The old Underwood typewriter, as well as much of the small wooden desk on which it rested, was spattered with blood. On the floor by the desk lay the body of novelist Paul Katz, his face destroyed by a blast from the shotgun that lay beside him.
Detective Claire Ball of the Vermont state police turned her eyes from the body and the overturned desk chair and surveyed the interior of the small, sparsely furnished cabin. The single bed was meticulously made, but clothes were hanging out of the dresser drawers and scattered on the floor. Urban novels and books on sociology and deep sea fishing were piled on the dining table, the TV, the bedside table, and the floor.
Fan letters, forwarded by Katz's publisher, were piled on the small table by the cabin's only armchair and stuffed in the desk drawers. The other contents of the drawers were typing paper, envelopes, pencils, and handwritten story notes. Beside the typewriter were manuscript pages from Chapter 19 of Katz's latest novel.
Except for a tiny refrigerator and a wastebasket, both almost empty, there was no other furniture. Ball was surprised to notice that the single room had no adjoining bathroom or closet. Katz had relied on an outhouse, a well, and a nearby stream for his personal hygiene. The cabin, on a dirt road three miles from Cedarville, had one door and three small windows, one in front and one on each of the two sides.
Fingerprinter John Rumore approached Ball.
"I got a good print of his right index finger on the trigger, Claire," he said.
"The handwriting on the notes indicates that he was right-handed," replied Ball. She shook her head. "I've read his stuff, John. He wrote about urban street gangs. Formula stuff-- every novel had twenty-one chapters and ten deaths-- but not bad."
"I never read him," said Rumore laconicallly. "Where's Walt?"
"Gone to see Ed Welenck, who mows the lawn here on Mondays. He may have seen something. I'll be outside."
Ball stepped out onto the freshly mowed lawn to speak with Mary Cashman, the owner of the cabin, and a neighbor, John Keenan.
"Mr. Keenan," said Ball, "you discovered the body about noon, I understand."
"Yes." Keenan stroked his bushy red beard in agitation. "I was coming up the path to see if Paul wanted to buy raffle tickets for the Cedarville Historical Society. We're raffling off a weekend in New York City. I heard a gunshot inside and froze for a few seconds. Hearing nothing more, I opened the door and looked in-- it was unlocked-- saw Paul lying there, and hightailed it back to my house to call the police."
"Was anyone else in the room?"
Keenan shook his head.
"Mrs. Cashman," said Ball, turning to the owner, "how long had you been renting this cabin to Mr. Katz?"
"This was his seventh summer. He liked to come up here to write. Why, he wouldn't leave the cabin except to wash until he had the first draft typed up. He even paid me extra to check his P. O. box, drop off his mail, and bring him food and supplies while he was writing. A lot of the folk around here, including me, want to be writers, so we were glad to have him here and respected his privacy."
"When were you here last?"
"Saturday. I brought him some letters and a ham sandwich."
"Any problems with him?"
Cashman cleared her throat nervously. "Well, I raised the rent this summer, for the first time in three years. He grumbled some about that, but still paid every two weeks in advance. He was a sloppy fellow, but not a bad tenant. Don't know why he would have killed himself."
"Mr. Keenan," asked Ball, "did you know Mr. Katz well?"
"Not particularly. I met him only last summer at the general store in Cedarville, and had never been here to the cabin before."
Officer Walter Hinkel approached Ball, who excused herself and took him aside.
"I interviewed Welenck, Claire," he reported. "He confirms that he mowed the lawn this morning. He was packing a bag. Said he was going to see his brother in Massachusetts. I told him to stay in town."
"Did he see Katz?"
"No. They had an argument about lawn care two years ago, and Welenck avoided the guy. He just arrived with his mower about nine, mowed the lawn, and left. He bills Mrs. Cashman every month for it. He said he heard typing when he arrived and again when he left an hour or so later."
"An interesting case," remarked Detective Ball. "Money was left in one of the drawers and in Katz's wallet. It was made to look like a suicide, Walt, but this is murder."
