Dust to Dust

Diane. “First, my work was pro bono; second, I didn’t use Rosewood’s facilities or their time . . . even though I could have. You see, our crime lab does forensic analysis for jurisdictions all around the world, not just Rosewood. I’m still not understanding why you are here and what you hope to have me do.”
    “Is it true you said that woman was murdered?” said Marsha.
    “Stacy Dance,” said Diane. “Yes, she was murdered.”
    “We discovered that our medical examiner said she died by accident in a rather perverted and disgusting fashion,” said Marsha. “What we want you to do is to recant what is in the paper. Our police aren’t stupid. Neither is our ME. You have no business contradicting them. All it’s done is get people to wondering about Ryan Dance. People have called me. People are saying we are rich and we have railroaded some poor boy.” She stopped and her lips quivered. “And my baby did not die in the same disgraceful way that woman did.”
    “I know the circumstances of your daughter’s death and those of Stacy’s death are quite different,” said Diane. “Neither of us is responsible for the reporter saying they were similar. But we do know how Stacy died, and she did not die by her own hand. She was killed somewhere else. Her body was staged in that embarrassing way. It was not her doing.”
    “It’s your word against our law enforcement people,” said Marsha. “They are good at what they do. They would not have said it was an accident if there was any evidence it was murder.”
    “My husband knows two members of the museum board,” said Wendy. “Thomas Barclay and Madge Stewart. He is going to call them and tell them what you’ve been doing.”
    “That’s fine,” said Diane. “Call away. I can’t change my findings. But you need to stop and look at the situation. You seem to be under the impression that it’s easy to get someone out of prison. It isn’t. Nothing in what we have discovered can in any way be used to get Ryan Dance’s sentence overturned, or even reviewed, for that matter. And, certainly, the inaccurate reporting in a newspaper can’t do anything for him.”
    “And,” added Kingsley, “it is out of our hands. As you point out, the matter falls under the jurisdiction of the Gainesville police. It’s their investigation now.”
    The three of them sat for a moment looking at one another, as if groping for something else to say. Finally they stood up. Marsha Carruthers leaned her hand on Diane’s desk.
    “I won’t forget this. Ever. I won’t forget.”
    Diane wanted to tell her to spend her energies on her living daughter. She wanted to tell her to do something to keep the good memories of Ellie Rose. She wanted to tell her she was so sorry that this terrible thing happened to her and her family. She didn’t say any of those things. Instead she stood up, and she and Kingsley escorted them out of her office.
    As Diane watched them go down the hallway toward the lobby, she wondered whether they would have been such good friends had the tragedy of Ellie Rose not bonded them together. Diane and Kingsley walked back into her office to debrief.
    “Something was off. Something happened that they didn’t mention,” said Diane as she sat back down at her desk. “Or was this not strange to you?”
    “I got the same impression. It was probably the article. If the Carruthers family have been getting crank calls, it would put them on edge. You know how disturbing such things can be. Especially if you are being called a criminal, and the man who killed your daughter is characterized as an innocent victim,” said Kingsley. “I think Marsha is afraid of everything being in the news again, bringing back the intensity of those raw emotions. She is afraid of reliving the nightmare of her daughter’s death again every day and is fighting those who would revive it.”
    “It looks to me as if she already relives it every day,” said Diane.
    “Privately,” said Kingsley. “Not publicly. That’s what she dreads. Funny, I was watching them. Marsha and Wendy were inside themselves, completely absorbed. I doubt they could even give a general description of what your office looks like. Kathy Nicholson was the only one of them interested in the things around her—your assistant’s office, your office. While we were getting the chairs, she was looking at your Escher prints, your photographs, the fountain. I got the impression Kathy hadn’t wanted to