Scattered Graves dffi-6

by Beverly Connor

  ‘‘Yes, I am,’’ said David.

  Diane could see Frank wanted to ask more ques tions. And he probably realized he would get no satis factory answers. David was very secretive about how he did things.

  She looked at the diagram. It showed circles with the names of Lloyd Bryce, Edgar Peeks, and Spence Jefferies, with lines connecting all of them to one an other. Edgar Peeks was also connected to several po licemen he had hired. Lloyd Bryce was connected to the guard at the overlook, to the DNA tech/detective he wanted Jin to hire, to Rikki Gillinick, and to Jenni fer Jeffcote-Smith. Jennifer was also connected to Shane Eastling, the new medical examiner.

  ‘‘Do you think Shane Eastling was a member of Jefferies’ little cabal?’’ asked Diane.

  ‘‘I don’t know,’’ said David. ‘‘It could be that he simply knew Jennifer and recommended her. But he would have had to know Bryce was looking for a fo rensic anthropologist—ergo he would have to know Bryce in some capacity. However, it could have oc curred in passing—at a crime scene Bryce mentioned he was looking and Shane knew somebody. I haven’t done full research on Shane yet. Nor do I know where Bryce found Rikki or Curtis, or where Peeks found the policemen he hired. There’s a lot I don’t know.’’

  ‘‘It’s hard to fathom,’’ commented Frank. ‘‘Where did Shane Eastling go to school, do you know?’’

  ‘‘Cal State and the University of Chicago,’’ said David. ‘‘He grew up outside of Los Angeles, as did Jennifer.’’

  ‘‘You know,’’ said Frank, ‘‘you should just turn this over to Janice Warrick and let the police take over from here. Now that the principals at the center of this are dead, they’re no longer a problem. That is, except to discover what they were up to and who killed them. But it’s not your problem to solve. With the things Diane discovered about how Bryce mishan dled the crime scene, Garnett should be in the clear.’’ He paused and smiled. ‘‘The detectives are probably now looking for the shadowy figure,’’ he added.

  David winced. ‘‘Look, I suppose I need to talk about that,’’ he said.

  Diane didn’t say anything. Neither did Frank. The three of them sat in the light of the chandelier staring at one another.

  ‘‘I pulled the LUDs on all their phones,’’ said David. ‘‘There was nothing that wasn’t expected. That surprised me. Then I happened to remember seeing Bryce talking on a cell that was different from the one he normally uses. And I realized—they used prepaid cells for their activities.’’

  ‘‘What exactly were their activities?’’ asked Frank. ‘‘You’ve made a convincing case that they were up to something, but do you have any idea exactly what that was?’’

  ‘‘No. I haven’t a clue. That’s why... That’s why . . . Well, damn. Look, like I told Diane earlier, I was casing the mayor’s place looking at who came and went. I was also looking for an opening to put a bug in his house. I thought it was important to find out what he was up to, since I was convinced that he killed a judge and he staged a rash of burglaries for his own political advancement.’’

  ‘‘Bug the mayor’s house?’’ said Frank. ‘‘You were really going to do that?’’

  ‘‘I couldn’t think of anything else. And yes, that means I was there the night he was killed. But the only person I saw that night was Garnett. I believed he was innocent, but I didn’t know it for a fact. I didn’t hear anything. There were no gunshots.’’

  He stopped and took a breath. He looked miserable.

  ‘‘I’ve been agonizing about coming forward. I didn’t want to muddy the waters. From my point of view, I knew I wasn’t the one who killed them. Until Garnett was arrested, I had no idea anyone would blame him.’’

  ‘‘What are you going to do now?’’ said Frank.

  ‘‘I don’t know. Come forward but leave out the part about wanting to bug Jefferies, I guess. But I don’t have a good story as to why I was skulking around in a hoodie. I thought I might say I wanted to report Bryce but was undecided, so I just stood outside his house trying to figure out what I should do. Lame, I know. But the truth—well, more or less.’’

  ‘‘For now, Garnett is in the clear, I think. I’ll find out,’’ said Diane. ‘‘You can tell the truth. Say you had all this evidence that Jefferies may have been involved in a murder, but you couldn’t go to the police because you thought the chief of police was in on it. So you decided to investigate Jefferies yourself. That’s all true. You don’t have to say you were going to plant an illegal bug. But first, let’s see what’s up.’’ She turned to Frank. ‘‘What do you think?’’

  ‘‘That sounds like a plan,’’ he said. He looked at David. ‘‘One way or another, you’re going to have to clear up your presence on the video.’’

  David nodded. ‘‘I should have thought of the simple explanation. That’s the trouble when you embark on a life of crime. Your thinking gets muddled.’’

  Diane went to the phone and called Colin Prehoda. He would know if Garnett had been released. She dialed his cell and he answered on the first ring.

  ‘‘Diane, I’m glad you called. There are some things I need to tell you.’’

  After listening to Colin, Diane hung up the phone and sat back down on the couch beside Frank.

  ‘‘Well, the good news is they’ve dropped the charges against Garnett on the murder of Jefferies because the evidence was muddied by Bryce. The bad news is it was a bullet from Garnett’s gun that killed Edgar Peeks—and Garnett had his gun on him when Colin and I found him over the body.’’

  Chapter 25

  ‘‘What are you saying?’’ said Frank. ‘‘Garnett shot Edgar Peeks?’’ He looked as disbelieving as Diane felt. ‘‘That’s what the police are saying,’’ she said. ‘‘That’s what ballistics shows, and it sounds very much like what Colin believes.’’

  ‘‘Who did the ballistics?’’ said David.

  ‘‘I’m sure they did it at Rosewood’s ballistic lab,’’ said Diane. ‘‘Unless they sent it to the GBI, but I doubt they did that. I didn’t ask.’’

  Diane was still reeling from the news. She grabbed Frank’s hand. It was warm.

  ‘‘I don’t believe it,’’ she said. ‘‘I can’t believe Garnett’s a murderer. Something is wrong.’’

  ‘‘What does Prehoda want you to do?’’ asked Frank.

  ‘‘He wants me to continue to investigate, but he’s up against the wall on this one. He says if we can discover what the mayor and his friends were up to, then we can show that Garnett had reason to fear them, that he had reason to fear for Rosewood. I didn’t have a chance to tell him about Judge McNevin. He was in a hurry. But it will certainly reinforce his thinking.’’

  David stood up. ‘‘I have to go downtown right now. They need to know I was there.’’

  He looked at all the papers and photographs lying on the coffee table as if it was going to be impossible to pick them all up and get them back in order.

  ‘‘Wait on that,’’ said Frank as David bent down to pick up his briefcase. ‘‘It won’t change the ballistics evidence, and right now you’re under the radar. That gives you an investigative advantage.’’

  Diane looked at Frank in surprise. She thought he would be the one to insist that David go to the police immediately and identify himself as the person in the video. David was surprised too. He looked blankly at Frank for a moment, still stooped over his briefcase, then slowly sat back down. He let out a deep breath. Diane understood his relief. The revelation could ruin David.

  ‘‘A few minutes ago,’’ said Frank, straightening the papers on his coffee table, putting them into or derly stacks again, ‘‘I said this is now the police’s business and they should be the ones to deal with it. But I’ve since rethought

  looking at your network

  wondering.’’

  that position. I’ve been diagram and it’s got me

  Frank put a stack of photographs down and leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees.

  ‘‘In t
he beginning, it looked to you like the mayor was in charge of this conspiracy, cabal, or whatever you want to call it because he was the mayor, he was in the highest leadership position. But was he the leader? Maybe, maybe not.’’

  Frank put the tips of his fingers on the page with the diagram. ‘‘You were able to network only the peo ple who were actually seen together. Any one of us could have made this diagram from what we knew about the official relationships among these people. Consider the possibility that this is all that’s meant to be seen. Are there others involved we are unaware of? How many people in the police department are in on whatever it is? For that matter, what about other areas of the government, or businesses in Rosewood? What about the people the mayor and his buddies put in the police department? What are they doing now? Taking up the banner? I hate to say it, but I think you have to continue doing what you are doing until you can answer those questions.’’

  David didn’t say anything for a moment. He just rubbed his hand over his bald head. ‘‘Right now I’m at a loss for where to look,’’ he said. ‘‘That’s why I wanted to listen to what went on in the mayor’s house. I was hoping for a new lead. I mean, what the hell was his goal? It had to be more than what we see.’’

  ‘‘He lived in Atlanta before he moved to Rose wood,’’ said Diane. ‘‘Perhaps the answer lies there. Does he have any relatives still here?’’

  ‘‘No relatives. His grandparents are dead,’’ said David. ‘‘He had an advertising business in Atlanta, the same one he still owned when he was murdered. They do local Atlanta commercials. From what I could find out, they are squeaky clean.’’

  ‘‘Have you looked at companies in any of the other principals’ names?’’ said Frank.

  ‘‘Peeks worked in a recruitment firm in Atlanta. Bryce was in banking—he was a vice president of a bank in Connecticut,’’ said David. ‘‘I haven’t been able to find anything suspicious so far. None of the companies are under any kind of investigation. I’m still looking. The only really suspicious thing is they all made a lot more money in their former jobs than they do here. Except the mayor. He’s the only one who still had ties to his former business—as far as I know now. As I said, I’m still looking.’’

  ‘‘That should tell us something right there,’’ said Diane. ‘‘My impression of them is that they don’t seem to be the type of people who would take a sub stantial downgrade in pay.’’

  ‘‘None of them had any shadow companies that I can find,’’ continued David. He shook his head. He seemed at a loss.

  ‘‘How about the next tier down in your chart?’’ said Frank. ‘‘Rikki, what’s her name.’’

  David gave Frank a blank stare for a moment. ‘‘Damn. I didn’t think of Lollipop. That would have required a paradigm shift. I’ll do that.’’

  ‘‘There’s one place you can go that may already have quite a bit of information on Jefferies,’’ Frank said.

  ‘‘Where?’’ asked David.

  ‘‘Walter Sutton, the ex-mayor,’’ said Diane. ‘‘Of course. He would have investigated Jefferies during the campaign—hell, he would have had him followed.’’

  David spent the night at Frank’s. They worked out a plan to interview the ex-mayor, Walter Sutton. It would be a little tricky. Diane didn’t really want the mayor to know exactly what was going on. He tended to be a sieve when it came to information. They de cided to tell him they were helping Garnett. The mayor liked Garnett. Or at least he did the last time they checked. Sutton was not above abandoning people he thought might be a political drag on him. They decided to give him one juicy bit of information to chew on. Diane hoped it would make him more eager to give her information. She had been afraid that Walter Sut ton might not want her to know the length he himself would go to to find information on an opponent.

  Diane decided to do the interview herself and to go alone. She liked the idea of keeping David off the radar. Sutton would have it all over town that David was investigating. It didn’t matter if people knew Diane was looking into the murders. Everyone already knew she worked for Garnett’s lawyer.

  Diane asked David where he had been holed up. He told her at the museum, in his rooms down in the basement. He’d been eating from the break room and the restaurant. It wasn’t that he was avoiding his home, but his computer in his museum basement of fice was more powerful and was linked to the crime lab—unknown to Bryce.

  ‘‘There’s another thing we have to find out about,’’ said Diane. ‘‘What Bryce was looking for in Jefferies’ house. I know he was searching for something in par ticular, not just working the crime scene. Pendleton said they talked about some kind of list. If you had Jefferies’ computer, could you find out what’s on it? Janice said it’s encrypted pretty heavily.’’

  ‘‘Maybe,’’ said David. ‘‘I could give it a try.’’

  ‘‘Another thing,’’ said Diane. ‘‘We need to tell Ed ward Van Ross what’s going on—at least about Karen McNevin. He’s the acting mayor and he needs to know that Jefferies may have had a judge murdered. Not to mention that his police department may be holding an innocent person for the crime.’’

  ‘‘That’s a full day you have planned tomorrow,’’ said Frank.

  ‘‘I know, and I’d better get to bed.’’ She stood up and stretched.

  Diane showed David the guest room and wished him good night.

  ‘‘Get some sleep,’’ she said.

  ‘‘Actually, I feel better. It’s good to get it off my chest. It’s been worrying me, especially now—the an niversary. My dreams haven’t been good lately.’’

  ‘‘You trust David?’’ said Frank when they were in bed.

  Diane was lying with her back up against his chest— spoons, she’d heard her grandmother call it. It felt comfortable and safe.

  ‘‘Where did that come from?’’ said Diane. ‘‘Of course I do.’’

  ‘‘Sometimes he’s a little strange, and I wonder if he could have gone vigilante on us. I don’t think he did, but it has crossed my mind.’’

  ‘‘He wouldn’t,’’ said Diane. ‘‘No more than I would. He’ll skirt the law—like breaking into a suspect’s home and planting a bug if the circumstances are dire enough. But murder? No. Absolutely not.’’

  ‘‘How good is he with computers?’’ asked Frank.

  ‘‘You know how good Mike is at rock climbing?’’ said Diane. ‘‘David is that good with computers.’’

  ‘‘That good?’’ Frank said.

  ‘‘Yes. As good as you are a lover,’’ she said, turning over to face him.

  ‘‘Wow, he’s that good, is he?’’ said Frank. * * *

  Diane let David sleep in. For breakfast Frank fixed her one of his good stick-to-your-ribs recipes, oatmeal mixed with fried apples. She left David a note, and she and Frank parted at the door; Frank drove off to Atlanta, and Diane drove to the mayor’s office to speak with Edward Van Ross. She had called ahead and found that Buford Monroe, the old-new chief of police, was there. She supposed that Edward wanted Monroe to hear what she had to say.

  ‘‘Are you all right?’’ said Edward. His blue-gray eyes were clouded with concern. ‘‘I didn’t have time to ask you about your misadventure at the meeting.’’

  ‘‘It’s mainly bruises,’’ said Diane, though her face hurt like hell where Delamore had hit her.

  ‘‘Would you mind telling us about it?’’ said Monroe. ‘‘I’m getting calls, you know, concerned citizens who want to know why a policeman was killed, what we are doing about it. You know how people are. They don’t want to believe there’s a bad cop.’’

  Just a bad museum director. Diane had thought it was behind her. She thought since the GBI had done the math for them, she wouldn’t have to deal with it. But apparently they wanted to hear what happened from her lips, maybe to look at her face when she told it, just to make sure. So she told them the story again.

  The chief of police pulled on his lower lip as Diane spoke. Edward had no nervou
s gestures. He sat lis tening, one arm on the table, the other resting on the arm of the chair, his frown deepening as the story progressed.

  ‘‘Why on earth did you go out on the cliff?’’ said Chief Monroe when Diane finished the story. ‘‘That’s what I don’t understand.’’

  ‘‘Diane is a caver,’’ said Edward. ‘‘She climbs rocks. I imagine that was a familiar place for her and one

  danger—as staying with Dela that didn’t represent more obviously did.’’

  The chief looked unconvinced. Not, Diane realized, that he doubted her story, just that he couldn’t imag ine feeling safe and cozy hanging on the side of a cliff.

  ‘‘Edward is right,’’ said Diane. ‘‘I’ve climbed that cliff many times. I was familiar with it.’’

  ‘‘Ah,’’ said Monroe. He smiled. He seemed to un derstand now.

  ‘‘There’s something I need to tell you,’’ said Diane. ‘‘It’s about the evidence David analyzed from Judge McNevin’s crime scene. He was very concerned about it and was hesitant to go to Bryce, for reasons which will become obvious.’’