Waldo Templeton was, at best, a mediocre organist. He was also careless, so his killer was able to follow him to the sanctuary of Stonewall Jackson Memorial Church in Picketsville, VA, and dispatch him. Then the Vicar's secretary follows Waldo to an early grave. The Vicar, the Reverend Blake Fish...
They are arranged in a cluster around a central great hall that doubles as a dining room and scriptorium. There is an elaborate series of cisterns and channels that keep the inhabitants supplied with water, which is a major concern as they are forever taking ritual baths . I have never seen such ...
She greeted them and reported she’d put her equipment in the bedroom next to theirs. She was planning on using the room at the end of the hall. It had its own bath, she said, and besides, she thought they might want a little privacy. She’s blushed when she got to that part. People with naturally ...
Menacing would be the best descriptor. They told him to sit down and be still. He’d done so and now occupied a stool opposite them, mouth shut tight. The room had no window and only a small doorway let in air and light. Today, a rough fabric curtain covered it limiting both. A lamp set to one sid...
The interview did not go well. That may have had something to do with the fact the mayor preferred the candidate running against Ike in the election. He’d decided early in Ike’s tenure as sheriff that Ike was too apolitical and therefore not easily controlled. He wouldn’t admit it, but his cronie...
It hung halfway in the driveway and halfway in the street, its rear end buried in a low snowbank that he had not seen, a snowbank created by a well-meaning neighbor plowing the street. Successive melting and thawing during the previous day had turned it into nearly solid ice. Now he could go neit...
“He’s out running some errands, Ike,” Essie said. “He’ll be back directly.” “Errands? What kind of errands? I don’t remember asking him to run errands.” “We needed some things down to the store and since he didn’t look too busy at his desk, and all,...
He’d spend the time with the Sunday paper he’d saved, maybe playing golf, or catching up on his reading. Mondays were good times. Not today. For the second Monday in a row, he woke up tired and miserable. He dragged himself out of bed and made a pot of coffee and a plate full of toast. He smeared...
However, Ruth and Ike had work to do. Not work related to their professions, but tasks connected to their behaviorally rash evening in Nevada. They had to decide the means by which their hasty and irregular marriage should be announced to the public. For ordinary folk, the problem would not loom ...
Ike intended to correct the anachronism perched on Ruth’s mantle, a surprise he would spring that night. “Well, good afternoon, Sheriff. Is this a social call or did my husband, the lawyer, rat me out for running a numbers racket in my back room?” “I need a clock.” “What sort of clock?” “Somethin...
He’d started classifying his hangovers in the Army. A class one might be annoying but not debilitating. He could function normally and it would usually disappear in an hour. The scale and degree of debility was directly proportional to the size of the indicator and at the nine or ten level ...
He’d worked his way to that point from the access road through the woods and into the dark side of the building. Avoiding the surveillance cameras had been simple enough, but he did not know if there were trip alarms in the approaches or not. At last, he decided he was overcautious and moved thro...
Early Saturday morning he felt as though he’d spent the night at a fraternity party rather than the sheriff’s office. He shook his head, a thing he’d been doing since midnight, at the reaction of the parents to their children’s arrest in the raid at the Pit, or Cauldron, or whatever it was called...
Sami, expecting a tip, smiled and held out his hand. Gur shot him twice and shoved him and his boat out into the current. The boat and disappeared into the river, Gur into the darkness. Late the following afternoon he staggered into Zimbabwe. He had one connection there. One would be enough. That...
He’ll be in his rooms this time of day.”“Not just yet, Barak. I need some time to reread these letters and I want to have someone look at this box and seal.”“I see. Will you be needing me anymore?”“No, not until later this afternoon. Come to me after the noon meal in the room we use to interview....