"Dead Past" - читать интересную книгу автора (Connor Beverly)

Chapter 8

Diane stared blankly at Frank’s face; her mind hit a wall, rejecting what he was telling her. She slumped and barely felt Jin grasp her arm and steer her to a stool just as her legs gave way. Across the expanse of the tent, the tables-Lynn Webber’s, Allen Rankin’s, Brewster Pilgrim’s-all were laid out with bodies, any one of which might be… and the bones on her own table… Please God, not Star, not Star.

The MEs stopped what they were doing and looked from Frank to Diane, worry evident in their eyes as they viewed with new concern the remains of corpses and personal items on the tables before them. The officer organizing the incoming samples seemed about to say something, but closed his mouth, his forlorn expression deepening. Grover looked profoundly sad.

Only a couple of them, Jin and Lynn Webber, actually knew Star, but most knew Frank. A lifelong resident of Rosewood, he served the Atlanta police department as a detective in the Fraud and Computer Crimes unit. And all knew Star’s story. The little runaway teenage girl accused of the murder of her parents and brother. She had become Frank’s ward through her parents’ last will and testament, and he had made her his adopted daughter. Diane had freed her of the murder accusations by finding the real killer. Star was in her first year at Bartram University partly because Diane had promised her a shopping trip to Paris if she would give college an honest try.

“What do you mean, you don’t know where she is?” asked Diane as if his words hadn’t made sense.

“I can’t find her,” he said.

That phrase again-I can’t find my daughter. Diane didn’t think she could bear it.

“I got home from Seattle early and heard about this… tragedy.” He took a deep breath. “She isn’t at her dorm. Her cell goes immediately to voice mail. It’s been like that since I got home. That was three hours ago. I’ve checked with her friends that I can find; they haven’t seen her since yesterday.”

“Did anyone know her plans?” asked Diane with a shaky voice.

“They say she just wanted to study. I checked with Cindy. Star stays there sometimes to study or she goes to the museum. She isn’t at either place. I can’t find her anywhere.”

Diane heard the desperation in his voice, and she was so frightened herself she could barely speak. She started to say something stupid like “We haven’t seen her here.” She knew that’s what he wanted to hear. It’s what that mother with the blond-haired daughter wanted to hear.

“I checked the hospitals. She’s not there,” he added in a voice so low that she barely heard him.

“OK,” said Diane, trying to find a calm place inside her fear. “Star has tests now, doesn’t she? Finals? You know she’s going to study and not go to parties.” She felt silly saying that. Of course college kids will go to parties, even the most studious will play hooky sometimes. Diane slipped off her gloves. “The library stays open all night. Have you checked there?”

“No.” Frank looked hopeful. “No, I haven’t.”

“You go find Miss Star,” said Brewster Pilgrim. “We’re not going to work much longer. We’re going home and get a good night’s sleep and start fresh again in the morning.”

“I’ll stay and have everything organized when you come back in the morning,” said Jin. “Say, does her phone have GPS?”

Frank raised a brow. “I don’t know. That’s an idea. I’ll find out. Thanks Jin.”

Jin likes to find lost people, thought Diane. How ironic that he now had someone he knows who needs finding. Oh, God. Don’t let one of these be Star. She took off her lab coat and walked with Frank into the night.

Snow was falling heavily now, and there didn’t seem to be as many people near the coffee tent-just the loved ones, she thought. The ones who won’t leave until they know something.

Frank clasped her hand as they walked past the tent and past the journalists. Thankfully, none of them recognized her as a member of the forensics team-perhaps because she and Frank now looked like desperate parents.

Frank’s car was parked well outside the cordonedoff area. She noted that he had new snow tires and she thought of her car. She wondered if Neva had had time to process it, or if it was sitting windowless in the snow. She needed to check with Neva to be sure they wouldn’t lose potential evidence.

Diane grabbed the cell phone from her pocket, flipped it open, and selected Neva’s number. The voice that answered was less weary than it should be.

“Hello, Diane. Anything I can do to help in locating Star?” How did she know so fast, wondered Diane. Bad news travels at light speed.

“Thank you, Neva. I’ll let you know on that. I’m sorry to burden you with another matter. Have you had a chance to process my car?”

“Yes. Early on, the fire crew wouldn’t let us have access to the house site because of hot spots they were still trying to put out. David and I processed the carjacking site then. We worked the area around your car, as well as the area of the attempted Keith carjacking. Then I had your car towed to the crime lab and locked in the garage until we can get back to it.”

“Thank you, Neva. If I haven’t told you lately, I really appreciate the way you always come through when the going gets tough.”

“You know that if I can do it, I will. Please let me know about Star.”

“As soon as we know anything.”

“Process your car?” asked Frank after Diane had closed her cell phone.

“Long story. I’ll tell you later after we find Star.”

He was satisfied with that. It was unusual for him not to try to pry the story out of her if he suspected she had some dangerous near miss. But, focused on the snowy road ahead, he was quiet now as he drove toward campus. They were almost to the library when he spoke.

“How many… how many bodies have you processed?”

Processed. So cold and clinical. He’s trying to keep a distance, she thought. “Seven, maybe more. Jin and I…” She shut her mouth, unwilling to say Jin and I have examined many body parts. “We’ve only been working for a little over three hours. We think there may be thirty-two altogether.”

“How many females have you processed of the seven?” asked Frank.

“Three,” she answered.

Frank was a math person. She wondered if he thought he could somehow figure out the possibility that one was Star based on the math. Of course not. Silly. He was just trying not to break down by asking questions that had a definite answer.

“Three,” he repeated. “If your sample is random, then of the thirty-two victims, thirteen or fourteen of them would be female.”

“We don’t know if they were randomly located in the house when… when it exploded-or randomly recovered.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I’m just trying to occupy my mind. Here’s the library.”

He parked his dark blue Expedition and they walked up the columned entrance to the library. Since 9/11, the entrance had huge concrete planters out front so that a vehicle loaded with explosives couldn’t get close to the front entrance. They walked past the planters containing spruce trees and up the granite steps.

The information desk was manned by a young woman who looked as if she might be a student herself. Frank asked if there was a way to page a patron in the library. No, there was not. From the sympathetic look they got, they were not the first to ask.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to go to each floor and look,” she said. “If you know what courses your…”

“Daughter,” supplied Frank.

“Daughter is taking, you might start where those books or journals are shelved.” She handed them sheets of paper stapled together. “This is a map of the library.” She gave them a sympathetic smile that seemed to say, “I wish I could do more.”

“Do you know what courses she’s taking this semester? Isn’t American History one?” asked Diane.

Frank studied the maps of the floors. “American History, Anthropology, English, Algebra, and Fencing.”

“Fencing?” said Diane.

“She’s pretty good. She’s thinking about joining the fencing team,” said Frank.

Extracurricular activities. She’s getting interested in college, just as Diane had hoped. Please, don’t let her be… Diane couldn’t even finish the thought.

They decided to check the library floor by floor instead of going to the different subject areas. It seemed more methodical. The danger was over. There wasn’t a hurry to find Star, except for their own peace of mind. They wanted to be thorough.

Bartram University’s library was a rambling structure built in stages, forming an old central core and younger wings. Varying shades of red brick walls told of different periods of construction. The beige tile floors were kept shined to a high gloss. The tables and chairs were of a light-colored wood and the bookshelves were metal.

Small study areas defined by groups of tables and a few stuffed chairs and small sofas were scattered throughout the floor. Most of the patrons this evening were students who looked to be eighteen or nineteen, with a sprinkling of older people who Diane guessed were graduate students or faculty.

She and Frank split up. He searched the study areas, Diane searched the stacks-looking between rows of bookshelves for any sign of Star’s short black hair with its spiky cut. As Diane passed through the stacks of books, she heard snatches of conversations. “I heard there were fifty bodies.” And, “You could hear them screaming two streets over as they burned.” God, students were gruesome, thought Diane, and prone to believe rumors. “I heard they are canceling finals and giving us all A’s-like a hardship situation.” And prone to wishful thinking. “OK, tell me again how to find the area beneath a curve. Something about rhyming?” “Riemman.” At least some were studying. “The making of palimpsests was possible even with papyri. Are you sure that’s what it says? It’s hard to read the writing.” History? Sounds like a tongue twister. Diane looked down another of the never-ending rows of bookshelves. Star… where are you, Star? She wanted to shout her name. What kind of large public building didn’t have a paging system? Come to think of if, the museum didn’t. She would have to check into that.

Diane heard Frank ask several students if they knew Star Duncan. They didn’t. “A freshman? No we don’t know freshmen.”

At the end of another row she saw Star-black spiky hair, pixy look. Diane all but ran toward her.

“Star?” she called a little too loudly.

Startled, the girl turned at the sound. It wasn’t Star. Disappointment almost made Diane sick.

“I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else. Do you by any chance know Star Duncan?”

“Star. I like the name. No, I don’t know her. Sorry.”

Diane mumbled an apology for disturbing her and moved on, looking. She met up with Frank and together they headed for the elevators to look on the next floor. They passed a couple walking toward the main entrance. Both wore jeans. He had on a baseball cap that said NEW YORK YANKEES. They didn’t look like students and they were frowning. Diane wondered if they were looking for a lost child as she and Frank were.

The elevator doors opened and they rode up to search the other four floors-Diane the stacks, Frank the study areas. They peeked in all the study carrels. Diane looked in the bathrooms. No Star. They didn’t find anyone who knew her. Finally they rode down, sick at heart and not knowing where else to look.

“You could try calling home again. She may have decided to go there and study-where it would be quiet.”

Frank nodded and took out his cell. “I’ll take Jin’s advice, too, and contact the company that made her phone to find out if it has GPS,” said Frank.

Diane nodded, trying to swallow the lump in her throat. As they passed the information desk they heard a woman asking for Jenny Baker. Frank stopped.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I believe your daughter knows mine. Star Duncan. They study together.”

The woman turned and stared at Frank. She had the same desperate expression the mother in the coffee tent had, that Frank had, that Diane herself must have.

“Star? You’re her father? Jenny’s missing. Yes, she and Star study together. I told her Star is a bad influence. Jenny would never go to a party during finals. Never. Never. Not unless someone dragged her. She is a good girl.”

Diane was startled at the recriminations. She felt Frank stiffen, but his face had on his detective expression, which was no expression.

Jenny’s mother started to crumble. The young woman at the information desk, distressed and helpless, looked from one to the other of them. A brass pin fastened to her blouse said SHELLEY. Like the rest of them, Shelley didn’t know what to do. Just as both Frank and Diane reached for Mrs. Baker before she sank to the floor, a man rushed over from the direction of the men’s room, pulled her up, and put an arm around her.

“I’m Clyde Baker. My wife’s distraught. We’re looking for our daughter. Someone said she might be studying in the library. Her cell’s not working, but she is bad about recharging it.” He sounded out of breath and as if he needed to explain why his wife was collapsing onto the floor. “Come on, Marsha.” He squeezed his wife’s shoulders. “We’ve got to look, honey. I’m sure she’s here.”

“You might go to the Student Learning Center,” said Shelley, leaning over the desk. “It’s a new building and a lot of students study there, too. It’s that huge really tall building on North Campus. I think that they might have a PA system.”

“Thanks,” said Frank, “We will.” He turned to the Bakers. “If I find Star and Jenny is with her, I’ll have her call you.”

Clyde Baker nodded. His wife burst into tears.