‘He knows a lot of people,’ Mac said, daring to relax, just a little.
‘He’s telling everybody a new crime scene photo of his sister has surfaced.’
‘Really?’
‘Cut the crap, Mac.’ She stepped in front of him so he’d have to look directly at her. ‘What’s going on with Reed Dean?’
‘He’s excited that the new photo might interest the FBI.’
‘Where’s the photo?’
‘Safe.’
‘I heard you raised hell about the state’s report on Betty Jo’s remains.’
‘Powell, again?’ he asked. ‘Or merely Powell, as always?’
‘The report’s false?’ she asked, dodging the question.
‘The report was sloppy, done in less than forty-eight hours.’
‘Especially the part about her being shot through the nose,’ she said.
‘You know that from your own research.’
‘Yes.’
‘And from Laurel’s.’ It was time to venture the name.
‘My parents never told me she’d co-authored a story for the Sun-Times. I lied to you, Mac, when I said I did my research locally. Not true. I went into Chicago to use their library for the twenty-fifth anniversary piece. I saw her byline on a microfilm.’
‘No one in your family wondered about her death?’
‘It was easier to think she’d fallen asleep behind the wheel.’
‘You’ll help, now?’
‘You sticking around is in my best interest, if it leads to any sort of validation of what Laurel was attempting to do.’
‘Reed needs the rest of his sister’s remains back. Bales, the people at the lab downstate and Powell are all fighting him on that. It will be bad politics for Powell if news hits the paper that he’s denying Reed’s request for a proper burial.’
‘You think Roy Powell is dumb enough to believe Reed Dean is interested solely in burying his sister intact?’
He shrugged.
She looked at him for a long minute. ‘Roy Powell and I have been over for quite some time,’ she said.
SIXTY-ONE
Reed eased gingerly into Mac’s truck at eleven o’clock the next morning and groaned. ‘I haven’t had this kind of head since I turned twenty-one.’
‘I didn’t figure things would happen so fast, either,’ Mac said, starting up.
Reed slumped down on the seat. ‘People kept buying me drinks. I’d only take a sip or two and carry it with me to the next table, but your waitresses kept bringing fresh ones, bought by everybody in sight. All those sips added up.’
‘You worked magic. People are excited about a new crime scene photo of Betty Jo.’
‘Exactly as you predicted.’ Reed managed a weak grin. ‘You must have worked some magic yourself.’
‘Jen Jessup called Powell. She was predisposed.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘There were more than two bad deaths that summer.’
‘You already said that besides my sister and Pribilski there was Sheriff Milner, if your suspicions about him being a suicide or worse are correct.’
‘There was a bartender, Dougie Peterson. He shot off his mouth about seeing Pribilski, shot in the groin, over at Wiley’s. He drowned a month later.’
Reed looked out the side window. ‘Oh, Jeez.’
‘There was a fifth death, Reed: a college girl who wanted to be a reporter. She found out some things. She got run off the road before she could tell anyone.’
‘What the hell, Mac?’
‘Laurel Jessup.’
Reed whistled softly. ‘Kin?’
‘Sister. Jen’s had an agenda all along. She’s on our side.’
‘I was shocked when Roy Powell himself called this morning, saying he’d heard about my dilemma and that the rest of Betty Jo’s remains – minus her femur, which he said they wanted to keep in case additional DNA testing was required – are waiting for me in Springfield.’
‘I can’t see Powell believing it was the moral thing to do. More likely, Jen convinced Powell it’s bad politics to deprive you of those bones.’
‘And Bales?’
‘He’ll think turning over the skull and vertebrae frees him from being accountable for them.’
‘Because we’re breaking the chain of custody, right, and now there can be no telling where those remains are from?’
Mac grinned and stepped down on the accelerator. ‘We need to grab those bones.’
‘You think Powell and Bales are in on the cover-up?’
‘Powell, no; Bales, maybe.’
They drove for a time in silence. And then Reed turned on the seat. ‘I almost did something real dumb last night. All those sips got me angry, thinking Horace Wiggins shot more pictures than he released. Leaving your place, I intended to drive straight home. But I didn’t, Mac.’
Mac gripped the steering wheel tighter, fighting the need to look at Reed.
‘I drove over to Wiggins’s place,’ Reed said. ‘He lives west of town, about a half-mile.’
‘Damn it, Reed.’
‘Like I said, I had too many sips. I was furious thinking the bastard was hiding pictures that maybe could have helped the investigation back in 1982. I pulled up in front of the house next door, cut the lights and coasted forward.’ He leaned back and shut his eyes. ‘Wiggins was going crazy out in the garage, throwing things every which way. The rumor we’d started about us having another picture must have scared him, big time. Boxes were spread all over the floor, and he was pawing through big white envelopes, scattering them all to hell.’
‘Looking for prints or negatives he feared he’d lost track of,’ Mac said.
‘The sight pleased me greatly.’
‘Then you drove away, right? Please tell me you then drove away.’
‘I was drunk enough to be angry, but not drunk enough to be stupid. I sat for five or ten minutes, watching Wiggins rummage through his boxes, frantic as a gnat. But then I did drive away. I figured we’d started enough agony for them for one night.’
‘What do you mean, “them”?’
Reed sat up, his hangover forgotten. ‘Somebody else was there, standing in the shadows of the garage.’
‘Could you tell who it was?’
Reed sighed. ‘I’m not even sure I did see a second person. Obviously, I didn’t want to risk getting out for a better look.’
They drove on, silent again. Each wondering, Mac supposed, exactly what they’d set in motion.
SIXTY-TWO
Not surprisingly, Darrell Thompson, the man who’d written the shoddy Illinois State Police report, was not available when they arrived in Springfield. No matter; two cardboard boxes were, along with a release form, prepared in quadruplicate, stating that Reed Dean, the recipient of the contents of the two cartons labeled Betty Jo Dean One and Betty Jo Dean Two assumed all responsibility for the contents they contained. That, moreover, those aforesaid contents were being released to Reed Dean solely for the purpose of being interred with the rest of the remains of the aforementioned Ms Betty Jo Dean. Reed signed, and they each took a box out to the jump seat in Mac’s truck.
They did not head north back toward Grand Point. They drove east, toward Champaign, breathing easier than they had at any moment coming down.
One hour and fifty-five minutes later, they carried the two boxes into an ornate old stone building on the quadrangle at the University of Illinois.
Dr Francine Wilhausen, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and a Diplomate of the American Board of Forensic Anthropology, was waiting in her laboratory. She wore dark jeans, a loose tan pullover, and had enough lines on her face for Mac to guess her age to be around seventy. With her was Dr Robert Hargrave, a professor of anthropology. He was younger, and deferential toward Dr Wilhausen.