Dead Hunt Part 29

"I don't know. The flow of information between me and the marshals only goes one way," said Diane.

"I hear you there," he said. "Are you staying with Frank?"

"Yes, until I can find a place. I might buy a house, I just don't know," she said.

"Have a safe trip," he said.

She got off the phone and told Frank the police were going to question Eric Tully.

"I hope that puts an end to his hara.s.sment," she said. "I can juggle only so many b.a.l.l.s at once before they all come crashing down around me."

Chapter 45.

It wasn't a long flight, but Diane didn't like flying. Intellectually she understood how planes stay up in the air, but in her heart she really didn't believe in the Bernoulli effect or momentum transfer. Flight might as well be magic as far as she was concerned, and the magic could be withdrawn at any moment. She wasn't exactly white-knuckled, but she was on the lookout for the goblin on the wing.

"You don't like flying?" said Kingsley.

"Not very much, and if you start a lecture on how safe planes are compared to automobiles, I'll hit you. Automobile accidents are survivable; airplane crashes are not," said Diane.

"And you have no control up here," he said. "I think that is the source of your discomfort."

Diane looked from the window over at him and found him grinning.

"I may hit you anyway," she said. "Why aren't we in one of those neat little FBI jets?" she said.

"You know, TV has really ruined my job for me. Planes are expensive to fly and I don't have access to one at the drop of a hat. Nor can I do perfect on-thespot profiles by glancing at a crime scene. I have to research it, think about it, and sometimes I'm wrong. Profiling isn't supposed to be an exact science, just a tool to use in the furtherance of criminal apprehension."

"Oh, you don't like to fly either, do you?" said Diane.

"Not particularly, no," he said.

The flight attendant brought drinks and both Diane and Kingsley accepted a bottle of water.

"I did some homework yesterday," he said. "I have more detailed information on how Clymene's husbands died. I thought you might be interested."

Anything to take my mind off flying. "Yes, I would," she said.

He gave her several sheets of paper. "I've summarized each husband's death. Grant Bacon is the first we know about and one of the most interesting."

Diane read Kingsley's notes. "It says he got hung up in his boat's propeller while he was trying to repair it. How can that happen?" she said.

"They don't exactly know. According to the police report, he was untangling his mooring line, or whatever you call it, and somehow the boat's motor got started. He was tangled in the rope and fairly chopped up when they found him. The whole thing is a mystery."

"Was Clymene-or rather, Kathy Bacon-suspected?" asked Diane.

"No, she wasn't. This is the interesting part. Everyone reported that the wife, as she was often referred to, was a mouse. Grant Bacon was a batterer and he liked submissive women. By all accounts, she was very submissive."

"If she was battered, that would make her a suspect," said Diane.

"She had an ironclad alibi. She was with a number of notable people at the country club when it happened," he said.

"Her sisters helped her," said Diane. "One of them must have."

"That's what I figure," he said. "Either as the murderer or the alibi. Grant was into a lot of shady dealings, made a lot of money. But she didn't gain much by his death because of a prenuptial agreement she had signed. So no one really looked at her as a suspect."

"This doesn't sound like Clymene," said Diane.

"It gets better. I talked to the lawyer who called you from Richmond, Emma Lorimer."

"She talked to you?" said Diane.

"The marshals had softened her up quite a bit. Besides, you don't refuse to talk with an FBI agent, even if he is just a lowly profiler," he said with a chuckle.

The plane hit a b.u.mp in the air, and Diane gripped the armrests.

"What did she say?" said Diane, ignoring the churning in her stomach.

"Lorimer is involved in helping abused women escape-you know, underground railroad. She said Kathy Bacon came to her in a panic with the story that Grant's son had started abusing and threatening her. Lorimer said Kathy, or Clymene, asked her to tell her what to do. Lorimer put her in the escape system with a new birth certificate, social security number, and everything."

"That was clever of Clymene," said Diane.

"Wasn't it? Clymene disappeared into the system and the only one who wanted to know where she went was the son."

"Why?" asked Diane.

"Well, and this is the twist, it seems that all of his father's offsh.o.r.e bank accounts had been emptied- about a hundred million dollars."

"A hundred million?" said Diane. "That's a lot of money. So the prenup didn't mean a thing."

"Not so far as Clymene was concerned," he said. "The jurisdiction of the probate court didn't extend to the Cayman Islands, and she apparently had the account numbers and the access codes."

"Do you think Clymene knew he was an abuser before she married him?" Diane asked.

"Clymene knows how to read people. Of course she knew, and she played the part for him," said Kingsley. "She was married to Grant Bacon the least amount of time of all her husbands. She gave Emma Lorimer a huge sum of money for the underground railroad before she left. Lorimer said she tried not to accept it, but Clymene insisted, saying she could earn her way from here on out, and she wanted to give something back."

"Was she sincere, or was that just part of the act?" said Diane.

"I don't know. At best, a little of both," said Kingsley.

Diane looked at the page of notes on Glenn Redding of Seattle, Washington. There wasn't much that she didn't already know. Foul play wasn't suspected at all in his death. At the bottom of the page Kingsley had a figure for how much money she had inherited from Redding-two hundred million.

"She gave the daughter ten million and set aside another fifteen million to be given on completion of a university degree," said Kingsley.

"Did the daughter get a degree?" asked Diane.

"She did-the University of Washington, in communications. She got her money. You can see why the lawyer, Trenton Bernard, didn't suspect Mrs. Redding. It looked as though she was doing what she was asked by her late husband."

"Clymene's good," said Diane.

"I tallied up how much money she received from her husbands-three hundred and eighty-five million dollars," said Kingsley. "That comes to about nineteen million dollars for each year from the time she was fifteen."

"I didn't realize it was that much. Clymene is a wealthy woman," said Diane. "Her sisters must help her hide it. I know the Rosewood police couldn't find any trace of her finances."

"There is another clever move," he said. "Our Clymene paid her taxes."

"What?" said Diane, looking up from the pages to Kingsley. "She paid taxes on hidden money?"

"After each death she stayed around long enough to pay taxes before she disappeared. She learned from Al Capone's mistake, I guess. As near as I can tell, we can't get her or any of her aliases on income tax evasion," said Kingsley.

"What about the hundred million in the offsh.o.r.e accounts?" said Diane.

"Her next tax return says she earned a million in an at-home business. She paid the taxes," said Kingsley.

"She's full of surprises," said Diane.

The plane landed and they disembarked at Craven County Regional Airport and rented a car. Diane drove. Kingsley was right; she much preferred being in a machine she could control. He read the map they had printed off the Internet while Diane found the route on the GPS that came with their rental car. emptied hundred Carley Volker did not live in the city of New Bern, but about ten miles out. Diane had never been to New Bern but she knew something of the area. It was a pretty town with a lot of history dating back to the 1700s. There were hundreds of sunken ships all up and down the coast, some of them visible from the sh.o.r.e. The Outer Banks of North Carolina were also Blackbeard's stomping ground. There were many things she'd like to see, and here they were, looking for Clymene. All in all, she'd rather look for Blackbeard's treasure.

"What did you tell Carley?" asked Diane. Kingsley had called her while Diane was getting the rental, a Mitsubishi Outlander.

"That we are from the FBI and the Rosewood, Georgia, police department and would like to see her. I thought it might confuse her if I told her we were from the FBI and the Museum of Natural History."

Diane laughed. "Did you tell her what it's about?" "A little. I told her in general terms it's about a woman who escaped from prison. I told her we located her through the DNA she posted. That's all. I didn't want to dwell on the fact that she might have a homicidal maniac in the family tree.

"Turn left here," said Kingsley. "It should be right over this rise."

Diane looked down at the GPS map display. It agreed with the printed map Kingsley was using.

Diane had expected a quaint older home but realized when she made the turn that they were entering a new subdivision of boxy, vaguely Victorian-style houses. They were pretty, but close together. The houses were new enough that the landscaping still contained small, spindly trees, flowers that had not yet bloomed, and gra.s.s that was just coming up through straw covering. The house Carley Volker lived in was gray with white trim. They turned in the driveway. Diane put the SUV in park and turned off the ignition.

Carley came out the front door of the house and met them. She was much younger than Diane expected. She looked to be in her early twenties, goldblond hair, blue eyes, and slim. She wore blue jeans and an apricot-colored T-shirt. She grinned broadly.

"Come in. It's such a pretty day, Mom's serving tea on the deck."

"Thank you," said Diane. She reached in her pocket for her ID and showed it to her. "I'm Diane Fallon, and this is Agent Ross Kingsley."

"h.e.l.lo, Miss Volker," said Kingsley, holding out his identification.

She looked at each and grinned as if indulging them. Clearly Carley was too trusting.

She led them up the steps and through a gate to a deck at the back of the house, where her mother was setting out gla.s.ses of iced tea and cookies.

"See that window up there?" Carley pointed to a bay window on the second floor. "That's my room. It has a great view of the marsh and the intracoastal waterway. We just moved here," she added.

Diane saw that Kingsley was thinking the same thing she was. Carley was giving away too much information about herself. How nice to live in the innocent world she did, but how dangerous. Maybe I'm too cynical, Maybe I'm too cynical, thought Diane. thought Diane.

Diane looked across at the green marsh gra.s.ses waving in the breeze and the waterfowl about to make a landing. It was a pretty view, a restful view.

"Hi, I'm Carley's mother, Ellen Volker. Carley is so excited that someone saw her posting."

Ellen Volker was an older image of her daughter, not quite as slim, and her hair was starting to get gray. She seemed just as glad as her daughter to see them.

"Did your daughter explain why we're here?" said Diane.

"Something about a woman who escaped from prison. I'm not quite sure I understood. Please sit down and have some tea and cookies."

"Mom makes the best cookies," said Carley, pulling up a chair. "So. You found me through my DNA profile I posted. Does that mean that this is someone I'm related to? I'm trying to research my family tree. I'm also doing something called deep ancestry. Do you know what that is?"

Kingsley shook his head. "I don't have a clue, but I'm sure Diane does. She's a forensic anthropologist."

"Are you really? That's so interesting. So you know about finding your earliest ancient ancestors," said Carley.

"I told Carley that just doesn't seem possible. There would be so many of them," said her mother.

"The deep ancestry project shows you which haplogroup you belong to," said Diane. "Where your branch of the earliest humans originated and where they migrated to."

"Isn't that exciting, Mother?" said Carley.

"I'm sure it is, dear," she said.

Diane could see she still didn't quite understand what it was her daughter was looking for.

Kingsley pulled a folder from his briefcase and put a picture of Clymene on the table.

"We are trying to find out who this woman is," said Kingsley.

"And she's related to me?" repeated Carley.

"Yes, your DNA profile shows that you are related," said Diane. "I'm not sure of the exact relationship, but I believe she is your mother's first cousin. If that's the case, it would make her your first cousin once removed."

"See," said Carley's mother, "I just don't get that removed business."

She was interrupted by an older woman rushing up the steps to the deck in an obvious state of irritation.

"Carley, what have you done? I told you not to go looking for relatives," she blurted.

"Gramma," said Carley.

The woman turned to Diane and Kingsley and pointed a shaking finger at them.

"Go home. You aren't wanted here. Go home now."