DF08 - The Night Killer (19 page)

Diane could hear him telling Marcella the news, and her startled reaction. “I don’t know,” Diane heard him say to Marcella. “She hasn’t said yet.

“Do you know when the services will be?” he asked Diane.

“No. I don’t even know if the sheriff has released the bodies,” said Diane.

“Are you investigating?” he asked.

“Yes, but I’m not supposed to be,” she said.

“Not supposed to be? What does that mean?” said Jonas.

“I’ve been run out of Rendell County,” she said.

“What? By whom?” he asked.

“The sheriff,” she said.

“Leland Conrad.”

Diane heard a derisive harrumph.

“What has he got against you?” he asked.

“There is a very long story that goes with this and no time to tell it,” said Diane. “Let’s just say I irritate him.”

“Good. Someone should. But you are looking into it?” he asked.

“The Barre children have asked me to investigate, and I will. But it has to be done carefully. It is an open investigation and the sheriff is the lawful authority,” she said. “However much I wish he were not.”

“Is there anything I can do?” he said.

“In your visits with Roy Barre, is there anything he said . . . anything about someone he was afraid of, someone who didn’t like him? Did he allude to any secrets he possessed? Did he have any valuables? Is there anything that you can think back on that now looks suspicious?”

“Well,” he said, “let me think.” He paused. “I saw him several times while we were negotiating. I call it negotiating. He mainly wanted someone who was an expert on points to talk to. He’d already decided he wanted to donate the points to the museum. He and his wife are—were—real nice people. Ozella’s a great cook.” He paused again. “Damn, this isn’t helping you one bit.”

“I’m sorry I had to dump this on you,” said Diane.

“What else could you do? It’s a hard thing to be the bearer of bad news,” he said.

“Did Roy or Ozella strike you as having secrets? The kind that people would kill for?” asked Diane.

“I didn’t get that impression at all. Rendell County is the sort of place where everybody knows everybody and their secrets,” Jonas said.

“I got that impression too,” said Diane.

“Roy and his wife didn’t like Leland Conrad. I do know that. There was a lot of dustup between their churches. A lot of animosity about Roy deciding to let a phone company put a tower on his land. Silly stuff, I thought. I guess you heard about Conrad’s church. They call it Baptist, but Roy and Ozella said it seemed more like a cult to them. The Barres didn’t like Conrad’s group calling themselves Baptists.”

“Was there a lot of anger from Sheriff Conrad’s church toward them?” asked Diane.

“You mean, would they kill over their differences? There’s a lot of historical precedent for such things, but I wouldn’t think that would be true here. I didn’t get the feeling it was that bad,” he said.

“The other couple killed were members of the Barres’ church,” said Diane.

“You don’t say. Well, that does look suspicious, doesn’t it? I don’t know then. I wouldn’t have thought it, but who knows?” He paused for a long moment. “You know, I just can’t see murder being committed over a cell tower, or even their religion. I went to the Waffle House up there a couple of times with Roy, and heard some lively debate there with some people from other churches at times, but nothing that would lead to murder. It was more like, how literally should the ‘taking up of serpents’ be taken?”

“Does Leland Conrad’s church handle snakes?” asked Diane, wrinkling her face.

“No. Some of the others in the county do, though. One brought a snake to a county commission meeting. Roy said that was a hoot,” said Jonas. “I’ve found most of the people up there to be nice folks—even the members of Conrad’s church. It’s mostly the leaders of the church that Roy had issues with. And those issues were mainly about the use of his land—the cell tower, and the development proposal.”

“What development proposal?” said Diane.

“Some developers looking to buy a section of land from him for later development. Some people in Rendell County would like to attract tourists in the winter—sort of like Helen. Have shops, skiing, that sort of thing. Roy was all for it, but so were a lot of other people.”

“Did Roy receive any threats over it?” she asked.

“He never mentioned it. I can’t imagine that killing Roy and Ozella would stop it. His kids might up and sell the whole parcel to developers anyway,” said Jonas. “Besides, Roy wasn’t even the driving force behind it—that was a man named Joe Watson.”

Diane felt a cold chill run up her spine. “Did you say Joe Watson?” she said. “Was his wife named Ella?”

“I don’t know,” said Jonas. “Roy just mentioned it in passing.”

Diane could detect the note of caution in his voice as he spoke. His words came out more slowly, and each syllable seemed to carry a question with it.

“A Joe and Ella Watson were the second couple who were murdered,” said Diane.

“Well,” he said, “then I suppose someone did think the project was worth killing over.” He paused a moment. “I don’t understand it. It was only talk at this point—just speculation. It doesn’t make sense that anyone would kill over it now. But what do I know? I’m just an archaeologist.”

“Can you think of any other people or things he mentioned that might be important?” said Diane.

“Sooner or later, most of our conversations got back around to his grandfather. LeFette Barre was a big influence in Roy’s life. From the time Roy was eight years old, his grandfather took him surveying with him. His grandfather was a surveyor and did some cartography.”

“Roy mentioned it,” said Diane.

“I bet he did. He loved to talk about his grandfather. They would camp in the woods and hunt for Indian arrowheads and whatever else caught their eye. To hear Roy talk, it was the happiest time in his life. But then, he’s always happy. Was,” he added. “Roy said from the time his grandfather could walk, he was out looking for interesting things in the woods. The man should have been an archaeologist instead of a surveyor.”

“Was there anything in LeFette Barre’s diary that could shed light on any of this?” asked Diane.

“I’ve only read Roy Barre’s catalog of the arrowheads and the notes he made from the diaries.”

“Diaries?” said Diane. “I thought there was only one diary.”

“One?” said Jonas, a little startled. “The guy started keeping them when he was fifteen, and he died when he was seventy-two. We’ve got several boxes of them in my office.”

“Boxes of diaries?” said Diane. She was rather stunned by the revelation. “How many?”

“Well, I think there are three boxes,” said Jonas.

“And here I thought you took his diary with you to Arizona,” said Diane.

“I brought Roy’s catalog with me,” Jonas said. “I haven’t quite decided how to approach the diaries.”

“I’m wondering if there is anything in them that would shed light on what happened to Roy and his wife,” said Diane.

“I don’t see how,” said Jonas. “They were written years ago by his grandfather. But you were asking about secrets. People tend to keep their secrets in a diary—which strikes me as a strange place to expect to keep a secret. I suppose there could be some dark secret that has suddenly come to the fore.”

It did seem unlikely, thought Diane. “Are they legible?” she asked.

“I’ve thumbed through only a couple of them. I think the later ones are more legible. When he became a surveyor he used that neat engineer’s print. When he was younger, it was a combination of printing and writing, like most of us do. I’ve never kept a journal myself,” said Jonas, “unless field notes count.”

“Before I let you go, do you remember a cigar box Roy kept in a cabinet in the living room?” Diane asked.

“Full of his grandfather’s trinkets. I remember it,” he said.

“The killer apparently took it, and I was wondering what was in it,” said Diane.

“The killer took it? That’s odd. Let’s see . . . There were a few broken quartz points from the Old Quartz Culture—Archaic Period. Several marbles of different colors—one looked kind of like confetti—several cat’s-eyes. A couple of shiny metallic gold-colored marbles that looked like shooters. You know what that is?” he said.

“I do. It’s the marble you scatter the others with,” said Diane.

Jonas chuckled slightly. “His shooters looked a little worse for wear—lots of nicks in them. What else? Let me think. . . . There were several rocks of different sizes and colors. A couple of seashells, bottle caps, and a Scout knife—it was pretty old. Several gumball or Cracker Jack charms—old too, from a time when they put good prizes in boxes and candy machines. I think there was a blimp . . . you know . . . a dirigible. There was an airplane, a baseball, a horse head, a cowboy boot. . . . That’s all I can remember.”

Diane listed the items on a notepad on her desk as Jonas ticked them off.

“Jonas, I’m amazed you can remember so much of it. His kids, who’d seen that cigar box all their lives, could barely give me any description at all of what was in it.”

“You know us archaeologists; we like old stuff,” he said.

“I appreciate the things you’ve been able to tell me,” she said. “I have another piece of bad news. I debated whether to tell you—it just seems like too much,” she said.

“Oh, no. Nothing’s happened to Kendel, Mike, and little Neva in Africa, I hope,” he said.

“No. It’s still about the Barres. Their oldest son, Roy Jr., was in a car accident. He’s alive, but in critical condition. It looks like someone ran him off the road,” said Diane.

“Horror just keeps coming to that family, doesn’t it?” said Jonas.

“Yes, it does,” said Diane.
And it offends me
, she thought.

Diane was relieved to have that discussion over. She had dreaded telling Jonas the terrible news. But she had learned more from Jonas—who until recently was a stranger to the Barres—than she had from anyone else.

On her notebook Diane started writing motives for the Barres’ murders. She started with religion, only because that was what everyone else started with. Even though religion was a recurring reason throughout the centuries for various conflicts, it just wasn’t tracking for her. What would be the details of such a motive—fear of progress, scorn for dancing? No, Diane just couldn’t see religion as the basis for a homicidal motive in this case.

Maybe she could ask Frank; he was more religious than she was. Diane hadn’t lied to Sheriff Conrad when she said she believed in God, but she wasn’t particularly religious and found God to be very remote. She occasionally went with Frank or one of her friends to their church, mainly because she liked the people.

Judging from the people she had met so far in this case, it didn’t seem likely that members of one of these congregations could whip themselves up into a homicidal frenzy over a minor point of theology. But perhaps it was fear that another person’s religion would change their own way of life. She shook her head. That still didn’t sound like a realistic motive. She put a question mark beside it.

She wrote down,
Land
. That seemed like a more reasonable motive. Land translated to money and to style of life. She could see people fighting over land and its use. She had seen the kind of changes in a community that could result from land development, and how those changes might be unbearable to some—especially a profound change, like going from a quiet, secluded rural area to a busy tourist town. It seemed even more likely a motive because the Watsons, who were spearheading the development campaign, were also killed.

Travis had said something about a dispute over the property line between Slick Massey and the Barres. That held possibilities. If Massey thought he was being cheated by the Barres, Diane could see him committing murder. But what motive would he have to kill the Watsons?

All in all, land showed much more promise as a motive than did religion.

Diane wrote down,
Unknown motive
, in her notebook. She had nothing to put under it, of course. Still, that category nagged at her as being most likely. Since nothing made sense, there was something missing.

She went back to the cigar box again. Was the box of old childhood trinkets important, or just a souvenir for the killer? Was there something in it that had more meaning than was evident? Were the contents valuable?

Diane slipped the small notebook into her purse. Before she left she turned to her computer and called up a template of a form and filled it in, and she gave Dr. Lynn Webber, Rosewood’s ME, a call. That tended to, she shut down her computer and left by way of Andie’s office.

Sierra was still sitting at Andie’s desk.

“Aren’t you going home tonight?” asked Diane.

“Yes, ma’am,” she said. “I just wanted to make sure you didn’t need anything before I left.”

Diane smiled at her. “If you wait on me, you’re likely to be here all night.” She told Sierra she had done a good job relieving Andie today, and received a broad, very white-toothed smile in return.

“I don’t mind extra work,” Sierra said. “Anytime you need me for something, I’m willing.”

Diane smiled at her. “How fast do you read?”

If Sierra thought that an odd question, she didn’t show it.

“Unfortunately, I’m slow. I mean, I remember everything; I’m just not a speed- reader. But you know, up in Archives, Mikaela Donovan and Fisher Teague both read really fast.”

“Really? Thank you, Sierra. That’s extremely helpful,” said Diane.

That elicited a smile that almost blinded Diane.

Sierra rose from behind Andie’s desk, straightened the objects on it, looked at it wistfully, and started collecting her things.

“If you are willing, there are often projects to work on. Andie is working on the webcam project for schools.