Dust to Dust

by Beverly Connor

  “What happened?” he asked.

  Garnett came down the stairs with the police officers. He stayed inside and sent the other officers to search the grounds. Garnett, Diane, and Frank sat down in the living room.

  Diane sat trembling on the sofa. “Jeez,” she said, “I can’t seem to stop shaking.”

  Frank put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him.

  “Can’t say as I blame you,” said Garnett. He was wearing a suit. She wondered what he was doing in a suit this late. He should be in pajamas. He handed her her cell phone. “It was on the floor.”

  “Oh God, Vanessa,” she said. “She must be worried sick. She called just before . . .”

  She dialed Vanessa’s number. It was picked up at half a ring.

  “Diane, are you all right? We could hear the gunfire. Harte is here with me,” she said.

  Diane remembered now. She had dropped her phone as the intruder came into the room. Vanessa must have heard most of it. Damn.

  “I’m fine. I had an intruder, but he’s gone now,” said Diane. “The paramedics took him away.”

  “You had an intruder? Dear, it sounded like a fire-fight.”

  “There was an exchange of gunfire, but I’m okay. I’m sorry to have hung up on you,” she said.

  “I think you need a good stiff drink, girl. You are sounding way too calm, and that’s not good,” said Vanessa. “What? Just a minute. Harte is mumbling something.” She paused. “Harte says she will bring you one of her special tonics if you need it. I can recommend them.”

  Diane smiled. “Thank her for me. I’m fine. Just rattled. Did you say your mother remembered something?” Diane asked.

  “Yes, but I can talk to you later about it. I’m sure the police are there,” said Vanessa.

  “They are, but I’d like to give them the information,” she said.

  “Okay. Mother remembered Edith Farragut. Farragut was the woman’s maiden name. Mother didn’t know her well. My grandmother said the family were merchants, and she didn’t associate much with them. Grandmother could be a bit of a snob. Anyway, she also said Edith’s husband gave her the creeps when she saw them in church—just something about him. She didn’t say what. She also said he had a lot of pride. The whole family did. I’m not sure what she meant by that either. They divorced, but the two of them lived near each other for a long time. They didn’t live in Pigeon Ridge, but in Rosemont, near here. They purchased the old Gutemeyer estate. Mother said they had a daughter named Maybelle Agnes Gauthier.”

  “Maybelle Agnes Gauthier,” repeated Diane. MAG.

  “Mother said the daughter was an artist,” continued Vanessa. “She may have lived in Pigeon Ridge—in a sort of artist’s cottage. Mother didn’t know Maybelle very well, even though they were contemporaries. She said she was a strange girl, but painted very well indeed. Mother thought that at one time she may have had a painting of hers. A landscape, she thought. She said if you go to the courthouse, in the corridor where all the portraits of Rosewood politicians are hanging, you can see one of her paintings. She signed with the picture of a little bird. Mother has no idea why.”

  “Do you know what happened to her?” asked Diane.

  “Mother didn’t know. We lived in Europe for a while, so we didn’t know about a lot that went on in Rosewood. When we came back in 1957, Mother said that Edith Farragut had died and the Gauthiers were gone.”

  Chapter 42

  Diane hung up with Vanessa, but not before Vanessa again told her to get herself a good stiff drink. From the way Diane felt at the moment, anything in her stomach wouldn’t stay down. She sat quietly, collecting her senses before she spoke. Garnett didn’t push.

  “I guess you need my gun,” she said, gesturing to the weapon lying on the coffee table. “I shot four times.”

  Garnett nodded. “Just procedure,” he muttered, and took possession of the gun.

  There was a jumble of things going through her mind, but what rose to the surface at the moment was the thought that if she had waited any longer to get out of the bathtub, she would have gone though all this naked. “Hell,” she muttered.

  “Can I get you something?” said Frank.

  “Vanessa recommends Irish whiskey or Kentucky bourbon. I think I’ll pass for now,” she said. You never know when I may need a steady hand and good aim.

  Garnett asked her what happened and she gave him a description of the evening’s events.

  “Why did he target me?” she asked.

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?” said Garnett. “If he had been successful, the investigation into the attack on Dr. Payden would have gone on. The well would have still been excavated. I don’t know what was supposed to be accomplished.”

  “From his looks, he might be related to Dildy,” said Diane.

  “He won’t be talking for a while and I can’t make a positive ID until we check his fingerprints, but I’m pretty sure he’s Ray-Ray’s cousin, Emory,” said Garnett. “We don’t know of any criminal activities connecting them. The two sides of the family don’t get along and haven’t since Raymond and Emory were kids. If it is Emory, he’s been a petty crook all his life, just like his cousin. They just ran in different circles,” said Garnett.

  “How could they run in different circles?” said Diane. “Rosewood isn’t that big.”

  “Emory is from Atlanta,” said Garnett.

  “Ray-Ray’s name was really Raymond?” said Diane. “I’m glad to know his mother didn’t name him Ray-Ray.”

  “Just as bad, if you ask me. His legal name was Raymond Raynard Dildy,” said Garnett. “Kind of runs in the family. His cousin Emory’s first and middle names are Emory Emanuel. I’m at a loss to explain how Emory escaped the moniker M&M.”

  Garnett’s phone rang. He hadn’t chosen a piece of music for his ringtone, but had just an old-fashioned ringing sound. He flipped it open.

  “Garnett.”

  From his conversation, Diane guessed it was the policemen who had gone out to check the grounds, and they had found something.

  “They found what they think is his vehicle parked beyond the trees in back of the house,” he said. “It’s a beat-up green Toyota registered to a Rick Gomez. It was reported stolen yesterday. We’ll leave it where it is until your people go over it. I’ll have my people watch it and your house.”

  When Garnett left, she called David and asked him to finish the well excavation.

  “I’m going to sleep in,” she said. “I’ll be out late morning.”

  “What’s happened?” he said.

  Diane hadn’t wanted to tell him, but he needed to be alert in case some maniac came to Marcella’s place. She gave him a brief description of the evening’s events. She tried to play it down, but the facts of the incident being what they were, it was hard to put a no-big-deal face on it.

  “Diane, my God, why in the . . . ,” he said. “Are you all right? What the hell was that about? You say he’s related to the guy who was killed here?”

  “I don’t know what it’s about, and yes, they’re apparently related. I’ll talk to you about it tomorrow. Right now, I’m going to bed to get a good night’s sleep. Tell the policemen there to keep a lookout. And David, be careful. Be extra paranoid.”

  “Sure thing,” he said. “You know how I am.”

  “This is just crazy,” said Diane when she hung up. “I don’t know why I was a target. It solves nothing for anyone, unless it’s some kind of revenge thing.”

  “Revenge? Who?” Frank asked. “And for what?”

  “Maybe it was just a coincidence Emory turned out to be related to Ray-Ray. Emory is from Atlanta, which is a straight shot down the interstate from Gainesville. Perhaps Marsha Carruthers and her husband are behind it. Perhaps it’s some kind of revenge for stirring up the tragedy in their lives.”

  As she said it, it didn’t seem right. The kinship thing between the two men was just too much of a coincidence. She was getting a major headache.

 
“Why don’t I heat up the leftover pizza?” said Frank. “We’ll have pizza and red wine. You know how you love leftover pizza.”

  “Sounds good,” she said.

  While they waited for the pizza to warm in the oven, Frank boarded up the back door so it wouldn’t open at all.

  “I’ll have it fixed tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll call my partner and tell him I’m taking the day off.”

  “I’m sorry you have to do that.” Diane felt guilty on top of everything else. She had brought this to his house. Maybe it wasn’t her fault, but it was about her.

  “They could have been after me,” said Frank. “After all, had I been here, I probably would have been the one to answer the door. I do have Atlanta connections who might want some revenge.”

  Frank had a strange habit of reading her mind sometimes. But she probably wore her feelings on her face. She was a terrible poker player.

  “Ray-Ray after Marcella; his cousin after you?” She shook her head. “That would be too much of a coincidence.”

  They ate and drank and Diane began to feel better.

  “I finished the diary,” he said.

  “Oh? Was it hard?” asked Diane.

  “Very easy really, once I got to know how Ellie Rose’s mind worked. She must have been a neat kid. Very clever code for a kid.”

  “How did it work?” asked Diane.

  “She had symbols for diphthongs and consonant blends—letter combinations like oo, ou, th, st, ious—that kind of thing. For other letter combinations she drew doodles that represented the sound—like in a rebus puzzle. For example, for air she drew three curled wisps.”

  Frank got a piece of paper and drew the doodle for her.

  “The symbol for the consonant blend of st is a star. So if she wrote the word stair, it would be a star and these little wisps.” He drew it for Diane.

  “If she had to use a letter, she would go two up in the alphabet,” he continued. “So a would be c and z would be b. The consonant blend th is the numeral three. The word the would be written as the numeral three with the letter g immediately following it.” He grinned. “She was a good little doodler.”

  He took several bites of pizza and a sip of wine.

  “There was a little complication, in that sometimes she would change how she wrote a word. For example, the symbol for the suffix er was a drawing of an ear. Mother was sometimes oq, with the numeral three immediately following, and then the drawing of an ear. And sometimes it would be a drawing of a moth and an ear.”

  “That seems like it would take a long time to write,” said Diane.

  “Not really. The drawings were doodles, stylized versions of what they represented. If you’re going up the alphabet only two letters, you can work that out pretty fast,” he said.

  “I’ll call Ross Kingsley tomorrow. He’ll be happy you were able to decode it,” said Diane. “I got the impression he thought it would be impossible.”

  “You know, I kind of got to know her. Not just reading her diary, but seeing the way her mind worked, examining her whimsical creativity.”

  He stopped for a moment and took a drink of wine. Diane thought for a second he was going to tear up. She put a hand on his and he smiled at her.

  “As I said, she was a neat kid,” he said.

  “Anything in her diary that would shed light on anything?” said Diane.

  “Most of it was normal kid stuff. Talk about school, friends, boys she liked, teachers. There are a couple of drawings that occurred several times that I can’t decipher.”

  He drew one for her. It was a triangle over an elongated diamond shape with slightly curving sides and what looked like horns.

  “It looks kind of like a snake with scales and horns,” said Diane.

  “That’s what I thought,” he said. “I can’t come up with a rebus or anything else that makes sense. I think it’s a person, but that’s as far as I got, except that it’s clear she didn’t like him. If I had a list of names of people in her circle, I might be able to decipher it.”

  “What was the context?” asked Diane.

  “Dread seeing ‘blank.’ ‘Blank’ has changed since ‘blank.’ The second blank is the other doodle I can’t figure out.” He drew it for her.

  “These are almost like Rorschach tests. The identification is in the eye of the beholder,” said Diane. She examined the last drawing. “It looks like a ruin or a broken brick wall. What do you think?”

  “I thought it looked kind of like a broken igloo,” he said. “These look like blocks. Notice that the scales in the snake-like figure are similar to the bricks or ice blocks in the other figure.”

  “Something to sleep on,” said Diane. She finished her pizza and upended her wineglass. “Vanessa will be disappointed we didn’t have Irish whiskey,” she said.

  Diane got ready for bed as Frank went around and checked all the doors and windows in the house. If they were willing to shoot off the locks with a big gun, doors were useless, she thought.

  She was sitting on the bed in her nightshirt when he came into the room.

  “You know, I was really terrified,” she said.

  Frank sat down beside her and took her hand. “It’s completely normal that you were.”

  “No, I mean I was really terrified,” she repeated.

  “And it’s really normal,” he said, grinning at her.

  “You know I’ve been in a lot of dangerous situations. I was never this scared,” she said.

  Frank was silent for several moments. “Over the past few years you have been getting happier,” he said. “It’s taken a while since Ariel’s death, but gradually your grief has made room for other emotions—like love and friendship. You’ve built a lot of that here in Rosewood. I’m not saying your life now means more to you, but you feel like you have a lot to lose, and it scares you. I believe that’s part of it. And there was also the overly violent nature of the attack. It was designed for terror. But you did well. You won.”

  Diane leaned against him. “I’m going to find out who did this to your house,” she said. “And to me.”

  Chapter 43

  Diane had hoped to get out to Marcella’s house by late morning, but she had to go to the police station first to make a formal statement. She wrote out an account and signed it before she went to Garnett’s office, hoping it would save time. It didn’t. She had to speak with Internal Affairs. It wasn’t pleasant, mainly because the incident wasn’t pleasant. But it wasn’t that bad either. They weren’t hostile, really. Stern, but not particularly aggressive. The prevailing culture in Rosewood was, if a man shot his way into your house, you had the right to shoot back. After she spoke with IA, she went to Garnett’s office.

  “Sorry about all this,” said Garnett. “You know. Procedure. Hanks will join us shortly. We had a discussion with Emory in the hospital and we thought you would be interested in hearing about it.”

  Diane was relieved that he was still alive. She didn’t want to have killed someone. “How is he?” she asked.

  “Critical but in stable condition,” said Garnett. “Only two of your bullets did any damage. The other two were stopped by his Kevlar vest. One bullet went in the arm opening of the vest and found the radial nerve but managed to miss the artery. Doctor said his right arm’s going to be paralyzed. His right little toe was mangled by the bullet to his foot. They amputated the toe. Still, he’s a lucky guy. Don’t go wasting your time feeling bad for him. You know what he had planned for you. If he had got you to open the front door, he was going to blow your head off.”

  Diane shivered. She did know that.

  Detective Hanks came in and pulled up a chair. He stared at her as if looking for signs of the previous evening, or maybe signs of a nervous breakdown.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” said Diane. “Just bewildered. Did he say what this was about?” she asked.

  Garnett snorted and nodded to Hanks, who gave her a grim smile.

  “He
was talkative,” said Hanks. “Said he had a contract to kill you.”

  “A contract?” said Diane. “Someone put a contract out on me? Why?”

  “We don’t know. He said he doesn’t know who or why.” Hanks smirked and looked at Garnett. Diane had the feeling he was trying not to laugh. “Emory said he received an envelope in the mail with two thousand dollars and your picture and address in it. He thought it was some kind of mistake until he got a call that evening. A man claiming to know his cousin, Ray-Ray, told him he’d sent it as a good faith payment. That he was looking for a good man to do some wet work for him.”

  “Wet work? He actually said that?” said Diane.

  “Yeah,” said Hanks, grinning. “He actually said those words.”

  “The man asked him if he was up to it. If he was, he would get another fifty grand. The man said that he’d tried to use Emory’s cousin, but he was a disappointment, and he wanted to know if Emory was going to be a disappointment too.”

  “Emory asked what would keep him from just holding on to the two grand and doing nothing,” said Garnett. “The man told him nothing was to stop him, but if this went well, he would use him again. That is, if he didn’t mind doing a little traveling, like to Las Vegas and places.” Garnett gave a derisive chuckle. “Las Vegas.” He shook his head.

  “Emory said the caller told him that from time to time he would receive an envelope, just like the one he’d received about you, with information and money in it,” said Hanks. “If he did well—get this—the man would open him an offshore account for the money to be deposited directly. Emory thought he’d made the big time.”

  “Are you saying that some kind of organized crime people have put a contract out on me?” said Diane. “Are you serious?”

  “Believe me,” said Hanks, “no serious crime organization would hire this guy for anything. He was being played, big-time. No fifty grand would be sent to him after—the deed.”

  “But we don’t know who hired him,” said Garnett. “His phone records show the call came from a throwaway cell. We are going to assign a couple of men to you until this is over. We do take this seriously, no matter what kind of buffoon this Emory is. Someone out there knew he would be a good fall guy. He told Emory to make it quick and violent. If you wouldn’t let him in the door, he was to, quote, ‘blow the door off its hinges.’ ”