8. A Search Warrant

Dorothy decides she needs a search warrant

WORDS MEAN DEATH

“What I’m going to get as soon as I can,” Dorothy told her Detective sergeant, Ian Rogers who was driving the car towards Brumpton town centre, is a search warrant.”
“For the dead man’s home?” asked Ian.
“Not this time, lad,” she said with a smile as he concentrated on overtaking a long lorry, “no, I need to take a peep inside the Reverend Wolf’s home, next door, There are a few things I don’t like about that individual and I’m sure he’s up something unsavoury.”
“You mean, with old ladies, ma’am>” Ian asked.
“That, and a deceased neighbour who’s put him in his novel,” replied Dorothy.
“I was wondering about that too, ma’am,”
They arrived at that moment in the car park at Brumpton police station and Dorothy sent Ian off to find a magistrate and obtain a search warrant for the house next door to where the late Dorian Hemsworth had lived. She felt deep in her mind that the Reverend Wolf was hiding something, not that she was happy listening to rumours, and acting on them. And there was a dead man who had written a book about a Reverend Fox. She’d never heard of a clergyman called either Fox or Wolf, and that itself made her investigative juices flow.
She spotted her superintendent making his way to the canteen, her own intended destination. She had a distinct feeling that a dose of caffeine would keep her crime-solving mind ticking over.
“Good to meet you. I was wondering…” began Superintendent Gareth Peterson, “how’s the case going? Dead man in his garden. Was it a heart attack?”
“Murder, sir,” replied Dorothy, “ unless he stabbed himself half a dozen times with a kitchen knife and then covered his prostrate body with garden waste.”
“I see. Yes, quite likely murder, then. Unless he was out in the garden cutting flowers for his wife, and the knife slipped…”
“He’s single, sir.” she told him. She wasn’t impressed by the way he always tried to see a simple solution when the crime was clearly murder.
“Is there any lead, Dorothy?” he asked.
“There’s a vicar living next door. Retired, and with a dubious reputation. We’re looking at him,” she replied.
“Now now, Detective inspector! The last thing we must annoy is the church!” he told her sharply
“Of ocurse, sir. You’ve told me before: men of the cloth are second only to angels when it comes to innocence and purity,” she said trying to suppress the sarcasm obvious in her voice, “I just want to take a look round his home, that’s all, see if there’s anything lying around that shouldn’t be.”
“Just go gently, Inspector. The last person I want breathing down my neck is the Bishop.”
“Quite sir,” she replied, meaninglessly, and ordered a coffee with cream.
When her break, a brief one, was over, she returned to the operations room where Sergeant Rogers was nursing a plastic cup.
“Right,” she said, “have you got it, Sergeant?”
“Yes, ma’am, though the magistrate was a =bit sniffy, him being a vicar. Told us not to do an unnecessary rocking of the boat.”
“We might just do that, and for fun” grinned Dorothy, “come on before his nibs decides to keep a closer eye on us.”
They arrived at the house where the body of the author had been taken from the garden and the house next door to the vicar’s was sealed off with tape warning the public not to cross it.
Boldly, Dorothy led the way up the garden path to the Reverend Wolf’s residence and knocked firmly on the door.
“He’s not in!” called a man’s voice from a house two doors away, “he drove off in that banger of his… said he was visiting someone down south.”
“Did he mention who?” asked Dorothy.
“Said something about a book. If that’s any help,”
“Thanks. It most probably is,” replied Dorothy, “get this door open, sergeant, and let’s go in. But be quick.
Sergeant Rogers didn’t need to use brute force on the door in order to open it because one push and it swung open anyway. The two officers made their way in as quickly as they could and, at a signal from his DI, Ian Rogers went upstairs. It didn’t take him long to conclude there was nothing there of any interest, though he did find that instead of underwear there was a clergyman’s collar in the top drawer of his chest of drawers.
“He’s gone in disguise,” he muttered to himself. And went into the other first floor rooms, just a bathroom and second bedroom that looked as if the vicar stored anything he might never use again in it. The bathroom was interesting, though: a range of obviously female bottles and aerosols that seemed out of place in a house occupied by a single man.
“Nothing, ma’am,” he told Dorothy, “unless you want to douse yourself in smelly stuff, the sort my wife might call extravagant,”
“That doesn’t surprise me. He’s a man who likes to befriend elderly ladies,” Dorothy told him. “Look, he’s got a laptop but I don’t see a modem anywhere. We’ll take it and see what he does on it. Then, there being nothing else that points at murder, we’ll be off and try to work out what to do next. I rather fancy looking at his laptop and then, if there’s time today, nipping down the Motorway to Mr. Copperley’s address because that’s where I think our friendly local vicar has gone now. I’ve got his card somewhere about me, ah, here it is, but if the priest’s up to what I suspect he’s up to we might find an unpleasant situation when we get there.”
“But the laptop first, Ma’am?”
“We’ll drop it into the tech lab and let them take a peek at it. Come on. There’s quite a lot to do and not an entire day to do it in. If we’re a bit late, what would your good lady think of a tiny bit of overtime?”
“If I get paid for it then she’s all for it,” grinned Ian.
“Then come on! And I’ll drive. I think better when I’m driving…”
© Peter Rogerson 14.01.24