Kinley stopped again, his eyes peering at the screen as he pondered the one important piece of evidence which the prosecution had never been able to unearth: Ellie Dinker’s body.
It was what prosecutors called a “large item,” something missing that was absolutely crucial to an air-tight case. It might be the murder weapon or the motive, but whatever it was, the absence of the “large item” always presented a problem. Not having a body in a murder case was one of the largest items a case could have, and Kinley had seen more than one case peremptorily dismissed for the lack of it.
According to Dora, District Attorney Warfield had escaped this particular pitfall by claiming that the substantial quantity of blood and hair found on Dinker’s dress was enough of her body to merit a finding of murder. To buttress this contention, Warfield had displayed the dress during the course of the trial, carefully pointing out the enormous red stains and even offering Dr. Stark’s testimony that such a large amount of blood could only have come from a life-threatening assault.
Still, there had been no body, and the question remained as to how and where Overton had managed to hide it.
Kinley went back over the time sequence. It was here that the laws of physics and the laws of time had to intersect. The accused had to be able to be at a certain place at a certain time if his guilt was to be proven. Overton had been seen with Ellie Dinker at approximately 12:40 P.M. Neither had been seen again until Overton had arrived home two hours and twenty minutes later.
So that was it. Two hours and twenty minutes to murder a sixteen-year-old girl, bury her, and walk back to his own house, a trip which Dora said would had to have taken at least an hour. This last hour reduced the time left for Overton to murder and then bury Dinker to a scant one hour and fifteen minutes. It was not a lot of time, but it was enough.
In the end, however, it was neither the undiscovered body nor the small amount of time available to Overton which had finally persuaded Ray to look into the case. Dora had made that completely clear just before Kinley had finally gotten up to leave her house on the mountain’s edge. He’d already been halfway down the stairs when she’d called to him.
Kinley?
Yes.
The day before he died, Ray was pretty upset about something.
What?
I don’t know, but he looked more troubled than I’d ever seen him.
But you don’t know why?
He wouldn’t tell me, but I knew it was something about this case.
How do you know that?
Something he said the last time I saw him. He was standing at the bottom of the stairs, just like you are now, and he looked at me very seriously, the way he could look serious, and he said, “This one’s killing me, Dora.”
What did he mean?
I’m not sure, but I think it had to do with all that he was uncovering, that there was something in it that was, I don’t know, breaking his heart.
TEN
Breaking his heart.
It was a phrase Kinley’s mind repeated continually as he made his way to the gray stone courthouse the next morning.
William Warfield was alone in his office when Kinley tapped at its open door. He looked surprised to see him, but offered a friendly smile anyway, though Kinley couldn’t tell whether it was genuine or studied, a politician’s waxy glow. He had seen other smiles, Mildred Haskell’s the most memorable, sinister and gleaming, set off by the one gold tooth she’d used to attract her child victims: Come in here, I got something to show you. Really. In my mouth. Compared to that, Warfield’s grin was the soul of harmless conviviality.
“Hello again, Mr. Kinley,” Warfield said. “I thought you were headed back to the big city.”
“I decided to stay awhile.”
“Really? Why’s that?”
Kinley nodded toward the large leather chair which sat in front of Warfield’s desk. “May I sit down?”
“Be my guest,” Warfield answered, then watched as Kinley took a seat.
“Actually, I’m glad for the opportunity to see you again,” Warfield said.
“Why’s that?”
“Because I failed to tell you before, but I’ve read a couple of your books,” Warfield told him. “I found them quite interesting, especially the one on Colin Bright. That was your first one, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“How did you happen to become interested in Colin Bright?”
“He killed an entire family,” Kinley explained. “I wondered why a man would do something like that.”
“Did you ever find out?”
Kinley thought of Bright for a moment, the lean face, gray hair, and piercingly blue eyes. He remembered the last line Bright had uttered at the end of their final interview. You’re lucky, kid, you’ll never know.
“No,” Kinley said, his attention focused once again on Warfield. “No, I never found out.”
“They don’t often know themselves,” Warfield said. “With some of them, there’s just no inner life at all.”
“Certainly one that’s different from the ordinary,” Kinley told him.
“Well, anyway, I found that book very interesting,” Warfield said. “Bright was as evil a man as I’ve ever heard of.”
“A sociopath, yes.”
Warfield shook his head. “I sometimes wonder why we bother with such fancy modern names,” he said. “I like nineteenth-century language better. You know what they would have called Colin Bright back then?”
“I guess not.”
“They had a term,” Warfield said. “A good one, too. ‘Moral imbeciles,’ that’s what they called the Colin Brights of this world. And that’s what they are too, moral imbeciles.” He paused. “Or just evil, pure and simple.” He looked at Kinley pointedly. “Born that way. It’s in their genes.”
Kinley nodded. “Maybe so.”
Warfield’s mood seemed to darken suddenly. “Anyway, the last chapter, I remember that very well. The description of Bright’s death. Very powerful. Was that your first execution?”
“Yes,” Kinley said. “And the last, too, I think. I don’t expect ever to see another one.”
“Really, why not?”
“They’re not very pretty.”
Warfield shook his head. “No, that’s where you’re wrong, Mr. Kinley. They’re beautiful. Majestic even. They’re as close as we ever get to dispensing real justice. I mean, as the ancients imagined it.”
“The Code of Hammurabi,” Kinley said.
“Ideas like that, yes,” Warfield said. “If you were a builder in ancient Babylon, and a house you built collapsed and killed the owner’s son, do you know what would happen to you? Your son would be killed. Not you. Your son.” Warfield’s face seemed to harden almost imperceptibly. “That is justice. Not like now, with everything one step removed.”
“Of course,” Kinley offered cautiously, “you have to get the right man.”
“Safeguards, yes,” Warfield agreed. “Many safeguards. Especially in a capital case.” He shrugged, as if with disappointment. “But we don’t get many of those in a little district like ours.”
“Well, there was Charles Overton,” Kinley reminded him.
Warfield’s face turned solemn. “Oh, yes, you’re right. Charles Overton.” He shook his head. “My daddy was the District Attorney then. Thomas Warfield.” His eyes saddened. “We lost him last year. It came suddenly. Best way, I suppose.”
Kinley nodded. “And he prosecuted the Overton case?”
“Yes, he did,” Warfield said. “Ellie Dinker.” He smiled sadly. “You know, I can remember her mother very well. When I was growing up, she used to drift down main street. Like a ghost.” He shook his head. “Probably never got over it,” he added. “Her only child, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know that,” Kinley said.
“That’s one of the things that really got my father worked up about Overton,” Warfield added. “You know, that he’d killed an only child, and the way Mrs. Dinker was carrying o
n about it.”
“Was there a Mr. Dinker?”
“Not that I know of,” Warfield said somewhat dismissively, as if the subject had begun to bore him. “Anyway, you were saying that you’d decided to hang around town awhile longer.”
“Yes,” Kinley said. “As a matter of fact, it has to do with this same case. The Ellie Dinker murder.”
Warfield looked at Kinley curiously. “That goes way back. Why would you be interested in that?”
“Because Ray was working on it.”
Warfield looked surprised. “Ray was working on the Dinker case?”
“Yes, he was,” Kinley said. “In his spare time.”
“Why would he have been doing that?”
“He’d gotten to know Dora Overton, and she’d …”
Warfield looked at Kinley knowingly. “Well, that’s not the first we’ve heard from Dora Overton,” he said. “And her mother before her, I might add. They never accepted the jury’s verdict, but that’s not uncommon. Relatives believe whatever they want to believe, evidence or no evidence.”
“Actually, that’s what I’d like to take a look at, the evidence,” Kinley said. “It obviously meant something to Ray, and so I think I sort of …”
“Are you sure it wasn’t just Dora Overton who meant something to Ray?” Warfield blurted.
“Well,” Kinley admitted hesitantly, “that might have been part of it. At least in the beginning.”
Warfield shrugged. “Well, even so, it doesn’t matter to me,” he said. “Of course, I had no idea that Ray was looking into the Dinker case. But even if I had, I wouldn’t have had any objection to it, just so long as he wasn’t doing it on state time.”
“Well, that won’t be an issue in my case.”
“No, of course not,” Warfield said. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk. “So, how can I help you?”
“I’d like access to the evidence and to the trial transcript.”
“By evidence, you mean the physical evidence?”
“Yes.”
Warfield nodded. “All right. That shouldn’t be a problem.”
“I’m even more interested in pictures and official records,” Kinley added quickly, “and, more than anything, the trial transcript.”
Warfield nodded casually. “We have all that. Of course, we can’t really let it out of the building.”
“I assume you have an evidence vault.”
“Yes.”
“And a little table in it?”
“Yes.”
“That’s all I’d need.”
“Very well,” Warfield said. “When would you like to begin?”
“Now,” Kinley said bluntly.
Warfield looked at him pointedly. “Well, you certainly like to get things going, don’t you.”
Kinley knew no other response. “It’s the only way to get them done,” he said.
The transcripts were all contained in a large cardboard box which was stacked, along with scores of similar boxes, on a series of high metal shelves. Mrs. Hunter, the County Clerk whose office maintained the evidence vault, found it with very little difficulty.
“It’s sort of high up,” she said as she pointed to it. “Can you reach it?”
“I think so,” Kinley told her, then reached up, grabbed the flap of the handle and pulled it forward into his arms.
“Probably pretty heavy,” Mrs. Hunter said. “Don’t strain yourself.”
Kinley carried the box to the small wooden desk at the back of the room. “This is fine,” he said. “Thanks.”
She looked at him curiously. “You a lawyer?”
“No.”
“Just poking into it? Like Old Lady Dinker used to?”
“Mrs. Dinker? When did she do that?”
“After the trial. After the execution. Even with all that over with, she couldn’t let it rest.”
“Why?”
“I couldn’t ever figure that out, myself,” Mrs. Hunter said. “It was strange, the way she kept poking at it. Like somebody stoking a dead fire, you know, trying to get it blazing again.”
“Would you happen to know if she’s still alive?”
Mrs. Hunter shook her head. “No, she’s not alive anymore,” she said. “She died a couple of years ago.” She lowered her voice slightly. “In the state home.”
“State home?”
“For the insane,” Mrs. Hunter added. “She had some mental trouble.”
“And so there are no Dinkers left in Sequoyah, I suppose,” Kinley said. “Since Ellie was an only child.”
“That’s right. There’s not even a house. The old Dinker place burned down.”
“When was this?”
“Right before they put Mrs. Dinker away,” Mrs. Hunter said. “She took to wandering around. I mean, people took her in, but I guess she just went off, you know, mentally, after the house burned down.”
Kinley reached for his notebook. “Where was the house?”
“Right at the edge of the mountain,” Mrs. Hunter told him. “Where the road starts to go up it.” She turned toward the window and pointed toward the mountain. “There used to be a little house right up that way,” she added. “It had pink siding. Mrs. Dinker always lived there. That’s where the two of them lived. Her and her daughter, I mean.”
Kinley remembered the house. It was hard to miss it going in or out of Sequoyah along the mountain road. It sat at the very base of the mountain, so close he’d often wondered if the front was the false façade for what was actually the mouth of a cave.
“When was the last time she did this ‘poking around’ here at the courthouse?” Kinley asked.
Mrs. Hunter’s eyes rolled toward the ceiling. “Now, let me see, I been County Clerk for almost twenty-five years, and I guess it was about five years ago was the last time she came around.” The eyes continued to search the ceiling. “So what does that make it? Let me see, well, that’s about 1986, I guess.”
“Over thirty years after the trial?”
“Yeah, that’s about right.”
“Did she say why she’d suddenly started looking into it again?”
Mrs. Hunter shook her head. “No, she never did. She just came up and said she wanted to look at whatever we still had on that case, and so we let her. Matter of fact, she sat right there at that same little table.”
Reflexively, Kinley’s eyes shot down at the table, then back up at Mrs. Hunter. “But she never said anything to you about what she was looking for?”
“No, sir, she never did,” Mrs. Hunter replied flatly. “At least not to me. Mrs. Calhoun was the County Clerk then; she might have said something to her.”
“Where would I find Mrs. Calhoun?”
“She’s on a trip right now,” Mrs. Hunter said. “But I can ask her about it when she comes back.”
“Yes, thanks,” Kinley said. “I’d appreciate that.”
Mrs. Hunter’s mind drifted back. “But I can tell you that something was eating at Mrs. Dinker, that’s for sure.” She considered it a moment. “’Course something like that, losing a daughter, it’d be hard to let that go.”
Kinley could see the evidence vault a few yards beyond him, his body already poised to shoot toward it. “Yes,” he said. “It would.”
• • •
Once Mrs. Hunter had returned to her desk outside the vault, Kinley set to work on the transcripts, using the method he’d developed over his years of reading them.
Every transcript began with a kind of dramatis personae of the significant figures in the case, a listing of all the witnesses called by either side in the order they’d been called. He knew that if Thomas Warfield had worked like most prosecutors, he would have presented his witnesses in a particular order, beginning with those whose testimony had to do with the discovery of the crime, moving on through those who had participated in the subsequent investigation, and finally bringing his case to a close with those witnesses whose testimony was designed to prove the defendant’s guilt.
According to her testimony, Martha Dinker had last seen her daughter at approximately twelve noon on Friday, July 2, 1954, when Ellie had headed up the mountain to visit a friend, Helen Slater.
WARFIELD: Now that was Friday, wasn’t it, Mrs. Dinker?
DINKER: Yes, sir.
WARFIELD: Now Ellie, she was in summer school, wasn’t she, Mrs. Dinker?
DINKER: Yes, sir, they was going to hold her back if she didn’t go.
WARFIELD: But she didn’t go to summer school that Friday, did she?
DINKER: No, sir.
WARFIELD: And although I’m sure we all remember about this, for the record could you tell us why Ellie wasn’t in school that day?
DINKER: They wasn’t having no school.
WARFIELD: And why was that?
DINKER: That was because it had been let out for Founder’s Day.
WARFIELD: Which was scheduled for the following Saturday, isn’t that right?
DINKER: Yes, sir, and they was going to dedicate the new courthouse, and they was cleaning the grounds around that, and decorating the town and all, and they wanted the kids to help, so they’d let out summer school.
WARFIELD: So she wasn’t playing hooky, was she, Mrs. Dinker?
And so, as Mrs. Dinker related under Warfield’s questioning, Ellie had decided to walk up the mountain to see a school friend, Helen Slater. The plan was to have lunch with her, then for the two of them to walk back down the mountain to help decorate the courthouse for the Fourth of July fireworks.
WARFIELD: Did you actually see Ellie head up the mountain?
DINKER: Yes, sir. I seen her go.
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