Beverly Connor - The Night Killer

Diane took the evidence and thanked Scott. She led Travis to the crime lab. David and Izzy were there, both working on different computers. Travis stood looking at the lab and all the equipment. Unlike his father, he appeared to be fascinated.

“You know,” he said, “I didn’t understand much of what that guy was talking about. I’m not sure I would ever understand it,” he said.

“You don’t have to. You just need to know the kind of analysis that can be done with evidence,” said Diane. “Didn’t they cover this in the senior deputy certification courses you took?” asked Diane.

“Probably. I have to confess, I’m not a real good student. It wasn’t that important to Daddy, so I just got by. I did excel in Advanced Report Writing and Verbal Judo.” He laughed. “Seriously, I did listen in the forensic modules, and got pretty good in fingerprint analysis, but there was just so much stuff.”

“You probably picked up more knowledge than you think,” said Diane.

“Maybe. How are we going to do this? I don’t really want Daddy to know I’m here.”

“I’ll give him a call,” said Diane. “Perhaps I’d better do that first.” She motioned to the round conference table in a corner of the room and they sat down. She fished her cell phone out of her pocket and keyed the sheriff’s number. She was looking forward to speaking with him.

In the middle of dialing the sheriff’s number Diane realized that he would probably be at the new crime scene. He wasn’t. She was lucky; she caught the sheriff in his office. He wasn’t pleased to hear from her. She hadn’t expected he would be.

“I’m busy right now. Don’t have time to talk,” he said in his rather odd, clipped Southern accent.

Diane almost laughed at the thought that she had called just to talk.

“I won’t be long,” she said, her voice calm and matter-of-fact. “The DNA lab has completed the analysis of the wood from the tree and the cement I took from the road. . ”

“That’s past. My expert says the bones are probably about a hundred years old and of a child. Slick Massey probably didn’t see the bones in the hollow when he cemented the tree,” he said, adding that people cemented hollow trees to try to save them. “What you saw on the finger bones was weathering.”

Diane noted that his voice had a friendlier lilt to it when he told her this. Probably enjoying it, she figured, as she waited for him to finish.

“Your expert is wrong,” she said. “The residue analysis of the wood from inside the tree indicates that decomposition of the body was much more recent. Identification of a button and clothing fibers caught in the cement limits the age to not more than five years ago. I have the evidence here, plus the report. I don’t know your expert, but the skeleton was not a child. Weathering did not remodel the bones. Disease did. How old do you think that tree is if it was hollow when the body was put in it a hundred years ago? It’s been my experience that hollow trees don’t live that long.” And your experience too, if you think about it , she didn’t add. “Sheriff Conrad, I don’t know why you’re trying to say the sun is shining during a thunderstorm, but you have an older individual, probably a woman, who needs justice. It’s now up to you to give it to her.”

“Don’t you speak to me in that tone of voice.” The friendly lilt was gone, replaced by harsher tones. “Who do you think you are, telling me my job and belittling a man who was doctoring before you were born?”

Diane could almost feel the telephone vibrate with his anger. She cast a glance at Travis. The look on his face was somewhere between alarm and amusement. He apparently knew his father would not take her words well.

David and Izzy had wandered over and unabashedly listened to her side of the conversation. Both stood with their arms folded across their chests, grinning. David didn’t like Sheriff Conrad, so Diane knew he probably enjoyed her giving him an earful. Izzy, however, simply found it entertaining.

“Sheriff Conrad, this is not about hurting your feelings or those of your expert, or disrespecting either of you. In fact, it isn’t about the two of you at all. It is about justice. I’m giving you information you need to know. Now the ball’s in your court,” she said.

“Don’t call again. I won’t tolerate your butting into police business in my county.” He slammed the phone down.

“Okay,” said Diane, “that went well.”

“I guess I should have told you how to approach Daddy,” Travis said.

He started to say something else but was interrupted by his cell phone ringing. He flipped it open. “Travis here.”

He listened for several moments.

“Yes. I’ll be able to get the stuff I need for the Watson place.” He paused. “Sure, I can do it. We covered it in that deputy training course I had to go to.” Travis paused again. “No, it won’t be that far out of the way. I’ll pick the stuff up; don’t worry none.” He listened, eyebrows raised. “I won’t.”

Diane handed David the memory card for Travis’ camera as he spoke to his father. “Would you load this on the computer and work your magic on it?” she asked.

“Sure.” He took it, walked over to one of the glass-enclosed carrels, and began loading the images on the computer.

“You know you’re going to have to take a detour around Rendell County every time you have to travel north now, don’t you?” said Izzy, his face still split with a grin.

“It would seem so,” she said. “Since you have nothing to do but make fun of me,” said Diane, “why don’t you put together a crime scene kit for Travis, and be sure nothing has our name on it.”

“Will do,” said Izzy. “One incognito crime scene kit coming up.”

When Travis got off the phone he looked over at Diane. “You really made him mad. I thought I was the only one who could piss him off that much.”

“There was no way to avoid it. He wasn’t going to like the information I had, no matter how I packaged it,” Diane said.

“True enough,” said Travis. “He wants me to pick up any evidence you have-all of it-all copies. He doesn’t quite understand about digital photographs. I guess he wants me to make sure you delete it from your computers.”

Good luck with that , thought Diane. She wasn’t about to let it go. . completely. She wouldn’t go into Rendell County to investigate, but she would look at the photographs and glean as much information as she could from them-and she would be a secret partner with Travis.

David returned shortly and handed the card back to Travis. “I’ll have the reconstruction tomorrow,” he said.

“Reconstruction?” asked Travis.

“One of the things I need to show you,” said Diane.

She rose from the table, gathered the report and evidence, and handed everything to Travis. She led him to the workstation David had vacated, pulled Travis up a chair by hers, sat down, and called up the Barre crime scene.

Repeated viewings of the Barres in death did not desensitize her to the ghastly image of people she had known. It wouldn’t have been much easier if they were strangers, but it would have given her some emotional distance.

She played the animated version for Travis. The androgynous figure appeared in the room-appeared because the photograph didn’t tell them how he or she got there. The killer slit Ozella’s throat, waited and slit Roy’s throat. Then he walked out of the room, followed by a window that came up reminding the viewer that there were no extra details in evidence of the exit.

She heard Travis quietly whistle under his breath. “This is what happened?” he said. “How do you know? How do you know Ozella was killed first? How do you know the killer waited?”