Dead Past dffi-4

by Beverly Connor

  Izzy wasn’t that old; neither was Archie for that matter-perhaps in their early fifties at most-but Diane imagined Izzy felt old right now. The death of a child puts the weight of the world on you.

  Diane put Jin in the front, and she rode in the backseat.

  “How are you and your wife doing, Izzy?” asked Diane.

  “Not good. Her sister’s come to stay with us for a while. I need to find out who did all this. I’m supposed to protect people, and I can’t even protect my own son from the people I should be arresting.”

  Diane could relate to that. She couldn’t protect her daughter from the man she’d been trying to bring to trial for the atrocities he committed. To say it makes you feel like a failure doesn’t even begin to describe the impact it has on you.

  “Bobby Coleman’s mom tried to kill herself,” continued Izzy. “They’re saying it was an accidental overdose, but we all know different. You don’t plan on outliving your kids. It’s just too awful.”

  It is, agreed Diane silently. Just too awful.

  Izzy dropped Diane and Jin off at the museum and she drove Jin to the emergency room. She stayed in the waiting room until he came out.

  “Nothing to it,” said Jin. “The doctor put three stitches in my head and told me to call if I have pain, nausea, or dizziness-usual stuff.”

  “Didn’t he say to go home and rest?” said Diane.

  “Well, yeah, but they always say that. They’re just covering themselves. I’m fine.”

  Diane drove him home and watched as he went into his apartment building. She headed back to the museum, but just as she was about to turn the corner, she saw his car backing out of his parking space. He was going back to the warehouse. She shook her head, reached for her phone, and dialed David.

  “How’s Jin?” said David.

  “He’s fine. Got three stitches. I just called to tell you that I think he’s headed back to you guys. Watch him,” said Diane.

  “We will. Neva will get on his case. That usually works.”

  “Finding anything interesting?” asked Diane.

  “The basement of the apartment house had a kitchen, so we’ve got lots of metal. We’re looking for anything we can trace back to a person, but mostly it’s just stuff that’s part of the house. We’ve found some bone. One looks like a piece of one of the long bones. But it’s slim. Has kind of an oval cross section.”

  “Sounds like it might be a radius.”

  “We’ll bring all the bones to you. We’re thinking we’ll leave the other evidence here with a guard. Garnett’s bringing in an arson investigator whom he trusts to have a look.”

  “Keep me informed.” Diane hung up the phone and drove the rest of the way to the museum. She parked by the outside elevator dedicated to the crime lab.

  The night guard was already in the small first-floor reception room that contained the elevator. She spoke to him and rode up to the crime lab, keyed in her code, and, carrying the box of bones, walked through to her lab.

  Her cell phone vibrated in her pocket just as she set the box down on the table. The display said LAURA HILLARD.

  “Hi, Laura,” said Diane.

  “I just called with some information. Juliet’s grandmother’s name is Ruby Torkel. She’s still alive and lives in Glendale-Marsh, Florida. She’s lived there all her life.”

  “Just a minute, let me get a pen.”

  Diane fished a pen from her purse, uncapped it, and looked around for a piece of paper. She found a pad in a drawer and wrote down the information.

  “I don’t suppose you have a number.”

  “Sure do.” Laura gave Diane the phone number. “Juliet says she’s rather cranky.”

  “I deal with cranky every day. How is Juliet?”

  “She’s good, considering the crime spree we’ve been having. I’m getting a lot of calls from people just needing to debrief and, unfortunately, from people needing help with their grief. Poor Juliet’s trying not to freak out over the murder in her apartment complex.”

  “Her apartment complex? Where does she live?” asked Diane.

  “Applewood Apartments. You know, where the Cipriano girl was murdered.”

  “Juliet lives at Applewood? The poor girl. As if she doesn’t have enough problems.”

  “Yes. She says it has everyone in the apartments calling locksmiths. All the people with a 131-something address similar to the victim’s are a little upset, including Juliet. She lives in 131 H. It was several buildings away from the murder apartment, 131 C, but it’s still spooky to have an address so similar to the murder victim’s.”

  “What a coincidence,” said Diane.

  “Yes, that’s what I told Juliet. When they ran out of the alphabet on those buildings, they started designating them AA, BB, and so on. Imagine how spooked the people are in 131 CC. Anyway, I know you’re busy, I just wanted to give you the info on her grandmother.”

  “Thanks. I’ll get on it tomorrow,” Diane said. She flipped her phone shut and just stood in place for a moment. That’s odd, she thought. She slipped on a pair of gloves. It was an odd coincidence, too, that Joana Cipriano had blond hair and blue eyes-not as light as Juliet’s, but still, it was an odd coincidence. Diane felt a sense of unease as she started laying the bones out on the table.

  Chapter 36

  Among the bones from the warehouse, a lot were missing and most were broken, either from the explosion and fire or from McNair’s handling. None of the carpels or tarsal bones were present, nor were the terminal phalanges of the hands and feet. In fact, all the smaller bones of the skeleton were missing.

  There were more than one of several bones-two left femora, two first, ninth, and eleventh thoracic vertebrae, two right ulnae, four innominates, and three scapulae. Diane didn’t try to separate out the skeletons, but laid duplicate bones beside each other. It was a strange and sketchy skeleton, an incomplete bony overlapping of two victims.

  Diane went into the vault, retrieved the bones collected from the apartment house basement, and laid them out on another table-not mixing bones that had a clear provenance with those that did not. She also brought out the partially reconstructed skull, fully expecting to find some of the missing parts among the new batch of bones.

  She selected out all the skull fragments from the warehouse bones and began piecing them together. It was another long, painstaking process, but one she hoped would come close to putting the whole picture together. She had the back of the second cranium assembled when she looked at the clock on the wall and saw that it was in the wee hours of the morning. Time to quit. She left everything in place and locked the door behind her.

  Because of the late hour and her exhaustion, she decided to stay the remainder of the night in her museum office. She’d slept on her couch before and had blankets and pillows for that purpose. She had a full bathroom, and a change of clothes in the closet.

  The staff lounge was on the way to her office and she stopped to raid the vending machines of candy bars and peanuts to make up for missing dinner.

  “What are you doing here so late, Dr. Fallon?” said the third-floor night security guard.

  “Working. I think I’ll just stay the night here in my office,” she said.

  “I don’t blame you; it’s too late to go home now,” he said.

  Diane made her way back to her office, locked all the doors from the inside with the locks that only she had a key to, and settled in.

  It was hard to get Izzy out of her mind. They’d never gotten along, but she felt great sympathy for him and his wife. Losing a child is something you never get over. This whole episode was just too tragic.

  As she threw away her candy and peanut wrappers, she became aware of a chain of thought that had been trying to surface from somewhere deep in her mind. All along, she and Garnett had assumed the most likely motive for the murders was to shut Stanton and McNair up, to protect the kingpin behind the meth lab. Everyone assumed Blake Stanton was involved with the meth lab because when he t
ried to hijack her car he was obviously fleeing from the scene of the explosion. Then when the museum thefts came to light, the likely motive for Stanton’s murder changed and appeared to have something to do with his thievery.

  But there was another, more compelling motive they needed to consider seriously-revenge for the killing of all those students.

  The explosion touched a lot of people in ways that they would never get over. She could understand the righteous anger that would lead someone to want to wipe out the people behind it.

  Jin was right, it probably was the killer’s cigarette butts. He-or she, but probably he-had suspected McNair and tailed him. The killer spied on McNair in the warehouse, saw how he was destroying evidence, and became convinced of his guilt.

  Why did the killer suspect McNair in the first place? Because he spent more than he could afford on an arson investigator’s salary? If everyone thought his wife had money, why would his spending raise a red flag? There was something else, or perhaps a lot of little things, that pointed to him. Someone knew more than the police investigation about what was going on with McNair and, rather than revealing that information, they killed him.

  Diane made up the couch, slipped on a sweat suit, and snuggled under the covers. She drifted off into a restless sleep and awoke in the morning with a feeling of anxiety. In the shower, she realized it was the Joana Cipriano murder that was bothering her-and the coincidence of the house numbers. And even though Juliet and Joana didn’t look alike up close, their descriptive similarities-same age, blond hair, and blue eyes-were disturbing. From a distance they would be very similar. However, there were many blond-haired, blue-eyed young women in the city. Half of them, thought Diane, worked in the museum. She tried to shake the feeling, but it wouldn’t go. Mainly because she didn’t believe in coincidences.

  She got out of the shower, dried off, and dressed. The clothes hanging in her closet were a brown linen pantsuit and cream-colored silk blouse. The clothes weren’t as warm as she would have liked, but the suit had been in the closet since fall, and she hadn’t thought to change it for warmer clothes. She finished dressing, folded up her bed clothes, and unlocked her doors. She was at her desk working when Andie came in, followed by Garnett. Good.

  Garnett pulled up a chair and sat down. Several seconds ticked by before he said anything. Diane noted that he looked more rested than she felt.

  “The GBI’s going to be investigating Councilman Adler and the meth lab business,” said Garnett. “He’s in a frenzy, hollering about scurrilous politically motivated accusations. But at least he has something to keep him busy for a while.”

  “Have you identified the face from the first basement victim?” asked Diane.

  Garnett nodded. “One of our former drug unit detectives recognized him as Albert Collier. He was collared many times for drug possession, dealing, using. He was also a former student at Bartram. We’re talking to his associates, trying to discover who the second person in the basement might have been. I’m hoping we can tie the whole thing to Adler and get rid of the son of a bitch once and for all.”

  “How is the commissioner taking all this?” asked Diane. She thought of him in his long black fur-trimmed overcoat, standing out in the snow, trying to make decisions that would appease everyone.

  “I told him that if he visits the museum, he should wear sackcloth and ashes and crawl up the steps. Right now he’s worried about the fallout affecting his chances of reelection.

  It certainly affected my vote, thought Diane. “About the murders,” she said-lest the human cost of all this get lost in the politics. “I think the motive may be revenge for the student deaths.”

  “Murders? You including Blake Stanton?” asked Garnett. “We’re thinking now that he wasn’t involved in the meth lab. Just an innocent bystander like the rest of the students. The university has had some rare books taken from the library, and several departments have reported money missing from petty cash amounting to quite a bit. What they all had in common was Stanton. That’s what he was involved in. Why do you still think the same person that killed McNair killed him?”

  “We all assumed that because he tried to hijack my car while fleeing from the fire, he was involved with the meth lab. His killer may have made the same assumption. At the time of Stanton’s murder, we weren’t aware of his role in the museum thefts. Perhaps neither was the killer. By the time we discovered what were perhaps his true crimes, the deed was done, he was already dead.”

  “How have you come to the conclusion that it was revenge-motivated?”

  “By seeing how profoundly everyone who was touched by this tragedy has been affected. One mother tried to commit suicide, all are devastated. It’s easy to see how someone could hold a great desire-perhaps an overwhelming desire-to make the guilty pay. Among many there is a great need for justice. And among a few there may be a righteous outrage growing from the perception that justice may not be served and the guilty could go unpunished for a horrendous crime.”

  Garnett sighed and bent his head, staring at the slate floor between his feet. “You’re talking about a vigilante. I can’t say I haven’t had the same suspicions. I don’t like it. I would hate having to arrest someone for doing something that in the right circumstances I might do myself,” said Garnett.

  “I know,” said Diane. “I have similar feelings. That’s why I’ve decided to simply collect evidence and turn it over to you. But there’s one thing to remember. If I’m right and someone’s desire to bring vengeance on the guilty was the motive, they were wrong with Blake Stanton. He was probably innocent of those deaths. He was simply a thief.”

  “Yeah, I’d thought of that, too,” said Garnett.

  “I’m reconstructing the skull of the second basement victim with the bones we got from the warehouse. I’ll let you know when I have a face.”

  Garnett nodded. “I’ve been so caught up in sticking it to Adler, that I’ve”-he stood up and shrugged-“I need to get back to work. I’ll keep you informed.”

  Diane started to ask him not to, but she didn’t. After he left, she went to the crime lab to check on things there. Only David was in.

  “How did things go last night? Did any of you get any sleep?” asked Diane. From the bags under his eyes, she thought not.

  “No,” he answered. “Neva followed Jin home this morning. She said she was going to make him get some rest.”

  “How was he last night?”

  “Good. He seems OK. He’s pissed that someone stole his cigarette butts. He’s convinced they would have broken the case,” said David.

  “I think the perp was convinced also.”

  David nodded and yawned.

  “Why don’t you go home and get some sleep?” said Diane.

  “You didn’t get any sleep. I saw the reconstruction you were doing in your lab last night.”

  “Actually, I did get a few hours. I stayed the night in my museum office. Nice and comfy. Why don’t I take you down to the restaurant for breakfast and send you home?”

  “That sounds great. Yeah, I can get behind that idea. By the way, I put some more bones in your lab. We concentrated on retrieving bones last night because we thought that would yield the best results,” said David. “Early this morning Garnett told us that the GBI will be handling the evidence from here on out. So, our plan worked out well. I’m glad to hand it over to them. I wasn’t looking forward to going through all the junk.”

  “I’m glad they are involved, too,” she agreed. “I’ll work on the skull today. I have a feeling that Jin is going to get his DNA lab.”

  “There’s something he wants to know but is afraid to ask,” said David.

  “What’s that?” asked Diane.

  “Does he still get the lab if the police are the ones to break the case?”

  “They’ll probably break it on our evidence, so yes,” said Diane.

  “You’ve already decided on a lab haven’t you?” said David.

  “If you tell Jin, I’ll t
ransfer you to taking care of the dermestid beetle colony for the rest of your life.”

  “He won’t hear anything from me,” said David.

  Diane treated herself and David to a big breakfast in the restaurant. She wished her personal choices weren’t always centered between either food or sleep lately. And she hadn’t even had a run in the past week and a half. Maybe this evening.

  After breakfast she sent David home, and she went back to the museum office to call Juliet’s grandmother.

  Chapter 37

  Diane dialed the number that Laura had given her. After seven rings, an older woman answered.

  “Who is this? I don’t know anyone at a museum.”

  Mrs. Torkel obviously had caller ID. Diane started to speak, but Ruby Torkel started again before she could get a word out.

  “Unless it’s Juliet. Is that you, Juliet? What are you doing calling me from work? Does your boss know you’re calling me from there?”

  Diane smiled. “Mrs. Torkel, I’m Diane Fallon, the director of the RiverTrail Museum of Natural History.”

  “Well, what are you doing calling me?”

  Good question, thought Diane. How am I going to approach this?

  “I’m also the director of the crime lab in Rosewood… ”

  “Crime lab? Juliet’s not in trouble is she? She’s not a bad girl,” Mrs. Torkel said, concern evident in her voice.

  “No, Mrs. Torkel, Juliet is not in trouble,” said Diane. “I’m helping to find out what happened to her in 1987.”

  There was silence on the other end of the phone for a long moment.

  “She got snatched, that’s what happened.”

  “She was a child and it was a great trauma for her. She is very frightened by what little she remembers.”

  “It’s best not to remember,” said Mrs. Torkel.

  “Her fears are very real. She wants to know what happened so she can get rid of those fears once and for all. What she does remember is blurred and fragmented.”