Beverly Connor - Dust to Dust

Detective Hanks sat in stunned silence for a moment.

“You know, you could have started out with this information,” he said.

“Perhaps,” said Diane.

“Did the Lassiter woman live in Rosewood?” he asked.

“Hall County. Just over the line. You’ll need to speak with Sheriff Braden,” said Diane.

“You say Izzy Wallace is processing the evidence now? Can I see it?” he asked.

Diane shook her head. “Telling you about the boot print is a courtesy. The sheriff gets to see his evidence first,” she said.

Hanks nodded. “I can respect that.” He paused, staring at the blank wall behind the sofa, looking deep in thought. He shifted his position again, and again winced in pain. “Then what do we have here?”

“I don’t know,” said Diane.

Hanks looked at Neva. “What did the Lassiter woman say to you?” he asked.

“Nothing to me.” Neva explained the interchange at the historical society. “I think you need to speak with Marcella and find out if she met Ms. Lassiter when she was there.”

He nodded. “Are there any other surprises you have to spring on me?” he asked Diane.

“No. That’s about all we know,” she said.

He laughed. “I hope we aren’t dealing with a league of Mad Potters trying to keep their ceremonies and history a secret.”

“That would surprise me,” said Diane. “I have no explanation. It could be that, unknown to us, the paintings are valuable, and the attack on Dr. Payden was simply about money. I have no idea if anything was stolen from Lassiter’s house, but if it happens she had paintings by the mysterious artist… Well, it would be worth finding out. In the museum we have paintings by an unknown artist and we were unaware for a long time that they are extremely valuable. So it’s not unheard of.

“Or,” suggested Diane, “Marcella’s attacker could be trying to prevent us from uncovering an old crime. The perpetrator could still be alive, though up in years, I would imagine. Or it could be a big coincidence, and what we first thought about Marcella’s attack was correct-they just didn’t know she was home, and got caught in the middle of a robbery.”

Hanks flexed the hand that was in the sling back and forth, exercising it. “You’ve given me a lot to work with, I’ll give you that. I haven’t made any headway talking to Ray-Ray Dildy’s associates. He was just a two-bit petty crook. No one I’ve spoken with knows what he was up to lately. But, basically, he was a loser to the end.”

Diane saw the subtle frustration in Hanks that he hadn’t been able to solve this crime-the eye tic he had frequently rubbed, the clinching of his jaw. He needed to prove himself. She understood that. Rosewood’s previous chief of police had been murderously corrupt, and Hanks had been one of his last hires. Even though Hanks wasn’t known to have done anything wrong, there was the taint of association. For the chief of police to have hired him, he must have thought him corruptible. How did anyone fight that? Hanks wanted to solve this, and do it himself. The fact that he had shared a little of his investigation tonight was a sign that he might be mellowing a bit where Diane was concerned.

“Do you know Sheriff Braden in Hall County?” asked Diane.

“We haven’t met,” he said.

“I’ll call and tell him you’re coming, if you like,” said Diane. “I can send Izzy over with the evidence at the same time.”

Hanks nodded. “Sometime tomorrow, late morning would be good.”

“I’ll give him a call in the morning,” said Diane.

“I appreciate that.” Hanks rose from his seat. “Well, I’ll say this. This has been interesting.” He finished the rest of his drink and looked around for a garbage can. David got up and took the bottle from him.

Diane left shortly after Hanks. On the way home she tried to call Frank on the home phone. No one answered. His car wasn’t in the drive or in the garage when she arrived. She opened the front door and went inside. On the answering machine she found a message saying he wouldn’t be home at all. He and his partner were going to Nashville, Tennessee, on a case-but only for a day-he thought.

She felt a little dispirited as she listened to the message. She had looked forward to seeing him. She wondered whether he had found time to look at Ellie Rose Carruthers’ diary pages. Probably not.

She took a shower and got into bed. Tomorrow was going to be a big day. She had to excavate a well.

The well was simply too unstable and dangerous for Diane to work in without structural reinforcements to hold back the crumbling walls. Mike called in an engineering consultant from Bartrum University who designed a liner for the well consisting of ten-foot steel chain-link fencing reinforced by steel posts, straps, and bars. It took two days for Mike to locate a contractor, collect the materials, and get the job done.

Thick cotton batting and wire mesh were laid over the debris in the bottom of the well and a temporary wooden platform was built over that to protect the remains lying beneath the rubble. The entire steel structure was assembled aboveground and lowered with extreme caution into the well by use of a construction crane. Inside the well, the liner was expanded outward against the stone wall and locked in place with reinforcing steel braces. All this was done without ever touching the bottom of the well or the delicate matter that lay there.

Mike attached a ladder to the side of the reinforced well. He and Scott strung the wiring for the work lights and removed the temporary platform, the wire mesh, and cotton batting from the bottom of the well. On the surface, the crew used wooden posts and beams to build a hand-operated winch above the well. They wrapped Diane’s rescue rope around the hoist and attached a five-gallon bucket to the end of the rope for lifting debris out of the well.

Paloma said her mother was greatly frustrated not to be there. An excavation in her own backyard and she, an archaeologist, was stuck in the hospital. Andie came up with the idea of using a webcam down in the well. Marcella could watch the excavation, the crew at the top of the well could keep track of what was going on down below, and Andie herself could watch from her office. Andie saw it as an opportunity to conduct research for the webcam project she was working on with the curators. Diane thought it was a great idea. She got permission from Chief Garnett. David helped with the technical part. The webcams were attached to the wire liner near the work lights that illuminated the bottom of the pit.

“I love it,” Mike said with obvious pride, looking down into the well at the finished construction. “I would trust my life with that, Boss.” He grinned at Diane.

“Well, that’s certainly reassuring,” she said. She looked into the lighted well. “I’ll have to give you credit. It does look safe and functional.” But what she was thinking was how foreboding it was. She had the feeling she was looking into the mouth of something very dark and evil. She put on her caving hard hat with a light on it and lowered herself down the ladder.

Before she started excavating the bones, Diane had to clean out a lot of debris-pieces of the rotted wooden well cap, rocks, leaves, and surface vegetation that had fallen in with Hector. She filled the bucket time and again and the top crew hoisted the bucket loads out of the well using the winch. It didn’t take as long as she feared to clear the bottom of the well. But it was tiring.

So now Diane was at the bottom of the well, kneeling over her real work. Marcella, Andie, Garnett back in his office, and her crime scene support up top were watching via Web video as Diane’s hands brushed debris off the dome of a skull.