by J. F. Margos
I laughed, “All right, Daddy. When this case is over, I’ll take you up to Viola.”
“So, has Drew gotten the warrant yet?”
“Haven’t heard from him, but I imagine it’s going to be real hard to get, if not impossible.”
“Some justice system,” he said, pulling his head out from under the car hood. “Some nut with a shotgun holds up the whole works, while another nut gets by with murder.”
“Well, Dad, the system is designed the way it is to protect the innocent.”
“I understand all that. Still bugs me when it protects some nutball who wants to go off killin’ people, and some poor kid who never did anything gets killed, breaks his mama’s and daddy’s hearts.”
“I know, Dad.”
“You say the mom is dying.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dad shook his head. “Sad, sad. You better catch that weirdo, Toni. Catch him and put him away.”
“We’re trying, Daddy. We’re working as hard as we can.”
“Well, I know that’s right,” he said, scrutinizing me with a squint. “You’ve got the same disease my grandson has—you work too much.”
“And what are you doing out here, if not working on the neighbor’s Chevrolet?”
“Aw, Toni, this is playin’, not workin’. I’ve been playin’ at this my whole life.” He laughed. He laughed because he knew it wasn’t true about it not being work.
“Right, Daddy.”
“’Stang sounds like it’s running good. You must have been keeping up with it pretty well,” he said, eyeballing my Black Beauty in the driveway.
“Yeah, I tuned it up about a month or so ago, so it’s in prime condition. Just did a carb overhaul on the Jeep last week.”
“Well!” he said, beaming. “I’m impressed. Did that without the old man, did you?”
I laughed, “Yeah, Daddy, I did. I needed the therapy.”
“Yep, know what you mean. Well, so how does it run now?”
“Great.”
“Heh, you’re a chip off the old block. Nice work, kiddo. I’d like to hear it run, drive it a little bit.”
“Anytime you want, Dad.”
“Got a son, got a grandson—neither one of ’em is worth much in the garage. Got a redheaded daughter who could overhaul any engine as well as any guy can, and better than most. Heck, I think this calls for Mexican food and a game of pool. What do you think, Little Red?”
“I’m all over that, Daddy.”
My dad was like a doctor with a prescription for my mood. He was one smart old guy. He went inside and took a quick shower, while I closed up the garage for him. By the time I got inside and had washed my hands, he was in clean trousers, a plaid shirt and a lightweight jacket. He had put on socks and his work shoes again. I don’t think the man owned but one pair of shoes. He liked them and that was all that mattered.
We went to Dad’s favorite hole-in-the-wall Tex-Mex joint. There we ate cheesy, greasy food that I almost never eat, and talked more about my latest two cases.
“What are y’all going to do if Drew can’t get that warrant to search that ol’ boy’s property?”
“I don’t know, but we’ll get the evidence eventually, and then we’ll identify the killer. The last thing any of us want to do is go to trial and have the killer acquitted, so we want to be careful how we do things.”
“No kidding. They did that in one of them cases up in Dallas where some ol’ boy killed his wife. They went to trial, and I wondered at the time why they were in such an all-fired hurry.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I remember that one, too.”
“Nut can just go out into the middle of the street in downtown Dallas and confess it if he wants to. Ain’t nothin’ anyone can do. The law can’t touch him.” Daddy shook his head in disgust.
“I know, Dad, it’s called double jeopardy, and that’s exactly what we’re trying to avoid here by being careful.”
“Well, from what you tell me, that boy Brian disappeared in Hempstead, and that’s where y’all think he was probably killed, along with that woman, right?”
“Yes.”
“He wouldn’t have had any reason to go up to Viola as far you can tell, right?”
“Right—so far anyway.”
“So, what was Addie Waldrep doing in Hempstead?”
“We don’t know, Dad.”
“Well, I ain’t no detective, but it seems to me that if a person kills someone somewhere, or buries someone somewhere, it’s for a reason. I mean, he don’t just throw darts at a map, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So, she was there for a reason, and that’s where the killer killed her with that Brian kid. What’s Addie’s tie to Hempstead?”
“I don’t know. We’ve asked people in Hempstead about Addie, but no one knows her. Mike and Tommy asked, and so did I.”
“Well, I don’t know, Little Red, but it’s got to be there somewhere. I know you’ll find it.”
Dad and I headed to the pool hall. We played pool until eleven o’clock that night. Daddy was just the tonic I needed to get out of the doldrums and back on track. I want to be just like him when I grow up.
The phone woke me the next morning. It sounded like a fire bell and I groaned as I rolled over to pick it up. It was Chief Grant.
“Dr. Sullivan, it’s Chief Grant from Hempstead. I wanted to let you know that we’ve discovered some bones in a fresh shallow grave, similar to what has been found up there in Austin.”
I sat up in bed.
“Old bones?”
“They appear to be.”
“How were they found?”
The chief cleared his throat. “Julie and Frances went exploring on the old Gunther place at Angler’s Point. They checked out all of Brian’s favorite spots and found nothing, then they made a little side trip trying to get off the property and literally stumbled over this grave.”
“I’d like to come down, Chief, and see the site. Who’s handling the investigation?”
“I’ve called Lieutenant Smith with the Texas Rangers. He’s on his way down.”
“Good. Do you mind if I come down with him?”
“No, if he doesn’t mind, then I don’t. You’re welcome to come on down and see this.”
After I hung up with the chief, I virtually leaped out of bed. I started to run for the shower and then I decided I’d call Drew first, then Mike, but before I could call anyone, the phone rang again.
“Toni. Drew.”
“Tell me that you’re calling because you want me to come with you to Hempstead.”
“I am. Chief Grant already call you?”
“He did.”
“I want you to do the reconstruct on this one. If you want to ride with me, you’ll have to be ready in twenty minutes.”
“Come on by. Oh, could you call my son and let him know?”
“I’ve already done that, Toni.”
I loved the efficiency of Drew Smith. I hung up and ran for the shower. Another great thing about having short hair is the five-minute shower. I dried off, slapped on the bare minimum of makeup just so I wouldn’t scare small children or animals, combed my hair and put on my jeans, a brown cotton sweater and my brown snakeskin boots, grabbed a jacket and dashed outside to wait on the curb for Drew.
We talked about the case on the way down. Drew had beaten his head against a wall to try to get a warrant, but he had not been able to do so. The old coot who owned the property, Mr. Burkhardt, was apparently as mad as a wet hen, and wanted to press trespassing charges against Julie and Frances. The chief, with Drew’s instruction, had informed Mr. Burkhardt that trespassing or not, two citizens had reported finding a skeleton on his property, and that he could either cooperate or a warrant would be obtained and his property forcibly searched. The old man had relented. No trespassing charges would be pressed. Access to his property had been granted.
“I had no luck tracking the whereabouts of Doug Hughes, but I’d bet credits to navy beans those two women just found him
,” Drew said.
“I agree, but we’ll need proof to back up that assumption.”
“That’s why you’re here,” Drew said and smiled.
“Chief Grant said this wasn’t exactly where the women were looking.”
“It wasn’t, which explains why nothing was found when they searched for Brian sixteen years ago. Apparently, Julie and Frances looked in all Brian’s old haunts and then decided to take what the chief referred to as ‘one of Brian’s alternate trails’ out of the property.”
“Good grief.”
“Yeah. Julie fell over the grave mound and when she fell, the heel of her hand dug into the soft mud and exposed part of an arm bone.”
“Yippee.”
“Oh yeah. Shocked her totally and it was all they could do to get out of there fast enough. Chief Grant said when they got to his office, they were both muddy and pretty messed up otherwise, too.”
“What they did was either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid.”
“Well, I think just a little of both, but I’m so grateful to both of ’em, I really don’t care.”
“Amen.”
Drew had talked to Mike and Tommy to let them know what was going on. They were coming down and would meet us there.
Chief Grant had given Drew precise instructions on how to get there. We arrived at the gate of a farm the chief had referred to as “the old Gunther place.” Apparently, the Gunther family had owned the land for years and all the locals referred to it that way, even though someone else had bought it and now lived there. Old Mr. Gunther had been a nice man, according to what the chief had told Drew. It was a large property and trespassers in his woods were common, but Mr. Gunther didn’t care, as long as they stayed out of his fields and didn’t damage anything or do anything illegal there. Mr. Burkhardt had a totally opposite opinion to Mr. Gunther. Regardless of his wishes, Julie and Frances had trespassed, and had found more than they bargained for, and exactly what we had hoped to find.
When we arrived, I was relieved to see the State Crime Lab folks were already on the scene and had it under control. Drew had told the chief not to touch anything and to keep the scene guarded and secure until they could get there. He had dispatched the crime lab people immediately and they were hard at work.
We had parked the car at the end of a dirt road that led around the edge of the property and had walked the rest of the way into the woods to the spot. One of Chief Grant’s men had been waiting for us and led us in. As we walked up onto the site, I witnessed the same archaeological methods I had seen applied in Austin in the removal of these bones.
We greeted Chief Grant and he gave us the rundown.
“The two women came out to this place because they heard that we weren’t able to get a warrant. They were frustrated, so they took matters into their own hands. It didn’t quite turn out the way they expected, but all’s well, etcetera.”
“I hear the trespassing charges were dropped,” I said, smiling.
The chief rolled his eyes. “Crazy old guy was going to throw a monkey wrench into the whole works with all that nonsense. I made it clear to him that we were going to investigate this report with or without his permission. His wife is the one who talked sense to him.” The chief smiled. “She told him how the cow ate the cabbage, and that was it.”
“Good,” I said.
“The women tell me this was one of Brian’s alternate routes off of the property. He would occasionally come out this way after a bird-watching jaunt.”
“I’ll want to question those women, Chief,” Drew said.
“I know. I have them down at the station with one of my men. I’ve told them they’d have to wait for you before they could go home. I just didn’t want them out here watching all this, so I made them stay in town.”
“That’s fine. I’ll talk to them first and then I want to come back out here and talk to the owner of this place before I leave.”
“No problem,” Chief Grant said.
I moved closer to the site and looked at the grave that was being unearthed. It looked as though a larger area had been dug up and the soil replaced, but only this part was mounded up for the grave. I wondered if this was the site of the original burials. It would explain the larger area where the earth had obviously been disturbed.
“Chief, this larger area where the dirt has obviously been recently disturbed, has this been looked at? Is this something that Burkhardt did?”
“I asked him about that and he says he hasn’t even been to these woods in as long as seven or eight months. He rides out here occasionally, but he’s getting real old and doesn’t come out as often he used to.”
I looked back at the dig area. The bones had been dumped—jumbled just like the other two sites. Why would the bones have been removed and reburied like this?
“Drew, I want copies of the photos your lab folks have taken here.”
“No problem, but why do you want them?”
“I’m going to show them to Leo Driskill.”
“Sure. That’s fine. I’ll make sure you get a set.”
“Thanks.”
The scene enthralled me. I locked on to it visually, but really emotionally. I knew this had to be the original burial site. The murderer had buried his victims here and then come back to unearth them, moving at least two of them. He probably murdered them here as well.
“Drew, this is probably the site of the murders, don’t you think?”
“Yes, I do.”
Blood had been spilled here—the blood of three people. What kind of person could do that? How do you kill three people and then bury their bloody bodies in a mass grave like this? I stood and pondered it all for a while. I couldn’t imagine the killer’s rage in doing this, or the fear Addie must have felt to know that he was going to kill them. I thought of Brian probably struggling to get away before he was killed. That’s probably why he was shot so many times, and not shot in the head. I shuddered to think of all of it. The evil of that place hung like a death shroud there. Then I wondered if anyone would ever know the truth about Addie and Doug, and what had happened here, or if the mystery would be eternal.
“You need to get those soil samples to the same folks at A&M that Chris was working with.”
“I’m already on that, too, Toni.” He smiled.
I sighed. “Sorry. It’s just that I’ve been looking for some break in this case and I haven’t been able to come up with anything. Now, this looks like the original site…”
Drew patted me on the shoulder. “I know. Your problem is, you don’t know how to deal with a case that has you stumped.” He chuckled.
“Well, I get involved with people when I rebuild their faces.”
“I know.”
Mike and Tommy had arrived and were shown in. They looked over my way and nodded and then checked everything out for themselves. They spoke with a couple of the forensic techs and then came over to where Drew and I were standing.
“This is it, isn’t it, Toni?” Tommy asked.
“Yes.”
“You doing the reconstruct, Mom?”
“Yes. That’s why Drew brought me down here—well, it’s the main reason anyway.”
“We’re going to town in just a minute and question the two women who found the grave. I’m sure you two will want to go with us,” Drew said.
“Absolutely,” Tommy replied.
We talked amongst ourselves a few more minutes, then Drew gave final instructions to the lab people, and he, Mike, Tommy and I went back into town with Chief Grant.
The women had been held waiting a long time. They were tired, but worse yet, they were very emotionally shaken. The two were still recovering from the remains of their friend, Brian, being found. Even though it had been their conscious choice to go looking for “evidence” on the old Gunther farm, neither woman had expected to stumble over a skeleton. While viewing skeletal remains might be a common occurrence for me, it was definitely a pretty unsettling event for most people.
Drew was now working the case with Mike and Tommy, but he had asked them if they would let him lead the questioning of the women. When he was done with all his questions, they could add any that he hadn’t covered. He didn’t have to ask them if this was all right—Mike and Tommy had no jurisdiction in this part of the world, but Drew asked anyway. That was just Drew Smith’s way.
When we walked into the chief’s office, the two women were sitting with the patrolman on duty at the front desk. They had been provided with hot tea and they looked as though they were in need of that and some bourbon. We took both of them into the chief’s private office.
Drew began, “Ladies, first of all you both did us a favor by finding and reporting the skeleton on Mr. Burkhardt’s property, but you are very lucky that he did not shoot you, or file charges against you.”
The two women glanced at one another with concern.
“We know that, Lieutenant,” Julie said, “but we were not going to let that old man and his stubbornness stop the progress in finding Brian’s killer.”
“Right,” Frances chimed in. “So, does the skeleton we found have anything to do with it all?”
“We don’t know for sure yet,” Drew said, “but it probably does. Dr. Sullivan here will be able to help us with that. She’s going to give the deceased his or her face back. Then we can begin to answer some questions.”
“I guess the finding of this skeleton could just be some kind of weird coincidence, though, huh?” Julie asked.
“I suppose it could be, Miss Paine,” Drew responded, “but I personally don’t believe in weird coincidences—particularly when it involves old skeletons in parts of the world where a murdered man and woman are known to have been previously buried.”
Julie looked upset now and stared down at her tea mug. Frances reached over and squeezed her hand.
“I’m sorry, Miss Paine, I didn’t mean to upset you,” Drew said.
“Oh no, it’s not your fault,” she said shakily. “It’s just thinking of poor Brian…”
Now she began to cry and Frances put her arm around her.
“It’s not your fault, Lieutenant,” Frances said. “This is why I went with her. We had to try. We had to do something. Brian was our friend, and the thought of some wacko just murdering him like that—for nothing—it makes both of us crazy.”