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“So you knew it was Jenny by then?”
“I...yes, yes I did.”
“Who told you?”
“One of the boys that went down there to get her. He knew her. We all knew Jenny.”
“Okay. Anything else you can think of?”
Palmer slowly shook his head. “No, not one damn thing, young man.”
At least that you’re willing to tell me, thought Devine.
CHAPTER
33
DEVINE DROVE PALMER BACK HOMEand headed straight to Bing and Sons after checking something on his phone. He found Françoise Guillaume coming out of her office.
“I’m sorry, I really don’t have time to talk. I have a body to embalm,” she added brusquely.
“I only had one question.”
“What?”
“How could Earl have seen the body on the rocks below if he’s totally incapable of moving his head to look down?”
She froze and then placed one hand against the wall seemingly to steady herself. “I don’t...what are you talking about?”
“Earl mentioned that you helped him get a surgery he needed some time back. Why do I think it was cervical spinal surgery? The sort of work he did all those decades would certainly cause some problems there. I had a buddy in the Army who suffered a malfunction on his parachute. He lived but he had to have several spinal fusions, one of which causedlimitedrange of motion in his neck. But he was young and strong, so he was able to bounce almost all the way back. So, I’ll ask again, how did Earl see a body over twenty feet below his eye level when he can’t even look down at his shoes?”
“Can we...can we go to my office?”
“Sure, if you’ll answer my question.”
He sat down across from her in her office and let her take her time.
“Earl had an accident out on a lobster boat once and was badly injured. He underwent cervical spinal fusion surgery by a specialist that I thought was a good one. However, the surgery went poorly and there were complications. Foremost was Earl having a lot of built-up scar tissue and arthritis from the work that he did. A follow-up surgery not only didn’t correct the problem, it made it worse. He had to retire because of it. And Earl has, over the years, lost more of his range of motion.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. But then how could he see the body?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he got down on his knees, which would have him facing down.”
“Why would he have gotten down on his knees? How could he have managed it? And then how would he get back up?”
“I don’t know. Did you ask him?”
“By the time I do, why do I think a story will have been prepared?”
She looked both offended and flustered. “A story? Prepared by whom?”
“What is going on in this town, Dr. Guillaume?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about!”
“I think you know far more than you’re telling me.”
“I thought your job was to find out who killed Jenny,” she said.
