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It was small and minimally furnished, but as neat and organized as, well, a ship’s cabin, concluded Devine. There was a woodstove that was generating considerable and welcome warmth. On a wooden shelf bolted to the wall were pictures of various people. Devine saw a younger Annie and what were probably her parents. And hugging Earl Palmer was, no doubt, his wife, Alberta. They looked about as much in love as a couple could be. And that picture was fairly recent, he could tell.
Palmer broke the breech on his gun and carefully set it on a table by the window. Devine sat in an old, rumpled chair by the woodstove. A stiff-moving Palmer opened the stove door and threw in some more pellets. Then he moved over to a new-looking recliner and picked up a remote. The chair lifted up so that he barely had to bend his knees to sit down. When he did, he hit another button and the chair lowered.
“Nifty,” said Devine.
“Damn body’s useless. Feel like an infant. Be wearing a diaper before long.”
Palmer set the remote aside and clenched the chair’s arms with his thick, gnarled hands. His eyes were a soft gray, and his disheveled silky white hair provided a sharp contrast to the reddened weather-beaten face lying just below it. “What do you want to know? I found her, that’s it. I don’t know any more than that.”
“Can you walk me through the time you left your house that night and when you found the body?”
“Why?”
“Because it might make you remember something new. Please,” he added. “Anything to help me find out who killed her.”
“I thought the chief and Wendy—”
Devine said, “Jenny Silkwell worked for the federal government. That makes it our concern. I’m sure you can understand. But Iamworking with the local police on the case.”
Palmer slowly nodded. “There always was scuttlebutt about what Jenny did. Top-secret stuff, I guess. Why you’re here, ain’t it?”
“Let’s assume that’s the case, yes.”
Palmer sat back and worried at his mouth with his long index finger. He never looked down, but kept his gaze rigidly straight ahead.
“I...went for a walk that night. I do that a lot now.”
“I understand you recently lost your wife. I’m very sorry.”
The thick white-tufted eyebrows rose and fell, like a heartbeat. “Bertie is...was built to go the long voyage, you understand. Strong as a bear, good health, sharp mind. I would’ve gone long before her, that’s for sure, if nature had any say about it. Both her parents lived well into their nineties.”
“What happened, if you don’t mind my asking?”
Palmer pressed his hands against his bony knees, as though bracing himself for whatever he was about to reveal.
“Whathappenedwas somebody hit her with their car while she was out walking, knocked her into a washed-out gully behind some scrub bushes, and kept right on going. Left her to die, right there. No one could see her. But they say she...she dragged herself along that gully trying to get...help. Help that never came. And...she died. They killed my wife.”
Palmer eased his eyes closed for a moment, and his fingers gripped his thighs as though he were riding out some turbulence high in the sky.
That must be the other homicide that Harper mentioned he was handling, thought Devine. “So they never caught the person?” he asked, though he knew the answer.
Palmer opened his eyes. His hands retreated and he placed them back on the arms of his chair. “No, they never did. Some stranger passing through, most like. Putnam folk would’ve stopped and helped her. She’d still be alive. Wouldn’t have suffered like she did.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Yep, that’s what people say, I guess. All theycansay,” he added.
“I spoke with your granddaughter earlier, at her cafe.”
He nodded and said, “Annie makes real good coffee. Gives it to me free. Has a nice business going, and that ain’t easy to do here. Or anywhere, I guess.”
“So the night you went out walking?”
“Hell, gets so I can’t seem to breathe in this house no more. I grew up here. I see things and it takes me back, to other...memories. Better ones.”
“I can see that, sure.”
“Just head to the road and sometimes turn left and sometimes right. That night I turned left. Carry a flashlight with me. I got one of them reflective jackets. Annie bought it for me.”
