CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Discoveries and Confessions
A cold wind blew in from the west, battering hard against the huddle of men who stood in the cemetery looking down at the blood-spattered corpse at their feet.
“I’m getting too old for this sort of thing,” mutters Sheriff Perdew with meaning. His face, ashen, appears drained and haggard. Old before his time, possibly sick with something ravaging through his withered body. Roose stands next to him, and doesn’t know what to make of him. He doesn’t know what to make of the corpse either. He says so and the sheriff throws him a filthy look. “Murder is what it is.”
“I know that much,” says Roose and gets down on his haunches. Although the morning is moving on, the cemetery remains eerily dark, as if reluctant to give up the night. Having alre
