Dust to Dust dffi-7

by Beverly Connor

  “Where were you?” asked Kingsley, turning to look out the window.

  “I know what you’re thinking. It’s too great a distance from here to the road. Well, I wasn’t in the house looking out the window. I was in my garden. It’s not there now. I quit gardening when my husband died. My garden was close to the road. I saw him clearly. His window was rolled down. His arm was resting on the door, half out the open window. I saw the snake tattoo he had on his forearm. I wrote down the license plate number. I was president of Neighborhood Watch then and I wrote down suspicious tags. Are you going to tell me that it wasn’t his plate number?”

  “No,” said Kingsley. “We’re just trying to get at what you told Stacy you saw. Surely she asked you questions, like was he looking at Ellie Rose Carruthers’ house when he drove past?”

  She was silent for several moments, her mouth set in a frown, her hands clutching the arms of the chair.

  “I told her I saw him,” she said.

  “Did he turn his head in your direction?” Kingsley pushed her. His voice was calm, but he was pushing. Diane thought Stacy probably had pushed too. If the person was looking at the Carruthers’ house, his face wasn’t turned toward Mrs. Nicholson in her garden.

  “Which way was he going?” said Diane.

  “What do you mean?” Mrs. Nicholson asked.

  “Which direction was he driving when you saw him?” she said.

  “I was standing in my garden. Looking across the street at him. He was going north-to my left.” She gestured with her arm.

  “This street isn’t a dead end, is it?” asked Diane.

  “No,” she said.

  “Did he come back and look again?” asked Diane.

  “I didn’t see him if he did,” she said.

  “How long were you in your garden?” Diane asked.

  “From nine in the morning until eleven. That’s when I worked in my garden,” she said. “And my eyes are good. I have reading glasses now, but my eyes were twenty-twenty then.”

  Diane had read Kathy Nicholson’s statement to the police, as well as her court testimony. It was in the file Kingsley had. Diane was willing to bet it was in Stacy’s file too, the one that was missing. In Nicholson’s first statement she emphasized the car, the plates, the Atlanta Braves cap, and the tattoo. Not the face. In court she said she recognized him. She pointed to him sitting beside his counsel. But the trial was held after Ryan Dance’s face had been all over the news. The documents didn’t say anything about a lineup.

  Diane was willing to bet the first information Nicholson gave was the truth. Truths are often put forth first by witnesses because they are what is actually in the memory. Only afterward, when the pressure is on-from family, victims, police, prosecutors-do witnesses start saying things that are not exactly the truth, but could be. After all, it was so clear-the car, the hat, the tag, the tattoo. It was easy for Kathy Nicholson to say she saw the face and believe she had seen it, after she had been questioned by so many people who wanted her to be a good witness. She lived across the street from a grieving family who wanted the man put in jail. Pretty intense pressure.

  “Was there a lineup?” asked Diane.

  “You sound like you are trying to prove that monster was innocent,” she said.

  “Didn’t Stacy ask you these questions?” said Diane.

  “She asked me some of them. She didn’t hammer at me the way you two are doing.” She glared at them. “I told her I picked him out of a collection of photographs the police showed me,” she said. “And I did.”

  “In the photo array, which one was it?” asked Diane.

  “I don’t remember,” she said. “It was nine years ago.”

  “Yes, nine years ago at one of the worst times in your life and the lives of everyone around you. Was it the first one or the last?” said Diane.

  “The first one, I think,” she said. “I think you’d better go now. This has not been pleasant.”

  “I know,” said Diane. “And you have been far more cooperative than we had a right to expect. I thank you.”

  Kathy Nicholson straightened up a little, then stood up. “I’m sorry for Stacy and her father.” She paused. “Do you think her murder had something to do with her brother?” she asked.

  “We don’t know,” said Kingsley. “That’s one theory, but we have to wait for all the evidence.”

  “How could it? I saw what I saw. I wasn’t mistaken,” she said. “It wasn’t someone else.”

  “We don’t know why she was killed. It may have had nothing to do with what happened here nine years ago,” said Kingsley. “It may be just a big coincidence.”

  She showed them out the door, and Diane and Kingsley walked to his car and got in. He started it up and drove out of Kathy Nicholson’s drive and onto the street and stopped.

  “Chilly,” said Kingsley. “I’m glad we didn’t have to do this outside.”

  “Me too,” said Diane, looking out the window at the Carruthers’ house.

  “I would have helped ask questions,” said Kingsley, grinning, “but it looked like you were on to something. Did you notice something?”

  “Two or three things jumped out,” Diane said. “If he was looking at Ellie Carruthers’ house, why would he drive only in this direction?” Diane pointed in the direction Kingsley’s car was headed. “He would have to look out the passenger window to see the house. Much easier to look out the window on the driver’s side. So why didn’t he case the house coming from the other direction? He could have seen more.”

  “Perhaps he did, but that was the only time he was seen,” said Kingsley.

  “Could be. I also noted that she did her gardening at the same time every day. If you needed a witness to be in a specific place in front of the victim’s house, she would be your witness. And everyone in the neighborhood probably knew her schedule.”

  Kingsley nodded. “That’s true. What else? You said maybe three things?”

  “The tattoo. She saw it because he had his arm hanging out the window,” she said.

  “And?” he asked.

  “It would be his left arm she saw, the arm that wasn’t on the steering wheel. When you drive with one hand, which one do you use?”

  “I’m left-handed, so I drive with my left hand,” he said.

  “Ryan Dance is left-handed too,” she said.

  Chapter 24

  “We left-handed people are pretty good with our right hands, living in a right-handed world as we do,” said Kingsley. “Just playing the devil’s advocate.”

  “I know. All of these things I mentioned are tiny and can’t remotely be used to benefit Ryan or get justice for Stacy. They are just interesting, small bits of information. They probably mean nothing. But when small pieces start adding up, sometimes you get a whole pot.”

  “A whole pot of what?” he said.

  “I’m working on something else that has to do with broken pottery,” she said. “It’s on my mind.”

  “Her identification of Ryan gave me pause,” he said. “I don’t believe she saw his face.”

  “Neither do I,” Diane said.

  “So, did she call the Carruthers’ house right away?” said Kingsley.

  “Of course,” said Diane.

  “Do you think they will see us?” he asked.

  “I believe so. There is a neighbor going over to her house now. I’m willing to bet it’s for moral support.”

  “Why do you think they’ll talk to us?” said Kingsley.

  “They want to find out what we are up to-if they need to mount an effort to keep Ryan in prison. They want to scope us out to see if we are the kind of people who are up to the task of perhaps getting Ryan out of prison,” said Diane.

  “You don’t think Kathy Nicholson believed we are only interested in Stacy Dance,” said Kingsley.

  “Nope. They can’t afford to believe that,” said Diane.

  “I agree. You’re not a bad profiler,” he said.

  “I thought you didn�
�t believe in profiling?” said Diane.

  “Slip of the tongue. I meant psychologist,” he said, and put the car in gear to drive across the street to the Carruthers’ house.

  The door was opened as soon as they rang the doorbell by a woman perhaps in her early fifties, in shape, and tanned. Her dark brown hair was cut in a sort of a graduated pageboy style with blunt bangs. She wore a white blouse and dark gray slacks. She wasn’t Marsha Carruthers. She was the neighbor Diane had seen walking over at a hurried pace. Perhaps I was wrong, thought Diane. Perhaps she was called over to be gatekeeper.

  “Can I help you?” the woman asked.

  Kingsley gave her his ID and explained what they were doing there, just as he had with Kathy Nicholson. The woman glanced at it and gave it back.

  “I suppose you know this is a cruel intrusion,” she said.

  “It’s certainly not our intention to be cruel,” said Kingsley. “My client’s daughter was murdered in a terrible way. We know she came to visit here a few days before her death. We were hoping Mrs. Carruthers would help. May we see her?” asked Kingsley.

  She opened the door and stepped aside. “I’ll be here with her,” she said.

  “Of course,” said Kingsley. “A good neighbor is a priceless treasure.”

  The woman looked startled for a fraction of a second. She was probably not expecting him to quote Chinese proverbs. As Diane recalled, that was in his fortune cookie the other evening.

  She led them into yet another formal living room. This one was not as bright and sunny as the one across the street. The dark, wine-colored drapes were closed. No outside light came in. The only illumination was from several lamps around the room. This living room was furnished with dark leather furniture, wood and glass tables, and a Persian carpet on a hardwood floor. The centerpiece of the room was the portrait over the mantel: a beautiful oil of Ellie Rose Carruthers-forever young, with long, wavy blond hair and blue eyes.

  “Mrs. Carruthers.” Kingsley held out a hand to a woman seated in one of the leather chairs. She didn’t reach out to take it and Kingsley let it drop.

  She had blond hair-bleached, but bleached well. She was too thin. Diane thought she probably had been too thin for several years now. She didn’t smile at them. Her face, strained, lined, looked like carved stone. She sat in the brown leather chair wearing a brown dress with brass buttons. She made Diane think of a chameleon, as if she could easily blend in with the chair and disappear altogether.

  “Thank you for seeing us,” said Kingsley.

  He and Diane stood waiting for an offer to sit, which never came.

  “Why have you come to dig in my wounds?” she said. Her voice sounded like pieces of gravel rubbing together. The other woman, the neighbor, stood at her chair like a handmaiden. She put a hand on Marsha Carruthers’ shoulder. Marsha reached up and touched it.

  “We haven’t come to cause pain,” said Kingsley. “We’re investigating the murder of Stacy Dance. We wanted to talk with you about her visit.”

  “Why do you say she came here?” said Marsha Carruthers.

  Diane noted that they weren’t surprised at the word murder.

  “We are retracing her steps,” said Kingsley. “Can you tell us what she talked about?”

  “Do you think her death had anything to do with her investigation?” asked Mrs. Carruthers.

  They weren’t getting anywhere. They were answering each other’s questions with questions. As they sparred, Diane had been observing the room. The chair Marsha Carruthers sat in seemed out of place in relation to the rest of the furniture. Then she saw the indentations on the Persian rug. The chair usually sat facing the fireplace. They had swung it around to face outward. It usually sat where someone could sit and look at the painting of Ellie Rose. Was that how Marsha filled her days, sitting in front of her daughter’s painting? Or perhaps it was Ellie Rose’s father who sat and looked at his daughter when he came home from work. Diane wanted to cry.

  “That’s our best working theory at the moment,” said Kingsley.

  “So you’re thinking that wretched excuse for a human sitting in prison is an innocent victim?” Her mouth curled into an ugly shape.

  “No, I don’t think that,” said Kingsley. “We are investigating Stacy Dance’s death. Will you tell me what you talked about?”

  “You don’t know that her death had anything to do with-with this,” she said. “You know where those people lived. How do you know the sister wasn’t like the brother-into God knows what, probably drugs or something just as vile? That’s the life they lived, and I resent your implying that she died because she discovered that piece of human garbage is innocent,” she said.

  “Mrs. Carruthers, Stacy Dance was a very nice girl. She took care of her neighbors, drove the elderly to their doctor’s appointments. She was in college-”

  “College? The University of Georgia is a college. Bartrum is a college. That place she went to is just a glorified tech school. She was nothing like my Ellie Rose.”

  Marsha looked back and forth from Kingsley to Diane as if daring them to defend Stacy again. The grief had sucked all kindness and love from her. She was empty of everything but hate.

  “You’re wrong about Stacy,” said Diane. “And about Gainesville Community College for that matter, but especially about Stacy. She was kind. I understand-”

  “Don’t!” Marsha Carruthers’ face hardened to granite. “Don’t you say you understand how I feel. You can’t possibly imagine!”

  “I wasn’t going to say that,” said Diane, trying to keep calm in her own voice. “And no, I don’t know how you feel, but I know how I felt. My daughter was murdered. She was the best part of me. She was my heart. I know how I felt when she was murdered, and it is indescribable. I live every moment with her loss and the knowledge that I failed to protect her. I also know that if I lose my humanity, I lose her again, I fail her again, and I couldn’t bear that. Ariel was not yet six years old when she was killed, but she was a bright shining soul and I cherish every single memory of her. So don’t tell me I can’t possibly imagine.” Diane unconsciously put her hand on her neck where she wore a locket with Ariel’s photograph.

  All of them fell into a shocked silence. The neighbor had a tear running down her cheek. She looked away and wiped it with her hand. Diane was sure this was more than she bargained for when she came over to give her friend moral support.

  “I’ll give you some unasked-for advice,” said Diane. “You are in danger of losing the love you felt for your daughter. You are so overwhelmed with anger and grief that that special feeling you had for Ellie Rose is going to get lost in the abyss. Stacy was Harmon Dance’s daughter and he loved her too. We just want to know what she talked about and if she said where she was going afterward.”

  Marsha sat very still. Her face hadn’t changed, but there wasn’t an angry comeback on her lips and Diane thought she saw them quiver. The neighbor squeezed Marsha’s shoulder.

  “I was here when Miss Dance came by,” the neighbor said. “My name is Wendy. I live next door. She asked about whom Ellie was dating at the time, who her friends were. I told her we weren’t going to tell her people’s names so she could go pester them. I don’t know where she went when she left here. Neither of us does,” she said. “Honestly, we didn’t tell her much. Do we look particularly cooperative to you?”

  There was a rustling in the entryway and a young woman bounced in. She looked to be seventeen or eighteen. She was dressed in pink bell-bottoms with a wide white belt. Her pink T-shirt had a picture of an electric guitar outlined in rhinestones. Her long hair was black with a lock of pink on one side going from her forehead to her shoulders. Her eyes were outlined with black liner and she wore false eyelashes and bright pink lipstick. She had a diamondlike jewel on the side of her nose.

  “Mom. Oh. Sorry,” she said.

  She stood still and looked into the living room. Diane and Kingsley turned to look at her. She looked so very much like Ellie Rose in the f
ace that it startled Diane.

  “Samantha, dear, why don’t you fix your mother a glass of tea?” said Wendy.

  Samantha looked at her mother. “Do you want some tea, Mom?” she asked.

  “That would be nice, hon,” she said.

  Samantha skipped off to another part of the house.

  “You have a very pretty daughter,” said Diane.

  “At least she likes pink,” said her mother.

  Diane thought she saw a hint that at one time Marsha Carruthers may have had a sense of humor.

  “It was not our intention to cause you more pain,” said Diane, “but it is important to find out what happened to Stacy.”

  She took a card from her pocket. She had brought the cards that identified her as director of the Aidan Kavanagh Forensic Anthropology Lab, the osteology lab she ran at the museum. It seemed a much better choice of card to give out with her name on it. Museum director would have been cnfusing, and director of the crime lab would be awkward, since she wasn’t representing Rosewood. In her capacity as forensic anthropologist, she had much more freedom. Sometimes she felt like a con artist with all the different cards she had with different professions.

  Kingsley handed her his card along with Diane’s. “Please call if you remember anything that might help,” Kingsley said. He nodded to Wendy. “We can show ourselves out.” They turned to leave.

  “Why haven’t the police contacted us?” asked Marsha.

  So they finally thought to ask, thought Diane.

  Kingsley turned back to her. “I’m sure they will. Right now they may not know where Stacy’s investigation led her,” he said.