Scattered Graves dffi-6

by Beverly Connor

  ‘‘Wonder why he didn’t go outside of U.S. jurisdic tion if he went that far,’’ said Diane.

  Frank started laughing. ‘‘He thought he had.’’

  ‘‘You’re kidding?’’ Diane grinned as much at Frank’s mirth as at the humor of the failed escape. She could just see his eyes crinkle and sparkle as he laughed.

  ‘‘I kid you not. It made my day. Another good an swer for all those kids who ask, ‘Why do I have to learn this? I’ll never use it.’ So, tell me about your day.’’

  Diane told him about the progress on the exhibits, but not about the bones found in the farmer’s field. Sliced-up bones weren’t a conversation topic she wanted to have before she went to sleep. They talked for almost an hour. A good end to the day.

  The morning brought sunshine and sparkling frost on the ground. It was a great day to be outside and a great day to take the scenic route to work. It was a little longer, but it was her favorite route, especially in the morning when there was little traffic. The nar row road went through a short patch of woods that were beautiful even in winter when most of the trees were bare of leaves. The trees had shades of bark that ranged from dark brown to tan to almost white, interspersed with the greenery of spruce, cedar, and magnolia trees. And you never knew when a doe and her fawn might be grazing along the roadway or dash ing for the woods.

  As she drove, Diane listened to classical music on the radio. On the hour, the news came on, and she started to change stations but stopped when she heard that the first item of local news was about the bones. She frowned as the anchor described it as the woodchipper murder and told of the crushed bones of an unknown victim found by Rose County farmer Arlen Wilson and his grandson. Sheriff Canfield explained to a persistent reporter that the bones were only recently found and he didn’t yet know whom they belonged to but that a forensic anthropologist had the bones and it was hoped she would be able to shed light on the identity of the victim. Diane noticed that he was careful not to say victims. Rumors of more than one woodchipper murder would become a nightmare. The re porter asked if the forensic anthropologist was Diane Fallon of the RiverTrail Museum of Natural History. Canfield said yes. Diane frowned again. The last thing she wanted was the reporter calling her.

  The interviewer asked the sheriff about possible DNA, and he went into a lengthy explanation of DNA and why they might not be able to find any in the bones. Diane had to smile, listening to the lecture she had given him just yesterday. He must be having fun.

  She was about halfway to the museum and in the deepest part of the wooded area when she saw blue flashes of light behind her and the intermittent siren that meant to pull over. She found a wide place on the side of the road, pulled her SUV onto the shoul der, and waited with her hands on the steering wheel. She looked in her rearview mirror at the approaching officer. She knew him. Not good. It was Harve Dela more, and he was grinning like he’d just caught his biggest fish ever.

  Last year Douglas Garnett, the chief of detectives for the city of Rosewood and Diane’s former boss when she was head of the crime scene unit, had put a repri mand in Delamore’s file for overly aggressive behavior with a suspect. Diane had given a sworn statement as a witness to the incident. Diane was not Delamore’s favorite person.

  He looked different than last time she’d seen him— a little leaner, and he’d shaved his head the way a lot of men do these days when they are going bald. Dela more was in a patrolman’s uniform. It was a summer uniform even though the temperature had been near freezing overnight. The term hot-blooded fit him, she thought as he approached. The uniform meant he had been demoted from his rank of detective for some reason. Probably some additional offense. Harve didn’t strike her as a man who learned very quickly.

  Damn, he’s probably going to be in a mood, she thought. Probably write me up for everything he can think of. Well, damn.

  Diane rolled down her window as he approached. She decided not to say anything until he spoke, asking for her driver’s license, probably her insurance papers, probably the deed to the museum. She really didn’t have time for this. She knew her brake lights were in working order; she hadn’t been speeding; there had been no stop signs or red lights to run. He just wanted to jerk her around.

  She turned her head toward Officer Delamore as he bent down to the open window. Before she realized what was happening, he’d reached through the win dow and grabbed her arm with one hand and opened the door with the other. He held her tight through the window as the door swung open. Diane reached be hind her, feeling for her cell phone in the center con sole. She got her fingers on it, but he jerked her hard toward the open door and she dropped it.

  ‘‘Well, if it’s not the bitch who messed up my life.’’ His voice was a snarl and his face was twisted in some kind of weird satisfied rage.

  She was pissed herself. ‘‘What the hell are you doing?’’ Diane screamed at him. ‘‘Have you gone nuts?’’ That reprimand was a year ago. What had set him off now? she wondered.

  ‘‘Shut up, bitch.’’

  Harve reached inside the open door and dragged her out of the vehicle. Her cell phone clattered to the pavement. He looked down at it, smirked, and ground his foot onto the top of it.

  ‘‘Uh-oh, no signal,’’ he said.

  Diane loved this road because she was usually the only one on it. Now she prayed for someone to drive by. But no one did. She was alone.

  ‘‘Harve, think about what you’re doing. This will ruin you,’’ said Diane.

  ‘‘I told you to shut up, you damn stupid bitch. You’re going to get what’s coming to you.’’

  He had her by her left arm, which meant she had one arm and two legs free. She put them to good use. She kicked his shin hard, kneed him in the groin, and rammed the palm of her right hand into his nose with all the strength she could summon. He didn’t see it coming. He was stunned and let go, and she jerked away. She had been lucky. She’d caught him off guard. It wouldn’t happen again. She had to get away from him.

  He was blocking access back into her SUV, so she had to run. She sprinted for the woods, thinking maybe it was a mistake even as she did it. On the one hand, someone might drive by and see her if she ran down the road. On the other hand, he would just run her down with his car.

  Harve Delamore was a big guy, but he was all show muscle and not much real working muscle. That would be helpful if she were male. But show muscle or not, testosterone in the male gives muscles a spectacular ad vantage. Harve was stronger by far than she was. But she had stamina, and she could run. Which she did—as fast as she could. Diane could run long distances, and she had another advantage. She knew these woods.

  There was one big problem in all that optimism. Harve had a gun. She thought he would be reluctant to shoot her, though; he wanted to hit her. She saw it in his eyes when he held her. He wanted to pound his meaty fist into her face. So maybe he wouldn’t use his gun.

  She was in the air, jumping over a fallen tree, when the gunshot roared in her ears. In the same instant, pieces of bark flew off a tree to her right. He was trying to scare her. Or else he was a really bad shot. Right now, either one would do, as long as she could keep running.

  It was hard to shoot a moving target in these woods— lots of trees to get in the way. But she had a serious problem. Males run fast for short distances, and she didn’t have enough of a head start. Diane ran faster. She heard the sound of him gaining on her: heavy foot falls, limbs breaking, grunts and curses. She pushed her self to the limit.

  He was close behind her. His breathing was heavy. He was getting out of breath. Good. She tried a sharp turn to throw him off balance, slow him down. It didn’t work. He knocked her to the ground, then pulled her up by her arm, breathing hard. He had his gun in his hand. He laid the barrel against her temple.

  ‘‘I’ve got you now, bitch, and there’s no help. This is a dead end for you.’’

  Diane kicked and hit at him as he dragged her through the woods. He turned abruptly and hi
t the side of her head with the barrel of his gun. Diane literally saw stars. Disoriented, she felt herself dragged deeper into the woods, away from the highway. She tried to keep her bearings. She heard rock crunching under foot and felt her pants snagging. She tried to right herself, but he jerked on her arm and she fell again. He was enjoying dragging her over the rough terrain.

  She tried to calm her fear, clear her head, think of a plan. She didn’t fight. If he knocked her out, she was done for. If he jerked her arm out of the socket, she was done for. She thought she knew where she was, and that could be either good or bad. Harve came to an abrupt stop. Chances were, he knew where he was too, and apparently he thought it was good for his purposes.

  They were at Chulagee Gorge. It was a gouged-out drop of more than five hundred feet formed by a river that had dried up eons ago. Mike, Diane’s geology curator and caving partner, used the cliff face to teach rock climbing to members of the caving club. He said that a half billion years ago, the quartzite rock here was a sandy beach on the coast of Laurentia in the Iapetus Ocean, which sounded to Diane like a place of fantasy or science fiction. She’d liked it.

  Mike insisted that if you climb a rock face or ex plore a cave you should know what it’s made of and where it came from. Sometimes the caving club mem bers’ eyes glazed over as they listened to the petrogen esis of the rocks they were waiting to climb. But one thing Diane remembered from his lectures was that quartzite is very hard.

  She had climbed parts of the cliff face many times— but always with safety ropes because of the great height. It wasn’t a particularly difficult climb. There were plenty of handholds and footholds in the quartzite and schist formations. But it was nearly impossible if you had never climbed before.

  Harve Delamore didn’t strike Diane as a rock climber. Rock climbing, like caving and scuba diving, is a way of life. You have to do it a lot if you do it at all. It’s dangerous to let yourself get out of shape or out of practice. Diane was also betting that, like many bullies, Harve was a coward. She was betting her life on it.

  There was the gun to contend with. He had been holding it in his free hand while he dragged her. She watched for an opportunity and tried to think of a way to take it. Getting in a wrestling match with him for it was a last recourse, but it might come to that. She would lose most likely, but with no other options, she would still try if it came to that.

  Her arm and shoulder ached from being gripped and dragged, and her head hurt. She pushed the pain to the back of her mind. She’d had a lot of practice doing that—pushing pain back until it was just an an noyance. Not even to mention the times she had been beat up, stabbed, and shot, she’d done some difficult caves and wrenched her muscles more than once. But you have to keep going. You can’t stop.

  Diane had practice putting fear in the back of her mind too. Every caver has moments of panic while caught in too tight a squeeze, or becoming lost— discovering new passages, they call it—or trapped on unstable ground. You learned to control the panic, make the surge of adrenaline work for you.

  But the fear a maniac generates in you is something different. Diane found humans far more terrifying than anything nature had in store. It was a struggle to keep the dread in this moment from overwhelming her.

  Delamore pulled her to the very edge of the preci pice. Her fear redoubled as she realized his intent. He was going to throw her into the gorge—perhaps after beating her or shooting her, or God knew what he had in mind.

  She struggled. He slapped her across the cheek. She stood with her back to the drop-off, her heels at the edge. She could hear the wind whistling up from the depths below. This wasn’t the plan she had in mind.

  With a devilishly evil look in his eyes, he gave her a sudden push backward. She was off balance; she couldn’t stop herself. She was going to fall. This was it.

  He grabbed her wrist and pulled her back to him. It was so quick, it made her reel. She grabbed at him with both hands. He laughed.

  ‘‘Oops, almost fell. Be careful,’’ he said. His voice dripped with mock concern.

  He pushed again. And again pulled her back.

  ‘‘Uh-oh, you’re going to fall.’’

  Again his shove pitched Diane out over the chasm with only her feet on the edge and his hand around her wrist, her other hand grabbing on to his arm. He pulled her back.

  ‘‘It’s a long drop down. Sure you’re up to it?’’ He laughed.

  It was clear he intended to torture her with fear. But one of these times he was going to let go or mis calculate, and she would be gone.

  Diane had an idea, but she had to put it in motion before he tired of his game. If he pushed hard enough and she couldn’t grab on to him or on to something, she would die. No chance of catching hold of some thing on the way down. What would make him con tinue the game?

  Ross Kingsley, her FBI profiler friend, said positive reinforcement—a reward—will continue a behavior. But the catch is, what does the perp consider positive reinforcement? She knew immediately what Delamore wanted, and she loathed the thought of giving it to him. Harve Delamore wanted to hear fear, to hear her begging. That would be his reinforcer.

  ‘‘Look, please stop this,’’ she said. ‘‘Please.’’

  It rather shocked Diane that she was having a hard time pleading, even for her life. What on earth did that say about her priorities? She inched to her left and pleaded again.

  ‘‘Not such a big deal now, are you?’’ he said.

  He pushed her again and pulled her back. This time Diane dropped to her knees.

  ‘‘Better watch out,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s a long, long way down.’’ He laughed.

  ‘‘Please stop this. Please, you’re scaring me,’’ she said.

  Diane had seen a possible weapon on the ground, and now it was under her hand while she was on her knees begging for her life. A hard piece of quartzite. Jagged edges. He pulled her to her feet.

  ‘‘Please, please, please,’’ he mocked her. ‘‘Come on, beg me, you damn bitch. I want to hear you beg some more.’’

  Diane struck his gun hand as hard as she could with the jagged rock. She struck and struck again and slashed in quick succession—three times before the gun slipped out of his hand, bounced off his foot, and dis appeared over the edge and into the gorge.

  Chapter 5

  The gun was gone, but Harve Delamore still held her arm tight in his grip. He was stunned and in pain, and he was furious. Diane was quick. Before he could hit her with his free hand, she slammed the rock down on the wrist of the hand that held her arm. He yelled and let go of her, but pushed her backward in anger. She had expected that, though; she fell to her knees immediately to keep herself upright as she slid over the edge of the cliff.

  She dropped in a free fall through the air, preparing herself for what she knew was below. Eight feet or more down the side of the cliff, she landed solidly on a sloped ledge where the rock protruded from the sheer face of the cliff. The momentum caused by Harve’s push sent her scrambling to find purchase. She shifted her weight forward and fell to her hands, not hard, but enough to let her grab the rock and stop her descent as she slid toward the edge.

  ‘‘I guess you’re in trouble now, bitch. That’ll teach you to mess with me,’’ Harve yelled down at her. ‘‘What’s going to happen to you now, huh? There’s nobody gonna come to your rescue.’’

  Diane ignored him. She pulled herself back on the ledge and took the time to scuff the soles of her shoes on the rock to dislodge any detritus and loose pebbles that had accumulated from her trek through the woods. Thank God she didn’t have on heels or leather-bottom shoes. She rubbed her hands on the surface of the rock and then on her clothes, trying to remove the sweat. More episodes like this and she would need to start carrying a chalk bag in her pocket, she thought wryly. She took off her jacket to give herself more range of motion. It dropped into the ravine.

  She started climbing down, looking first for places to plant both feet before she moved. Sh
e’d climbed this very spot many times before. She knew where the footholds and handholds were, and that helped her to go more quickly.

  But Mike told them never to get cocky with rock. ‘‘It can change from weathering, microschisms. You still have to test your holds. Don’t expect them to be stable because they were the last time you climbed.’’

  She wasn’t being cocky with the rock, but it was critical that she hurry. Delamore would do something. She found her footing and descended inch by inch as fast as her level of confidence let her. Rock climbing was slow work—at least for her—and she could hurry only so much. Her first goal was to get space between the top of the cliff and herself in case Harve decided to climb down after her. But surely he won’t, she thought. With her luck, though, he would probably turn out to be a closet climber.

  ‘‘Where do you think you’re going?’’ yelled Harve. The slope of the rock changed at the bottom of the ledge. She braced her feet against the rock face, lo cated her handholds, and gently swung down under the ledge, catching the vertical surface with the balls of her feet, bracing herself, then moving each hand. Rock climbing has a rhythm to it. To Diane it was not so different from music. Each change in slope of rock, each fissure, horn, corner, handhold, foothold, and overhang had its own cycle of movement. A twist in the hips could make the difference in a successful grip. When all the pieces were taken together, it was almost a dance.