Dead Guilty Part 7

Gregory had been their boss at World Accord Inter national and a mentor to Diane. Gregory even carried postcard-sized representations of famous paintings.

The everyday scenes painted by Vermeer were his fa vorite. He could look at them for hours.

She had adopted Gregory's love of looking at beau tiful art when she needed a break from the grim reali ties of human rights violations. She understood what David meant about the museum. It was a refuge for her too.

"What's that new medical examiner in the next county like?"

"Dr. Lynn Webber. Nice. Hospitable."

"And that means?"

"Just what I said. Seems pretty competent." "You don't like her?"

"I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to. I was listening to your ringing endors.e.m.e.nt."

"I got the impression that she kind of likes to be the star." Diane hesitated a moment. "I think she's going to get the time of death wrong. She doesn't have much experience with hangings."

"And for that you don't like her?"

"I didn't say I don't like her. Just that she reminds me a little of Leah."

"A cherry bomb waiting to go off?"

Diane made a face. They had worked with Leah for a while in South America. She was a bit of a prima donna, albeit a competent one.

"I shouldn't have said anything. She's been very gracious. Even wants me to take her caving." "You going to take her?"

"I thought I'd ask Mike about some easy caves." "Mike? Mike Seger? I thought you're dating Frank Duncan."

Diane was taken aback. "I'm not dating Mike.

We're just talking about going caving. He's an employee."

"Don't you guys have to take your clothes off to cross a body of water in a cave-to keep the water clean?"

"You can leave your underwear on."

"So, do you wear Victoria's Secret or those cotton jobs?"

"I think I'd better go home. See you tomorrow."

It was well after ten o'clock before Diane got home. She was tired and couldn't wait for a shower. After letting the water run over her for a long while, she ran a warm bath, put a capful of lemon juice in the water and just lay and soaked with her head resting on a folded towel on the back of the tub. She was tempted to stay the night there, just soaking in the water, letting the smell of death become overwhelmed with clean pure water. She would have stayed if her telephone had remained quiet.

Diane followed the directions to a small house in a clump of trees about a half mile from the Bartram University campus. The house, a bungalow with white wood siding and fieldstone columns and steps, looked like it might have been built in the late 1920s.

She parked her car on the side of the road and walked across the yard. She looked briefly up at the second-floor gabled window and leaning rock chimney. It looked like housing rented to students. Maintained enough to keep the roof up, but not enough to rent to anyone looking for a family home.

She showed her badge to the officer guarding the door, slipped covers over her shoes and went in.

A girl was sitting on a futon sofa in the living room, sobbing. The room was in disarray, drawers pulled out of a desk, their contents emptied onto the floor, couch pillows scattered about, chairs overturned.

Douglas Garnett, chief of detectives of Rosewood, and Whit Abercrombie, county coroner, were standing at the entrance to a room off the living room. Whit was Lynn Webber's counterpart, but he wasn't a medi cal examiner. He was a taxidermist with a master's in biology. They nodded to Diane.

Chief Garnett was a large, lanky man in his midfor ties with a full head of salt-and-pepper well-kept hair. He had a deep crease between his abundant blackand-gray eyebrows.

"In here," he said.

The body was on its knees, leaning forward against a rope around the neck and tied to the clothes rod in the closet. The closet door stood open, and the fulllength mirror showed a side image of the gruesome scene. Diane looked at the purple swollen face with its dead stare and protruding tongue. Even with the distortion of death, she recognized the face.

"Oh, my G.o.d," she whispered.

Chapter 9.

"You know this kid?" Garnett asked.

"I know who he is." Diane s.h.i.+vered-not from the gruesome scene-the room was cold. She tore her gaze away from the dead face and looked at Chief Garnett.

"It's Chris Edwards. He's one of the two men-the timber cruisers-who discovered the bodies hanging in the woods."

She looked around the bedroom, the single bed with its sheets pulled away, the chest of drawers open with its contents spilled out over the sides and onto the floor. A b.l.o.o.d.y hand weight lay in the middle of the bed.

"We need to contact the other man who was with him."

Chief Garnett moved to the living room and di rected his attention to the woman sobbing on the couch.

"Miss... Beck, Kacie Beck?"

She pushed her blond hair out of her face and rubbed her red-rimmed eyes with the tips of her fingers.

"Miss Beck," said Garnett, "do you know . . ." He turned to Diane.

"Steven Mayberry," supplied Diane.

"Steve?... Yes."

"Where does he live?"

"Over on Udell. He has a trailer over there." "Do you have his telephone number?"

"Telephone number? No . . . Chris knows it." She started sobbing again.

Garnett pressed a rapid-dial number on his cell phone. "Steven Mayberry, did you say?"

Diane nodded. She motioned to Whit as Garnett called for the address.

"We need to get Miss Beck out of the crime scene.

She can sit in my car until Garnett questions her. I'll call my team to start working this. . . . And I'll need a warrant."

"Garnett has one coming." Whit pushed his straight black hair from his forehead as he glanced back at the bedroom. "You think this is connected with your other case?"

"I don't know. If not, it's an amazing coincidence." Whit was escorting Kacie out of the house when Garnett got off the phone.

"Got an address. I called for backup to meet us there."

Outside, Diane slipped off the shoe covers and rang David.

"Yeah?"

David obviously had been asleep, as Diane wished she was.

"David, Diane. I need you again tonight." "Gee, Diane, if I'd known you're this demanding, I'd have gotten myself a woman with less energy.

What's up?"

Diane explained, and he was quiet for a moment. "Can't be a coincidence."

"I'll call Jin. You'll have to wait for a warrant be fore you can go in."

"Sure."

A young woman answered Jin's phone. "Just a minute."

Her voice sounded sleepy, and Diane heard the rus tling of covers as she waited for Jin to get on the phone.

"Yo?"

"Jin, this is Diane. We have another crime scene. I need you and David to work it tonight." She gave him the address. "I'm sorry to do this to you."

"No problem." Jin sounded wide awake. Diane turned to the chief. "I'd like to ride out to the Mayberry house."

He gave her a curt nod, and she climbed into his Lexus and buckled herself in.

"These murders . . ." Garnett paused a moment.

"It's going to be a test of our new crime scene unit.

I don't need to tell you how important it is to get it right."

Several ways of answering him flitted through Diane's mind. Sarcastic was right up front, considering that it was he and the mayor who had virtually blackmailed her into housing the new crime lab and heading it up.

But when she opened her mouth, it was her good friend Gregory's wisdom that tempered her tongue. "It's a good unit with good people. We'll find all the evidence that's there to find."

That seemed to satisfy him. He said nothing for the remainder of the trip. Instead, he tapped the steering wheel with his fingers as he drove. Diane was glad it wasn't a long ride.

As they rounded a corner and turned into a drive leading to the trailer park, Diane saw a police car parked out front. The single trailer was lit, revealing silhouettes of two uniformed officers moving through the length of it.

As Diane and the sheriff stepped out of the car, the two uniforms emerged. One was Janice Warrick. Good thing her eyes aren't phasers, Good thing her eyes aren't phasers, thought Diane as thought Diane as they came face-to-face. Warrick held her chin high and jaw clenched and addressed the chief of detectives. "He's not here."

"How's it look inside?"

"A mess," said Janice Warrick. "Chairs overturned, drawers pulled out and emptied. We're looking for Mayberry now. Officer Wallace is calling his parents and friends, and we have an APB out for his car." "Did you see any blood, drug paraphernalia...?"

Garnett asked.

Janice shook her head. "Nothing but the mess. We only did a casual look through. That's all we could do." Her eyes darted in Diane's direction and back to Garnett.

"Stay here and see if he shows up. We need to find him," said Garnett. He turned to step back into his car.

There was nothing for Diane to do but go back to the crime scene. With three people working, perhaps it wouldn't take the entire night.

"Sorry, guys," Diane said to her crew.

"No problem. Who needs sleep?" said David. The warrant had arrived in her absence, and Jin and David, clad in head and shoe coverings, had already started. David was photographing the body, and Jin had begun a fingerprint search, starting at the front entryway and following a path to the bedroom. Whit stood just outside the bedroom door watching David. Garnett stopped beside the body. Whit wore gloves and shoe coverings. Garnett did not.

On the porch, Diane had donned a hair cap and fresh shoe coverings. Now she slipped on a pair of gloves and examined the knots in the rope that bound and strangled Chris Edwards. Of particular interest was the knot tied in the middle of the rope between the clothes bar and Chris Edwards.

"Get good photographs of the knots."

"Of course," said David.

"What about the knots?" Garnett stepped up be hind her.

Diane wondered if he had decided to take the lead in the investigation. Janice Warrick hadn't yet been replaced, and Garnett had stated to the press when he accepted the appointment as chief that he was going to take a hands-on approach.

She handed him a pair of latex gloves and covers for his shoes. He looked at them quizzically for a moment before he slipped them on.

"The rope and knots are different from the ones used with the other victims," said Diane.

"That's significant?"

"It is indeed."

"Diane is an expert in knots," offered David, snap ping another photograph. "In that she has had to hang from them herself on many occasions."

David was good at keeping conversational tones, treating people like Garnett as if he was one of the team and not an adversary-which was the way Diane saw him.

"Uh, you'll have to explain that," said Garnett. He gave Diane a sidelong glance.

"I'm a caver," she said. "I work on rope a lot." Diane sniffed the corpse's hair. "Shampoo. He'd just come out of the shower. I take it Miss Beck found the body. Why so late?"