One Grave Too Many

by Beverly Connor

  “I know. I got the impression Warrick knew Crystal—that they were friends or something. Hell, maybe Crystal did her hair.”

  Diane used her digital camera and markers and began the process of photographing the bloodstained wall.

  “While you’re in here, I’m going to search Jay’s room. I’d like to examine his computer, if Warrick didn’t take it. Maybe I’ll find some clue as to what he was doing out late that night.”

  Diane had prepared a small maze of string when she realized it was getting dark outside. Subconsciously, she heard muted sounds of Frank in a far bedroom moving things around. Other than those muffled noises, she was aware of nothing but numbers. Tuning out the grimness, the gore on the walls, the smell of the room—there was nothing but the silent crunch of numbers creating lines of trajectory.

  “How about a break?” Diane started at the sudden voice coming from the doorway.

  “Oh, hey. I lost track of time.” She looked at her watch. “A break’s probably a good idea. I could use a couple of minutes out of this room.” She anchored the end of the string she was holding and the two of them went downstairs and out on the porch.

  It had gotten dark and there was only a sliver of a moon. Out here the stars shone bright in the night sky. The light from the living room windows gave off only a dim glow, so the two of them sat mostly in the dark on the top step. Diane watched the fireflies and listened to the crickets.

  Beside her, Frank patted his pocket. “Wish I hadn’t given up smoking. I could use a cigarette about now.”

  “Did you find anything in Jay’s room?” she asked.

  Frank didn’t say anything for a moment, and Diane looked over at him. She could see his eyes were misty with tears.

  “His fishing gear, soccer uniform, his CD player—all the things left of his life. Jay and I used to go fishing a lot. George liked to hunt, but Jay really didn’t like the idea of shooting things. But he liked fishing. He was good at fly-fishing, too. You know, that’s not easy. On weekends during the summer, me, George and Jake Houser would take our sons and go up to my cabin. George, Jake and Dylan would go hunting. Jay, Kevin and I would fish. I was thinking as I went through his things, at least it’s easier on George and Louise. I’d go crazy if I lost Kevin—especially like this.”

  Diane hugged her legs to her and lay a cheek on her knees, listening to an owl in the distance.

  “They’d taken his computer,” Frank continued. “I guess I should be glad that Warrick at least made like she was collecting evidence. But I’d sure like to take a look at his hard drive.”

  “Maybe your cop friend—Izzy—can tell you what’s on it.”

  “I’d like to examine it myself. It’s like you and blood spatters—you have to know about computers to be able to extract all the evidence that’s on them. You have to know where to look and how to look. Besides, Izzy’s a uniform cop and there’s a limit to what he can get for me from Warrick’s investigation. Izzy’s gone out on a limb as it is.”

  Diane didn’t say anything for a moment. She imagined that the police department had somebody who could look at the hard drive. Then she remembered that Frank was an expert in computers and computer fraud. “Maybe they’ll let you look at it.”

  Frank looked over at her. “Yeah, right.”

  “You can ask.”

  “I searched Star’s room too. Nothing helpful. Except it seemed to be empty of current personal things—it was more like looking at her past. I’ve been thinking about George and Louise being both shot and beaten. That usually means two perps, right? Two different weapons.” Frank seemed to be struggling for words. “I can’t help but wonder . . . I mean, there’s Star and her boyfriend . . . on drugs. It’s just, I can’t imagine Star with that much hate. . . . You have to have a lot of pent-up hate to overkill. Isn’t that right?”

  “Don’t go reconstructing the crime scene before we’ve collected the evidence. We don’t know anything right now. We know that they were shot. The coroner did say that at the scene, didn’t he?” Frank nodded. “And at least one was also hit. We don’t know if both were beaten, and we don’t know how many people were involved. Now we just have a crime scene. Let me finish processing it. Tomorrow we’ll sit down and talk about it.”

  “You’re right.” Frank stood up and pulled Diane up with him. “Look, neither of us has had anything to eat. There’s a Krystal down the road. You like those little square cheeseburgers, don’t you? Why don’t I go get some food and bring it back.”

  “Sure . . . that’s a good idea.” Diane stretched the kinks out of her back. “And bring back plenty of coffee too.” She opened the screen door and started back inside. “I’ll be upstairs, working.”

  Chapter 14

  Before Diane began again with her grim work, she picked up a silver framed photograph sitting on the dresser and looked at it. It was a studio shot of the family. Family portraits rarely tell the whole truth. They always show a happy family. That’s their job, and they do it so well that all who look upon the smiling faces of a family touched by tragedy never fail to be astounded that this terrible thing could have happened to them.

  The Boone family portrait was like that. They all looked happy—and so different from the only other photos she had seen of them. George and Louise were in the center of the picture, their bodies slightly facing each other and their faces turned toward the camera.

  George’s tanned face testified that he spent time outdoors. His short dark brown hair was receding slightly. His dark eyes, staring at Diane from the picture, looked friendly. Louise had what might be called a perky face. Her smile was big and crinkled the corners of her hazel eyes. Her shoulder-length brown hair and bangs made her look carefree and young.

  Jay’s forearm rested on his father’s back, as if casually leaning against him, a broad smile illuminating his face. He looked so young. He and Star looked alike—dark hair, dark eyes, same slender straight noses. Star’s hair was a short cut with one side combed over and longer than the other. A blond streak on each side framed her face. She had the same charming grin as her brother. It was hard to imagine that Star could turn on her family. But family portraits aren’t meant to show the dark side.

  Diane set the picture down beside the other photographs of various family members—cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents? She noted that there were none of Crystal McFarland.

  She disengaged herself from thoughts about the family, glad she hadn’t known them, and began again with her task of measuring their drops of blood, computing angles, stringing trajectory lines. The work had such inherent tedium and required such focus, it was easy to keep her mind on the task and not try to analyze the data before all of it was in. But she did have a few ideas forming. An interview with Star would be good. Perhaps Frank would arrange it.

  As she measured and computed in the quiet house, sounds subtly began to ease into her consciousness—the owl she’d heard earlier, the house settling. House settling —what did that mean exactly? What was actually settling? The wood framing? And why was it starting now?

  She stopped a moment, as she often did when stray thoughts began intruding too far into her task. A straying mind makes mistakes. She put down her tools, stretched, and kneaded her tired shoulders. Her stomach growled, and she looked at her watch. Frank seemed to be taking his time. Probably buying several of everything so they could have a choice. She smiled at the memory of the stack of doughnuts he had brought to her apartment.

  There it was again—a creaking, like one board rubbing against another. Now that she wasn’t making any noise, the settling sound was louder. She listened, wondering if all old houses make sounds. Creak. She walked around the bed to the doorway and listened. Nothing. Silly, she thought, mentally reminding herself that it had been Melissa in Andie’s office and not some intruder, and that she was apt to become crazy and paranoid if she didn’t watch herself.

  She had started to pick up her measuring tools when she heard it again. From her vantage point by th
e door, it seemed to be coming from the stairs. It reminded her of the jump tales told around campfires—the ones where the ghost keeps saying: “I’m on the first step. . . . I’m on the second step. . . .” Now she was being silly.

  Of course, it could be Frank coming back and setting up in the kitchen or somewhere before he called to her. This is ridiculous, she thought. She headed for the stairs. From the top she peered down the stairway into the darkness. Hadn’t the lights been on downstairs?

  “Frank?” she called out. No response. It wasn’t him. It was probably nothing. She turned to go back to work, determined to keep her mind on what she was doing. There it was again; another creaking sound. A hand clasped on her arm from behind.

  Diane jumped instinctively and pulled away, but the hand stayed, the grip biting into her upper arm. She grabbed at the fingers as she was pulled and shoved, trying to turn around to see who it was. She was pushed forward through a doorway and fell on her shoulder, skidding on a rug across a hardwood floor, bumping her head on some piece of furniture. She saw the butcher knife looming over her before she saw the face of the person who held it.

  “I’ll cut you with this. I will.”

  Diane looked into the twisted face of a boy of about sixteen, his tangled brown hair falling into his eyes. His clothes looked as if he’d been living in a cave. They were wrinkled, dirty and covered with cobwebs.

  “You’re Star’s boyfriend, aren’t you?” Diane found herself saying with more resolve than she felt.

  “Shut up!”

  She clutched the dresser she had landed next to and pulled herself to her feet. Her gaze darted around the room. Cedar bed and dresser, buck head mounted above the green-and-red plaid-covered bed, no personal items. The guest room? Had he been living here? No. It was too neat. Her mind was a whirl of questions and her head hurt.

  He stood a few feet away. Holding the knife toward her. “I heard you and him talking. You want to pin this on me—me and Star.”

  “No, that’s not true.”

  He waved the knife. “Don’t lie. I heard you talking. I heard what he was saying.”

  “What you heard was fear that maybe Star did it. You heard fear, not certainty. You heard when he talked about Star, he couldn’t even make a complete sentence. Frank loves Star. She’s the daughter of his best friend. He’s her guardian now, and he’s scared to death for her. If you were listening, you had to have heard that.” Diane thought she saw a subtle change in his features. “Do you know who did this?” she asked.

  “I didn’t. Neither did Star.”

  “Why, then, are you standing here holding a knife on me?”

  “ ’Cause . . . Look, shut up. You don’t know nothing.”

  “Why don’t you tell me?” She heard the high-pitched sound of her phone ringing in the other room. “That’s my phone. He’ll expect me to answer it.”

  “He’ll just think you went to the bathroom or turned it off.”

  “At any rate, he’ll be back soon.”

  “I know.” He paced back and forth between her and the door. “I got to think.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Don’t talk. I got to think.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Look, what do I have to do to get you to shut up?”

  “Why did you pull me in here? Why didn’t you just hide out until we left? You must want something.”

  “I thought you were going to search the house, and I’d get you first. And maybe you have some money.”

  “Okay, now that you have me first, what are you going to do?”

  He took a couple of steps toward her. “I could get rid of you.”

  “If you didn’t kill Star’s parents, why start now? Look, let me help you. What’s your name?”

  “Dean! It’s Dean. Are you satisfied? Don’t you think I know you just want to turn me in?”

  “Turning yourself in might not be a bad idea.”

  “It sounds like a bad idea to me. You people are all alike. You have to have control, tell me what to do.”

  “No. You have control over what you do. You make up your own mind. I’m just suggesting you do something that works. This isn’t working for you. Look at yourself in the mirror. Unless rheumy eyes and snot running out of your nose is a new fad like green hair and body piercing, you’re not doing that well. You’re hungry, you’re alone, the police are looking for you—it’s not working.”

  He wiped his nose on the sleeve of his jacket. “Yeah, and just what do you think turning myself in will do?”

  “It will be a start in solving this. It will look really good for you if your lawyer can say to the court that you turned yourself in because you’re innocent and want to help find out who killed your girlfriend’s parents.”

  “Like they’re going to believe that. Besides, I can’t afford a lawyer. They’ll just give me one of those free ones that don’t know nothing.”

  “Do you know how to make a silencer?”

  He looked at Diane as if she were the one on drugs. “What? A silencer? Like a hit man uses? That metal thing you screw on your gun? No, I don’t know how to make one. How would I know how to make one of those?”

  “How did you and Star get her grandfather’s coins?”

  “Why are you asking me all these questions?”

  “I want to help. Right now, that’s why the police are holding her. They think she took the coins after she killed her parents.”

  “That’s a load of crap. She came back here and got them a couple of weeks ago. Been hanging on to them like they meant something.”

  “Crystal McFarland told the police that the coins were in the house until the Boones were killed.”

  “That’s a lie. How the fuck would she know anyway? Like Star’s father didn’t hate her worse than me.”

  “Dean, why don’t you tell me everything? I’m trying to find out who killed Star’s family. Right now, I don’t believe it was Star or you. Won’t you put the knife down and talk to me?”

  “I’ll hold on to the knife.”

  “Make yourself look innocent. You think I’m going to jump you if you put it down?”

  “No, but he will when he comes back.”

  “No, he won’t. Not if you don’t have a weapon. Look, if I know him, when he gets back he’ll have enough food for an army. We’ll all sit down in the dining room and talk.”

  As if on cue, Diane heard a car door slam. Dean gripped his knife tighter and looked at her, wide-eyed.

  Chapter 15

  Diane held her breath as the door opened.

  “Hey, I called . . .”

  “Frank, this is Dean. He’s going to eat with us and tell us about himself and Star. I hope you brought enough food.”

  Frank stood in the front doorway, two large sacks of fast food in his arms, and stared at Diane and the teenager standing beside her.

  “Hello, Dean,” he said, stepping inside and kicking the door closed behind him. “Shall we go into the dining room?”

  The dining room, between the kitchen and foyer, was a bright yellow. Wilted parlor palms and peace lilies stood in the corners. Diane made a mental note to water them before she left. The round oak table had been dusted for fingerprints. She went into the kitchen to get something to use to wipe it off.

  She stopped for a moment to look around. All the appliances, including the mixer, were pink. The floor was a checkerboard of black-and-white tiles. The countertops were a classic fifties design of squares with rounded corners and tiny antennae—the iconic symbol of the popular new and powerful innovation of the time, the television screen. Louise Boone had loved her home, she had loved to decorate it and loved to make it fun. Diane wet some paper towels, took some all-purpose squirt cleaner from under the sink and went to the dining room to remove the detritus left from collecting evidence of Louise’s murder.

  They sat around the table and Frank pulled out the mounds of food he had brought back—cheeseburgers, corn dogs, chili-cheese pups, Fr
ench fries, Cokes and a thermos full of coffee.

  Dean downed four Krystal cheeseburgers and was on his second corn dog before he said anything. “We were in Atlanta when her parents were killed.”

  “Is there anyone who will alibi you?” asked Frank.

  “Not anyone the police would believe.”

  “You said Star took the coins about two weeks ago,” said Diane. “Is there any proof of that?”

  He threw a French fry on the table. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “That’s not it,” said Diane. “Star was arrested because of the coins. If we can show the police proof that she already had them, then we’ll have a better chance of getting her released.”

  “And proving that McFarland bitch is a liar? I don’t know. We came in when her parents were gone. She knew where they kept them. Said they were hers anyway, for her education. What would be proof? It’s not like she signed them out.”

  “Did anyone see them?”

  “Are you kidding? To Star they were the family jewels. She hid them, and even I didn’t know where they were.” Dean kicked his chair legs as he talked and fidgeted in his seat. He grabbed hold of a Coke and drank down half of it. “Is it true they used to be made with real coke—you know, cocaine?”

  “Early on, it was made with trace amounts of the coca leaf,” said Frank.

  Dean giggled. “I wish they still made it that way.” He pushed on his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Do you have anything for a headache?” He wiped his nose with a napkin.

  “I think I can probably find something,” said Frank. He left the table and came back in two or three minutes with a bottle of aspirin and gave Dean a couple.

  “Man, I need more than that.”

  “Start with that and I’ll give you some more later. Where have you and Star been living?”

  “Different places. I got this cousin in Atlanta.”

  “What’s his name?” Frank asked, picking up a chili-cheese pup and taking a bite.

  “Her. Why do you want to know?”