Lia Farrell - Mae December 02 - Two Dogs Lie Sleeping by Lia Farrell Page A

and could start college.”
    “Was he dealing dope?”
    “It was pills. Oxycodone had just come on the market. Sometimes kids shared them with their friends. I never heard about any money changing hands.”
    “Did the pathologist find any in his system?”
    “That’s just one of the things that was off in this case. The family refused an autopsy. The old pathologist, Doctor Lewis, wouldn’t push for it. I tried talking with Gentry’s mother and his older sister. They were willing, but the father was completely opposed. He said he had religious scruples.” The old man snorted. “That man hadn’t seen the inside of a church since he was christened.”
    “Was there a suicide note?”
    “No note. College kids were just getting computers in those days and we checked Ryan’s. There wasn’t a printer in the room and nothing was on the screen.” He took a deep breath and looked out toward the sun-dappled woods, clearly discouraged.
    “The pathologist saw the body and wrote a report, I assume?”
    “He did. Three lines. I can still quote the report. ‘Body of a young white male. Died from consequences of a fall from upstairs window. Bruises around his waist.’ ” Detective Pascoe made a disgusted sound.
    “What did you make of that?” Ben asked.
    “I thought Ryan Gentry was looking out the window and somebody came up from behind him and heaved him out. The screen was underneath his body.” PD shook his head. “I’ve never seen anyone kill themselves by jumping through a window screen.”
    “Who did you suspect?”
    “Well, I talked with his roommate, Tom Ferris, but I dismissed him as a suspect right away. He’d just gotten back from Christmas break, and he said he didn’t believe Ryan would kill himself. There was something odd about his demeanor, though. He seemed frightened of something or someone.”
    “Was there bad blood between Tom Ferris and Ryan Gentry?”
    “No, the opposite. Ferris was almost in tears, all shaken up. The Gentry kid’s father was friends with the police chief and I got a not-so-gentle warning to back off. I tried for another couple of weeks. I talked to the housekeeper—her name was Nellie Franz—and later the housemother, a Mrs. Trula Godfrey. She was the person who told Tom Ferris about Ryan’s death. She moved his room that day. Didn’t want him looking out the window at all the police activity, she said. Both women’s addresses are in the case file.”
    “What did the housemother say about the suicide?”
    “She was totally confused by it. She told me Ryan was a nice kid, good grades, plenty of friends. She never had a clue he was depressed.”
    “What about the housekeeper?”
    “She just kept going on about her bucket being moved. She said she’d been mopping the hall when it all went down. She ran downstairs to see what happened. When she came back upstairs, the bucket was in a different place.”
    “What’d you think about that?”
    “I assumed there’d been a struggle and somebody tried to clean up. We didn’t have Luminol with us. And by the time I got around to talking to the housekeeper, she had dumped her pail out. No chance to test it for blood.”
    The men sat quietly, sipping their coffees. It had clouded over and the re was distant thunder. A few minutes later rain pelted against the windows, looking like tears as it ran down the panes.
    “Did you know Tom Ferris left town right around then and hadn’t been back for fifteen years?” Pascoe nodded. “When he returned he visited his parent’s old house , where he was killed—shot in the back.”
    PD looked into Ben’s eyes. “I read about his death in the paper. If you hadn’t called me , I was going to try to reach you. There has to be a connection.”
    “Why did you think Ferris left town?” Ben asked.
    “I think he saw something incriminating. Someone must have warned him off and he got the hell out of Dodge.”
    “Sounds about right,” Ben said. “Any idea who?”
    Detective