The Wages of Desire Read Online Free Page B

grass in which he saw what appeared to be a print left by a woman’s shoe—though a shoe that was different from the government-issued boots the victim wore. The print had a distinct square impression at the heel.
    Larkin kneeled next to Lamb and peered at the ground. “I see it,” he said, squinting. Lamb pointed to another set of prints that appeared to have been left by a man wearing boots who also had approached the grave. These were roughly a foot away and parallel to the woman’s prints.
    â€œSee if you can get photographs and casts of those, please,” Lamb said. He stood and looked again at the dead woman. “There’s nothing on her hands,” he said quietly. “No sign that she struggled with anyone. I wonder if she had any idea that her killer was behind her.”
    Lamb turned in the direction of the vicarage and thought over several questions that needed answers, including why Ruth Aisquith had come to the cemetery so early in the morning, and alone. And why was she carrying nearly fifty pounds? And why didn’t her killer take the cash? He wondered again about the vicar’s story. Had Gerald Wimberly merely forgotten to tell Wallace that he’d heard the fatal shot, even though he had told Built and Tigue that he had? Most people became befuddled when forced to face sudden, violent death. Then, too, he had to consider the fact that lay at the foundation of most cases of murder: People overwhelmingly killed for three primary reasons—greed, jealousy, and vengefulness—and the most common triggers of these emotions were money and sex. They’d found a wad of cash, but what of the sex? Did it matter here? He thought again of the Rev. Gerald Wimberly, a man of God. Ostensibly, such men did not kill, and they especially did not harm innocents, which caused Lamb to ask himself two additional questions that he believed pertinent.
    Had Ruth Aisquith indeed been an innocent?
    And was Gerald Wimberly genuinely a man of God?

FIVE

    LARKIN REMAINED IN THE CEMETERY TO CHECK THE KILLING site for evidence, while Lamb sent Rivers into Winstead with a pair of constables to begin a door-to-door canvass of the village. He instructed Rivers to see what he could find out about Mary Forrest, the woman whose name was inscribed on the gravestone next to which Ruth Aisquith had fallen, and to ask if anyone had met Ruth Aisquith or knew of anyone in the village who possessed that surname.
    Wallace reported that his search of the gravestones found that none contained the surname of Aisquith. That question settled, Lamb put the detective sergeant and a constable to the task of finding the bullet that had killed the woman. As Winston-Sheed had said, most likely the slug was lying somewhere in the luxuriant grass between the rear fence of the cemetery and the footpath that led into the village. Lamb then headed to the vicarage to speak with the Rev. Gerald Wimberly.

    Vera patiently had waited by the car and not sought to get closer to the body. Nor had she taken any active role in helping keep the gawkers at bay. She had, as she had told Lamb she would, merely watched and observed. In the few days during which she’d acted as her father’s driver she had done nothing resembling actual police work, nor was she meant to. She held no illusion that her job amounted to anything other than being a replacement for her father’s sprained ankle. Still, she didn’t mind the job, in part because it allowed her to be with her father; she’d always been curious about the mysteries and occasional dangers that seemed to fill his days. (She knew nothing of the paperwork and bureaucratic drudgery that the job also entailed.) And the pay was fair—five pounds for the week. Even so, she was glad the job was temporary. She didn’t like the fact that her father had gotten her the job through obvious nepotism—and that everyone knew it—though its transitory nature