The Night Killer

Southern accent.
    Diane almost laughed at the thought that she had called just to talk.
    “I won’t be long,” she said, her voice calm and matter-of-fact. “The DNA lab has completed the analysis of the wood from the tree and the cement I took from the road. . . .”
    “That’s past. My expert says the bones are probably about a hundred years old and of a child. Slick Massey probably didn’t see the bones in the hollow when he cemented the tree,” he said, adding that people cemented hollow trees to try to save them. “What you saw on the finger bones was weathering.”
    Diane noted that his voice had a friendlier lilt to it when he told her this. Probably enjoying it, she figured, as she waited for him to finish.
    “Your expert is wrong,” she said. “The residue analysis of the wood from inside the tree indicates that decomposition of the body was much more recent. Identification of a button and clothing fibers caught in the cement limits the age to not more than five years ago. I have the evidence here, plus the report. I don’t know your expert, but the skeleton was not a child. Weathering did not remodel the bones. Disease did. How old do you think that tree is if it was hollow when the body was put in it a hundred years ago? It’s been my experience that hollow trees don’t live that long.” And your experience too, if you think about it , she didn’t add. “Sheriff Conrad, I don’t know why you’re trying to say the sun is shining during a thunderstorm, but you have an older individual, probably a woman, who needs justice. It’s now up to you to give it to her.”
    “Don’t you speak to me in that tone of voice.” The friendly lilt was gone, replaced by harsher tones. “Who do you think you are, telling me my job and belittling a man who was doctoring before you were born?”
    Diane could almost feel the telephone vibrate with his anger. She cast a glance at Travis. The look on his face was somewhere between alarm and amusement. He apparently knew his father would not take her words well.
    David and Izzy had wandered over and unabashedly listened to her side of the conversation. Both stood with their arms folded across their chests, grinning. David didn’t like Sheriff Conrad, so Diane knew he probably enjoyed her giving him an earful. Izzy, however, simply found it entertaining.
    “Sheriff Conrad, this is not about hurting your feelings or those of your expert, or disrespecting either of you. In fact, it isn’t about the two of you at all. It is about justice. I’m giving you information you need to know. Now the ball’s in your court,” she said.
    “Don’t call again. I won’t tolerate your butting into police business in my county.” He slammed the phone down.
    “Okay,” said Diane, “that went well.”
    “I guess I should have told you how to approach Daddy,” Travis said.
    He started to say something else but was interrupted by his cell phone ringing. He flipped it open. “Travis here.”
    He listened for several moments.
    “Yes. I’ll be able to get the stuff I need for the Watson place.” He paused. “Sure, I can do it. We covered it in that deputy training course I had to go to.” Travis paused again. “No, it won’t be that far out of the way. I’ll pick the stuff up; don’t worry none.” He listened, eyebrows raised. “I won’t.”
    Diane handed David the memory card for Travis’ camera as he spoke to his father. “Would you load this on the computer and work your magic on it?” she asked.
    “Sure.” He took it, walked over to one of the glass-enclosed carrels, and began loading the images on the computer.
    “You know you’re going to have to take a detour around Rendell County every time you have to travel north now, don’t you?” said Izzy, his face still split with a grin.
    “It would seem so,” she said. “Since you have nothing to do but make fun of me,” said Diane, “why don’t you put together a crime scene kit for Travis, and be sure nothing has our name on it.”
    “Will do,” said Izzy. “One incognito crime scene kit coming up.”
    When Travis got off the phone he looked over at Diane. “You really made him mad. I thought I was the only one who could piss him off that much.”
    “There was no way to avoid it. He wasn’t going to like the information I had, no matter how I packaged it,” Diane said.
    “True enough,” said Travis. “He wants me to pick up any evidence you have—all of it—all copies. He