Unbury Carol(47)
The sheriff grabbed his gun off his night table and headed up the hall. He walked slow, having heard enough horror stories of fool sheriffs gunned down at the threshold of their own front doors.
“Who goes there?” Opal called, one hand on the knob, the other holding the gun chest-high.
“It’s Robert Manders, Sheriff Opal.”
Opal frowned. A funeral director knocking at night was a curious thing, indeed.
He lowered his gun and opened the door. “What’s the matter, Manders? You got ghouls?”
The director tried to be cordial, but Opal could tell he was concerned.
“Come in,” Opal said, stepping aside. “We’ll talk in the kitchen.”
Manders followed the sheriff to a small white table adorned with a single candle. Opal lit it and sat down, fanning his hand to the other seat, asking the director to do the same.
Manders did. “I feel strange having come here.”
“I’d think so. If it was anything other than strange that you came here for I might think you strange myself.”
“It’s true. I wouldn’t wake you without something worth waking you for.”
“What is it, Manders?”
“It’s Carol Evers, Sheriff.”
“All right. What about her?”
“She passed yester eve.”
“I was at the wake.”
“And Mister Evers visited with me.”
“To set things up.”
“Well, not everything. Mister Evers has hired someone else to dress the body.”
“Someone from out of town? Family?”
“That’s what he said. Family. Do you know them?”
“I do not.”
Manders hesitated before asking, “How about a Doctor Alexander Wolfe. Have you heard of him?”
“I have not.”
“It’s the name of the doctor who determined Carol Evers’s cause of death.”
“All right.”
“Well, Sheriff Opal, that’s the part that concerns me. I’m most likely out of line in saying so, but I couldn’t help feeling things were out of sorts when I talked to Mister Evers.”
“How’s that?”
“I couldn’t get a clean line on what he was telling me, and the note he gave me from this Doctor Wolfe was, truth be told, suspicious.”
“That’s a big word in my dictionary, Manders.”
“I imagine it is.”
“Go on.”
“I checked the ledger of registry tonight in my office and found absolutely no trace of any doctor named Alexander Wolfe.”
Opal studied Manders closely. In the flickering candle the funeral director looked like a child’s drawing of “concerned.”
“How reliable is this book?”
“The registry?”
“The registry.”
“Well, it’s important I’m up to date on these matters. I have the current edition. I think it goes back no later than a year.”
“He could have gotten cleared in that year?”
“Yes.”
“And what area does the book cover?”
“A fair-sized stretch of land. I’d gather almost every town you’ve ever been to is in this book. Most of the Trail.”
“Where’d Evers say he was from? Did he?”
“Yes. He said he was from Charles.”
“Is that it?”
“Well, there’s that and the note.”
“The doctor’s note.”
“The doctor’s note.”
“From an Alexander Wolfe.”
“I don’t think in my entire life I’ve read a less professional account.”
“Do you have that note on you?”
“I do not. I gave it back to Mister Evers.”
“And what did it say, then?”
“Oh, it employed correct language, I suppose, but there was really no conclusion and it lacked any sense of studied jargon.”
Opal didn’t like what he was hearing. Manders was a man he took seriously.
“Are you suggesting he made him up?”
“Yes. I think I am.”
Opal sat silent half a minute.
“Don’t hold hands with your thoughts yet, Manders. Not thoughts like those. Way too many possibilities to start thinking yours is the right one. Could be the doctor isn’t legit. Hell’s heaven, I’ve got friends who prefer witch doctors. Things get real drafty when you start opening windows on a person’s preferences.”
“But the doctor couldn’t be from too far out of town.”
“That’s right.”
“Because he saw her soon after she died.”
“That’s right. But just because he has to be from around here and isn’t in your book doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist. You ever known Mister Evers to get sick?”
“I’m sure he has.”
“Me, too. But I don’t know who he saw to get his runny nose plugged and I don’t know who he’d go to for his wife’s passing.”
“I understand.”
“Is that it?”
“Yes, Sheriff. I think that’s it. Though I might add, Mister Evers seemed desirous of getting Carol into the ground as soon as possible.”