Monument to Murder - Margaret Truman [73]
The question of Louise’s murder upon coming out of prison had been shunted to the back burner. Her family was less interested in solving it, which was good. Chances were slim to none that the twenty-year-old slaying would ever be resolved.
Felker’s house was in midtown Savannah, the Ardsley Park community of expensive mansions and craftsman-style bungalows. Felker’s residence was a house that fell in size between the mansions and the bungalows. Brixton parked at the curb and took in his surroundings. It was a well-lighted quiet street lined by Savannah’s famous live oak trees, from which heavy strands of Spanish moss hung low. Tourists were fond of taking home the moss, which gained its nutrients from the air, as a souvenir, often using it to stuff pillows. Bad decision. The moss contained mitelike creatures called red bugs, which cause intense rashes and itching.
He got out and slowly approached the front door, which was illuminated by a copper lantern above it. He took note of a red Corvette parked in the short driveway and a copy of that morning’s Savannah Morning News on the front step. As he was poised to ring the bell, he was again struck with the sinking feeling that the trip would be for naught. Felker had finally agreed to the meeting because Brixton had pressed the issue, and although Felker’s comment—“I have nothing to say about that”—said to Brixton that Felker did, indeed, know something about what had occurred twenty years ago, to think that he’d spill his knowledge of it to a stranger, a private investigator to boot, was more than unlikely.
He rang the bell and waited. When there was no response, he rang the bell again and pressed his ear to the door to make sure the bell was working. A faint chime came from somewhere inside. This time he both rang and knocked. Still nothing.
He came down off the step and moved to the side where he could see through a picture window whose purple drapes were open. The living room was well lighted by floor lamps and a small chandelier over a dining table. There was no sign of life. But as his eyes shifted from the larger room to a hallway leading from it to the rear of the house he saw the mound on the floor, a lump the size of a person, shrouded in the hallway’s shadows.
He went back to the door and tried it. That it opened and easily swung away was a surprise that startled him. He stepped over the threshold and went to the hallway where he confirmed that the mound he’d seen was a body, presumably that of Jack Felker.
Brixton knelt on one knee and touched his fingertips to the neck in search of a pulse. There was none. He peered closely at the man’s face, one side of which was exposed. There was no sign of blood or bruising. He wondered why Felker—and he had no doubt that’s who it was—was dressed in a bathrobe over red silk pajamas and was barefoot. Either he’d intended to greet Brixton in his nightclothes or he had died earlier in the day before changing into street clothes.
Brixton had seen plenty of dead bodies during his stints with the Washington, D.C., and Savannah police departments, and had witnessed many examinations by medical examiners. He used what knowledge he’d gained from those experiences to further examine the body. The corneas had begun to turn slightly milky, which told Brixton that he’d been dead for more than a few hours. He reached through the folds of the robe and pajama top and laid his palm against Felker’s chest. The body had begun to lose warmth, although it hadn’t become cold and clammy yet, leading Brixton to estimate that he’d died as many