“Let’s,” said Neva. “We are dying to hear about Gauthier. Could you get any sense from her?”
“That depends on your definition of sense,” said Hanks.
“How was the bar fight crime scene?” Diane asked.
“Uneventful,” said Neva.
“Yeah, the guy lying on the floor with a knife stuck in his gut kind of sobered them up,” said Izzy. “We didn’t have any trouble.”
They ordered dinner. While waiting for it to arrive, Frank, Izzy, and David moved the round table from the crime lab to Diane’s office. She, Neva, and Jin carried the chairs. Neva batted Hanks away when he tried to take one of the chairs.
“You have to be really sore,” she said.
“It’s not so bad.”
“I don’t believe that,” Neva said. “We’ve all been hurt and it, well, it hurts.”
“That’s one of the things I miss around here,” said Jin, “your way with words.”
Neva hit him in the shoulder of his Hawaiian shirt. Even with the weather cooling down, Jin still wore Hawaiian shirts and Bermuda shorts when he was off duty. Diane thought it was funny that he was critical of what Scott and Hector wore.
They put the chairs around the table and Neva sat down. “Okay,” she said. “Tell us all about it.”
Alternately, Diane and Hanks told Maybelle Agnes Gauthier’s story to an astonished audience.
“And I thought she was probably the victim,” said Jin, “living with some guy she couldn’t get away from who made crazy pots.”
“Wait a minute,” said Neva. “You mean she was here, when this was a clinic? She was an inmate?” Neva sat with one foot resting on the chair seat, hugging her knee to her.
“Yes,” said Diane. “How’s that for a really disturbing coincidence?”
“I don’t think they called them inmates,” said David.
“I’d say it’s a good word,” said Izzy. “I’ve lived in Rosewood all my life and I’ve never heard of these people.”
“This whole thing goes way off the dial on my freak meter,” said Neva.
“You should have been there with her,” said Hanks. “She’s got the strangest color eyes. Didn’t you think so?”
Diane agreed.
“She had praise for your drawings,” Diane told Neva.
“Oh, well, I’ll just quit my job and take her letter of reference with me to New York,” said Neva.
The buzzer rang on the museum side of the crime lab.
“Food’s here,” said Izzy.
He and Frank went to get it. They came back pushing the cart with their food. Frank handed it out and they settled in to dinner.
“David,” said Diane, “you were quiet during the narration. What have you got up your sleeve that you haven’t told us yet?”
“What makes you think I have something up my sleeve?”
“I know you,” said Diane. “What is it?”
“Two things,” said David. He turned silent as he slowly savored a bite of his salad with his favorite dressing.
“David,” said Jin, “you don’t have to make an entrance. What is it?”
He put his fork down. “UGA issued a parking sticker to Tyler Walters for a black Cadillac Escalade.”
“Okay,” said Hanks. “That’s what I want to hear. You said two things?”
“I got a hit on the fingerprints from the potting clay we found in the well. First, let me say that the thumbprint in the dried blood on the sculpting tool matches the thumbprint in the clay. Second, when I ran the database for people who are bonded, the print came up a match for Everett Walters. Detective Hanks, I think you can get a warrant now to search the cars and residences of both of them.”
Diane and her crew, Frank, and Detective Hanks discussed every permutation of possible solutions to the crimes, and she was sure one of them was probably correct. But sorting out which individual actually attacked Marcella, which one killed the Lassiter woman, and who killed Stacy Dance was impossible-or at least, beyond them for the moment.
“We’ll probably wake up with a brilliant idea in the morning,” said Neva.
“I’m sure,” said Jin as the two of them helped Diane put the dishes back on the cart.
Frank and Izzy put the table and chairs back in their places and Diane told them all to go home. She knew David would probably go down to the basement where he had his own private office and work into the night on some project that involved some algorithm or database or other.
Diane followed Frank’s car home and pulled up behind him in the drive. There was already a car parked over to the side of the driveway. Diane recognized it as Lynn Webber’s black Mercedes SUV. Lynn was sitting on their doorstep looking up at the stars through the tall trees.
Chapter 56
“Lynn?” said Diane, as she and Frank approached the steps. “Have you been waiting long?”
Lynn stood up with a Coke in one hand and an envelope in the other. She was dressed for colder weather than the current temperature warranted-jeans, suede jacket, and boots. She looked stylish, as always, but she also looked to Diane like a kid about to run away to a colder clime.
“No, not long. I would have called, but sometimes it’s better to just show up,” she said.
“Hello, Dr. Webber. How are you this evening?” Frank took out his keys, opened the door, and stepped aside to let Lynn and Diane enter.
“I’m fine, and please call me Lynn, because I’m going to call you Frank,” she said.
“Okay, Lynn,” he said. “Would you like some coffee?”
She held up her plastic bottle of soda. “No thanks. Got caffeine here.” She looked around at the decor. “This is a beautiful house,” she said as she shrugged out of her coat.
“Thanks,” said Frank. He led the way into the living room and offered Lynn a seat. Diane and Frank sat opposite her.
“I’m sorry it’s so late. You must be wondering what I’m doing here.”
Diane started to speak, but Lynn barely paused.
“I need to apologize. I’m aware of the care you used in selecting your words when you responded to Chief Stark’s concerns about the newspaper article. I very much appreciate your discretion. I like my job here and I know what would happen if they knew it was I who initiated the article. I wish I could say I’m sorry I did it. But I’m not. However, I am sorry I misused your trust in me to settle my grievance with Doppelmeyer.”
Diane didn’t quite know what to say, at least to someone who was currently a guest in her home. But it didn’t matter, because Lynn wasn’t slowing down.
“One reason I’m not repentant is because Doppelmeyer is a sorry excuse for a medical examiner. I know that sounds like I’m being tacky, but it’s true, and he needs to be outed. If he doesn’t do his job right, justice is not served. Innocent people can go to jail and the guilty are left to kill again. I know I can’t travel across the United States and root out every bad ME. But I can this one.” She took a deep breath.
“Well, in for a penny, in for a pound.” She took the envelope and handed it to Diane. “I did some research. This is my way of making up to you and Ross Kingsley-and to, well, you’ll see.” She stood up. “I explained everything.” She put her jacket over her arm. “I thought it would be colder out this evening. Can’t count on weather forecasts worth a darn.”
Frank and Diane saw her out to her car and watched her drive off.
“What the hell was that?” said Diane on the way back into the house.
“She certainly can talk when she gets going,” said Frank. “Needs to work on her apologies, however.”
Inside, Diane sat down on the couch, opened the envelope, and took out several typed pages. It was an analysis of an autopsy. Diane read the pages several times and put them back in the envelope. She felt strangely unsurprised, though she wouldn’t have guessed. She could call Ross in the morning. Right now, she was tired and wanted to go to bed.