One Grave Too Many (14 page)

“The museum needs dedicated staff, so we’re glad to have you,” said Diane. “Melissa, I see you cut your hair. It looks very chic.”

“It looks good now,” said Alix. “You should have seen it when she first whacked it off. She looked like she’d been attacked by a weed eater. I had to even it up for her. I told her if she wants anything done right, don’t do it herself.”

Both girls laughed, and Diane looked forward to having the two of them around.

“I believe I hear Andie back. She’ll give you the forms to fill out.”

They closed the door behind them and Diane turned her attention to Frank.

“We need to go to the crime scene,” she said.

There were two cars in the drive as Frank rounded the corner and drove up to the freshly painted two-story farmhouse.

“This place is so secluded in the woods, I’ve hired some security to keep anyone from taking things out of the house. It looks like that was a good plan. That’s the McFarlands.”

“George’s parents?”

“His mother. She married Gil about five years ago.”

As Frank parked the car Diane watched the couple arguing with the security guard, a large man who looked as though he should be able to handle himself. Clearly, however, he wanted to back away from the woman yelling at him. Crystal McFarland was a tall woman, cigarette thin, with hair as blond as yellow corn piled on top of her head. She had on snug-fitting coral capri pants of some shiny fabric. Her matching tank top was stretched tight across her chest, which, Diane guessed by the shape and cleavage, was as natural as the color of her hair. Despite her thin frame, the backs of her arms shook—along with her ornate earrings—as she punched the air with her fist in front of the guard.

Her husband, equally irate, was as lean as she and looked about ten years younger. His straight brown hair came just below his ears. He had on tight jeans and a torn white tee shirt. The mild kyphotic curve of his spine caused his long torso to look slightly concave. Diane guessed it was from years of poor posture and not congenital.

Diane and Frank got out of the car and Diane retrieved the suitcase of crime-scene paraphernalia. She’d had Frank stop by her apartment on the way so she could dig the case from the depths of her closet.

They started toward the house and as they neared, Diane noticed Gil McFarland’s hands were stained black with grease. Abruptly, as if the sound of closing car doors only now reached their ears, Crystal and Gil turned.

“This is your doing, Frank Duncan.” She came at him with her fists raised. “George was my son, my son, and this is my house, my house—do you hear? Mine.” She stopped in front of him and put her hands on her hips. I’m going in
my
house and get
my
things.” Her body made a slight twist every time she said
my. My house, my things, my son.
They were all the same to her, Diane thought; possessions. Her son was murdered in this house and though understanding that grief manifested itself in many ways, Diane saw none in Crystal McFarland.

“This is Star’s house.” Frank was calmer than Diane thought she would have been. “And you will not take anything out of it. If you do, I’ll have you arrested.”

“You always was a turd, even when you was a little kid. Star was nothing to George. Those young ’uns was Louise’s doing. Couldn’t have ’em herself, so she takes someone else’s leavings and passes them off as theirs. I’m George’s blood. Star ain’t blood.”

“George loved Star. He left everything to her. I know, because I am the executor of his will, and I’m going to see that Star gets her inheritance.”

“You listen here.” Gil stepped up to Frank. “My wife’s got her rights.”

“Yes,” replied Frank. “I can’t disagree, but they don’t include taking Star’s possessions.”

“You think you’re smart, don’t you?” said Crystal. “Always a smarty-pants. Well you ain’t smart enough to steal what’s mine. I’m going to get me a lawyer and have you arrested.” She turned to Diane as if she had just now noticed her standing there.

“Who the hell are you?”

If this wasn’t so dreadfully serious, Diane would have laughed at the comic pair these two made. It occurred to her what Frank told her about Detective Janice Warrick allowing Gil McFarland into the crime scene. If she had done that, then she also may not have adequately interviewed him. Looking at Crystal and Gil standing there with their faces twisted in anger, the pair looked to her like suspects.

They’re off guard
—the thought flashed through her mind and before she realized it, Diane made a decision to play a hunch. “I’m going to examine the crime scene for Star and her attorney. Since she’s innocent, we intend to find evidence of the guilty party. Considering the two of you don’t have alibis, I’d leave here and not cause trouble.” Frank glanced briefly at her and back at the McFarlands.

“What do you mean we don’t have alibis?” screeched Crystal. “We were together—all day and all night.”

“That’s what I mean,” said Diane, pushing. “You alibi each other. That’s not really an alibi, is it?”

“Listen here. Just what are you saying?” asked Gil. “We didn’t have nothing to do with this. We . . . we was at a car show.”

“Yeah,” agreed Crystal, “a car show.”

“What car show? Why didn’t you tell the police?”

“They didn’t ask, Miss Smarty-Pants.”

“So you made that up just now.” Diane pressed her advantage. “Making something up on the spur of the moment won’t do any good. At an event like a car show, many people would have seen you. You won’t be able to find any because you weren’t there.”

“Now just how the hell do you know?” said Gil. “You sure as hell wasn’t with us.”

“She’s right.” The McFarlands whirled around at the sound of a new voice in the argument. The security guard Frank hired had come up and stood just a few feet away. He had a thin smile that threatened to break into a grin. “I’m what my wife calls a car nut. I go to and organize car shows, and I know there wasn’t any in the South-east then.”

“There’s that ’un at Gatlinberg that’s year round,” said Gil. “That’s the one we went to.”

“No, sorry. Closed for renovations.” The guard now grinned broadly.

“Well, ain’t you the la-dee-da know-it-all,” said Crystal. She spun around to Frank and Diane. “We don’t have to tell you nothing. We didn’t do nothing, and you can’t prove no different.”

“That’s what the lady is here for,” said Frank.

“Now, just a minute. That’s my son’s house. I’ve been in there.”

“And I was there with the detective looking to see if anything was stolen,” said Gil.

“To carry stuff out,” said Frank. “How will that look to a jury? You should never have been allowed in the crime scene. It looks to me like you were trying to cover up the fact that your prints were in the bedroom already, and I don’t think either George or Louise would have ever invited you into their bedroom.”

“You ain’t going to find nothing, ’cause there’s nothing to find,” said Crystal. “Come on, Gil, darlin’, we’ll go get ourselves a lawyer who’ll tell them a thing or two.” She and Gil headed for their car. Crystal suddenly turned to Frank. “Tell that Star she can’t inherit a thing if she’s convicted of George’s murder. And she will be. That brat did it. You mark my words—his property and everything will be mine.” She raised her chin high, daring Frank to disagree.

“No, Crystal, you won’t. Even if Star is convicted of her parents’ murder, you aren’t in the will.”

Crystal stared openmouthed for a moment. “What? You telling me all this goes to somebody else? Who?” Frank didn’t answer. “They can’t cut me out—I’m the closest blood relative George’s got. It’s not legal. Gil’s cousin’s daughter’s a paralegal, and I know for a fact you can’t cut blood out of your will. We’ll just see about this.”

The three of them watched the McFarlands get in their ’92 Lincoln and drive off, white smoke billowing from the exhaust.

“Well, that was interesting,” said the guard.

“It was something,” said Frank. Frank introduced Diane and started to lead her into the house.

“I’d like to take a look at the spot where Jay was shot before it gets dark.”

He led her to the place where Jay was found, near a live oak with a thick trunk and broad canopy. Diane wondered how old it was—decades older than Jay.

“Here,” said Frank, squatting next to a place where someone had dug into the ground.

Diane squatted beside him, scanning the area. “This is where they found the bullet?”

“I believe so.”

The sun was sinking behind the tree line; however, a remaining flicker of sunlight reflected on something. She took a pair of tweezers from her pocket, along with an evidence bag and picked up the object.

“What is it?” asked Frank, looking at the curled piece of clear plastic about the size of two postage stamps.

“Plastic.”

“Is it important?”

“Might be.” Diane put the fragment into the bag and planted a ribbon and nail in the ground. “The pictures aren’t clear about which direction the body lay.” Frank stood, hesitating for a moment before he spoke. “I know this is hard,” said Diane.

“Yeah. I just remembered, today’s Louise’s birthday.” Frank pointed to the house. “Jay’s head was pointing toward the house.”

“Do you know if they found any gunpowder residue on his jacket? I didn’t see any, but . . .” She let the sentence hang as she backed up from where Jay had fallen. “If Detective Warrick’s saying he was coming home and was surprised by his sister, why was he shot in the back?”

“I guess she’d say she couldn’t face her brother.”

“But she’d just killed her parents in their bed.” Diane looked around the grass where she stood. She squatted and scrutinized the area again. Just a couple of feet in front of her she found another plastic fragment smaller than a postage stamp. She bagged it and marked the place.

“Did the crime scene find more of these pieces? I don’t see any tags. . . .”

“I don’t know what they found. I’ll see if I can find out. You think it means something?”

“Possibly.” She handed him the bag and he put it in his jacket pocket. “We need to have it analyzed.” Diane glanced over at the guard sitting on the porch, watching them. The cost for Star’s defense was mounting and it had just begun. Unless the murders were solved soon, there wouldn’t be much for Crystal McFarland to fight over.

Diane examined the tree trunk, but saw no obvious blood spatters. She also looked around for more pieces of plastic, but found none.

“OK. Let’s go to the house now.”

“I think I’ll tell Harry he can take a break. How long will we be here?”

“All night.”

Diane stood in George and Louise’s bedroom and stared at the bare bloodstained mattress. It had been new; now it was ruined. Before it was a crime scene, their bedroom probably had an airy brightness, with its light pine furniture, green iron garden bench at the foot of the bed, and floral-patterned wallpaper. It was the wallpaper that drew her attention away from the bed and created a frown on her forehead.

Frank stood next to her, his gaze darting from the chest of drawers to the dresser covered with family photographs, to a new green wrought iron headboard still in its box leaning against a wall, and finally to the bed and the bloodstained wall next to it.

“Louise was redecorating the bedroom. You should have heard George complaining on poker night. Said he had to win big just to pay for the new headboard. It’s all unfinished. Jay’s too—unfinished.”

Unconsciously, she grasped Frank’s hand and squeezed it. He squeezed back.

“This is going to take all night?” he asked.

She nodded, her thoughts focused on the scene before her. The room smelled of death. It emanated from the mattress, the curtains, the walls. And the house was hot. She felt her scalp prickle with sweat, and she hadn’t even begun yet. It was going to be an unpleasant night. She took two pairs of latex gloves from her kit and handed one pair to Frank. He took the gloves but looked at her quizzically.

“You think we still need to protect the crime scene, after all the people that have trampled through here?”

“The gloves are not to protect the crime scene,” she said. “They’re to protect us from the crime scene.”

“It is pretty ripe in here,” he said.

“You’ll get used to it.”

She looked in dismay at the wallpaper as she pulled on her gloves. Antique red roses, gold buttercups, baby’s breath and green leaves against a background of tiny flecks of color—and overlain by blood spatters.

She gestured to an area of fine spattering. “See this fine mist pattern here?”

Frank studied the wall, squinting. “Yes.”

“This is high-impact spatter from a gunshot. But where the drops are larger—here—these are places of medium impact. And this line of spattering that leads upward to the ceiling. That’s castoff from whatever was used to strike them.”

“I sort of see. Kind of hard to see on top of that wallpaper.”

“That’s going to be a problem. It’s difficult enough, but the pattern on the wallpaper makes it like a hidden-picture illusion.”

“You saying they were shot and beaten?” He asked, as if he had just realized what she had said.

Diane nodded.

“The autopsy will give us the details of that,” he said.

“But the autopsy can’t tell us what this spatter can. Up on your trig?”

“Trig?”

“Trigonometry.”

“Oh. Yes, math I understand.”

“Analyzing blood spatters is mostly geometry—you take the two-dimensional pattern from the wall and project to three dimensions.”

Diane looked over at Frank. This was the blood of his friends that she was at the moment being so dispassionate about. He was already getting a five o’clock shadow and, though most of the time it made him look sexy, it now made him look more melancholy. “Are you all right with this?” she asked.