Beverly Connor [Diane Fallon Forensic Investigation 07] Dust To Dust (pdf)

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tween the two men was just too much of a coincidence. She
was getting a major headache.
Why don t I heat up the leftover pizza? said Frank.
We ll have pizza and red wine. You know how you love
leftover pizza.
Sounds good, she said.
While they waited for the pizza to warm in the oven,
Frank boarded up the back door so it wouldn t open at all.
I ll have it fixed tomorrow, he said. I ll call my partner
and tell him I m taking the day off.
I m sorry you have to do that. Diane felt guilty on
top of everything else. She had brought this to his house.
Maybe it wasn t her fault, but it was about her.
They could have been after me, said Frank. After all,
had I been here, I probably would have been the one to
answer the door. I do have Atlanta connections who might
want some revenge.
Frank had a strange habit of reading her mind some-
times. But she probably wore her feelings on her face. She
was a terrible poker player.
Ray-Ray after Marcella; his cousin after you? She
248 Beverly Connor
shook her head. That would be too much of a coinci-
dence.
They ate and drank and Diane began to feel better.
I finished the diary, he said.
Oh? Was it hard? asked Diane.
Very easy really, once I got to know how Ellie Rose s
mind worked. She must have been a neat kid. Very clever
code for a kid.
How did it work? asked Diane.
She had symbols for diphthongs and consonant
blends letter combinations like oo, ou, th, st, ious that
kind of thing. For other letter combinations she drew doo-
dles that represented the sound like in a rebus puzzle. For
example, for air she drew three curled wisps.
Frank got a piece of paper and drew the doodle for her.
The symbol for the consonant blend of st is a star. So if
she wrote the word stair, it would be a star and these little
wisps. He drew it for Diane.
If she had to use a letter, she would go two up in the al-
phabet, he continued. So a would be c and z would be b. The
consonant blend th is the numeral three. The word the would
be written as the numeral three with the letter g immediately
following it. He grinned. She was a good little doodler.
He took several bites of pizza and a sip of wine.
There was a little complication, in that sometimes she
would change how she wrote a word. For example, the
symbol for the suffix er was a drawing of an ear. Mother
was sometimes oq, with the numeral three immediately fol-
lowing, and then the drawing of an ear. And sometimes it
would be a drawing of a moth and an ear.
That seems like it would take a long time to write, said
Diane.
Not really. The drawings were doodles, stylized versions
of what they represented. If you re going up the alphabet
only two letters, you can work that out pretty fast, he
said.
I ll call Ross Kingsley tomorrow. He ll be happy you
were able to decode it, said Diane. I got the impression
he thought it would be impossible.
You know, I kind of got to know her. Not just reading
DUST TO DUST 249
her diary, but seeing the way her mind worked, examining
her whimsical creativity.
He stopped for a moment and took a drink of wine.
Diane thought for a second he was going to tear up. She
put a hand on his and he smiled at her.
As I said, she was a neat kid, he said.
Anything in her diary that would shed light on any-
thing? said Diane.
Most of it was normal kid stuff. Talk about school,
friends, boys she liked, teachers. There are a couple of draw-
ings that occurred several times that I can t decipher.
He drew one for her. It was a triangle over an elongated
diamond shape with slightly curving sides and what looked
like horns.
It looks kind of like a snake with scales and horns, said
Diane.
That s what I thought, he said. I can t come up with a
rebus or anything else that makes sense. I think it s a per-
son, but that s as far as I got, except that it s clear she didn t
like him. If I had a list of names of people in her circle, I
might be able to decipher it.
What was the context? asked Diane.
Dread seeing blank. Blank has changed since blank.
The second blank is the other doodle I can t figure out. He
drew it for her.
These are almost like Rorschach tests. The identifica-
tion is in the eye of the beholder, said Diane. She exam-
ined the last drawing. It looks like a ruin or a broken brick [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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