Behind the Bonehouse

by Sally Wright

  It’d made Earl feel real uncomfortable. Like it was something extreme, and too personal to hear about. But his wife had said, “That musta been hard for her, and I’m real glad it did her good. I’d like to have her over for supper, when you’re done workin’ on this case.”

  Earl had said, “Sure. I guess.” And hung up the phone, hoping Jane wouldn’t bring it up, if she did come over to eat.

  Bob Harrison’s secretary ushered Earl into Bob’s office at four thirty-five, and said he’d be there as soon as the lab meeting finished.

  Earl walked around from wall to wall reading the captions to a collection of black-framed black-and-white photos—some big, some small, the early ones faded and grainy.

  The first showed Bob in 1930, the year he graduated from Ohio State’s vet school, hunkered down by a cow’s udder. The next showed him in 1934, working in a vet practice, standing beside a draft horse whose ribs were sticking out and whose head was hanging low. That was followed by a shot two months later when the Percheron looked fat and happy and Harrison was beaming.

  The next photo showed him in 1939 sitting at a desk in Rahway, New Jersey, in Merck’s Institute for Therapeutic Research, a masters diploma in pathology hanging above the desk.

  The one after that showed him in a big plant during WWII with rows of covered metal tanks, where a whole group of pharmaceutical companies were working together to develop something called “submerged fermentation” to produce penicillin for America’s troops.

  Earl was looking at the photo of Bob in 1950, staring down the throat of Hill Prince, that year’s Horse of the Year, with someone named Dr. Elvis Doll from the UK vet school—when Bob walked through the door.

  They shook hands, as Bob said, “Well, at least we have one thing in common. Your glasses are exactly like mine. Your wife pick yours too?”

  They both laughed as they sat down in the two chairs in front of Bob’s neatly organized black metal desk.

  Earl reached in his shirt pocket and pulled out his notebook, as he said, “Looks like you’ve had a real interesting life.”

  “I’ve been very fortunate. If businessmen in Plain City, Ohio hadn’t gotten together and helped me go to college, my life would’ve been entirely different.”

  “Bet that don’t happen too often.”

  “Those men assisted several. Eight members of the Chamber of Commerce, they got together and helped pay my way. And because of the start they gave me I was able to learn from some really outstanding scientists, before and after the war.”

  “How you’d end up startin’ Equine?”

  “I got frustrated being a large animal vet in the thirties. We could diagnose fairly well, but there wasn’t much we could treat. I wanted to help develop drugs and treatments. And ended up wanting to have my own business so I could control my own work. Took me a good long while to get it up and running, though. Antibiotics and the new vaccines? They’ve revolutionized the world.”

  “They have. They surely have. Penicillin alone.”

  “So anyway, Alan came to me after lunch and told me about Carl’s death. It was a big surprise to both of us, Alan as much as me. Especially since the Dylox must’ve come from here. The UK vet lab might have some, but with Carl having worked here, I presume this is where he got it.”

  Earl said, “You’re figuring it was suicide then?”

  “I don’t have enough data to have an opinion. But I can’t imagine anyone else from Equine, including Alan, murdering Carl.”

  Earl laid his huge hands on his knees and leaned toward Bob Harrison. “Do I have your permission to examine your laboratory for materials that might be pertinent?”

  Harrison folded his arms across his rib cage—his gray eyes studying Earl behind the thick lens. “You do have my permission, but I wonder if you could give me some idea what it is you’re searching for.”

  “Surgical gloves. Typing paper. Glass vials and plastic syringes to compare to those at the scene. I can come back with a search warrant, but—”

  “No, we’ll cooperate in any way we can.”

  “Thank you. I decided I oughtta come late in the day ’cause I figured it might be easier for y’all if I went through the lab after the lab folks left. It’d be less disruptive, if ya see what I mean. Not get everybody talkin’. ’Course I’ll most likely have to come back another time to interview a couple a people, once I see my way clear.”

  “You do realize that Carl would’ve had access here to all those materials?”

  “I wouldda figured that once you’d fired somebody who’d up and stole a formula you wouldda taken the first opportunity to change all the locks.”

  “We did. The same night I fired him.”

  “When was that exactly?”

  “Friday evening, August ninth.”

  Earl made a note in his notebook before he looked up at Bob. “So, if I understand you right, you’re sayin’ Carl would’ve gathered the materials I mentioned that were found at the scene before you let him go?”

  “No. I imagine he’d have come up with some way to get in after he was fired. Carl wasn’t an honest person, Sheriff. He was also very adept at persuading other people to do his bidding without them recognizing the purpose he had in mind.”

  “So you’re sayin’ he wouldda found a way to get a key and get in?”

  “I think so. If he committed suicide. Which does strike me—and this is pure speculation—as fundamentally out of character.”

  “That’s what Alan said too.” Earl slipped his notebook in his shirt pocket and buttoned the flap before he spoke. “So would it be too much to say, that with him trying to steal your formulas, and bringing the IRS here and all, you bear him some kinda grudge?”

  “Yes, it would be too much to say. I never would’ve trusted him again, and I wouldn’t have given him a reference, but I didn’t even choose to prosecute him when I certainly could have. I have better things to do with my time, and my mind, Sheriff, than to let myself dwell on a man like Carl. I dealt with the situation, and I’m getting on with my work, which I find much more compelling.”

  “I can see that. ’Specially with what you do. Would this be a good time for you to show me the lab? That’s if you figure your folks’ll all be gone.”

  “Everyone but Alan. He’ll still be working.”

  Bob took Earl into the supply room off the lab and watched him take samples of gloves, syringes and plastic-lidded vials from the boxes on the shelves. Earl wrote down the manufacturers, and the lot numbers, and any other information he could find.

  Bob then pulled out their bottle of Dylox, and used a bulb pipette to put a sample in a sterilized vial for Earl to take as well.

  Alan showed Earl where there were opened boxes of gloves, syringes and vials in the cabinets under the lab benches, and Earl took samples, and notes on the manufacturers’ lot numbers from those too. Then he took samples of the second sheets of the letterhead, and the everyday typing paper, from the lab secretary’s desk.

  He typed something on the proportional space IBM Bob’s secretary used, the accounting department Selectric, and the Selectric in the sales department. He typed another sample on the Selectric in the lab. And after having looked through all the boxes of Selectric type balls in those offices, he put a Courier font ball from the lab secretary’s desk drawer into a plastic bag—while Alan stood by and watched.

  “I know she ordered a new ball of one of the fonts and it came from IBM fairly recently. Which typeface I’m not sure, but she said one of the letters was chipped on the typeface that she thinks is easiest to read.”

  “I need to take this one with me. I’ve written a receipt for the items I’m taking, and I’ll give it to Bob before I leave.”

  “Why are you taking the Selectric ball?”

  “It could be connected to the investigation. Can you think of anyway Carl could’ve gotten back in the lab when no one was around after the locks were changed?”

  “Someone could’ve met him and let him in I
guess. Though I can’t think who that would be. It’d have to be someone with keys to the front, or the plant door, and keys to the lab too. And in order to take my pen, he’d have to have gotten keys to my office and my desk.”

  “Was there anyone here he was particularly close to?”

  “Not that I know of. He didn’t seem to make friends very easily. He did stop by the houses of two people from the lab after he was fired. Stopped by more than once, I think.”

  “Could you give me their names?”

  “Sure.” Earl wrote them down before Alan said, “He made them both uncomfortable. They came and talked to me about it, hoping I’d try to persuade him to stop.”

  “Did you?”

  “No. I thought about it. But I decided that me getting in touch with him might make it even worse. I was doing an errand near his house the day after Thanksgiving, and I drove over, but then changed my mind and left without getting out. He stopped on his own right about then. At least no one’s mentioned it if he kept it up. I can’t think how Butch could’ve gotten keys either. He’s been pretty belligerent with folks when he happens to run into them.”

  “What’s he doing for a living?”

  “He was working as an auto mechanic last I heard. Whether he still is I don’t know.”

  “Where, do you know?”

  “I don’t. No. But I guess one thing you ought to know is that since he was fired, I’ve gotten calls from Butch in the middle of the night every couple of weeks. Two, three o’clock, something like that, when he’s really loaded and feeling the need to tell me how much he loathes me. I don’t think he’s violent, or anything, and I see no reason whatever why’d he’d want to kill Carl. But he’d be more than happy if the death could be pinned on me.”

  “Then I better have a talk with Butch.”

  “Bob’s secretary oversees personnel, so Bob should be able to find his address in her files.”

  “Thanks. If ya think of anything else that seems related, let me know. Unfortunately, we’re spread kinda thin right now. We had a farm break-in and robbery two weeks ago, and—”

  “I read about that. Wasn’t it one of the big farms near Midway?”

  “Yeah, and another one last night. So there’s plenty of folks screaming for my blood, and round-the-clock protection.”

  “I’ll bet. Anything valuable stolen?”

  “Jewelry worth a whole lot last night, and a silver tea set, and trophies too, and some kinda fur coat. Some of the items had plenty a sentimental value, and the family’s got a name around here, and with this bein’ an election year, you can see how that could go. I was lookin’ into Carl’s death this mornin’ when the theft was discovered, and I had to send a deputy out, and that didn’t go over real big.”

  “No.”

  “Anyway, I think I’ll get a deputy over here tomorrow to ask your lab folks and all if they’ve got any information, or have been in touch with Carl.”

  “I’ll let them know one of your men’ll be in.”

  “Thanks. Give my best to Jo.” Earl looked almost embarrassed when he nodded at Alan, like he’d rather be doing anything else—that his personal feelings were fighting each other and he didn’t like it one bit.

  Butch was on his side porch when Earl drove up. He stayed where he was, and hollered at him to walk back around the side, and he offered Earl a beer when he took off his hat and stepped up on the porch.

  “Thanks, but I won’t right now. Okay if I sit?”

  Butch waved a hand toward the other split-wood chair on his side of the family room slider.

  Earl sat, and threw his hat on the white rope hammock hanging at the end of the porch, then pulled out his notebook. “I need to ask you a couple questions, ’cause with what’s—”

  “What kinda questions?”

  “’Bout your relationship with Carl Seeger.”

  “Why? What’s that gotta do with you?”

  “Carl died last night in unexplained circumstances.”

  “Carl!”

  “Yep.”

  “Like what? Circumstances like what?”

  “Well, he might couldda killed himself, but it could be somethin’ else.”

  “You sayin’ he was murdered?” Butch was holding the bottle of Bud so it dangled loosely from his left hand, hanging over the arm of his chair. He was slouching against the back, his legs stretched out wide across the porch.

  “Don’t know. I gotta look at it all. When was the last time you talked to him?”

  “Me? Three or four weeks maybe. I don’t keep in touch much.”

  “Why’s that? I thought you two were good friends?”

  “No, sir. We worked together was all.”

  “Weren’t you plannin’ to get into business together too?”

  “Who told ya that? Alan Munro! Bob Harrison? They can go to hell!”

  “Sounds like you’re bearin’ ’em some kinda grudge.”

  “Munro ruined my life! He come to Equine and took over everything. He lied to Bob Harrison about me, and everythin’ fell apart!”

  “How’d he lie?”

  “Made it sound like I don’t know nothin’.”

  “So you didn’t try to steal their formulas?”

  Butch didn’t say anything then. He finished his beer and set the bottle carefully on the table between them as though he were afraid he couldn’t if he didn’t concentrate.

  “Well? Did you and Carl do that or not?”

  “It was Carl’s idea. I wish I hadn’t gone along. I wish I’d never listened.”

  “Would Carl have had any way of getting new keys to Equine after the locks was changed?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know nothin’ about it. But if Carl wanted keys, I reckon he’d find a way.”

  “He didn’t say anything to you about tryin’ to get keys or nothin’?”

  “Nope.” Butch’s dark hair was hanging down on the collar of his work shirt. His jeans looked dirty, and there was grease under his fingernails. He hadn’t shaved in days and the strong, square, good-looking face, in spite of the pock mocks he’d always hated, was starting to look soft around the jaw. “How’d he die? You can tell me that. You know it’ll be in the papers.”

  “Looks like he died from some kinda poison.”

  Butch looked right at Earl, his eyes suddenly focusing. “What kinda poison?”

  “We’re not releasing that to the public.”

  “Lots a poisons at Equine to choose from. You better look into it real close. Even if Mr. Robert Harrison contributes to your campaign fund.”

  “He doesn’t. Neither does Mr. Munro.”

  “‘Mr. Munro?’ You know Alan, don’t ya? From that killing years ago.”

  “I’ve interviewed him, as you’d expect.”

  “You knew him before?”

  “That’s not your business. You need to be concerned with your own—”

  “He’s why you’re here! Munro sent you to investigate me!”

  “No, Mr. Morgan. He didn’t. Here’s my card. If you think of anything that might be connected to Carl’s death, you need to give me a call.”

  “If you’re lookin’ for a murderer, Alan Munro’s where ya look.”

  “Why? What evidence do you have?”

  “Motive. He hated Carl’s guts, just like he does mine. You tell him for me, I ain’t gonna forget he sent ya here to me!”

  Friday, April 17th, 1964

  First thing the next morning, Earl had to deal with the wealthy family that’d just been robbed, and he sent Pete Phelps, his most experienced deputy, to Equine. Pete asked the lab folks if any supplies had been missed from the lab benches or the supply room, and got a “not that we noticed.” He asked if Carl had approached anyone with a request to copy their keys, and the people in the lab, the plant, and every other department gave him a negative response.

  He made a plea to everyone to contact the Sheriff if they had any knowledge concerning Carl’s death, or had been in touch with him any time that
spring. He took the two men Carl had visited in the fall off on their own and asked what they could tell him, which amounted to next to nothing.

  He asked the receptionist if she’d seen Carl approaching, or coming into the building since his employment ended the previous August. And when she said no, Pete Phelps left.

  When Earl had done what he could to mollify the big Midway farm owners, he drove out and questioned Jo about what she knew—which didn’t turn out to be much. Everything was secondhand, or supposition on her part. She’d been appalled by Carl’s attempt to steal the formulas, and his deliberate attempts to persecute Bob Harrison and her family with the IRS investigation, which should be about fairness and justice, not imposing the government’s power to carry out targeted vendettas. She told Earl she’d met Carl, but never known him, and she’d been driving Jack Freeman to the Cincinnati airport the afternoon of the fifteenth, then driven home alone, getting back about eight.

  Earl talked to Toss for ten or fifteen minutes, the preponderance of which was spent discussing Carl’s vindictiveness and the hubris of the IRS investigator he’d foisted upon them.

  Earl told Jo not to worry, and drove away in the rain.

  Jo and Alan hadn’t been out to dinner without Ross for five or six weeks, but that night they got a sitter and went to a small quiet restaurant on the Lexington Road a mile or so east of downtown Versailles.

  They spent the whole time going over the evidence that looked like it’d been planted in Carl’s house—the pen, the syringe, the vial, the Dylox, and maybe a glove (or a fragment thereof), because why else would Earl be so interested in Equine’s gloves? They then came to the tentative conclusion that the suicide note must not have been typed on Carl’s own typewriter, and maybe not on the paper found in the house. Because why else would Earl have taken the IBM typeface ball, and the paper samples too?

  That meant Jo picked at her food. And Alan turned silent, after asking more than once how Earl could think that he’d make mistakes that were that stupid.

  They walked out into a hot humid Kentucky night—the sun down, the bugs buzzing, the streetlights already on—with worry walking inside them.