Dead Secret (34 page)

“No, that’s not true.” Robert Lamont was visibly shaken.

“Yes, it is true, Robert. Emmett has confessed it. Why do you think he treated your uncle Steve and his children with such favoritism? Steve is his child. Your mother is not his child. Look at that auburn hair of yours. No one on Emmett’s side of the family has that hair.” She smiled. “That’s Dale’s hair. Dale would have loved you. You look so much like him.”

Diane hadn’t realized it, but Robert did favor the reconstruction of Dale Russell that Neva had drawn. Rosemary’s words so stunned Robert that Diane thought he was going to faint. He stared at his grandmother and scratched his arms. Diane wondered how Rosemary’s resolve for the truth would hold up when she discovered the depth of Robert’s involvement.

Diane was willing to bet that the rash on his arms was urticaria—caused by dermestid bites. Unfortunately, there was no evidence to prove it. But she’d bet the fingerprint found in the university dermestarium would be his. She believed he was the one who’d stolen the dermestid beetles and used them to try to throw off calculations of the time of death for Flora Martin. Was he the one who killed Flora? Sliced her open to speed the access of the beetles in order to hasten her decomposition? If Jin could find the knife with the missing tip, that would be a slam dunk, but she suspected that it was in a landfill somewhere.

Robert looked sick. “I . . . I just wanted to tell you that Mom and Uncle Steve are here, and your lawyer.”

Diane saw it clearly now. Robert had become the man Emmett used to be—the unfavored grandchild who would do anything to gain favor.

Diane and Rosemary stood and she walked with the elder woman to the entryway to meet her children. They were talking to the family lawyer, ignoring Rosemary’s lawyer, who had just arrived. Garnett came in, and all of them started talking to him at once.

“I don’t like the way this was handled,” said Steven Taggart. “You’ll be hearing from the commissioner.”

“Shut up, Steven,” Rosemary said. “They have behaved fine, and I don’t want you being a bully. Chief Garnett, do you think we could dispense with the handcuffs? I promise I won’t run or try to hurt myself. As my doctors can attest, I am perfectly sane.”

Rosemary picked up her purse on the hall table and smiled at her children. “You’ll have to excuse me. Ms. Talbot and I have to go and plan my defense.”

She took Garnett’s arm and they walked out the door. Her children gaped and scurried after her.

Diane spotted David from the hallway. He was peeking out the door of the study. He gave her a thumbs-up.

Chapter 47

Diane went to the study before Rosemary’s relatives could return and question her. Neva was taking photographs of the bloodstains. David was taking samples.

“How’s it going?” she asked.

“I’m not sure why they restricted the search,” he said in a low voice, “but we have everything we need here.”

Diane raised her eyebrows. “What have you found?” She laid a hand on his arm, shook her head after seeing a reflection in the ornate mirror on the wall. She turned toward the doorway. “Can we help you, Mr. Lamont?”

“We were wondering when you will be finished.”

“Sir,” said Diane, walking over to him, leading him out into the hallway, “I’m sorry, but you can’t be here while we are processing the scene. My team is working as quickly as they can.”

His eyes darted around the hallway. He appeared to her as if he was looking for an escape hatch.

“If my grandmother confessed . . . I mean, do you really have to continue?”

“We are required to collect the evidence from the scene of the crime, regardless. But she didn’t confess.”

“What? I thought that was what you were discussing,” Robert Lamont said.

“What were you talking about?” Steven Taggart came in, his brows knitted together, a polished look of concern on his face. “I know you are just doing your jobs, but my attorney tells me that anything my mother said to you is not admissible. She is an elderly woman. . . . This has been hard on her.”

“That’s true,” said Steven’s lawyer, coming in behind him. “You can’t use any of it in court.”

Rosemary’s daughter, Dahlia Lamont, appeared in the large hallway. She looked like her mother—same bone structure, same build. Diane knew she was sixty-three, based on what Rosemary had told her about being pregnant when Dale Russell disappeared, but she looked older, too old to have a son in his thirties. Being the bastard daughter hadn’t been easy on her, even if she hadn’t known that she wasn’t Emmett’s biological daughter. Emmett knew and Diane guessed he made her feel it, if not know it.

“What is this about?” asked Dahlia. “What did Mother—”

“Don’t say anything,” said Steven through his teeth. “Just shut up.”

“Uncle Steven,” said Robert. He could clench his teeth as well as his uncle.

“Of course, I’m just distraught,” Steven said. “I’m sorry, Dahlia. I’m sure you are distraught too. I just didn’t want you to say anything the police technicians might misunderstand. We can have a family meeting when they are out of here.” He looked at Diane as if she were a houseguest who couldn’t take a hint.

“Mr. Taggart, your mother said little to me. She isn’t a stupid woman. She knew exactly what she wanted: information. She may be elderly, but she is not frail, nor is her mind diminished in any way, so you needn’t worry about what she may have said. We’ll get out of your house as soon as we can.”

A young woman dressed in a suit and carrying a briefcase came in holding an official-looking document. Garnett came in with her. He shrugged at Diane.

Steven’s lawyer looked briefly at the document. “You’ll leave now,” he said. “I have a court order stopping this invasion of privacy. You have your photographs and the samples you need. Get out and leave the family alone.”

Diane read over the document. It said that once they had inspected the scene in the immediate vicinity around the desk where the victim was found, they had to leave in a reasonable time. She had never seen anything like this. She wasn’t even sure it was legal, but in the time it would take her to challenge it, the family would have a chance to get rid of anything incriminating. Her cheeks flushed with anger.
Amazing,
she thought,
what money will buy.
She looked at the judge’s name and noted it for future reference.

“Very well. David, Neva.” Diane motioned toward the door. They came walking out of the study with a camera and an evidence bag.

“I need to see that,” the lawyer said.

Neva pulled the evidence bag back away from the lawyer’s reach. “It’s a sample of blood spatter,” she said.

“That’s evidence of the crime, collected under legal authority,” said Diane. “It has to remain in the chain of custody. No one but members of the crime scene unit can touch it until it is processed. I’m sure you know that.”

“What about the case?” said the lawyer, indicating the forensic kit.

“What about it?” said David. He opened it and showed the various collection paraphernalia. “What’s going on?”

“Just making sure you follow the warrant,” the lawyer said. “The new one that restricts your collection of evidence to what you find around the desk.”

David raised a hand. “That’s all we had time to search—around the desk and the area of the rug immediately where Mr. Taggart was shot. But is it not proper procedure to search the room?” he said.

“There are private matters in the filing cabinets and other places that are none of your business,” said Robert. “We have suffered a tragedy, and you barge in here like you own the place.”

“An attempted murder, which may become a murder, was committed in this room,” said Garnett. “We are just doing our job as is required under the law. I read something about that in your law-and-order political platform. I would have thought we would have your support.”

“This is not some crack house,” Steven said.

“The law does not specify that we are to investigate only those felony crimes that occur in crack houses,” said Garnett. “However, we obey the orders of the court. We have done what the law demands of us, and will be on our way.”

David closed up the forensic case and they all walked out of the house.

“I can’t believe those people,” said Diane on the way back to the crime lab. She sat in the front seat of the van. David drove, and Neva and Jin were in the back. “I can’t believe the judge.”

“A billion dollars buys a lot,” said David.

“Except brains,” said Neva, who broke up in a fit of laughter. Jin and David joined her.

“What?” asked Diane.

“We found one of those fancy fantasy knives sticking up in a stone on the desk where Taggart was shot,” said Neva. “Guess what?”

“It has the tip missing?” said Diane.

David nodded. “That’s probably why it broke—wasn’t made out of good steel—unlike the knife of our mystery stranger who stabbed you and Mike. His knife was top-of-the-line.”

“Thanks for reminding me.” Diane rubbed her arm.

“So, even with that restricted search, you found the knife?”

“Yeah, you’d think they would talk to each other,” said David. “You know, coordinate their criminal activities.”

“I bet somebody moved it and they didn’t know,” said Jin. “But that’s not all we got.”

“Wait a minute,” said Diane. “You didn’t come out with anything but the camera and blood samples. And Jin, how do you know what they found?”

“David’s paranoia,” said Jin. “You know, I’m going to have to get some of that myself. It’s sure working for you and David.”

“Neva overheard the lawyer talking on the phone,” said David. “I had a feeling they might try to pull something, so I called Jin on the cell and handed him the evidence out the window. However”—he held up his hand—“everything we found”—he started laughing again—“everything we found was right inside the limits of the new warrant.”

“I thought you were fairly unruffled when you showed him your case,” said Diane.

“Just part of the show.”

“What else did you find?” said Diane.

“Neva found it under the desk. The old man must have had it in his hand. It was the letter that Flora Martin wrote to her grandson Donnie. We’re hoping for Donnie’s fingerprints.”

Diane was speechless the rest of the way to the lab.

“You are sure this was around the desk—all of it?” said Garnett. He sat across from Diane at the table in the crime lab looking at the report they had written up. “I mean, this guy’s running for senator.”

Diane showed him a photograph. “David took this from the doorway before we even entered the room. It shows Robert Lamont standing by the window with his head in his hands. It shows the desk with the fantasy knife in the stone. Look at this blowup of the area beneath the desk. You can just see the corner of an envelope. The envelope contained Flora Martin’s letter and it had Emmett Taggart’s blood spatter on it. All this is in line with the very—and may I say criminally—restrictive search warrant.”

“Yes, but sneaking the evidence outside . . .”

“That’s not against the law. Just my crew saving themselves from going back and forth through the house.”

“The prints?”

“David saw Robert Lamont touch the desk and lifted his prints from there. Steven Taggart was in the military, and they had his prints on file,” said Diane.

“I’ll go pick them up and let Mr. Steven Taggart explain what his prints are doing on a letter written by a murder victim. Mr. Robert Lamont can explain what he was doing with a knife whose point was embedded in that same murder victim, and what his prints are doing inside the—what did you call it?”

“Dermestarium. The container where the missing colony of dermestid beetles were kept.”

“And people keep these beetles . . . why?”

“To strip bones cleanly and quickly of tissue.”

“Okay, I’ll pick them up—with pleasure.” Garnett rose and started for the door. He turned and looked at her. “You know, I was going to vote for the law-and-order son of a bitch.”

He hesitated and then said, “I suppose I should tell you, we’ve identified the dead stranger.” He came back to the table and sat down.

Like a swarm of flies at a picnic, the three members of her crew appeared out of nowhere and sat down. It was obvious they had been listening.

Diane leaned forward. “You found him in the
Book of the Dead,
I’ll bet.”

“Do we need to hire an exorcist for the bone lab?” asked Jin.

“I almost decided not to tell you,” said Garnett. “It makes me sick to think about it.”

Diane and her crew exchanged glances. “Who was he?” “His name was Dr. Jermen Sutcliff. He was a gynecologist.”

Diane drew in a breath and put her hands over her mouth. The others were similarly horrified.

“Oh, God. Who would go to him?” said Diane.

“Poor people. He worked at a free clinic in Atlanta,” said Garnett.

“That’s sick,” said Neva. “That’s really sick.”

Diane shook her head. “Look, this guy was seriously demented. There’s no way he could hold down a job. He couldn’t carry on a coherent conversation.”

“They said he wasn’t the most popular doctor there, and he was a little strange, but he worked long hours for little money. Maybe he was schizophrenic or something and could switch it on and off,” said Garnett. “I’ve seen really crazy people pass for normal when they have to.”

“No, he was something different. You need to investigate that place,” said Diane. She would never be able to get that face out of her mind—the deranged look he’d had when he saw the metal lab tables and the way he demanded that she get on the table. “I’m serious. You need to talk to his patients.”

“I put a bug in the ear of an Atlanta detective I know. I told him that this guy was disturbed.”

“You need to put more than a bug in his ear; put a whole colony,” said Diane. “I’m serious. There needs to be a follow-up on his patients.”

Garnett nodded and stood up again. “There are other things, but I don’t think I’ll share. Some things it’s best not to know. You are right: This guy had something seriously wrong with him.”

“You can’t leave us with that,” said David. “What other things?”

Jin nodded in agreement. “What, man? Tell us.”

“The ME said he was a necrophiliac,” said Garnett. “And recently . . .”

“Oh, God,” said Diane and Neva together.

“Okay,” said David. “I’m sorry I asked that question.”

“I told you he was disturbed,” said Diane.

Garnett left through the museum entrance to the crime lab. Diane had noticed him doing that more and more lately. She believed that like the rest of them, he had discovered that the museum had a soothing charm that washed away the dark stains of the evil side of life.

She stood up. “How about going to the museum restaurant? My treat.”

“I’d like that,” said David.

Jin nodded.

“I’ll ask Mike to join us,” said Neva. “If I can pull him away from the rocks.”

“I have the proposal for the photography class,” said David. “You can read it while we wait for dinner.”

Diane agreed. The museum had a way of soothing all their souls.