“Nice office,” Sherlock said.
Ruth was surprised, truth be told. Covering an entire wall was a photographic pictorial of Virginia, from the old town in Alexandria to the sweeping white paddocks of horse country. There was a large black-and-white print of the fog-shrouded mountains and color blowups of incredible green valleys, wildly beautiful in the middle of summer with thick pines, maples, and oaks. They were framed in black like the photo on his desk of a woman and two boys. It must be Christie, she thought. She saw he was looking at her and smiled. “She’s lovely, Dix.”
“Thank you.” Dix tucked some papers in his pocket he’d pulled out of his desk drawer. “Okay, let’s go out to Walt’s place.”
Fifteen minutes later, after Dix had spoken to four of his deputies who had marked off the perimeter of the McGuffey property from sightseers, they stepped into Walt McGuffey’s 1940s bungalow that looked like it hadn’t been updated since it was built. The furniture, though, was amazing. Walt had kept his best pieces, all of bird’s-eye maple and exquisitely made—a sofa, a table, six chairs, several side tables. The unfortunate 1970s burnt-orange shag carpet, however, didn’t enhance the setting. Dr. Himple was there with the forensic team from Loudoun, the county seat. The forensic folks looked tired. Dr. Himple stretched as he stood up, and nodded in their direction, but his eyes were on Dix. “I’m really sorry, Dix. Walt died easily, if it makes any difference. The knife killed him fast; he probably hardly felt it. There aren’t any defensive wounds. He probably didn’t even see it coming. But that’s preliminary, you understand. I’ll do an autopsy immediately and let you know.”
Savich said, “So Mr. McGuffey knew his murderer—he let him in, welcomed him.”
Dr. Himple nodded. “Yes, I would say so.”
Sherlock said, “Mr. McGuffey probably invited him into the kitchen, say for a cup of coffee. The murderer knew he was going to kill the old man, probably looked around for a weapon, saw the knife on the counter, and used it.”
Dr. Himple looked from Sherlock to Savich and slowly nodded. “That could be about right.”
“Fingerprint everything,” Dix said to Marvin Wilkes, head of the forensic team. “Especially around the kitchen.”
Dix knelt down next to the old man, who, in truth, resembled a bundle of old clothes wrapped around bones. He lightly laid his hand on the old man’s shoulder and closed his eyes for a moment. He pictured Walt grinning up at him with his six remaining teeth, asking if those gall-derned boys of his had given him any gray hairs yet. Now there was a look of surprise on the old man’s face, no pain, only blank surprise.
He felt tears sting his eyes and swallowed. He rose quickly, said to Dr. Himple, “Treat him well, Burt, he was a grand old man. My boys are going to be very upset by this.”
“I’ll take care of him now, Sheriff.”
“He doesn’t have any family. I’ll set up his funeral myself.”
They searched Walt McGuffey’s house, but found nothing of note except an ancient wooden box that held photos of Walt and his wife, and a young boy, taken in the forties. “His son?” Savich asked.
Dix shook his head. “I don’t know. If so, he must have died real young. Walt never mentioned any children.” Dix paused, then tucked the box under his arm. “I think Walt might want to be buried with this.”
In the old shed at the back of the house they found Ruth’s Beemer, nice and clean since the murderer had hidden it there before the snow started. Her wallet lay on the front seat, her duffel bag on the passenger-side floor. The Beemer’s keys were in the ignition.
You’ll have to leave all this here for a while, Ruth,” Dix said. “The forensic team needs to go over everything.”
“Of course, no problem.”
“The boys will probably bug you to drive them around in it later,” Dix added wearily. “All right. If everyone wants to pile back into the Range Rover, we’ll go to meet the famous violinist.”
GLORIA BRICHOUX STANFORD lived on Elk Horn Road, not a quarter mile from the Stanislaus campus, in a one-story ranch-style house with a very big footprint, surrounded on three sides by woods. The three-car garage was tucked away in the back and connected to the kitchen. It was in a lovely setting that once belonged, Dix told them, to an old gentleman who’d been the head book-keeper for Chappy at the Maestro First Independent Bank before he retired. He’d inherited the property and house from his great-aunt. When he died, his heirs sold it to Gloria when she retired from public life and accepted a position at Stanislaus.