After the conversation with Judge Coventry, John,
Caroline, and I decided to get some sleep and think about
things.  We scheduled to meet again on Friday at noon at
the same old buffet on Broad Avenue.  You know they
have pretty good food if we just keep on going back to the
same place.  That night I lay in my bed thinking.  I had too
much adrenaline in me to get to sleep.  The thought just
kept going through my head: “How can we get any
evidence on Mr. Grayson?  Surely if he is guilty, he would
have destroyed any physical evidence by now.  If he were
not guilty, why would he not talk with me?”  The night
just set there; it refused to go away.  That’s how you feel
when you can’t get to sleep.  It seems like it takes an hour
just to make a minute go by.


Then finally I dosed off to sleep.  The way I know I went to
sleep is that I had a dream.  I dreamed about an old
Sherlock Holmes story.  I don’t remember whether it was
one of those many books by Arthur Conan Doyle that I
read, or if I saw it on a television late-show starring Basil
Rathbone.  In one of the stories, Holmes felt that a
certain suspect was guilty, but he had no proof.  While he
and Dr. Watson were talking to the suspect, he had
another man outside and down the street beating a bass
drum to the rhythm of a person’s heartbeat.  “Boom,
boom, boom, boom….”  When the suspect asked Holmes
did he hear that noise, Holmes responded: “What noise?”  
Holmes and Watson keep on asking questions totally
oblivious to the beating drum.  The suspect’s conscience
just got the better of him after awhile.  Finally, the
suspect turned to an open window holding his ears and
shouted:  “I did it, I killed him, just stop that infernal
heart beat.”  Doyle was a little bit more literary than that,
but that’s essentially what the suspect said.  With
witnesses down below the window, Holmes had the
confession he sought.


Now, I had a plan.  In most situations like this, a normal
person would be able to get some sleep.  But
unfortunately, I was not a normal person that night.  I
was wide-awake.  How could I practice this technique on
Mr. Grayson?  Well, for one thing, police are much more
sensitive to people’s rights in this day and time.  Could I
be charged with practicing “private investigating” without
a license?  Probably not, especially since we are not
receiving any pecuniary compensation for our troubles.  
Surely reporters and writers have some leeway, as they
have to do some investigating in their work.  We will have
to be careful not to “invade the privacy” of Mr. Grayson.  
He could sue us for that.  Sure hope Mr. Grayson is not a
Sherlock Holmes’ fan.  I don’t remember much after that.  
The next thing I remember was the garbage truck making
a lot of noise down on Randolph Street.  I started to yell at
them for making so much noise until I noticed it was ten
o’clock on Friday morning.  So I hurried to get dressed for
our lunch down on Broad Avenue.   


I mentioned my “dream” to Caroline and John.  Then I
said:  “What we need is something like the beating bass
drum to torment Mr. Grayson.  Maybe some recording of
young girls screaming like what you’d expect if they were
unwitting victims of a house fire.”  Caroline responded:
“Maybe Mr. Jones could employ his granddaughters for
that.  If he can get them to play ghost for him, he should
be able to get them to scream into a microphone.  
Remember Mr. Jones’ son who lives near you over on
Randolph Street?  He sounds like an electronic geek.  
Maybe he can set up a sound system for us in front of Mr.
Grayson’s house.”  John then interjected: “We need to be
very careful that we do not violate Mr. Grayson’s rights.  I’
d hate to go to all this much trouble only to have the
evidence thrown out if it were obtained illegally.  We also
need to be sure not to trespass on Mr. Grayson’s land.  
There are some large trees just across the street from the
front of the house.  Maybe we can use them?”  We decided
to set up a meeting with Mr. Jones and his son, who I
believe is Don Jones.   


Don was more than willing.  He said his father had been
obsessed with this alleged crime all his life.  He would be
glad to find some closure for his father.  Yes, he was good
with computers and almost any electronic device.  We had
to decide when to put up the sound devices.  Mr. Grayson
could see what they were up to if they did it in the open
and in broad daylight.  John then said we could use one of
the city repair trucks as a decoy.  It would look like
someone was working on the roads, cleaning brush, or
maybe doing some utility work.  We would have to get the
equipment high into the trees so Mr. Grayson couldn’t see
the amplifiers unless he had a good set of binoculars.  We
decided to do the climbing on the back side of a tree
where Mr. Grayson couldn’t see from his house.  It would
be better to do it when Mr. Grayson wasn’t home, but that’
s a rare occasion.  If we did the volume just right, Mr.
Grayson could hear the screaming without disturbing the
other neighbors.  We were afraid to install a video camera
showing Mr. Grayson’s house as we suspected that might
be illegal.  We did install listening devices so we could
record any confessions that may be coming our way.  
These listening devices were pretty good as we could hear
a lot of noise we didn’t want.  This time of year is good for
sleeping with one’s windows open at night.  It might be
too warm to close the windows, but not warm enough to
turn on the air conditioner.  We also installed a motion
detector that would alert us whenever Mr. Grayson came
to the window or if he opened his front door to investigate
the noise.  We were also banking on Mr. Grayson’s
conscience bothering him.  If he had also killed his
conscience, our scheme might not work.           


With the speakers in place, we now needed to know when
to turn them on and off.  Should we station someone out
there at or near the tree?  Could someone monitor the
situation a short distance away, but out of sight to Mr.
Grayson?  We found a spot to park a small van out of view
from Mr. Grayson’s house, but where we could monitor
the front of his house with our own set of night-vision
binoculars.  This meant we needed a human on duty from
10 PM to about 2 AM.  Each of us would need to man the
van one out of every five nights.  We had to make sure the
recorder was working should we get a confession as Mr.
Holmes did.  Also, if Mr. Grayson went outside to
investigate, we would want to turn the screaming off.  So
we were ready to go.


We got Mr. Grayson’s attention as he went to the window
several times the first night.  A couple of times he just
slammed the window shut.  We couldn’t increase the
volume without disturbing the neighbors.  This went on
for about two weeks, when finally we hit pay dirt.  Mr.
Grayson yelled to the night: “Stop that infernal
screaming.  Yes, I did it.  Stop that noise.”


The next day, we had the same repair detail back to the
area and removed the sound equipment.  We then went to
see Judge Coventry.  When we played the recording for
the Judge, he at first said this wasn’t evidence unless we
could prove it was Mr. Grayson.  Caroline responded that
the SBI had voice identification equipment that could
verify the recording was Mr. Grayson.  Then I pointed out
to the Judge that we had an eyewitness to the confession.  
This might be a little shaky to convict someone, but it
should be enough evidence to order an inquiry.  The
Judge agreed and set up a hearing for whether we should
open the graves or not.  Mr. Grayson, of course, was
summoned.  When the inquest was held, Mr. Grayson
confessed to murdering his cousins.  He admitted he had
drugged his cousins with sleeping pills from their mother’
s medicine.  He had taken a pill or two from each bottle
over time, and had put the sleeping pills in a soft drink
the girls consumed before the fire.  Yes, the second girl
was a twin.  Her mother called them both Doris Gail.  He
said he and their mother sometimes called the other twin
by the name “Daisy.”


Both Gerald and Don Jones were relieved.  Mr. Gerald
Jones said he would try to get the tombstone changed
from unknown to “Daisy Grayson.”  Judge Coventry said
he would have the county records amended to show the
birth of Daisy Grayson on the same date as Doris
Grayson.  Mr. Grayson was bound over for trial.  In his
confession, he admitted he was overwhelmed with guilt,
and he thanked us for bringing the case out in the open.  
Judge Coventry said Greg was only thirteen at the time of
the crime; and, therefore, would not face full charges.  He
surmised that he would probably get a light sentence if he
continued to cooperate with the authorities.


Well you won’t believe this, but John, Caroline, Jeff, and I
had one last dinner at this same buffet on Broad Avenue.  
Either they had good food, or they were cheap, or both.  
Caroline mentioned that her editor had approved her
story on this case, and that it should appear in the Journal
tomorrow.  John mentioned he was retiring at the end of
the year.  I had to add my two bits: “Well, I’m fixing to
settle down and finish my book about steam engines.”  As
we left the restaurant and on the way to our cars, John
started singing: “This time tomorrow, reckon where I’ll
be, if it hadn’t been for Grayson, I’d been in Tennessee.”  
Then we all joined in: “Hang down your head, Tom
Dooley…”