The Night Killer

the whole parcel to developers anyway,” said Jonas. “Besides, Roy wasn’t even the driving force behind it-that was a man named Joe Watson.”

Diane felt a cold chill run up her spine. “Did you say Joe Watson?” she said. “Was his wife named Ella?”

“I don’t know,” said Jonas. “Roy just mentioned it in passing.”

Diane could detect the note of caution in his voice as he spoke. His words came out more slowly, and each syllable seemed to carry a question with it.

“A Joe and Ella Watson were the second couple who were murdered,” said Diane.

“Well,” he said, “then I suppose someone did think the project was worth killing over.” He paused a moment. “I don’t understand it. It was only talk at this point-just speculation. It doesn’t make sense that anyone would kill over it now. But what do I know? I’m just an archaeologist.”

“Can you think of any other people or things he mentioned that might be important?” said Diane.

“Sooner or later, most of our conversations got back around to his grandfather. LeFette Barre was a big influence in Roy’s life. From the time Roy was eight years old, his grandfather took him surveying with him. His grandfather was a surveyor and did some cartography.”

“Roy mentioned it,” said Diane.

“I bet he did. He loved to talk about his grandfather. They would camp in the woods and hunt for Indian arrowheads and whatever else caught their eye. To hear Roy talk, it was the happiest time in his life. But then, he’s always happy. Was,” he added. “Roy said from the time his grandfather could walk, he was out looking for interesting things in the woods. The man should have been an archaeologist instead of a surveyor.”

“Was there anything in LeFette Barre’s diary that could shed light on any of this?” asked Diane.

“I’ve only read Roy Barre’s catalog of the arrowheads and the notes he made from the diaries.”

“Diaries?” said Diane. “I thought there was only one diary.”

“One?” said Jonas, a little startled. “The guy started keeping them when he was fifteen, and he died when he was seventy-two. We’ve got several boxes of them in my office.”

Chapter 27

“Boxes of diaries?” said Diane. She was rather stunned by the revelation. “How many?”

“Well, I think there are three boxes,” said Jonas.

“And here I thought you took his diary with you to Arizona,” said Diane.

“I brought Roy’s catalog with me,” Jonas said. “I haven’t quite decided how to approach the diaries.”

“I’m wondering if there is anything in them that would shed light on what happened to Roy and his wife,” said Diane.

“I don’t see how,” said Jonas. “They were written years ago by his grandfather. But you were asking about secrets. People tend to keep their secrets in a diary-which strikes me as a strange place to expect to keep a secret. I suppose there could be some dark secret that has suddenly come to the fore.”

It did seem unlikely, thought Diane. “Are they legible?” she asked.

“I’ve thumbed through only a couple of them. I think the later ones are more legible. When he became a surveyor he used that neat engineer’s print. When he was younger, it was a combination of printing and writing, like most of us do. I’ve never kept a journal myself,” said Jonas, “unless field notes count.”

“Before I let you go, do you remember a cigar box Roy kept in a cabinet in the living room?” Diane asked.

“Full of his grandfather’s trinkets. I remember it,” he said.

“The killer apparently took it, and I was wondering what was in it,” said Diane.

“The killer took it? That’s odd. Let’s see. . There were a few broken quartz points from the Old Quartz Culture-Archaic Period. Several marbles of different colors-one looked kind of like confetti-several cat’s-eyes. A couple of shiny metallic gold-colored marbles that looked like shooters. You know what that is?” he said.

“I do. It’s the marble you scatter the others with,” said Diane.

Jonas chuckled slightly. “His shooters looked a little worse for wear-lots of nicks in them. What else? Let me think. . There were several rocks of different sizes and colors. A couple of seashells, bottle caps, and a Scout knife- it was pretty old. Several gumball or Cracker Jack charms-old too, from a time when they put good prizes in boxes and candy machines. I think there was a blimp. . you know. . a dirigible. There was an airplane, a baseball, a horse head, a cowboy boot. . That’s all I can remember.”

Diane listed the items on a notepad on her desk as Jonas ticked them off.

“Jonas, I’m amazed you can remember so much of it. His kids, who’d seen that cigar box all their lives, could barely give me any description at all of what was in it.”

“You know us archaeologists; we like old stuff,” he said.

“I appreciate the things you’ve been able to tell me,” she said. “I have another piece of bad news. I debated whether to tell you-it just seems like too much,” she said.

“Oh, no. Nothing’s happened to Kendel, Mike, and little Neva in Africa, I hope,” he said.

“No. It’s still about the Barres. Their oldest son, Roy Jr., was in a car accident. He’s alive, but in critical condition. It looks like someone ran him off the road,” said Diane.

“Horror just keeps coming to that family, doesn’t it?” said Jonas.

“Yes, it does,” said Diane. And it offends me, she thought.

Diane was relieved to have that discussion over. She had dreaded telling Jonas the terrible news. But she had learned more from Jonas-who until recently was a stranger to the Barres-than she had from anyone else.

On her notebook Diane started writing motives for the Barres’ murders. She started with religion, only because that was what everyone else started with. Even though religion was a recurring reason throughout the centuries for various conflicts, it just wasn’t tracking for her. What would be the details of such a motive-fear of progress, scorn for dancing? No, Diane just couldn’t see religion as the basis for a homicidal motive in this case.

Maybe she could ask Frank; he was more religious than she was. Diane hadn’t lied to Sheriff Conrad when she said she believed in God, but she wasn’t particularly religious and found God to be very remote. She occasionally went with Frank or one of her friends to their church, mainly because she liked the people.

Judging from the people she had met so far in this case, it didn’t seem likely that members of one of these congregations could whip themselves up into a homicidal frenzy over a minor point of theology. But perhaps it was fear that another person’s religion would change their own way of life. She shook her head. That still didn’t sound like a realistic motive. She put a question mark beside it.

She wrote down, Land. That seemed like a more reasonable motive. Land translated to money and to style of life. She could see people fighting over land and its use. She had seen the kind of changes in a community that could result from land development, and how those changes might be unbearable to some-especially a profound change, like going from a quiet, secluded rural area to a busy tourist town. It seemed even more likely a motive because the Watsons, who were spearheading the development campaign, were also killed.

Travis had said something about a dispute over the property line between Slick Massey and the Barres. That held possibilities. If Massey thought he was being cheated by the Barres, Diane could see him committing murder. But what motive would he have to kill the Watsons?

All in all, land showed much more promise as a motive than did religion.

Diane wrote down, Unknown motive, in her notebook. She had nothing to put under it, of course. Still, that category nagged at her as being most likely. Since nothing made sense, there was something missing.

She went back to the cigar box again. Was the box of old childhood trinkets important, or just a souvenir for the killer? Was there something in it that had more meaning than was evident? Were the contents valuable?

Diane slipped the small notebook into her purse. Before she left she turned to her computer and called up a template of a form and filled it in, and she gave Dr. Lynn Webber, Rosewood’s ME, a call. That tended to, she shut down her computer and left by way of Andie’s office.

Sierra was still sitting at Andie’s desk.