Dead Secret, page 39
part #3 of Diane Fallon Forensic Investigation Series
“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.
Epilogue
Charlotte Hawkins, the Druid from England and claimant to the Moonhater Cave bones, and Charlotte’s friend Caitlin Shanahan, the Wiccan from the United States, sat in front of Diane’s desk in the museum. Caitlin unconsciously fingered the meditation fountain near Diane’s desk, moving her fingers in and out of the clear water.
“I hope you’ve been having a good time in the U.S.,” Diane said to Charlotte.
“A wonderful time. Caitlin has been a most gracious host. You’ve found out something about the bones, haven’t you? Are you going to give them to me?”
“I have indeed found out something about the bones. We performed several analyses—one dating the bones and another to establish their origin.”
“We know where they’re from,” said Caitlin. She was still ready for a fight. Charlotte patted her arm gently.
“You know partly where they’re from,” said Diane. “It’s a young girl.”
“Woman,” said Caitlin.
Even Charlotte rolled her eyes at that one.
Diane smiled. “She was between fourteen and eighteen. She was healthy and well nourished. Her bones had indeed been in the cave, probably since the second century, and she was run through from back to front with a sword.”
Caitlin almost jumped out of her chair. “It’s her, it’s Annwn. That’s what happened to Annwn.”
Charlotte’s eyes glittered, but she said nothing.
“And,” said Diane, “she was Roman.”
They both looked dumbfounded. “Roman?” they said together.
“She can’t be,” said Caitlin. “She’s Celtic… .”
Charlotte sighed and looked at her hands. “So she isn’t my ancestor after all.”
“I didn’t say that,” said Diane.
Both of them looked up sharply.
“You mean she is?” said Charlotte.
Diane nodded. “We were able to get DNA from her tooth, and matched her mitochondrial DNA to yours. You both are descended from the same female ancestor.” Diane reached beside her desk and handed Charlotte a beautiful painting done by Neva. “This is a reconstruction of her face. Neva, the artist, researched the hairstyle and fashion of the times for the painting.”
“Well … ” whispered Charlotte, “she looks a bit like my granddaughter Brenna.” She shook her head and frowned. “I always thought we were descended from the Celts.”
“You are,” said Diane, running her fingers through her hair as a gesture to Charlotte.
“Oh, of course, how silly of me,” said Charlotte, touching her own red hair. She caressed the face in the painting, stroking the face. “I wonder what her story is?”
“Maybe there are other families around the area with stories that can shed some light on hers,” said Diane. “John Rose would love to sit down and talk with you about trying to research her history. He only wants to know who she is and what happened to her. Whatever happened to her is the history of the whole region. He was very excited to find out that you are related.”
Charlotte nodded. “She was a pretty little thing.”
“Yes, she was,” said Diane.
“I’ll go see John again. We’ll talk. I would like to know what happened to her.”
Caitlin stood up abruptly. “In light of everything, I’ll take the curse off the museum,” she said.
“Caitlin!” admonished Charlotte. “You didn’t. What a naughty girl you are.”
“Woman.”
Charlotte clucked. “You’re a girl, dear. You’ll see when you get to my age.”
“It’s all right,” said Diane. “The museum is immune to curses. She has a goodness all her own, and it usually rubs off on people. You are welcome to visit while you are here.”
It had been three months since Mike’s stabbing. He was now fit and raring to go. Diane and her caving buddies were on their first outing since finding Caver Doe, and she was thrilled to be here. Among all the other things to celebrate, she and Mike were celebrating the negative results from the blood tests they’d had to take because of their stabbings. She had told Andie that if there was any crisis, to tell the perpetrators to wait until she returned.
Diane stood in the cave tunnel by the passage entrance where she had first heard the waterlike noise, waiting for the others. MacGregor was with them. He had lost weight so that he could fit through the squeeze.
“He doesn’t look half-bad,” Neva had told her. “He’s real proud.”
The others came down the tunnel shortly, catching up.
“This is fun,” said Jin, who this time was dressed in clothes that fit and had a reasonably sized backpack picked out for him by Mike.
“Okay, Diane has point,” said Mike. “I’ll take up the rear.”
The flashing, bobbing lights from their five headlamps lit the tunnel walls. The surface was gritty under Diane’s touch, the texture of sandstone. Rocks of all sizes filled the passage. They looked stable, but Diane tested them before she committed herself. The only egress for several of the large boulders was to climb over them. It was exhilarating. Halfway down the passage, Diane smelled damp soil, and she could hear a waterfall. A waterfall! The thought excited her. She watched the rocks around her and the ground under her, alert for the unexpected.
The tunnel was like a round rabbit hole going gently downward to a wonderland. Just ahead she spotted an offshoot tunnel. Another temptation. This was a great cave.
She arrived at the new tunnel entrance—and suddenly a strong and distinctive odor hit her. She stopped and stared, seeing nothing but the upward-sloping passage filled with rocks. The others stopped and looked in.
“What is that smell?” said MacGregor. “It’s not bat dung.”
“No,” said Mike. “I don’t know what it is.”
But Diane knew. So did Jin. They looked at each other. Diane felt sick, as though someone had desecrated a church or the museum.
“Wait here,” she told the others. “Jin and I will go.”
But they didn’t wait for her and Jin. They followed close behind them into the tunnel. The smell increased until all of them had trouble controlling their gag reflex. The tunnel suddenly widened into a room, littered with storage, or …
“Oh, my God,” cried Neva.
MacGregor ducked away and leaned against a wall, heaving. Mike grabbed Neva and held her.
Diane and Jin stared at what was before them. She understood now. It was as clear as bright daylight. When they had entered the cave and found Caver Doe, it was like stumbling over a tripwire that set in motion all the events that culminated in the shooting of Emmett Taggart. What they didn’t realize at the time, what Diane saw now with lightning clarity, was that they had touched off another tripwire completely unknown to them. The first time in the cave they had almost stumbled upon what they had now discovered: The other entrance to the cave and the lair of a serial killer.
Sunlight filtered in through the cracks of an ancient wooden door to one side. Metal tables lined the stone walls of the room. Chained on top of the tables were rotting dismembered female corpses. These were Jermen Sutcliff’s rabbits.
Beverly Connor is the author of the Diane Fallon Forensic Investigation series and the Lindsay Chamberlain Mystery series. Before she began her writing career, Beverly worked as an archaeologist in the Southeastern United States specializing in bone identification and analysis of stone tool debitage. She weaves her professional experiences from archaeology and her knowledge of the South into interlinked stories of the past and present. One Grave Too Many was the first book in the Diane Fallon series. Five of her titles have been translated into Dutch and are available in countries of the Europeon Union.
Beverly Connor, Dead Secret
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“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.
Epilogue
Charlotte Hawkins, the Druid from England and claimant to the Moonhater Cave bones, and Charlotte’s friend Caitlin Shanahan, the Wiccan from the United States, sat in front of Diane’s desk in the museum. Caitlin unconsciously fingered the meditation fountain near Diane’s desk, moving her fingers in and out of the clear water.
“I hope you’ve been having a good time in the U.S.,” Diane said to Charlotte.
“A wonderful time. Caitlin has been a most gracious host. You’ve found out something about the bones, haven’t you? Are you going to give them to me?”
“I have indeed found out something about the bones. We performed several analyses—one dating the bones and another to establish their origin.”
“We know where they’re from,” said Caitlin. She was still ready for a fight. Charlotte patted her arm gently.
“You know partly where they’re from,” said Diane. “It’s a young girl.”
“Woman,” said Caitlin.
Even Charlotte rolled her eyes at that one.
Diane smiled. “She was between fourteen and eighteen. She was healthy and well nourished. Her bones had indeed been in the cave, probably since the second century, and she was run through from back to front with a sword.”
Caitlin almost jumped out of her chair. “It’s her, it’s Annwn. That’s what happened to Annwn.”
Charlotte’s eyes glittered, but she said nothing.
“And,” said Diane, “she was Roman.”
They both looked dumbfounded. “Roman?” they said together.
“She can’t be,” said Caitlin. “She’s Celtic… .”
Charlotte sighed and looked at her hands. “So she isn’t my ancestor after all.”
“I didn’t say that,” said Diane.
Both of them looked up sharply.
“You mean she is?” said Charlotte.
Diane nodded. “We were able to get DNA from her tooth, and matched her mitochondrial DNA to yours. You both are descended from the same female ancestor.” Diane reached beside her desk and handed Charlotte a beautiful painting done by Neva. “This is a reconstruction of her face. Neva, the artist, researched the hairstyle and fashion of the times for the painting.”
“Well … ” whispered Charlotte, “she looks a bit like my granddaughter Brenna.” She shook her head and frowned. “I always thought we were descended from the Celts.”
“You are,” said Diane, running her fingers through her hair as a gesture to Charlotte.
“Oh, of course, how silly of me,” said Charlotte, touching her own red hair. She caressed the face in the painting, stroking the face. “I wonder what her story is?”
“Maybe there are other families around the area with stories that can shed some light on hers,” said Diane. “John Rose would love to sit down and talk with you about trying to research her history. He only wants to know who she is and what happened to her. Whatever happened to her is the history of the whole region. He was very excited to find out that you are related.”
Charlotte nodded. “She was a pretty little thing.”
“Yes, she was,” said Diane.
“I’ll go see John again. We’ll talk. I would like to know what happened to her.”
Caitlin stood up abruptly. “In light of everything, I’ll take the curse off the museum,” she said.
“Caitlin!” admonished Charlotte. “You didn’t. What a naughty girl you are.”
“Woman.”
Charlotte clucked. “You’re a girl, dear. You’ll see when you get to my age.”
“It’s all right,” said Diane. “The museum is immune to curses. She has a goodness all her own, and it usually rubs off on people. You are welcome to visit while you are here.”
It had been three months since Mike’s stabbing. He was now fit and raring to go. Diane and her caving buddies were on their first outing since finding Caver Doe, and she was thrilled to be here. Among all the other things to celebrate, she and Mike were celebrating the negative results from the blood tests they’d had to take because of their stabbings. She had told Andie that if there was any crisis, to tell the perpetrators to wait until she returned.
Diane stood in the cave tunnel by the passage entrance where she had first heard the waterlike noise, waiting for the others. MacGregor was with them. He had lost weight so that he could fit through the squeeze.
“He doesn’t look half-bad,” Neva had told her. “He’s real proud.”
The others came down the tunnel shortly, catching up.
“This is fun,” said Jin, who this time was dressed in clothes that fit and had a reasonably sized backpack picked out for him by Mike.
“Okay, Diane has point,” said Mike. “I’ll take up the rear.”
The flashing, bobbing lights from their five headlamps lit the tunnel walls. The surface was gritty under Diane’s touch, the texture of sandstone. Rocks of all sizes filled the passage. They looked stable, but Diane tested them before she committed herself. The only egress for several of the large boulders was to climb over them. It was exhilarating. Halfway down the passage, Diane smelled damp soil, and she could hear a waterfall. A waterfall! The thought excited her. She watched the rocks around her and the ground under her, alert for the unexpected.
The tunnel was like a round rabbit hole going gently downward to a wonderland. Just ahead she spotted an offshoot tunnel. Another temptation. This was a great cave.
She arrived at the new tunnel entrance—and suddenly a strong and distinctive odor hit her. She stopped and stared, seeing nothing but the upward-sloping passage filled with rocks. The others stopped and looked in.
“What is that smell?” said MacGregor. “It’s not bat dung.”
“No,” said Mike. “I don’t know what it is.”
But Diane knew. So did Jin. They looked at each other. Diane felt sick, as though someone had desecrated a church or the museum.
“Wait here,” she told the others. “Jin and I will go.”
But they didn’t wait for her and Jin. They followed close behind them into the tunnel. The smell increased until all of them had trouble controlling their gag reflex. The tunnel suddenly widened into a room, littered with storage, or …
“Oh, my God,” cried Neva.
MacGregor ducked away and leaned against a wall, heaving. Mike grabbed Neva and held her.
Diane and Jin stared at what was before them. She understood now. It was as clear as bright daylight. When they had entered the cave and found Caver Doe, it was like stumbling over a tripwire that set in motion all the events that culminated in the shooting of Emmett Taggart. What they didn’t realize at the time, what Diane saw now with lightning clarity, was that they had touched off another tripwire completely unknown to them. The first time in the cave they had almost stumbled upon what they had now discovered: The other entrance to the cave and the lair of a serial killer.
Sunlight filtered in through the cracks of an ancient wooden door to one side. Metal tables lined the stone walls of the room. Chained on top of the tables were rotting dismembered female corpses. These were Jermen Sutcliff’s rabbits.
Beverly Connor is the author of the Diane Fallon Forensic Investigation series and the Lindsay Chamberlain Mystery series. Before she began her writing career, Beverly worked as an archaeologist in the Southeastern United States specializing in bone identification and analysis of stone tool debitage. She weaves her professional experiences from archaeology and her knowledge of the South into interlinked stories of the past and present. One Grave Too Many was the first book in the Diane Fallon series. Five of her titles have been translated into Dutch and are available in countries of the Europeon Union.
Beverly Connor, Dead Secret
