Shattered Image

by J. F. Margos

  “I understand,” Drew said.

  Julie began to compose herself, and Drew asked detailed questions about exactly where they entered the property, how they got to the location where they found the bones, how often they went over there and what Brian’s favorite spots were. The women answered all of his questions, with he and Mike taking notes. Tommy left the note-taking totally to Mike, partly because Mike was the junior man of the team, but also because Tommy was renowned for having a mind like a steel trap. He had been known to recount almost verbatim information that his partner kept in notes—without ever reading the notes.

  Drew indicated he was finished with his questions, and nodded to Mike and Tommy. Tommy looked thoughtful, and then cleared his throat.

  “What other spots did Brian frequent in his bird watching? He didn’t restrict that activity just to the old Gunther place, did he?”

  “No,” Frances answered. “He liked to go down by the livestock tank on Mr. Parker’s place, and along the creek that ran through his place and then on into the old Erickson place.”

  “But you didn’t search any of those places, right?”

  “No, we didn’t,” Julie said. “We knew he didn’t go to either of those places. We knew he had gone to Gunther’s that weekend.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “The bird he was looking for was there, and Mr. Gunther had given him permission to go to that part of his place anytime. You know, it’s three hundred acres out there, Detective. We didn’t have to traipse across the whole three hundred,” Julie said.

  Tommy smiled and nodded. “You knew where to look for the evidence.”

  “We knew where to look for the bird,” Julie said defiantly. “And we knew about Brian’s alternate exit.”

  Tommy smiled broadly now. Julie knew what he was trying to do, and she was prepared to stand her ground. In that moment I saw a different Julie than I had seen before. I saw the strength of her love for Brian.

  “Good,” Tommy said. “That’s all I needed to know.”

  When they were through questioning the women, we went back out to the farm and talked to Mr. Burkhardt. He was ten years younger than my dad, but he was decrepit. He wheezed and shuffled and was all bent over. I couldn’t imagine how this old man ever got on a horse. It was probably all his crankiness that aged him so much. His wife was there, too, and she seemed very pleasant in contrast to her husband.

  Drew questioned Burkhardt about going out to that part of his farm, and whether or not he ever noticed anything strange going on out there. Burkhardt cussed and carried on, and basically told Drew he never went out there, never saw anything suspicious and he didn’t appreciate trespassers being on his place. He was completely cross and uncooperative, and Drew Smith was fed up. Burkhardt had already effectively stonewalled this case. If it hadn’t been for the gumption of Julie and Frances, we would have been nowhere. Then Burkhardt told Drew how lucky Julie and Frances were that he hadn’t shot either one of them.

  “Well, Mr. Burkhardt, you’re actually the lucky one there,” Drew replied.

  “What in blazes are you talking about?” Burkhardt grumbled.

  “Posting a No Trespassing sign isn’t a license to commit homicide in the State of Texas, sir. You might be able to report someone for being on your property, and have them arrested. You could also prosecute them for being there, but you cannot shoot them unless they are inside your home. If I ever have to come out here for a dead body on account of your shotgun, I will be hauling your sorry, cranky behind into the hoosegow on homicide charges. I would personally make sure you never see the outside of Huntsville State Penitentiary again. Do I make myself abundantly clear?”

  “Hmmph,” Burkhardt grumbled.

  Drew stood to his full six-foot-four-inch frame, and repeated, “I asked you if you understood me, sir.”

  Mrs. Burkhardt moved to the edge of her seat with a scowl on her face and spoke. “The lieutenant asked you a question, Carl.”

  “I heard him.” He looked up at Drew. “I heard you, and I understand,” he said grudgingly.

  “Good. ’Cause I get riled when I have to come clean up behind homicides—particularly for nothing more than a conflict over a man-made boundary.”

  Drew had completed the interview of Mr. Burkhardt and you could have heard a pin drop in that room. With that we left the Burkhardts’ home and headed back to Austin. I don’t think Drew and I spoke more than ten words the whole way back.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The victim from Hempstead was a man in his early thirties. That meant that Addie’s death was the anomaly as far as gender was concerned, but everything else seemed to fit otherwise. We had been fooled as to the identity of the remains that turned out to be those of Brian Ferguson. I didn’t want to make false assumptions again.

  The man had been shot in the head, as Addie had been; however, he had been shot three times—once directly in the face. It made my work difficult, but not impossible. The crime lab had done a good job of putting all the bones back together.

  The reconstruction was well under way when Drew came by with the packet of photos I had asked him for. I offered him some coffee or tea, but he declined saying he had to get back to work. He did want to see the reconstruct, so I took him into the studio.

  The bust of the Hempstead victim stood on the table near the middle of the room. I had all the tissue-depth markers on it, giving it an ominous appearance. One of my big swing-arm work lamps was on and shed light across the whole area. Drew stood in front of it and nodded.

  “So, how long before this thing develops a face?”

  “Patience, Lieutenant Smith. You cannot rush this work. I’m going pedal-to-the-metal as it is.”

  “All right, so when?”

  “Give me another couple of days and I’ll be done.”

  Drew sighed, but knew he’d have to wait. I wasn’t going to work all night on this just to finish it. I had done three reconstructs in an unbelievably short time frame already. I needed to take more time with this one.

  Drew left and I went into the kitchen and made myself a cup of hibiscus tea. While I waited for it to cool a bit, I took the photos out of the envelope and began to lay them across the table. The site was as chilling in the photos as it had been in person. The horror of what had been done there—the murders of at least three people, their burial here and then their exhumation. It was unthinkable and puzzling, and I wanted answers.

  I called Leo Driskill. She had heard about the Hempstead find from Tommy. I told her I had crime scene photos and she said she definitely wanted to come over and look at them. She was about to go on duty, so she would come over as soon as she could to see what I had, but it wouldn’t be today.

  I sipped my tea and went back to work on the bust. Two hours later, I had laid a good bit of clay between the tissue-depth markers and finished my tea. I stood up and stretched and looked out the back window of my studio. It was midday and time for lunch. The face on this one was shaping up, and the more I worked, the more I wanted to know the answer.

  The bust on the Hempstead victim was done now. I had done what I said I wouldn’t do. I had worked all day and through the night to finish it after my visit with Drew the day before. Just wanting to know had fueled me to pull an allnighter. The face was staring back at me now. An oval, narrow face with a square chin, a slender nose and a high brow line. I had taken a Polaroid of it, scanned it and e-mailed it to Drew.

  He had called me five minutes later and said he was on his way over with news. I looked awful. I hadn’t slept and I was wearing my work clothes. I had clay in my hair and it stuck out all over the place. Again, the short haircut was my saving grace. I pulled the dried clay out of it, got up off the stool, then went into the bathroom and ran water through my hair and combed it. I looked pretty good for a mature chick who’d had no sleep and no shower.

  I went into the kitchen and made more tea. I was standing there listening for the doorbell, when the phone rang. It scared the
daylights out of me. I picked up and it was Chris.

  “You sound like something warmed over more than a few times,” she said.

  “Thanks. And I look so lovely, too.”

  “Well, this will perk you up.”

  “Lay it on me.”

  “The guys at A&M called, and all the soil samples match. That means both of the samples from here and the ones the State Crime Lab just took from the Hempstead site. They all have the same composition—mineral for mineral and microbe for microbe.”

  “That’s what I expected. The news just keeps getting better.”

  “Definitely.”

  I was about to tell her I had finished the bust, when the doorbell rang. I signed off with Chris, promising to call her and give her the latest update after I talked with Drew.

  Drew was in “uniform,” so to speak, and as I would have expected. He was wearing the trousers, white shirt, his Texas Ranger tie, boots, badge, gun and western hat so familiar to Texans as the symbol of their elite in law enforcement. He took off the hat as he entered the house and we made our way into the kitchen.

  “I smell hot tea,” he said, smiling.

  “It’s green tea with jasmine. I made it just for you,” I said.

  “Liar,” he said jokingly.

  “Okay, so I made it for you and me.”

  As I poured two cups, Drew sat down and placed an envelope on the table, then laid his right hand on top of it.

  “Don’t keep me in suspense, Drew Smith. I’ve worked too hard for you in the last two days for you to be jerking my chain.”

  He chuckled. “All right, all right.”

  He opened the envelope, slipped a piece of paper out and slid it across the table.

  “It’s the Texas driver’s-license photo of a man by the name of Doug Hughes,” he said.

  I looked at the photo and my heart felt as if it skipped two beats. It was the same face as the one on the bust I had just made.

  “Another dead-on image, Dr. Antoinette. As usual, you just keep making it easy for me.” He smiled broadly now.

  Leo came over the next morning to see the crime scene photos from Hempstead, as promised. We went into the kitchen and I made tea for both of us.

  “Well, I have news that I haven’t shared with you yet,” I said.

  “Give.”

  “I finished the bust yesterday, and took a Polaroid and faxed it to Drew.”

  “And?”

  “It’s Doug Hughes.”

  “Good work, Toni.”

  I handed her the crime scene photos that Drew had given me, and then I went back to finish our tea while Leo pored over the photos. She asked question after question and I briefed her on every detail I could think of. Then she put her tea mug down and went silent. I sat at the table and sipped my tea while I watched the wheels in her head turn. Then she spoke.

  “I have more of a theory now.”

  “Okay.”

  “This larger site is probably where the other two were buried and I suspect this third one was buried there with them. I think the killer dug them up and moved the other two for some specific reason. Brian because of his mother. Addie because he wanted to be rid of her, but wanted the water to carry her off. He dug them all up and moved Addie and Brian. What’s significant here is that he took the bones from Doug and just dumped them back in a grave and covered them up.”

  “Why do you think he did that with Doug but not Addie, too?”

  “I think it was partly guilt over killing her, maybe wanting to get rid of the remains so he could ‘forget’ about what he’d done, but maybe also to get her away from him.” She pointed down at one of the photos of the skeleton.

  “Jealousy after death?”

  “Sure. Why not? The killer was messed up enough to kill them in the first place. This isn’t a rational thinker here. In his, or her, mind revenge is still the motive for all of this. He may feel guilt over the death of Brian, and maybe a twinge of some guilt about Addie, but his revenge would be overpowering when it came to Doug. Doug would be the primary focus of his blame and his revenge.”

  “Jimmy claims that Addie and Doug were not involved, Lori isn’t commenting much to any of us, and Dody says for sure they were involved.”

  “None of that really means anything,” Leo said. “Jimmy could be lying, Lori is unbalanced and Dody is a drunk. So who knows? Besides, remember what I told you about a killer like this not having to have real evidence of what he believes. What he believes could be in his mind.”

  “Or not.”

  “Or not. It could be real, and this is all the result of incredible rage. It happens all the time.”

  “So he kills both of them, but he shoots Doug three times.”

  “I think the fact that Doug was shot three times is meaningful,” Leo went on. “But I think the fact that he was shot twice in the head, once in the face, is even more significant. There was real contempt in this killing, and in the haphazard reburial. He didn’t want us to find Doug, but he thought the remoteness of the burial site itself would prevent that. So, even though he didn’t want Doug found, he also didn’t want to spend any time or effort on the reburial. So he just provides a shallow grave and dumps the bones in. He’s still angry about what Doug did.”

  “Well, if it weren’t for our trespassing bird-watchers we never would have found this place. In fact, animals probably would have eventually carried off the bones.”

  “Probably, and I imagine he knew that.”

  “Thanks to Julie and Frances he was wrong.”

  “They were friends of Brian’s?”

  “Yes, and they literally risked their lives going onto that property nosing around. They knew we couldn’t get a warrant, but those ladies were determined to have answers about Brian’s death.”

  “Incredible.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “I believe that Brian had no connection with Addie and Doug. When I look at the way each of them was killed, and how the reburials were handled…I believe that Brian was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I think he was a witness, and he was killed to ensure his silence.”

  “Yes, I agree.”

  “I think that’s why it became so important to the killer to move Brian so he could be found.”

  “He was the only innocent one.”

  “Exactly. We’re going to have to connect the killer with one of the crime scenes somehow, you know.”

  “Well, Jimmy Hughes lives here in Austin, where the remains of Addie and Brian were reburied.”

  “That’s not going to be enough.”

  “So, what is the connection to old man Gunther. Who is this Mr. Gunther anyway?” Leo asked. “Do we know anything about him? Maybe he has some part in all of this. The body was found on his farm.”

  “Mr. Gunther is dead. The old guy who lives there now isn’t Gunther, he’s not even related to Gunther. He just bought the property from the family when Mr. Gunther died. They just call it by that family’s name because of how long they owned it.”

  Leo nodded. “Okay, but you said y’all had trouble with the owner of this place.”

  “Yeah, his name is Burkhardt—Carl Burkhardt.”

  “So, then maybe Burkhardt has something to do with all of this.”

  “It doesn’t fit, Leo. He didn’t own the place until five years ago. The bodies were originally buried there sixteen years ago.”

  “I’m trying to find some connection between this burial site and the victims—other than our bird-watcher. We already know his connection to the site. What in blazes were Addie and Doug doing there?” Leo got up and paced. “How is the crime lab doing with the evidence they found at this site?”

  “We’ll get all the results in the next couple of days.’’

  Leo nodded and sat back down at the table, focused on the photos again. About that time, the phone rang, and it was Drew.

  “Toni, you are not going to believe what the crime lab came up with.”

  “What?”

&n
bsp; “An old medallion. It was wrapped around some of the bones of Doug’s hand.”

  “What kind of medallion?”

  “It’s a heart, and has something engraved on the back.”

  “Spill it, Drew.”

  “It says, ‘For Lori.’”

  “So it belonged to her and it was found with him?”

  “Right. Also, Lori is missing, Toni.”

  “Get out.”

  “I’m serious. We went to pick her up for questioning and the woman is gone.”

  “Did anyone check with Jimmy Hughes?”

  “Way ahead of you. We went over there, and she was not there. He claims he has no idea where she is, and he’s not talking. I don’t have probable cause to bring him in, and he’s not going to tell us where she is, if he knows.”

  “I’m going over to talk to him.”

  “Toni…”

  “No, Drew. I’m going. Leo’s with me. I’ll take her, and you can’t stop me.”

  He sighed. “All right, Toni, but call me and fill me in right away.”

  “You got it.”

  I explained to Leo what was going on, and we piled into the Mustang and took off for Jimmy Hughes’s house. When we got there, he was in the living room playing his guitar. He was hesitant to let us in, but I begged him to let me in and let me talk to him. He let us both in.

  “I don’t know why all you people keep thinking my business is any of your business.”

  “Listen to me, Jimmy. Your brother’s remains were found in Hempstead.”

  “I know that. That Texas Ranger told me that yesterday.”

  “Jimmy, they’ve found a medallion that belonged to Lori. It was in the grave with Doug. It looks bad for Lori. The Texas Rangers are looking for her, and they will find her. It would be better if you just told us where she is.”

  Leo spoke up. “You know, Jimmy, she could probably claim some kind of diminished capacity in her defense.”

  He squinted and looked at both of us intently. “Defense!”

  He stomped around the room and turned to face us again.