Chapter 17

Monday, June 28, 3:45 p.m.

Sam returned to the sheriff's office after three hours finding out that nobody at Stevens-Breckinridge, outside of Susan Hatfield, knew anything helpful about Emma Majeski's murder.

The afternoon Journal-Herald carried a brief, but front-page, story captioned "Death of Twin Rivers Woman Unexplained". The story indeed explained little, beyond Emma Majeski's name, age and occupation, but Sam knew from the phone messages on his desk that the Journal-Herald and all its local electronic brethren were feverishly looking for more.

Sam called Deputy Hugh Fulcher into his office and asked him to clear time for the following day to work on the Majeski murder. "I've got a strong lead, but no clear way, yet, to focus on a suspect," Sam told him. "I'll run it down for you in the morning, at the same time I brief Lester. I'm going to need you to track down all the other stuff that is going to continue to be relevant to us, in the absence of this lead. Then we'll get together and compare notes."

"Just going to be you and me on this?" Hugh wanted to know.

"Looks like it. I'd hoped that Ted would be helping too, but Lester says it isn't in the cards. We may have this, alone, for the duration. Let's meet here tomorrow morning at 8. No, make it 9:30. Lester won't be in that early."

Sam then called Douglas Ferguson, arranged to meet him in front of Emma's house at 5:30, and told him Susan Hatfield would also be there. He called Susan at her office and she agreed to meet him at Emma's. He had warned both that the press might be around Emma's house, and urged them to say nothing.

Doug and Susan were waiting outside when Sam arrived. No press. Sam looked skyward gratefully and greeted the pair. Using Doug's key, they entered the house.

Nothing in the house appeared to Sam to be amiss. Emma's friends confirmed that all looked normal. Asking Doug and Susan to roam around, but not to disturb anything, Sam began in the bedroom, searching it thoroughly. Everything he saw conveyed an impression consistent with what he'd been told. It was the bedroom of an intelligent, reasonably prosperous young woman who liked photography. Sam marveled at the reams of photographs stored in boxes on the closet floor. He found two cameras in the closet, both with partially exposed rolls of film. He rewound each, extracted the rolls of 35 mm film, and pocketed them. He reminded himself to ask later about any exposed film in the camera that had been found at the murder scene.

Returning to the front living room, he greeted Doug and Susan. "There's some marks on the back door," Doug said, "'like it could have been forced."

Sam checked the door and concurred in Doug's assessment. He asked whether the evidence of forced entry might have been there earlier. Doug had no idea. There was no other sign, outside or within the house, of forced entry, and Doug and Susan failed to identify anything as missing.

The dining room, a relatively large middle room between the front living room and the kitchen, had doubled as Emma's office. A small desk contained her personal papers. Seating himself at the desk, Sam methodically sifted through the array of bills and letters, occasionally asking Doug and Susan for background information on addressees. He also determined that Emma had a modest investment account with a local brokerage firm; an additional $2600 in savings; and a checking account containing $945. He made a small pile to take with him: Emma's checkbook register, a cardboard box containing month-by-month receipts for goods and services, and personal correspondence. All these he would give to Hugh Fulcher, with the request that Hugh look for evidence of service contractors who may have visited the house, unusual transactions or payments, or anything else that the canny old deputy might find of interest.