Dust to Dust

by Beverly Connor

  “I don’t know why the damn backup took so long,” said Hanks.

  Diane noticed that Hanks’ breathing was off—more labored than it should have been, even considering the exertion—and it obviously hurt him to turn his head.

  “Are you all right?” she asked him.

  “I fell on my damn shoulder again,” he said. “It’s kind of hard to move and hurts like hell.”

  Diane shined the beam from the flashlight on Hanks’ shoulder. His clothes were covered with leaves and dirt from the tumble he took. She moved the collar of his shirt aside and shined the light on his throat and collarbone area. As she suspected, there was a lump under his skin on the clavicle.

  “Your collarbone is broken,” she said.

  “Yeah, I know,” he said, rubbing his eyes and forehead with his good hand.

  “Look,” said Diane, “both of you stay—”

  The three of them jumped when a beam of light flashed in their direction. Daughtry put a hand on his gun.

  “It’s me—Izzy,” said the voice behind the light. “Neva’s waiting out front for backup. We heard the shooting back here. Is everyone all right?”

  “More or less,” said Hanks.

  “The shooter in the woods seems to have got away,” said Izzy. “He hasn’t fired any more rounds at us.” Izzy stopped in front of them, letting his light play from one to the other. “The three of you look terrible. What the hell happened?” he said.

  Hanks gave him a brief version of events. “We lost them,” he finished. Hanks looked at Diane for a moment. “What happened to you? I heard some commotion right before we went in after the intruder.”

  “There were lookouts in the woods. I happened upon them,” she said. “At least two that I saw. We had a little scuffle.”

  “Are you all right?” asked Izzy.

  “Fine. Tore my dress,” she said.

  “Great,” said Daughtry. “You tore your dress and we get maimed for life.”

  Diane smiled. “I knocked one down and got the drop on him. The other one tried to brain me with a club. I very cleverly fell down an embankment to get away from them. I feel your pain.”

  “So that means there are between five and three people,” said Izzy, counting on his fingers.

  “Probably four,” said Diane. “The shooter in the woods who ambushed us, the one carrying the box, and the two I met near the box hedges. They left when the shooting started. They may have been the same ones who attacked the two of you.”

  “Could be three,” added Izzy. “The shooter in the woods could’ve left his post and come back here. That might be why he stopped shooting at us.”

  “So, no less than three,” said Hanks. “What is this? Some kind of gang robbing houses when the owners are out?”

  “How would they know that the owner of the house wasn’t here?” asked Diane. “It was early evening when Marcella Payden was attacked, wasn’t it? It’s almost sunrise now.” She could see the sky had gone from black to dark blue. Dawn was coming. “Unless they were the ones who attacked Marcella, how would they know?”

  “I don’t know,” said Hanks. “But why would they wait hours before coming back?”

  Diane was relieved to hear police cars come to a stop in the driveway and the sirens die down. She, Hanks, and Daughtry had botched it, she felt. The two of them were hurt. It was just dumb luck that she wasn’t. She wanted to leave the whole mess to Neva and Izzy—as she should have in the first place—go home, and get some sleep.

  “The two of you need to get to the hospital,” she said.

  “I won’t argue,” said Hanks.

  Diane sensed that he was embarrassed. She understood. So was she—standing in a ruined cocktail dress at a compromised crime scene where she had let at least three perps get away.

  “I can take you in my car,” she said. “Neva and Izzy can work the crime scenes.”

  As she spoke she looked around the yard. She could see more of it now in the approaching dawn. Some of the shapes decorating the yard that she couldn’t identify earlier were evident now—a boulder carved into a bench, a galvanized metal tub containing a dead plant, and . . . there at the end of the yard near the trees . . . a body.

  Chapter 4

  The body lay facedown in the grass. He was dressed in black pants and a leather jacket, a ski mask over his head—and a bullet hole in his back.

  Diane was kneeling beside the body. She’d put on the jeans and T-shirt she kept stashed in her SUV—what she should have done before she reduced her dress to a ruin of dirty tatters.

  The paramedics had immobilized Hanks’ arm, bandaged his wounded thigh, and given Daughtry first aid for his leg wound. The paramedics wanted to take the two of them to the hospital, but Hanks insisted on staying until the coroner showed up. He was standing beside her.

  Whit Abercrombie, the coroner, was sitting on his haunches on the other side of the body. He had straight black hair, dark eyes, and a short black beard that made his white teeth look very bright and his face look rather rakish.

  An ambulance had arrived to take the body. The driver and paramedic were standing back with a stretcher, waiting for Whit to give his okay. The sun was just below the horizon, providing only enough light for the growing numbers of personnel from the police department, the crime scene lab, the coroner’s office, and the ambulance services to not stumble over one another or the numerous yard ornaments. Whit shined his flashlight on the bullet wound.

  “That would definitely result in his death,” he said.

  “I’d like to see his face,” said Hanks.

  Whit nodded. He and Diane turned the body over and Whit rolled up the ski mask. The beam from the flashlight cast angled shadows across the contours of the lean face. He was young, perhaps early twenties, with a pale face showing a scattering of whiskers that he had hoped would make him look more rugged. He had a black eye that was fading to yellow. Diane didn’t recognize him. Neither did Whit.

  “Don’t know him,” said Hanks.

  Whit and Diane rose and stepped away from the body. Whit nodded to the paramedics.They transferred the corpse to the stretcher and rolled the gurney to the ambulance for transport to the hospital morgue in Rosewood.

  “What happened here?” Whit asked.

  Hanks explained in a brisk, no-nonsense way the night’s events leading up to the discovery of the body.

  “I don’t know how he was shot,” he said. “There was a lot of gunfire.”

  Whit nodded and eyed Hanks. “Looks like you need to go along to the hospital.”

  “Yeah, I suppose so,” he said, shifting his weight from one leg to the other.

  Hanks looked to be in considerable discomfort, but he sounded reluctant. Diane thought he would have welcomed the chance to receive some painkillers. After a few moments’ thought and with what appeared to be some regret, he left with the others, walking at a brisker pace than Diane thought she could have mustered under the same circumstances.

  Whit watched Hanks a moment, then turned back to Diane. “How are things in your life now that you have control of all the museum operations again?” he said.

  “So far, things are running smoothly,” she said.

  Diane walked with Whit around to the driveway where he was parked. Hanks’ car was there, and the patrolman’s. So were two other police vehicles. They watched the ambulance leave with its cargo.

  “What are you doing here?” asked Whit. “I was under the impression you didn’t do on-site crime scene work much anymore. Someone told me you had finally learned to delegate.” He gave her a wide grin.

  “I’m trying,” said Diane. “Marcella Payden is a consultant to the museum.”

  Whit’s eyebrows went up. “Dr. Payden? The archaeologist? Is this her home?” He glanced over at the house and back at Diane. “Sylvia and I heard her give a talk a few days ago on the analysis of pottery in archaeology. Not exactly my idea of a hot date, but Sylvia wanted to go. Dr. Payden was entertaining. She can make a dull top
ic sound interesting, even to us archaeology dummies.”

  He paused. “What happened? Is she—” He stopped and let the question hang between them.

  “I’m told she survived the attack, but I don’t know her condition. It happened early last evening,” said Diane. “I’m not sure why it took so long for my crew to be called in.”

  “I can answer that,” said Neva, who was coming from the van with a case, heading for the house. “One of the policemen was telling me and Izzy about it. Dr. Payden was unconscious when she was brought in. At first, the doctors thought she had fallen accidentally and hit her head. It wasn’t until they did a thorough exam and took some X-rays that they came to the conclusion she might have been attacked. That’s when they called the police.”

  “How was she discovered?” asked Diane.

  Neva shrugged. “That’s all the policeman knew.” She motioned toward the house. “Izzy and I have a path cleared if you want to come have a look around.”

  Diane nodded. “Thanks, Neva.”

  “How’s your dress?” Neva asked, eyeing Diane’s change of clothes.

  “About what you would expect after a trek through a briar patch, a little hand-to-hand with a thug, and rolling down a hill in it. Not good. It’s what I get for wearing a cocktail dress to a crime scene,” Diane said.

  Neva grinned and went on her way.

  “It must have been some exciting night,” said Whit.

  “More so than I would like,” said Diane.

  “About this Detective Hanks,” said Whit, nodding in the direction the ambulance had taken him. “Do you know him?”

  “Not really. He was one of the hires during the previous Rosewood administration. He was cleared of any involvement in the misdeeds involving the mayor or the chief of police, but I think he feels he has to be overly competent in order not to be suspect. You know how it is in Rosewood these days. After the destruction left by the mayor and his gang, everyone is a little on edge.”

  Whit grinned happily, nodding his head in agreement about the state of anxiety in Rosewood. Like all those who lived outside the city limits of Rosewood itself, Whit was a little smug and self-righteous about the recent Rosewood corruption. After all, Rose County residents weren’t the ones who voted the mayor and his cronies into office. That was Rosewood City folks’ doing.

  He took his leave, wishing Diane luck as he got in his jeep and drove away. She wanted to yell after him that she hadn’t voted for the scoundrel either. He was no friend of hers, and she had the scars to prove it. Instead, she just waved.

  Diane proceeded toward the house. At the edge of the front yard there was a picket fence that might have been white at one point in its life but was now weathered to a dusty gray. In the middle of the fence was a trellised archway with no gate. There were remnants of dead vine intertwined in the wood slats, signs of recent attempts by Marcella at clearing the growth.

  Behind the fence, the front yard contained more cement ornaments—birdbaths, more broken statuary. From the fresh dirt stains on most of it, Diane guessed that Marcella had dug the pieces up from the yard. Must be interesting for an archaeologist to have things to dig up in her own yard.

  Diane climbed the steps to the newly refurbished front porch. The light was now on and the porch and surrounding area were well lit. She looked up at the bottom of the second-floor balcony. The wood looked new there too. Unfortunately for Officer Daughtry, Marcella’s renovations hadn’t yet gotten to the dilapidated back porch.

  The house had four tall windows across the front. Through one of them Diane could see Neva inside using electrostatic lifting film to collect a footprint off the floor. Diane donned the plastic head and foot coverings she’d retrieved from the van earlier and slipped on a pair of gloves. She started to enter the front doorway, stopped, and stepped back.

  Her eye was caught by glints of light reflecting from something embedded in the wood frame around the door. Sparkling from underneath flakes of peeling white paint were what looked to be the broken sherds of ceramic inserts inlaid in the wood frame. Diane tried to think what the inserts might have been before they were apparently vandalized, but there was nothing identifiable left. They had all been shattered. How odd, she thought.

  She moved to just inside the threshold and looked around at the room. There was an aroma of Mexican food in the house.

  “We’ve found some good boot prints,” said Neva. “Several sizes larger than what Dr. Payden would wear.” She nodded toward the door. “I think she took her shoes off in the house.”

  Diane looked down at a pair of leather sandals sitting on a wooden stool near the door. “Could be right,” she said.

  The floor was dark, wide-plank hardwood with a satin sheen—another of Marcella’s renovations. A few rugs were scattered around. They were mostly decorated in geometric patterns that looked Southwestern.

  The walls were a cream color and the furniture was mostly leather with chenille throws and pillows decorated similarly to the rugs. There was no television in the room and no place for one. Against one wall was a large, dark wood hutch that was open and empty.

  Under the window just to the left of Diane was an old wooden desk that had seen better days. There was a lamp on it and the middle drawer was half open.

  “Have you looked in the desk?” she asked.

  Neva nodded. “All the drawers are empty. I haven’t yet dusted for prints there or on the hutch.”

  Just in front of the desk, surrounded by small flags that the forensics crew used to mark notable features at the crime scene, was a dark stain on the floor, almost invisible because of the dark wood. Blood, Diane realized. Marcella’s blood. There wasn’t a large pool of it. The stain was about the size of a large dinner plate. This was where Marcella was felled, thought Diane, about the time she and Frank were at the benefit at Bartrum listening to a speech about funding for the arts.

  Neva and Izzy had marked a clear path through the house with flags. This was the walk zone they examined first so they could move about the house without contaminating evidence. Diane walked into the dining room. The odor of food was stronger here. Marcella had been cooking a Mexican dinner. She was expecting company. The table was set for two. The candle in the center of the table had burned down and the pool of wax around the wick had hardened.

  Diane heard Izzy working in the nearby room, probably where the most recent intruders had entered. She didn’t like two crime scenes—the attack on Marcella, and the recent deadly trespass—intertwined with each other. It confused things trying to distinguish one crime scene from the other. Jonas Briggs, her good friend, chess partner, and archaeology curator, wouldn’t be quite so daunted. Archaeologists are accustomed to working sites that are one on top of the other and that leave the archaeologists to make sense of the layers.

  Jonas Briggs, she thought. He was probably the one having dinner with Marcella. They were good friends. He may have found her. That would make Jonas a suspect to Hanks. Diane fished her cell from her pocket.

  Chapter 5

  Diane started to key Jonas Briggs’ number, but stopped and retraced her steps to the living room. Neva was rolling up the film of the boot print and sliding it into a tube.

  “Neva, you said the policeman didn’t know who found Marcella. Is that right?”

  Neva looked up and nodded. “That’s what he said. The two policemen are with David, searching the woods for evidence. You could call him.”

  “I didn’t know David was here. I didn’t see his car,” said Diane.

  “He arrived a little bit ago. It was getting crowded near the house, so he parked on down the drive,” said Neva. She gestured out the window in the direction of the driveway. “Did you find something?” Neva put away the film tube and picked up the case with the electrostatic lifting device.

  “No, I just thought of something. Jonas might have been the one who discovered Marcella,” began Diane.

  Neva opened her mouth in surprise, wrinkled her brow, and looked in t
he direction of the dining room. “She was having someone for dinner. And they were . . . It could be Jonas. I didn’t think about that.”

  “I’ll call him,” said Diane.

  She punched in the number of his cell. No answer. She tried his home. No answer there either. She called his cell again and left a message asking him to call her.

  “No luck?” Neva, still with the anxious expression on her face, stood with the electrostatic device under her arm.

  “He may be at the hospital,” said Diane. “His cell may be turned off. I left him a message.”

  “Of course,” said Neva. “That’s where he would be.”

  Diane didn’t know why she was so worried, but she was. She called David’s cell.

  “Hey, Diane. Hear you’ve had one of your usual evenings out,” he said.

  “It has been interesting. Found anything?”

  “Shell casings. Maybe we’ll get lucky with them. One of the policemen tells me there’s an old road back behind the house. That’s probably where they parked. We’ll be looking there next.”

  “Do you know who found Marcella Payden?” asked Diane.

  “No. When the call came I recognized the address. I did some computer work for her out here,” he said. “Hooked up a scanner system for her. Nice lady.”

  “I’m probably just being paranoid,” Diane said, “but it bothered me the way Hanks seems sure the attack and the theft were unrelated incidents. They may be, but we don’t know. It was as if he already has a suspect for her attacker. If Jonas found her, Hanks might have him at the head of the list of suspects. Jonas is so far removed from things like crime. I hate to think of him going through an interrogation.”

  Neva held the lifting device close to her chest, staring at Diane in alarm. Everyone at the museum and the crime lab was very fond of Jonas Briggs. He had come to work for the museum after he retired from the faculty at Bartrum. With his white hair, bushy white eyebrows, toothbrush mustache, and crystal blue eyes, he was everyone’s grandfather, or mentor, or maybe wizard.