LC 02 - Questionable Remains

by Beverly Connor

  "That's a terrible weapon," said one of the youths, in awe.

  "It is. But it is a weapon that tires easily and must rest before it can spit again."

  "And you say these are men?" they asked.

  "This is Piaquay, who comes from the village of Calusa to the south of here," announced a brave entering the council house of the elders of Chilhaxul.

  The men who sat in the council house were not unlike the elders of Piaquay's village in dress and manner. Their language, though similar, was not Piaquay's, but he understood it and could speak it after a fashion. Though there were similarities, there were also many differences between this tribe and Piaquay's as well. The differences were subtle taken by themselves, but taken together they were such that Piaquay would not have felt at home here. He ignored any discomfort he felt and walked in the midst of the group.

  "I am here to talk about the strangers in our land," he began.

  "You know these men?" asked an elder.

  "You do not? Do you not remember the man Hernando de Soto?" asked Piaquay.

  "We heard of him. But none from our village saw him. The villages to the east and to the north of here know of him."

  "They are the same. Not the same man, but the same tribe."

  "Why have you come?" asked the eldest, whose long hair was silver.

  "These men massacred my people, killed my sister, my nephew, my wife, my infant daughter. I want to avenge their deaths. These are men who kill women and children as easily as they kill other men. I want to drive these people from our land back to their own."

  "Why have you come to us?"

  "They are coming here. They will ask that you bow to the rule of their leader, accept their gods, and give them food to eat."

  "How do you know they come here?"

  "I have a slave with me, a captive. He is one of them but has lived here many seasons. He knows the villages they visit. We must drive them out of our land," Piaquay repeated. "I will tell you what I think we should do."

  Chapter 9

  LINDSAY SAT IN the motel diner, drinking a cup of coffee with a road map in front of her. She decided to drive to McMinnville and interview Jennifer Darnell, Ken Darnell's wife. She debated with herself about calling before she left. Her polite upbringing told her to call-after all, the woman had lost a husband. But the emerging detective said to wait until she was in McMinnville-don't give her much time to collect her thoughts. Her polite self won out.

  She was taking a drink of coffee, and a shadow crossed her map. She looked up to see a man and a woman standing beside the table, both thin as rails, looking to be in their late twenties or early thirties. The man had a mustache and Vandyke beard. His dark hair was long in the back and shorter on the sides and top. He wore faded jeans and a green-and-white-striped shirt. His short-sleeved shirt revealed scratches and bandages on his arms. The woman had on a pink flowered housedress that buttoned up the front. Long, thin, light-brown hair wisped about her face, and bangs hung just past her eyebrows, running into thin rimmed glasses.

  "Lindsay Chamberlain?" said the man.

  "Yes."

  "My name's Clay Boshay. This here's my sister, Lorinda Hillard."

  Hillard, thought Lindsay. That sounds familiar.

  "Do you mind if we sit down and talk to you?" he asked.

  "It's about my husband, Blaine," said the woman.

  Blaine Hillard, thought Lindsay. That's right. One of the men killed with Ken Darnell. "Sit down," she said.

  "Thanks." Lorinda slid into the booth opposite Lindsay and her brother slid in after her. She put her purse on the table and fiddled with the strap as she spoke.

  "Martha said you was a real nice lady. Martha-Tucker Prescott's secretary-she's the cousin of a friend of mine." At the sound of Prescott's name, Lorinda's brother gave a derisive snort that his sister ignored. "She said you're inves- tigatin' Ken Darnell's death."

  "Yes," said Lindsay.

  "Then I want you to look into Blaine's death, too." She snapped open her purse. "I can give you a retainer."

  Lindsay put a hand on the purse. "I can't take money," she said smiling at her.

  "You work for free?" asked Clay, clearly not believing it.

  "I work for the University of Georgia as a professor. I get a salary for that, and I also do consulting with the state on forensic work. I'm not a private detective. I'm looking into Ken Darnell's death as a favor for a friend."

  "Then we want to be your friend," said Clay, "because there's something fishy about Blaine's death."

  Lindsay raised her eyebrows, as did the waitress who had just come to the table to ask if Clay and Lorinda wanted anything. The two newcomers ordered coffee. Lindsay ordered a glass of tea and waited for the waitress to leave before she said anything.

  "How do you mean?" she asked.

  "Blaine and me was married five years. We got two babies. Lily's four now and Holden's five. Now, Blaine was a bit of a dreamer, but he wasn't stupid. He'd not go off caving without telling me or somebody where he'd got to. And he'd take care of his family."

  "How do you mean?" asked Lindsay.

  "Blaine had insurance. He worked with Clay at Tooly Construction Company. We got fifty thousand dollars when they found his-him. But we found out he'd taken our savings and become a partner in Darnell's sporting goods store. See, he had this idea of offering tourists wilderness trips in caves that most of the public don't go in and down wild rivers, things like that. The Darnells really liked the idea. Blaine always wanted to be in business for hisself. He was real excited about. We talked it over, but I didn't know he'd already done it."

  "Anyway," said Clay, "it seems Jennifer Darnell took out more insurance on Blaine. Something about ..." He looked down at the floor trying to think of the term.

  "Key person insurance?" supplied Lindsay.

  "Yeah, that's it. The bitch-pardon my French-got half a million dollars on Blaine. Now, if he was going to insure his life for that much, then he'd see that his family got at least some of it."

  The waitress came with the tea and coffee. Again Lindsay waited until she was gone before she continued. "Wasn't the insurance company suspicious of having to pay out such a large sum of money shortly after the policies were taken out?"

  "They tried their best. But, see, that's where she was smart. It all looked normal." Clay tapped the table with his finger. "It seems she had the policy on her husband for about a couple of years and the one on Blaine for a little over a year. Blaine had made all these plans. They'd even booked people for the trips. Then him and Ken disappeared, and they didn't find them for two years. The woman's nothing if not patient."

  "As wife of a partner, don't you have some share in the business?" asked Lindsay.

  Both of them shook their heads. "I can't believe that Blaine would sign a contract like that, but he did, initialed every page of it. It was notarized and everything," said Lorinda. "We've seen a lawyer, talked to the sheriff, the insurance company, everybody we can think of. They all say it looks suspicious, but there is just no evidence she's done anything wrong."

  "Did the coroner have this information when he pronounced the death accidental?" asked Lindsay.

  Clay made a derisive noise. "The coroner-he's so stupid he couldn't pour water out of a bucket if the instructions was written on the bottom of it."

  "Martha says he has to be careful. He can't just accuse folks," said Lorinda.

  "He didn't have to accuse anybody; he just didn't have to be so-well, I didn't come here to re-argue old stuff," said Clay. "Just to ask you if you'll have a look into Blaine's death."

  "You wouldn't happen to have any pictures of the remains?" asked Lindsay.

  "Sure. I had a devil of a time getting them from of Prescott, but I got 'em."

  "Do you know who identified the remains?"

  "Sure. Blaine's-what you call him, Lorinda?"

  "Orthopedist," she said. "Blaine had a bad knee. Football injury."

  "Yeah, that's it, orthopedist. Dr. B
allinger, Olin Ballinger. He replaced Blaine's knee or something. Anyway, he recognized his own work."

  "I see. Did he look at the other skeletons as well?"

  Clay shrugged. "I reckon."

  "Has he ever done this kind of identification before? Would he know how to look for bones damaged by knives or bullets?"

  "Don't know that either. I think all the coroner wanted to do was identify the bodies. He thought it was pretty clear what killed them. But you know, rocks can fall on you when you're dead just like when you're alive."

  "You can tell if a person's been shot or something even if there's only ... uh ... bones left?" asked Lorinda.

  "Sometimes. Tell me about his disappearance," said Lindsay.

  "It was on a Friday," said Lorinda. "He didn't come home from work. I remember he'd been tellin' me all week about a surprise for me and the kids, but he wouldn't say what. He was like that. A kid when it came to surprises. He told me to go out and buy the most expensive dress I could find. That Saturday night we were going to a party." Lorinda stopped speaking and her mouth quivered very slightly.

  Clay took up the story. "We know now that Jennifer Darnell," he said her name in a mildly haughty voice as if perhaps Jennifer had used that tone with him, "had planned a party Saturday to announce Wild Journeys, Inc., an offshoot of Everything Sporting-that's their store. She had to cancel the party when Ken and Blaine went missing, but again that's where she was so smart. Anybody who watches Unsolved Mysteries knows that's where people get tripped up and bring suspicion to themselves. They don't make plans they're supposed to, and the police think, aha, they knew the person would be dead and not really need the tickets to Rio, so they didn't buy them " He leaned forward, emphasizing his point. "Jennifer was smarter than that. She followed through with all the plans, incorporating Wild Journeys, planning the party, hiring caterers, sending out two hundred invitations, the works. The police were so dumb, they fell for it." He sat back in his seat, as if he had proved his point.

  Lindsay didn't say what she thought-that perhaps the woman was innocent and that you couldn't use her having done all the right things against her. Instead she asked, "Do you have any physical evidence, or did anyone overhear her say something that was incriminating?"

  "No," said Lorinda. "Nothing. But what I couldn't make people understand was that I knew my husband. I know he didn't tell me about investing our savings-they always throw that into my face every time I try to tell them anything-but that was a surprise, a present. You can have secrets in a marriage, but that don't mean you don't know each other. Blaine would not have cut us out of that much money. He wouldn't have. He had dreams for the kids, things he wanted for them." Lorinda reached in her purse and drew out a Kleenex and delicately blew her nose.

  "May I have a look at the pictures of the remains?" asked Lindsay.

  "They're in the car. I'll get them," said Clay.

  "No, I'll do it," said Lorinda. "I need to stop by the ladies' room."

  After Clay let Lorinda out of the booth and watched her disappear into the hallway that led to the rest rooms, he leaned forward and said to Lindsay in a conspiratorial whisper, "You know, you can look at the bones anytime you want."

  Lindsay eyed him, puzzled. "They've not been buried?" she asked hesitantly.

  He shook his head and looked around to be sure the waitress was not coming and no one was listening, then continued. "They have a family plot on their property. See, Blaine's father had these-what you call it-grandiose delusions for the family. He was also in construction. He built one of them marble buildings in their private graveyard."

  "A vault?" asked Lindsay.

  "Yeah. Can you believe it? Anyway, of Blaine's in there."

  "Well," said Lindsay carefully, "if I find anything in the pictures, we may need to get an exhumation order."

  "I'm telling you, you don't have to dig him up. He ain't buried, and he ain't in a public cemetery. Just let me know, and me and Steven-that's his brother-will get you in."

  Lindsay had a vision of herself in the dead of night carrying a lantern, breaking into a crypt with the guy sitting across from her and his brother-in-law. She could just see the headlines. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that."

  Lorinda returned shortly and handed Lindsay a large folder tied with a blue ribbon. Lindsay untied the ribbon, opened the folder, and glanced at the contents. It must have been hard for Lorinda to look at the picture of the bones, knowing they were her husband. Lindsay wondered if, like Grace Lambert, she simply did not look. She closed the folder.

  "Can I keep these a while? I will need time to give them a thorough looking over."

  "Sure," said Lorinda. "We're just glad to have somebody listen to us."

  "Did you know Ken Darnell?" asked Lindsay.

  Both Lorinda and Clay shook their heads. "Not well," said Lorinda. "He was mainly a friend of Blaine's."

  "Did Blaine ever mention any trouble Darnell and his wife might be having?"

  "No," said Lorinda, "but he wouldn't. Blaine really didn't notice things like that, and he wasn't much for talking about personal stuff with people."

  "What about the other man who was killed-who was he?" asked Lindsay.

  They shook their heads. "We didn't know him," said Clay. "He was a friend of Ken's. I don't think he was a partner or anything."

  "I think the guy's name was Roy Pitt," offered Lorinda.

  "So, you'll look into it?" asked Clay.

  "I can't promise anything. I'll do my best," Lindsay told them.

  "We really do appreciate it," said Clay. "Like Lorinda said, it's a relief just to have somebody listen to us."

  On her way back to her room, Lindsay stopped to put the photographs in the motel safe along with the ones the Lamberts had given her. They were evidence, as far as she was concerned, and she treated them as such. Her telephone was ringing as she was opening the door to her room. She raced to get it. Grace Lambert's voice was on the other end.

  "I heard on the news about the death at an archaeological site," she said a little breathlessly. "It said that you were there."

  "Yes," said Lindsay, going over in her mind how much to tell her.

  "That must have been terrible for you," she said.

  "It was very unpleasant for all of us," replied Lindsay.

  "I don't suppose you have had the time to do much investigating since I spoke to you."

  "Not a lot, but I did talk to the wife of one of the men killed with your brother. I didn't learn anything definitive, but, like you, she has her suspicions." Lindsay heard a sharp intake of breath. "Don't make too much of that. I haven't seen any hard evidence of anything yet. She was able to give me some good photographs of her husband's remains. I haven't examined them yet."

  "So I may not be overreacting to my brother's death, after all," she said.

  "I don't want to mislead you in any way," said Lindsay, carefully picking her words. "It's true there are things about the accident that need to be answered. It may be that when I find the answers they will be completely reasonable."

  "I understand," said Grace, but Lindsay could tell by her voice she was anticipating that her worst fears would be true-that her brother was murdered.

  Lindsay cautioned her again to not expect anything unless the evidence justified it. After she got off the phone with Grace, she dialed Jennifer Darnell's number. A housekeeper or a secretary answered. Lindsay told the woman her name and asked to speak to Mrs. Darnell.

  "Just a moment," said the voice.

  Lindsay thought it odd that the woman did not ask what she wanted. Gatekeepers usually do. It's their job to guard the gate. Lindsay suspected that the woman already knew her name and was expecting her call.

  "This is Jennifer Darnell."

  "Mrs. Darnell, I was wondering if I could talk to you. Perhaps in a restaurant or park? It's about-"

  "I know what it's about, and I really don't care to talk to you."

  "I understand that your husband's death is a painful topi
c. It's painful for your husband's sister also. I won't take up much of your time."

  "I have no obligation to talk to you. What is your connection to any of this?"

  "No, you don't have to talk to me. I have no authority, whatsoever. But I just want to know what happened so I can tell Grace and her family."

  There was silence-a full thirty seconds of silence.

  "Do you know where Gilby's is?"

  "I can find it," she told her.

  "Meet me there in two hours." Click.

  Lindsay put on the suit she wore to meet Prescott, and after calling the restaurant for directions, she drove to McMinnville, arriving in the parking lot twenty minutes early. She sat in her Land Rover for a few minutes, going over in her mind what she wanted to confirm-discoverfrom Mrs. Darnell. Truthfully, she wasn't sure. Jennifer Darnell was not going to admit to murder. Lindsay didn't even know if there had been a murder. So what did she expect to discover from the dead man's wife? Did she expect Jennifer Darnell to incriminate herself during Lindsay's clever interrogation? Lindsay smiled to herself. Not for the first time, the reality that she wasn't a detective occurred to her with harsh clarity. She didn't really know what she was doing if she didn't have a pile of bones in front of her.

  She reminded herself, however, she didn't have to solve the case. She only had to look at the available evidence and render an opinion. It would be up to the authorities to take any necessary action. Lindsay took a deep breath and got out of her vehicle.

  It was an elegant restaurant-linen tablecloths and napkins, silver, china, and crystal goblets on the table. The wallpaper was a deep red with black and gold Victorian floral designs. The carpet was also a deep red, the color of a good red wine.

  Jennifer Darnell was exactly on time. Lindsay had chosen a table in the far corner of the restaurant and sat facing the entrance. The hostess was ushering a woman toward her, a small, trim woman who knew how to dress. Her apricot suit went well with her dark hair. Jennifer Darnell was also very pretty. She had large blue eyes, a small nose slightly pointed, and a small oval face with a fair, what some call a peaches and cream, complexion. Her hair came to her chin and turned under slightly. It was smooth and slightly puffed around her head, not stiff with spray but soft and shiny.