Dead Secret (33 page)

The tone of Emmett Taggart’s voice now reflected a noticeably more insistent quality but with a varnish of civility. “I understand what you are saying, but for the kind of donation I’m thinking about, I’d rather speak to the director.”

“And you would want what in return for this donation? For large donors, we usually name a room after them.”

Distaste was now evident in his voice as he was actually having to ask for something, to justify himself. “I wasn’t thinking of a room. I was thinking of consideration for all the years of good I have done, all the charities I have given to, all the people I have helped.”

“You want acknowledgment?” Diane was almost enjoying this. Rubbing his face in his own arrogance and his guilt. And it had its desired effect. He came back at her on the offensive, with less caution.

“Let’s stop this. You know exactly what I want, and I have enough money to pay for it. You may think I did something in the past that I should be punished for, but anything I might have done has been balanced several times over by all the good I’ve done.”

But Diane was just warming to the challenge. “I’ve just spoken to the family of Jewel Southwell. They have been devastated by her disappearance sixty-three years ago, and are still feeling the effects today.”

“Jewel.” He said the name as if he had just now remembered. Perhaps he had forgotten her name. “She was a waitress with an illegitimate child.”

“No, the child was not illegitimate. Jewel’s husband worked out of town.”

“You wouldn’t have known she was married by the way she acted.”

“She loved life, and her family loved her. I also have a last letter from Dale Wayne Russell. Let me read it to you.” Diane read the poignant last words of Caver Doe. “He expected you to come back for him.”

There was a long, drawn-out silence, but Diane could still hear the old man breathing. When he spoke again, he was not contrite, but he was calmer and sounded sincere, almost pleading.

“Dale was hurt too bad. My cousin was a careless boy. He was going to die anyway. You have to understand. I loved Rosemary too.”

“He was your cousin?”

“I thought you knew that. Yes, he was my cousin. Don’t presume to judge me until you know everything.” His calm had not lasted long, and was replaced by a return of his arrogance and self-justification.

“I know we have three recent murders,” said Diane.

“Blackmailers!” he spit. “Blackmailers!”

“Nothing they did justifies your taking the lives of Jake Stanley, and Flora and Donnie Martin,” said Diane, her own temper now raised. “My mother was thrown in a black hole of a prison as a result of your criminal activities. There is nothing you can do to undo her suffering or to repair my ruined relationship with my family. No amount of money will change any of the evil you have done. You’ve hurt me and people I love and you want my goodwill?”

“About your mother, that wasn’t—”

The blast that exploded through the phone was so loud it hurt Diane’s ear.

“Mr. Taggart? Are you there? Mr. Taggart?” Diane heard the phone click.

Chapter 46

Jin rushed into her office as Diane was calling 911.

“That was a gunshot!” he shouted.

“Yes, it was. . . .”

“Nine-one-one. What is the nature of your emergency?” the calm, businesslike voice of the dispatch operator said.

Diane identified herself and gave her phone number and a description of what had just happened. In talking to 911, she realized that all she knew for certain was that she had been called by a man who claimed to be Emmett Taggart, and that the earsplitting sound she’d heard sounded like a gunshot. She couldn’t even give the caller’s number because her caller ID had been blocked.

“Can you be reached at this number?” the dispatcher asked.

“Yes,” replied Diane.

“Stay on the line, please.”

Diane and Jin looked at each other, not knowing exactly what to think or do. The operator came back on.

“An officer has been dispatched to the scene. He may be back in touch with you later.”

“Thank you,” said Diane.

When she put the phone down she was still stunned. “What do you reckon?” said Jin.

“I don’t know.”

Neither moved for several moments, as if waiting for something. So much had just happened. Emmett Taggart had confirmed his complicity in the deaths of how many people? Five? What was he saying about her mother?

Diane was brought out of her thoughts by the throbbing of her aching jaw. She picked up the ice pack and held it to her face.

Jin stood up and headed toward his lab area. “I’ll fax Caver Doe’s—I mean Dale Wayne Russell’s—letter to Garnett.”

Diane nodded. Her mind went back to worrying about what effect the coming publicity surrounding two violent deaths inside the crime lab would have on the museum. She relived in her mind the events and wondered what she could have done differently.

She tried to get some work done, but gave up. She started to go see how the cleanup was coming when the phone rang. It was Garnett.

“Emmett Taggart has been shot. We have his wife, Rosemary, in custody.”

“I thought he lived in Atlanta. How did the Rosewood police get involved?”

“He and his wife are staying with their grandson, Robert Lamont, who has a farm that lies inside the Rosewood city limits. Mrs. Taggart’s not saying anything. She, uh, only wants to talk to you.”

“Me? I don’t even know the woman. I met her only briefly at Helen Egan’s funeral.”

“I don’t know why, but that’s what she says.”

“You need us to work the crime scene?” asked Diane.

“Get David and Neva to do the work—you and Jin are witnesses.”

“Should I be talking to Mrs. Taggart?”

“She says she won’t talk to anyone else.”

“Okay. Get a search warrant for the entire premises—outbuildings and grounds. Jin can do the outside search.”

“Very well. What are you thinking?”

“I’m just being thorough.”

“How’s your jaw?”

“Hurts like hell. Looks worse.”

Before she left her office Diane checked her appearance in the mirror. Her face was now swollen and badly discolored. She could already hear what Frank was going to say when he saw this. He had been threatening to quit work just to be able to watch after her well-being. She was beginning to think she did need a keeper.

Diane remembered Robert Lamont when she saw him. He was the auburn-haired man who was at the funeral with his running-for-senator uncle, Steve Taggart, and his grandparents, Rosemary and Emmett Taggart. Lamont’s farm was larger than Diane had expected. It reminded her of Tara in
Gone with the Wind
—the run-down Tara, not Tara in her prime. Not that Lamont’s place was dilapidated. It was more shabby chic. The Greek Revival two-story columned house needed fresh paint, as did all the outbuildings. However, the yard was freshly mowed, the fields looked well-kept, and the black-and-white cows looked contented.

When their crime van pulled to a stop in the circular driveway, Garnett was already there. He informed them that the search warrant covered only the room in which Emmett had been shot.

“Damn,” said Diane. “Why?”

“The victim’s son, Steven Taggart, already had lawyers in the judge’s chambers when I went to get the warrant. They were very persuasive.”

“I think someone here helped Emmett Taggart orchestrate everything,” said Diane. “He couldn’t have done it by himself. I doubt he would have known how to find people like Valentine and MacRae.”

“That may be true. But the only crime scene we are working is the one in the study. That’s all we can do. No search of the rest of the house, no search of the grounds or outbuildings.” Garnett shook his head in disapproval.

“Jin, you wait in the van,” said Diane. “They pulled a fast one on us.”

He nodded. “Sure. We brought a computer. I’ll just entertain myself.”

“David and Neva, you two work the study,” Diane told them.

Emmett Taggart had not died but was in critical condition and had been removed from the scene by the time Diane entered the study where he had been shot. The room had a leather, wood and tobacco-stand ambience that said it was for men only.

Taggart had been sitting behind a mahogany desk when he was shot. There wasn’t much blood, just spots on the desk and chair and some high-velocity spatter almost invisible to the naked eye on the rug and desk.

Garnett ushered Diane into the parlor, where Mrs. Taggart was sitting on a love seat. She looked much the same as she had at the funeral, but wore a mauve pantsuit and a light pink silk scarf tucked around her throat, rather than mourning black. She was fidgeting with a piece of old yellowed lace, gathering it up with her fingers.

When Diane sat down across from her, she saw that the material in Mrs. Taggart’s hand was a lace collar. It was a moment before Diane realized that it was the same lace collar worn by the very young Mrs. Taggart in the snapshot found with Caver Doe.

Garnett seemed completely clueless as to the purpose of this meeting, but Diane thought she understood.

“Thank you for coming.” Mrs. Taggart’s voice was almost cordial.

Diane thought that odd. But she didn’t respond to her first impulse and say,
That’s all right; I had to do the crime scene anyway.
The woman was not as cold as she had been at the funeral. Diane dug deeper into herself to come up with more compassion. Sometimes sympathy fled her in the wake of everything she had to deal with.

“Why did you want to see me?” asked Diane.

“I want you to tell me what happened.”

“I don’t know for sure. . . .”

“All right, this stops right here,” a man in a dark, expensive-looking suit said as he walked into the room. The lawyer had arrived. He was followed by Robert Lamont. It was then that Diane noticed Lamont scratching, and the bandages on his arms. “Mrs. Taggart, you don’t have to say another word.”

“Get out,” said Rosemary Taggart, her mouth set and her eyes downcast.

“You heard the lady,” said the lawyer.

“I was talking to you, you sycophant.” She glared at him. “You aren’t my lawyer and I don’t want you here.”

The lawyer looked shocked, then sympathetic. “You don’t understand. I’m here to help.”

“You are here to do no such thing. And stop treating me like I’m senile. I have a lawyer and she’s on her way. Until she gets here, I’m talking privately to this woman. Now get out. I know enough about the law to know that when I say you aren’t my lawyer, you have to get out.”

“Grandma,” said Robert, “he only wants to make sure you are okay and don’t say anything to incriminate yourself. ”

“Just last week I had a thorough annual physical that included mental acuity. I am certifiably fit in mind and body. If you don’t leave, then I will leave with this woman so I can talk in private. You don’t know what business I have with her, so don’t presume that you are competent to take care of my needs.”

“I think we need to do as she says,” said Garnett. He seemed to take a great deal of pleasure in ushering the two men out of the room.

Rosemary Taggart smiled grimly. “I always include a mental checkup when I get a physical, for just such an occasion. I don’t trust my family—God help me.”

She bowed her head for a moment. Diane didn’t know if she was praying, falling asleep, or just organizing her thoughts. She brought her head up sharply.

“Tell me about Dale. Tell me what you think happened to him. You’ve seen him, touched his bones.”

“Mrs. Taggart . . .”

“Call me Rosemary. I’m never going by the name Taggart again.”

“Okay, Rosemary. It’s a guess, but it is based on what we have discovered. Dale 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 fortune. Emmett made out well.”

“Mrs . . . Rosemary, I have to tell you that I can’t hold anything you say in confidence.”

Rosemary looked into Diane’s eyes and smiled a smile that looked to be born more from deviousness than kindness.

“Dear, I want a trial. I want a very public trial. Your testimony is what I want. I don’t care what you repeat about our conversation. Dale Russell was the love of my life.” Her eyes filled with tears that spilled down her cheeks. “My life could have been so different. I want the world to know what happened to him and what Emmett Taggart really was, what he really is.”

“Grandma, you wouldn’t do that to Granddad.” Robert Lamont had come into the room carrying a tray with two cups of coffee and set it down on the coffee table. “Mom and Uncle Steve are on their way.”

“Robert, dear,” said Rosemary. She patted the seat beside her. He complied. He looked to Diane like he had spent years doing what he was told. “You should have been told a long time ago. Emmett isn’t your real grandfather. I was carrying your mother when I married Emmett. Your grandfather was Dale Wayne Russell, Emmett’s cousin. Emmett killed your real grandfather and tried to cover it up. I didn’t know when I married him that he had killed Dale. All I knew was that Dale had disappeared.”