DF02 - Dead Guilty

by Beverly Connor

  When the waitress left the table, Kacie said, ‘‘I gotta go to the bathroom and wash my hands and face. I’ve never been in a jail before. What a nasty, stinking place.’’

  After several minutes, Diane wasn’t sure she was coming back. But eventually, Kacie slid back into her seat, looking marginally better. Little strands of moist hair bordered her face. As they waited for their order, Kacie nervously turned the engagement ring on her finger.

  ‘‘That’s a nice ring,’’ said Diane.

  Kacie stopped turning it and looked at the ring—a diamond solitaire set in either platinum or white gold.

  ‘‘Chris gave it to me the morning before he died.’’

  It looked like a rather large diamond to Diane, but she didn’t know jewelry and it had been quite a while since she had an engagement ring. The waitress brought their food and drinks. Kacie nibbled at her hamburger, put it down and picked up a fry.

  ‘‘I’m sorry about Chris,’’ said Diane.

  ‘‘I hate this. The police don’t know what they are doing. Sometimes they acted like Chris was involved in something and caused this himself.’’

  ‘‘They’re just trying to find out what happened to him.’’

  ‘‘It looked like one of those home invasions to me.’’

  ‘‘Did Chris have a lot of valuables? Do you know what they might have been looking for?’’

  Kacie shrugged her shoulders and nibbled on her fry. Diane tried another tack.

  ‘‘He must have paid a lot for that diamond. Does Chris have a lot of money that the thieves may have been after?’’

  Kacie looked at her ring. ‘‘He said he was going to show my parents. They don’t really like Chris.’’

  ‘‘Why not? He was a nice guy with an advanced degree. He had a job.’’

  ‘‘My parents consider forestry blue-collar.’’

  ‘‘Ah, they must know my parents.’’

  Kacie looked up at Diane, her blue eyes puzzled.

  ‘‘My parents consider anyone not a doctor or a law yer to be blue-collar—unless he owns a Fortune 500 company.’’

  ‘‘That’s sort of my parents.’’ She smirked. ‘‘It’s not going to look good in the hometown paper that I was arrested for his murder.’’

  Diane guessed that Kacie really was looking for ward to it coming out in the hometown paper.

  ‘‘You don’t have any clue who might have done this? Could Steven Mayberry have killed him?’’

  ‘‘Steven? The police asked that. No. No more than I could. We’re students—we don’t kill people.’’

  ‘‘I thought Steven and Chris had graduated.’’

  ‘‘They’ve finished their course work. They both have to finish their thesis, but they’re almost done— were almost done.’’

  Diane wasn’t getting anywhere talking to Kacie. She now believed Kacie had no idea why her fiance was killed.

  ‘‘Do you have any idea where Steven Mayberry might be?’’

  ‘‘He has family. Haven’t the police contacted them?’’

  ‘‘I’m sure. But I thought you might know some place he would go.’’

  ‘‘If he’s not with family, then . . .’’ She let it trail off.

  ‘‘Why did you go over there so late?’’

  ‘‘Chris’? I had to work late. I didn’t get off till eleven.’’

  ‘‘A witness said you were there earlier than eleven.’’

  ‘‘That’s what the police kept asking me. I was there, but I didn’t go in—not all the way in. I had a twentyminute break, and I ran over to check on him. He’d been coming down with something. I knocked, opened the door a little and called out. The house was dark. When he didn’t answer, I thought he was asleep and I didn’t want to wake him up.’’ Tears sprang up in her eyes. ‘‘I thought he needed rest. Maybe if I’d gone in, maybe— I always lock the door when I’m there. Chris never did. If I’d been there and had the door locked, whoever it was wouldn’t have gotten in and he’d still be alive.’’

  ‘‘There was nothing you could have done. Don’t blame yourself.’’

  ‘‘You don’t think I did it?’’

  Not without a lot of help, she thought. ‘‘No, I don’t think you did.’’

  Kacie wasn’t very hungry. Diane had Kacie’s meal put in a carryout. She dropped her off at her apart ment and walked her to her door.

  ‘‘Try to get some sleep. Do you have a friend you can call?’’

  Kacie nodded. ‘‘I’ll be all right.’’

  Diane spent the remainder of the day working at her museum job, doing something she liked the least— meeting with the board. She handed out budget and income reports for them to review, including a report on the initial findings on the mummy, hoping that would keep them busy and off any discussion of the crime lab. Board members also got some of the crank E-mails whenever she appeared on television in con nection with the work of the crime lab.

  She needn’t have worried. All they could talk about was the mummy, as if having one made the place a real museum, as if all museums worth their salt had to have an Egyptology exhibit.

  ‘‘So, do you know what he did for a living?’’ Laura Hillard was one of Diane’s oldest friends. They first met in kindergarten, and remained friends even after Diane moved away with her parents when she was in eighth grade.

  ‘‘I know he spent a lot of time sitting slumped over. There are a handful of jobs in ancient Egypt that would have kept him long hours in that position. Jonas and Kendel will be giving us more information. I just know about the bones at this point.’’

  ‘‘And where is Miss Williams?’’ asked Madge Stew art, another member of the board. ‘‘I haven’t met her yet. I was really hoping she would be here.’’ Madge looked around the room as if Kendel might be sitting in a corner keeping quiet.

  ‘‘She went to Virginia to try to acquire some arti facts that belong with our mummy.’’

  Diane explained that mummies of a certain time were wrapped with amulets that represented luck, pro tection and help in getting into the underworld after death.

  ‘‘Family members of the donor are reported to have some in their possession. I’m told that sometimes there were as many as a hundred such amulets. They would add a lot to the value of the mummy.’’

  ‘‘This is so exciting,’’ said Madge. ‘‘An Egyptian exhibit will be so good for the museum.’’

  ‘‘We have a CT scan scheduled next week for him. That may give us more information about who he was.’’

  Thankfully, all the conversation was taken up with the mummy and Diane was able to adjourn the meet ing in a good mood. She counted herself lucky. Per haps in time the board members who were queasy about the location of the crime lab inside the museum would become proud of the work that was done there.

  Madge took Diane’s arm as the board members were dispersing. ‘‘When we open the Egyptian exhibit, we must have another party. You know I missed the one for the museum opening.’’

  Madge gave Diane that I-wasn’t-told-about-the party look that she adorned her face with on any occa sion she could bring it up. Diane had stopped ex plaining to her that it was she who wrote the wrong date on her calendar. Diane simply smiled and told Madge a party would be a great idea.

  Diane went back to her office to finish some more paperwork—and to see if Garnett had left a message. She hadn’t heard what happened with Lynn Webber. Perhaps no news was good news.

  Andie was getting ready to leave as Diane arrived. She had changed from her more conservative museum uniform to her clubbing costume, as she described her various forms of dress.

  ‘‘Got a date?’’ asked Diane.

  ‘‘Yes. In the middle of the week—can you believe it? We’re going to a jazz concert on campus.’’

  ‘‘Sounds like fun. Have a good time. Did I get any messages?’’

  ‘‘They’re on your desk. Just routine stuff, nothing out of the ordinary.’’

  Diane laughed. She wa
s sorry that life at the mu seum was such that ‘‘ordinary’’ and ‘‘out of the ordi nary’’ were frequent distinctions Andie had to make.

  ‘‘Perhaps things are settling down.’’ At her desk, she called up to the crime lab. David answered. ‘‘Isn’t it time for you to go home?’’ she asked.

  ‘‘Just seeing about my bugs.’’

  ‘‘Any messages from Garnett?’’

  ‘‘No, it’s actually been pretty quiet around here. Neva’s been working on some stuff you’ll be pleased with. She’s already gone, but I think she works on the artwork at home.’’

  ‘‘I think I’ve gotten Garnett off her back. Maybe she can settle down and be comfortable around here.’’

  Diane told David how her meeting with Garnett and the sheriff broke up.

  ‘‘Damn,’’ exclaimed David. ‘‘Someone went after Webber? What’s this about?’’

  ‘‘I don’t know. Go home and take care. I mean it.’’

  When she hung up, Diane dialed Garnett’s cell phone.

  ‘‘This is Diane Fallon,’’ she said when he answered. ‘‘I was concerned about Dr. Webber.’’

  ‘‘She’s fine. It turned out to be a false alarm.’’ ‘‘False alarm?’’

  ‘‘She was on the second floor of her condo and saw some guy who looked like he was trying to break into her back door. Turns out it was a new neighbor who just moved in. He was trying to open her screen to knock on the door. The poor guy and his wife are probably going to move again after all the grilling they got.’’

  ‘‘I’m relieved.’’

  ‘‘So were we. Lynn . . . Dr. Webber was still shaken. We need to clear this up as quickly as we can.’’

  ‘‘I agree.’’

  We who? thought Diane when she hung up the phone. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. She had almost dozed off when the ringing of her phone jerked her awake. Frank, she thought and looked at the caller ID. It said Denver, Colorado.

  Chapter 25

  Diane steadied her hand as she reached out to pick up the phone.

  ‘‘Hello.’’ She hoped her voice was calm.

  ‘‘It’s me again. Are we alone?’’

  ‘‘What’s your name?’’

  ‘‘I can’t tell you that.’’

  ‘‘Okay. What do you want?’’

  ‘‘I want you to understand. I want to talk about what you said about killing being evil.’’

  ‘‘As I recall, I said something about it taking a dedi cated community of criminal investigators to combat the evil of murder...’’

  ‘‘Yes, but I saw your eyes when you said ‘the evil of murder,’ and it bothered me.’’ The man’s voice was both deep and soft and had a sincere quality to it that was sad.

  ‘‘What bothered you?’’

  ‘‘The way you put all killings in the same load.’’

  ‘‘You say you want me to understand you, but you seem to be talking around the main point. I want to understand you. Can you be more direct?’’

  ‘‘Is there no one in your life that if you had them in your crosshairs, you would pull the trigger and feel justified?’’

  Ivan Santos, the man who murdered her daughter, came to mind. He must know quite a lot about my life, she thought.

  ‘‘There’s a difference between gut-wrenching emo tion and becoming the law.’’

  ‘‘Why?’’

  ‘‘Because there’s a difference in what you know and what you believe. Everyone acts on what they believe, few on what they really know. Taking the law into one’s own hands can lead to ghastly mistakes. That’s why we need an objective process to find the truth.’’ The man wanted dialogue; she would give him dialogue.

  ‘‘Objective. That’s just another word for richlawyer tricks.’’

  ‘‘I’ve tried to answer your questions. Will you an swer a few for me?’’

  ‘‘Shoot.’’

  ‘‘Did you send the E-mail that said sometimes the dead are guilty?’’

  ‘‘You know I did.’’

  ‘‘I believed you did.’’

  He let out a soft chuckle. ‘‘Okay. You said you had a few questions? Do you have another one?’’

  ‘‘Did you hang the people in Cobber’s Wood?’’

  He hesitated only a beat. ‘‘This is just a conversa tion. You shouldn’t read so much into it.’’

  ‘‘Is that a yes or a no?’’ But she was talking to dead air.

  She dialed Chief Garnett’s cell phone again. He had told her he was going to tap her phones; she hoped he had one in place.

  ‘‘I just got a call again,’’ she said when he answered. ‘‘If the phone is tapped, then you’ll have the complete conversation.’’

  Garnett was silent for a moment. ‘‘You think it’s our guy?’’

  ‘‘Yes.’’

  ‘‘What does he want?’’

  ‘‘I’m not sure. He seems to want to confess, but he never gets around to it.’’

  ‘‘So, we do have ourselves a nutcase. Okay, I’m going to have a stakeout put on your apartment. Maybe we’ll get lucky. I’ll call Braden.’’

  Yes, maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll come after me, thought Diane. She hung up the phone and sat for a moment, musing over the phone call. He didn’t sound violent. He sounded calm. Many killers are calm. In fact, it is often the killing that calms them.

  She shook her head. Time to take a rest from crime. She grabbed her purse and left her office. Maybe to night she could get a good night’s sleep.

  Halfway to the lobby she had an idea. Instead of going out the door, she headed for the second floor to the geology section. If she was lucky, someone would still be working there.

  She got out of the elevator and walked across the overlook into the Pleistocene room. The visitor light ing was still on in earth science, so someone was prob ably still working.

  The earth science room was a warren of display alcoves and partitions. She passed an alcove designed to look like a cave. Facsimiles of stalagmites guarded the entrance. Inside were pieces of real stalagmites and stalactites, gypsum crystal formations that looked like snowflakes, a display on the anatomy of cave fill showing the geological history of the area, a lesson on cave mapping, giant photographs of the major caves in the United States, a virtual tour of Lechuguilla and Carlsbad caverns. Diane liked the exhibit, but it needed more work. It didn’t quite capture the beauty and mystery that she saw in caves. She continued past the exhibits on volcanoes and plate tectonics and one on the water cycle before she entered the rock room.

  The rocks and minerals room never grew old. It dazzled her every time she entered. In the center stood a deep purple amethyst geode so enormous she could fit into it. Off to the side stood an equally large agate geode sliced and polished, highlighting a rain bow of silica bands. All the rocks and minerals on display were equally stunning—every color of quartz crystals, golden pyrite in its varied crystal habits, tour maline, feldspar, olivine, spinel—minerals with names as beautiful as their appearance. It was a room de signed to make visitors catch their breath. She looked over the labels of each as she worked her way to the gem section.

  ‘‘Boss. What brings you here?’’

  Diane looked up from the display case. ‘‘Mike, hi. Working late?’’

  ‘‘I’m making some thin sections for Dr. Lymon.’’

  ‘‘You wouldn’t happen to know anything about gemstones, would you?’’

  ‘‘My speciality is mainly sedimentary stratigraphy and crystallography. However, as it happens, I do know quite a bit about gemstones. What stone are you interested in?’’

  ‘‘Diamonds.’’

  ‘‘Nice choice. What about them do you want to know?’’

  Diane was glad he didn’t make that girl’s-best-friend joke. She would have been disappointed in him. ‘‘Ex pensive, aren’t they?’’

  ‘‘Can be very expensive. Depends on the quality. Diamonds are graded for their cut, clarity, color and carat
weight. In diamonds, size does matter.’’ He grinned. ‘‘You in the market for a diamond?’’

  ‘‘This information is for the crime lab.’’

  ‘‘Great. Does this mean I can put forensic gemology on my resume?’’

  ‘‘Depends on how helpful you are.’’

  ‘‘I’m here for you, Boss. What you need to know?’’

  ‘‘I suppose I want to know if the person who pur chased it could afford it, however, at the time, I didn’t think to ask the woman how much it cost.’’

  ‘‘Okay, we’ll start with the easy stuff. What color was it?’’

  ‘‘Diamond colored.’’

  ‘‘You don’t know about diamonds, do you? Never had an engagement ring?’’

  ‘‘Yes, I have. It belonged to my ex-husband’s grand mother and was a ruby with two diamonds on either side.’’

  ‘‘I didn’t know you were married, Boss.’’

  ‘‘When I was very young—still a university student. It didn’t last long.’’

  ‘‘One of those quick, passionate affairs that fizzled?’’

  ‘‘No. He was a lawyer selected by my parents. It turned out I didn’t like him very much.’’

  ‘‘Your parents selected your husband? What cen tury are you from?’’

  ‘‘It was the last time I tried to please my parents. It was a lost cause. I was simply the black sheep of the family, and I learned to accept it. Now that you know my history, can we get back to the diamonds?’’

  ‘‘Your history? That was just the teaser.’’ ‘‘Mike.’’

  ‘‘Okay, Boss. Come this way.’’ He led her into the geology lab adjoining the rock room.

  ‘‘This is part of our reference collection of gems. Have a seat and I’ll give you a lesson in Diamonds one-oh-one.’’ He went into the storeroom and came out with a large flat drawer and set it on the table.

  ‘‘With some exceptions, white diamonds in general are the most valuable, and they’re graded on a color scale from white—colorless—to yellow,’’ said Mike. ‘‘They do come in other colors, but for the most part they aren’t as valued, unless the color is quite brilliant. For example, the pink diamonds from Australia, and some of the high-carat famous diamonds like the Hope diamond are very rare and very valuable. A red diamond can be a million dollars a carat. But here, I take it, we’re dealing with the white diamond.’’