37

by David Achord

  She stared at the screen and tried to focus. “So, who is it?”

  “Chester Bond,” I said. It took a second before she understood what I said and her eyes widened. Now I had her full attention. “Doctor Gross will explain everything. Now go get that shower.”

  She kept asking questions, but I shushed her and pointed toward her shower. She didn’t like it, but dutifully shuffled off, her slippers sliding along the floor as she walked.

  We arrived at the medical examiner’s office promptly at ten. I’d not seen Holly in a few months. Back then, she had some work-related issues that had been extremely stressful. To use a pun, she looked like death warmed over. She was waiting for us in the lobby and looked like a totally different person. She’d put on weight and her skin had a healthy color to it. She greeted me with a warm smile and a hug. I made introductions.

  “This is my business partner, Anna Davies. Anna, this is Doctor Holly Gross.”

  The two women said hello to each other and then we followed Holly through the security door to her office. The décor was the same, but there seemed to be more stacks of files. She pointed to two chairs while she retrieved a cardboard file box and placed it on an empty corner of her desk. She opened it up and pulled out a CD.

  “This one is a bit of a mystery,” she said and glanced at Anna. “Thomas said you may be able to provide some important information.”

  Anna’s eyes widened as she looked at me. I gave her a wink.

  “Well, um, we’ve found some historical archives with a little information, but it’s not much,” she said. “We first found a ledger entry of a marriage between Chester Bond and Penelope Carmike in October of 1862 by a Reverend Hezekiah Smith. What was unusual about this is Reverend Smith was an African American and not the pastor of the church the Carmike family regularly attended.”

  “Okay, I’m not a southern girl, is that unusual around here?” Holly asked.

  “Not so much anymore,” I said. “But back then, slavery and segregation were in full force. Reverend Smith was a free black man, but an African-American preacher marrying two white kids was not only unusual, it more than likely would have created an uproar in the community.”

  “I imagine the reverend caught some flak over that,” Holly surmised.

  “Yeah, you can say that; he was murdered,” Anna said.

  Holly arched an eyebrow. “He was murdered for marrying two white kids?”

  “That’s what it looks like,” Anna replied.

  “Wow,” she muttered. “What happened to the two of them?”

  “We’ve located some records,” I said. “Specifically, we found a baptismal record of a girl named Claire Bond, born in January of 1862, with Penelope listed as the mother and Chester listed as the father, but there was also a denotation that he was deceased.”

  “So, wait a minute. He did not marry her until October of that year, but his child was born in January?” Holly asked.

  “Yes, she was already three months pregnant when they married,” I said. “The rationale is Chester was the father, but the problem is he had already enlisted and the unit he was in was camped a great distance away when conception apparently occurred. It could’ve been another man’s baby for all we know. Anyway, nothing more is ever mentioned of Chester Bond. We found a death notice for Penelope in 1928. She’s listed as a widow.”

  Holly took a moment to take it all in. “It’s definitely a mystery. Okay, I’ve already pulled the file up. I’ll give you a summation while you two take a look at the photographs,” she said and turned the monitor toward us. “A tract of land was sold to a developer for the purpose of building a subdivision of high-end houses. They had done some bulldozing and whatever they do to build houses, and a bunch of men came out one Sunday with their metal detectors.” She clicked on a photograph of six men gathered around a pile of dirt and a hole in the ground. All of the men had been sweating profusely and grinning like Cheshire cats.

  “That’s their group photo. The hole in the ground is actually a cistern well.” She clicked on another photo, which showed a pile of rusty iron balls.

  “Those look like old cannon balls,” I surmised.

  “Good eye, Thomas,” she said and clicked on another photograph. This one was overlooking the cistern well. There was a lot of dirt, but skeletal remains could clearly be seen down in the well. “Here’s the victim in his final repose. He was at the bottom of the well. Dirt and loose rocks were dumped on top of him. The cannonballs were stacked on top as a final touch.”

  “That’s certainly an interesting place to be buried,” I remarked. “Whoever did it did not want him to be found.”

  Holly nodded as she clicked to another photo. This one was of the skeletal remains laid out on a stainless-steel table, which I assumed was back in the examining area. She clicked on another photo, which focused on the back of the skull. A hunk of rusty metal was wedged into the skull.

  “What is that?” Anna asked. Holly clicked her mouse again. This one showed the rusty hunk of metal, no longer embedded in the skull, and lying by itself on a sheet and a scale.

  “It’s what is left of a hatchet,” Holly answered, reached down, and pulled it out of the file box. It was an unremarkable hunk of steel, obviously hand-forged. “The wooden handle rotted away years ago.”

  “So, he was murdered,” Anna surmised.

  “That is my conclusion,” Holly said in agreement. She pointed at the fracture lines radiating out from the hatchet impact. “The hatchet wound was definitely antemortem.”

  “So, Thomas never said how you identified the skeleton,” Anna said.

  She clicked to the next photo. It showed some old brass buttons and a gold coin. Off to one side was a silver pocket watch with a heavy patina on its surface.

  “The buttons are Confederate army. The coin is an 1861 Liberty Head gold piece. It’s my understanding it could probably be auctioned for ten thousand, or more. Those are good pieces of evidence, but this,” she said, tapping the screen with a pen, “gives us a tentative identification of the remains.”

  “From the watch?” Anna asked.

  Holly grinned like a mischievous girl and clicked to the next photo. The watch face was now open and there was a close-up of the engraving, which was intact and easily readable. It read: Chester Bond.

  “Holy moly,” Anna muttered.

  “So, the big question is, how did Chester Bond end up at the bottom of a cistern well on property that once belonged to the Carmike family?” I said.

  “It’s a codumbdrum,” Anna said. I started to tell her the correct word was conundrum, but felt it probably wouldn’t be wise given her current hangover.

  We discussed it for several minutes before Anna and I left. I started the car and glanced over at Anna. “How’re you feeling?”

  She made a face like she had ingested poison. “I could be better.”

  “Do you want to try to get something to eat?” I asked.

  She grimaced again and thought a second. “If there’s a Starbucks nearby, I could use a chai latte.”

  I had no idea what a chai latte was, but Siri directed me to the nearest Starbucks and ten minutes later, Anna was sipping a hot chai latte.

  “We need to find out more about Chester Bond,” Anna said after she’d taken a few refreshing sips.

  “Yep, I believe we do,” I said in agreement and glanced at my watch. “But that’ll have to wait. Ronald is expecting us in fifteen minutes. You know how he gets when we’re late.”

  Chapter 18

  After leaving the medical examiner’s office, Anna and I went to Ronald’s and the three of us discussed hiring Marti for the Reavis case. Ronald was even more reluctant than I was, but Anna presented a compelling argument, which was impressive given her hungover state.

  So, Anna called Marti, relayed the good news, and gave her directions to Ronald’s house. She had to leave, so I agreed to wait with Ronald. Thirty minutes later, I met her at the door. She was wearing one of those pairs of jea
ns that’d been torn all to hell and a green pullover shirt with a low cut that showed plenty of cleavage.

  “What happened to your pants?” I asked.

  “Nothing, they came that way,” she said.

  “Yeah, okay, follow me.”

  I escorted her to the basement where Ronald waited in nervous anticipation.

  “Ronald, this is Marti,” I said.

  “Hi, Ronald,” Marti said with a warm smile. Ronald’s eyes went immediately to her breasts. He was stupefied and could not stop staring.

  “Ronald runs our technical operations,” I said, trying to get his attention.

  Marti was about to say something, paused, and then snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Eyes up here, slim.”

  Ronald flinched, briefly made eye contact with Marti, and then quickly looked away.

  “Alright, so what exactly am I supposed to be doing?” she asked.

  “Ronald, why don’t you give Marti a layman’s explanation,” I suggested.

  “Um, okay.” He pointed to one of his monitors. “As you know, the client is suing a business named Quadrant Realism Health Care. A subpoena was served on them two weeks ago requesting their emails for a specific time period and we’ve been hired to review and analyze those emails. They honored the subpoena with a data dump of their entire business’s emails. This computer system has the data dump.” He glanced at me. “It’s almost eighty terabytes of data. I had to buy some new equipment for this job.”

  I nodded. “Make copies of the receipts for me. I’ll add it to the expense report.”

  “What’s a terabyte?” Marti asked.

  “A trillion bytes of data,” Ronald replied.

  “Is that a lot? It sounds like a lot,” she said.

  “Yes, it’s a lot,” Ronald said in a tone like he was speaking to a simpleton.

  Marti’s eyes widened. “Am I expected to read that much?”

  Ronald glanced at me in annoyance. “No, you won’t have to read all of it. You’d never be able too.”

  I jumped in and tried to explain. “The health care company is pulling some shenanigans. We served them with a subpoena to produce their emails. They responded by dumping every single email onto several hard drives and claimed they were merely complying with the subpoena. It would take ten people years to read that much and they know it.”

  “Then how am I supposed to read all of it?” Marti asked.

  Ronald blew out an impatient sigh. “If you would pay attention, you’ll understand.”

  Marti made a face. “Okay, fine.”

  Ronald pointed again at his computers. “I have installed software which is commonly known as a crawl and pull program. The program searches the entire database at a much faster speed than any human could and tag emails with particular names and certain phrases. Once they are tagged, they will be automatically sent to you via an internal email account I have created for you. Your workstation will be here,” he said and pointed at a computer monitor located at the far end of his tabletop of multiple computers.

  “Okay, then what?” she asked. I knew Ronald was growing impatient with her, so I jumped in.

  “Those are the emails you will have to actually read. Your job is to analyze those specific emails for…” I held up a questioning finger and waited for her to answer. Not more than an hour ago, I’d explained what her job was and I wanted to see if she had paid attention.

  “I’ll analyze each email for context which would lead a reasonable person to conclude the party was cognizant of the terms of the contract,” she finished.

  “Excellent. That’s exactly correct, right, Ronald?” I asked. I looked over to see him once again ogling. I swear, the boy was about to start drooling.

  Marti saw it too, and before I knew it, she grabbed Ronald’s head and forcibly pulled him into her breasts and vigorously wiggled while making motorboat sounds. Ronald’s head bounced back and forth like an oversized cue ball several times before regaining his wits and pulling away. His eyeglasses were askew and he was breathing heavily.

  “Stop that!” he huffed, his face turning beet red.

  Marti began giggling uncontrollably.

  “Okay, quit playing around,” I admonished.

  “He should learn not to ogle,” Marti countered.

  I made a mental note to tell her more about Ronald so she’d understand, but not in front of him. Later. Or maybe have Anna talk to her.

  “So, you print off the relevant emails, highlight the relevant parts, and write a report of your analysis,” I said.

  “Got it,” she said. “When do I start?”

  “Right now,” Ronald said, his glasses still askew. He stabbed a finger at a chair. “That’s where you sit, and you’re not allowed to touch my computers, or any other keyboard other than the one in front of you.”

  She eyed Ronald. “Why do I have to be stuck down in this basement? Can’t I do this on my laptop while sitting on your back patio? I want to get some sun on my legs.”

  “Of course, you can,” I said. “Ronald can set it all up, right, Ronald?”

  Ronald was still out of sorts. Marti stepped closer to him again and reached out. Ronald flinched, but before he could step back, Marti straightened his glasses and then gently caressed his cheek. I knew Ronald did not like to be touched by strangers, but he didn’t resist. I guess maybe a pretty girl was an exception to the rule.

  “If you’re out there on the patio by yourself, you’ll think you can do whatever you want.”

  Marti gave Ronald a sweet stare with her big hazel eyes. “Not for a minute; you’re the boss.”

  “Well, okay, I suppose I can connect your laptop to my network.”

  “You can do that?” she asked in mock wonder.

  Ronald shrugged. “It’s easy stuff, if you know what you’re doing.”

  “Thanks, Ronald, you’re awesome,” she said with a smile of wonderment, and then gave me a wink when he wasn’t looking.

  “Oh, wait a minute.” She looked back and forth between us. “How do you know the emails haven’t been altered, or faked, or something like that?”

  Ronald squared his shoulders and actually puffed his chest out. Well, I mean, Ronald was so skinny he didn’t have much of a chest, but he tried.

  “I have a separate software program which scans the log history.” He pointed at another computer monitor. “That’s where I’ll be stationed.” He then walked over to the table and picked up some papers.

  “I went ahead and did an email, because I’m certain you don’t have any idea what to do.” He handed one of the papers to her. “That one is a printout of an email that discusses an upcoming meeting with our client. The author writes about some key talking points, which is quite interesting.”

  Marti glanced at the printout. “You call this interesting?” she asked.

  Ronald exhaled again. “In the context of this case, yes, it’s extremely interesting. As you can see, the relevant parts have been highlighted in yellow. That’s part of your job, to highlight the important passages. Always use yellow. And use a ruler. No squiggly highlights. They must be straight and even.”

  Marti frowned as she looked at the printout. “Why yellow?”

  “It’s a requirement from the law firm,” I said. I wasn’t going to explain to her Ronald’s Asperger’s Syndrome and his obsession of doing things a certain way with no deviation. “It’s some crazy rule, so just roll with it.”

  “Okay, yellow highlights only, got it,” she said.

  Ronald pointed to the second page. “This is how a proper report is to be written. I have created a template for you, so do not deviate from the format.”

  “Don’t deviate, got it,” she said.

  Ronald stared a moment and then gave me a look of uncertainty. “I don’t know about this, Thomas. She’s…different.”

  Marti responded by rolling her eyes, much like Anna would have.

  “Don’t worry, it’ll be fine. How’s the software working?” I asked. T
he one thing I learned about Ronald, when he started getting anxious, all I had to do was guide him to talk about computer stuff. Computers were his comfort zone.

  “It’s working well. Currently, we’ve searched through eight hundred terabytes. We should be completely through the entire batch in a week.”

  “Excellent,” I replied and focused on Marti. “Hey, why don’t you go ahead and get started. I need to speak with Ronald about some private matters.”

  I gave Ronald a look, tacitly telling him to hold his thoughts, and led him upstairs. He started to speak but I held a finger up. “I know what you’re thinking.”

  “This’ll never work, Thomas. She’s…different.”

  “Nah, she’s okay, she was just messing with you.”

  “But, she’s a convicted criminal,” he rejoined.

  Before hiring Marti, we did a background check. Percy found an arrest from a couple of years ago where she was charged with public intoxication and disorderly conduct. She’d gotten into a barroom fight, but the charges were ultimately dismissed. Her credit rating was abysmal though and it was obvious she could use some extra money.

  He started to say more, but I shushed him. “Listen, we need extra help on this case. She’s a hoot, no doubt, but she’s intelligent. She can handle this. And besides, she’s Anna’s friend.”

  Ronald breathing was coming in quick pants. “Is she going to be alone with me?”

  “As soon as Anna finishes her job with Ms. Braxton, she’ll be here helping out.”

  “When will that be?” he asked.

  “A couple of more days at the most.”

  “Maybe I should call Anna,” he said. “Emphasize the importance of her being here.”

  I held back a frustrated sigh. “It’ll be okay, Ronald. In fact, I’m betting you and Marti will be good friends in no time. Besides, I saw the look on your face. You liked it when she pushed your face into her boobs.”

  He tried to fight it, but a boyish grin crept across his face.