DF02 - Dead Guilty

by Beverly Connor

  The knots matched up with her green marks. The red marks along the rope also met up with each other, showing that they had rubbed against each other. The loop around the lower cabinet handle also fit with her color coding—a kink with chafing on the inside made by rubbing against something it was looped around.

  ‘‘Okay, what is it?’’ asked David.

  ‘‘A waggoner’s hitch. It’s not common, but when I noticed how the chafing spiraled around the rope, something nagged in my brain and I finally thought of this hitch. It’s a hitch for tying down a load in a wagon. It’s kind of a cool knot. It’s very secure under tension. But once the tension is released, the hitch comes loose easily. It has to be tied and set properly for it to work right. One of its characteristics is that if the knot is repeatedly tied in the same place, it really wears down the rope by the friction against it self from movement.’’

  ‘‘I’m impressed. I really didn’t think you could re create the knot in that scrappy piece of rope. How ever, not to rain on your parade, does this get us anywhere?’’

  ‘‘It was once used by waggoners. Some truck drivers still use it.’’

  ‘‘Okay, that does get us somewhere.’’

  ‘‘It doesn’t mean he’s a truck driver, but he did use this piece of rope often. That’s why it’s in such bad shape. It is the same kind of rope used in the hangings, and it was found at the crime scene. It’s at least suggestive.’’

  ‘‘Truck drivers travel quite a bit—perfect occupa tion for someone who wants to hide what he does in his spare time. Sheriff Braden’s going to like this.’’

  ‘‘Would you photograph this? I’m going to pay a visit to the Rosewood Police Department.’’

  Chapter 23

  The Rosewood police department was housed in a new building constructed in a more modern style than the red brick 1900 courthouse to the left and the 1960s pink granite post office across the street. From the time Diane walked in, she could feel the unfriendly looks in her direction.

  Even Frank’s friend, Izzy Wallace, looked sheepish when he saw her. He still didn’t like her. He no longer had a reason. Before, he at least had the excuse of the untruths told about her. Now he apparently just couldn’t break the habit. He turned from the officer he was talking to and forced a big smile onto his fleshy face.

  ‘‘Why, hey, Diane. What brings you here? How’s

  Frankie boy?’’

  ‘‘He’s back from San Francisco. Convicted his guy,

  so he’s happy. How are you doing?’’

  ‘‘Just fine. Just fine. I understand that’s quite some

  crime lab you have over there at the museum.’’ He grinned, and Diane thought she saw some of

  the policemen look at each other and snicker. They

  probably knew she was pressured into housing it at

  the museum. Diane smiled sweetly.

  ‘‘We’re very proud of it. Good to see you, Izzy.’’

  She turned to the sergeant on duty. ‘‘I’m here to see

  Chief Garnett.’’

  She showed him her identification, and he nodded

  and pointed up the stairs.

  Homicide squad took up the entire second floor of

  the building. She passed reception and entered the

  main squad room. It was an open area with desks

  marking each detective’s work space. One wall of the

  room was a giant magnetic dry-marker whiteboard for

  attaching photographs, drawing

  social networks, or for simply

  thoughts.

  interaction patterns, giving pictures to

  The board held photos of the three hanging victims from Sheriff Braden’s jurisdiction, photographs of the Chris Edwards and Raymond Waller crime scenes, a list of similarities, a photo of Steven Mayberry’s car, and a map indicating the location of each crime scene. It was not unlike the display she had in her own lab.

  As Diane passed various detectives and staff, some were friendly and spoke; others frowned upon seeing her. She had no idea what motivated either of the two camps. She smiled at all of them.

  Chief Garnett ushered her into his office, where Sheriff Braden sat in a chair near Garnett’s desk, twirling his hat in his hands. Diane had expected Garnett to have an ornate office, but it was basically utili tarian with faux leather and chrome chairs, metal desk and a long wood conference table. Hanging on sandcolored walls were diplomas, awards, photographs of Garnett shaking hands with numerous politicians and framed newspaper clippings. Diane wondered briefly if he had sprayed the clippings with a deacidifier so they wouldn’t yellow. She smiled inwardly at herself. ‘‘Good to see you again, Sheriff.’’

  The sheriff rose and shook her hand. ‘‘I got your

  fax. That’s a lot of good information about those vic tims. Impressed me. We ought to be able to identify them real quick. It doesn’t look like they were home less after all, does it?’’

  ‘‘No,’’ agreed Diane. ‘‘They seem to have been well off.’’

  She sat down at the table, and the sheriff pulled his chair around so that he was opposite her.

  ‘‘You say you’ll be able to give me pictures of their faces?’’

  ‘‘Neva Hurley is working a reconstruction now. She says she’ll have them done quickly.’’

  ‘‘Now, that’ll be just real helpful.’’

  Garnett sat down at the head of the table, with the sheriff to his right and Diane to his left.

  ‘‘We keep as up to date with techniques as we can,’’ he said, claiming a resource he only recently knew he had. Garnett looked down at the folder in front of him before turning to Diane.

  ‘‘I thought it would be good for you to go over what you have so far. I’ve included the sheriff because there’s a good chance the crimes are connected and I think it would benefit all of us to cooperate.’’

  Of course you do, thought Diane. For Garnett and the mayor to make Rosewood the crime-solving center of the region, they had to have the cooperation of the surrounding counties. What better way than to cooperate with them first?

  ‘‘We’re holding Kacie Beck right now,’’ Garnett continued. ‘‘By her own admission, she was there right at the time of death. She called nine-one-one at eleven eighteen. M.E. put the time of death close to eleven. A witness saw Miss Beck drive up at a little after nine. It doesn’t look good for her. I’m thinking that if she didn’t help kill Edwards, she knows who did.’’

  Diane took the folder from in front of Garnett and thumbed through the reports. She pointed to an item.

  ‘‘My team found a thermometer showing a tempera ture reading of 103 degrees on Chris Edwards’ nightstand, along with cold medications. If he was run ning a temperature that high at the time of death, it will push back the time of death estimate to around seven P.M. The M.E. didn’t have that information when she took a liver temperature at the crime scene.’’

  Garnett took the report back from Diane, removed a pair of glasses from his pocket and examined it as if for the first time. ‘‘We don’t know that this was Edwards’ temperature.’’

  ‘‘Not now, but we took a swab from the thermometer . . .’’ began Diane. She reached over and pulled out the autopsy report on Chris Edwards. ‘‘Dr. Webber indicates he had congestion in his lungs.’’ Diane looked for attachments. ‘‘His blood work is not back yet.’’

  Garnett started to speak, but was interrupted by his phone. From the one-sided conversation, Diane knew it was Lynn Webber. Diane wasn’t sure why she had bothered with this elaborate ruse. It wasn’t a desire to spare Lynn Webber’s feelings or reputation that motivated her. What she wanted was to keep on good terms with the sheriff—and Garnett, for that matter. Both seemed rather swept off their feet by Webber.

  ‘‘That was Dr. Webber,’’ said Garnett, returning the phone to its cradle. ‘‘She said the blood work came back on Edwards showing he had an infection and that he probably had a fever. That corresponds to
what you were telling us.’’

  Diane merely nodded.

  ‘‘That doesn’t mean that Miss Beck isn’t good for it,’’ continued Garnett. ‘‘But we’ll have to let her go.’’

  ‘‘No sign of Steven Mayberry?’’ the sheriff asked.

  ‘‘No. He seems to have vanished. He’ll turn up sooner or later—I hope alive.’’

  ‘‘I just finished the rope analysis.’’ Diane explained about the waggoner’s hitch.

  ‘‘Well, I’ll be,’’ said the sheriff. ‘‘You got that from that old piece of rope?’’

  ‘‘It doesn’t mean he’s a truck driver,’’ said Diane.

  ‘‘I understand. But it’s a place to start,’’ said the sheriff. ‘‘Who’d’ve thought you could find anything in an old piece of rope like that?’’

  ‘‘You sure that rope belongs with the crime scene and it wasn’t one that just happened to be in the woods?’’

  Garnett didn’t seem to be criticizing, but rather the evidence appeared to excite him and he didn’t want it to evaporate by being irrelevant. Everything that Diane did in the crime lab that impressed Sheriff Braden—or anyone else—was a feather in Garnett’s cap.

  ‘‘It has the same orange fiber on it that was on the clothes of the victims and on all the hanging ropes. The fourth noose and the Cobber’s Wood crime scene also had the orange fiber, but no skin cells around the noose. It was never used.’’

  Garnett nodded, looking satisfied.

  Diane reviewed the evidence, crime scene by crime scene, starting with Steven Mayberry’s truck, which was found on a dirt road near a small lake. ‘‘There was blood on the steering wheel and some smeared on the seat. We don’t have the lab work back yet, so we can’t say whose it is.’’

  ‘‘It could be Chris Edwards’, then?’’ said Garnett.

  ‘‘Could be anyone’s. We found Mayberry’s finger prints on the steering wheel. Some were in the blood, indicating the prints were left when the blood was fresh. His fingerprints were also on the dash, the seat, the gas cap, and the back gate of the truck. Chris Edwards’ prints were on the passenger’s side dash, the inside and outside door handles and the glove com partment. On the passenger’s side we found another set of unidentified prints. They were smaller and could be female.’’

  ‘‘Miss Beck?’’ said Garnett.

  ‘‘No. We have her prints and these don’t match. Inside the car we found three beer bottle caps, and a parking ticket issued by the Bartram campus police. He had parked in a faculty lot at the university library. The ticket had a boot print on it that matched Chris Edwards’ left boot. We also found carpet fibers that matched Mayberry’s trailer carpet. There were also cotton fibers, but we won’t be able to provide any distinguishing match for those.’’

  ‘‘I don’t suppose there were any orange carpet fi bers?’’ said Garnett.

  ‘‘No matching orange carpet fibers found anywhere yet. So far we haven’t been able to physically connect any of the crime scenes. The only connection is the coincidence of Edwards and Mayberry finding the bodies and Waller assisting with the autopsy.’’

  ‘‘So it could all be a coincidence,’’ said Garnett. ‘‘And one murder doesn’t have a damn thing to do with the others.’’

  Diane briefly went over the other crime scenes, ex cept Raymond Waller’s. They had covered them in the previous meeting, but it helped her to repeat the evidence. She suspected it would help Braden and Garnett too.

  Both Sheriff Braden and Chief Garnett were silent when she finished her summary. Each sat back in his chair like they were digesting a large meal.

  ‘‘The perp was looking for something in both the Edwards and Waller crime scenes,’’ said the sheriff, after a moment.

  ‘‘In Mayberry’s trailer, too,’’ said Diane. ‘‘It was tossed like the others.’’

  ‘‘So what do you think the perp, or perps, was look ing for?’’ asked the sheriff to neither of them in particular.

  ‘‘Waller had a significant baseball collection,’’ said Garnett. ‘‘I don’t know that our other two boys had anything valuable.’’

  Diane gave Garnett copies of the newest reports on the Chris Edwards scene and gave the sheriff the photographs of the Cobber’s Wood skeletons.

  ‘‘I’ll send you information as it comes in,’’ she said. ‘‘For the sheriff’s case, identifying the victims is the key to the solution. If the crimes are related, then that may shed light on the others.’’

  ‘‘If not, it’ll have to be the old-fashioned way of interviewing everyone the vics knew,’’ said Garnett. ‘‘I’ve got detectives doing that right now. So far, it looks like Edwards and Mayberry didn’t have an enemy in the world. They were just two recent gradu ates from the forestry department working as timber cruisers. Raymond Waller didn’t have any enemies ei ther. He went to work every day and never got into any trouble. The worst we could find out about him is that he may have given a funeral home or two a heads-up on deaths that came through the morgue.’’

  Garnett turned to Diane. ‘‘Do you think it was the killer who called you?’’

  ‘‘I don’t know. Every time the news shows that in terview with me the day we opened the crime lab, I get all kinds of mail and phone calls from people who don’t like it. It could very well be one of those people with some strange take on justice. However, the flow ers bother me.’’

  ‘‘Flowers?’’ asked the sheriff.

  Diane explained to him about the flowers, the Email and the phone call.

  ‘‘This changes things a bit. You say you occasionally have this problem from people who see the interview?’’

  ‘‘None have ever sent flowers before.’’

  ‘‘The guy who called from the motel on 441 says he sent the flowers, and he also E-mailed you from inside the museum.’’

  ‘‘I don’t know if the E-mail was the same guy—but the themes of justice and guilt seem to be similar. So it wouldn’t be a stretch thinking it’s the same person.’’

  ‘‘Then if we watch you, we’re likely to catch the killer,’’ said the sheriff.

  ‘‘For which crime?’’ asked Garnett.

  ‘‘Who knows?’’ began the sheriff.

  He was interrupted by a detective who stuck his head in the door.

  ‘‘Chief, we got an emergency call from Dr. Lynn Webber.’’

  Chapter 24

  Garnett and the sheriff dashed out the door. Diane wanted to go with them, but there was no reason for her presence. She stood in Garnett’s office a moment with a chill in the pit of her stomach. What was going on? She was beginning to feel responsible for not solv ing the murders. Maybe there was something she and her team had missed.

  As she started out the door, Janice Warrick ap peared suddenly, blocking her exit. She had on her blue police uniform, her light brown hair pulled back into the same French twist she wore when she was a detective.

  ‘‘I know you think I blame you,’’ Warrick said, ‘‘and maybe I do a little, but Neva tells me you treat her fairly and take up for her with him.’’ She nodded toward Garnett’s office.

  ‘‘I try to treat all my employees fairly. Neva does a good job.’’

  Janice Warrick stood for a moment, still in front of Diane, hesitating. ‘‘There’s something that’s been bothering me. I’m not usually a cruel person, but I said something cruel to you that had to do with your daughter being adopted—about your picking up strays. It’s weighed on me.’’ She hesitated a moment and Diane thought she might actually get teary. ‘‘I’m sorry about that. I was sorry as soon as I said it.’’ She turned abruptly and walked off before Diane could respond.

  Diane left Garnett’s office and wove her way through the squad room. She stopped at the whiteboard a mo ment, looking for anything they might have thought of that she and her team hadn’t. But there was noth ing, no pattern or startling revelation jumping out at her.

  On the steps outside the police station, she ran into Kacie B
eck. Her blond hair hung in limp sections, and she pushed a lock of it out of her eyes when she saw Diane. Her blue eyes looked bluer, set in her blood shot sclera. She looked at Diane a moment, as if not remembering where she had seen her.

  ‘‘I was at the crime scene,’’ offered Diane.

  ‘‘I didn’t kill Chris. If you think I did, you’re letting the real murderer get away.’’

  ‘‘I don’t think anything. I just worked the crime scene. Can I ask you some questions?’’

  ‘‘I’ve told the police everything I know. I’m tired and I want to go home.’’

  ‘‘I can see you need some peace. I just have a few questions.’’

  Kacie looked around. ‘‘Shit, I don’t have my car.’’ She dug in her purse and brought out her phone and scowled at the display. ‘‘They let the damn thing run down. The least they could do was turn it off for me.’’

  ‘‘Let me take you home.’’

  ‘‘Why not? But you aren’t going to get me to admit to anything I didn’t do.’’

  Diane led her to her car, and Kacie got in on the passenger’s side and sat slumped in the corner. She looked even smaller than she did sitting on Chris Ed wards’ couch at the crime scene.

  ‘‘Buckle your seat belt,’’ said Diane.

  ‘‘What does it matter? It would at least end it if I went through the windshield.’’

  ‘‘Maybe not. You might just end up scarred and brain damaged. Besides, if we’re involved in an acci dent, you might flop around inside the car and hurt me.’’

  Kacie laughed despite herself and clicked her seat belt in place. Diane drove to a Waffle House close to Kacie’s apartment. Inside, Diane selected a booth in the rear of the diner. Kacie ordered a hamburger. Diane ordered a slice of pie and coffee.