Beverly Connor - The Night Killer

“Was there any mention of where the cave was located, or a description of it?”

“Not exactly. Early on, when he was a kid, he wrote that he wasn’t going to write down the location, in case someone read his diary. In his older years he didn’t mention it at all, so far. Like I said, we are still reading.”

“Thanks, Fisher. That’s good information. Thank Mikaela for me too,” she said.

“Sure. Oh, and there is something else. Sometimes he drew pictures of what he found. Some of the stones he thought were gold were round shaped. He wrote that he intended to polish them. We compared his drawings to some of the exhibits in Geology and think they were pyrite spheres. I imagine polished up, they would look like marbles.”

Diane was silent for a long moment.

“Dr. Fallon?” he said.

“I’m still here. Fisher, that is very helpful. Thank you.”

“Sure, Dr. Fallon. We’ll write a report for you when we finish,” he said.

After she hung up, Diane had a flurry of ideas running through her head. It looked like a gold marble, probably with nicks because of the strong isometric crystal habit. What was in the cigar box wasn’t a shooter marble, but a pyrite sphere. Possibly the one he drew in his diary, possibly the one he found in the cave. It all seemed to come back to gold-but where did the Watsons fit in? They weren’t connected to the gold. She was beginning to think the Watson murders were a red herring. Or maybe there were multiple motives in play. Something connected to gold and something connected to progressive changes in the county.

Diane sighed and opened one of the e-mails. She stopped, realizing that she hadn’t told Liam Dugal everything about the list. She called his cell.

“Liam,” he said, answering.

“I haven’t had a chance to speak with you about the note you recovered at the campsite,” she said.

“Why don’t we do it now?” he said.

“Hold the phone while I call up the e-mail from Korey.”

“Why don’t I come to your office?” he said.

“I really don’t have time to wait,” she began.

Her door opened and Liam stuck his head in. “Hi. I was visiting Andie,” he said.

“Please come in.” Diane cradled her phone.

She printed out a copy of Korey’s e-mail, handed it to Liam, and waited while he read it.

“Foolish kids,” he said. “This CND is Cora Nell Dickson-his inspiration for the gold hunt-I suppose.”

“I’m assuming,” said Diane. “I’m also assuming the notation refers to a relative, because of the possessive punctuation. Who are her relatives?”

“She has a grandson who visits her fairly often but at random times. She calls him Dicky, and Dicky Dickson is all the name that is on her emergency contact sheet. The address for him is a post-office box, and the phone number is a prepaid cell phone. I don’t know who it belongs to. The service provider didn’t have any information on file. Dicky didn’t submit his personal information when he activated the phone. I tried calling the number and got an answer once. I explained what I wanted and he hung up. He never answered again. I staked out the PO box, but he never showed. I don’t think it was ever used for anything except an address of record. I tried to ask his grandmother about Dicky and she got upset and the staff wouldn’t let me speak with her again. The nursing home staff described the grandson as medium height and medium build with light brown hair. They frankly didn’t pay much attention to visitors. They are shamefully understaffed. I did talk with a visitor who thought Dicky looked familiar, but for the life of her couldn’t remember who he looked like. I tried staking out the nursing home, but the security guard told me to leave or he would call the police. There wasn’t another place I could wait and still see who was coming and going. I was a spectacular failure at finding out anything about the boy.”

“Well, that’s unhelpful,” said Diane.

“I know,” he said.

“Where was Cora Nell Dickson from?” Diane asked.

“Augusta, Georgia, then Atlanta. She moved around a lot. Her family is all dead. That’s all the staff knows. Mrs. Dickson’s dementia is getting worse and most days she remembers very little.”

“Are you still trying to find the grandson?” asked Diane.

“I’m open to suggestions,” said Liam.

“Do you have the grandmother’s Social Security number?” asked Diane.

“I can probably get it,” he said.

“That might open the door to a lot of records. You can also look up census records and find out who her husband and children were and go from there. A good genealogist can help you. I have one in Archives. Her name is Beth,” said Diane.

“I didn’t think of that. You are a clever woman,” said Liam.

Diane shrugged. “How long have you been a detective?” she said.

“Not long. After I retired from the military, Louis Ruben and I decided to open the agency. We took an Internet course and got a license.”

“Your friend was also injured in combat?” said Diane.

“Yes. He’s in a wheelchair. I was luckier,” he said.

He was lucky. Diane knew what had happened. Not all the details, but she knew he was a Navy SEAL. He and his men were pinned down in some redacted place in the Middle East and several were shot. The redacted opposing forces threw a grenade in their location. Liam was already shot in the side. He jumped on the grenade, covering it with his body-and it didn’t go off. One-in-a-million chance. After a few seconds he got up and tossed the grenade back. It went off and gave him a chance to drag several of his men to a safer location. He fended off the attackers until help arrived. His friend Louis Ruben was critically injured but survived. A sad and inspiring story that Diane guessed he didn’t want to talk about. She didn’t push it.

“We’ve mainly done a lot of divorce work, which pays the bills. But frankly, I think what consenting adults do is their own business. This case for MacAlister was something different. We thought it would make our agency. I don’t think MacAlister is going to be pleased,” he said.

“There’s a good chance the couple was already dead when you got the case,” said Diane.

“Maybe, but a failure is still a failure. His daughter is dead. So is her boyfriend,” he said. “I’ll get Andie to take me to Archives and introduce me to Beth. It looks like I’ll have to cancel the date I just made with Andie.”

“You don’t have to get the Social Security number tonight. You can wait until tomorrow,” said Diane.

“The woman who likes me works at night,” he said. He paused. “You know, you have a strange place here.”

“How’s that?” asked Diane.

He shook his head. “Just a feeling. I get the idea you have access to a lot of information.”

“We do. This is a museum,” she said.

“More than that. You know about me. I’m not sure how much. But most of my record is classified. My branch of service, rank, and medal are the only things that’re in the public record. I get the feeling you know more.”

“Not much more,” said Diane.

She was saved from saying anything else by the ringing of her phone.

“Diane, this is Gil Mathews. I thought you would like to know-Leland Conrad is no longer sheriff. We’ve arrested him for the murders and for what he did to you.”

“The murders?”

Diane hadn’t seen that coming, though in the back of her mind he had been floating around as a possibility-but only a possibility, along with others of his point of view.

“Has he confessed? Did you find something?”

“Not exactly,” said Mathews. “He said if he was the murderer, they deserved what they got. Then he said he wanted a lawyer. He knew where the cave is. It turns out he had warned the two kids away from Rendell County when they were hanging around asking questions about lost mines. You know how he feels about people not getting out of town when he tells them to. He had vocal public disagreements with the Barres and the Watsons. It’s all very circumstantial, but sometimes circumstances are more convincing to a jury.”