Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 100, Nos. 4 & 5. Whole Nos. 603 & 604, October 1992

He knelt down, the edges of his raincoat draping around him like a hoop skirt. Holding the flashlight in one hand, he gently started to scrape away at the mud. The brown-black boot came further into view, along with a tattered piece of denim, and then a bone.

Victor stood up, shaking his head. “Damn me, now, will you.”

Later, after making phone calls to the medical examiner and the state police forensics team, and after allowing Deborah Hanson to make a phone call to her sister, he stood with her and Gordon Moore in the living room of the house. The two daughters — Kristin and Bridget — were huddled together on the couch, holding each other, keening and sobbing.

Victor was slightly uncomfortable, standing there with his wet raincoat and mud-splattered boots. “About your son, Freddy...”

“What about him,” she said, her voice flat. “He’ll be taking care of himself now, I guess.”

Gordon nodded at him and Victor said, “Mrs. Hanson, you’ll be coming with us to the station now.”

Her eyes tightened and she tugged at the neck of her sweater and glanced back at the couch. “You won’t cuff me in front of the kids, now, will you?”

“No, I won’t,” Victor said, as he pulled a card from his pocket.

“But you are under arrest, and I’ll have to read you your rights.”

The children kept on keening as he read the Miranda warning, and when he was done he asked, “Now that I’ve read you your rights, Mrs. Hanson, do you have anything to say?”

She clasped her arms in front of her, hugged herself tight.

“Men,” she murmured, and she said not one more word on the ride to the station.

Deborah Hanson walked in the holding room, cigarette in hand, knowing that the mirror to the right was a two-way piece of glass, that she was being watched. She knew that, and she waited. If they were waiting for her to weep and scream and tear at her hair, then they would have a long wait. It had been five years and she’d known she had a pretty good chance of ending up in this room.

It didn’t bother her, not that much. It was like knowing the destination of a trip, but not being too sure if it was over the next hill or the next mountain range.

The door opened and a man in his thirties came in, dressed in a two-piece brown suit, white shirt, and red tie. He carried a black briefcase and had a plastic smile and his hair was too carefully combed.

“Mrs. Hanson?” he said, extending his hand, which she touched for only a moment, “I’m Gerald Twomey, from the county public defender’s office.”

He sat down and opened up his briefcase and she said, “I’m sorry to waste your time like this, but I don’t want you defending me.”

He paused, holding a folder from his case. “Mrs. Hanson, I’m afraid you don’t have much of a choice. I’ve been appointed by the court and—”

“You got a woman down there?”

“Excuse me?”

She took a drag off her cigarette. “I said you got a woman lawyer down there in your office?”

“Yes, well, we do, but her schedule is—”

“That’s who I want.”

“Mrs. Hanson, I—”

“Who do you think I am? Some dumb hill woman who don’t know what she’s in for? Who don’t know what she wants? I want that woman lawyer, that’s what.”

She turned in her chair and stared at the wall. It looked like cheap paneling, with hardly any backing behind it. Henry always promised he’d do up the basement, make it a play area for the girls, but no, that never did happen, now, did it. The wall was covered with scratches and grease, and duct tape covered holes where someone must have punched in a fist or a foot. She smoked her cigarette and waited and eventually she heard a briefcase being clicked shut and a door being opened and closed as the man left. Hmmph. Some man. Henry could have broken him for breakfast.

She lit another cigarette and continued to wait. Eventually, the door opened again, as she knew it would.

Victor Dumont waited in the medical examiner’s office as Dr. Lewis Fernald pulled off a blood- and chemical-spattered gown and threw it into an overflowing bin, showing a blue shirt with a white collar and a red necktie. The office was in Folsom, on the other side of the county and almost an hour from Norwich. It was cramped and book-lined, with three human skulls resting on a bookshelf. One of the skulls was real, the other two were plastic. Fernald made it a constant joke of switching them around and asking visitors which one was real.

The county medical examiner was Victor’s age but looked ten years older, with greying hair and a fine network of wrinkles about his brown eyes. He was also developing a small potbelly, despite the hour drive every other night to the nearest health club in this part of the state.

“How’s your day going, Victor?” Fernald asked, sitting down with a sigh in his leather swivel chair. He leaned back and opened a small refrigerator and pulled out a plastic container of lemonade, which he drank straight from the bottle.

“Depends a lot on what you found out.”

The medical examiner grinned. “Like what, for example?”

“Like is that Henry Hanson you got downstairs?”