“Research.” Mark grumbled the word, barely audible as we walked to a table. He moved the computer’s mouse, disrupting the screensaver undersea scene, and sat down. “Let’s hope this isn’t prophetic,” he added as the fish and the sunken chest of treasure vanished.
“We’re not sunk yet, Mark. We haven’t even started.”
“Yeah, well, this isn’t my idea of a good time. Research. If I wanted to devote half my working life to research I’d have become a librarian.”
I sat beside him, pouring out my sympathy and opening my notebook.
It took a while—dead end website trails, frustrating waste of time, and several cups of coffee—before we found the birth certificate for Vera Howarth. Date of birth suggested strongly she was the Vera we sought: 4 March 1971. The dates matched Clayton’s remark that Vera would have been forty years old this year. Names of her parents were listed as Jane and John Smith. Not exactly suspicious, but beginning to smell. When Mark and I researched the Smith parents, typing in the given ages on Vera’s birth certificate, we discovered through death certificate listings that both parents had been lost at sea, not dying in a road accident in Australia. We could accept that, putting it down to garbled family history or deliberate withholding of the truth to ease Vera’s trauma. But Vera’s grandmothers both had died young—the paternal grandmother in 1970 and the maternal grandmother in 1975. So who was this grandmother?
TWENTY-EIGHT
Who had Vera been living with? Had Vera known she wasn’t related to the woman? If so, why the deception? What difference would it make to Clayton or anyone if Vera roomed with an elder woman?
Mark and I spent another hour trying to answer the questions, entering dates and names in various data banks. We reached the same dead end and the same conclusion: no blood ties between Vera and the grandmother.
“Why pretend to be a family?” I asked Mark as we took another tea break. My head swam with data and questions, and I rubbed my eyes, trying to lessen the strain from staring at the computer monitor. “Who cares if they’re not related?”
Mark dropped a second lump of sugar into his tea and stirred it absentmindedly. The metal spoon clinking against the sides of the ceramic mug threatened to break my eardrums. “Do you suppose it’s some financial scam?”
I massaged my forehead. “Like what? Who benefits from that? Vera had no folks, no other relatives. She wasn’t even married.”
“How the hell do I know who benefited? Vera. The grandmother. Both. I don’t know. What other reason would they pass themselves off as family if there’s not some kind of pay-off?”
“But we discovered they’re not related. It doesn’t make sense if Vera or the woman were trying to avoid an inheritance tax or an estate tax. Either way, the beneficiary of the estate or the personal representatives of the deceased get slapped with a tax. Vera would end up paying the inheritance tax if she was willed the estate, relative or not.”
“And why make yourself a relative when you’re not? You’d have to pay the estate tax of the person who has died. As you say, Brenna, it doesn’t make sense.”
We drank our tea, chewed on our pencils, doodled on scratch paper—anything to stimulate our brains. I was drawing stick figures of Vera and her pseudo grandmother when I grabbed Mark’s arm.
“What?” he grunted, startled. “Need a biscuit?”
“No. I think I’m about to be brilliant.”
“I’m all for that if it shines a light in this mess. What?”
I pointed my pencil at the stick figures as I explained. “Why do they pretend to be a family?”
“That’s the question we’re trying to answer.” He took a sip of tea, frowning at me from over the edge of his mug.
“We’re trying to find a financial reason, but there are other motives to assume relationships.” I waited for him to make the mental jump. When nothing came, I said, “Because Vera is illegitimate.”
Mark shook his head. “She’s got a birth certificate. We just saw it…how many days ago?”
I ignored his remark about the hours at the computer. “Yeah. Jane and John Smith. I will bet you that Margo, or whoever, finds no school records for Vera Smith—and how’d she get the last name Howarth, anyway? No,” I said before Mark could speak. “It’s a phony name. Either the false name was chosen for her by her mother so that the father wouldn’t find Vera, or the woman paid to be her grandmother/care giver gave it to her.” I fell silent, waiting for Mark to declare I was a genius.
He nodded slowly. “Sounds plausible to me, Bren.”
That was good enough. I gave him a swift peck on his cheek. “I can’t think of any other good reason. Why else assume a false name? Clayton says he knew her since they were children. She was Vera Howarth as long as he could remember. Why else change your birth name and hide in a tiny village, for that’s what I think she was doing.”
The silence fell between us as we considered the premise. Mark took small sips of his tea and stared into space. I sat back in my chair, watching Graham at his computer and wondering if I should say anything to him yet.
I was about to get up and walk over to him when he answered his ringing mobile. Standing at my chair, I tried to get a clue from his facial expressions and body language if Simcock passed the pressure from the Divisional Commander on to Graham, or if one of the team members had something to report. The call could also be private, I acknowledged. A girlfriend or family member. Graham had a sister, I remembered. Simcock had tried to contact her when Graham had been in hospital this past March. But Graham’s demeanor held no suggestion of friend of family conversation. He remained upright, his back poker stiff, his face impassive but for his lips occasionally flattening against his teeth. Superintendent Simcock. Or Divisional Commander Tierney. Both would pressure Graham into getting a quick conclusion to the case. Simcock was Graham’s boss and, as such, wielded a lot of authority to get the job done—it looked super on his record that his team had solved such a high percentage of cases. Technically, he was in charge of the actual case. But D.C. Tierney was Simcock’s boss. He was head of the entire Division. B Division, our Division, based in Buxton. How much better it would look on his record if it showed that he could manage the six Sections of his Division and maintain not only solved, closed cases but also swift completion to those cases. I sat down, overwhelmed by the stress these two men could produce for Graham. Would he be in the pub tonight?
Graham closed his phone and returned to his computer when Mark nearly banged his mug down as he turned toward me, his eyes dark and staring. “Do you think Vera could have killed herself in shame, like Chris did? Or the grandmother killed her, having found out Vera was pregnant by Clayton?”
“We can’t know that, Mark. All we found were her bones.”
“Yeah. Right. I forgot.”
“Besides, it has to be murder, whether she was pregnant or not. The postmortem report stated that the nick on her ribs was caused by a knife blade.”
“Murder, most likely.”
“Even if she killed herself she couldn’t have buried herself. And someone killed her, or the original search team twenty-two years ago would have found her in the wood.” I stared at my stick figure drawings again. Grandmother and young teen. Two women, related or not, comprising a family. “If she was pregnant, it’s a good bet the father of her child didn’t want to accept responsibility.”
“She could have given him an ultimatum of marriage.”
“Even if she wasn’t pregnant, she could have had an affair with a married man. Maybe he got scared that he’d get caught.”
“So he rubs out his mistake and kills her so she can’t make waves. Who would murder her?”
Mark and I simultaneously said the same name. “Reed Harper.”
Mark pushed his mug away and propped his elbow on the tabletop. “Do we know if there are other bodies in the wood?”
I felt my blood drain from my face and I stared at Mark in fright. “Have there been other people reported missing
from the village?”
“That would look awfully suspicious. What about the general area? Did our Casanova wander about?”
I turned back to the computer monitor and brought up the police report of missing people over the last three decades. Finding a substantial amount of names, I said, “I think it’s time to tell Graham.”
TWENTY-NINE
Derbyshire Dispatch, December 2010
Big cats, ghosts or hidden mine sink holes must be behind the large number of people reported missing in the High Peak region of Derbyshire this year. The suggestion, half made in jest by a spokesperson for the Dale Area Rescue Team, follows a rescue this week of a hiker lost on the moor at Kinder Scout.
“It’s our seventeenth callout of the kind this year,” the spokesperson says. “That’s just for lost hikers, and that’s double what we usually have.”
The D.A.R.T. crew responds to emergency calls from the Derbyshire Constabulary to help locate missing or injured walkers and climbers. But they are also equipped to attend other incidents such as mountain rescue, stretcher carry-out and general missing person searches.
The search for the moorland hiker began when Caleb James was late returning home last Tuesday night. Family members became anxious at the lateness of the hour and the predicted weather conditions, as James is diabetic and must take his insulin regularly. Temperatures Tuesday night were forecast to dip to 1° Celsius. “We couldn’t take a chance he would wander home on his own,” the D.A.R.T. spokesperson said, “so the police asked us to search for him.”
Despite the use of thermal imaging equipment during police helicopter fly-overs, James still remained missing. Rescue dogs were finally called out and, after a three-hour search of the moor on the western side of the Kinder downfall section, located the man an hour later near a steep crag. The team was able to carry him down the steep terrain with the aid of a litter, it being too dark and the area too dangerous for the helicopter to land.
Safe at home, James and his wife thanked the D.A.R.T. crew for their quick response and expert service. “I’d always heard what a fine group they were,” James’ wife said, “but now I know firsthand. And, no offense to any team member, but I hope this is the first and only time I’ll have to meet them.”
D.A.R.T. crew captain Tom Smith responds to the tales of permanently missing people as a case of inadequate information. “Many times a person will disappear on purpose to start a new life. There’s not too much we can do in that instance. But if we have a good lead on a person’s whereabouts, such as walking to and from specific points, we can usually find him. It might take a while, but we rarely fail.”
What of those people gone missing that D.A.R.T. fails to find? Smith chalks that up to incorrect communication on the missing person/family member’s part. Also on the large number of disused mines and caves in the area. “People might be surprised to learn that areas of the Peak District are as holey as Swiss cheese with covered-over sink holes and mine shafts. It just takes stepping on the right spot when the earthen covering has been exposed by weather to fall into an old mine. Those people are probably the most difficult to find.”
Still, D.A.R.T. personnel have an impressive record. The team works nearly 400 square miles across Derbyshire, Staffordshire and South Yorkshire. Four search dogs, two all-terrain vehicles and two support units supplement the 50-person crew. In 2009 the unit received Tetra radios to help in their work. The radios link directly to a police force’s control room, police officers, and other police vehicles such as helicopter and ambulance. “This gives us instant communication with law enforcement personnel and provides pinpoint accuracy to direct police to the exact area.”
The team is one of seven civilian-staffed mountain rescue teams that, together, make up the Peak District Mountain Rescue Organization. Due to the nature of search and rescue missions, the team never sees a holiday or closed time, always on stand-by and available every hour of the day, every day of the year.
D.A.R.T. will see its busiest year yet at the end of this month, having responded to 75 search or rescue requests and nearly two-dozen dog searches.
In operation since 1964, D.A.R.T. doesn’t see its job just as a search and rescue unit, though. “We are keen on teaching the public about safety on the mountains. Saving lives is important, of course, but if we can prevent accidents in the first place, all the better.”
“Our success rate is high,” Smith said, “but unfortunately not one hundred percent. There is still the lone person who goes missing and stays missing. That’s usually the result of falling through old mining shafts or exploring caverns alone. It’s a pity. We don’t encourage anyone to go spelunking or hiking without a companion, or at least letting someone know where you’re going and when you expect to return.”
That sort of thinking counts largely in the successful rescue of lost hiker Caleb James this week.
And what of those tales of big cats, black dogs and ghosts that haunt the region? Let’s just remember what Hamlet said. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
THIRTY
Graham brought me down to earth by reminding me that the specialist search team had done a fingertip search of the area on Thursday when the body and bones were found. “They found that key,” he said. “If there had been anything else, they would have found it. And I’m not going to dig up the whole bloody forest. Nor am I going to arm you with a metal detector. There comes a point when you have to say you’ve done a good job and leave it at that.”
I mumbled that I understood and went back to talk to Mark.
“He’s right,” Mark leaned back in his chair and eyeing me rather suspiciously. “But you don’t really believe him.”
“Yes, I do,” I said, half-heartedly. “I know we can’t turn the whole wood upside down, and the team probably found everything there was to find…”
“But you want to probe, poke, pick over, and peek into, behind and under every crevice, fallen log, bush, boulder, plant and inch of ground. Where, for God’s sake? The village may be small population-wise, but if you’re going to tackle all that terrain—”
“I just don’t want this murderer to get away with Vera’s death. I want to find something that will tell us who it is.”
“You think I don’t?” Mark asked, incredulous. “You think Graham doesn’t? Or Simcock? Or Tierney? Or anyone one of us on the team?”
I leaned forward, feeling the edge of the table bite into my rib cage. “Look, Mark, how often have we found something incriminating at a crime scene?”
“I assume this is a rhetorical question.”
“More often than we can count, right?”
“I’ll give you that. A button falls or is torn off a shirt as they killer disposes of the body, he drops his wallet or sunglasses, he tosses a cigarette without thinking because it’s a natural habit. Why? The team went over that area Thursday.”
“I know. But look at it from another angle. Maybe the killer disposed of something on purpose, something incriminating that he couldn’t afford to have found.”
Mark sat up, interest showing in his eyes. “Very possible, Bren. Yes, that’s logical. Where are you thinking of looking?”
I glanced at Graham. A phone conversation occupied his attention. Leaning closer to Mark, I said, “The grandmother’s house.”
“We just looked through it. There was nothing.“
“We looked through the obvious places like the cupboards and desk drawers. But if you had killed Vera and you wanted to get rid of the murder weapon, for example…“
“I wouldn’t put it back in the kitchen drawer or under my bed mattress.” He stood up, staring at me. “So, where do you want to start? Back or front garden?”
* * * *
We found a woman’s shirt buried in the front garden. Beneath a clump of hostas that was dramatically smaller than the others in the yard. “Probably broke off or divided the plant to make it easier to dig up,” Mark said as he
carefully lifted the garment from the soil.
“I should have noticed that earlier,” I said.
“You were bent on looking for lipstick messages on the living room walls.”
I peered at the shirt, now lying in the plastic evidence bag. It was a small sized, tailed shirt and it appeared to have been in the ground for some time, for parts of it were bleached out from the soil. What looked like white hairs or plant fibers clung to one section of the fabric. Dark brown spots dotted the shirt-front, sleeves, and one cuff.
“Blood?” I asked, to which Mark shrugged.
“Early days yet, Brenna. Graham’ll get this to the lab before we can scream that we’ve got a bloody garment.”
Which proved to be correct. “I congratulate Miss Taylor on her tenacity, if not her reasoning skill,” Graham said when we assembled in the incident room hours later. The shirt had been sent to the lab in Birmingham and we were promised the test finding in twenty-four hours.
Since we had missed our evening meal, Margo and Mark volunteered to assemble a supper of sorts. When Margo set a trayful of mugs, hot tea, cheese, grapes and packaged biscuits on the table, I realized how hungry I was. We sipped and munched as we discussed the case.
The main problem as I saw it, was that even with the vague name for the grandmotherly woman, we had no London address, so she was untraceable. Jane Smith was about as helpful as looking for a Mary Jones. When I had asked residents in the village about her, I got a shrug or various names such as Vera’s gran, or Mrs. Smith, or Jane. None of which brought us any closer to identifying the woman or told us where she now lived.
The card also niggled at me. Why did Vera, if she was the V of the signature, need to thank Harding Lyth? Why had she not posted the card? Better yet, why not simply give it to him? Or thank him to his face?
A Well Dressed Corpse Page 20