"Still fighting?"
"No-down, both of them. The fight's over."
"Right." Alan's mind began clicking along faster, like an express train picking up speed. "You logged the call, Clut?"
"You bet I did."
"Good. Seaton's on this afternoon, isn't he? Get him out there right away."
"Already sent him."
"God bless you. Now call the State Police."
"Do you want CID?"
"Not yet. For the time being, just alert them to the situation.
I'll meet you there, Clut."
When he got to the crime scene and saw the extent of the damage, Alan radioed the Oxford Barracks of the State Police and told them to send a Crime Investigation Unit right away... two, if they could spare them. By then Clut and Seaton Thomas were standing in front of the downed women with their arms spread, telling people to go back into their homes. Norris arrived, took a look, then got a roll of yellow tape marked CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS out of the trunk of his cruiser.
There was a thick coating of dust on the tape, and Norris told Alan later that he hadn't been sure it would stick, it was so old.
It had, though. Norris strung it around the trunks of oak trees, forming a large triangle around the two women who appeared to be embracing at the foot of the stop-sign. The spectators had not returned to their houses, but did retreat to their own lawns. There were about fifty of them, and the number was growing as calls were made and neighbors hurried over to view the wreckage. Andy Clutterbuck and Seaton Thomas looked almost jumpy enough to pull their pieces and start firing warning shots. Alan sympathized with the way they felt.
In Maine, the Criminal Investigation Department of the State Police handles murder investigations, and for small-fry fuzz (which is almost all of them), the scariest time comes between the discovery of the crime and the arrival of CID. Local cops and county mounties both know perfectly well that it is the time when the so-called chain of evidence is most often broken. Most also know that what they do during that time will be closely scrutinized by Monday-morning quarterbacks-most of them from the judiciary and the Attorney General's Office-who believe that small-fry fuzz, even the County boys, are a bunch of Deputy Dawgs with ham hands and fumble fingers.
Also, those silent bunches of people standing on the lawns across the street were goddam spooky. They reminded Alan of the mallzombies in Dawn of the Dead.
He got the battery-powered bullhorn out of the back seat of his cruiser and told them he wanted them to go inside, right away.
They began to do it. He then reviewed the protocol in his head one more time, and radioed dispatch. Sandra McMillan had come in to handle the chores there. She wasn't as steady as Sheila Brigham, but beggars could not be choosers... and Alan guessed Sheila would hear what had happened and come in before much longer.
If her sense of duty didn't bring her, curiosity would.
Alan told Sandy to track down Ray Van Allen. Ray was Castle County's On-Call Medical Examiner-also the county coronerand Alan wanted him here when CID arrived, if that was possible.
"Roger, Sheriff," Sandy said self-importantly. "Base is clear."
Alan went back to his officers on the scene. "Which one of you verified that the women are dead?"
Clut and Seat Thomas looked at each other in uneasy surprise, and Alan felt his heart sink. One point for the Monday-morning quarterbacks-or maybe not. The first Crime Investigation Unit wasn't here yet, although he could hear more sirens approaching.
Alan ducked under the tape and approached the stop-sign, walking on tiptoe like a kid trying to sneak out of the house after curfew.
The spilled blood was mostly pooled between the victims and in the leaf-choked gutter beside them, but a fine spray of dropletswhat the forensics boys called backsplatter@otted the area around them in a rough circle. Alan dropped on one knee just outside this circle, stretched out a hand, and found he could reach the corpses-he had no doubt that was what they were-by leaning forward to the very edge of balance with one arm stretched out.
He looked back at Seat, Norris, and Clut. They were clustered together in a knot, staring at him with big eyes.
"Photograph me," he said.
Clut and Seaton only looked at him as if he had given an order in Tagalog, but Norris ran to Alan's cruiser and rooted around in back until he found the old Polaroid there, one of two they used for taking crime-scene photographs. When the appropriations committee met, Alan was planning to ask for at least one new camera, but this afternoon the appropriations committee meeting seemed very unimportant.
Norris hurried back with the camera, aimed, and triggered it.
The drive whined.