Dead Guilty Part 9

Most of the night they worked in silence, occasion ally interrupted by small bits of conversation about the museum, Jin's music, and David's bird photo graphs. Neva said very little, and Diane realized that they didn't know much about what she did outside of work. They did discover that she liked to model small animals from polymer clay.

Just before dawn the radio came on in the bedroom and startled everyone.

"That got the old heart pumping, didn't it?" Jin laughed.

"I think I wet my pants," David said. "Must have been set by the victim. Time to get up."

"Won't be getting up this time," Jin said.

Diane went to the kitchen to check on Neva. She found her in the pantry picking up and shaking cans of food. Neva looked up sheepishly.

"I, uh, just... you know how some people keep their valuables in fake cans of soup? Whoever it was apparently checked out the kitchen drawers, and I just thought..."

"Good idea. I wouldn't have thought of that. Find anything?"

Neva looked relieved. Her whole body relaxed and she smiled. "Nothing in the groceries. Jin found plenty of prints, but they were in places you'd expect in a kitchen that's used for cooking. He said they were probably from exemplars. I've collected some fibers from the doorjamb. That's one good thing about these old houses: The door frames are apt to be splintered- good for grabbing at clothing."

"It looks like the perp wore gloves," said Diane. "I don't think we'll be getting any of his prints." She looked out the kitchen window and down at her watch. "It's getting to be daylight. When you finish, I want you and David to work the outside, around the house."

Diane and Jin worked the bathroom. It was this room that told a big chunk of the story of what hap pened to Chris Edwards.

She stood in the middle of the bedroom, her brow wrinkled, recreating in her mind scenarios of what might have happened. She was fairly certain it wasn't anything s.e.xual. He'd just showered-his hair had smelled of shampoo and the bathroom towels were damp-and put on his briefs before he was. .h.i.t, appar ently with the hand weight. First in the nose-the blood spattered on the sink. He may have been hit again on the temple at that time. He fell, smearing blood on the floor.

He was half-pulled and he half-walked out of the bathroom-there was a bare b.l.o.o.d.y footprint on the floor. Blood was on the soles of his feet.

His hands were tied behind him and a rope was tied around his neck. It was possible they hadn't meant to kill him straightaway because, as the morgue techni cian noticed, the rope wasn't tight around his neck. He had to lean into it for it to choke him and cut off the blood supply to his brain.

One thing Diane did know: Whoever tied these knots wasn't the same person who tied the ones on the hanging victims in the woods.

Chapter 11.

When Diane walked into Lynn Webber's autopsy room, Lynn was examining the surface of Chris Ed wards' body with a scope on a rope. The scope trans mitted a magnified making visible any image onto a computer screen, puncture marks, fibers, or other minutiae that marred or clung to his skin.

"We'll be finished in just a minute," Lynn said. They were in the main autopsy room. The isolation room was just a wall away. Diane could see the shiny metal tables through the large window.

Odd, she thought, she didn't mind the closed-in feel ing of a cave. She rather liked it. But the isolation room was a different matter. Being confined with a decaying body wasn't her favorite way to spend an afternoon.

Chris Edwards' corpse looked as if he had just died. He lay on his side on the table, dressed the same way he had come into the world, with the exception of the yellow rope that now tied his hands behind his back. The rope that had been so tight around his neck, that had cut off not only his air pa.s.sage but the blood supply to his brain, was now loose, the weight of his body no longer pressing against it.

Just two days ago, Diane had talked with him. He had thoughts, a personality . . . life. Now everything he had been was gone. Only the dead flesh and bones remained.

She tried thinking back to when they had spoken, if he had said anything or acted any way that would give a clue to what happened to him afterward. Both he and Steven Mayberry had been edgy, but that was understandable. They'd just found three dead bodies. Nothing from her memory of her brief interaction with him enlightened her.

"You come to get the rope?" asked Raymond.

Diane almost sighed. "Yes. I've come to get the rope, and anything else you have for me."

"I delivered Blue Doe to your lab this morning. I've got Red and Green Doe ready for you to take back."

"That was quick work."

"Raymond likes his work," said Lynn. "He espe cially likes to skeletonize the bodies. He doesn't get to do that too often."

"They're much prettier in their bones. Skin doesn't wear well, especially hung out to dry like that." He grinned.

"You seem happy today," said Diane.

"Like Dr. Lynn says, I like my work." Raymond didn't take his eyes off the screen. "I got it," he said. He used his tweezers to pluck something from the body and placed it in an evidence bag.

"We have some fibers and a couple of hairs for you that we've collected from Mr. Edwards," said Lynn. "The blood in his hair is interesting."

Diane walked over and looked where Lynn parted his hair to reveal the scalp.

"The blood didn't come from his head. I think it was on the perp's hand-or his glove. See this irrita tion on his scalp? I think the perp held his hair to pull back his head. Like this." Lynn ill.u.s.trated by pull ing on the hair.

"Releasing the pressure on his neck to let him breathe," said Diane. "Might have been an interroga tion technique."

Lynn nodded. "That's what it looks like to me. Okay, Raymond, let's let Diane get her rope."

Diane took this rope the same way she had the others, first securing the knot, though it was tied tight into a granny knot and pretty well secure on its own. She tied the noose off with string before cutting it.

"This is different rope," said Raymond.

"The rope on the other victims was hemp. This is polypropylene. It makes good outdoor carpet and rope. Boaters like it because it doesn't absorb water- and it floats."

"You know your rope," said Raymond.

"Rope is one of the most versatile tools in history. It's good stuff."

"Not too good for our boy here," said Lynn.

After the noose was off, Diane took the rope off his hands. This was more difficult, for the rope was tight and bit into his skin. As she worked, Raymond snapped pictures.

"I'll get these to you as soon as I can. I put the other photographs with the bones," he said. "They turned out real good."

"Raymond also gave you copies of the photos of the tattoos. Maybe they'll help in making an identification."

Diane didn't wait around for the autopsy. Even though she'd met Chris Edwards only briefly, it was not easy to watch someone she knew being dissected. As she took a last look at the body, she wondered where Steven Mayberry was. Dead like Chris? Or was Steven the killer and on the run?

Diane took the bones of Red and Green Doe, the rope, and all of the evidence Lynn and Raymond had collected for her back to the crime lab. David looked up from his microscope when she came into his lab.

"I'm looking at fibers from the door frame of the house now," he said. "It's mostly white cotton from tee-shirts and blue cotton from jeans. Jin got some good prints of his b.l.o.o.d.y glove."

"Speaking of blood . . ." Diane said.

"Neva drove the samples to Atlanta."

"I'm glad none of you people need any sleep." "Sleep? We get too much sleep." Jin, wearing jeans and a black tee-shirt that said M.E.S ARE ON THE CUT TING EDGE, came bopping into the lab, holding a folder. "You know, if we live to be a hundred, we'll have spent over ten years asleep. I checked out the prints we found. All are exemplars, except maybe the glove print."

"Got anything on the clothes from the Cobber's Wood crime scene?"

Jin nodded. "Lots of carpet fibers. Orange nylon. I found them on all the rope too, including that piece found on the ground. I'll have the brand of carpet soon. There was some brown shed human hair, but no roots."

"All the blood samples are delivered." Neva en tered the lab and stood for a moment, looking embar ra.s.sed. She held a brown bag in her hand from which she took three boxes, and handed one to each of them. "Hey, what's the occasion?" asked Jin.

"No occasion. We talked last night about my work with clay, and... well, thought you might like some."

Diane opened her box. Nestled in white tissue paper was a tiny figurine of a gray squirrel on a log, holding an acorn. It was small enough to hold in the palm of her hand, but the details-the fur of the squirrel, the bark on the tree, the cap of the acorn-were remarkable.

"You made this?" said Diane.

"Yes. It's very relaxing."

"Relaxing?" said David. "Look at this. You must have had to do each leaf separately." His figurine was a tree with a bird standing on a branch next to another bird sitting on a nest. "Those feathers look real."

Jin's was a racc.o.o.n peering out of a hollow tree. "Cool," said Jin. "Do you sell them?"

"I go to craft fairs occasionally. Mostly, I make them for friends and family. Mom calls them dust catchers."

"It's heavy," said Diane, weighing hers in her hand.

"I put nuts or BBs in the bottom of the clay to keep the center of gravity low. Even though they're small, they're pretty good paperweights."

"These are great," said Diane. "Thank you. This had to take hours to make."

"As I said, it's very relaxing."

"I'll have to introduce you to the people who make models of planned exhibits. They'll love this."

Neva seemed pleased with the reception of her gifts. Diane was relieved that Neva was making an effort to identify with the team. The intercom squawked with the receptionist's voice announcing that Sheriff Braden and Chief Garnett wanted to see her.

"Buzz them in."

That must be a pair, thought Diane. She knew that Sheriff Braden and the chief weren't the best of friends. But neither were she and Garnett. These days, it seemed that Garnett was trying to rebuild a lot of burnt bridges. The two of them looked cordial enough as they walked into the crime lab. thought Diane. She knew that Sheriff Braden and the chief weren't the best of friends. But neither were she and Garnett. These days, it seemed that Garnett was trying to rebuild a lot of burnt bridges. The two of them looked cordial enough as they walked into the crime lab.

"The sheriff was discussing with me a possible link in our murders, and I thought I'd bring him over to see the lab."

Sheriff Braden scrutinized the room as he ap proached. "This looks real modern."

"We're proud of it," said Diane.

"It has the latest equipment," said Garnett.

"You do DNA work here too?" asked the sheriff.

"No. We send that to the GBI lab in Atlanta."

"I know you aren't finished a.n.a.lyzing all the evi dence yet," Garnett said, "but we'd like to see what we have so far."

It appeared that Garnett wanted to get down to business before the sheriff asked about any other pro cedures they didn't do.

"Sure," Diane said, "but perhaps the sheriff would like a tour of the facilities first."

Diane didn't wait for a reply, but immediately began showing the sheriff the labs and the gla.s.swalled work s.p.a.ces. She explained to him how each of the different microscopes revealed hidden charac teristics in all manner of trace evidence. The sheriff nodded as she explained to him about opaque mate rial versus transparent material and the type of mi croscopes they required, about polarizing and phasecontrast microscopes.

"The museum has an electron microscope that we contract to use," said Garnett with pride that sug gested that it was his own piece of equipment. Appar ently, this made up for not doing DNA a.n.a.lysis.

"We contract with the museum for several pro cesses," said Diane. "Pollen a.n.a.lysis, soil a.n.a.lysis, questioned and damaged doc.u.ments. It's one advan tage of being in a museum."

"But don't your researchers here do some DNA work?" said the sheriff. "During the museum tour last year, some of the biologists said they were working with DNA."

"They're heavily involved in their own research projects," said Diane, "and what they do is very differ ent from what we need. They're not set up to process crime scene evidence."

Diane hoped the gas chromatography, spectral a.n.a.l ysis and electrostatic detection and the amazing range of national and international databases-AFIS for fingerprint identification, CODIS for DNA identifica tion, databases for fibers, shoe prints, cigarette b.u.t.ts, bullet casings, tire treads, paint, hair, plus all the soft ware that matched, categorized, imaged, mapped, and, correlated-was sufficiently interesting to get him off his DNA a.n.a.lysis obsession. The last stop was David's bug-rearing chambers.

"These are the insects from Cobber's Wood. They'll give us a pretty good estimate of time of death."

"Dr. Webber said the bodies had been out there about a week," said the sheriff.

"More like three," said David.

The sheriff laughed. "Three weeks in this climate gets you bones."

"Hanging slows decomposition."

"I've found that Lynn Webber is always right on the money," said the sheriff, still smiling.

"We'll grow out the bugs and give you a report," said Diane.

"You do that, but I have to tell you, I respect the mind of a human more than I do the mind of a bug."

"When it comes to brains, so do I," said Diane. "But we're talking about s.e.x, and bugs are very pre dictable in that area."

Laughter broke the contentious mood that threatened.

"We're just starting to process the evidence," said Diane, "but we'll tell you what we can about the murders."

Chapter 12.