Page 12 - Labelle Gramercy, Detective

Road Kill

“It was almost eleven when I caught up with her. She had stopped
at a viewpoint on the side of a hill. When I got there she was looking
aimlessly around—I suppose she finally realized she had yet to gather
any specimens. The suspicion formed in my mind that she had asked
me along so she could ask me to share whatever I had found.
Perhaps she didn’t understand exactly what we were supposed to be
doing there. But before she could say anything, we heard a whistle
from across the ravine to the south of us. The sun was in that
direction, so I shaded my eyes and tried to locate the source of the
sound. It was a person on the edge of an escarpment about two
hundred yards away, standing next to some trees and waving its
arms.”
“And you could make out who it was?” Fassner must have been
getting frustrated by all the detail she was relating. It did seem rather
excessive to me.
“I’m fairly certain it was Mr. Ewidge. He was wearing a khaki safari
shirt over a white tee-shirt, unbuttoned and not tucked into his jeans,
of course. I could sort of see the pockets and the little epaulets on the
shirt. He had his Panama hat jammed down to his ears—he didn’t
like getting sunburnt, he once told us—and his specimen bag was
slung over one shoulder. As soon as he got our attention by
whistling, he quickly turned and began running toward the far end of
the promontory, away from us. And as he ran he was waving his arm
as if pointing to something in the distance. Or maybe he was trying
to signal someone to the south that we couldn’t see.”
She paused, whether for breath or dramatic effect I could not tell.
Fassner looked up from his notes and asked, “Was he running away
from anything?”
Labelle shook her head emphatically. “No. Definitely not. Apart
from a few trees and shrubs, that whole area was deserted. I really
think he was trying to show us something, maybe a rare bird which
was rapidly flying off in the opposite direction. But I couldn’t see
anything else, even with my eyes shaded. It was only a moment later
that he tripped and fell over the edge. He never broke stride, just
suddenly lost his balance, windmilled his arms frantically and went
over. I couldn’t see him falling because it was on the side of the hill
away from us, but he let out a yell that ended very abruptly.”

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