Murder Sees the Light by Howard Engel Page B

malarkey.”
    â€œFair enough. I told you down the road what happened. I told you I’d only seen the dead man once. And I still haven’t any idea how he got wedged in against the culvert.”
    â€œDead man’s Aeneas DuFond,” Glover said, like he was writing the name at the top of the page. It wasn’t news; it hadn’t been difficult to square away the face in the water with the man who’d told me to fish the shadows the night before. “What do you know about the dead man?”
    â€œI gather he worked at the lodge and has for the last couple of owners. He worked as fishing guide and kept the boats in shape. That’s hearsay. I don’t know any of that myself.”
    â€œWhat else do you know about DuFond?”
    â€œThat’s about it, except that there was a man named Trask who didn’t get on with him.”
    â€œYou suggesting something by that?”
    â€œI don’t know what you mean.”
    â€œI brought out Trask’s body last April. He fell off a ladder and bashed his head on the dock he was fixing. He landed in the water and drowned. Nothing funny about that.”
    â€œI didn’t say there was.” I looked at him, and he looked me straight in the eye for a full minute and then said:
    â€œI guess you didn’t. What do you think happened out there today, Mr. Cooperman?” I decided to put a little city savvy on this before I handed it over.
    â€œI guess maybe he could have lost his footing and been dragged under. Maybe he was trying to clear the culvert same as we were. Maybe …”
    â€œThat’s a peck of maybes. For a start, Aeneas wouldn’t have tried to fix the culvert in his clothes. Second, there’s a bash on the back of his head that says he didn’t get wet as his own idea. I’m no doctor, but until the medical report says different, I’m looking for a murderer. So that’s why I’m curious about what a body like you’d be doing up here. Is there something going on, Mr. Cooperman, that I’m going to find out about?”
    â€œLook, Corporal, I’ve been here for four days. I’ve collected a burn across my shoulders, a peeling nose, and dishpan hands. I caught a lake trout a yard long yesterday, and nobody was on the dock to see it when I brought it in. We all got troubles. I haven’t the glimmering of an idea about why anybody’d want to kill DuFond.”
    â€œWell, if that’s your story, you’re going to be stuck with it. I’ve got to ask everybody. You’re not a special case.”
    â€œI know. I read that book too. I saw Aeneas last night right here in the Annex. He left the same time the rest of us did. Except for his brother, Hector; he left half an hour before. We all said good night at about five after eleven. If you want to know what I was doing between then and finding the body, I’m going to be hard-pressed to give you an alibi for the hours from eleven to eight in the morning. I saw Aline Barbour on the dock at eight, then I went fishing and didn’t see anybody but George McCord who asked me if I was getting much. That must have been close to noon. Then I drove into Hatchway, did some shopping at Onions’, had coffee with Mr. Edgar’s friend Lorca at the Blue Moon. Sorry, I don’t know her last name. Then I started back in this direction and ran into Joan trying to free the culvert from the beavers.” Glover made notes in his book and nodded to the tune of each fact that could be checked for sure.
    â€œWell, until you want me again, I’ll be getting back to cleaning my fish.”
    â€œHold your horses. Don’t get your shirt in a tangle. I didn’t say I was done with you yet. And when the detective inspector gets here from Toronto, he may want more than the time of day from you.”
    â€œYou recognized Aeneas right away back there. Did you know him well?”
    â€œIn this job you have to