Beverly Connor - Dead Secret

“If I can get a line on the first two, maybe the third was seen hanging around with them,” said Neva.

“I hope someone remembers them, or at least that the damn security cameras worked this time. David, take a couple of the security guards with you. Do a sweep of the entire basement.”

“Isn’t there a subbasement?” said Jin. “Korey showed me some old plans of the building.”

Diane raised an eyebrow. “Yes. But it’s dank and musty. I didn’t get any sense of that aroma from them. And from my times down in the subbasement, they’d definitely come back with a scent. But we’d better check it.” She sighed, suddenly out of breath.

“I need to know if the stabbings were connected to all these crimes. They denied they did the stabbings, but they don’t have a lot of credibility with me. See if you can connect Neva’s house breakin with them. Perhaps when we find them, we’ll see that one has something wrong with a finger.

“Now, I need to ask if any of you have mentioned anything about the current cases to anyone. This isn’t an accusation. I’m having to think about what I might have said to Frank. I was with him when I called David on the cell to discuss my revelation about the cave-witch bones. Someone might have overheard me.”

“I hardly talk about what I do,” said Jin. “I never discuss anything specific.”

“I don’t know anybody,” said David.

“Sometimes I tell Mike about drawings, but only in general terms. He was up here yesterday watching, but he knows not to mention anything about the crime lab, and he wouldn’t. . but I’ll check with him about it.”

“Okay, now I have to have the same conversation with the guys out there.” She pointed to Chief Garnett and the two sheriffs, who were waiting in suspense. “I have a feeling they aren’t going to be as nice as you guys about being questioned.”

Chief Garnett, Sheriff Burns and Sheriff Canfield looked slightly put out when Diane sat down across from them. They shifted in their seats and finally leaned forward with their forearms on the table. She looked at each of them in turn, still trying to decide how much to say. She should tell Garnett everything, since he was not only Rosewood’s chief of detectives, but technically her boss when it came to the crime lab. The crime scene unit was his baby.

“We have a serious problem,” Diane began.

“You said on the phone that you have evidence that all the crimes are linked,” said Sheriff Canfield, obviously anxious to get on with it. His jurisdiction covered the quarry and the lake because they were in Rose County but outside of Rosewood city limits, where Garnett’s jurisdiction ended.

Canfield handed Diane a report that identified Quarry Doe as Donnie Martin-from his prison tattos. She wrote the name on the chart as she brought the board around to face them. “This is a chart of the crime scene evidence. Not all the evidence in the cases is represented, by any means. Just the pieces that connect two or more crime scenes. The Xs show the connections.” She watched their eyes to see if they were following.

She guided them through the links formed by the rare buttons, the same estimated date for the two old deaths, the picture of the submerged car, the items stolen from the lab, the blue wool fibers, and the powder residue.

The three stared at the table with wrinkled brows and frowns. Sheriff Canfield squinted his eyes, as if that made everything clearer.

“Logically, as you can see, all the crimes are connected,” Diane finished.

Sheriff Burns’s phone rang and Diane felt annoyed. It was stealing the power of the moment, and she needed the impact of the evidence in order to gain their cooperation. Burns grabbed the phone from his belt.

“Yeah?” He listened for a minute before speaking again. “Are you sure? You don’t say? I would’ve been surprised five minutes ago.” He hung up.

Sheriff Burns got up, took one of the dry markers and added to the chart. He wrote woods on the crime scene line and relatives over the evidence column and put an X where the relatives column crossed the quarry and woods lines.

They looked at him, puzzled.

“That was one my deputies. They just discovered that Flora Martin-a.k.a. Jane Doe in the woods-is the great-grandmother of Donnie Martin-a.k.a. Quarry Doe-over in your jurisdiction, Canfield.”

“So,” said Garnett, “all these cases are related. Any idea how?”

“Some,” said Diane, “but as I said, we-or rather, I-have a problem.” Diane decided to lay most of it on the table.

“I was late because two men chloroformed me in the elevator and took me to the basement, where they tied me up and proceeded to tell me that if I don’t destroy evidence, they will burn down the museum and harm my family.”

Like her staff, the three law officers stared at her in disbelief. Garnett’s face twisted into anger and he slammed his fist on the table.

“Here? Someone got you here?”

“What evidence do they want you to destroy?” said Sheriff Burns.

“Evidence from the cave and from the lake bottom.”

“For God’s sake, why?” said Sheriff Canfield. “Those are ancient cases.” He tapped the table. “Didn’t you say the lake-bottom victim could have died in 1942?”

“And if they all are connected, why not demand you destroy all the evidence?” asked Sheriff Burns.

“I’m guessing,” said Diane. “But I think when we find out what happened in the cave and at the bottom of the lake in 1942, the evidence will point directly to someone who, even after all these years, has a great deal to lose. My attackers were cocky. They think they’re too smart to get caught. They don’t think we can connect them to the murders of Jake Stanley, Donnie Martin and Flora Martin. And they realize that I can destroy the evidence from the cave without arousing a great deal of suspicion, but I can’t destroy evidence from current cases.”

“Do you know who they were?” asked Garnett.

“No. I have my staff looking for trace evidence.” Diane held back that she might have their DNA.

“We’ll give the museum extra protection, of course,” said Garnett.

“I’m going to be beefing up security, too. And I’ll have the day lighting stay on at night until we sort this out. That will make it easier for security.”

“So you weren’t tempted to destroy the evidence?” said Burns. It wasn’t an accusation, but simply a comment, something a reasonable person might do, given the alternatives.

“No,” said Diane. “Destroying evidence of a crime is not an option. Neither is having my museum burned to the ground or having my family harmed. What I’m going to do is get the sons of bitches.”

“We’ll help you,” said Burns. “Let us know.”

Diane gave them a brief description of what happened to her mother and how the two thugs bragged about it. “They were proud that they could get to anyone without leaving the house.”

“Son of a bitch,” echoed Sheriff Canfield. “People can do something like that?”

“Yes, they can,” said Garnett. “We have a unit that deals with computer fraud. It’s frightening what a hacker can do. So these guys are computer geeks?”

“At least one of them has to be.” Diane took a deep breath. Here she had to be her most diplomatic self. “One thing you can do,” said Diane. “I got the impression that the guys knew that we’re making progress. I’m checking my staff and phones to see if there is a leak, a bug or any way someone might have overheard a conversation between me and my staff. I’d like you all to do the same.”

They took the suggestion that they might have a leak much better than she had hoped.