Dead Secret

David. “We’re just earlier. I told Jin about your revelation.”
    “I think you’re right, Boss.”
    Jin and David were writing on two whiteboards. On one board, Jin was listing each crime and the evidence they had so far. On the other board, David was making a matrix. The top of the matrix he labeled Crime Scene and listed Cave, Lake Bottom, Quarry, Lab . The side of the matrix he labeled Evidence and listed Buttons, Picture of Car, Decade, Theft . He marked an X wherever one of the pieces of evidence was linked to a scene.
    When he finished he stood back and looked at his work. An X at one intersection in the matrix indicated that identical buttons were found at the Caver Doe and the Plymouth Doe crime scenes; another showed that both deaths occurred during the same decade. Another X in the matrix confirmed that the picture of the submerged car found near the bodies of Scuba Doe and Quarry Doe linked their deaths with the car containing Plymouth Doe found at the bottom of the quarry. The crime lab break-in and the Caver Doe death were connected by the box of Caver Doe evidence stolen from the lab. Most of the connections were tenuous, but all were suggestive.
    Jin looked at the matrix David had constructed. “It’s like a logic problem,” Jin said. “If A is connected to B, and B is connected to C, then C is connected to A. All the crime scenes could be connected in some way. Isn’t that a surprise?”
    “Okay, but how?” said Diane. “What motive or driving force connects a sixty-year-old body in a cave and a sixty-year-old body in the bottom of the lake with the recent quarry murders and the crime lab break-in?”
    “My first thought would be money or something valuable,” said David.
    “If their deaths weren’t so long ago,” said Jin, “I’d say the murderer was trying to protect himself by keeping Plymouth Doe from being found and by stopping us from analyzing the Caver Doe evidence. But that seems unlikely, because . . . well, everyone who was involved in the original murders, including the perp, is probably dead now.”
    “Not necessarily,” said David. “Diane, didn’t you say Caver Doe was in his late teens or early twenties, and that Plymouth Doe was about the same age?”
    “Yes,” said Diane.
    “So they would be in their eighties or nineties now,” said David.
    “What?” Jin laughed. “You thinking somebody in a nursing home is orchestrating all of this? I know the statute of limitations doesn’t run out on murder, but I really can’t see them doing hard time now, even if they’re caught.”
    “And we don’t know that Caver Doe was murdered,” said Diane. “We only know he wasn’t rescued.”
    The elevator opened and Neva rushed in, out of breath. “Sorry I’m late. I had a terrible time talking Mike out of taking a run. God, he’s going to be the death of me. Between him and that stupid caller.”
    “What caller?” asked Diane. They all looked over at her with identical expressions of concern.
    “This guy—I think he’s a guy; his voice is kind of high-pitched—he’s been calling Mike the past couple of weeks and saying he’s the top of the food chain.”
    Jin and David grinned. “What does that mean? Who’s the top of the food chain?”
    “The caller. It’s really weird. That’s almost all he says. Once he told Mike he wasn’t getting his rabbits. I think the guy’s on drugs. I wish he’d lose Mike’s number.”
    “What does the caller ID say?” asked Diane. She didn’t find it as humorous as Jin and David.
    “Mike doesn’t have it. Can you believe it? He doesn’t even have a cell phone.”
    “Could it be the person who stabbed him?” asked David.
    “That’s what I thought,” Neva replied. “But Mike doesn’t think so. He said it’s just somebody on drugs or somebody who hates vegetarians.”
    “Tell the police anyway,” said Diane. “Get them to put a tap on the phone.”
    “I’ll try to talk him into it. We first thought it was my uncle Brad—the family clown. Uncle Brad’s a stonemason and he has these really strong hands, and he likes to intimidate people with his strength. When he shakes hands, especially with my and my cousin’s boyfriends, he likes to squeeze real hard until it hurts.”
    Diane could see where this was going.
    “Mom and Dad invited Mike over for a family barbecue. When Uncle Brad heard Mike was a vegetarian . . . well, you should have heard him making fun.”
    “Ah,” said David,