Free Dead Guilty by Beverly Connor

the vics all look to
be in their twenties. Blue is a female and has a tattoo
of a butterfly on her ankle. Green’s a male. He’s had
his appendix out and has a heart condition. Not seri
ous. Red’s another female. She has a tattoo of a hum
mingbird on the right side of her lower back and
another one of a rose on the upper part of her left
breast.’’
‘‘Good tattoos?’’
Diane thought a moment. ‘‘Yeah, they are. Very
intricate.’’
‘‘Expensive, then.’’
‘‘Could be.’’
David ran his hands through what was left of his
hair—a thick curly fringe around his head. ‘‘That’ll
help.’’
‘‘Did you happen to find any fingertips?’’ Diane
asked him. ‘‘None of the bodies had theirs.’’ ‘‘Nope. We did find where a truck was parked.
From the cable marks on the tree branches, I’d say
he hoisted them up with a winch.’’
‘‘How’s Neva doing? Jin said you took her out for
a walk-through.’’
He wavered his hand from side to side. ‘‘She’s about
fifty-fifty. Hasn’t decided if she likes this work yet.
They just assigned her here, you know, didn’t ask her
if she wanted it. But she’s no different than any other
newbie I’ve trained.’’
‘‘How are you doing?’’ asked Diane.
‘‘You don’t have to watch me. I’m not going to
self-destruct.’’
‘‘I’m not worried about your sanity, just your
happiness.’’
David Goldstein had shown up literally on Diane’s
doorstep, asking for a job. The massacre of their
friends at the mission in South America had left him,
like her, on the edge of sanity—burnt out and with
no place to go. Diane’s loss of her daughter had so
overwhelmed her she didn’t really see the grief the
others were feeling from losing their friends. David
was adrift when he arrived in Rosewood. Diane was
glad to be able to give him a job. It surprised her that
he requested to work in her new crime lab. ‘‘Are you sure you want to do that?’’ she had asked
him. ‘‘Don’t you want to get away from everything
we’ve seen?’’
‘‘Don’t you?’’ It was a reasonable question.
‘‘Diane—you know how it was. You stand in those
concrete rooms splattered with dark stains you know
are going to be blood, and you look at the shackles
and dirty rusted tables and you know that no matter
how many people you interview, how many deposi
tions you get, those responsible will never be put on
trial. Most of the time, the best we could hope for
was to have some poor schmuck arrested who was just
guarding the place.
‘‘But this here...abig percentage of the time,
we’ll bring the killers to justice. I need to do that.
Bring killers to justice. I need to know that what I’m
doing will make a difference.’’
‘‘Our record out there was a little better than that,’’
Diane had whispered almost to herself, but she knew
what he meant. Rarely did they get to the top of the
food chain.
‘‘I’m doing okay,’’ he said finally. ‘‘What’s nice
about the museum here is when things get tough with
the crime evidence, I can go look at rocks, or shells or the big dinosaurs. I particularly like the shells. The colors and the curved shapes are very soothing. Re member how Gregory
paintings, particularly
liked to go look at beautiful the Vermeers, whenever we
were near a museum? It’s like that.’’
Gregory had been their boss at World Accord Inter
national and a mentor to Diane. Gregory even carried
postcard-sized representations of famous paintings.
The everyday scenes painted by Vermeer were his fa
vorite. He could look at them for hours.
She had adopted Gregory’s love of looking at beau
tiful art when she needed a break from the grim reali
ties of human rights violations. She understood what
David meant about the museum. It was a refuge for
her too.
‘‘What’s that new medical examiner in the next
county like?’’
‘‘Dr. Lynn Webber. Nice. Hospitable.’’
‘‘And that means?’’
‘‘Just what I said. Seems