Scattered Graves dffi-6

by Beverly Connor

  clothes and donned shoe and hair covers.

  Whereas Mayor Sutton’s house had been all fabric,

  tapestries, and deep colors, Mayor Jefferies’ house was

  white marble and dark wood. Paintings of war and conquest were in abundance, all in classical Greek and Roman style, mounted in simple metal frames. There was the bust of Alexander the Great. And in the cen ter of the dining room table was a sculpture of Bu

  cephalus, Alexander’s horse.

  He was like a kid, thought Diane, pretending to be

  a great conqueror.

  ‘‘Hey, boss. I thought I heard someone come in.’’

  Jin met her in the hallway.

  She knew they would have processed the foyer first

  and would have made a safe walkway through the

  house—a trail that had been scrutinized for all the

  evidence they could discover.

  ‘‘How are things going here?’’ she asked. ‘‘Real good. David found something interesting.

  He’ll tell you about it. Actually we could have found

  it in the lab, but we just now got to taking a closer

  look at the pictures.’’

  ‘‘That sounds intriguing,’’ said Diane. ‘‘Anything

  else?’’

  ‘‘Gee, boss, you expect a lot.’’ Jin grinned. ‘‘I’ve

  mapped the blood pattern and taken lots of samples.

  I was just getting ready to go back to the lab. I

  checked the rest of the house for blood. I found some

  in the guest bathroom sink on this floor. There’s a

  guest room back in the corner off the living room.

  Anyway, I think the shooter got a little spray on him

  and he washed up. The last team in here didn’t think

  to check all the bathrooms for blood.’’ Jin sounded

  cocky on the last comment.

  ‘‘That’s why we’re here,’’ said Diane. ‘‘I knew you

  would be thorough. Think maybe the shooter was

  hoping the guest bathroom would be skipped?’’ Jin nodded. ‘‘That’s what I think. There’s a divider

  in front of the door, so it’s kind of hidden—in a way.’’ ‘‘You have any luck with Sutton?’’ said Jin. ‘‘Yes. Quite a bit. I’ll tell all of you about it later,’’

  she said.

  ‘‘Sure thing, boss. We’ve done the downstairs, so

  you can walk freely. The front stairs are done and they have half the second floor done. The others are up there now. They’re teaching Rikki about search patterns. Izzy’s in the study going through the books.

  He wanted to help, so David set him to work there.’’ ‘‘What is Izzy doing here?’’ asked Diane. ‘‘He just showed up. I thought you told him to

  come,’’ said Jin.

  ‘‘No. I suppose the chief of police sent him,’’ said

  Diane. ‘‘How is Rikki doing?’’ she asked as she

  walked back to the front door with Jin.

  He took off his coveralls and removed the covering

  on his shoes and head and put them in a disposable

  bag from his crime scene kit.

  ‘‘Complaining. But she’s doing what David and

  Neva tell her.’’ He lowered his voice. ‘‘Has anyone

  really looked at her educational background? I can’t

  believe she had a minor in biology but has no concept

  of scientific method—and I can’t believe she’s ever

  had a course in criminology.’’

  ‘‘You know, I haven’t checked. We need to do

  that.’’ Diane shook her head. ‘‘My brain’s not work

  ing,’’ she said.

  ‘‘Probably from being hit on the head,’’ said Jin. ‘‘Thanks.’’

  ‘‘Sure, boss. See you back at the lab.’’

  He started for his car, then suddenly turned around. ‘‘I’m glad to have you back in charge of the crime

  lab,’’ he said. ‘‘We all are, especially David. This guy’’—

  Jin gestured at the Jefferies’ house—‘‘he knocked the

  world off its axis for a lot of people. You’re going to

  make it right again.’’ Jin turned and went to his car. Righting the world. Diane wished she could. She

  feared that her people expected more from her than

  she could deliver. She closed the front door and

  turned her attention back to the crime scene. Jefferies’ study and library was just to the left of

  the foyer. It had been labeled as a parlor on her floor

  plan. The door was half closed. She opened it and

  went in. Izzy, dressed in the coverings they wore to

  protect the crime scene from contamination, sat at a library table looking through books. He looked quite

  different in a shower cap.

  Unlike the rest of the house, the study was mainly

  wood. The bookcases, paneling, desk, and library table

  were all rich brown colors of various kinds of woods

  buffed to a high sheen. The glass doors to the banker’s

  bookshelves were raised and slid back into the case.

  The shelves were empty. Most of the books were

  stacked on the floor, table, and desk. She remembered

  it being like this when she was here before with Colin

  Prehoda—when they had discovered Edgar Peeks’

  body with Garnett standing over it.

  ‘‘Hi,’’ Izzy said. ‘‘David put me to work down here

  among the books.’’

  ‘‘I’m surprised to see you,’’ said Diane.

  ‘‘Janice is working with another partner on this now.

  This has priority in the department, so I’m helping.’’ Diane noticed that his answer was a tad carefully

  worded for Izzy. He never really said who sent him.

  Curious.

  ‘‘We’re looking for some kind of list that Bryce and

  Rikki thought Jefferies had,’’ he said.

  Diane nodded. ‘‘It’s what Pendleton said they were

  looking for. I have no idea what kind of list or what

  it looks like.’’

  ‘‘Anybody asked Rikki?’’ he said.

  ‘‘Not yet,’’ said Diane. ‘‘We will later.’’

  ‘‘She went through the books, too,’’ said Izzy. He

  pointed to scraps of paper littering the floor. ‘‘There’s

  bookmarks, envelopes, pieces of paper. I think what

  Rikki did was shake everything to see what fell out.’’ ‘‘It seems that way, doesn’t it?’’ said Diane, looking

  at the papers. She picked up a torn envelope and ex

  amined it. There was only half of Jefferies’ address on

  it. The return address had been on the other half.

  Apparently he tore it for a quick bookmark. ‘‘I’ve been flipping through the books,’’ said Izzy.

  ‘‘I was thinking that if there is some list, he may have

  written it inside a book on one of them blank pages.’’ ‘‘That’s a good idea,’’ agreed Diane. And a lot of work, she thought. But she didn’t know any other way

  to go through them except one by one.

  ‘‘Lot of books here,’’ said Izzy. ‘‘You think he read

  all these?’’

  Diane picked one up: Aristotle’s Poetics. She looked

  at the spine and at the edges of the pages. ‘‘No one’s

  read this one.’’ She looked at the title page. From

  Rebecca with love. Diane wondered if that was a girl

  friend. She examined a couple more: a biography of—

  who else?—Alexander the Great, and Sun Tzu’s The

  Art of War, both signed by A. Houten To my favorite

  student. Both had bent spines and pages that had been

 
turned. ‘‘Somebody read these.’’

  ‘‘Lot of different kinds of books here,’’ said Izzy.

  ‘‘I don’t read much. Mainly the sports pages of the

  newspaper. Evie reads sometimes. Daniel was the

  reader in our house. Sometimes I pick up a book he’s

  read and I read a page or two just to have something

  in my mind that was in his.’’ He sighed and looked

  around at the books. ‘‘A lot of people’s thoughts in

  here.’’

  ‘‘Yes, there are.’’ She noticed that Jefferies had

  leather-bound copies of the Hundred Greatest Books,

  history books, a lot of books on war, biographies—a

  fairly wide variety.

  ‘‘I thumbed through something by Shakespeare,’’

  said Izzy. ‘‘Hamlet, I think. Saw several phrases I’d

  heard before.’’

  ‘‘Shakespeare is one of the most quoted of writers,’’

  said Diane. She pulled a chair out and sat down. ‘‘ ‘To be or not to be’—you hear that one a lot.

  What does it mean exactly?’’ said Izzy, opening a vol

  ume of Hamlet and pointing to a soliloquy. ‘‘Hamlet’s life isn’t going well, and he’s contemplat

  ing suicide,’’ said Diane.

  ‘‘I kind of thought that,’’ he said.

  She took the book and looked at the passage. ‘‘He’s wondering if it is better to struggle on and

  ‘suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’ or

  to end them and sleep. Sleep means death,’’ she said. ‘‘But he worries that if he kills himself, what happens after that might be worse—‘for in the sleep of death

  what dreams may come.’ ’’

  Izzy was silent for a moment. ‘‘I can relate to that,’’

  he said.

  ‘‘That’s one of the reasons Shakespeare is so often

  quoted. He hit upon truths people can relate to today

  just as they did in his time,’’ said Diane.

  Izzy Wallace was the last person she thought she

  would ever be discussing Shakespeare with. ‘‘You and me’s suffered the slings and arrows of

  outrageous fortune, haven’t we?’’ he said.

  ‘‘There’s no greater suffering to be had than losing

  a child,’’ said Diane.

  ‘‘No. There’s not,’’ he said. ‘‘That is for sure.’’ It was an unexpected confidence from Izzy, and

  Diane didn’t know where to go with it.

  ‘‘Did you ever think about it?’’ he said.

  Diane knew what he meant. She wasn’t sure how

  to answer.

  ‘‘I never wanted to die. I just wanted to stop hurt

  ing,’’ she said.

  Izzy nodded his head. ‘‘I hear you there.’’ Diane looked up to see David in the doorway. He

  had several photographs in his hand.

  ‘‘Hey, Diane. Did Izzy tell you what we found in

  the photographs?’’ he asked.

  ‘‘No. We were discussing Shakespeare,’’ she said. David looked from one to the other. ‘‘Oh,’’ he said,

  as if that didn’t quite compute.

  Diane smiled. ‘‘What did you find?’’

  ‘‘Something that’s rather curious,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s a

  small thing. I’m not sure what to make of it.’’

  Chapter 32

  David came into the room and pulled out one of the chairs at the library table. Izzy moved a stack of books and put them on the floor. Diane noticed that Izzy had one of the notebooks they keep in the crime scene kits and was writing down all the names of the books. She wasn’t sure that was necessary, but she wasn’t going to tell him to stop at this point. He looked to be almost finished.

  David sat down by Diane and put three photo graphs on the table in front of her. They showed dif ferent angles of Jefferies’ body lying in the kitchen.

  David tapped Jefferies’ arm in one of the photo graphs with his finger.

  ‘‘We hadn’t noticed it before and it wasn’t men tioned in his autopsy report, but his watch was on upside down. If he looked at it, the six would be at the top. He may have absentmindedly done it himself and just hadn’t noticed, but I have a gut feeling it may have been put on his wrist after he was shot. For what reason I can’t fathom. Jin is going to check it for blood spatters. If there aren’t any, then there’s a good possi bility it wasn’t on his wrist when he was shot.’’

  ‘‘The ME didn’t notice it when he undressed him?’’ asked Diane.

  ‘‘If he did, he didn’t see fit to mention it,’’ said David.

  ‘‘Watches keep coming up,’’ said Diane almost to herself.

  ‘‘We haven’t found receipts for any of the watches, but Izzy’s tracked down the serial number on the one we have,’’ said David.

  Izzy smiled and took a small notebook from his shirt pocket with a flourish of his arm. ‘‘It was purchased at Erinette Jewelers in Atlanta right before the elec tions,’’ said Izzy. ‘‘He bought this watch.’’ Izzy pointed to the photograph. ‘‘And he also bought three wom en’s Carter... Cartier diamond watches—all Tank. I can’t pronounce it. F-R-A-N-C-A-I-S-E,’’ he spelled out. ‘‘And ten men’s watches—three Chase-Durer Fighter Command watches, and seven TAG Heuer sports watches. I have the price here and all the serial numbers in case we run across a nest of expensive watches. And I mean expensive. Most of the cars I’ve owned didn’t cost as much as one of these babies. I don’t get it. They tell time. My fifty-dollar watch keeps perfect time. Of course it ain’t got diamonds, but some of these don’t either,’’ he added. ‘‘What was he doing with them, you think?’’

  ‘‘Gifts,’’ said Diane. ‘‘When you finish here, we’ll debrief in my museum office,’’ said Diane.

  ‘‘You found out something, didn’t you?’’ said David.

  ‘‘Yes, I think so. I don’t want to talk about it here,’’ she said. ‘‘Have you noticed anything... unusual with Rikki?’’

  ‘‘After we searched the master bedroom, she showed a lot of interest in coming down and helping Izzy sort through all these books,’’ he said. ‘‘Mainly, she’s inter ested in how I’m going to decrypt the mayor’s com puter. By the way, Frank’s working on it today. He said he has to be in Rosewood anyway. I told him to use your museum office. I hope that’s okay,’’ he said.

  ‘‘That’s fine. You think the two of you can get into the computer?’’ asked Diane.

  ‘‘Depends.’’ He shrugged. ‘‘We’ll see.’’

  ‘‘We’ve checked all the artwork, lamps, cereal boxes, everything we could think of for hidden com partments,’’ said David. ‘‘Nothing.’’ He grinned. ‘‘Neva found a Bic lighter in the back of a drawer. You should have seen Rikki’s eyes light up. She thought it was a flash drive. I think she’s definitely waiting for us to find whatever it is they are looking for.’’

  ‘‘Let’s hope we don’t disappoint her.’’ Diane stood up. ‘‘I need to get back to the museum.’’

  ‘‘Jin’s found some good blood transfer,’’ said David, rising from his chair. ‘‘Did you see him when you came in?’’

  ‘‘Yes. He told me about the guest bathroom,’’ said Diane.

  ‘‘Did he tell you about the stain under the chest in the foyer?’’ said David, pointing to the doorway.

  ‘‘No, I guess he was saving it. What did he find?’’ she asked.

  ‘‘We moved the chest to look under it because it was so close to Peeks’ body. We found blood smears with a faint pattern in the middle of them, almost parallel lines. Don’t know what it means. We’re going to see if we can find an image when we get back to the lab,’’ he said.