Beverly Connor - The Night Killer

“I want you to examine this knife. Take it completely apart. I want to know if there’s any blood on it.” She dropped it in the bag. She put the hat in another one. “Look at the hat too. I may have cross-contaminated it, but at the time I didn’t have anything else to wrap the knife in.”

“And why didn’t you turn all this over to the sheriff or, rather, his representative?” asked Frank.

Frank’s face looked stern, but Diane knew him well enough to know that he wasn’t angry. Just concerned.

“In the absence of a warrant, I didn’t think it was right to hand over something that was loaned to me,” said Diane. “Sheriff Leland Conrad spends the least amount of money on criminal justice of any sheriff in Georgia. He runs for election on what he describes as his commonsense approach to crime. And he believes he is right. To him it will be common sense that it was a stranger in the woods in possession of a knife who said he was taking photographs during a thunderstorm who is the killer, rather than any resident of his county. If the man is guilty, that would be fine. If he’s not, the killer gets away and the stranger is stuck in prison.”

“You don’t think Sheriff Conrad will call in the GBI on this?” asked Frank. “This is pretty big.”

“Nothing’s too big for Leland,” commented David.

“His son, Deputy Travis Conrad, is going to try to talk him into it. He said the coroner will back him up,” said Diane. “Maybe they will persuade him. But between now and then, I’m going to process what we have.”

She and Frank stared at each other for a moment. She knew he disapproved. Frank could be a stickler for protocol. Izzy Wallace looked uneasy too.

“It’s not evidence until it’s evidence,” she said. “Right now, it’s just a knife and rain gear that some Good Samaritan loaned me to help me out of a tight spot.”

“You don’t think you’re sort of protecting the guy because he helped you, do you?” said Izzy. “That would be understandable,” he added.

Diane knew Frank was thinking the same thing. “No, I think I’m a former human rights investigator who has a very healthy, well-developed sense of justice and the presumption of innocence.”

David gave her a ghost of a smile. She knew he was with her on this one.

“Besides, Deputy Conrad could have asked me for the poncho if he thought its owner had anything to do with the crime. He didn’t,” she said. “Think of Star,” she added.

Star was Frank’s adopted daughter. She was unjustly accused of killing her parents, and many of her rights were trampled on in the process. She could have spent the rest of her life in prison, had it not been for Frank and Diane.

“In the meantime,” she said, “I told Deputy Conrad about the stranger and that he said he was camping in the national forest. I’m sure Travis will look for him.”

“Okay,” said Frank. “I was just interested in your line of reasoning.”

Diane took out her cell phone and handed it to David. “There are some pictures of the crime scene on here I’d like you to do the best you can with,” she said.

“Diane,” said Frank. “You can’t just take over the investigation.”

“I’m not. I’m preserving the scene as it was when I found it,” she said.

“You really don’t trust Leland Conrad, do you?” Frank said.

“Do you?” she shot back.

“No, I don’t. But he is the elected sheriff of Rendell County,” Frank said.

“I’ll share any information I discover,” Diane said.

“Leland will be really pissed,” said Izzy. “I don’t care for him either, but Frank’s right. Taking photographs of his crime scene. . I don’t know.”

“Leland Conrad is a Luddite who treats the people who elected him like he owns them and knows what’s best for them. Diane may not have followed protocol on this, but she is right, nevertheless.”

Both Frank and Izzy looked at David for a moment. She knew they were torn. They didn’t think Diane should have kept anything from the sheriff, but they also agreed with David.

“Still,” said Izzy, “this will come back on you.”

“Okay,” said Diane. She turned to David. “Delete the photographs.”

“Well, don’t do that,” said Izzy. “I mean, you already have them. And, well, it’s not like you’ll post them on the Internet.”

“If I can bring any empiricism to bear on the investigation, I will. The Barres did not deserve what happened to them. They were very nice people. Jonas. .” She stopped. A shock of horror went through her, giving her stomach a punch.

“What?” said Frank.

“It’s just that Jonas Briggs was supposed to go pick up the artifacts. If he had gone, the Barres would have asked him to spend the night because of the storm-like they did me. He would have probably stayed, and he would have been killed along with them,” she said. “It was pure luck that he had to go out of town.”

“And what if you had stayed?” said David.

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t have answered the door. Perhaps I would have heard something bad going down and done something about it. But I wouldn’t have stayed. I didn’t stay. I wanted to get back home.”

They were quiet for several moments. Might-havebeens were scary things.

“Jonas didn’t stay with them,” said Frank. “And he didn’t get killed with them. Don’t borrow fright. There’s going to be enough to worry about when Sheriff Conrad gets back and his son fills him in. He’s going to accuse you of either butting in on his jurisdiction, or protecting a killer, or both. You aren’t going to be able to investigate. He won’t allow you to ask questions in what he considers his county.”

“You know, Diane,” said Izzy, “this guy, the stranger, could be the killer. He was on-or at least near-the scene. And taking photographs in a thunderstorm is pretty weak. Liking him for the killer is not unreasonable.”

“I have to agree,” said Frank.

Diane was surprised when Jin agreed too. “I’m just saying, boss. That whole episode with the mysterious man in the forest was pretty strange. Of course, this whole thing is strange.”

“I was also at the scene,” said Diane quietly. “With your reasoning, I’m a much better suspect, because I was there and I have things of the Barres’ in my possession. Who’s to say I didn’t kill them and steal the artifacts? Sheriff Conrad might. That might make sense to him. If the stranger is the killer and there’s blood on these things”-she pointed to the evidence-“then I’m really screwed, because I’m in possession of the knife and poncho, and he took my jacket, which he could contaminate with the Barres’ blood. And I’m the only one who saw the mysterious stranger.”

Diane could tell from the looks on their faces that none of them had thought that she might be accused of the murders of Roy and Ozella Barre. It was comforting that they had passed over her as a suspect, but she knew Leland Conrad wouldn’t.

“The best thing for me would be for the mystery man to be innocent,” said Diane.

Frank leaned forward with his forearms on his knees. He took a breath, sighing. “Well, that changes things,” he said.

However much Frank was a stickler for procedure, he was loyal to her, to family. One of the things she loved him for. He might disagree with her, argue with her, but she could always count on him to be on her side, to have her back.

“Gee, boss,” said Jin, “you don’t think that hillbilly sheriff will target you as a suspect?” Jin’s dark eyes showed his alarm. He sat there in his jeans and glittering double-helix T-shirt with an unaccustomed look of worry on his normally happy face.