Beverly Connor - Dead Secret

She carried the X-ray to the copy machine. She measured the head of the woman in the photograph between two craniometric points-the nasion, where the nose met the forehead, and the gnathion, the tip of the chin. She made the same measurements on the X-ray of Plymouth Doe’s skull and calculated the percent difference between the photograph and the skull. She put the photo on the copier and increased the size by a small amount and measured the result at the same points.

When she had the heights of the faces the same on the measurement points, she took the X-ray and the copy of the photo to the light table and laid one on top of the other.

“I thought you did that with a projection screen so you could fiddle with it,” said David.

“I do, but right now this is quicker, and if it’s the same person, it should fit dead on.”

It did. Plymouth Doe was Jewel Southwell.

Just to make sure, Diane used a loupe and examined Jewel Southwell’s teeth in her portrait. Plymouth Doe had an overlapping upper incisor. Jewel Southwell’s portrait showed the same overlap, one incisor slightly forward, casting a shadow on the incisor next to it. To compute how far forward, Diane used one of David’s esoteric photography databases to provide some of the numbers she needed, based on the shadow length in the photo. She retrieved Plymouth Doe’s skull from the vault and took a few tooth measurements. It wouldn’t be exact, but the measurements from the offset teeth in the skull should be very close to the computed value from the photograph. Again, dead-on.

She took two DNA sampling kits from the supply cabinet and walked back to the father and daughter waiting in her office.

“Could I ask each of you to give me a DNA sample for comparison with DNA we took from the remains? It’s nothing invasive. I just need to take a swab from inside your cheek.”

As Diane talked, she opened the DNA test kits and showed them a swab. Earl and his daughter Lydia both opened their mouths. Diane took the samples and sealed the swabs in their envelopes and labeled them. She sat down across the table from the two and looked into their eyes. Their faces showed a cross between expectation and dread.

“I can tell you that the photograph is a match with the remains. It’s her, almost beyond a doubt. The DNA results will give us the final confirmation.”

“It is Grandma then?” asked Lydia.

“Yes.” Diane nodded. “It is Jewel Southwell.”

Earl Southwell began sobbing. “All these years, the things we all thought about her, and she was at the bottom of that quarry. I swam there when I was a kid, and my mother was down there.” His shoulders shook with his sobs.

Diane noticed that his daughter didn’t reach over to comfort him.

“How did she die?” he asked when his sobs subsided.

“From a blow to the head.”

“You mean, like deliberate, or an accident?” asked Lydia.

“It appears to have been deliberate,” said Diane.

“You think you can find out who killed her, after all this time?”

“There’s a good chance.”

“When can we have her for burial?” Earl asked.

“We’ll need to wait for the DNA results to confirm the match. That should take about ten days. After that we can release the remains.”

Lydia’s face had grown angry. “I want you to find out who did this. Grandpa could’ve been happy.” She looked at her father, Earl Southwell. “We all could’ve been happy. Bitterness poisoned our family. I want to know who did this to us.”

Earl Southwell didn’t say anything. The vacant look in his swollen eyes said that he had lapsed into deep introspection, or grief, or remorse. Probably a combination of all those emotions and more. The two of them, the father and the daughter, each suffering in their own way.

“Is your grandfather still alive?” Diane asked the daughter.

Lydia nodded, her eyes downcast. “But he has Alzheimer’s and don’t know anybody anymore.”

Diane put her hand on Lydia’s. “The brain’s a funny thing. Tell him that his wife didn’t leave him after all. It might get through to him.”

Lydia looked dubious. Diane wished she could say something comforting.

“When we have DNA confirmation, I’m sure the TV and newspapers would like a follow-up on this story. Tell them your story and the impact this has had on your life. It will make the authorities more interested in pursuing it.”

Lydia nodded. “You’ll let us know when you get the DNA test back?”

“Of course. Give me your phone number and address. When everything is done, I’ll return the photograph and all the effects we found with your grandmother’s remains. There are some clothes and things.”

Lydia wrote down the information for Diane.

“Did you happen to recognize anyone else in the drawings?”

“No.” Both shook their heads.

“When did she disappear?” asked Diane.

“June fourteenth, 1942,” said Earl Southwell, as if the date were branded on his brain. It probably was.

“Did she own an automobile?” asked Diane.

“No, she didn’t,” said Earl. “Daddy’s Ford pickup was all the car we had.”

Diane made some notes in her notebook.

“Do you have a photograph of Dale Wayne Russell?”

“Are you kidding?”

Diane walked them to the museum exit and let them out. She watched them as they slowly made their way to their vehicle, an old pickup, keeping their distance from each other. Each might as well have been alone.

There was no doubt in Diane’s mind that the DNA would be a match. She turned and walked back toward the lab to fill out her report and send the samples to the GBI lab.

Diane and her crew sat around the table in her museum office waiting for their pizza. She told them about the father and daughter and their story about Jewel Southwell.

“Jewel’s father was a quartermaster,” said Diane.

“So the buttons came from her, probably,” said David. “You think Caver Doe is Dale Wayne Russell, the guy Jewel Southwell was supposed to have run off with?”

“Maybe. She did sewing for people. Whoever left the button in the cave could be someone she did sewing for, or someone who knew her father. Or it may all be coincidental and the two deaths may be totally unconnected.”

“Too many coincidences,” said David.

“That’s my feeling too,” said Diane. “But we still don’t have anything that ties it all together, so that it all makes sense.”

“Still, we’re making progress,” said Neva. She was very pleased with herself for the drawing she had made of Plymouth Doe.

“Yes, we are,” said Diane. “The identification of Plymouth Doe as Jewel Southwell is a big step forward.”

She told them about the interviews with Valentine and MacRae and their reaction to the mention of the Taggart name.

“The Taggarts have always been associated with good things,” said Neva. “I really find it hard to believe any of them is involved in”-she threw up her hands-“all of this.”

“I don’t know that they are involved,” said Diane. “But someone is behind it. Valentine and MacRae don’t have the intellectual talent to think it up by themselves. And look at their ages. They weren’t even born when Caver Doe died, so what interest would they have in wanting Caver Doe’s crime scene evidence destroyed? Do we have anything that points to the involvement of anyone besides the two of them?”

“You going for a unified field theory, Boss?” asked Jin. “Everything is connected to everything?”

“I agree with David,” Diane said. “Too many coincidences. Let’s follow the evidence. What key evidence do we have that is not matched to a suspect?”

“We have Valentine and MacRae linked to the Donnie Martin crime scene,” said David. “But we don’t have anyone directly linked to the Flora Martin murder. We do have the knife tip you found in Flora Martin’s bone. If we find the knife, we can match it. That might point to Valentine and MacRae, or it might point to someone else.”