Eleven Days by Donald Harstad

residence. Which would have explained a lot, except that it meant that McGuire was at the Herkaman residence when he was murdered. Then taken to his own place.
    No evidence of that. Evidence he had been taken home, but no clue as to where he’d come from.
    If he was murdered at Herkaman’s, why take him elsewhere? Especially when Phyllis Herkaman wasn’t dead yet, and wouldn’t be for five more hours? Did the perp just leave her there and take the time to move McGuire and then come back? Not too damned likely.
    Two perpetrators? Or more? Possible.
    If he was murdered at Herkaman’s place, where was his hand? Actually, where the hell was his hand, anyway? Did somebody take a souvenir? Hester had said that there wassome evidence in the blender, but a hand would have held up pretty well, with all the bone. Sirken’s testicles, and possibly his tongue, were soft tissue. Also, where was Phyllis’s missing breast? Blender? Not impossible, but that would be a lot of tissue …
    The souvenir bit was appealing, in its way. It would sure explain the missing hand.
    McGuire’s body just didn’t figure. The other three obviously died where they were found. And it looked like Sirken was dead before McGuire. Okay. If so, that meant the perp was in the Herkaman house and had killed Sirken before McGuire had bought it. Then killed Keller and Herkaman. In that order. But how could he have surprised Keller, in the act of undressing, if there had already been a murder in the house, and then a second one, and the second body had been moved several miles? And where was Phyllis all this time? Standing around waiting to be killed? Tortured and then killed? Was she already tied to the pipe?
    There was another partial thought. Could Keller have come home after the other three were already in extremis? Phyllis’s car and Sirken’s car had both been there … Keller could have been away. Could have been.
    Why move McGuire?
If he really was moved at all.
    It kept coming back to that. And the fact that he had been moved to his own home, and that he had been the first discovered. It just didn’t add up. And, while we’re at it, what the hell had happened to his dog, to hurt it like that, if the murder had taken place elsewhere? A dog wouldn’t attack somebody bringing his master home, would he?
    My head really hurt, and not so much from the blow.
    Just before I dropped off, I thought about how close I had been to the bastard in the field. Damn, I must have been right on top of him when I stopped to listen. Not good. Really have to sharpen up, Carl. He could havekilled you. If it was the perp, he sure had demonstrated an ability to do that sort of thing.
    The phone rang. Again. I got back up and picked it up in the kitchen. It was Lamar.
    “Hi. Just checking, how you doin’?”
    “Okay, a little headache, but nothing else.”
    “Good … Anything goin’ on?”
    “Nope. Well, Theo and Hal came up with a little something about the murders. There was another girl staying with Phyllis Herkaman—was there most of the time the last few months.”
    “No shit? Who?”
    “Well, nobody seems to know. Not her name, anyway. One neighbor lady, Mrs. Bockman, thinks it might have been Rachel, or something like that. But no last name.”
    “That’s pretty good … I’ve got Theo working day and night on the interviews. He’s talked to a hell of a lot of people on this, you have to give him credit for that. I bet he’s interviewed fifty people in the last three days. He’s really bustin’ his ass on this one. He really is … I talked to Pastor Rothberg a few minutes ago.”
    Uh-oh. “Yeah, I talked to him today, too. We needed a little information.”
    “Yeah, that’s what he said. Anyway, I told him about how we had to keep this stuff down, if we can. Public. Anyway, he said it was okay to have the funeral at his church. Said he’d thought it over and he’s going to do it.”
    I kind of figured he might. But what else had they