A Darkness More Than Night

eliminate the theft. He assumed Winston had picked up on it as well.
    “Jaye, you have a phone? Can you call the sister to double-check?”
    “I’ve been holding out until the county buys me one.”
    McCaleb had wanted to keep his phone free in case Brass Doran called back but put his leather bag down on an overstuffed couch and dug out his phone and handed it to her.
    She had to get the sister’s number out of a notebook in her briefcase. While she made the call McCaleb walked slowly around the apartment, taking it all in and trying to get a vibe from the place. In the dining area he stopped in front of the round wooden table with four straight-back chairs placed around it. The crime scene analysis report said that three of the chairs had numerous smears, partials and complete latent fingerprints on them – all of them belonging to the victim, Edward Gunn. The fourth chair, the one found on the north side of the table, was completely devoid of fingerprint evidence in any condition. The chair had been wiped down. Most likely, the killer had done this after handling the chair for some reason.
    McCaleb checked his directions and went to the chair on the north side of the table. Careful not to touch the back of it, he hooked his hand under the seat and pulled it away from the table and over to the china cabinet. He positioned it at center and then stepped up onto the seat. He raised his arms as if placing something on top of the cabinet. The chair wobbled on its uneven legs and McCaleb instinctively reached one hand to the top edge of the china cabinet to steady himself. Before he grabbed on he realized something and stopped himself. He braced his forearm across the frame of one of the cabinet’s glass doors instead.
    “Steady there, Terry.”
    He looked down. Winston was standing next to him. His phone was folded closed in her hand.
    “I am. So does she have the bird?”
    “No, she didn’t know what I was talking about.” McCaleb raised himself on his toes and looked over the top edge of the cabinet.
    “She tell you what she did take?”
    “Just some clothes and some old photos of them when they were kids. She didn’t want anything else.”
    McCaleb nodded. He was still looking up and down the top of the cabinet. There was a thick layer of dust on top.
    “You say anything about me coming down to talk to her?”
    “I forgot. I can call her back.”
    “You have a flashlight, Jaye?”
    She dug through her purse and then handed up a small penlight. McCaleb flicked it on and held it at a low angle to the top of the cabinet. The light made the surface dust more distinct and now he could clearly see an octagonal-shaped impression that had been left by something that had been put on top of the cabinet and the dust. The base of the owl.
    He next moved the light along the edges of the top board, then turned it off and got down off the chair. He handed Jaye the penlight.
    “Thanks. You might want to think about getting a print team back out here.”
    “How come? The owl’s not up there, is it?”
    McCaleb glanced at Rohrshak for a moment.
    “Nope, it’s gone. But whoever put it up there used that chair. When it wobbled they grabbed a hold.”
    He took a pen out of his pocket and reached up and tapped the front edge of the cabinet in the area where he had seen finger impressions in the dust.
    “It’s pretty dusty but there might be prints.”
    “What if it was whoever took the owl?”
    McCaleb looked pointedly at Rohrshak when he answered.
    “Same thing. There might be prints.”
    Rohrshak looked away.
    “Can I use this again?”
    Winston held up his phone.
    “Go ahead.”
    As Winston called for a print team, McCaleb dragged the chair into the middle of the living room, positioning it a few feet from the bloodstain. He then sat down on it and took in the room. In this position the owl would have looked down on the killer as well as the victim. Some instinct told McCaleb that this was the configuration the killer had wanted. He looked down at the bloodstain and imagined he was looking down at Edward Gunn struggling for his life and slowly losing the battle. The bucket, he thought. Everything fit but the bucket. The killer had set the stage but then couldn’t watch the play. He needed the bucket so that he wouldn’t see his victim’s face. It bothered McCaleb that it didn’t fit.
    Winston came over and handed him the phone.
    “There’s a crew just finishing a break-in on Kings. They’ll be here in