Diane took one of her cards and wrote her psychiatrist friend Laura Hillard’s name and number.
“Dr. Hillard is a friend. Tell her I sent you. If you don’t want to talk to her, she can send you to someone here who would be good.”
“Shrinks can’t take things out of your head,” Samantha said.
“No, but they can teach you how to cope,” said Diane.
“I cope,” Samantha said in an uncertain voice, her eyes downcast.
“Are you having nightmares?” said Kingsley.
She nodded. “They’ve started back again. I had bad nightmares after El died,” she said.
“Take Diane’s advice. See someone, just to talk to, at least,” he said.
“Maybe,” she said, sticking the card in her purse.
“Have your parents been like this for nine years?” asked Kingsley.
“It comes and goes. It gets bad around Christmas and El’s birthday. It’s worse when Mother is drinking. Sometimes she takes a cure for a while, but sooner or later she goes back to it. She likes vodka in tea. Can you imagine? If she put it in orange juice, she’d at least get some vitamin C.”
“By ‘takes a cure,’ what do you mean?” asked Kingsley.
“She goes to visit my grandmother for a while. They don’t have any alcohol around and she stays in the house. Sometimes she goes to a clinic in Atlanta. She comes back and starts falling back into bad habits. I told them we should move, but they won’t. They don’t want to go to a house where El has never been. They think it’ll make her disappear, and I’m like, hello, she’s gone. She’s already disappeared.”
“You seem to have supportive neighbors,” said Diane.
Samantha shrugged. “Kathy Nicholson is pretty nice. I go over to her house some. She gets kind of lonely. We talk about things. But it’s not like she can do anything about my parents. Wendy Walters means well, but I think Mother wore her down. She used to try to discourage her from drinking, but now she just helps her. You saw when I brought the tea.”
“Why did Stacy want to speak with your parents?” asked Kingsley. “If she knew you, you could give her a lot of the answers she wanted.”
“Not really. I was nine when El died. I didn’t know a whole lot that was going on in El’s life. Stacy thought they could tell her about the day El disappeared. I didn’t really know much about that. Except, I think my parents think it was my fault.”
“How is that?” asked Diane.
“We’d been fighting that day and El said she didn’t want to ride all the way to Grandma’s house with me and she was just going to stay here. She wasn’t home when we got back,” she said.
“That wasn’t your fault,” said Diane.
Samantha shrugged again and took a sip of drink. “Maybe not, but still, if we hadn’t fought . . .”
“You think she might have wanted to stay home for reasons of her own?” said Diane. “And the argument with you was just her excuse?”
Samantha raised her eyebrows and opened her mouth slightly. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Did she have a boyfriend?” asked Diane.
“She always had boyfriends. You saw her portrait. That’s pretty much what she looked like. But it would have been in her diary,” said Samantha.
“She kept a diary?” asked Kingsley.
Samantha nodded. “I loaned it to Stacy to copy.”
Chapter 26
“Your sister kept a diary?” said Kingsley.
“Yes, like forever. I mentioned it to Stacy one time and she begged me to let her see it. I told her it wouldn’t help. See, El caught Mother reading her diary when she first started writing one and she was really pissed. That’s when she started writing in this code she made up. El was really smart. Mother wanted to read her diaries after she died, to be close, I guess. But she couldn’t make heads or tails of them. Dad packed them in a box when he packed up El’s room. Mom wanted to keep it the way it was, but it was a little too creepy for Dad. They saved her things in the basement. I took her last diary so Stacy could copy it.”
“Did she copy it?” asked Kingsley. He leaned forward in his chair slightly. Diane knew what he was thinking. Diaries can be loaded with just the best clues.
“Yes,” said Samantha.
So, the copies were probably in the file that was missing, thought Diane. “What happened to the diary?” she asked.
Samantha Carruthers hesitated and was quiet a moment. Then, quick as a mouse, she slipped her hand into her backpack, pulled out a book, and handed it to Kingsley.
“Stacy returned it to you?” asked Kingsley.
“No, not exactly. When I found her . . . like that, it was in her bookcase. The spine was facing out, but I saw it right away. So, well, I took it. After all, it was mine. Or, at least, my family’s. I’ve been carrying it around, hoping maybe I could figure out how to decipher it,” she said. “Jimmi said Stacy’s dad told her Stacy’s folder disappeared . . . the one full of stuff about her investigation. I figured something in the diary might be important.”
The front of the journal had been découpaged with magazine cutouts from the television series Charmed.
Kingsley opened it up and he and Diane looked at the writing. It was a mixture of letters, numbers, and symbols.
“See,” said Samantha. “You can’t read it.”
“Will you let us copy it?” said Diane.
“Sure. There’s a place in the mall where we can go,” Samantha said.
They took the last bites of their oversized cookies, washed them down with their drinks, and threw the trash away. Samantha led them to a Mailboxes Plus store where Diane copied the entire diary. When she finished, she handed it back to Samantha.
Sam stood for a moment, looking awkward. “You aren’t going to call my parents, are you?” she asked.
“As you said, you are an adult now,” said Diane.
“Yeah, but . . .” She hesitated, looking at her watch. “I guess I’d better get to the library.”
“Thank you, Samantha,” said Diane. “Seriously, you should talk to your parents. They need to know what’s going on in your life.”
“I’ll think about it, but you don’t know them like I do,” she said.
“You may not know them as well as you think,” said Diane.
Diane and Kingsley left the mall with Samantha. They watched her drive off before they got into Kingsley’s Prius.
“She needs help,” he said.
“Yes, she does. And her parents need to wake up and realize they have another daughter to care for. She’s old enough to be out on her own. If she decides to make the break, it will be harder on all of them.”
Kingsley glanced at the package of copies Diane held in her hand. “So, how do we go about deciphering that?” he said as he left the parking area and headed back to Rosewood.
“I’ll ask Frank to do it,” said Diane.
She removed the first several pages of the diary from the store bag. The writing looked like gibberish to her—a lot of stars, squares, wavy lines, letters that didn’t make sense, and numbers scattered throughout.
“He can do stuff like this?” said Kingsley.
“He and Jin too. They love codes, but—and if you repeat this, I’ll have to kill you—Frank is better at it,” said Diane.
Kingsley laughed. “He can really decipher that?”
“Sure. I’ll have to see if he has time. If not, I’ll ask Jin to do it,” she said.
“I think the thing I appreciate most about working with you—aside from your brilliant mind, of course—is that all the people around you have such unusual talents that are terribly useful and interesting.”
“That’s true. I have a great appreciation of them myself,” said Diane.
They rode in silence for a while, Diane still trying to make sense of the writing. She gave up and slipped the pages back into the bag. Her talents simply didn’t run to encryption.
“You know I have to reinterview all of Stacy’s band mem
bers,” Kingsley said after a while. “I was completely fooled by Samantha and Jimmi. I thought they were telling me the truth.”
“They probably saw themselves as telling you the truth. You heard her. Samantha makes her own reality. It’s apparently the way she copes,” said Diane. “It’s apparently the way her parents are coping.”
“Perhaps, but I’m a pretty bad detective when I can’t tell if kids are telling me lies,” said Kingsley.
“They aren’t kids. They’re nascent adults. They’re always a challenge. But, yes, I agree you will have to talk with them again.”
The rest of the way to Rosewood, they discussed what they had learned, which, other than the spectacular revelation that Samantha Carruthers discovered Stacy Dance’s body, and that Ellie Rose Carruthers kept a diary, wasn’t a lot.
They both believed that Kathy Nicholson, the neighbor across the street, did not, in fact, see the face of Ryan Dance. But at this point, she believed she did, and probably could not be shaken from that belief.
“Do you think the father, Dr. Carruthers, could have killed Stacy?” asked Kingsley.
“I don’t know. He has a temper.”
“Yes, but it was mostly verbal,” said Kingsley.
“Mostly verbal? What about his charging up to the car and banging on the roof?” said Diane. “That seemed pretty physical.”
“But when I was facing him, he could have been much more threatening and in my face, but he wasn’t. I think he is basically a timid man. That’s why he works out his bravery in the games. He never has to face anyone.”
“What does he do for a living?” asked Diane.
“He’s a podiatrist,” said Kingsley. “Works mainly in sports medicine.”
“Still,” said Diane, “if he thought Stacy might be able to free her brother, what would he do? I think just the possibility of it might enrage both Samantha’s mother and father.”
“I don’t know if the mere possibility would make him go over the edge,” said Kingsley. “But I think the police should look at his alibi—assuming they reopen the case. I hope Dr. Webber comes through.”
“I wonder how it’s going. Lynn should have the body by now. . . . In fact”—Diane looked at her watch—“she should have had the body for several hours.”
“If she finds that it’s a homicide, my boss and I—he likes to be in on these things—will take the evidence you collected to the detective in charge and ask him to reopen the case.”
“Then it will be out of your hands?” asked Diane.
“I think so. Stacy’s father asked only that we determine if her death was murder. We’ll have done that—provided Webber finds what we hope she finds.”
They pulled up in the driveway and Diane got out. She bent down to talk to Kingsley before she closed the door.
“It’s been another interesting day,” she said. “I suppose we won’t find out what Lynn discovered until tomorrow. If I hear from her tonight, I’ll give you a call.”
“Same here,” he said. “Otherwise, I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Diane shut the door and went inside. Frank was already home and had just gotten out of the shower. His salt-and-pepper hair was still wet. Diane gave him a kiss and headed for the shower herself. When she got out and went to the kitchen to find him, he had fried bacon and sliced tomatoes and lettuce to make BLT sandwiches. And he had heated some tomato soup. Comfort food. It smelled good.
“This is nice,” said Diane.
She sat down and they ate sandwiches and drank soup out of large bowls with handles and talked about music. Frank told her Stomp was coming to the Fox Theater and that he would like to take her, Kevin, and Star. Kevin was his son by his first marriage and Star was his adopted daughter. Kevin was in high school; Star was a student at Bartrum. Diane thought they both would enjoy Stomp. She would too.
“How are you on free time?” asked Diane.
“What is it you want me to do?” He grinned at her.
Diane got up and retrieved the copied pages of the diary. “This is the journal written by the girl who was murdered nine years ago. Any chance you could decode it?” she asked. She handed him the pages.
Frank studied them for several minutes, now and again taking a sip of his soup and a bite of his second sandwich.
“Sure,” he said.
“If you don’t have time, I can give it to Jin,” she said.
“Is that a challenge?” he asked.
Diane grinned. “No. I just don’t want to impose.”
“It won’t be that hard. Didn’t you say she was fifteen?”
“Yes. But I have no idea what could be the key.” Diane had learned from a previous case where decoding was involved that you need a key to decipher it.
“I doubt there is one,” he said. “This is something she would have a facility for. She would want to write it as fast as if she were writing normally. I believe it’s a combination of rebuses and simple substitution.”
“Oh,” Diane said. “I couldn’t make anything of it.” She paused. “Okay, this is embarrassing. What’s a rebus? I know what substitution codes are.”
“Words and parts of words are represented as pictures.” Frank waved a hand. “For example, the phrase ‘I cannot’ might be represented by pictures of an eye, a tin can, and a rope tied into a knot,” he said.
“I knew you could do it,” she said.
“When I can’t break the code of a fifteen-year-old, I’ll pack it in.” He grinned at her.
After dinner Diane called Kendel, the assistant director of the museum, and they discussed Kendel’s upcoming trip to Australia. Afterward, she and Frank spent the remainder of the evening watching TV, a luxury for both of them. It was a nice end to a day filled with reliving other people’s tragedies. She wondered what the Carruthers’ evenings would be like from now on.
Diane awoke early, but Frank was already up. She heard his footfalls on the hardwood floor. He came in the door to their bedroom carrying a tray with orange juice and cereal, and with the morning paper under his arm.
“Breakfast in bed?” she said, looking quizzically at him as he put the bed tray over her lap. “Is one of us dying? Is it an anniversary I forgot about? Were we fighting last night and I didn’t realize it? I know you are very low-key sometimes.” She grinned at him.
“No. I just wanted you to start your day off well,” he said, and gave her a crooked smile, his eyes twinkling.
“Why? I mean, why today especially?” she said.
He laid the newspaper on the tray beside her silverware. “Because I think today may be one of those days where the shit hits the fan.”
Chapter 27
Diane eyed him and picked up the paper. There on the top banner, the place on the page giving the reader a teaser for what is to come inside, was a school picture of Stacy Dance and a short paragraph with the caption: HOW WE TREAT CRIME VICTIMS WHO AREN’T AFFLUENT—WHY DO THEY FALL THROUGH THE CRACKS OF JUSTICE?
Diane looked up at Frank, who pulled up a chair, turned it around, and rested his arms on the back as he drank his own glass of orange juice.
“What is this?” she said. “Who?”
“You might want to get some food in you before you read any further,” he said, smiling.
Diane took a drink of orange juice and opened the paper. The article started off about Stacy Dance, a college student who was trying to better herself. The article finessed the circumstances of her death, but said the death was ruled accidental by the medical examiner, Oran Doppelmeyer. It went on to say the ME had overlooked obvious signs that Stacy Dance was murdered, and suggested it was her socioeconomic level that drove the findings and not empirical evidence. The article had several quotes from Stacy’s father, Harmon Dance, and told of his desire to find justice for his daughter.
Diane stole glances at Frank as she read. He merely grinned and sipped his orange juice. She recognized the style as that of Lynn Webber, even though the byline was of a journalist from the Atlanta newspaper.
“Lynn wrote this,” Diane muttered. “She must have called Mr. Dance. What was she thinking?”
“Keep reading,” Frank said.
The style of the article changed. Apparently the journalist had added her own observations. She mentioned the death of Ellie Rose Carruthers and said the deaths were similar—that Ellie Rose was strangled and her clothes were in disarray, like Stacy Dance. But the investigations were treated quite differently, again alluding to the higher socioeconomic level of Ellie Rose Carruthers. The article revealed that Stacy Dance had been trying to clear her brother of the conviction of Ellie Rose’s murder, and the file in which Stacy kept all her evidence was missing. And the final provocative question: Could it be the real killer of Ellie Rose Carruthers also killed Stacy Dance in order to shut her up?
Diane looked up at Frank.
“I hardly know what to say,” she said. “I told Ross she wouldn’t go off half-cocked.”
“At least she didn’t use your name or mention the museum,” said Frank.
“There is that. And she only mentions that Dance hired a private investigation firm, but not the name of it. Ross will be relieved. I think. But what the heck was she thinking?” Diane threw down the paper.
“Didn’t you say she is inclined toward vindictiveness?” said Frank.
“Yes, but this is just going to alienate the detective in charge of Stacy’s case, not to mention cause a political uproar. It might even hurt Lynn,” said Diane.
“I’m surprised she made a comparison with the two murders. My impression is they were not alike at all,” said Frank.
“They aren’t, and she didn’t. I think Lynn presented an article to the journalist and asked her to publish it under her byline. The journalist—what is her name?” Diane looked at the paper. “Meryl Babbitt. She—as is her right, since it’s under her name—added details of her own. She probably saw they were both strangled, and ran with it from there.”
Diane poured the milk over her cereal and took a bite. “At least no one will be calling me at the museum—except maybe Ross Kingsley. His wife will have to scrape him off the ceiling first. Jeez, I can’t believe Lynn did this.”
Dust to Dust Page 16
