Scattered Graves dffi-6

by Beverly Connor

  She took another drink of water, this time a small sip, and she actually looked as if the memory scared her. Diane imagined it did, but not enough to over come the glamour of the situation and the money that came with it. Along with her salary she was probably paid bonuses under the table.

  ‘‘Continue, Miss Gillinick,’’ said Riddmann. ‘‘We are anxious to hear about the murders.’’

  Riddmann was inclined to be impatient. Diane thought they ought to just let the story unfold, not encourage her to skip over parts of it.

  Rikki seemed to ignore him. She continued with her story the way she was telling it. She had the stage and was enjoying her part.

  ‘‘They were real happy to get the crime lab. Bryce didn’t want to be head of it, but they must have told him he had to. You know in movies how the goodlooking guys will have a dweeb for a sidekick, and maybe he’ll be smarter than them, but he’s still a dweeb? Well, that was Bryce. He was the dweeb. But they told him the crime lab was the most important job of all. And I think they meant that. They weren’t aware that the bone lab didn’t come with it. At first they didn’t pay much attention to it anyway. Then Bryce found out that it had all kinds of fancy equip ment and he realized he could hire their own forensic anthropologist, so he started looking for one.

  ‘‘But what Jefferies really wanted was the DNA lab. He knew it was owned by the museum, but he and the others had an idea of how to get it. They were first going to get Curtis on the inside to do all their DNA analysis. But Diane Fallon got in the way of that and they decided they had to get rid of her. They hired Harve Delamore to do it. He hated her anyway. Harve was always bragging about how he could have gone semipro. Well, that’s what he was—semipro and not pro. He bungled it. When that didn’t work out, they were going to frame her for his murder.’’ She laughed. ‘‘Then it turned out that the GBI had juris diction. It was starting to get funny. Diane was like the Road Runner and they were Wile E. Coyote.’’

  Diane was shocked that Rikki could talk about mur dering someone with such ease, even laugh about it. She shivered. Life meant nothing to this woman. Nothing to Jefferies and his cronies either.

  ‘‘Jefferies and Bryce drew up plans for what they would do with the whole third floor of the museum building,’’ said Rikki. ‘‘But they had to get Dr. Fallon out of the way.’’

  Diane was startled to hear that. How did they ex pect to get the whole third floor? she wondered.

  Rikki leaned forward as if Riddmann and Janice could hear her better if she did.

  ‘‘When Harve failed to kill her, Bryce smuggled a gun into the museum and hid it. It was easy because Bryce had his own guard at the door from the crime lab into the museum. They were planning to kill Dr. Fallon in the museum. They thought that might make it easier to close it down.’’

  Diane sucked in her breath. Frank grabbed her hand and squeezed. The chief of police looked over at her, frowning himself, startled.

  Rikki looked up at the two-way mirror as if she knew Diane was watching, and delighted in the shock of the revelation.

  ‘‘You were just going to let that happen?’’ said Janice.

  ‘‘What could I do? By this time I was thoroughly scared by these guys. If they were going to kill her, they wouldn’t give a second thought about doing me.’’

  ‘‘How did they think that would get them the DNA lab?’’ said Janice. ‘‘The museum would still own it.’’

  ‘‘But Dr. Fallon was the force behind the crime as pect to it. They figured the next director wouldn’t be a forensic anthropologist and wouldn’t be interested in the labs. They knew some of the museum’s board of directors didn’t like the forensic stuff being there.’’

  ‘‘How were they planning to take over the whole third floor?’’ asked Janice. ‘‘Killing Diane wouldn’t get them that either.’’

  Diane could see that Janice was skeptical. Ridd mann looked like he was getting impatient with Ja nice’s questions. Diane wanted Janice to continue. She wanted the answers to those questions.

  ‘‘That wasn’t all they had planned. I heard them say that little old ladies could get mugged and what a trag edy that would be. They had planned to take out Vanessa Van Ross too.’’ She sat back in her chair. ‘‘See, Mr. Riddmann, I told you this was a good story and worth a little time off for good behavior,’’ said Rikki.

  Diane stepped back and leaned against the back wall. She felt a strange retroactive fear of what might have happened. Frank put an arm around her shoulder and she leaned into him.

  ‘‘How did we let this happen?’’ said Chief Monroe. ‘‘How did we miss all of this?’’

  He didn’t really expect an answer and Diane didn’t give him one. She didn’t have one. She hadn’t voted for Jefferies. With her it was just a vague mistrust, something she couldn’t put into words, a gut feeling that she acted on at the voting booth. But he had appealed to a lot of people.

  Diane could see that the three sitting in the room with Rikki were just as stunned. She couldn’t see Ridd mann’s and Janice’s faces, but she saw them straighten up and exchange glances. She saw the shock on Patsy LaCroix’s face. She had been periodically patting Rikki on the hand, encouraging her. She took her hands away and put them on the table in front of her. Patsy LaCroix and Vanessa were friends.

  Rikki saw their reaction, delighted in it for a mo ment, then straightened her own face to reflect the seriousness of the situation.

  ‘‘That’s one of the reasons they were so furious with Bryce when he gave Dr. Fallon the ammunition to get the crime lab out of the museum building. They could see all their carefully laid plans just collapsing. That’s when they started fighting with each other. They tried to get Garnett to help them but he wouldn’t. And that really pissed them off.

  ‘‘They were trying to get rid of him anyway, and had planned to frame him for Dr. Fallon’s murder. Bryce came up with the idea of substituting one bullet for another. He said it would be tricky. Bullets some times ricochet around in the body and you don’t know where they might end up, but if it’s done right, Bryce thought he could make it work by short loading the bullets, or something like that. He said he could re duce the energy of the bullet when it entered the body. He was just full of fun ideas.’’ She laughed again.

  ‘‘You think all this is funny?’’ said Janice.

  ‘‘I do,’’ said Rikki. ‘‘Do you want my story or not?’’

  ‘‘Please go on,’’ said Riddmann.

  Rikki nodded. ‘‘Just in case that didn’t work—or they couldn’t get the bullet out—they got a gun that couldn’t be traced back to them. They also took Garnett’s bullets from the Ballistics Department and were going to use them, but those were all in perfect shape and Bryce thought it would look suspicious. So they collected Garnett’s bullets from the gun range.’’

  ‘‘So all their plans collapsed,’’ said Janice.

  Rikki nodded. ‘‘First, Dr. Fallon shut down the crime lab and locked them out, so they couldn’t get through the connecting door to get into the museum where the gun was and where they wanted to kill her. They didn’t want to risk going through one of the main entrances. That meant passing under the video cam eras and past people who might remember them. They thought about doing the Van Ross woman first, but she was out of town. They were trying to work all that out when Jefferies was murdered. That threw Peeks and Bryce for a loop. Let me tell you, it shook them bad. That’s why I don’t think they did it.

  ‘‘After they got over being scared that they might be next, Peeks decided to take over where Jefferies left off. He was going to make Bryce the dweeb side kick again, but Bryce wasn’t going to have it. Him and Peeks were at Jefferies’ house waiting for Garnett’s lawyer to come with Dr. Fallon to look at the house when they had a real kickup. I wasn’t there. Bryce told me about it later and said if I didn’t help him, he would say I was in on it and would go to jail too— if I lived that long. I got with the program, but I protected myself.

&nbs
p; ‘‘He shot Peeks in the back of the head and, just like he planned to do with Dr. Fallon, he took those long tweezers from the crime kit and dug the bullet out. I can’t even bare to tweeze a splinter out of my finger; anyone can tell you that. Anyway, he found the bullet and pulled it out. He was carrying Garnett’s bullet in his crime kit to use on Dr. Fallon, so he took the tweezers and pushed that bullet back through the bullet hole in Peeks’ head. Pretty disgusting stuff, huh?

  ‘‘Anyway, time was running out. He knew Dr. Fal lon and the lawyer were coming soon. He was in a hurry and got careless. The bullet and the tweezers were knocked under the chest as he was getting the kit out of the way. He couldn’t reach under the chest and he didn’t have time to move it and clean every thing up, so he left them, knowing he could get them later. He texted Garnett, pretending to be Prehoda’s secretary, and told him to come and meet Prehoda and Dr. Fallon at the house. Then he hotfooted it out of there and got back to the crime lab just about the time we received the call from the police. That’s when Bryce told me what happened and threatened me into helping him.’’

  She took another long drink of water as if in the telling of it she was reliving it. She actually looked out of breath.

  ‘‘It was busy when we got to the crime scene. He tried to hurry Dr. Fallon and the lawyer out of the way, but there was you and your partner to deal with too,’’ she said to Janice. ‘‘I found the bullet and the tweezers under the chest and put them in a paper evidence bag and sealed it. I gave Bryce another bag just like it and told him it was the evidence. I took mine to the bank and put it in a safe deposit box. Then I stayed with a friend and didn’t come to work until I found out Bryce had been fired and Dr. Fallon was back in charge. I wouldn’t even take any calls from Curtis. I didn’t really trust him either. I called Bryce and told him what I had and he’d better lay off me. He tried to make all nice and started talking about the money. Him and Curtis were making all these plans to get the computer, but they were so lame. They wanted me to stay working in the crime lab, and that’s what you-all wanted too, so I did. I got to think ing that I’d get the money. I knew I would have to let you guys decode it first.’’

  ‘‘Who encrypted it?’’ said Diane to the chief. ‘‘Get them to ask that. Find out if it was Malcolm Chen, and ask her what happened to the bones in the field.’’

  Chapter 46

  The chief of police, Buford Monroe, went into the room with Rikki and the others. He picked up a chair from the corner of the room, brought it over to the interview table, and sat down. Even in profile his face looked stern.

  ‘‘Young lady,’’ he asked, ‘‘do you know who en crypted the mayor’s computer?’’

  Rikki looked at him a moment as if processing the question.

  ‘‘I assume it was one of the hackers Jefferies hired. He had them over to his house sometimes. But I was never there when they were, and I didn’t know any of them. I think Curtis knew who did it. He was al ways hinting at stuff. And of course Bryce knows many of the hackers. He’s the only one left, in case you haven’t noticed.’’

  ‘‘Have you ever heard of a man named Malcolm Chen?’’ asked the chief.

  ‘‘Not until recently when his bones were discovered. That was something else that really freaked them out. I heard Bryce on the phone with Jefferies. I sometimes listened in,’’ she said without any embarrassment.

  ‘‘Jefferies thought that was going to be the thing that would collapse their world. I didn’t understand what it was about, but I got the idea that the last thing they wanted was for this guy to be identified and his death investigated.

  ‘‘Bryce reminded them they had their own forensic anthropologist. Up to then they thought he had jumped the gun in hiring one and were giving him a hard time. Everything was cool until Bryce realized the sheriff was sending the bones to Dr. Fallon. Bryce hijacked them and thought he was home free until he found out that Dr. Fallon already had the few first ones that were found. Jennifer told him there wasn’t much Dr. Fallon could do with a handful of bone fragments, that they were too damaged and the DNA was probably de cayed.’’

  ‘‘Was Jennifer in with them?’’ asked the chief.

  ‘‘No, I didn’t get that impression. Bryce told her he wanted her to be the one to identify the bones and not Dr. Fallon. That’s how he explained his interest. But I do think Bryce and the others thought they could turn her. Jennifer was just out of the university, and Bryce knew she wanted the job badly. She’d put her career on hold while her husband went to school and she raised the rug rats. Now she was old and desperate. Bryce thought that would make her easier to handle. He also thought she was having an affair with the new medical examiner and he was going to hold that over her. I told you, these were mean guys— Bryce, Jefferies, and Peeks.’’ Rikki smiled.

  No loyalty there for Jennifer, thought Diane.

  ‘‘It might interest you to know that Dr. Fallon did discover the identity of the person who the handful of broken bones came from,’’ said the chief. He said it as if he wanted her to know that the home team were better all-around players than Jefferies’ team.

  Rikki grinned. ‘‘You’ll have to tell that to Jennifer. She’ll have a cow. She got really jealous the way things turned out.’’

  ‘‘What happened to the bones that disappeared?’’ asked Chief Monroe.

  ‘‘Curtis took them and threw them in the river,’’ she said.

  ‘‘Where is the hard disk you took? Is that in the river too?’’ asked the police chief.

  ‘‘Yes,’’ she said.

  Diane wondered if they were regretting the great deal they gave her. Immunity is a great thing when you’re up to your neck in crime.

  ‘‘When Jefferies was killed, who did Peeks and Bryce think did it?’’ the police chief asked.

  ‘‘They didn’t know. We all talked about it. For about a minute I thought Bryce had. Jefferies was always on his butt for something, but he was really rattled by their deaths. I think Bryce did depend on them—even though they depended on him for their homework in that ivy league school they went to,’’ said Rikki. ‘‘I guess you noticed their pinky rings. So seventh grade.’’

  ‘‘Did Bryce or Peeks name anyone at all who they thought might have committed the murders?’’ asked the chief again.

  ‘‘When it came down to it, they really thought Garnett may have done it. The only other people they mentioned were some of the hackers they hired, but they had no idea who. Peeks planned on going through the files to see if he could come up with anything. But as I said, their best guess was Garnett. Jefferies was really after him, and they thought he found out about them,’’ said Rikki.

  So they were back where they started, thought Diane. Back to Garnett. The chief would probably order him released, but Garnett would still have a cloud over him unless they could find out who killed Jefferies.

  Diane thought of one person who would know.

  ‘‘Let’s go back to the museum,’’ she said to Frank.

  When the police chief came out of the interview room, Diane thanked him for letting her listen to the confession. He nodded. The chief was calm in the room with Rikki, but his face was red with anger when he came out.

  ‘‘What do you make of all that?’’ he said.

  ‘‘Right now, I’m shocked,’’ said Diane.

  ‘‘I can imagine you are. I am. I’m going to talk with Edward. He’ll be outraged when he finds out his mother was on a hit list. Tell me, what were the voters thinking about when they went to the polls?’’ he said. ‘‘I wonder if you can sue voters; they’re always so anxious to hold people accountable.’’

  Diane didn’t answer. She didn’t think he really ex pected one. He was angry, and practically everyone to be angry with was dead.

  ‘‘I’ve sent a car out to pick up Lloyd Bryce and Curtis Crabtree. Janice is going to the bank to get the evidence from the safety deposit box. She’ll send it to the GBI for analysis, if that’s all right with you. Ed wa
rd said you have some repairs to make in the crime lab before it’s ready for use again. I tell you, they’re like an infestation of rats. And from the sound of things, there are a lot more of them out there lurking in peoples’ businesses. Thank God we have a list.’’

  ‘‘You can have Janice bring the evidence to us if you want. Jin can do the DNA faster and he can lift the prints in his lab. When he’s finished he can send the bullet to Ballistics,’’ said Diane.

  The police chief nodded. ‘‘I like that better. Yes, I do. Let the people know we’re on top of things despite all the rats’ nests we have to clear out.’’ He went to find Janice before she left for the bank.

  ‘‘How do you feel?’’ asked Frank when they were ensconced in his car on the way back to the museum.

  ‘‘Like I just escaped a bullet,’’ she said. ‘‘I’m more astonished than angry at the moment. I can’t believe what I just heard. Do you think she was telling the truth?’’