Deep Six - Chapter 11

Sam McRae Mystery #4

CHAPTER ELEVEN

On Monday morning, I donned a black suit. Under steel gray skies heavy with rain, I fought traffic to get to a little Unitarian church in southern P.G. County for Linda’s memorial service.

The day before, I’d sat in a tiny room tucked within the bowels of the Prince George’s Police Department’s CID—or Criminal Investigations Division—and given my statement to a uniformed underling. Afterwards, I’d slipped the guy an envelope and asked him to give it directly to Derry. It contained the strange photo of the two men I’d found in my file, plus a note explaining how I thought I got it, with my apologies—for all the good they’d do me. I could probably count on getting a call from Derry, and not a happy one at that. I could have mailed the thing with an anonymous, cryptic note—something like “this may be related to the Parker murder”—but then he might have thought it was a prank and not taken it seriously. Besides, I hoped he’d cut me a break under the circumstances, though as I well knew, screwing up a crime scene was exactly the kind of thing that got cases tossed out.

As the church came into view, I passed an astonishing number of cars parked along the road. Could they all be here for Linda? I pulled into the church lot. It was jammed. I circled through the lot, returned to the road and retraced my way to the end of the line of cars, where I left the Mustang edged halfway onto the narrow dirt shoulder.