Scattered Graves, page 12
part #6 of Diane Fallon Forensic Investigation Series
‘‘Tell me more about Garnett and the mayor,’’ said Diane.
Izzy sat back on the couch.
Diane could see this was going to be a long conversation. ‘‘Would you like me to have the restaurant send us up lunch?’’ she asked.
‘‘That would be nice,’’ said Izzy. He grinned. ‘‘You sort of have a little kingdom here, don’t you?’’
‘‘A lot of people think so,’’ said Diane.
‘‘Sort of queen of your domain,’’ he said.
‘‘No, just the queen’s knight. Vanessa’s the queen,’’ said Diane.
‘‘I hear you there. Lunch would be nice. I tend to skip meals since Evie’s been working with this antidrug group. She’s trying to make some meaning out of Donald’s death. I guess I should learn how to cook, but I don’t have much of an appetite anymore.’’
Diane ordered a couple of steaks, baked potatoes, a salad, and chocolate cake, and asked that it be brought to her office.
‘‘I won’t turn down a good steak,’’ said Izzy. He looked like he might have found his appetite.
Diane took a pile of books and papers off the table and readied it for lunch. She and Izzy made small talk until it arrived. He seemed to appreciate the break. Diane knew what a struggle it was for him and his wife—looking for meaning where there was none, looking for closure that didn’t exist.
‘‘They tell me you moved from your apartment,’’ he said.
‘‘They asked me to leave,’’ said Diane. ‘‘Too many things happening in and around my apartment for them.’’
‘‘I hadn’t heard that. Who asked you to leave?’’ said Izzy.
‘‘My neighbors. They met with my landlady and took a vote.’’
‘‘You know that’s not legal,’’ said Izzy. ‘‘You could have fought it.’’
‘‘I know, but I understood their position. Sometimes you just need some peace,’’ said Diane.
Izzy nodded. ‘‘You’re right about that. Sometimes you just need peace.’’
He stared off in the distance for a moment, then looked back at her and gave half a laugh as if embarrassed for getting lost in thought.
‘‘How’s Frank treating you?’’ he said. ‘‘He hasn’t played that accordion of his for you, has he?’’
Diane laughed. ‘‘No, but he is teaching me the piano,’’ she said.
‘‘Piano. That’s nice. Evie plays a little bit.’’
It didn’t take long for the order to arrive. Izzy looked at the food like he’d never seen food before, or like it reminded him of a life he used to have. Diane remembered what it was like to not have an appetite, having grief eat at the pit of your stomach so you thought it would never hold anything again. She also remembered that when she began eating again, her body started coping better.
‘‘This is really good,’’ said Izzy after taking a couple of bites of his steak. ‘‘I can’t remember the last time I had a really good meal. I need to bring Evie to the restaurant here soon. We haven’t been out together since, well, since before …’’ He let the sentence trail off.
‘‘I do like the food here,’’ said Diane.
Izzy ate a few more bites, took a long drink of tea, set the glass down, and paused as if not really wanting to talk about what he had come for. Diane understood. This must be a tiny respite for him.
‘‘You ever wonder why Garnett didn’t just find a new job, maybe in Atlanta, the way they were treating him? It would have been the smart thing to do rather than waiting for them to replace him like we all knew they would.’’
Izzy didn’t wait for an answer. ‘‘He did it for the rest of us. Peeks began showing himself early on, and Garnett saw what political animals Peeks and Jefferies were. Not that Garnett’s a stranger to politics himself, but he’s always been good to the people under him.’’
‘‘And Peeks wasn’t?’’ said Diane. ‘‘Didn’t he and Jefferies purchase new state-of-the-art bulletproof vests for the police?’’
Izzy made a derisive noise. ‘‘State-of-the-art my… Those vests were so old they wouldn’t stop rubber bullets. Everything they did was just for show. They made sure the newspapers made a big deal of it, but like I said, it was just show. We figured they ordered out-of-date vests and pocketed the rest of the money, but we can’t prove it.’’
‘‘That’s disappointing,’’ said Diane. ‘‘Did anyone inform the newspapers?’’
‘‘We tried to leak it, but they sent a couple of vests—good ones—over to the newspaper office to show them. They’re slick. Garnett thinks Jefferies was planning a run for governor and maybe from there to senator, and we were just a stepping-stone.’’
‘‘What do you think?’’ asked Diane.
‘‘I agree. We were just a stepping-stone.’’
‘‘You said Garnett stayed to help. With what exactly?’’ asked Diane.
‘‘Peeks likes to replace people. You know that; you were one of them he replaced. But you at least had another job. He was getting rid of people who didn’t have a fallback position. People with families, people with a pension coming. Garnett fought for them. He got Colin Prehoda involved. Put a stop to a lot of it. Prehoda drove them crazy too. They hated not getting their way. They started in on Garnett, trying to remove him. Had him investigated by Internal Affairs, accused him of malfeasance when he was chief of detectives. It blew up big when he refused to say you turned over the bone lab to the city. Garnett was heard threatening the mayor. He said somebody like him didn’t deserve to be around decent people, didn’t deserve to be around at all. Something like that.’’
Wow, thought Diane. She had no idea she had become such a part of local politics. ‘‘Is there any other evidence against Garnett?’’ asked Diane.
‘‘He was seen leaving the mayor’s house at the right time,’’ said Izzy. ‘‘Really, I’m not sure what they have. Peeks isn’t saying much.’’
‘‘What does Garnett say?’’ asked Diane.
‘‘Nothing much at the moment. Colin Prehoda’s his attorney, and you know how they are. They tell you to shut up,’’ said Izzy. ‘‘That’s probably a good thing.’’
‘‘Who is working the crime scene?’’ asked Diane, hoping that it was the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and not Bryce.’’
‘‘I don’t know that anybody is right now,’’ said Izzy. ‘‘But I imagine it will be Bryce. At least Neva and David will do a good job.’’
‘‘David resigned,’’ said Diane.
‘‘Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.’’ He paused for several moments. ‘‘You know, I just can’t see Edgar Peeks inviting the GBI in.’’
‘‘He may not have a choice. Having a mayor gunned down might attract the people in Homeland Security,’’ she said.
‘‘I don’t know if that would be good or bad,’’ said Izzy. ‘‘I don’t trust Bryce. He doesn’t seem too bright to me. On the other hand, I don’t want the state or the feds to get the idea that Garnett might be involved. Sometimes it’s better to deal with the devil you know.’’
‘‘What do you want me to do?’’ asked Diane.
‘‘Find out who killed the mayor,’’ said Izzy.
‘‘You don’t want much. I don’t have any standing in this. I wouldn’t be allowed to investigate,’’ she said.
‘‘Like I said, we got that worked out. There’s a private investigator in Atlanta who’s going to let you work under his license. Prehoda’s setting it up. You just have to let him hire you, temporary like,’’ said Izzy. ‘‘It was my idea,’’
he added, grinning.
Shit, thought Diane. She liked the idea.
17
The house that Spence Jefferies lived and died in was one of the larger homes in Rosewood. It had a bright gray stone exterior, arched windows, several chimneys, and dark gray multiple roof peaks embellished with small tapering towers. It had a circular drive with a locked gate at the entrance, which was why Diane was standing on the street in the cold waiting for Colin Prehoda to come let her in.
Douglas Garnett had hired Colin as his attorney. Colin had set it up so that technically Diane and the detective agency she was temporarily attached to worked for him. That way, most of her discoveries would be the work product for his client. This gave her access to the evidence and got her past those who did not want her involved. Most of the police she had dealt with on this case were forthcoming, anxious to help. They supported Garnett. But there were those who were against him. Very few people were undecided. A few were hostile to the point that when they met her in the hallways they brushed close to her, hitting her shoulder with theirs as they passed. Diane supposed that was meant to intimidate, but she didn’t find it particularly intimidating. For her it delineated whose side they were on. It was like wearing a uniform, showing your colors, flying a flag. It had been an interesting couple of days.
As she waited outside the gate she studied a floor plan of the house. It was a little over five thousand square feet. The trouble with large houses is there are too many doors leading to the outside. She doubted that all the doors were even listed on the floor plan she had. It was a drawing given to her by Colin, and not the registered blueprints for the house. The drawing didn’t show the basement. She was willing to bet there were several more outside doors to the basement.
Then there were the windows—big houses have lots of windows. Of course, big houses have alarm systems. The mayor’s hadn’t gone off the night he was killed— leading everyone to believe that he knew who killed him, had let the murderer in.
Colin said there was an approach from the rear of the estate, a sort of service entrance that featured a gate, which was usually locked. Colin said the mayor preferred coming in that way because it was hidden from the front and no one could tell when he came and went. Another way for a killer to come and go unnoticed, she thought. The mayor didn’t have cameras at that service entrance.
Diane had seen the autopsy reports. Colin had convinced the judge that it was in everyone’s best interest to move things along quickly. But getting information about the crime was like pulling teeth. Shane Eastling, the new medical examiner, was slow to comply with the judge’s order to give all the information to Colin. East-ling had delayed, saying the reports weren’t ready, that his copier was broken, that he had to be out of his lab for a while, that his secretary was out sick. Diane camped outside his office with a portable copier and he finally complied. It didn’t surprise her that his unfriendliness bordered on hostility, but it was unusual— Diane normally got along well with medical examiners.
It did come to her attention that Shane Eastling was a friend of Jennifer Jeffcote-Smith and had recommended her to Bryce. Perhaps Eastling thought Diane should have given up her lab and her position as forensic anthropologist to Jennifer. A rather unreasonable view to take, she thought.
The autopsies showed part of what Diane already knew—the mayor had died from a gunshot to the back of the head. According to the reports, the mayor had a contact wound and no defensive marks.
Bryce’s report was interesting in what it left out— blood evidence. They had collected no samples. They did find fingerprints belonging to Garnett in the kitchen and on a table in the foyer. Investigating detectives had located a witness who saw Garnett’s car leave the mayor’s house. They had a security-camera tape showing Garnett enter and leave through the gate. Neither Diane nor Colin had seen the tape. It was another piece of evidence Peeks was delaying giving to them, and it made Colin suspicious. If it showed Garnett, that was powerful evidence in the prosecutor’s favor. So what was the problem? Diane suspected Lloyd Bryce and Edgar Peeks were just generally trying to give them a hard time.
Diane hadn’t spoken with Garnett yet. She wanted to get the feel of the crime scene before she met with him faceto-face. Colin told her Garnett had indeed met with the mayor at his home very briefly. Garnett told Colin he was trying to reason with the mayor about the crime lab. He said he was trying to convince the mayor that Diane’s idea of putting it near the police station was a good one and that the city would have more control over it there than in the museum. Garnett also said the mayor was threatening to fire Neva.
‘‘So, that’s what Garnett was doing there,’’ said Diane. ‘‘He was still trying to protect his police officers.’’ At least Neva had a fallback position at the museum, she thought. Garnett probably didn’t know that. Colin drove up in his charcoal Escalade and parked it behind Diane’s red Explorer. He got out and greeted Diane as he crossed the street. He walked up to the gate and looked at it as if expecting it to open.
‘‘I’m going to have to keep pushing on everything,’’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘‘The crime scene crew said they were finished, but when I asked to do a walkthrough, Peeks tried to stop me, saying they are still finishing up. The guy’s throwing up road blocks at every turn. However’’—he patted his coat pocket—‘‘I have our ticket in—a court order. And this.’’ He stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out a key that he dangled before him with a smile. The black wrought-iron gate was equipped with a simple lock, not one that would keep a serious gate crasher out, but it was apparently causing Colin some problems.
‘‘That’s the problem with skeleton keys; you have to fiddle with them. There,’’ he said as the gate opened.
‘‘They didn’t give you a key?’’ said Diane.
‘‘No. Peeks said he would meet us. But I’m dubious of any good intentions on his part, so I brought my own. I doubt he is here. I don’t see his car. These gates are pretty straightforward.’’
‘‘What about the house?’’ asked Diane. ‘‘How are we going to get in?’’
Colin grinned. ‘‘This house used to belong to a client of mine. He gave me a key to one of the side doors that Spence probably didn’t get around to changing the locks on.’’
‘‘Which door is it?’’ Diane looked at her floor plan.
‘‘To the basement, around back. It’s not on the drawings I gave you,’’ he said.
Diane stopped in the middle of the circular drive to get a good look at the house. All the curtains were drawn. Bryce said they had left things as they were, but she didn’t know if they really had. Like Colin, she was dubious. There was no shrubbery near the windows, no place an intruder might hide. The windows were all closed. She wouldn’t be able to tell until she got into the house whether they were locked. She looked at the second-story windows. They were closed as well.
‘‘You’d need a ladder to get to the second floor,’’ said Colin. He stood beside Diane with his hands in his pockets, looking at the house.
Diane glanced over the rough stone exterior. ‘‘A rock climber could do it,’’ she said.
‘‘Really?’’ said Colin. ‘‘A rock climber could climb up that wall—with no trees or ledges to grab on to?’’
‘‘Sure. My geology curator could climb the face of the museum,’’ she said.
‘‘The museum? Really? People can actually do things like that?’’ he asked.
Diane nodded. ‘‘Mike is among an elite group who can do very difficult climbs. But this house wouldn’t be that hard. I could do it.’’
‘‘You could? Amazing. I had no idea. That’s so Spider-Man.’’
‘‘I can’t spin a web,’’ said Diane.
‘‘Glad to hear it. I was starting to feel inferior,’’ he said. ‘‘So, if one of the upper windows was unlocked, a skilled rock climber wouldn’t find it too difficult to climb up and get in the window?’’
‘‘That’s true,’’ said Diane. ‘‘Or a second-story man. You know, don’t you, there is a class of burglars who specialize in that MO.’’
Colin looked around. ‘‘I don’t see any sign of Peeks,’’ he said. ‘‘He probably thinks he’s letting us cool our heels waiting for him. So, shall we go find our basement door?’’
‘‘We could try knocking on the front door first,’’ Diane said. She started toward the door. ‘‘I think it’s open.’’
There was a small crack where the door stood open about an inch. ‘‘I think we’ve maligned Mr. Peeks unnecessarily and he’s probably been listening, snickering at our paranoia.’’
Colin laughed. ‘‘I hope so.’’
Diane opened the door and walked into the foyer. The first thing she saw was Garnett kneeling on the marble floor next to the body of Chief of Police Edgar Peeks.
18
The second thing Diane noticed was the pool of bright red blood staining the white marble floor. A small trickle of blood had flowed toward the wall. For such an expensive house it was surprising that the floor wasn’t completely level.
They stood there for a moment staring at one another before anyone said anything.
‘‘I guess Peeks showed up after all,’’ said Colin.
Garnett slowly stood up. ‘‘I called the police,’’ he said.
Diane just then heard the distant sirens.
‘‘I know this doesn’t look good,’’ said Garnett.
‘‘What happened?’’ she said.
‘‘We can discuss that later,’’ said Colin.
Always the lawyer, thought Diane. Colin doesn’t want me to hear anything just yet.
‘‘I found him like this,’’ said Garnett. He wanted to profess his innocence. Natural reaction—guilty or not. Diane’s gaze darted around the foyer. They were standing at the base of a winding staircase that led to the second floor. To the left, the room that was labeled PARLOR on her drawings looked to be a study— all dark wood and leather. The desk was covered with papers, and the wood filing cabinet was open. Several books were piled on chairs.
From where Diane stood, she could see into the living room. The drapes covered the windows and French doors. She saw no bloody footprints on the white marble. Too bad. Nothing’s ever easy.
‘‘Did you see anyone else?’’ asked Diane. ‘‘When did you get here?’’
‘‘Just a few minutes ago. And no, I didn’t see anyone else,’’ said Garnett.
