Chapter 22 -- The Actual Conversation

"Victor!!", erupted the Inspector.

"How did you recognize me so quickly ?", said the bandaged man.

"The way you shifted your butter knife at the table. That, and the fact you're the only
individual on the whole island in dire enough condition to be wrapped in bandages from
crown to fingertips."

"Hnh. Ohh. Don't make me laugh."

Winsteeple had seated himself at Victor Plesch's restaurant table. "Sorry. How are you
feeling? Are you off the liquid diet?"

"Mmn. I think so. I won't know until they serve my order."

"We visited you a few times--whenever i could get away. But, you were always asleep."

"The only time I can sleep now is in the daytime. From being exhausted into insomnia by
the pain at night. But, thank you both for all the flowers."

"At least you're reading again I see", as he reached over to tap the spraddled paperback
to Victor's left. "One of yours?"

"One of Ima Audun's. I was supposed to review it for the local paper. Before 'The Accident'."

"You know, she was declared officially missing a couple of weeks ago, while you were still
in the hospital."

"No." They were both peripherally aware of Officer Glidden watching them from behind the
dusty plastic fronds. (Like some demigod of his friend's fiction, Winsteeple also had acute
hearing).

"What actually happened to you that night?" asked Winny, carefully.

"Showing the chef how to prepare lamb leg a la paw paw." Plesch quipped through the
muffle of his head wrappings.

"Giving unsolicited advice in the kitchen again?"

"Two words...flambe'. I've since decided epicureanism is for the Great Unsinged. I ordered
the club sandwich."

"Well, I hope you can manage solid food soon. My wife wants you to come have dinner with
us, whenever you're willing and able."

"A liquid die-et is not con-du-cive to socializing." His friend gulped this almost sheepishly,
and the two were almost moved too close to real tears.

After a few beats, Winny absently touched one of the table's settings. "Syrup dishes...", he
whispered. "My wife bought some like that." Then, rousing, he added more wholeheartedly,
"In fact, she's picking me up out front here any minute!"

Before the bandaged man could answer, Officer Glidden came dutifully around the plants
and announced, "Cloxon's man is upstairs now, sir. Two men are helping him move all the
bottles."

"Not those two that moved the body??"

"No, sir." He smiled.

"VERY good. You can go ahead and leave by the door here, then. It will save you a lot of steps."

Chapter 15 -- A Man In Overalls

had stayed away long enough...?? held back from turning the corner too soon...
yes, the black van was still there...

hold back at just the right angle so the blind horse and its carriage would block him from view
he did not want to be seen too soon and yes they were coming out with the body, arguing
as usual...

he did not want to be seen at all as they loaded the body, their proximity to him at the rear end
of the van possibly too near to seem casual they would soon be through...

the horse with carriage, clomping along slowly onto Broadbridge, still betwixt and at a 'natural'
angle...to their preoccupied eyes there would be no doubt that he was merely tending to the horse in the typical and expected manner...

the overalls felt natural enough, too, and why shouldn't they?


everything was as it should be...where it should be...

was he speaking out loud? the two men were already climbing into the doorless van had they
even glanced at him?? he did not know...

he began to panic as they started the engine, half sensing another vehicle pulling up behind
the carriage, on the cross street but blocked from his peripheral view, he dared not turn...

he felt penned in, did not want to be seen except as 'normal', as anyone would...


as the van pulled away, two more shocks: he spotted the man in the red shirt--still here,
there, across the street,what could possibly keep him here, had he overlooked something
himself?? But he was turning away...heading toward the fence...the vacant lot...


then, back in the street, where the van had pulled away, a yellow book glaring in the sunlight...
could scarcely take it in before the second shock of the black dog sitting on the curb...

but, yes, only 'Flagg', the island's mascot...

apparently finished with his cigar of the day...

and as man stood stock-still, unwilling to stride forth and claim the book for himself,
most aware of the limo (he could feel with the back of his neck) looming behind,

the dog, its mouth open to new games, plumped quickly into the street, nipped the paper
book and ran off with it in the general direction of the courthouse ruins.

Chapter 14 -- Removals

Inspector Winsteeple finally moved aside and let the two men in

the hallway come in to move Jampers' dead body.
Apparently, they had been arguing about the wooden board the
shorter of the two had brought upstairs from somewhere.

"What is that?" , and surprising them, before one could answer,
adding, "A piano top?"

"It was all 'we' could find." replied the taller, as they lumbered it
along the east wall of the office on the way to the oversized desk.

"It'll make the body heavier." stated their superior.


Indeed, they would require some help even to move the overweight
body from its seated position in the heavy wooden chair.

As the two men carefully aligned the board onto the floor, Winsteeple
said, "Wait." And moved in for one last closer look at the tweezers in
the dead man's hand.
They had seemingly clenched tighter only since he had last examined
them here, the gap between their tips narrower by a few micrometers.
(He would have to ask the coroner if this were possible).
And, sure enough, there was a tiny perforation of paper from the edge
of a stamp, doubtlessly the one last held by the collector.
A stamp nowhere visible now. Removed by the killer?

After moving around the desk for another last check of the carpeting
around the various legs and the positioning of the body, the Inspector
stood back, and getting the men started by pulling the heavy chair out
said gently, "Be careful not to disturb anything or I'll hang you both
from the courtyard flagpole."

But, as they struggled to move the body out of the chair, and onto the
piano top on the floor, he did whatever he could to physically help.
As officer Glidden kept an eye on the critical objects and breakables.

Arguing again, somewhat more, in the narrow canehead turn of the hall
about which end of the body should go out first, they settled on the feet,
and except for too-frequent scraped fingers and corners and nearly
dropping the waterlogged corpse down the stairs the two managed to
get the man to the street door without any further assists.


Inspector Winsteeple remained in the office to consider something.

Chapter 9 -- "The Case of..."

"The van attendant hurried into the old theatre, striding up the aisle, eyes adjusting to the dim light, searching side and about for something to carry a body on.
Drawn instinctively to the right of the stage and to the wreck of a vertical piano, (it had no keys), he lifted its long board top.
Easily removed, but, surprisingly, inside---a hen's nest with two or three large beige eggs.
As he raced back out with the piano top, he wondered how a chicken could ever nest in such
a spot. How could it find a way to get under the heavy lid regularly enough to warm the eggs?
He could ask his partner but he probably wouldn't take to such irrelevancy."

"What are you reading that crap for?", he heard his partner grump. Jack lowered
his paperback, turning his head to look at him standing in the sun outside the parked police van.
"It's funny, it's got two guys just like us..."
"Nobody could be like us. Get out of there and let's go up and get that guy."
As he already shifted out of the van, heading for the stairs after Albert. The book, tossed onto an off-kilter stack of pop bottle, maps and clipboard, slid out into the street. Its title half visible.

Up the steep, narrow stairs more quickly than usual, an angle turn to the left with more steps,
in dimming light and, at a last little turn in brighter light, presumably from an office where he could hear the Inspector's voice, stood Albert staring back at him.
"What'd you come all the way up here for? Go back down and find something to carry 'im out
on, ya lunk!" Jack turned and hurried back down again, trying not to hit the wall at the bend.
Outside, already back in the sunlight, he thought of the theatre piano in the book and said
out loud, "Whoa, deja vu!!"
He headed straight for the theatre, passing the van on his way, with its open sides and steering
on the right. (Which Albert had to drive in the right hand lanes). He wondered what his book
would've had to say about what was coming next.