Mr. Patterson lay there dressed in a brown suit with a bloody white shirt and blue tie. His mouth was open, teeth shot away, and blood spotted upon his face, his eyes open and staring into nothing particular, glazed and empty.

“I don’t want a goddamn hand on him,” John said. “I’m sending for Dr. Rehling in Opelika. He’ll do the autopsy. No one is to touch him.”

Matthews, Fuller, and Ferrell didn’t say a word. Fuller just looked to me and then back to John, fanning his face some more and then slipping his hat back on his head. I watched as John took a breath and then reached into his father’s pockets, taking his wallet and keys, and removed a wristwatch loudly clicking off the seconds.

I followed John out into the hall. He tucked his father’s belongings into his own pockets.

“Murphy, will you stay?”

I nodded, and he walked back to the lobby.

Soon Arch Ferrell came outside and he looked at me, dressed in my Texaco coveralls: “We’ll do everything we can.”

“Who’s gonna run this?”

“Sheriff Matthews and me, of course.”

A slight sheen shone across Arch’s forehead and upper lip. His breath smelled of cheap whiskey and cigarettes. Arch was the city’s war hero – one of the first into Normandy and one of the last out of Germany – and was known to tear up at the Foreign Legion post when they played the “Star-Spangled Banner.”

Arch took a long breath. He knew me only from the service station and looked at the grease on my nails and across my uniform as he smoothed out the tie on his chest. He was shorter than me, with pointed features and large ears. The hair on the side of his head had been buzzed tight, the top curly and uncombed.

“I’ve got to get back to the scene,” he said. “The coroner will be here soon.”

“We’re waiting for the state.”

“This doesn’t involve the state. Mr. Patterson was one of our own and we will handle it here in town.”