Read The Totem 1979 for Free Online

in cowboy boots and cowman’s hat, a toothpick in his mouth, he looked about as local as a person could become. Not because he wore them, but because he wore them with a certain pride and made the townsfolk proud to see him and to speak with him. That faint inflection in his voice that he had picked up since he’d come. To see him grow to meet the town had made the town aware of what it was. He had added to it.
    Now he paused and glanced around. Taking the toothpick from his mouth, he walked across and frowned down at the body. “Old Doc Markle?”
    “Yes, I’m sorry. I know how you felt about him.”
    Slaughter didn’t answer.
    “Heart attack,” the medical examiner said. “His wife was here to see him. She’s just down the hall.”
    Slaughter looked at him.
    “She had to be sedated.”
    Slaughter shook his head. “She’ll have it rough from now on.” His voice dropped with sorrow. He tried to distract himself by paying attention to details. “What time did he die?”
    “I don’t know yet. Rigor’s set in. That means several hours.”
    “Some time in the night?”
    “It had to be. Otherwise somebody from the office would have seen him.”
    “Maybe. Let’s find out for certain.” Slaughter glanced around. He saw the people by the open double doors and went across to talk to them. They listened, saying something back to him. He spoke again. They nodded, slowly breaking up to go away. He turned and saw the people in the green lab coats standing by the wall. He waved to them to follow him as he walked back toward the table.
    “You all work here. Anybody see him just before you closed?”
    They shook their heads. There were six men and two women. One, the youngest woman, twenty, maybe slightly more, began to cry. It was clear, the way her face and eyes were red, that she’d been crying earlier as well. They were looking at the body, then away, then in a moment back again.
    “No,” one man was saying. He was red-haired, freckled, maybe thirty-five, thin and going bald. “I came through to lock the place, and Markle wasn’t here.”
    “You check all the rooms?”
    “Yes. In case someone forgot to lock them.”
    “What time did you check?”
    “Shortly after six.”
    “Were you the last to leave?”
    The red-haired man nodded.
    “Anybody else? You’ve got kennels. Anybody come in after that to check the animals?
    “I did.” The older woman, maybe thirty-five as well, short but solid, her hair cut to just below her ears. “A little after ten. The doctor wasn’t here then, either.”
    Slaughter looked at her. “The doctor? He said Markle,” pointing to the first man.
    “He’s a vet. I just work here.”
    “That means Markle came in after ten,” the first man said, “and died a little after.”
    Slaughter glanced at him and shook his head. “I don’t know. You’re the one who found him?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Did you change anything?”
    “I turned the lights off.”
    “What about the doors?”
    “Well, they were open.”
    “Then it wasn’t after ten,” Slaughter said. “When I sent all those people home, I found a man who’s got a room in a building that looks down on here. He was out till well past midnight. He came home and checked his window, and he’s sure that everything was dark down here. If the doors were open and the lights were on, he surely would have seen it. No, the doctor came here after one. Now I know you people put in heavy hours the same as all the rest of us, but one o’clock, I can’t believe that’s normal.”
    No one answered.
    “What about this steer? Tell me what’s the story on it.”
    “I don’t know.” The vet came around the table, looking at it. ‘You can see that it was dead before he brought it in.”
    “You’re sure of that?”
    “It had to be with all that damage. You can see that he was doing tests on it. There isn’t any record why.”
    “You don’t know whose it is?”
    No answer.
    Slaughter looked at him, then at the