Beverly Connor - Dust to Dust

“How did it work?” asked Diane.

“She had symbols for diphthongs and consonant blends-letter combinations like oo, ou, th, st, ious -that kind of thing. For other letter combinations she drew doodles that represented the sound-like in a rebus puzzle. For example, for air she drew three curled wisps.”

Frank got a piece of paper and drew the doodle for her.

“The symbol for the consonant blend of st is a star. So if she wrote the word stair , it would be a star and these little wisps.” He drew it for Diane.

“If she had to use a letter, she would go two up in the alphabet,” he continued. “So a would be c and z would be b . The consonant blend th is the numeral three. The word the would be written as the numeral three with the letter g immediately following it.” He grinned. “She was a good little doodler.”

He took several bites of pizza and a sip of wine.

“There was a little complication, in that sometimes she would change how she wrote a word. For example, the symbol for the suffix er was a drawing of an ear. Mother was sometimes oq , with the numeral three immediately following, and then the drawing of an ear. And sometimes it would be a drawing of a moth and an ear.”

“That seems like it would take a long time to write,” said Diane.

“Not really. The drawings were doodles, stylized versions of what they represented. If you’re going up the alphabet only two letters, you can work that out pretty fast,” he said.

“I’ll call Ross Kingsley tomorrow. He’ll be happy you were able to decode it,” said Diane. “I got the impression he thought it would be impossible.”

“You know, I kind of got to know her. Not just reading her diary, but seeing the way her mind worked, examining her whimsical creativity.”

He stopped for a moment and took a drink of wine. Diane thought for a second he was going to tear up. She put a hand on his and he smiled at her.

“As I said, she was a neat kid,” he said.

“Anything in her diary that would shed light on anything?” said Diane.

“Most of it was normal kid stuff. Talk about school, friends, boys she liked, teachers. There are a couple of drawings that occurred several times that I can’t decipher.”

He drew one for her. It was a triangle over an elongated diamond shape with slightly curving sides and what looked like horns.

“It looks kind of like a snake with scales and horns,” said Diane.

“That’s what I thought,” he said. “I can’t come up with a rebus or anything else that makes sense. I think it’s a person, but that’s as far as I got, except that it’s clear she didn’t like him. If I had a list of names of people in her circle, I might be able to decipher it.”

“What was the context?” asked Diane.

“Dread seeing ‘blank.’ ‘Blank’ has changed since ‘blank.’ The second blank is the other doodle I can’t figure out.” He drew it for her.

“These are almost like Rorschach tests. The identification is in the eye of the beholder,” said Diane. She examined the last drawing. “It looks like a ruin or a broken brick wall. What do you think?”

“I thought it looked kind of like a broken igloo,” he said. “These look like blocks. Notice that the scales in the snake-like figure are similar to the bricks or ice blocks in the other figure.”

“Something to sleep on,” said Diane. She finished her pizza and upended her wineglass. “Vanessa will be disappointed we didn’t have Irish whiskey,” she said.

Diane got ready for bed as Frank went around and checked all the doors and windows in the house. If they were willing to shoot off the locks with a big gun, doors were useless, she thought.

She was sitting on the bed in her nightshirt when he came into the room.

“You know, I was really terrified,” she said.

Frank sat down beside her and took her hand. “It’s completely normal that you were.”

“No, I mean I was really terrified,” she repeated.

“And it’s really normal,” he said, grinning at her.

“You know I’ve been in a lot of dangerous situations. I was never this scared,” she said.

Frank was silent for several moments. “Over the past few years you have been getting happier,” he said. “It’s taken a while since Ariel’s death, but gradually your grief has made room for other emotions-like love and friendship. You’ve built a lot of that here in Rosewood. I’m not saying your life now means more to you, but you feel like you have a lot to lose, and it scares you. I believe that’s part of it. And there was also the overly violent nature of the attack. It was designed for terror. But you did well. You won.”

Diane leaned against him. “I’m going to find out who did this to your house,” she said. “And to me.”

Diane had hoped to get out to Marcella’s house by late morning, but she had to go to the police station first to make a formal statement. She wrote out an account and signed it before she went to Garnett’s office, hoping it would save time. It didn’t. She had to speak with Internal Affairs. It wasn’t pleasant, mainly because the incident wasn’t pleasant. But it wasn’t that bad either. They weren’t hostile, really. Stern, but not particularly aggressive. The prevailing culture in Rosewood was, if a man shot his way into your house, you had the right to shoot back. After she spoke with IA, she went to Garnett’s office.

“Sorry about all this,” said Garnett. “You know. Procedure. Hanks will join us shortly. We had a discussion with Emory in the hospital and we thought you would be interested in hearing about it.”

Diane was relieved that he was still alive. She didn’t want to have killed someone. “How is he?” she asked.

“Critical but in stable condition,” said Garnett. “Only two of your bullets did any damage. The other two were stopped by his Kevlar vest. One bullet went in the arm opening of the vest and found the radial nerve but managed to miss the artery. Doctor said his right arm’s going to be paralyzed. His right little toe was mangled by the bullet to his foot. They amputated the toe. Still, he’s a lucky guy. Don’t go wasting your time feeling bad for him. You know what he had planned for you. If he had got you to open the front door, he was going to blow your head off.”

Diane shivered. She did know that.

Detective Hanks came in and pulled up a chair. He stared at her as if looking for signs of the previous evening, or maybe signs of a nervous breakdown.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” said Diane. “Just bewildered. Did he say what this was about?” she asked.

Garnett snorted and nodded to Hanks, who gave her a grim smile.

“He was talkative,” said Hanks. “Said he had a contract to kill you.”

“A contract?” said Diane. “Someone put a contract out on me? Why?”

“We don’t know. He said he doesn’t know who or why.” Hanks smirked and looked at Garnett. Diane had the feeling he was trying not to laugh. “Emory said he received an envelope in the mail with two thousand dollars and your picture and address in it. He thought it was some kind of mistake until he got a call that evening. A man claiming to know his cousin, Ray-Ray, told him he’d sent it as a good faith payment. That he was looking for a good man to do some wet work for him.”

“Wet work? He actually said that?” said Diane.

“Yeah,” said Hanks, grinning. “He actually said those words.”

“The man asked him if he was up to it. If he was, he would get another fifty grand. The man said that he’d tried to use Emory’s cousin, but he was a disappointment, and he wanted to know if Emory was going to be a disappointment too.”