Read Online The Bohemian Connection by Susan Dunlap - Free Book Online

it became known she died from a drunken fall into a sewer that would be all people would remember. If people did think beyond that epitaph, they would add that she got that drunk with a man. There would be plenty of speculation about that.
    Would this occur to the sheriff? I doubted it. Sheriff Wescott was a decent man. I knew he was competent and fair, and would do the best he could. But even the most conscientious lawman couldn’t do everything at this time of the year. He himself had said the Sheriff’s Department was wildly overworked during Bohemian Week. Besides the drunk driving, there were the confrontations that came when the mighty and the servants thereof strolled into town expecting special consideration. There might not be many, but one or two was all the Sheriff’s Department needed. When they ran afoul of the local people who were barely scratching out a living legally, or making ends meet by forays into the not-so-legal, there was little tolerance on either side. The Russian River area had its share of mountain men who were no respecters of chairmen of the board or assistants to chairmen. And there were the tourist families and gays. With the festival atmosphere in town and the river of beer that accompanied it, there was a big potential for violence. It was much too great a potential to leave the sheriff time to investigate something that looked like an accidental death.
    Still, it was possible that Sheriff Wescott might come around to thinking Michelle’s death was murder. But he wouldn’t do that until after the lab report came back, and that might be days. By that time Ross would be gone. He would be out of town, out of state, or even out of the country.
    Right now the sheriff would be heading for the nursery to tell Craig Davidson his wife was dead. What I had to do was find Ross. But first I had to see Father Calloway. For him to identify the man Michelle had met last night he would need to see Ross’s picture. And that was still down in the sewer hole.
    I climbed out of my truck and reluctantly walked back to the hole. I scanned the edges of it, hoping that somehow the photo had got stuck within reaching distance. It hadn’t.
    There was nothing to do but climb down. That meant crossing the sheriff’s cordon. It also meant getting a ladder out of the garage.
    I tried the garage door. Not surprisingly, it was locked. Only those who wished to let their belongings circulate left garages unlocked. But there was a window on the side by the staircase. It was open, probably to air out the smell of the cesspool runoff and the mosquito larvae. I hesitated only briefly. If I were seen crossing the sheriff’s cordon and climbing into the sewer, being spotted breaking into the garage wouldn’t make things much worse.
    Hoisting myself through the window was no problem. Once inside, I found an extension ladder hanging on hooks on the far wall, right above the slimy patch. The garage door pushed up easily, and in a minute I was back outside.
    I lowered the ladder into the hole and, without looking to see who might be watching, climbed down.
    It was dark in the hole. Tomblike. My eyes adjusted slowly. It made me shiver to realize that this had been Michelle’s tomb. It was also wetter than I had expected. Half Hill Road is partway up the hill. Even a fifteen-foot hole wouldn’t be below water level. But there are springs, and the ground holds water from the winter rains. For whatever reason, the bottom of the hole was squishy with mud. Gingerly I put a foot down, still hanging onto the ladder.
    The place where Michelle’s body had landed, next to the end of the sewer pipe, was a mound of earth higher than the surrounding areas. On either side of the pipe was a shallow ditch. It was in one of these that I stood, now ankle-deep in mud. I turned, forcing myself to survey the near wall of the hole foot by foot, looking for the picture. But it had not stuck to that wall.
    I took three careful steps, positioning