Dead Secret

Wayne Russell and Emmett Taggart were caving together. Through a mishap—I believe it was an accident, but I don’t know for sure—the railroad spike that anchored his rope pulled out of the rocks. Dale fell into a cavern from a considerable height and broke several bones.” Diane hesitated.
    “Don’t leave anything out on my account, please.”
    “One break, his shinbone, was a compound fracture. It broke through the skin and caused bleeding and later became infected. He also broke his ankle and wrist and had some internal injuries. We know that because of . . . We know that he did.”
    Rosemary put a hand to her face and whimpered. “Please don’t stop. I need to hear this.”
    “There was no way for Dale to climb out, and no way for Emmett to carry him out without help. Emmett got him situated and left him with water and a couple of Moon Pies.”
    Rosemary smiled. “Dale loved his Moon Pies.”
    “It is my belief that sometime while making preparations to go for help, Emmett hatched a plan to abandon Dale. He took Dale’s wallet so Dale wouldn’t be identified if anyone found him. But he and Dale had stopped in that morning at Ray’s Diner on their way to the cave. Jewel Southwell, a waitress at Ray’s Diner, was the only person who could tie them together that day. In order for Emmett’s plan to work, he had to get rid of Jewel Southwell.”
    “Jewel was the woman Emmett said Dale ran off with. At first I didn’t believe it. I didn’t think Dale would do it, and I didn’t think she would leave her child. But as more and more people believed it, I just fell in with them.”
    “Emmett took Dale’s Plymouth.”
    Rosemary looked at the lace she caressed with her fingers and nodded. “I remember that car like it was yesterday. He was always polishing that car and working on it. He was proud of it.”
    “Emmett somehow got Jewel out of the diner and into the car. I don’t know if he hit her on the head then, or waited until he got to the quarry. But at some point he struck her, probably with a tire iron, and killed her. The quarry lake was deep, and he knew that whatever was at the bottom of it would likely never be found. He pushed the car with Jewel’s body inside into the lake. He was probably the one who then started the rumor that Dale and Jewel had run off together. Jewel had a reputation around town that made it easier for people to believe.
    “What Emmett didn’t know at the time was that a little fourteen-year-old girl saw him push the car into the quarry. She also may have seen him kill Jewel. Her name, her married name, was Flora Martin. All these years later, when my caving partners and I went into the cave and found”—Diane almost said Caver Doe—“and found Dale Russell and it came out in the paper, it started a chain of events in motion.
    “Emmett, of course, recognized whose body it was and tried to have the bones and other evidence stolen. At the same time, a much older Flora Martin remembered what she had seen as a little girl and tried to blackmail Emmett, and Emmett had her killed.
    “But Flora had left a letter with information in it for her grandson, Donnie Martin. Donnie tried to find the sunken car with Jewel in it, but he and his partner, Jake Stanley, were murdered by Randy MacRae or Neil Valentine, who were hired for the job.” Diane explained who all the various people were as she mentioned them.
    “My museum was burglarized and threatened with arson by MacRae and Valentine in an attempt to destroy the bones of Dale and Jewel and the evidence that went with them. When those attempts failed, Emmett called me on the phone and tried to buy me off. And here we are.”
    Rosemary nodded her head. “Dale and I were going to be married. I was pregnant. When Dale disappeared, Emmett offered to marry me and pass the baby off as his. Things are different now, but back then that was a godsend. But Emmett never let me forget what he did for me. Every argument we had, he threw it in my face that Dale left me pregnant and he had saved me. The swine, the lying, murdering swine.”
    She shook her head. “It wasn’t just for me that he killed Dale.” She cast a shrewd glance at Diane. “I was listening in on the telephone conversation with you. I heard everything. With Dale’s disgrace and disappearance, Emmett became his grandfather’s heir. That’s how he built all this fortune. You see, Dale was the favorite in his grandfather’s eyes. And there was my