Page 38 of The Dead Come to Stay
“Have you checked the driver registration?” Gridley asked before stealing the doughnut MacAdams had his eye on. She took a chalky bite before continuing. “To get a driving ID, you have to have a public services card and verified government ID. And if you don’t have those, the list is long—he’d need his personal public services number, at least. Someone’s got to have his details.”
“Tommy, chase it. Also, one of you poke around more in Burnhope’s past. Let’s see if we have any more like the Eton near-miss.”
MacAdams had been trying to capture the important pieces on the incident board. Sophie, Ava, Stanley and Fresh Start. Foley as a dark horse, friendly to single mum Trisha, had a mystery lady leaving things in his flat, but was otherwise a bully who couldn’t get on with authority. Burnhope had said “work-life balance”—an odd thing to remark about a now-deceased employee—and it stuck in MacAdams’s mind. Was the murder in question business or pleasure related?
“Phone, boss,” Gridley said, “Struthers. He wants you to come down—says he’s got something you need to see.”
Please be useful evidence, MacAdams thought.
“Green? Prepare the interview rooms and get Arianna and Evans in here.”
“On it,” she said, and MacAdams slipped out the door. It was better to go it alone, anyway. He needed to call Annie.
“It’s me,” he said when she’d given the flower shop’s singsong greeting.
“Oh! James—is everything all right?”
“It is. I need a favor.”
“Goodness, certainly. But youneverring me; gives me a heart attack. I always think someone must have died.”
“Listen, I need some insight into architecture and commercial real estate for a case. I thought maybe Ashok—”
“Oh my God, James! You’re callingandyou want to speak with Ashok?”
“Sorry—”
“Are you kidding? It’s wonderful. Hold on...” In the distance he heard her shout “Ashok! It’s James.” MacAdams pressed his phone to his forehead as if that would recall the situation. “Okay, I’m back. He’s just coming down.”
“Annie, please, I’m about to walk into the morgue,” he said.
“Ah. So someonehasdied. But you want to speak to him?”
“I do. I would like to, when—”
“Wonderful. We’ll have you to dinner. How’s Thursday?” Her voice was fainter as she asked, “Ashok, Thursday—that works for you, doesn’t it?” MacAdams had reached the elevator and, if he were very lucky, the end of wireless service.
“Tuesday,” he said, as the doors closed. Thursday might almost be too long to wait. The call dropped, the doors opened and, for once, MacAdams was almost happy to see the hallway leading to Struthers’s lab.
“Hello, James! Sorry to bother you at luncheon,” he said, waving a home-packed sandwich on the side table. MacAdams wondered, not for the first time, what sort of childhood trauma made for a good coroner.
“Is this about the murder weapon?” he asked.
“Partly, yes. And something else. Right this way—I’ve beenexperimenting.” Arranged on a steel tray was a curious menagerie: a hammer, a long lead pipe... and what appeared to be a fancy ashtray. “I’ve been trying to find a match for our wounds using an assortment of random objects, comparing their weight and force to what we saw in the damage to Foley’s head.”
“Not the hammer,” MacAdams hazarded.
“Very good! Serviceable, yes, especially from a long-armed assailant. I thought it might make sense of the downward-glancing blow. Alas, as you note, the wound is much too broad.” Struthers picked up the lead pipe. “This was no better; whatever struck him wasn’t a uniform shape like this. Not the way to crack a coconut.”
“A what?” MacAdams asked.
“Coconuts! Cantaloupe are better for shape and weight, but I needed something closer to five on the Mohs’ scale of hardness.”
MacAdams had a fleeting curiosity whether Jo would know what the Mohs’ scale was. Probably she would, he decided.
“I needed something heavy enough to do the deed in a single blow, but still do more damage at one corner,” Struthers said. “I used to golf, you know. Had a whack with a heavy iron. It does damage, but still not the right kind.”
“Sonota golf club?” MacAdams asked, halfway to calling in a search of Lime Tree Greens. Struthers wagged a finger.
