Beverly Connor - Dust to Dust

“I’ll set you up first thing,” said Diane. She flipped her cell closed. “Vanessa’s going to speak with her mother this evening,” Diane said to Hanks, then relayed to him the rest of the conversation.

“That might be the break we need. I didn’t think about it being a rental,” he said.

“Neither did I. I think it’s because stuff belonging to the occupant is still here-the desk, the paintings,” said Diane.

“I suppose,” he said. “What have you found in the well, speaking of stuff they left behind?”

“I’ve found the bones of at least two individuals, so far. One is a teenage female who was killed with a sharp blow to the head. She had been butchered and some of her bones crushed, perhaps for pottery temper. I found a large piece of leather and iron hammers that may have been used for crushing the bone, but I won’t know for sure until we examine it.”

Hanks let out a long breath. “Man, that’s cold-blooded and gruesome.”

“It is,” said Diane.

“If you will, keep me informed. Garnett gave me the old case too, even if it’s not related to the attack on Dr. Payden,” he said.

“I will,” she said.

Diane stood up. Rest over. It was time to go back in the well.

Diane worked in the well past dark. The temperature dropped and her hands got stiff and cold. Her support crew up top were no doubt getting uncomfortable too, so she quit for the night. She had revealed most of a second skeleton. It was in a similar condition to the first-sharp trauma to the head, butchered. The bones belonged to a male in his teens. He was a little larger than the female but not much older. Diane covered over the remaining bones with black plastic and climbed out of the well.

Neva and Scott had taken the excavated bones and other evidence to the lab earlier. Diane asked Neva to use the skull to start a facial reconstruction with the 3-D laser scanner and software. Neva was an artist and Diane taught her how to read a skull to visualize what the face would have looked like. This enabled her to enhance the computer drawing to give her pictures a more realistic quality. She also taught Neva how to make a cast of the skull and do a sculpted representation of the victim. Neva turned out to be very skilled at artistic reconstruction.

David decided to camp out at the well. Marcella again volunteered her living room and the policemen were again on guard, happy for the overtime. Diane fervently hoped there were no more surprises awaiting on Marcella’s property.

“Why don’t you let me finish the excavation?” said David as Diane was climbing into her SUV. “I’m perfectly capable.”

“Of course you are, but I want to finish it,” she said. “It’s almost done. Tomorrow morning ought to finish it.”

“If you change your mind, call,” he said, patting her shoulder and closing the driver’s-side door for her.

He motioned to her and Diane rolled down the window. “Is Frank home yet?” he asked.

“Sometime tonight,” she said. “Call if anything happens.”

David laughed. “What’s left to happen?”

“Who knows?” she said. “Alien abduction?”

“I’ll be sure to call if it happens. You’d like that.”

Diane smiled, waved good-bye, and drove home. Frank’s fraud case in Nashville had taken longer than he expected, but he assured her when she spoke with him earlier that he would be home late this evening and if he could leave early, he would. He also told her he was working on Ellie Rose’s diary and that he was sorry he wasn’t there to see her down in the well.

Diane parked in the drive and went into the house. It was quiet. Frank had a quiet house. She liked that. Quiet was soothing. She locked the door and walked up the stairs to the bedroom, undressed, and ran a hot bubble bath. She reluctantly took her cell phone with her and laid it on the floor next to the tub. She showered first, scrubbing the dirt off her body, and washed her hair. Then she got into the warm, scented bubble bath, leaned her head against the back of the tub, and closed her eyes. Quiet and peaceful, that’s what she liked. She could just sleep here for the night and let all the strain and soreness soak out of her tired muscles.

The sound of the doorbell brought her out of her comfortable stupor, but she didn’t move. It rang again. Anyone who would come to her for an emergency would call her cell. So it was probably not any of her crew or anyone at the museum. It wouldn’t be Garnett, Hanks, or Kingsley. They had her number. So did Star, Frank’s daughter. Frank wouldn’t knock; he had her cell number and a key. They all had her number. It probably wasn’t a neighbor with some emergency. There were closer houses than Frank’s to run to. Same for a road emergency. There were closer houses to go to for help. Frank’s house was in the middle of a double lot with lots of trees.

It wasn’t anything she needed to attend to. They would just have to return during civilized hours to ring the doorbell. Diane closed her eyes again.

The doorbell rang again. This time they leaned on it. They banged the door with their fist.

“Okay, this is obnoxious,” said Diane. She submerged a moment, then came up and rubbed her hands over her hair, squeezing the water out of it.

It must be a drunk , she thought. Or someone who had the wrong address. Or maybe it was a process server for some unknown thing someone was suing her for. Whatever it was, she decided not to face it naked. She got out of the tub, dried off, and slipped on underwear and sweats. She dried her hair with a towel. All the while, whoever it was banged on the door and rang the bell. Damn it. What the hell?

She slipped her feet into her fleece-lined house shoes and walked into the bedroom. The ringing stopped. Great, she should have waited longer. She started for a front window to see if she could get a glimpse of a car. The outside security lights came on in the yard on the bedroom side of the house.

The pissant was coming around the house. She turned out the light in the bedroom, walked to the stairs, and peered down to the foyer. She heard someone rattle the back door. Time to call the police and ask them to send a car.

She nearly fell down the stairs when the gunshots were fired. Someone was breaking into the house with a very large gun. Diane didn’t hesitate. She ran to the chest of drawers in the closet and got her gun and ammunition clips. She carried them and her cell up to the attic. She closed the door at the top of the attic stairs and pulled a large chest in front of it. Light from the security lamps shined through one of the dormer windows, giving the attic a spooky glow. She called 911 and explained to them what was happening. She held the phone to her ear with her shoulder, shoved a clip into the butt of the gun, loaded a round into the chamber, and clicked on the safety.

“Stay on the line, ma’am,” the operator said.

“Can’t. I think he is in the house. I’ll call back when I can.”

“Ma’am, stay…”

Diane hung up and called Chief Garnett for good measure.

“I’ll make sure they are on their way,” he said. “You have a gun?”

“Yes. I’m holed up in the attic. This is some bold home invader. He must know the police are about to come,” she said.

She listened for footfalls. Frank’s house didn’t have carpet. He had polished wood floors and sound reverberated off them. She heard the footsteps downstairs. Diane took up a position behind a large trunk near the wall. She knew it was filled with Frank’s old National Geographic magazines. They ought to be a fairly decent bullet stopper. This vantage had a view of the door but was not in front of it. If he came up the stairs and began blasting through the lock and moved the chest of drawers, she would have time to shoot before he got to her. It seemed like a good plan.