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“The thing is, Captain Lee, there's almost too much proof – this case has not been solved for forty years, and all of the sudden, all this evidence turns up. Where was all this forty years ago?”
Col. H.F. Lee, in his police persona as captain of the Blue Ridge Precinct and Special Investigations for the Big Loft, VA police force, was listening to Lieutenant James Longstreet, the man who would soon enough replace him in both positions.
Yet there was no jealousy between the two men. Col. Lee had taken the police position while transitioning from being a military prosecutor in Judge Advocate General, and never intended to make a long career as a civilian police officer. He also had never intended to have more than a desk job … but life had happened and his kill list, given the 18 months he had spent on the job, was long. He was relieved that things had settled down, and delighted that his lieutenants, all of whom intended to be police officers as a career, had absorbed and were making good use of all that he had taught them.
“That's a good question, Longstreet. Have we triangulated who exactly is supplying all this good evidence at this late date?”
“Anderson and I are on it – the data indicates that either we have a strange end-of-life type of silent confession from the main suspect or an equally late-life frame-up by the actual murderer – it's an ugly fork in Morton Data Master, with almost even probabilities indicated but leaning ever so slightly toward some kind of confession.”
“This may be because the profiles of our other known suspects suggest that, at their ages and states of health, it would not be easy for them to arrange such a subtle frame up.”
“Not least because half of them don't even know we are on to them – but there could be someone else in the circle that we have spooked.”
“Right – we need to check the profiles of the surrounding characters as well, Longstreet.”
“I'll pull those up and forward those to you also, Captain.”
“Very good, Lieutenant. I will look at them tonight, and you and Anderson do so in the morning.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good evening, Lieutenant.”
“Good evening, Captain.”
“Dinner!” Mrs. Maggie Lee called at that instant, and Col. Lee smiled as he was nearly run over by those of his Ludlow cousins who were outside playing, running in to wash up to eat.
“Slow down,” he said, and watched that command play out in their varied personalities – all obeyed, but there were differing understandings of what slow even meant.
While their grandparents were away, Col. and Mrs. Lee had charge of the seven Ludlow grandchildren, and it was a greater pleasure than he expected to use all his skill in reading body language and personality on each of them. He had made it his business to know them very well in a relatively short period of time, and they taught him more about human nature in their innocent way than he would have thought possible.
“But you know, you learn differently when you are peaceful and happy,” Mrs. Lee had said to him, and this was true.
While they all lined up to wash up, Col. Lee imagined what in the Ludlow home would be a regular-sized disaster: something got knocked down and broken. He knew that Eleanor and Andrew would just confess, George and Amanda would probably make up a story to avoid blame but then, seeing that wasn't going to work, would then start crying and confess. Lil' Robert and Edwina would confess and then give a reason why they were still right, and Grayson would confess and give him a whole plan on how he was going to rebuild or replace it. None of them had it in them to frame up someone else: they were still too young, and their imaginations had not been prematurely corrupted.
In similar manner, some of the suspects in the case Col. Lee was thinking about were past the state of mind in which they could work a frame-up of the main suspect – too near to the end of their lives mentally and physically. But, one of them had possessed the perfect mentality for that ten years earlier – and that suspect had a brilliant daughter, ferociously devoted to him.
“Look, I don't play about mine!” eight-year-old Edwina was saying as she processed some news her big brother ten-year-old Andrew had gotten about what had happened in a local family. “I don't care what it takes – we're not having that over here. I'mma need folks to get the word out! I'm trying to build good, but I will break bad, because Papa and Grandma are not having any of that in their lives after they went through all this to rescue us! I pity the fool! I pity the fool that would try that mess!”
“Edwina,” Col. Lee said, “I got this.”
“OK,” she said, and settled right down with a smile.
Late that night, Col. Lee called the brilliant daughter of that suspect he was thinking about … and, got to the truth.
“Our main suspect did the murder, and her father was the accessory,” the captain said to Lieutenants Longstreet and Anderson in the morning. “That's why she had access to so much evidence. Her father is dying, and asked her to make sure that the truth came out, but to be careful, because main suspect will kill again if provoked.”
“That explains the ugly fork and almost equal probabilities,” Lt. Anderson said. “Morton Data Master had picked up a confession and a frame-up – both were going on.”
“Almost too much proof,” their commander said, “but in the end, just enough.”