Shattered Image (14 page)

He stood up and we shook hands.

“Call me Bud, Toni.”

“Nice to meet you, Bud.”

“You’ll be interested in meeting my friends here. These are two good friends of Brian’s. Julie Paine and Frances Holman, she used to be Frances Miller.”

I couldn’t believe my luck. Julie Paine still looked like the young girl she must have been when Brian Ferguson was alive. She was a plain woman with fair skin, a small upturned nose, large, blue eyes with a sad appearance in them and a sweet, but tentative, smile. Her fine blond hair was tied in a ponytail with a green ribbon that matched the shirt she wore. Frances Holman Miller was a large-boned woman with tanned skin and she appeared to be fit. She had short black hair, a long slender nose and deep brown eyes, with an air of confidence Julie seemed to lack.

I shook both their hands, and Bud asked me to join them. It suited me just fine, I was starving for lunch myself. I sat down and ordered something to eat.

“The police asked us if we recognized that other woman who was killed,” Julie said.

“We didn’t,” Frances continued.

“We knew everyone Brian knew,” Mr. Wolfram offered. “He was just a really high-quality person. He really only wanted a simple life here. With his credentials he could have been teaching somewhere, but he wanted to live simply and study birds.”

“Yes, his mother told me. She told me he traveled from time to time to other places to study.”

“Yes. That was how he spent his vacation time. I was very lenient with his time off because he was just such a great guy—such a great friend.”

He looked down at the table. I noticed that Julie looked very sad and upset. Before I could think of anything wonderful to say, a man in police uniform came up to the table. He greeted everyone there.

“Who’s your friend here?” he said, referring to me.

“I’m so sorry,” Bud said. “Toni Sullivan, this is Chief Grant. He’s the head of our police department.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Chief.”

“Toni Sullivan? You’re the artist, the one who did Brian’s sculpture.”

“Yes,” I said, surprised that he could remember my name.

“I met your son, so to speak. He and his partner and I spent some time talking about the case over the phone.”

“Oh, I see.”

“So, what brings you down here?”

“Chief, pull up a chair and join us,” Bud said.

He pulled up a chair, and began asking me questions.

“Your son and his partner asked me questions about Brian and some woman name Addie Waldrep. They faxed me her photo, but she didn’t look familiar to me, and I don’t know any folks around here named Waldrep. They didn’t tell me a whole lot about what was going on, though. Who
was this Addie Waldrep, and what does she have to do with Brian?”

Julie looked more upset now. I wasn’t sure if Tommy and Mike would approve of me telling them this, but I wasn’t going to sit there and watch this young woman unravel on me.

“Actually, at this point, we don’t know that she had anything to do with Brian. Her bones were found in a similar manner in Austin, so the police are trying to get any information they can on how and why the killer did these things.”

“I see. Then who was she?”

“She was actually a woman who went missing from a small town not far from Austin. She’s been missing for sixteen years. Another man from her town went missing about the same time.”

“Huh. So, there must have been some similarity in the way they were killed or something that made y’all think they were linked.”

“Yes. Their remains were in a similar condition and left in similar circumstances. We don’t think Austin is their original burial place.”

“So, the woman’s remains were found in a similar manner to Brian’s?” he mused out loud.

“Yes, her bones were found dumped in a fresh grave along the riverbank on what we call Red Bud Isle. If they hadn’t been found by a passing kayaker that morning, they probably would have gone undiscovered until they were carried away by the spring rains.”

“Interesting,” he said, leaning back precariously in the diner chair. “Then where were Brian’s remains found in relation to hers?”

“His were actually quite a ways downstream near a running trail that crosses a creek that feeds into the river. His remains really weren’t close to the water at all. They were actually surprisingly close to this running trail.”

“Uh-huh. So, y’all think because they were both reburied like that and the bones all jumbled up like, that’s why the two deaths are related?”

“Well, and also because the soil samples on both point to an original burial in this area.”

“Hmm. I’ll be.” He landed the chair back on the floor and shook his head in amazement.

“That’s really what brings me down here.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, I’ve been visiting with Nadine Ferguson to try to find out where some of Brian’s favorite bird-watching spots were, but she couldn’t remember. She thought that Bud, Julie and Frances could help me with that.”

“Why do you think that would help?” Julie asked.

“Well, if he went bird-watching right before he disappeared—and I had heard that is what he was doing—then maybe we could narrow down some spots where he might have been killed. There might be something in that location that would give us more clues to go on. Actually, anything might help at this point.”

“You know, he went to a lot of places around here, and I’m afraid my memory of exact locations wouldn’t be real good,” Bud said.

Julie and Frances looked at each other. The chief caught the look, as did I.

“If you two ladies have anything to say, I’d say it now. You never know what might help this lady. If you help her, you’re helping Brian,” Chief Grant said.

“Brian had two or three favorite places, but I think he went to the Gunther place that weekend,” Julie said. “Out at Angler’s Point.”

She and Frances exchanged glances.

“We know that’s where he went,” Frances said. “The bird he was looking for was there in abundance, and he liked the place anyway.”

“The Gunther place? That’s over three hundred acres,” the chief said. “Toni, we could never search that whole place.”

“I know the places Brian went when he went there,” Julie said.

“Still, we can’t just walk on,” Chief Grant said. “The man who owns that place now is a crotchety old guy. He would never let us on there just to look. He’s got No Trespassing signs everywhere, and rumor has it that he shoots at anybody he catches on his property.”

“It’s true,” Bud said. “He does shoot at people. He shot at the Stone boy once when he snuck on. His parents almost killed him when they found out.”

“We’d have to get a warrant,” the chief said. “Do you think you have enough probable cause for a warrant, Toni?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But probably not.”

I ran my hand through my hair. I knew we didn’t have enough for a warrant. I was already thinking about talking to Drew about all of this.

“Well, that’s just the pits,” Bud said. “How much do you need to convince a judge?”

“Probably a lot more than they’ve got,” Chief Grant said.

“Well, let me get back to Austin, and talk to the detectives working this case,” I said. “Maybe there’s something we can do.”

Julie and Frances exchanged looks again, but this time I wasn’t sure I understood those looks. Those two were close, I could tell, and they had their own language.

“Do you have a card, Toni?” the chief asked.

“Sure.”

“If anything comes up on my end, I could give you a shout. I’ve already got your son’s number, but if I can’t reach him, I could probably reach him through you, I bet.” He smiled.

“That’s for sure. If nothing else, he comes over to raid the cookie jar on a regular basis.”

The group chuckled. I gave the chief my card and said my goodbyes to them all. As I drove back to Austin that afternoon, I wondered about Julie and Frances and that last look.

I was grumpy when I got back to Austin. I was frustrated about knowing where we could search and not being able to go search it now. I thought there would probably be something at the original burial site that would help us, if we could just find it. I tried to reach Drew and Mike and Tommy. None of them were in, or answering their cell phones. That just made me grumpier.

The CILHI sculpture stared at me with partial clay on it and beckoned for me to get on with it, but I was stalling. And I didn’t know why I was stalling. Normally, working on something like this would take my mind off the frustration of the Red Bud and Waller Creek cases. I might even have a breakthrough on them, while working on another bust, but I couldn’t get into anything. I was about to give up on the whole rest of the day and just go drink hot tea in the living room and stare out the window, when the phone rang.

Drew Smith was returning my call.

“So, you’re back from Houston,” he said.

“Houston and Hempstead. I made a side trip based on info I got from Nadine Ferguson.”

“Did you find out anything?”

“Found two women who were good friends of Brian’s. They claim to know where he went to bird-watch that last day.”

“That could be helpful.”

“It would be except the old coot who owns the place now apparently lets no one on his property for any reason, and shoots at people who violate his No Trespassing signs.”

“Maybe I could talk him into it,” Drew said. “Otherwise, we’d need a search warrant, which I don’t think we could get right now.”

“Right.”

“The woman’s information isn’t concrete. He could have said he was going there, and gone somewhere else. Do Mike and Tommy have any other evidence leading to that area, or indicating a specific location?”

“None.”

“I could try to finesse it out of the old man,” Drew said, “and if I strike out, I could see if I can get a warrant out of a judge I know down there, but I’d have to really work it. I’m going to talk to Mike and Tommy about this now. I think there’s enough reason for me to become involved. It’s more than one murder, probably both committed outside of Austin, with linking crimes in Austin.”

“I can’t get hold of either one of them, so you’ll have to brief them on my trip.”

“I can handle that. Meanwhile, I have something for you.”

“Oh?”

“Lisa Wells’s mother was so grateful for your work on our cottonwood case that she wrote you a letter and posted it to me for delivery to you. Want me to fax it over? I can give you the original next time I see you.”

“Yes, definitely fax it on.”

“Okay, it’ll be coming across in just a minute. I’ll try to get in touch with Tommy and Mike. We’ll let you know what we decide to do.”

“Thanks, Drew.”

Within a minute or so, my fax machine came to life and hummed and beeped as the page came through. I pulled it off the machine and read:

I forgot about frustration and self-pity. I sat and felt ashamed of myself for about five minutes, and then I got my rear in gear and got to work on the CILHI bust. It was near to being finished and I had a responsibility to other people. It was time to do as Reverend Iordani had repeatedly advised me. It was time to focus on someone other than myself. It was time to think about Irini and her family.

I worked all night, and as I laid the clay between every tissue-depth marker, the reality of the face of this man began to be obvious. Before I went further, constructing the nose or doing anything that required intuition or judgment of my own, I wanted Chris Nakis to look at the photographs of the skull and the work I had done so far. I wanted a trained forensic anthropologist, who had never seen Ted Nikolaides, to give me her expert opinion. About seven o’clock in the morning, I stopped where I was and made the call. Chris would leave work early and come by. I told her I would make dinner for both of us.

When Chris arrived I showed her into the studio, gave her all of my photographs and notes and left her there to work while I cooked our dinner.

I had decided to make a spicy eggplant dish that I loved, and serve it with a Greek spinach and rice dish that I knew Chris loved. We would have rosemary bread and peppered olive oil.

When dinner was finally ready and on the table, I called for Chris. In a few minutes, she came out of my studio and handed me a rough drawing.

“That’s what I’d do, if it were mine,” she said.

She had reviewed the photos and all my notes and had checked the tissue depths I had calculated and looked at the
bust where it was now. The drawing she made was of the face totally reconstructed with nose and eyes. Her work was rough, but good enough for me to get the idea. I looked at her sketch and sat down at the table. My hand was shaking.

“What is it?” Chris asked.

“This is Teddy,” I said.

My eyes welled up with tears and I bit my lip and shook it off. I handed the sketch back to her and got up and walked to look out the back window. I stood there with my hands on my hips and tried to remember how to breathe.

“Well,” Chris said softly, “I guess I haven’t lost my skills.”

We were both silent for a while. Finally, I turned around from the windows and came to the table to sit down.

“Let’s eat,” I said.

We said our thanksgiving over the food and dug in.

“What’s next?” Chris asked.

“I’ll finish it tomorrow,” I said. “Thanks for your help.”

“Anytime, my friend, anytime.”