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“He’d recognize your car,” Theo replied. “I’ll tell him that I wondered if something might have fallen out of the envelope…that I came by in case it was with his other mail.”
Mac sipped the cocoa she’d handed him. “That’s very private eye of you.”
It was still early when Mac Etheridge arrived the next morning, but Theo had never been prone to sleeping in, even when the night had been late. It had stopped snowing, though Lawrence was under a glistening six-inch blanket.
Theo pulled on her boots and gloves. As number 277 was just a couple of blocks away, Mac had suggested they walk Horse the distance, and make calling in seem more like a thought on passing. The idea of a walk on a morning after snow delighted her, regardless of its purpose.
Mac held Horse’s leash. The hound was more than a little excited by the snowfall, and so the line was taut as he strained against it. People had just begun to shovel their driveways.
“You have two cars?” Theo asked noticing that the Mercedes had been replaced by a Buick Enclave.
“This one’s a little better in the snow… Are you going to wear that?” Mac directed his eyes at the Australian stockman’s hat Theo held in her hand.
She laughed. “Gosh, no! We keep this for snowmen.” She hung it on the peg by the door, over an old scarf and a pair of mismatched gloves. “We like our snowmen to be distinctly Australian.”
“You’re going to build a snowman now?”
“Don’t be absurd! I’m a grown woman. I’ll wait till we get back.”
The scream was so unexpected amidst talk of snowmen, it took Theo a second to register what it was. Mac turned immediately. Across the road, a girl was screaming hysterically. Mac handed the end of the Horse’s leash to Theo and started to run toward her. Theo shoved Horse into the house and told him to stay before she shut the door and followed Mac.
By the time they reached the teenager, her parents and a couple of neighbors had come out. She was still screaming—pointing and screaming. A short distance from where she stood now, beside a discarded snow shovel, was a lump in the snow. Her shovel had, it seemed, removed enough coverage to reveal a face. Mr. Turner tried to calm his daughter, though he was a little hysterical himself. Mrs. Turner called the police. Mac stood over the body.
Theo stepped closer to stand beside him. She gasped. The corpse’s eyes were open, faded blue, his mouth open, surprised. Against the snow a glimpse of plaid.
“Theo, is that—?”
“Yes. That’s Burt Winslow.”
Forensics finished with Burt Winslow, and he was removed from the Turners’ driveway in an ambulance. The task of finding out how he came to be there commenced.
It did occur to Theo that she had given an absurd number of witness statements in the last week. She told the officer who took it that she thought the deceased was Burt Winslow, who she had met for the first time the previous day, that he lived at number 277, and returned some mail that had been delivered to him accidentally. She mentioned the open gate and that she thought she’d seen someone in a plaid jacket standing across the road at about half past ten in the evening but it had been too dark and too snowy to say for sure if it was Winslow.
“How did he die, officer?” she ventured.
The policeman shrugged. “We have to treat it as suspicious, but it could have been a heart attack. The coroner will determine the exact cause of death.” He took her details. “We’ll be in touch if there’s anything else.”
Mac put his arm around her as they walked back across the road. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” Theo felt a bit weird, but it was not like finding Dan’s body. Guilt pricked. “Maybe I should have checked when I saw him across the road. If he had a heart attack, I might have been able to—”
“He was standing when you saw him,” Mac reminded her. “And you called the police, Theo. Whatever happened to Mr. Winslow, it wasn’t your doing.”
Theo unlocked the door. Horse looked up resentfully. It had been rather a long time to expect a dog to stay. Theo dropped to her knees and hugged him. “I’m so sorry, Horsey. I didn’t realize we’d be so long.”
Mac glanced at his watch. “Do you want to take him for a walk now?”
“Don’t you have to get to work?”
“I’ve already missed most of my morning meetings. Another half hour won’t make a difference.”
“I’m so sorry, Mac.”
“Don’t worry about it—Bernie will have handled the meetings.”
“Bernie?”
“Bernadette. My assistant…or maybe I’m hers. It’s hard to tell. I’ve already called her to say I won’t be in till after lunch, so we might as well walk Horse.”
