“Well, that’s unhelpful,” said Diane.
“I know,” he said.
“Where was Cora Nell Dickson from?” Diane asked.
“Augusta, Georgia, then Atlanta. She moved around a lot. Her family is all dead. That’s all the staff knows. Mrs. Dickson’s dementia is getting worse and most days she remembers very little.”
“Are you still trying to find the grandson?” asked Diane.
“I’m open to suggestions,” said Liam.
“Do you have the grandmother’s Social Security number?” asked Diane.
“I can probably get it,” he said.
“That might open the door to a lot of records. You can also look up census records and find out who her husband and children were and go from there. A good genealogist can help you. I have one in Archives. Her name is Beth,” said Diane.
“I didn’t think of that. You are a clever woman,” said Liam.
Diane shrugged. “How long have you been a detective?” she said.
“Not long. After I retired from the military, Louis Ruben and I decided to open the agency. We took an Internet course and got a license.”
“Your friend was also injured in combat?” said Diane.
“Yes. He’s in a wheelchair. I was luckier,” he said.
He was lucky. Diane knew what had happened. Not all the details, but she knew he was a Navy SEAL. He and his men were pinned down in some redacted place in the Middle East and several were shot. The redacted opposing forces threw a grenade in their location. Liam was already shot in the side. He jumped on the grenade, covering it with his body—and it didn’t go off. One-in-a-million chance. After a few seconds he got up and tossed the grenade back. It went off and gave him a chance to drag several of his men to a safer location. He fended off the attackers until help arrived. His friend Louis Ruben was critically injured but survived. A sad and inspiring story that Diane guessed he didn’t want to talk about. She didn’t push it.
“We’ve mainly done a lot of divorce work, which pays the bills. But frankly, I think what consenting adults do is their own business. This case for MacAlister was something different. We thought it would make our agency. I don’t think MacAlister is going to be pleased,” he said.
“There’s a good chance the couple was already dead when you got the case,” said Diane.
“Maybe, but a failure is still a failure. His daughter is dead. So is her boyfriend,” he said. “I’ll get Andie to take me to Archives and introduce me to Beth. It looks like I’ll have to cancel the date I just made with Andie.”
“You don’t have to get the Social Security number tonight. You can wait until tomorrow,” said Diane.
“The woman who likes me works at night,” he said. He paused. “You know, you have a strange place here.”
“How’s that?” asked Diane.
He shook his head. “Just a feeling. I get the idea you have access to a lot of information.”
“We do. This is a museum,” she said.
“More than that. You know about me. I’m not sure how much. But most of my record is classified. My branch of service, rank, and medal are the only things that’re in the public record. I get the feeling you know more.”
“Not much more,” said Diane.
She was saved from saying anything else by the ringing of her phone.
Chapter 51
“Diane, this is Gil Mathews. I thought you would like to know—Leland Conrad is no longer sheriff. We’ve arrested him for the murders and for what he did to you.”
“The murders?”
Diane hadn’t seen that coming, though in the back of her mind he had been floating around as a possibility—but only a possibility, along with others of his point of view.
“Has he confessed? Did you find something?”
“Not exactly,” said Mathews. “He said if he was the murderer, they deserved what they got. Then he said he wanted a lawyer. He knew where the cave is. It turns out he had warned the two kids away from Rendell County when they were hanging around asking questions about lost mines. You know how he feels about people not getting out of town when he tells them to. He had vocal public disagreements with the Barres and the Watsons. It’s all very circumstantial, but sometimes circumstances are more convincing to a jury.”
“I don’t know what to say,” said Diane.
“He’s also in a world of trouble for what he did to you—and for the condition of the men he put you in the cell with. I don’t want you to get upset, but the big one may lose his leg. He’s diabetic and they aren’t sure they can save it. As I said, don’t get upset. This is on Conrad and the man himself.”
But Diane was disturbed by that. She didn’t like hurting people, even lowlifes, even if there was no choice.
“Did you find the bodies Slick and Tammy buried?” she asked.
“Yes, we did. Most were decomposed down to the bones. We’re sending the remains to a forensic anthropologist in Athens, since you are personally involved in the case,” he said. “The defense attorney would have a field day if you analyzed the bones and brought the evidence to court.”
“No problem,” said Diane.
“I don’t have much hope we’ll ever find a cause of death for them anyway,” he said.
Diane agreed. “I think Tammy severely compromised their health by feeding them a totally inadequate diet and by giving them over-the-counter supplements that either interfered with their medication or were completely contraindicated by their condition. I’m sure she convinced herself, and Slick too, that she didn’t kill her patients—that they died of natural causes,” said Diane. “I can see where a case could be built for homicide, but it would be tricky to prove.”
“I agree,” Mathews said. “That’s why we made the deal. I think she believed we could prove a lot more than we can. Frank’s prestidigitation with the computers turning up Tammy’s bank accounts put the fear of God into them.”
“How many bodies were there?” asked Diane.
“Counting the one in the tree, eleven,” he said. “We suspect there may be more from the time before she hooked up with Slick. We’re looking into it.”
“That’s a lot of Social Security and pension checks,” Diane said. “Looks like she could have lived better than she did. I guess you never know why some people do what they do. Thanks for bringing me up-to-date.”
“Sure. Don’t worry about that guy and his leg. If he hadn’t tried to attack you, all he’d have right now is a hangover.”
“Let me know if there’s anything you need from me or the lab here,” said Diane. “I assume Lynn Webber called you about the bodies—or she will when she finishes.”
“I’ve spoken with her,” he said. “Things are moving well. We’re going to get a strong case.”
When she hung up, she focused on Liam again. “So you’re going tonight to get the Social Security number?”
He nodded. “I’ll go up and speak with your archivist-genealogist first.” He rose from the chair. “Do I understand that they have arrested Conrad?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Diane. “They think he committed the murders.”
“But you don’t?” he said.
“I didn’t say that,” Diane said.
“Your face.” He waved a hand in front of his own. “It looks like you don’t believe it.”
“I don’t disbelieve it. I suppose it’s too anticlimactic,” she said.
“I would think you’d welcome something that isn’t dramatic,” he said.
“That would be too good to be true,” said Diane, smiling.
Liam went out the door and Diane settled into answering her correspondence.
It was late when she answered the last e-mail—a museum in another state wanting to know if she would loan out the Egyptian exhibit. Diane had to explain to them that she had nothing to replace it with, that RiverTrail was a small museum and they displayed virtually all their holdings.
Andie was already gone. She had stuck her head in earlier and said she was taking Liam up to Archives and maybe to have a quick bite at the restaurant. Diane was glad to see her happy, and was glad to see that Liam turned out not to be a jerk after all.
Frank had called to say he was going to be late. It hadn’t surprised her. There was a lot going on in the case and it was going to consume time, especially if they were trying to find out what Tammy was doing before she met Slick.
Diane walked to the crime lab for a meeting with David and her forensic team before she left for home. She was feeling the effects of the last few days deep in her muscles and she thought she would sleep in a couple of hours tomorrow, so she needed to speak with them tonight.
On the way she visited the geology exhibit and had a look at the pyrite collection. They had a pyrite sphere and several pyrite nodules. The sphere looked like it could have been a very fanciful marble. The pyrite collection also contained pyrite suns, flat disks of pyrite with rays radiating from the center; chalcopyrite, copper with the iron sulfide; a fossil pyrite ammonite, an ancient sea animal mineralized by pyrite; pyrite cubes; pyrite inclusions in quartz; plus many other combinations. It was an impressive and beautiful collection. She could see how it could be mistaken for gold. Something this beautiful looked as if it had to be valuable. One part of the exhibit showed pyrite nodules next to gold octahedral nuggets. There was a similarity.
Diane spent about thirty minutes at the conference table in the crime lab with David, Neva, and Izzy going over the cases that were under way. When they finished David told her what they knew so far about the bodies in the cave.
“It looks like they died between three and four weeks ago. The Spearman brothers believe they can tighten up the time line,” said David. “The blood you collected at the creek bank is consistent with the blood types of the victims. Jin will have the DNA info tomorrow.”
Diane nodded at David.
Between three and four weeks
, she thought. They had already been dead two or three weeks when Liam was hired to find them. “Did you find any usable prints?” she asked.
“The fingerprints on the gold pan were mostly too obliterated to read,” said Neva. “But I did get half a print that was similar to Bruce Gregory’s left thumbprint. There were partial fingerprints on the shiny surfaces of the pyrite that could be a match to Bruce Gregory and Larken MacAlister. But there weren’t enough points of identity to be positive. There were no others.”
“The fiber you found in the woods is from fleece,” said Izzy. “It’s like the hoodie Bruce Gregory was wearing.”
“So, where are we?” said Diane. She shifted in her seat, stretching her muscles.
“Not much further along, if you ask me,” said Izzy. “But it’s not been a day yet.”
“You’re doing good work, all of you,” said Diane.
“I wasn’t fishing for a compliment,” said Izzy.
“Yes, you were,” said Neva, punching him in the arm.
“Okay, I was,” he said, grinning.
Before she got up to go, Diane told them about the call from Agent Mathews of the GBI.
“You mean they arrested Conrad on the basis of his name being on the wall of the cave?” said Izzy. “The guy’s an asshole, but that’s kind of strange.”
“They also arrested him for what he did to me,” said Diane, with a little more sting in her voice than she intended. “Mathews said they have circumstantial evidence on the other murders. I don’t know the details. But what he said when they arrested him was really strange.” Diane related the odd statement that was not exactly a confession.
“I think the guy’s going nuts,” said Neva. “You think he did all those murders?”
“I don’t know,” said Diane. “Look, I’m going to sleep in a couple of hours tomorrow.”
“A couple of hours?” said Izzy. “Somebody needs to tell you how to sleep in. Why don’t you take the day off?”
David and Neva agreed.
“There’s a lot to do,” said Diane. “The museum has a fund-raiser in Atlanta coming up at the end of the month. I have several new exhibit designs I need to look at. The board wants me to find out how much it would cost to convert the attic into environmentally controlled storage spaces.”
“For what?” asked David. “The attic has to be a huge space.”
“It is. It’s another full floor. I’m not sure what they have in mind. I suspect some members want to increase our holdings to the point that we can change out exhibits more often,” she said. “Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Diane rose and complimented them all again. She left by way of the museum and walked through to the east entrance, where her vehicle was parked.
Outside, she was about to get in her SUV when a car drove up beside her. The occupants were the woman in blue and her husband from the First Baptist Church in Rendell County—Maud and Earl, she thought their names were. Earl got out first, walked around their car and opened the door for Maud.
Chapter 52
What now?
Diane subconsciously rubbed her aching lower back and wiggled her aching feet in her high heels.
“I was just leaving,” she said as they approached her.
They were well dressed, the two of them. Maud—whatever her last name was, Diane didn’t remember—was dressed in a red-gold silk blouse and cream linen slacks. Earl was in a tan linen suit. Maud’s makeup looked fresh, and she had a sparkly golden sheen to her blush that oddly matched her blouse. They looked like they were about to go out on the town. Diane wondered what they were doing here.
“This won’t take long,” said Earl.
For an instant, Diane wondered if he was going to shoot her right here in the parking lot—and they had dressed up to look good in their mug shots.
“Very well,” said Diane. “What do you want?”
They said nothing, just stood there looking at each other nervously.
Well, hell
, thought Diane,
are they trying to work up the nerve to shoot me after all?
“How can I help you?” said Diane.
“This thing,” said Earl, “this thing about our sheriff. We want you to tell us it is a lie.”
“Can you be more specific than ‘thing’?” said Diane. “I’m not trying to give you a hard time, but I don’t know exactly what thing you are referring to.”