On Harrow Hill

Morgan’s mouth stretched into a sour expression. “Larchfield has always been under the thumb of a super-wealthy family. The Russells. Three generations ago they owned all the land in the area, which they gradually sold off with deed restrictions that allowed them to control everything from the styles and colors of the houses to the composition of the tarmac in the streets. There was a struggling college nearby—which the Russells saved and expanded with big endowments, with strings that ensured their control of it in perpetuity. And that isn’t the half of it. For over a century all the public institutions of Larchfield—from the library to the local theater to the two-hundred-acre park—have prospered through the benevolent dictatorship of that family.” He paused. “There isn’t much that happens in Larchfield without Russell involvement . . . and Russell approval.”

“Sounds like a private kingdom. Who’s the current king?”

“Ah, well, that’s the thing. Until last night, it was Angus Russell.”

“He’s your murder victim?”

Morgan nodded. “All hell is breaking loose.”

“How was he was murdered?”

“His right carotid artery and right jugular vein were both severed—with one cut. As he was coming out of his bathroom.”

“One cut?”

“A single slash. Clean and deep. Probably between three and five in the morning, according to the ME.”

“Who found the body?”

“The wife and the housekeeper—but in different ways. The wife, Lorinda Russell, says she came down to breakfast around eight. She made herself some tea in the kitchen, then brought it into the breakfast alcove at the end of the main dining room. She sits down and starts checking her phone. Then she hears this sound. A little ptt, is the way she described it. Then she hears it again. Then again. She looks around and sees a dark red spot on the beige carpet next to her. As she’s watching, another drop falls on the same spot. She looks up. There’s a pendant light fixture in the ceiling on the end of a gold chain, and there’s some kind of liquid dripping down the chain from a dark red spot on the ceiling. At first, she has no idea what she’s looking at. Then she realizes what it is. And she starts screaming.”

“She told you that she realized it was blood?”

Morgan nodded. “She seemed to have trouble saying the word. Claims the sight of blood, even the thought of it, has made her sick ever since her father fell off a tractor and got ripped up by a hay baler. The housekeeper, Helen Stone, was outside the alcove window, giving instructions to one of the gardeners. Stone hears the screaming and comes dashing into the house. She sees the blood coming through the ceiling, and she runs up the staircase to Angus Russell’s bedroom, which is directly above that breakfast alcove.”

“Angus and Lorinda have separate bedrooms?”

“Unusual marriage. Major age gap. Seventy-eight to twenty-eight.”

Gurney shrugged. “Magical power of money. So the housekeeper went into the bedroom and found the body? What about the wife?”

“She went up behind the housekeeper. Went as far as the bedroom door, took a look inside, and collapsed. Stone went right in. She found the body, along with ‘more damn blood than you could imagine having been in one old man’—is the way she put it.”

“All from the neck wound?”

“With one exception. His left forefinger had been cut off, so there was a separate puddle of blood around that hand. No idea yet what its significance might be. I’d say Angus got up in the middle of the night to use the shared bathroom between the two bedrooms. When he came back into his room, someone was waiting for him. One hard slash across the right side of the neck with a super-sharp blade. Best guess is that Angus made a half-turn away from the attacker and toppled headfirst over a chair. He ended up in a strange position, forehead on the floor, stomach and thighs slanting down across the seat of the chair, legs angled up in the air behind him. Like a sick joke.”

The comment reminded Gurney of a macabre moment in the White River murder case—when a severed head, with one eye closed as if it were winking, came rolling out of a crime scene, sending an on-site TV reporter into a state of catatonia. But he had no taste for dwelling on gruesome deaths. He preferred to focus on practical steps.

“So the lord of the manor got his throat cut and a finger amputated, assailant unknown. Were you able to lift any useful prints?”

Morgan shifted in his chair, still gripping his coffee mug. “The only clear prints our tech found—other than those of the victim, his wife, and the housekeeper—were ID’d by AFIS as belonging to a local named Billy Tate. If this were a normal case, he’d be our prime suspect. He and Angus hated each other, had a bad history together, including death threats. But none of that matters now.”

“Why not?”

“Tate was killed in a freak accident the night before last.”

“And his fingerprints at the scene . . . ?”