The Bone Puzzle

by Clayton E. Spriggs

  “Agreed. Prosecutor?” the judge looked at Vaughan.

  “No further questions at this time, Your Honor,” replied Garland.

  “Agreed,” said Judge Foley. “You may step down, Doctor.”

  Vaughan noted the disdain in the judge’s tone when he said the word doctor. Things weren’t going well and his next witness was the one person in the state of Alabama with a talent for making enemies.

  “The court will recess until nine o’clock sharp tomorrow morning,” the judge announced. “Will the state’s next witness be ready to take the stand?”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” stated Vaughan.

  “And who will that be?” asked Foley.

  “Detective Robert Stallworth of the Alabama State Police,” said Vaughan.

  Boos and hisses once more rose from the gallery, which the judge ignored. Bailiff Tyndale called for everyone in the room to rise, and Foley left the courtroom as the protests continued. Vaughan looked at Lee, who grinned at the prosecutor before turning toward his client. Winchester rose and accepted the shackles from the guard. The accused and his uniformed escort walked side by side, like old friends, towards the exit, to the accompaniment of whispered encouragement from his faithful followers.

  Vaughan kept his head down, preferring to ignore the nasty looks that came his way. He knew that he was nothing more than a harbinger of Satan in the eyes of the gallery. He sighed and mentally prepared himself for the following day when none other than Beelzebub in all his demonic glory was slated to take the stand. God help them all.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FIVE

  Friday morning came much too soon for Garland Vaughan. He knew that his case would be won or lost by how well the detective fared on the stand. Vaughan warned the trooper on multiple occasions to be wary of the defense attorney, but he got the impression that Stallworth was unfazed by the man’s reputation or his antics so far. But Vaughan knew it could be costly to underestimate the courtroom skills of Douglas Lee.

  The walk to the courthouse was a bad omen of things to come. Reverend Beecher’s tent revival had gained momentum. Even at the early hour, hymns were being sung with gusto as the preacher shouted fire and brimstone sermons into a megaphone. His followers had multiplied in number and seemed to be growing every day.

  Vaughan was concerned about the effect the protests would have on the jury. Even through the closed windows and solid walls of the stone courthouse, the boisterous dissonance of the faithful would no doubt be heard. The insanity of the devoted was often contagious, as evidenced by the crimes that brought them to this point.

  Once the judge and jury were seated, the trial resumed. Bailiff Tyndale called for the state’s next witness with a fanfare typically reserved for monarchs. Everyone in the room turned to see the man himself. In a disappointing display of understatement, Robert casually stood up from his place in the third row behind the prosecutor’s table and walked up to the witness stand like he was on a Sunday stroll. Vaughan was frustrated, if not surprised, that the detective chose to wear his usual nondescript cheap suit instead of his state police dress uniform. They’d argued about it the night before, but Robert had shrugged off the lawyer’s suggestion.

  Robert was sworn in and took his seat, ignoring the whispers of disapproval that rippled through the gallery. Vaughan approached his witness.

  “Detective Stallworth,” he asked, “could you briefly describe your qualifications for the court.”

  “I’m a homicide detective for the Alabama State Police,” said Robert without further elaboration.

  “Yes, we know that. But what kind of experience do you have?”

  “I graduated from the Alabama State Police Academy after the war and entered the Major Crimes Division. I’ve been involved in many investigations since then, the vast majority involving charges of kidnapping, rape, and/or murder. I was also a member of several task forces involving conspiracies of a similar nature as well as those where explosives were detonated in an attempt to kill, maim, or terrorize individuals or groups of people. Eventually, I settled into investigating homicides as my primary duty.”

  “Have you been effective in your occupation?”

  “Very.”

  “Would you say that you have solved some, most, or all of the cases you’ve been actively involved in?”

  “Most. Although convictions are never certain.”

  “Don’t I know it.” Vaughan chuckled.

  Some brief laughter followed Vaughan’s lighthearted remark.

  “Would you say your job is difficult?”

  “Usually,” said Robert.

  “Would you care to elaborate?”

  “Even when the perpetrator is obvious, we still have to prove it. That isn’t always easy since it requires that a jury agree with us. Many times, the crimes are committed in small communities, and the people involved are known to those who’ll decide their fate. It’s often hard to see someone you’ve known your entire life as being capable of doing some of the horrible things we present to them. On the flip side, occasionally it’s hard to see them not doing those kinds of things. Even when uncontested, we have to deal with the gritty details of what one human being is capable of doing to another. We have to inform the family members of their loss. It’s never easy.”

  “I can only imagine,” said Vaughan. “I guess that last part is the hardest—telling people their loved ones met an untimely end.”

  “No,” said Robert.

  Vaughan paused, surprised by the detective’s unexpected answer. “No?”

  “It’s worse when there is no one to tell,” said Robert.

  “Sad.”

  “It’s a crime in itself.”

  “What do you do then?”

  “What we always do,” said Robert. “We find the bastards. Someone is dead. They aren’t coming back. It doesn’t matter whether a thousand people pick up torches and pitchforks and march in the streets, or if no one cares. I care. I am their advocate. I am their family. Somebody kills, they’re likely to do it again unless someone stops them. I’m that someone, and I don’t rest until I do.”

  “I don’t suppose you make a lot of friends, do you?”

  “No, I don’t. Believe it or not, occasionally people are grateful when I find the person or persons who killed their loved one and bring them to justice. Everybody should be grateful that there’s one less killer on the loose. You and I both know that the dead can no longer speak for themselves. The guilty, on the other hand, rarely shut up. They always have plenty of friends to attest to how they’re really nice people, and it’s all a misunderstanding. The courtroom is always full of people wringing their hands over the fate of some murderous scumbag. That doesn’t sway me in the least. I’m the one who sees firsthand what they did. I know who the victims were before their lives were cut short for some trivial reason by a maniac on a rampage. I see the pain and loss in the family’s eyes. I’m there when the bodies are laid to rest. I weep at their loss. And then I get angry. It’s my job to clean up the mess, and clean it up is what I do. So no, Counselor, I don’t make a lot of friends. So be it. You don’t call your friend when you find your wife, or your husband, or your mother or father, or, God forbid, your children beaten and bloody on the floor. You call me, and you expect results. You expect justice. Rest assured, you will get it because I’m going to get it for you.”

  A few boos and hisses drifted up from the gallery, but not as many as before the detective had taken the stand. Their resolve about the detective’s nefarious motives had been mildly diminished. Douglas Lee kept his head down until the muffled sound of sacred hymns seeped in through the walls. The preacher he hired was doing his part. But if the detective kept doing as well as he had so far, Winchester was going to need all the help he could get.

  “Tell us how you became involved in this investigation,” said Vaughan.

  “I was assigned.”

  “So, you had no previous knowledge of the victims, suspects, or location prior to this investigatio
n?”

  “I did not. Prior to my arrival here last summer, I haven’t been to Pickens County. As far as the victims or suspects, prior knowledge was impossible.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because we had no idea who any of them were.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” said Vaughan. “But that all changed.”

  “It did.”

  “Dr. Hall explained in his testimony how you and the other officers found the various bones and how you pieced them together to come to the conclusion that the victims were prepubescent identical twin girls. Kudos on that, but the way. Excellent work.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Please tell us how you eventually found out who the girls were. Were there reports of missing identical twins?”

  “No, there were not.”

  “Isn’t the disappearance of identical twins unusual?”

  “It is.”

  “Yet you found the answers.”

  “The fact that it was so unlikely was a clue in itself. Because of that, we broadened our search area. If the victims had been local girls, we’d have known about their being missing. We knew the girls came from somewhere; someone would know they were gone. If they weren’t reported missing, it meant that their parent or guardian was either involved or incapacitated. Due to the condition of the girls, we leaned towards the parent, or parents, having met a similar fate, although we didn’t rule out other possibilities. In the end, our suspicions were confirmed. Their father had been murdered. Sawed in half, to be exact.”

  Cries of horror rose up from the gallery. Judge Foley grabbed his gavel to restore order.

  “Objection!” said Lee. “My client isn’t on trial for any other offenses, much less ones that occurred in separate jurisdictions.”

  “Who said anything about your client being guilty of other offenses? Does the defense wish to add a statement from the accused, perhaps a confession?” said Vaughan.

  “Overruled,” said Judge Foley. “And I’m warning you, Mr. Vaughan, another outburst like that and I’ll hold you in contempt.”

  “Sorry, Your Honor. I withdraw my last statement.”

  Lee sat back down, clearly perturbed by the exchange. Vaughan couldn’t have been more pleased.

  “How did you track down the girls’s origin?” asked Vaughan.

  “It wasn’t easy. I can’t take the credit; it was a team effort. Once we had it narrowed down to the most likely possibilities, we still found ourselves without a clue to which way to go. There was, however, one piece of evidence that didn’t fit. So we let that lead us to the Promised Land.”

  Vaughan nodded and looked at the Bailiff. Tyndale picked up a paper bag and presented it to the court. Inside was a red jewel. Vaughan showed it to Robert.

  “Is this what I think it is?” asked Vaughan.

  “It’s fake,” said Robert. “Costume jewelry, though very unusual.”

  “I don’t imagine you see things like this every day?”

  “I’ve never seen one like it.”

  “Neither have I. Where did you find it?”

  “In the ditch on the side of the road, about a quarter mile from Cooter Yates’s place.”

  Soft chatter rose from the courtroom. Winchester was slowly losing the support of the crowd.

  “What was it doing there?”

  “That’s what I wondered,” said Robert. “It didn’t fall out of the sky. It was quite the mystery until one of my colleagues brought us the poster.”

  “Right. The poster,” said Vaughan as he nodded to the Bailiff again.

  Tyndale retrieved the billing from the theater in Memphis.

  “The Amazing and Magnificent Villanova,” said Vaughan, reading the large type on the advertisement. “He does present a mesmerizing image. I see what you mean about the jewel. It looks like the same one that’s on the magician’s turban. Who’s this? Natalia the Gypsy? What can you tell us about this Villanova fellow and the gypsy girl?”

  “Villanova’s real name was Richard Henderson. Villanova was his stage name. He adopted identical twin girls from the Tennessee Children’s Home Society, the one that was in the news a couple of years ago for human trafficking. He used them in his act, only showing one at a time so they could disappear and reappear as if by magic. The possibilities were endless for someone who makes their living by presenting illusions for entertainment purposes. A fact, I can only imagine, that was not lost on the magician. Natalia was the stage name of the girl, who he billed as a gypsy. Lacey and Laura Henderson were the real names of the two girls he adopted. It was quite resourceful of the magician. That is, until his illusion proved to be too real for the members of the Antioch Pentecostal Church to handle. The table saw was an unfortunate part of his act. Winchester and the boys have a difficult time telling the difference between what’s real and what’s an illusion, which led to the saw being employed in the very real demise of the famed magician. The boys from the Antioch church aren’t the brightest bulbs in the box.”

  “Was this the same magic show that Eustice Winchester and Buck McEwen attended the night before they allegedly abducted the girls?”

  “Yes, sir, it was. It was Villanova’s truck that the suspects admitted to stealing. The girls were inside.”

  “But they thought they only had one girl?”

  “From all accounts, that is the general consensus, at least until Deputy Barber showed up with the other one. In their ignorance, they thought the Devil was playing a trick on them and had resurrected the first girl, whom they had murdered, dismembered, and disposed of in the swamp the previous evening. So they killed her again and repeated the gruesome procedure.”

  “That’s quite a story. How do you know all this?”

  “They told me,” said Robert. “All of them. Separately, with little variation.”

  “They just came in and told you?”

  Robert laughed. “It wasn’t that easy. They required a little prompting, but we got there eventually.”

  “I’m going to ask you a difficult question, and I don’t want you to take it the wrong way. Detective, did you present the details of your allegations to them, and when they repeated them back, you used that as a confession, as the defense has suggested?”

  “Of course not,” said Robert.

  “But the distinguished Mr. Lee has raised the concern?”

  “What else is he going to say? Defense attorneys always say that.” Robert turned towards the jury and continued, “When the news is bad, shoot the messenger, eh?”

  Several members of the jury smiled and nodded. Judge Foley said nothing. Lee was furious but pretended it was of no consequence. Winchester turned pale.

  “So, are you saying that it’s possible that the suspect’s recollection of the incident is tainted?”

  “Suspects lie all the time. It takes awhile to get at the truth. When they start telling you things that only the killer or killers could know, some of which you don’t even know, and it matches the physical evidence, you start to put the pieces together. Most people tend to minimize their own involvement, but when it comes to their buddies, they’ll throw them to the wolves if it means saving their own skin. Some have a conscience and spill the beans regardless of the consequences; others will do whatever they can to avoid punishment. No price is too high.”

  “In your opinion, which category does the defendant fall into?”

  “No price is too high. He’s had opportunity after opportunity to come clean. He’s refused every step of the way, even when it came to his own offspring. He’s a sociopath.”

  “Objection!” Lee shouted.

  “Sustained,” said Judge Foley.

  “In my opinion, he’s a sociopath,” said Robert to the jury. “He doesn’t believe he’s done anything wrong, and, consequently, he takes no responsibility for his actions. It’s all about him. It’s always all about him. The holy man act is just that—an act. He’s not a prophet; he’s a murderer. Oh, sorry, I mean, in my opinion, he’s not a prophet
.”

  “He’s an alleged murderer,” added Vaughan.

  “No, not alleged. He’s a murderer.”

  “Objection!”

  “Sustained.”

  Robert shrugged. He wasn’t taking back his statement. The jury was instructed to disregard it, but Robert knew better. Winchester was guilty, and there weren’t enough legal procedures or fancy maneuvers by Douglas Lee that was going to change that.

  Stallworth looked over the audience that had been whispering behind his back all week. Many still cursed him under their breath but not one of them returned his gaze. He turned his eyes to the jury, and, one by one, he looked at them. Each man, in turn, met his stare, and there was an unspoken understanding between them. Detective Stallworth had done his part. The rest was up to them.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SIX

  “Mister Stallworth,” said Lee.

  “Detective,” Robert corrected him.

  “Right, Detective,” Lee said mockingly as he had when addressing the medical examiner. As before, he made a face to the audience in full view of the jury. Only, this time, nobody seemed to be in on the joke. Trying to show no outward sign that he was aware of the disconcerting change in the room, Lee continued his inquiries. “You stated earlier that, after the war, you attended the Alabama State Police Academy. Before—"

  “Correct,” interrupted Robert. “Graduated at the top of my class.”

  “I didn’t ask you that, but I’m happy to see you hold yourself in such high regard.”

  “I’m not the one who calls himself Esquire,” joked Robert.

  The room erupted with laughter. Even Judge Foley found it hard to hide his amusement. Lee was furious, but brushed it off. If the detective wanted to pick a fight, he’d give him a fight.

  “Before that, you stated that you served in the war.”

  Before Lee could get the next sentence out, Robert interrupted him again. “Yes, sir. I served my country in its time of need. Did you?”

  Lee ignored the taunt. He wasn’t about to admit that he hadn’t. “What did you do during the war?”