need some deputies over here.”

“I’ll get them moving,” Zimmer said. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Virgil hung up and looked down at the body slumped in the chair. He could see a hole in Osborne’s back surrounded by a spot of blood the size of a large strawberry.

Jenkins had moved around Virgil to look at Osborne from the side, and said, “You’re not going to believe this. He’s facedown in a potpie.”

“Ah, for Christ’s sakes.” Virgil moved to Osborne’s side to look. He hadn’t slipped off the chair, because his chest and head were resting on the tabletop. “He knew the guy who killed him. The guy came through two doors, and Barry must have heard him, but he didn’t even turn around to see who it was. They must’ve been talking.”

“Maybe I should go back and talk to the lawn mower guy,” Jenkins suggested.

“Do that. I’m going to stand here and look at things for a while.

Jenkins went out the door, and Virgil looked around the kitchen, staying away from the body and the puddle of blood beneath the chair. The puddle wasn’t large: most of the blood would be on Osborne’s lap and legs.

A chicken potpie carton sat on the countertop. Virgil checked the freezer compartment of the refrigerator and saw a second, identical potpie carton. Virgil had seen Osborne put the cartons in the freezer when they interviewed him that morning. Osborne had said he didn’t have a lot of time to talk because he had an appointment to buy a coffin for his mother. He’d changed clothes; he was no longer wearing the Steam Punk coveralls he’d been wearing when they interviewed him.

That meant that after Virgil and Jenkins left him, he must’ve changed clothes—maybe he’d taken a shower—and then come down and heated up the potpie. That took six minutes in the microwave, and he’d eaten only a few bites of it, from what Virgil could see.

He’d probably been killed, Virgil thought, within twenty minutes of when he and Jenkins had left the house.

Had somebody seen them there?



* * *



—

He backed out of the scene, closed both doors, and walked back into the side yard between Osborne’s and Simpson’s houses. A sheriff’s car pulled up in the street, and a deputy got out, someone that Virgil hadn’t yet met. Virgil walked out to the street, and said, “Barry Osborne’s been murdered. We need to keep the site as tight as we can. Don’t let anybody near the doors. Not even other deputies.”

“The sheriff’s on his way,” the deputy said. He was wearing a name tag that said “Logan.”

“Okay. I’ll be right in the neighborhood. When he gets here, tell him to find me. He shouldn’t go inside.”



* * *



—

Virgil saw Simpson peering out a window. Her back door was on the other side of the house, and Virgil gestured to her, then walked around back. Jenkins was talking to the lawn guy, who’d quit mowing but was still sitting on the machine.

Virgil knocked on Simpson’s door.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” she asked, as he stepped inside. The layout of her house was identical to that of Osborne’s: a mudroom inside the back door, with another door leading into the kitchen.

“He was murdered,” Virgil said. “Did you hear a gunshot between about eleven-thirty and noon?”

“No, nothing like that; but I had the TV on, and my hearing’s not so good, so it’s always turned up.”

“You saw nobody in his yard, walking up to the house?”

“No, his house is on the wrong side for me to see much. I’m mostly in the kitchen, or the TV room, and they’re both on this side. You could talk to Marvel Jackson across the street. She’s got a better view.”

He asked about the man on the lawn mower.

“Davy Apel? I don’t know, he’s . . .” She put her fingers to her lips.

“You started to say something else,” Virgil said.

“Oh, Davy and I don’t get along,” she said. “I have that big maple tree out back, and the leaves used to fall on his yard. There was nothing I could do about it—leaves fall off trees, that’s what they do. Anyway, he got all angry about it—every year—and used to call me up and want to know what I was going to do about it. Well, what could I do? So, back in the fall of 2007, I was gone one day, and he came into my yard and cut some limbs off the tree. That’s why it’s all lopsided like that . . . I called the sheriff on him, but nothing happened. Anyway, Davy and Barry were friends.”

“Did Davy ever say anything that made you think he might get violent with you?”

“Oh, no, no, nothing like that. No.”



* * *



—

Virgil walked across the street to Marvel Jackson’s house and found it unoccupied. So was the house to its left, but a woman named Casey Young lived in the house to the right. She hadn’t seen anyone around Osborne’s house. “Why are the deputies there? Did something happen to Barry?”