Dust to Dust dffi-7

by Beverly Connor

  “Mr. Dance,” said Kingsley, “we would like your permission to have her exhumed. I know that’s painful to think about, but we need to have someone else look at her.”

  Dance was nodding his head as Ross spoke. “You do that. I want everybody to know that Stacy was a good girl.”

  “Mr. Dance,” said Diane, “I would like to take a look at her room. Dr. Kingsley here said you left it as it was?”

  He nodded. “I haven’t touched it.”

  “I need to take a look,” Diane said.

  Harmon Dance nodded his head. “Do what you have to do.”

  “Examining her room can be a little destructive,” said Diane. “I have fingerprint powders and-”

  “Do whatever you have to do,” he said again. “Whatever it takes.” His chair creaked as he rocked in it.

  Chapter 16

  Diane opened the door to the garage apartment with the key Mr. Dance had given them. She reached around to the light switch on the inside wall and turned on the lights without stepping inside.

  “Wow,” said Kingsley softly. “The crime scene photo doesn’t do this room justice.”

  “No,” said Diane, “it doesn’t.”

  Stacy’s apartment was charming. There was an efficiency kitchenette in one corner with a small round oak table and four chairs. The living room held a love seat sofa, two stuffed chairs, and a coffee table. Her bedroom area was half hidden by curtains. The small bathroom was across from the bed. The walls were painted a light dusty rose. One wall was covered in matching shades of striped wallpaper. The curtains were a complementary pink, as were the pillows on the cream-colored sofa and chairs. She had découpaged her chest of drawers with prints from a book of rococo art. A vase of flowers in the middle of the dining table had dried out, the water evaporated.

  Stacy had enj oyed her life. Diane saw it in the room. Everything was carefully chosen, pretty, much of it handmade.

  Kingsley started to walk in, but Diane stopped him.

  “Wait until I examine the floor,” she said. Diane slipped covers over her shoes. “I’m closing the door. I’m afraid you’ll have to stand out here until I clear you a place to stand. It’ll take a while.”

  Kingsley nodded. “As Mr. Dance said, whatever it takes. I’ll make some phone calls.”

  Diane left most of the crime scene kit outside and stepped in, closed the door, and turned off the light. The room smelled like death. She set her crime lamp on the floor, turned it on, and squatted so she could see what it illuminated. She began systematically looking for shoe prints the low-angle light would show up. There were many. She began the painstaking process of lifting the prints from the floor with electrostatic film. Most of the prints would be from the police and the coroner’s people who carried Stacy out, and most would be overlapping. But she might get lucky.

  She cleared the floor around the door and let Kingsley come in out of the chilly air to stand inside in the dark.

  “You’ll get used to the smell,” she said.

  He made light conversation as she went from print to print, placing the Mylar-coated silver foil over each print, lifting it using static electricity, rolling up the film, and putting it in a tube.

  Most of the shoe prints were on the hardwood floor around the bed where Stacy was found. But there were a few in other locations on the floor.

  “I didn’t realize this is such time-consuming work,” said Kingsley.

  “And we’re still on the floor,” said Diane. “We’ve got the furniture and ceiling to do.”

  “Ceiling? You expect to find something on the ceiling?” asked Kingsley.

  “Expect it? No, but it’s standard protocol to look. Could find some kind of spatter, for instance, that might give us critical information.”

  When Diane finished, she took the tubes of rolled-up film and put them in a carrying case beside the door. There was a gentle knock from outside.

  “It’s me, Boss. Can I come in?”

  “Come on in, Jin,” said Diane. “Carefully.”

  The door opened slowly and Jin stepped inside. He was holding his digital SLR camera, his newest toy.

  “Hey, Boss, I finished outside. How’s it going here?” he said.

  “I’m starting with the black light,” she told him.

  “The ultraviolet light detects organic stains from body fluids such as blood, saliva, semen, and urine,” Jin said to Kingsley.

  They watched as Diane again systematically examined the floor.

  “I can do that, Boss, and you can…,” Jin began.

  Just as he started to speak Diane stopped. On the floor near the dining table, a large area luminesced.

  “What is it?” asked Kingsley.

  “Perhaps where she was killed,” said Diane.

  “What do you mean?” Kingsley said. “How do you know? She was strangled, wasn’t she? Is that blood someone tried to clean up?”

  “More likely urine and maybe feces that someone tried to clean up,” said Diane. “Often during a death like Stacy’s, the bladder and colon relax and evacuate. Murderers usually don’t count on that.”

  “You want me to take the samples?” said Jin.

  Diane nodded. “Get some shots of this first, and let me go over the rest of the room.”

  Jin took multiple photos of the luminesced image in rapid succession from several angles.

  “Nice camera,” said Kingsley.

  “Yeah, you bet,” said Jin, a big grin on his face. “Don’t know what I ever did without it.”

  Diane worked her way around the small apartment and finished with the bed.

  “There’s very little on the bed. You would expect urine to be here if she died here,” said Diane. “Particularly if she was left in an upright position for an extended period after death. Jin, go ahead and collect samples, photograph everything, and do the bathroom.”

  “Sure thing, Boss,” he said.

  Armed with evidence bags, Diane began a search of the apartment. She used the same systematic procedure she had used with the floor to make sure she covered every spot. Just under the bed she found the towel that was around Stacy’s neck in the photo, along with the knotted rope that had been around her neck and anchored her to the bedpost. Evidently the coroner’s people had cut it off and dropped it on the floor and it got kicked under the bed. She put the items in evidence bags.

  Diane went around the room and searched the tops of dressers, tables, and door frames for prints. She lifted several. She enlisted Kingsley’s help in searching all the drawers in the apartment for any items that might shed light on Stacy’s life up until the time she died.

  In a small desk Kingsley found a tablet of yellow legal-sized paper. It was about half used up. Perhaps Stacy used it for notes. Diane bagged it. They could bring out the indented impressions in the paper using the electrostatic detection apparatus at the lab and see at least what had been written on the page before it.

  Diane and Kingsley searched the pockets of the clothes hanging in Stacy’s closet and came up only with movie ticket stubs from several months before. They searched all the trash cans, the clothes hamper, and the kitchen cabinets. Diane felt under the drawers and tables for anything that might be taped under them. She looked behind the pictures on the walls. She slid photographs out of their frames and looked for anything Stacy might have stashed behind them.

  It was almost dark when they finished. Kingsley gave the key back to Mr. Dance and they left for Rosewood.

  “So you think she was murdered,” said Ross Kingsley.

  “A good possibility,” said Diane. “I’ll analyze the evidence when we get back to the lab.”

  “So, then, to find out who did it, you’ll have to find out who framed the brother,” said Jin. “Unless it was her boyfriend, or a girlfriend, or a member of her band, or a neighbor, or someone from her job. What was her job?”

  “She was a student,” said Diane, “and the next big thing we need to do is get the body exhumed and have a new autopsy.�
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  “Whom can we get to do it? The autopsy, I mean,” said Kingsley. “I have some funds I can use.”

  “Good,” said Diane. “There is only so much you’re going to be able to get for free.”

  “Did you find anything outside?” Diane asked Jin.

  “I found a few cigarette butts at the side of the road nearest the steps to her apartment. I don’t expect much from those. Most look too new. Could be from anybody before or since. I searched the wooded area in back of the house. Didn’t find anything. Took a lot of pictures. But there is an empty house just beyond the woods. There are a lot of empty houses in the neighborhood. I kind of wanted to see if I could get in, but I figured you wouldn’t want me to.”

  “I think if we find enough to get the police to reopen the case, they can call the GBI in to do a search,” said Diane.

  They stopped at the museum to drop Jin off. Diane had called ahead and a member of museum security was waiting at the door with a cart to transport the crime scene gear inside.

  “I’ll start analyzing the evidence for you, Boss,” he said, unloading the crime scene equipment and a duffel bag filled with the bags of evidence they had collected.

  “Do you have time?” she asked.

  “I’ll do it in my free time. We’re doing good in the lab. Don’t worry,” he said. “Am I ever not on top of things?”

  “I never worry about the DNA lab,” said Diane. “Thanks, Jin.”

  “Sure thing, Boss. We’ll have to do this again sometime. It was fun.”

  “Where to now?” said Kingsley. “Shall I take you home?”

  Diane shook her head. “Let’s arrange for a medical examiner. I have someone in mind.” Diane made a call on her cell to see if it was a convenient time for a visit, and directed Kingsley to the home of Lynn Webber. She lived in an apartment complex close to the university.

  “Hey,” said Lynn when she answered the door. “This is a surprise. What are you doing in this area?” She looked at Ross Kingsley as Diane was about to introduce him. “I know you. You’re the FBI profiler, aren’t you? I worked on those hanging victims. That was just terrible.”

  “That’s right,” said Ross. “I’m not with the FBI anymore. I work for a private firm.”

  “Well, come in and tell me about it,” she said.

  Lynn Webber’s home was clean, neat, and modern. There were a lot of white-and cream-colored fabrics, shiny chrome, crystal fixtures, and modern art.

  Lynn was about five feet five, shorter than either Kingsley or Diane. She had short, shiny black hair that always looked as if it had been done at an expensive salon. Her eyes were dark and her smile bright. She wore turquoise silk slacks and a white silk shirt and silver jewelry. Many men who met her fell in love with her. Diane could see Kingsley found her interesting. But she wasn’t particularly worried about him. Kingsley’s wife, Lydia, was pretty interesting herself and more than a match for Lynn.

  “Please sit down. You have me intrigued. Can I get you something to drink? I always have fresh coffee.”

  Diane and Kingsley accepted and had several sips of hot coffee before Diane began her request.

  “By intrigued, what Lynn means is, what am I trying to get her involved in now?” said Diane. “She knows I have a habit of coming to her with, uh, interesting problems.”

  “Oh, dear, what are you up to?” said Lynn, smiling over her cup of coffee.

  Diane let Kingsley explain his job at Darley, Dunn, and Upshaw. When he got to Stacy’s file, which he had brought with him, Diane took over.

  “I’d like you to look at the autopsy report and the photograph. It’s the only one we have of her. If there were any autopsy photos of her, we don’t have them,” said Diane. She handed Lynn the photograph and the report.

  Lynn examined them carefully for several minutes. “I see your concern,” she said, tapping them with her polished fingernails.

  “We have the father’s permission to exhume her and were wondering if you would perform the second autopsy,” said Diane. “I don’t know the ME who did the first one, but I don’t imagine he will be pleased.”

  “He won’t,” said Lynn. “I know Oran Doppelmeyer.” She looked at Kingsley and then at Diane. “He won’t be pleased at all, which, I’m so ashamed to say, is the main reason I’d be happy to do it.”

  Chapter 17

  Both Ross Kingsley and Diane looked at Lynn Webber with raised eyebrows. Ross had his coffee cup halfway to his lips, about to drink the last sip. He held it there.

  “There must be a story here,” he said.

  “There is. It’s a two-cups-of-coffee story,” said Lynn.

  She poured them each another cup.

  “About seven years ago, Doppelmeyer was the medical examiner in South Carolina and I was assistant ME to him. One evening I was called to the apartment of a young couple after neighbors heard a gunshot and alerted the police. She was on the couch, gun in hand, with a bullet entry wound in her right temple and a big exit wound in the left side of the head. It was messy. She had been dead only about fifteen minutes by the time I got there. She held the gun so tight in her hand, it took me and two paramedics to pry it loose.

  “The neighbors said she and her husband had been arguing. The arguing stopped. A few minutes later there was the gunshot. The husband was an accountant and said he left the apartment following the argument and went to his office to work. That’s where the police found him.”

  She took a sip of coffee and set down her cup, almost spilling it on the glass coffee table.

  “I did the autopsy, determined the manner of death to be suicide, and released the coroner’s report. Well, you would have thought I had just given national secrets to the Russians. What I didn’t know, but wouldn’t have changed anything if I had been aware, was that her parents were well connected. They hated the son-in-law and were convinced he shot her and left her there with her brains spattered all over the white couch they had given the couple. The district attorney liked that story better than mine and he had the police arrest the young man.”

  Diane and Ross were quiet during her story, Diane because she knew Lynn and knew better than to interrupt her with questions, and Kingsley because he was enjoying watching her tell it. Lynn also talked with her hands and was quite animated.

  “To make a very long story a little shorter,” she said, “Doppelmeyer changed my report to say the manner of death was homicide. It went to trial and the defense called me. I testified that it was suicide. I explained about cadaver spasm and how we had to pry, with great difficulty, the gun from her hand. The prosecution, the family, and Doppelmeyer all came down hard on me. Doppelmeyer took the stand and told the jury I was incompetent and he had to constantly check my work-a blatant lie. He told them that what I called cadaver spasm was simply early onset of rigor mortis and the rigor caused her to hold on to the gun that her husband had placed there. He intimated that I had been out drinking before I got the call-I had been out to dinner, but not drinking. It was just awful. I was fired. Me, fired!” She frowned and shook her head.

  Diane half expected her to stamp her foot.

  “The poor husband was sent to prison. He did get out three years later because the prosecution had made several other errors in the trial and the defense attorney gave the new prosecutor a ton of information about cadaver spasm. But you know, there are people in South Carolina today who think that poor fella killed his wife.”

  Lynn’s cheeks had turned pink during the telling of the story. Diane could see it still stung.

  “I can tell you this,” said Lynn. “I’m willing to bet that when Doppelmeyer saw this photograph, he made up his mind this girl was trash. Not only is he a pig, he is a self-righteous pig.”

  “That is a terrible story,” said Diane.

  “It is, isn’t it?” said Lynn. “My parents wanted me to leave forensics and become a pediatrician. I told them no one was going to bring their children to me with this cloud over my head. I got a job in Atlanta, wher
e I built my reputation back up. Let me tell you, that’s why, when I go to court now, I have every kind of documentation you can think of.”

  “So,” said Kingsley, “you aren’t going to mind the fallout caused by a redo of his autopsy?”

  “Mind?” said Lynn. “Honey, I welcome the fallout. I’m older now and have had a lot more experience in court.”

  Diane called Frank to tell him she was on her way home. He said he was ordering Chinese and to ask Kingsley to stay for dinner. The delivery arrived at the same time she and Ross pulled into the drive. Ross waylaid the delivery man and paid for the food.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” said Diane.

  “Oh, it’s one of the perks of your being my consultant,” he said, and they carried it inside.

  “Ah, it’s good to eat,” said Kingsley, sitting down at the table. “Sometimes when I’m working, I tend to forget to eat.” After a few bites and a drink of hot tea, he said, “Lynn Webber likes to have her ego stroked a bit, doesn’t she? I noticed that you’re a little shameless at it.” Ross grinned at Diane as he helped himself to some sweet and sour chicken.

  “She does good work, she’s not afraid of politics, and she’s honest,” said Diane. “She also is good to her dieners. Yes, she likes people to notice her work. It’s a small price to pay.” Diane smiled back at him. Lynn was also supersensitive to even the most gentle slight, but Diane didn’t mention that.

  “So, is she going to be reliable?” Kingsley asked.

  “Yes, she’ll be fine,” said Diane.

  “She seemed a little too eager to give Doppelmeyer the shaft,” said Kingsley.

  “I’m sure she is very eager, but she won’t lie, nor will she exaggerate. What you will get is more corroborating information than you will know what to do with-and plenty of photographs. Of course, you realize her findings could agree with Doppelmeyer’s. In which case, Lynn will be very disappointed, but she won’t fudge the data,” Diane assured him.