A tobacco-brown coat was half on, half off her shoulders. I knew she was Ruth Banbrock before I turned her over to look at the side of her face the ground had saved from the birds.
Cereghino stood watching me while I examined the girl. His face was mournful in a calm way. The deputy sheriff paid little attention to the body. He was off in the brush, moving around, looking at the ground.
He came back as I finished my examination.
“Shot,” I told him, “once in the right temple. Before that, I think, there was a fight. There are marks on the arm that was under her body. There’s nothing on her—no jewelry, money—nothing.”
“That goes,” Paget said. “Two women got out of the car back in the clearin’, an’ came here. Could’ve been three women—if the others carried this one. Can’t make out how many went back. One of ’em was larger than this one. There was a scuffle here. Find the gun?”
“No,” I said.
“Neither did I. It went away in the car, then. There’s what’s left of a fire over there.” He ducked his head to the left. “Paper an’ rags burnt. Not enough left to do us any good. I reckon the photo Cereghino found blew away from the fire. Late Friday, I’d put it, or maybe Saturday mornin’. … No nearer than that.”
I took the deputy sheriff’s word for it. He seemed to know his stuff.
“Come here. I’ll show you somethin’,” he said, and led me over to a little black pile of ashes.
He hadn’t anything to show me. He wanted to talk to me away from the Italian’s ears.