I step closer. “Do you mind if I take a quick look in your purse?”
“What? Why?” But she makes no move to stop me when I reach out and ease the purse from her shoulder.
“Just routine,” I tell her, “since you were first on the scene.” She starts to protest, but I keep her busy with questions while I open the bag and quickly determine there’s no weapon inside and hand it back to her. “Did your father have any recent arguments with anyone, Mrs. Harrington? Did he have any enemies?”
“I don’t know. I mean, not that he mentioned. Most everyone liked my dad.” But her brows go together. “Wait. I think he had some kind of problem with his neighbor. The couple that lives south of here. Their dogs were always loose and getting in my dad’s trash.”
“How long ago was that?”
“It’s been kind of ongoing, I think.”
Taking her arm, I guide her toward the door. “What’s the neighbor’s name?”
“Seymour.”
“Is that a first or last name?”
“I don’t know. He just goes by Seymour and my dad didn’t like him much. That’s all I know.”
I nod. “Did your father have any kind of connection to anyone with the name Hochstetler?”
She looks at me blankly. “Not that I know of.”
“Did he keep money or valuables here at the house?”
“I don’t know. He probably kept some cash on hand. And there are plenty of nice things in the house. He remodeled the place after my mom divorced him.”
“How long ago did they divorce?”
“Oh gosh, eight years maybe?”
“Any tension between them?”
She shakes her head. “Divorce is probably the best thing they ever did for each other.”
“Did he have any work done on the house recently? Or hire any casual laborers? Anything like that?”
“Did that remodeling six or seven years ago.” She shrugs. “He’s handy and liked to tinker, so he did a lot of the work himself.”
“Does your dad have a cell phone?” I ask, knowing that many times it’s helpful to check incoming and outgoing calls.
“He just upgraded his iPhone.”
“You’ve been a big help, Mrs. Harrington.” I motion toward Glock. “Officer Maddox will walk you to your vehicle. This is a crime scene now, and we need to protect any evidence.”
A round of fresh tears well in her eyes. “My poor dad. Shot like some old dog.”
I give Glock a nod and he gently ushers her toward the door. “This way, ma’am.”
I watch them disappear into the rain and then tug out my cell and hit the speed dial for Tomasetti, knowing he can get a crime scene unit out here faster than I can. Worry flickers inside me when he doesn’t pick up, but I presume he’s in the shower or on another line. I call my dispatcher instead. “Call BCI and request a CSU. Tell them we’ve got a possible homicide.” I give her the address. “Check County records and get me the names and contact info of Michaels’s neighbors. I’m particularly interested in a neighbor with the first or last name of Seymour. See if he’s got a sheet.”
“Okay, Chief.”
I ring off in time to hear the coroner call my name. I walk back over to where he’s kneeling next to the body, his gloved hand hovering near the bullet wound. “I’m guessing, Kate, but I’d venture to say the slug penetrated the stomach. If that’s the case, there’s no way he walked from the house to the barn after sustaining this wound.”
I scan the interior of the barn, trying to get my mind around what might have transpired. “Is it possible Michaels was already hanging, perhaps by his own hand, and someone entered the barn and shot him?” I ask the doc.
“Possible, but doubtful,” he replies. “There’s only a small window of time that he was alive, after he was hanged. Once the carotid artery and jugular veins are blocked, unconsciousness would have occurred within minutes. Death may have taken another ten or fifteen minutes.”
“Maybe someone shot him to disable him and then strung him up,” Glock says as he comes through the door.
“Hell of a way to kill someone,” Maloney adds.
I look down at Dale Michaels’s body. “Unless maybe someone thought he deserved it.”
CHAPTER 4