Peterson winced. “I think you and I need to sit down and talk about things,” he said to Holly.
“We certainly do,” Holly replied, “but right now I’ve got to get on top of this shooting. Will tomorrow morning be okay?”
“Sure, you do what you have to do.”
“Thanks, Charlie, I’d better get going.” They shook hands again and Holly left.
At Jimmy’s direction, Holly pulled off A1A and onto the broad, grassy shoulder. When she set foot on the ground it was soft. “There wasn’t any rain yesterday, was there?” she asked the patrolman.
“Yesterday morning, early, we had a line of thunderstorms go through. Guess we had an inch in two hours. Cleared up after that.”
“Show me exactly where the car was,” she said.
“Right there,” Jimmy replied, pointing ahead of them. “Right in front of that real estate sign.”
Holly stepped onto the pavement and walked slowly down the road, looking carefully at the wet ground. There were the tracks of two cars, one in front of the other. Beside the front set of tracks, there were bits of plaster. “Looks like Bob Hurst took a tire impression,” she said, half to herself. “That’s good.”
She backtracked to the chief’s car tracks and inspected the ground in front of where the car had rested. There were indentations, no doubt where the chief had lain after being shot. She didn’t see any blood. She walked slowly around the area where the two cars had stopped but saw nothing of note. She assumed that any other evidence on the scene had already been collected by Hurst.
“Okay, Jimmy, I think that about does it,” she said, getting into the car. “Jane said you could show me where Hank Doherty lives.”
“Sure. Straight ahead about a mile.”
Holly got the car going. “Do you know Hank Doherty?”
“Sure, everybody knows him.”
“Tell me about him.”
“He and the chief did a lot of drinking together.”
“Where? Did they have a regular place?”
“There’s a bar up the road. They were in there a lot.”
“Doherty raises dogs?”
“That’s right, only I don’t think he does it much any more. It’s a shame, too. He was a kind of wizard with dogs.”
“Retired?”
“Well, chief, Hank does a lot of drinking, even when he’s not with the chief. I’ve heard rumors he was real sick. I think he’s in a lot of pain, you know? He’s in a wheelchair. He doesn’t have any legs. Vietnam.”
“Oh.” She wondered why her father had never mentioned Doherty’s lack of legs.
“It’s right up ahead, here,” Jimmy said, pointing at a small house set only a little back from the road.
Holly pulled into the short driveway and stopped the car. A sign on the front-yard fence read DOHERTY’S DOGS. SECURITY AND OBEDIENCE TRAINING. She got out of the car and walked through the gate into an ill-tended front yard. She walked up the steps to the front porch and rang the bell. Jimmy stood next to her. Nobody came to the door. She rang the bell again, with the same result.
“He seems to be out,” Holly said.
“He doesn’t go out, except with the chief. The chief would come by here after work, get Hank into his car and drive down the road to the Tavern, where they did their drinking. A black lady did his grocery shopping and cleaned house for him.”
Holly went back to the driveway and walked toward the rear of the house. A dirty white van was parked in an alcove. A ramp led from the back door of the house to where the van was parked. She looked into the vehicle: it was fitted with hand controls for the brake and accelerator. She walked up the ramp and tried the door. It was unlocked.
“Let’s take a look inside,” she said. “Maybe he’s passed out or something.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Jimmy said.