Dead Secret

Diane.
    “You think you can find out who killed her, after all this time?”
    “There’s a good chance.”
    “When can we have her for burial?” Earl asked.
    “We’ll need to wait for the DNA results to confirm the match. That should take about ten days. After that we can release the remains.”
    Lydia’s face had grown angry. “I want you to find out who did this. Grandpa could’ve been happy.” She looked at her father, Earl Southwell. “We all could’ve been happy. Bitterness poisoned our family. I want to know who did this to us.”
    Earl Southwell didn’t say anything. The vacant look in his swollen eyes said that he had lapsed into deep introspection, or grief, or remorse. Probably a combination of all those emotions and more. The two of them, the father and the daughter, each suffering in their own way.
    “Is your grandfather still alive?” Diane asked the daughter.
    Lydia nodded, her eyes downcast. “But he has Alzheimer’s and don’t know anybody anymore.”
    Diane put her hand on Lydia’s. “The brain’s a funny thing. Tell him that his wife didn’t leave him after all. It might get through to him.”
    Lydia looked dubious. Diane wished she could say something comforting.
    “When we have DNA confirmation, I’m sure the TV and newspapers would like a follow-up on this story. Tell them your story and the impact this has had on your life. It will make the authorities more interested in pursuing it.”
    Lydia nodded. “You’ll let us know when you get the DNA test back?”
    “Of course. Give me your phone number and address. When everything is done, I’ll return the photograph and all the effects we found with your grandmother’s remains. There are some clothes and things.”
    Lydia wrote down the information for Diane.
    “Did you happen to recognize anyone else in the drawings?”
    “No.” Both shook their heads.
    “When did she disappear?” asked Diane.
    “June fourteenth, 1942,” said Earl Southwell, as if the date were branded on his brain. It probably was.
    “Did she own an automobile?” asked Diane.
    “No, she didn’t,” said Earl. “Daddy’s Ford pickup was all the car we had.”
    Diane made some notes in her notebook.
    “Do you have a photograph of Dale Wayne Russell?”
    “Are you kidding?”

    Diane walked them to the museum exit and let them out. She watched them as they slowly made their way to their vehicle, an old pickup, keeping their distance from each other. Each might as well have been alone.
    There was no doubt in Diane’s mind that the DNA would be a match. She turned and walked back toward the lab to fill out her report and send the samples to the GBI lab.

Chapter 43
    Diane and her crew sat around the table in her museum office waiting for their pizza. She told them about the father and daughter and their story about Jewel Southwell.
    “Jewel’s father was a quartermaster,” said Diane.
    “So the buttons came from her, probably,” said David. “You think Caver Doe is Dale Wayne Russell, the guy Jewel Southwell was supposed to have run off with?”
    “Maybe. She did sewing for people. Whoever left the button in the cave could be someone she did sewing for, or someone who knew her father. Or it may all be coincidental and the two deaths may be totally unconnected.”
    “Too many coincidences,” said David.
    “That’s my feeling too,” said Diane. “But we still don’t have anything that ties it all together, so that it all makes sense.”
    “Still, we’re making progress,” said Neva. She was very pleased with herself for the drawing she had made of Plymouth Doe.
    “Yes, we are,” said Diane. “The identification of Plymouth Doe as Jewel Southwell is a big step forward.”
    She told them about the interviews with Valentine and MacRae and their reaction to the mention of the Taggart name.
    “The Taggarts have always been associated with good things,” said Neva. “I really find it hard to believe any of them is involved in”—she threw up her hands—“all of this.”
    “I don’t know that they are involved,” said Diane. “But someone is behind it. Valentine and MacRae don’t have the intellectual talent to think it up by themselves. And look at their ages. They weren’t even born when Caver Doe died, so what interest would they have in wanting Caver Doe’s crime scene evidence destroyed? Do we have anything that points to the involvement of anyone besides the two of them?”
    “You going for a unified field