Dressed to Die: A Lindsay Chamberlain Novel (27 page)

"Yeah, so do I."

There were several photographs of her grandfather
when he was young-some with various family members,
some with her father, one of him with a young couple with
their arms intertwined. He was grinning broadly in all of
them. Many of the photos Maggie had sent were more
recent, and a few were of Lindsay and her grandfather. She
smiled as she went through them.

"You were a cute little thing," said Sinjin. "I like the one
where you're holding the string of fish."

Lindsay remembered the trip. Her grandfather hadn't
liked fishing particularly, and it was a rare trip with him,
her father, and Sinjin. She was about five and Sinjin fourteen. They all were grinning.

"I didn't catch all those fish myself, did I?"

"Not all of them. We gave them to you to hold."

She looked at her grandfather's face. He looked
amused, not like someone who years previously had committed murder. It seemed to Lindsay that if a man like her
grandfather had done such a thing, it would show on his
face like a scar.

"This looks like Maggie's husband." Lindsay showed
him an Ocmulgee picture with her grandfather and his
brother-in-law Billy, standing in front of a mound.

"I think Papaw gave Billy a job when the mines closed
after a cave-in or something like that."

Lindsay looked at the next picture. It was of Sinjin when
he was about seven, her father, and a very beautiful
woman. Her father was laughing and had an arm around the
woman's shoulder. They all looked happy. Lindsay realized
that the woman was Sinjin's mother. It was odd to see her
father behaving so lovingly toward someone who was not
her mother. This picture must have been taken about a year
before she died. Odd how events happen. If Sinjin's mother
hadn't died, Lindsay would never have been born. It was a
strange thing to think about.

"This is a nice picture," said Lindsay. "Do you remember it?"

"A little."

Sinjin was looking at Lindsay rather intensely. She wondered if he was wondering what she was thinking. She went
to the next picture in the stack. This one was of her graduation party. She had just received a combined Bachelor of
Arts and Bachelor of Science degree and her father and
mother were giving her a party at her grandfather's house.
It was a few months before he died. He was ill at the time
and was sitting in a lawn chair, wrapped in a blanket, even
though it was June. All her great-aunts were there, Maggie,
Elizabeth, and Lenore. So was Sinjin. Her mother was cutting a cake. She remembered that it was a happy day. Her
grandfather had been proud of her. She started to put the picture down but was struck by the look of pain on her
grandfather's face. Funny, she remembered that he was
feeling really good that day. Then she noticed it. He was
staring out at the kudzu patch. Lindsay looked up at her
brother. He had seen it, too, and was waiting for her to
notice it.

"What do you think?" she said, her voice so soft it was
almost to herself.

"I think he knew what was out there, and toward the end
of his life, it preyed on his mind."

LINDSAY STOPPED AT a photo shop on the way to her
office and ordered two enlargements of the picture of Sinjin
with their father and his mother, one copy for Sinjin and
one for herself. She wanted to do something for him, something that showed him how much she liked his being here,
something that showed him she understood him a little
better. She also wanted to remind herself that Sinjin and her
father had a family before she and her mother arrived, and
that his family was important, too.

Lindsay was not looking forward to going to her office
today. She planned to confront Kerwin. After pulling into her
parking space, she sat for a moment, gathering her strength,
rehearsing in her mind what she was going to say to him.
When she did get out and head to her office, she found
Rachael Bienvenido standing outside her door, pacing.

"Can I help you?" Lindsay asked, unlocking her door.

"Yes. It's about Dr. Cardell's analysis," said Rachael,
following her into the office. She sat down in a chair,
raking a hand through her short hair.

Lindsay seated herself behind her desk. "That's the
faunal analysis Robin is working on?"

"Yes, she tells me they are going to be late. That's not so
much of a problem, but she also tells me that Amy made
errors in the calculations."

"She did, but I've been correcting them. I've also checked her bone identifications, and I'm helping Robin
finish up."

Rachael seemed to relax. "I'm glad about that. Aura Cardell is a friend as well as a colleague, and I feel responsible."

"I always check up on the work the faunal lab does. The
students who work there know to come to me if there are
any problems."

"That's what I wanted to hear. I'm talking to Aura this
afternoon, and I wanted to be able to give her a good report."

"You can do that. I'm sorry about the problem with Amy."

Rachael shrugged. "Girls these days. They fall in love
too easily and give up their dreams. Who can figure them?"

"Rachael, did you know Shirley Foster?"

Rachael leaned forward in her chair. "Lindsay, take my
advice. Get off this-what did Reed call you, Nancy Drew?
Drop this Nancy Drew thing. You're a good researcher.
When you say you're identifying animal bones, I don't
worry. I know it will be correct. This other stuff is doing you
no good at all. Forget it." She rose and left Lindsay's office.

Lindsay sighed. Perhaps she should. But instead of
taking Rachael's advice, she took out the photograph with
Hank Roy Creasey and trotted up to Trey's office.

"Chamberlain, come in. What can I do for you?" asked
Trey, pulling up a chair beside his desk for her. "You
making out OK these days?"

"As well as can be expected. How's the computer acquisition coming?"

"Frank wants to wait. Something's going on. I don't
know what."

"Too bad. I was kind of looking forward to a new computer. Anyway, I have a computer question."

"Shoot."

Lindsay laid the photograph of the skull from the newspaper and the one of Hank Roy Creasey down on the table.
"They have special software in the medical examiner's office, but I thought there might be a way you could do
what I need faster. I would like to superimpose these two
images, the skull and the face. They have to both be the
same size image-"

"Hmm. Yeah, I can do a quick job with a paint program."

Lindsay watched as he scanned each photograph into his
computer at 1000 dpi and brought up the images into a
paint program, placing the two images on the same screen.
She tried to follow the menus as he moved the mouse with
the ease of an expert and selected from the apparently hundreds of things the program could do. First, he measured
them, then resampled them, making them equivalent in
size. Next, he drew a marquee around each one and
selected "transparent" from a pull-down menu. Finally, he
overlaid one image on top of the other. The entire procedure took perhaps ten minutes from the initial scan to the
printout. Lindsay was impressed.

The composite that came out of Trey's printer was an
eerie face of bone and flesh, a face with eyes inside bony
sockets. The bones of the skeleton's nose and cheeks fit
perfectly over the nose and cheeks of Hank Roy Creasey.
The orbits were directly over the eyes, the teeth matched
perfectly, as did the chin, jawline, and forehead.

"Looks good to me," said Trey. "So, this is the infamous
stowaway in the crate?"

Lindsay nodded. "Yes, it's him. His name is Hank Roy
Creasey. Other than that, I have no idea who he is."

"But now you have a name. That's pretty good."

Lindsay agreed-that was pretty good. "Thanks for
doing this," she said. "That's amazing-and using an ordinary paint program."

"That's kind of a new use for it. Say, Chamberlain,"
Trey said, as Lindsay rose to leave. "You know my friend
who is coming down to talk about the LaBelle?"

Lindsay nodded.

"Well, she and her husband like to dance, and I was
wondering if, uh, well, do you dance?"

Lindsay grinned broadly. "Yeah, I dance."

"Did I say something funny?"

Lindsay shook her head. "No. Are you asking me to go
dancing?"

"Trying to."

"I love to dance. If I'm not in jail, I'd like to go."

"Things aren't that bad, are they?" asked Trey.

"Depends on who you talk to. If you ask one of the
detectives on campus, it's only a matter of time."

"It sounds absurd. What are you doing about it?"

"I'm looking for the machine that's pouring out all the
smoke. One's bound to turn up. Thanks again for your help.
Let me know about the dancing plans."

Lindsay put the photos in her office before she went to
see Kerwin. She was not looking forward to it, but it was
one element in the puzzle that had to be cleared up before
she could make any sense out of the rest of it. Maybe after
that she could leave it alone.

Kerwin was sitting at his desk writing on a pad of
yellow paper. He didn't use a computer or typewriter but
wrote his articles longhand and had Edwina type them.
Lindsay walked in and closed the door behind her.

"Please don't stand on ceremony, come in and sit
down," said Kerwin.

"You were the last person to see Shirley Foster alive.
You let the police bust their butts looking for any sign of
her in Rabun County, a good seventy miles from here. You
knew she meant the Rayburn site when she told her secretary where she was going."

Kerwin blanched and looked over to his bookshelf.

"Why did you hide that article? Did you kill her?" Lindsay asked.

"No, damn you, no. What are you trying to do to me?"

"There's proof you saw her on that last day. It's in the
article you've been trying like the dickens to keep from me.
You said you didn't know her-"

Kerwin interrupted her. "I did not. I said I didn't know
her well. I knew her professionally-"

"Exactly. You knew her only professionally, yet there is
a picture of the two of you at a departmental barbeque that
says otherwise. What did you do-ask her to go out in the
middle of nowhere, make a pass, and when she turned you
down, you got furious and killed her?"

"No, you've got it all wrong. I ... I ... She wasn't interested in me, yes, but, I ..." Kerwin looked at his desk and
up at Lindsay. "God, I only tried to kiss her. That was all."
He sat, the two of them looking at each other. "What are
you going to do?"

Lindsay picked up the phone. "You are going to tell your
story to Sheriff Irene Varnadore."

"No, I can't." He pulled the phone out of her reach.

"It will sound better coming from you than from me."
She leaned across the desk and took the phone away from
him and dialed Irene's office number.

"Sheriff Varnadore," said Lindsay, "Kenneth Kerwin,
one of our faculty, has some information about Shirley
Foster's last day and wants to tell you about it." She handed
him the phone. Lindsay could hear the sheriff saying
"Hello? Hello?" as Kerwin stared at the phone. Lindsay
guided it to his ear.

"Sheriff," he squeaked. "Ah, Sheriff, I just realized
something. When Shirley Foster told her secretary where
she was going, she meant the Rayburn Mill site and not
Rabun County. She, uh, wanted to see the excavation. I
showed it to her, we talked, and I left." He paused a
moment. "She seemed fine. Happy, even." Pause. "No, no
one was there. We were basically finished with the excavation. The crew was gone. I left in my car. She was in her car, and I had assumed she left, too. It was several days later
I heard on the news that she was missing, and I simply never
made the connection." He paused again and smiled up at
Lindsay. "However, Luke Ferris was a member of my field
crew, and I believe he worked for Dr. Foster as well. He
could have followed us." Lindsay narrowed her eyes at him.

"I just wanted to tell you. I didn't know quite what to do,
and Dr. Chamberlain told me that you are the person to talk
to." He paused, listening. "Certainly, I'll hold." He placed
his hand over the mouthpiece. Kerwin was good at the
smug expression. "Well, Dr. Chamberlain, does that meet
with your keen ethical sensibilities?"

"Luke was one of your students. He worked with you.
Have you no loyalty to him?"

"Not if he's a murderer. And if he's not, the truth won't
hurt."

"What about that little truth that you made a pass at her
and she rejected you? Why didn't you tell the sheriff that?"

"It will be your word against mine, and right now you
don't have much credibility." He gave a jerk of his head as
if to add, "so there."

"It will be my word against yours, but people will know
it's true. You aren't a man who hides his feelings welllike the smug little twist of your mouth that you have now.
They will remember those little social gatherings and professional meetings, how you acted, and the little looks you
gave her. They will know it's true and they will always
wonder if maybe you did it after all."

Kerwin frowned. "You're bluffing."

"What's to bluff?"

"I really doubt you'll be here much longer anyway, Dr.
Chamberlain. I think you'll find your number's up."

"Are you the one whispering in Kaufman's ear?" Lindsay asked.

"Who's Kaufman?" From the look on his face, she was tempted to believe he really didn't know, but Kerwin was
just mean enough to do something like that.

"Kenneth, I allowed you to talk to the sheriff as a courtesy,
because you are a fellow faculty member. I could have gone to
the sheriff, and she could be the one in here asking you these
questions and wondering why you let the police waste all
their time and taxpayer money looking in the wrong county.
Are you such a mean-spirited bastard you can't see that?"