Dead Secret

pointed to Chief Garnett and the two sheriffs, who were waiting in suspense. “I have a feeling they aren’t going to be as nice as you guys about being questioned.”

Chapter 37
    Chief Garnett, Sheriff Burns and Sheriff Canfield looked slightly put out when Diane sat down across from them. They shifted in their seats and finally leaned forward with their forearms on the table. She looked at each of them in turn, still trying to decide how much to say. She should tell Garnett everything, since he was not only Rosewood’s chief of detectives, but technically her boss when it came to the crime lab. The crime scene unit was his baby.
    “We have a serious problem,” Diane began.
    “You said on the phone that you have evidence that all the crimes are linked,” said Sheriff Canfield, obviously anxious to get on with it. His jurisdiction covered the quarry and the lake because they were in Rose County but outside of Rosewood city limits, where Garnett’s jurisdiction ended.
    Canfield handed Diane a report that identified Quarry Doe as Donnie Martin—from his prison tattos. She wrote the name on the chart as she brought the board around to face them. “This is a chart of the crime scene evidence. Not all the evidence in the cases is represented, by any means. Just the pieces that connect two or more crime scenes. The Xs show the connections.” She watched their eyes to see if they were following.
    She guided them through the links formed by the rare buttons, the same estimated date for the two old deaths, the picture of the submerged car, the items stolen from the lab, the blue wool fibers, and the powder residue.
    The three stared at the table with wrinkled brows and frowns. Sheriff Canfield squinted his eyes, as if that made everything clearer.
    “Logically, as you can see, all the crimes are connected,” Diane finished.
    Sheriff Burns’s phone rang and Diane felt annoyed. It was stealing the power of the moment, and she needed the impact of the evidence in order to gain their cooperation. Burns grabbed the phone from his belt.
    “Yeah?” He listened for a minute before speaking again. “Are you sure? You don’t say? I would’ve been surprised five minutes ago.” He hung up.
    Sheriff Burns got up, took one of the dry markers and added to the chart. He wrote woods on the crime scene line and relatives over the evidence column and put an X where the relatives column crossed the quarry and woods lines.
    They looked at him, puzzled.
    “That was one my deputies. They just discovered that Flora Martin—a.k.a. Jane Doe in the woods—is the great-grandmother of Donnie Martin—a.k.a. Quarry Doe—over in your jurisdiction, Canfield.”
    “So,” said Garnett, “all these cases are related. Any idea how?”
    “Some,” said Diane, “but as I said, we—or rather, I—have a problem.” Diane decided to lay most of it on the table.
    “I was late because two men chloroformed me in the elevator and took me to the basement, where they tied me up and proceeded to tell me that if I don’t destroy evidence, they will burn down the museum and harm my family.”
    Like her staff, the three law officers stared at her in disbelief. Garnett’s face twisted into anger and he slammed his fist on the table.
    “Here? Someone got you here?”
    “What evidence do they want you to destroy?” said Sheriff Burns.
    “Evidence from the cave and from the lake bottom.”
    “For God’s sake, why?” said Sheriff Canfield. “Those are ancient cases.” He tapped the table. “Didn’t you say the lake-bottom victim could have died in 1942?”
    “And if they all are connected, why not demand you destroy all the evidence?” asked Sheriff Burns.
    “I’m guessing,” said Diane. “But I think when we find out what happened in the cave and at the bottom of the lake in 1942, the evidence will point directly to someone who, even after all these years, has a great deal to lose. My attackers were cocky. They think they’re too smart to get caught. They don’t think we can connect them to the murders of Jake Stanley, Donnie Martin and Flora Martin. And they realize that I can destroy the evidence from the cave without arousing a great deal of suspicion, but I can’t destroy evidence from current cases.”
    “Do you know who they were?” asked Garnett.
    “No. I have my staff looking for trace evidence.” Diane held back that she might have their DNA.
    “We’ll give the museum extra protection, of course,” said