We signed off, and I decided to drop by to see the chief myself. Not to be nosy, of course, but to find out if the coast was clear for me to carry out Robyn’s orders.
I parked in the police station parking lot and headed for the door. But when I reached the sidewalk in front of it, I met the chief coming out.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
“Just wondering if there are any next of kin I can start contacting,” I said.
“I’m on my way to interview Mrs. Washington,” he said. “Who, wonder of wonders, is still at the address we found in the church files. If you like, I’ll text you when I’ve finished with her.”
“That would be great,” I said. “I expect the others will be harder to track down.”
“The Hagleys’ son will be coming up from Richmond this afternoon,” the chief said. “I assumed you would be okay with me giving him your contact information as the person representing Trinity on this issue.”
I nodded.
“The best information I’ve been able to find about Archie van der Lynden’s whereabouts is that he’s reputed to be at a residential substance abuse treatment facility.”
“There can’t be that many of those around,” I said.
“You’d be surprised,” he said. “And also, under HIPAA regulations, no reputable facility would even be allowed to tell me whether or not Mr. Van der Lynden was a patient there,” he said. “Finding Archie could take a while, and if he was locked up somewhere detoxing he’s not going to be our prime suspect. I still haven’t heard back from the Blair woman in Middleburg, or the Van der Lyndens’ law firm. Vern Shiffley comes on duty at noon, and I’m going to task him with figuring out who we should talk to about Lacey Shiffley.”
“And I expect there’s nothing you can do about the John Doe,” I said.
“Actually, there might be.” The chief looked pleased—almost smug. “Horace dug into the archives and found the file on him—the file and the evidence. They actually took tissue samples, so Horace can get John Doe’s DNA analyzed.”
“They couldn’t have done that in 1994?”
“In theory they could have, but it would have taken forever and cost the moon, and they wouldn’t have had anything to compare his DNA with when they got it. CODIS was just getting started up around that time. They kept his body around for almost a year before they accepted Dr. Womble’s offer to bury him at Trinity. But someone back then had his head on straight, so before they released the body, they took the kind of tissue samples they’d need to do a DNA analysis, in case it ever proved useful.”
“And now it will!”
“It might.” His face fell a little. “We could come up blank. After all, most of the DNA in CODIS has been collected since it was established. It’s not like our John Doe was out there leaving his DNA at crime scenes for the last twenty-four years.”
“But it’s always possible,” I said. “Or you could find a relative.”
“A relative’s more likely, so that’s what we’re hoping for,” he said. “Well, I’d better be off. Mrs. Washington is expecting me. Oh, and since you’ll have some time before you’re able to talk to her, any chance you could arrange to get me the contents of those files we looked at last night?”
“Actually, Mother’s already working on that. She’ll drop them off later, or more likely arrange to have someone do it.”
“Thank you.”
He headed for his car. I didn’t figure there was much more to be learned at the police station, so I did the same.
I decided to drop by my office at the town hall. Luckily, things had been slow lately in my theoretically part-time job as special assistant to Mayor Randall Shiffley. I suspected Randall, knowing how worried we were about Robyn and how much work her absence was causing, had done his best to keep it that way. But still, there were a couple of things I needed to do. And if Randall was around, all the better. The chief might be relying on Deputy Vern Shiffley for information about Lacey Shiffley. No reason I couldn’t pick Randall’s brains.
I was in luck. He was in his office with his feet up on the venerable oak table that served as his desk, frowning over some sheets of paper that I recognized as budget reports.
“Just the person I wanted to see.” He tossed the papers back into his in-box. “The chief gave me the bare bones of what happened at Trinity last night. I want details!”
I gave him chapter and verse of what I’d seen, telling it all in order with one exception—I held back the names of the people whose ashes had been disturbed. And I topped off my story with what I’d learned from Mother about Mr. Hagley’s motivation for wanting to reclaim his wife’s ashes.
“Poor old Junius,” he said. “And yes, I expect he was hurting for money. The town treasurer gave me a list of the citizens who weren’t current with their property taxes, and he was on it.”
“I wish we’d known he was in such dire need,” I said. “We could have done something to help.” Although no sooner had the words left my mouth than I found myself wondering if perhaps Robyn had known. Had known and had tried to reach out to help Mr. Hagley. Would he react to an offer of help from her with gratitude? Or would he resent what he might see as interference, reject her help, and lash out at her in anger?
I could ask Robyn. Better yet, Mother.
“So as soon as the chief gives the go-ahead, I’m going to start contacting the next of kin of the people whose ashes have been disturbed,” I said. “As soon as he figures out where to find them all.”
“So who are we talking about, apart from Dolores Hagley—and does he need any help?” Which was exactly what I’d expected Randall to say.
“He might with one—Lacey Shiffley.”
“Lacey Shiffley!” His eyebrows rose in surprise. “Now there’s a name I haven’t heard recently.”
“Probably not since 2006, when she died and ended up buried at Trinity instead of in the First Presbyterian graveyard.”
“Lacey was always a bit of a rebel,” Randall said. “A black sheep, to hear some of the old-timers talk.”
“Just for turning Episcopalian? Where’s your spirit of ecumenism?”
“That was one of the saner things she did,” Randall said. “No, the reason she was on the outs with most of the family was that she eloped with a guy from Clay County. A Whicker, of all people.” The Whickers, along with the Dingles, the Plunkets, and the Peebleses, made up more than half of the names in the Clay County phone directory. There was no love lost between the residents of the two counties. “And while I’m willing to concede that through some fluke of genetics even the Whicker family tree produces a few bright, hardworking, honest, likable saplings from time to time, Anse Whicker doesn’t seem to have been one of them.”
“How bad was he?”
“All I know is the family gossip, and who knows how much that could have gotten exaggerated over the years?” Randall said. “But you could ask Aunt Jane. She and Lacey were first cousins, and almost as close as sisters growing up. I’m pretty sure Lacey kept in touch with Aunt Jane long after she turned a cold shoulder on the rest of us.”
“I’ll do that.” I liked Judge Jane Shiffley, and the idea of talking to her appealed to me. “Would she also be the one to ask who Lacey’s next of kin would be?”
“Definitely,” he said. “For all I know, she might be Lacey’s next of kin. Lacey was an only, and her parents would be long gone. She eventually divorced that no-count husband of hers, and I never heard that they had any kids.”
“Is Judge Jane due in court today?” I asked.
“Probably,” he said. “But not till ten or eleven.”
“And it’s only nine.” I found myself thinking, not for the first time, that the school system was not kind to night owl parents.
“Which means you have time to tell me what other next of kins you’re looking for,” Randall suggested.
“The chief’s going over to talk to Mrs. Washington, widow of James Washington. Middle name something with an A.”
“I knew Jim,” Randall said. “My dad took him on as night watchman for the construction yard after the Van der Lyndens fired him. They were tight with the Pruitts, the Van der Lyndens, and did their best to make sure no one would hire Jim, so Dad took him on just to spite the lot of them.”
“Maybe the killer’s choice of niches wasn’t entirely random,” I said.
“Maybe not,” Randall agreed. “Because Jim Washington lost his job over the Van der Lynden jewel robbery.”
“Why?”
“The way he told it, he was a scapegoat. He was on security duty that night, which meant he sat in the gatehouse and checked to make sure the people who pulled up were on the guest list before he let them in. And there was never anything to suggest the robbers came in the front gate—not with a couple miles of perfectly ordinary farm fencing around most of the estate.”
“Still—James Washington was the Van der Lyndens’ security guard at the time of the robbery.”
“Security guard? He was their handyman and gopher. Firing him was just pure meanness. Who else?”
“Mrs. Van der Lynden herself,” I went on. “And I’m beginning to appreciate the irony of her ending up buried in the same crypt as her ex-handyman.”
Randall snorted with laughter.
“P. Jefferson Blair, who died in 2000.”
“Not from around here,” Randall said. “And I don’t mean that in any negative sense—only that I’ve never heard the name.”
“And a John Doe from 1995,” I said. “So also presumably not from around here, or somebody would have identified him.”
“Can’t help with him, either, then,” Randall said. “But Aunt Jane will fill you in on Lacey. So at least I’ve been of some use.”
“Definitely,” I said. “So unless there’s anything here for me to worry about, I’m going to go have a talk with Judge Jane’s bailiff.”
“I have a better idea,” he said. “Let me talk to him. Cal’s dating one of my cousins. I could drop by and make sure he knows about some upcoming family event and mention, casual-like, that you’re probably going to need to talk to Aunt Jane about Lacey. Cal’s such an efficient son of a gun—I bet he’ll just arrange it at her earliest convenience. And if you get there before the chief has a chance to talk to her … well, not your fault if Her Honor summons you.”
“I’m not actually trying to sneak around behind the chief’s back,” I said.
“But the sooner you talk to the next of kins, the better for Robyn’s stress level. Or should that be nexts of kin?”
“Relatives will do,” I said. “And thanks. I’m going to drop by the Clarion and see what Fred Singer knows.”
“Good plan,” he said. “And that’s only two blocks away, so you can dash back if Cal tells me Aunt Jane’s available.”
Randall and I rode down in the elevator to the ground floor. He ambled down the corridor that led to Judge Jane’s courtroom. I strolled down the long marble front steps of the courthouse and made my way around the town square until I reached the well-preserved Victorian-era building that housed our local paper.
I paused for a moment outside the entrance. Would the chief consider this sticking my nose into his case?
Not if I made it clear to Fred that I was mainly looking for information that would help me locate the various relatives Robyn had asked me to contact. Or at least convinced him to say that if the chief ever asked.