Dust to Dust

by Beverly Connor

  “I’m sorry it’s so late. You must be wondering what I’m doing here.”

  Diane started to speak, but Lynn barely paused.

  “I need to apologize. I’m aware of the care you used in selecting your words when you responded to Chief Stark’s concerns about the newspaper article. I very much appreciate your discretion. I like my job here and I know what would happen if they knew it was I who initiated the article. I wish I could say I’m sorry I did it. But I’m not. However, I am sorry I misused your trust in me to settle my grievance with Doppelmeyer.”

  Diane didn’t quite know what to say, at least to someone who was currently a guest in her home. But it didn’t matter, because Lynn wasn’t slowing down.

  “One reason I’m not repentant is because Doppelmeyer is a sorry excuse for a medical examiner. I know that sounds like I’m being tacky, but it’s true, and he needs to be outed. If he doesn’t do his job right, justice is not served. Innocent people can go to jail and the guilty are left to kill again. I know I can’t travel across the United States and root out every bad ME. But I can this one.” She took a deep breath.

  “Well, in for a penny, in for a pound.” She took the envelope and handed it to Diane. “I did some research. This is my way of making up to you and Ross Kingsley—and to, well, you’ll see.” She stood up. “I explained everything.” She put her jacket over her arm. “I thought it would be colder out this evening. Can’t count on weather forecasts worth a darn.”

  Frank and Diane saw her out to her car and watched her drive off.

  “What the hell was that?” said Diane on the way back into the house.

  “She certainly can talk when she gets going,” said Frank. “Needs to work on her apologies, however.”

  Inside, Diane sat down on the couch, opened the envelope, and took out several typed pages. It was an analysis of an autopsy. Diane read the pages several times and put them back in the envelope. She felt strangely unsurprised, though she wouldn’t have guessed. She could call Ross in the morning. Right now, she was tired and wanted to go to bed.

  The phone awakened Diane out of a pleasant dream of swimming in an underground lake flanked with giant crystal formations. She looked at the clock. It was just past four in the morning. She reached for the phone but Frank got to it first. She held her breath. Early calls were never good.

  “Hello,” he said, and paused. “It’s for you.” He handed Diane the phone.

  “I know it’s very early,” said the female voice, “and I’m so sorry to call you this early, but I need you to come to my house, please. I’m not sure what else to do.”

  “Who is this?” said Diane.

  “I’m sorry. This is Kathy Nicholson. Could you and Mr. Kingsley come? My son is here. He needs to talk with you. Please come. We’ll tell you about it when you get here.”

  “All right,” said Diane. She replaced the phone, sat up in bed, and swung her feet around.

  “Who was that?” said Frank.

  Diane told him. “You think it’s a trap?” she said.

  “Don’t know,” he said. “I’m not sure what would be gained by trapping you at this point. The horse is out of the barn. Are you going?”

  “I’m going to call Ross,” she said. “If he can go, I will. If not, I don’t know. Kathy Nicholson sounded frantic, and desperate.”

  Diane dialed Ross Kingsley’s number. Lydia answered in a sleepy voice.

  “Lydia, this is Diane Fallon. I’m very sorry to wake you up. I just got a call from someone Ross and I have been interviewing—may I speak with him?”

  “Yes, just a moment.”

  Diane assumed they were replaying the same scene that she and Frank just went through. But she heard Lydia mumble.

  “You know, if you and she would have an affair like normal people, I could get some sleep.”

  “Hey, Diane,” Kingsley said. “What’s going on?”

  Diane apologized again for waking him and Lydia. Then she told him about the phone call from Kathy Nicholson.

  “I can meet you there,” he said.

  There was no, “What do you think this is about?” Just, “Let’s go,” as if she had called him and said, “ ‘ Come, Wat son, the game is afoot. Not a word! Into your clothes and come!’ ”

  Diane got into her clothes. Frank came in with an instant breakfast and told her to drink it.

  “Take your gun,” he said.

  Diane looked at him and sighed. He was right; she needed to take a gun. The gun issued to her by Rosewood hadn’t yet been returned to her, but she had her backup gun. She slipped on the shoulder holster. It felt strange. She didn’t think it would ever feel familiar. She put on a dark zip-up jacket and finished her breakfast, drinking the last of it down.

  There wasn’t much traffic in Rosewood that early in the morning, but by the time she got on the interstate, it had picked up considerably. At the turnoff to Gainesville, dawn had begun to crack enough that she could just see a line of light outlining the horizon. Kingsley had timed it just right. He pulled in behind Diane as she parked on the street in front of Kathy Nicholson’s house.

  It was still dark and the streetlights were on. Diane looked across the street at the homes belonging to Marsha Carruthers and Wendy Walters. All the windows were dark. Only the porch lights were lit.

  “What do you think this is about?” asked Kingsley.

  “Something to do with that house over there,” said Diane, gesturing with her head toward the Carruthers’ house.

  The lights were burning inside the Nicholson residence. They walked up to the door and rang the bell. Kathy must have been waiting at the door, for it opened immediately.

  “Oh, thank you for coming. I just don’t know what to do and, and, well, you seemed so nice.” She paused. “I hope it was the right thing, calling you, but . . .” Her sentence trailed off.

  Diane could see Kathy had been crying. Her nose and eyes were red and puffy. She sniffed and put a tissue to her nose and led them to the living room, where a young man was standing near the couch that sat under the front window. He had been looking out. Even though the drapes were drawn, there was a slight part where he had held them open. He had been crying too. His tanned face was puffy like his mother’s. Diane tried to remember his name—Colton.

  Colton was a tall, lanky young man. Diane did the math. He would be twenty-three. He looked both younger and older. In his face and manner he could still be a teenager. But not in his eyes. They were older. He had dark hair cut short, and light brown eyes. He wore jeans and a navy blue sweatshirt with CALIFORNIA BERKELEY printed across the front.

  “Please, sit down. Can I get you something to drink? Coffee?” said Kathy.

  Both Diane and Kingsley declined. They sat beside each other on the couch by the front window. Diane felt the pressure of her gun under her jacket.

  “My son came in late last night. I didn’t know he was coming until he called me to pick him up at the airport.” Kathy Nicholson sat down in a chair with a sigh. Her son stood beside her and put a hand on her shoulder. “This is just the most, the most terrible thing. I don’t know what to do.”

  “I do,” Colton said. “I need to go over and talk to Marsha and her family. I have to do this, Mom.”

  “Why don’t you tell us first,” suggested Diane.

  Colton nodded. “Okay.” He pulled the other stuffed chair closer to his mother and sat down. “It’s about El Carruthers. That guy in prison? He didn’t kill her.”

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  Tears spilled onto Colton’s cheeks. “I was only fourteen. Do you know how young that is?”

  “He had just turned fourteen,” said Kathy.

  “Mother, please. This is hard enough,” he said. “Tyler Walters was my best friend.”

  He stood up and walked around and rested his forearms on the back of the chair, as if he couldn’t sit down, but needed to be propped up.

  “Mother told me what happened with that girl, Stacy Dance, Ryan Dance’s little sister.
She told me how Marsha Carruthers has been acting—the anger and the drinking. I got afraid for Mother. She didn’t know what really happened, and it’s gotten so mixed up.”

  “Why don’t you start from the beginning,” suggested Diane.

  He nodded. “I’m not sure what the beginning is anymore,” he said.

  His mother sobbed into her handkerchief.

  “Just start from the first thing you remember,” said Kingsley.

  “I was in my room listening to NSYNC, and Tyler came to my window and knocked. I let him climb in. He was really upset. He kept pacing and saying, ‘Oh, man, oh, man. I really did it this time.’ ”

  Colton paused and looked away from Diane and Kingsley, his face screwed up into a grief-stricken mask.

  “He was only a kid like me. He told me he had just killed El—Ellie Rose. I thought he was kidding. I mean, who comes in and says they just killed someone? He said he’d been wanting her for a long time but he couldn’t get her alone. She kept avoiding him. He had told me already that one day he was going to jump her and I told him he couldn’t do that. He didn’t listen to me.”

  Colton Nicholson sat back down in the chair. His mother reached over and touched his hand.

  “I’m sorry, Mother,” he whispered. “Tyler said she started screaming and he put a hand over her mouth. Tyler was really strong. His grandfather made him work out all the time.”

  Diane thought that was a strange way of putting it, but she didn’t want to interrupt him.

  “Everett Walters, Tyler’s grandfather, took him to some hookers as a birthday present when he turned thirteen,” continued Colton. “Tyler said his grandfather told them to make a man out of him. After that, he was kind of crazy, if you know what I mean. At the time, I was really interested in hearing about his experience with the hookers, but it kind of scared me too. His grandfather scared me. He encouraged Tyler to be a bully at school. He got into trouble more than once for it. He kept telling Tyler he had to be a man. That’s hard when you are just thirteen.”

  Colton paused again and put his head in his hands. He straightened up after a moment and continued. “He said he did it to her. He said his grandfather was right—she was better than a hooker. But she bit him and started screaming, and he choked her. He said she was in the woods in back of his house, that he had covered her body with branches. I told him he had to go tell his father. He shook his head and said he was going to tell his grandfather, that he would know what to do.”

  “Did he?” asked Kingsley.

  Colton nodded. “Yes. When it was all done, Tyler was calm about it all. He said his grandfather fixed everything. He told me never to tell anyone. If I did, his grandfather would kill me. He wasn’t threatening me or anything. It was just a fact. He said he didn’t tell his grandfather I knew because he would have killed me. I believed him. I was scared.”

  Colton waited a moment. His eyes were glossy with tears. He had been living with this for nine years, dreading every time he came home. Diane couldn’t blame him, even though he should have come forward much earlier.

  “That man Dance is innocent. Tyler’s grandfather, Everett Walters, framed him. Tyler said Dance was some no-account and it didn’t matter. But Mother tells me that someone killed his sister, that she was trying to free her brother. I know it was Everett Walters who did it.”

  “What about Tyler?” said Diane. “You don’t think he could have killed Stacy Dance?”

  “El was an accident. He wouldn’t kill somebody on purpose.”

  “He raped Ellie Rose on purpose,” said Kingsley.

  “Don’t you think I know that? El was my friend too. I told Tyler he needed to talk to a counselor or something, but—he was all different after he met his grandfather. Tyler’s grandfather wasn’t always in the picture. He and Tyler’s grandmother divorced when Tyler’s father, Gordon Walters, was a kid, and she got custody and raised him in another state without Everett. Everett had businesses here in Georgia and didn’t travel, I guess. Anyway, Tyler said Everett didn’t try to see his son, Gordon, growing up and regretted it. Everett Walters sought his son out when Tyler was a kid—it was several years after Gordon Walters moved back to Georgia.”

  “Why did he wait?” asked Kingsley.

  Colton shrugged. “I think Everett read something about Gordon in the newspaper—when he became head of oncology or something—realized that that was his son.” He shrugged again. “Wendy hated Everett, but Gordon, Dr. Walters, was happy to have his father back in his life. Wendy said Gordon had blinders on when it came to his father. But she did too. She had no idea about the things that Everett was teaching Tyler. She sure didn’t know about the hookers. She’d have had a fit. Tyler said that his mother and father argued about Everett a lot. Everett had no respect for women and that included Wendy. Gordon was so clueless about his father. But, to be fair, he did work all the time.”

  Colton talked to them for an hour. It was sometimes disjointed and Diane had to make the connections in the right sequence. She imagined he was about talked out. He and his mother had apparently talked all night. He stood and looked at his mother.

  “I have to tell Dr. and Mrs. Carruthers what really happened. They deserve to know. Then I’m going to get you to move out to California with me. You don’t need to live here any longer. Not across the street from the Walters. Not after today.”

  Mrs. Nicholson looked at Diane and Kingsley. “What will happen to Colton? What will the police do?”

  “He will have to answer questions,” said Diane. “Get a good lawyer to go with him to the police station. He was a minor and he was scared. He didn’t have anything to do with what happened to Ellie Rose until after the fact. But he still needs to have a lawyer with him.”

  “Oh God,” she wimpered.

  “Mother, this has defined my life for nine years. My childhood ended that day. I can’t have a relationship with anyone until I resolve this. Tyler won’t like it, but he was a minor too. It’s his grandfather they need to put in jail.”

  Light was starting to filter through the crack between the drapes. Daylight was finally here. Diane imagined that it was a long time coming for Colton and his mother.

  He headed for the door.

  “Colton, you need to call first,” said his mother.

  “No. I need to go over and do it. I need to get this done,” he said.

  “I’ll go with you,” she said. “Please let us go with you.”

  Kathy Nicholson had said us. She apparently wanted Diane and Kingsley to go along too. Well, thought Diane, this ought to be fun. She looked at Kingsley, who was getting to his feet.

  “Son,” said Kingsley,“you need to wait and do this another way. You don’t know what Mrs. Carruthers’ reaction will be. She probably won’t believe you at first. She may blame you. She needs people around her when you tell her.”

  “I’ve thought it through. Marsha knows me. When I come home I always go see her. Samuel will be there. He doesn’t go into his office this early. I know them. They need to hear this and I need to tell them, and I’m going to.”

  Ross sighed. “Very well,” he said. “Then all of us will go with you.”

  The four of them walked over to the Carruthers’ house. Colton Nicholson rang the doorbell. It took a couple of minutes before anyone answered it. Diane and Kingsley stood back so that whoever answered the door, or looked out the peephole, would see the Nicholsons first. Diane didn’t think Marsha Carruthers or her husband would let them in otherwise.

  It was Marsha who opened the door. She was in a robe. She didn’t have on any makeup and her hair was up in a ponytail.

  “Kathy? Colton?” she said. “I didn’t know you were home. Is anything wrong?” Then she saw Diane and Kingsley. “You! What are you doing here?”

  “I asked them, Marsha,” said Kathy Nicholson. “Colton needs to tell you and Samuel something.”

  “This early? Can’t it wait?” she said.

  “No, Marsha, it can’t,” said Colto
n. “I should have come a long time ago.”

  “Honey, who is it?” Samuel Carruthers came to the door in a bathrobe. “Colton. It’s been a while.” He looked at Diane and Kingsley and pointed a finger at them. “I told you never to come onto my property again.”

  “Please, Samuel,” said Kathy. “Please, let us come in.”

  Dr. and Mrs. Carruthers looked confused. They stood there making no decision for several moments. Then Marsha stepped back and let them come in. They all went into the living room, where Ellie Rose’s portrait hung over the mantel. The stuffed chair was sitting facing it. An empty drink glass was on the side table where Marsha had left it the evening before. Diane wanted to go home and get into bed.

  Marsha and Samuel sat in the leather chairs. Kathy and Colton sat on the sofa. Diane and Kingsley stood off to the side, near the wall. Diane hoped she blended into the wallpaper.

  “What’s this about?” asked Marsha.

  Colton took a deep breath. For all his insistence on coming over right at this moment, he was losing his nerve. He blurted it out. No preamble or explanation, just, “Tyler Walters killed El. His grandfather framed that Dance guy. Tyler told me it was an accident.”

  Marsha and Samuel sat there as if they hadn’t heard. They stared at Colton, then at Kathy, then at Diane and Kingsley.

  “They told you to say this,” said Marsha. “You sons of bitches.”

  “Marsha, I called them early this morning after Colton and I talked all night. I’d told Colton about the murder of Stacy Dance, and he got on a plane and flew here. These people had nothing to do with it. I called them, well, because they were nice to me and aren’t the police—though I know we’ll need to talk to the police after we talk to you.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Samuel. “Are you saying that Tyler Walters killed my baby girl? That he raped her? He was just a kid then.”

  Colton laid out the whole story just as he had for Diane and Kingsley.

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