Dead on the Fourth of July (David Dean Mysteries)

David Dean harbored serious doubts about leaving Lydia Larkin's apartment without either contacting the police or calling an ambulance-or maybe a lawyer. But the redheaded law officer was right. He had neither authority nor right to ignore her emphatic command that he leave her place and remain silent about what he'd seen. He had no right to invade the privacy of her bedroom either, in spite of having been invited into its sanctum on his previous visit. While he possessed knowledge of a brutal attack, if the victim, Lydia, allowed it to happen as she said, wasn't she culpable in some convoluted way for the results of her entrapment?

When he described the scene to Cynthia later that night, she was dumbfounded that he hadn't burst into the boudoir and exposed the bloodied corpse of the dead acting sheriff that she was certain was reposing behind the closed door. Matters of warrants and probable cause escaped his wife's rationale, replaced by her conscience, which stood firmly in charge. Dean's conscience, was taking some heat, too.

If something even more untoward than what the scene implied had actually occurred last evening, Dean would find himself squeezed between the proverbial rock and a hard place. His suspicions concerning Lydia's actions and his continued silence in not reporting them came too close to involving him as an accessory in whatever she might have done. He was an accomplice, no matter how unwittingly, in the radio transmission scene that caused Fitzgerald's fury in the first place. He had seen Lydia's bloodstained apartment and witnessed its disrupted condition. And yes, he had seen her revolver. He slept little, continuing to regret his lack of action throughout the night. He half expected a bevy of uniforms to break down his door before the sun peeked over the amphitheater east of Ouray, signaling another day.

Life went on, mostly unchanged. Bird Song switched a few guest, baked a few goodies, cleaned a few toilets and made a few beds, all with a been-there, done-that regularity. The Dawkins group continued to carp about airline reservations. Bills were paid, telephones answered and smiles smiled where called for. A Chicago update-nothing new-followed a New Jersey wedding plans update. Brandon Westlake, mournfully depressed, readied for Billy Langstrom's funeral while Dean wondered if Lydia Larkin might be involved in funeral plans of her own. He harbored visions of the injured redhead out in the hinterland digging a grave for her recently murdered victim. But as many times as David Dean considered picking up the telephone, it remained snuggled in its cradle unless Cynthia was answering it.

However, total head-in-the-sand inaction wasn't possible. Dean knew Fred O'Connor was scheduled for release and that necessitated a dreaded trip to the sheriff's office. Just who would be there to greet him he didn't know. Much as he disliked making Fred wait, he decided to put off the task until nine o'clock but another phone call forced a change of plans.