Dust to Dust

by Beverly Connor

  “You see why I’ve found it’s a good idea to have someone from the crime scene listen to the interrogations,” he said. “They often hear things that are important.”

  Diane knew he had made that up on the spur of the moment to mollify Hanks. It was effective. Hanks nodded. After all, she had noticed something that probably was important. They had also made some progress in separating events that belonged to the attack from events that occurred later in the morning with the intruders.

  She also realized Hanks was off his game. He should have asked if the hutch still had its contents when he asked Jonas what was in it. He must have been very uncomfortable, not thinking at his best. He didn’t strike her as a man who liked to load up on painkillers.

  “David Goldstein found pieces of broken pottery on the road behind the house,” said Diane. “That’s where the thieves had their vehicle parked and made their getaway this morning.”

  “When Marcella Payden was attacked,” said Hanks, “the perp or perps took some paintings. Then the guys we ran into early this morning took the pottery from the hutch, I’m guessing. So, are we looking at art thieves?”

  “Maybe,” said Garnett. “But I don’t know. I wouldn’t expect them to be geniuses, but these guys seem pretty incompetent as art thieves. The stolen pottery isn’t even authentic Indian artifacts, if I understand correctly. Is Dr. Payden’s pottery valuable?”

  Both Hanks and Diane shrugged.

  “She made pottery more for research, I believe,” said Diane. “She tried to re-create methods used by prehistoric American Indians. And she experimented to replicate past phenomena.”

  Garnett and Hanks both raised their eyebrows at this and traded glances.

  “For example, one experiment she did was to make vessels with different-colored glazes, put them on a shelf as they may have been arranged in an aboriginal shelter. She’d tip over the shelf and analyze the breakage pattern of the pottery fragments on the floor.”

  “And this tells her what exactly?” asked Hanks.

  “When excavating a site, you find a lot of broken pottery. Mapping the location of the pieces and then reconstructing them back into a whole vessel tells you something about how it got broken in the first place. In the example I gave, would the patterns of breakage that have been found at many archaeological sites result if the early people had pottery on shelves or racks in their houses? I know it seems like a lot of work for useless information, but archaeology is a lot like crime scene reconstruction—you keep adding pieces to the puzzle and after a while you have the whole scene. They are trying to reconstruct the past in as much detail as they can discover.”

  Diane didn’t think she told it as clearly as Jonas did when he spoke with students or tour groups, but Hanks’ and Garnett’s expressions weren’t entirely glazed over with confusion. Then again, neither had she enthused them to become archaeologists.

  “So she didn’t take a lot of care making the pottery pieces if she was going to break them,” said Hanks. “They probably weren’t valuable.”

  “I think she did take a lot of care,” said Diane. “She wanted to get as close as possible to matching the kind of vessels the Indians used. I doubt her pots were valuable enough to steal. But it may be the thieves thought they were real. Perhaps someone working on her house saw them, knew there was some money to be had in trading in antiquities, and came back with some of his buddies to steal them. Just a thought,” she said. “Do we know who the body in her backyard was?”

  Hanks nodded. Apparently he felt more comfortable sharing, at least in the company of Chief Garnett.

  “His name was Ray-Ray Dildy. He was a high school dropout, a day worker, and petty thief. Not much on the ball, so I’m thinking he wasn’t the mastermind, just the muscle. I’m looking into his associations now.”

  “Could he have worked on Marcella’s house?” asked Diane. “I noticed her front porches are new, as is the floor in the living room.”

  “Could have. I’d like to get her daughter to go through her mother’s receipts,” said Hanks. “They might tell us something.”

  Diane had been hesitant to ask. Afraid of the answer. But, she had to know. “How is Marcella?” she asked.

  “The doctors have her in an induced coma,” said Hanks. “Something about her brain swelling.”

  That was what Diane was afraid of. She didn’t know Marcella well, but to a person of intellect like Marcella the possibility of brain damage could be of greater fear than the possibility of death. Diane needed to find out who did this to her.

  No one said anything for a moment. Finally Hanks broke the silence.

  “You believe Jonas Briggs is innocent of involvement in the attack, don’t you?” Hanks asked Diane.

  “Yes,” said Diane.

  “Why?” asked Hanks.

  “The same reason I believe Chief Garnett wasn’t involved. I know them both,” said Diane.

  “That’s hardly a reassuring answer,” said Hanks. “No offense, sir.”

  “It is if you trust my judgment,” said Diane. “But you don’t know me.”

  “Is your judgment that good?” he asked.

  “I think it is most of the time,” she said.

  Hanks actually started to smile.

  “Other than the fact that he discovered her and called for help,” Diane continued, “there is no reason whatsoever to suspect Jonas. You might as well suspect me.”

  “There is the matter of the arguments that were overheard,” said Hanks.

  “That’s nothing,” said Diane. “That is the world they live in. Many academics revel in debate. Marcella is one of them. You might as well use breathing as evidence.”

  “The witnesses said they were pretty heated,” said Hanks.

  “They may have been perceived that way from an uninformed observer’s perspective, but I’d have to have wit nessed it myself to put any value on it,” said Diane.

  “Are you that rigid with all eyewitness testimony?” asked Hanks.

  “I don’t really deal in eyewitness testimony,” said Diane. “I collect empirical data. But when confronted with eyewitness accounts, I don’t automatically believe them without corroboration. In this case it would take a lot of corroboration because I’ve known Jonas long enough to be able to judge his character.”

  “Interesting perspective,” said Hanks.

  Diane wasn’t sure what he meant. No one seemed to have anything else to say at the moment, so she stood and the two of them stood with her.

  “We’ll have a full forensics report for you as soon as we can,” said Diane.

  Hanks thanked her and Diane left the police station. Hanks followed her out to her car.

  “I had been told that you are prone to take over a case,” he said. “I didn’t want that happening with this one.”

  Diane supposed he was trying to explain his hostility, but he still sounded defensive.

  “I don’t know where that rumor came from exactly,” said Diane. “Those times when I have been more involved in a case than my position as a director of the crime lab would dictate that I should, I have been either asked by detectives—here”—she gestured toward the station—“or the perpetrators themselves have pulled me into it by coming after me. I have never just showed up and told a detective that I was taking over his case and would he please hand me his file.”

  “I got the impression you were more subtle than that,” he said, almost smiling again.

  “There are reasons Garnett occasionally invites me to observe interrogations, and they have nothing to do with any personal interest I might have in the case itself. And he only allows me to observe, nothing else. Today, for instance, I would have advised my friend not to answer your questions without a lawyer present. Not because he was guilty, but because we all know why detectives want to interview people without an attorney present. But Garnett wouldn’t have allowed me to interfere—just observe.”

  “That’s very cryptic. Why does he extend that courtesy? He doe
sn’t to anyone else. Do you get to observe the questioning of all your friends?” asked Hanks.

  Diane smiled. “Well, my friends don’t often find themselves in this situation. But the answer is no, not all my friends. Just certain types of friends. After you have been here longer, you’ll figure out why.”

  Diane got in her car and left him with a puzzled look on his face. Sooner or later he’d figure out it was not so much about her as it was about the museum and its relation to the crime lab. Garnett and the mayor didn’t want her to tell them to leave and take their crime lab elsewhere.

  Diane drove home—home to Frank’s house. She’d left him early this morning when David called and she hadn’t talked with him since. And it was Sunday, the day they usually spent together. She should have told Hanks she was very content to leave his case to him. Did they all think she just went around making work for herself?

  Diane parked the SUV in the driveway behind a car she did not recognize. It had Atlanta plates. As she passed by she felt the hood. Warm. It hadn’t been here long.

  Frank was a detective in the Metro-Atlanta Fraud & Computer Forensics Unit. It must be for him. She hoped they didn’t want him to go in to work. She walked up to the door of the familiar, old Queen Anne-style house and went in.

  Chapter 9

  Diane was greeted with the aroma of hot coffee when she opened the door. She walked through the small entry into the living room, where she heard talking. She was going to pass by, let Frank know she was home, go take a shower, and let him get on with his business. Then she recognized the voice.

  It was Ross Kingsley, an FBI profiler friend of hers. He and Frank were drinking coffee and laughing over something.

  They rose when she entered holding her dress over her arm and clutching her evening bag and heels in her hand.

  “Diane,” said Frank, his blue-green eyes sparkling as he spoke, “look who dropped by.”

  Something was up. Diane could tell by the way his eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled at her.

  She hadn’t seen Ross in several months. When she first met him, she didn’t think he looked like an FBI agent. She still didn’t. He looked like a college professor, with his neatly trimmed beard and tweed sport coat. She noted some small changes since she last saw him: His brown hair was a little longer, and he looked tanned. He must have been on vacation.

  “Ross, this is a surprise. How are you?” said Diane.

  “Quite well, thank you. I hope this is not inconvenient. I should have called—you might have been in a cave somewhere—but I had to be in Rosewood anyway, so . . . anyway, here I am.”

  Frank looked at the distressed dress over her arm, arched an eyebrow, and looked back up at her.

  “Long story,” she said.

  “Did you have to go to the hospital?” Frank asked.

  Diane knew he was only half joking.

  “No,” she said, smiling sweetly at him. “I was lucky. It was a short drop.”

  She noticed Kingsley had a briefcase. It was sitting on the floor near his feet. This was business. The last time he came to her about business hadn’t turned out well. Actually, it eventually turned out well, but the journey was hell. He followed her gaze.

  “I have something I would like to talk to you about,” he said.

  “Okay. Would you mind if I hop in the shower and change into some fresh clothes first? I’ve had an eventful morning that began long before dawn. It won’t take me long,” she said.

  “Sure,” said Kingsley. “Frank is being a very entertaining host.”

  Diane went into the bedroom, stripped off her clothes, and got into the shower. The warm water felt good on her sore muscles and she would have liked to stay longer. But she hurriedly washed her hair, soaped up her body, and rinsed off. Frank came in as she was dressing.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “Fine. I’ll tell you about it in a minute.” She smiled and kissed him. “Really, I’m fine this time. I only rolled down an embankment.”

  He laughed and left the room. Diane finished dressing in slacks and a sweater and combed back her short wet hair.

  Frank had her a cup of fresh, steaming coffee sitting on the table next to her favorite chair when she came back into the living room. It felt good to get comfortable in the cozy room with its stuffed chairs, polished wood, and sunny, cream-colored walls. There was no fire in the fireplace, but its presence in the room dialed up the cozy factor. Ross Kingsley certainly looked comfortable.

  “So,” said Kingsley, “what happened this morning? I’ve had interesting mornings myself, but I don’t think they ever quite reach the same level of interest that yours do.” He grinned and took a sip of his coffee.

  Diane told them about the early morning’s events, leaving out details of the case. Kingsley listened with a combination of openmouthed disbelief and amusement. Diane tried to make it more of a comedy of errors than the real danger it was. Frank had his usual, I-can’t-let-you-out-of-the-house-can-I expression on his face.

  “As I said, my mornings aren’t nearly as interesting,” said Kingsley. He paused for a moment as if looking for another excuse not to get down to his business.

  “How’s the FBI?” asked Diane.

  “I’m not with the FBI anymore,” he said.

  Diane hadn’t expected that. Ross had seemed so comfortable there. “I wasn’t aware,” she began.

  “I had an identity crisis. I discovered I wasn’t wearing clothes; I was a fraud,” he said.

  Diane glanced over at Frank. He looked as puzzled as she felt.

  “You’re going to have to explain,” she said.

  “I came to the realization as I was working on my book on profiling that it was all smoke and mirrors. I was a con, no different from those psychic-astrologer folk you visit at carnivals for a psychic reading,” he said.

  “I’m not sure I understand,” said Diane.

  “I’d been regarding profiling as if it were a science,” he said.

  “You have repeatedly told me it isn’t an exact science, that it’s a tool,” said Diane.

  “I know I said that, but down deep I believed it was something more than that. I thought it rested, at least, on good psychological models that were verified by empirical studies, hard data, statistics, and probabilities.”

  “What changed your mind? How did you come to your epiphany?” asked Frank.

  Frank, Diane knew, was a critic of profiling, so he probably approved of this turn of events.

  “Looking at some of the research done in the UK on profiling and case histories. Looking back at my own work and seeing in reality how fuzzy some of my profiles and those of my colleagues were.”

  “Like . . . he’s someone you wouldn’t suspect of being violent,” said Frank.

  Diane smiled and Kingsley nodded. “You know, before now, I never really realized how that statement fit most people.” He shook his head. “So many descriptions are like that—‘He’s someone who tends to be a hermit, but sometimes enjoys being with friends.’ You know, when I read my profiles in hindsight, I am astounded at how hazy and contradictory many of them were. They would be concrete enough to point to particular individuals, and yet vague and general enough to fit a lot of very different people. I mean, the profiles sounded good, but what did they really say? I don’t know how detectives got anything worthwhile out of them. And the lack of consistency. You have two profilers evaluate the same case and their profiles point in completely different directions. You remember the BTK killer?”

  Diane and Frank nodded.

  “A little,” said Diane. “The serial killer in Kansas?”

  “I didn’t work on his profile, but I studied it. He was profiled out to be basically lower class, an outsider, probably unmarried, and uncomfortable with women. When he was caught, he turned out to have been married for thirty years, a father of two children, president of the congregation council of his church, a Cub Scout leader, and a right-upstanding member of his community.” King
sley shook his head again. “They got some things right, but only because so many of the descriptions were so general, they would have fit about anyone.”

  “How did they catch him?” asked Diane.

  “Old-fashioned detective work and a little trickery on the part of detectives,” said Frank. “The killer was sending the police taunting messages. They got him to send a message by floppy disk, telling him there was no way to trace it. There is, of course, and they traced it back to him.” He grinned.

  Diane could see that it pleased him that computer technology had played a part in the apprehension.

  “There was a lot more to his capture, but that’s the Cliffs Notes version,” said Frank.

  “It was a research report that first tested my faith,” said Kingsley. “A British study analyzed a couple hundred criminal cases in which profiles were used by the police. Profiles led detectives to the guilty party in fewer than three percent of the cases,” said Kingsley. He straightened up in his chair and leaned forward for emphasis. “That statistic is what got me started on my own reevaluation of profiles.”

  “Is that what made you give up on profiling?” asked Diane. She was a little puzzled by Ross and wondered whether he was having more of a burnout than a career crisis. But then again, she had been a skeptic of profiling too. On the other hand, she did believe there were observable patterns of behavior that could be traced back to the psychology of the person, and those behaviors were predictable.

  “I think the final straw was a case that several of us profilers were assigned to.” Kingsley gestured with his hands, then put his fingertips together. “We were called in on a series of rapes. There were nine of them. In each case the victim was tied with her hands behind her and had a hood put over her head or a large blindfold over her eyes. The rapist used a condom and bathed the victim in the shower or bathtub afterward, so there was little forensic evidence.” Kingsley settled back in the chair again and relaxed. He took another sip of his coffee.