Dead Guilty dffi-2

by Beverly Connor

  Kendel sighed. ‘‘A member of the family that gave us the mummy sent this.’’ She opened the box and dug around in the bubble wrap. ‘‘They said it belongs with the mummy.’’

  She pulled out a cut glass jar with a lid that ap peared to be sealed with wax. Something was inside the jar, and Diane and the others looked closely.

  ‘‘Is that his finger?’’ said Andie.

  ‘‘No,’’ said Jonas. ‘‘Definitely not his finger.’’

  ‘‘Oh, my God, that’s not his...’’

  ‘‘Apparently, it is,’’ said Korey. ‘‘Must have broken off during the unwrapping.’’

  ‘‘That’s terrible,’’ said Andie. ‘‘The poor guy ex pected his body to be safe throughout eternity, and he ends up the main attraction at a party where he loses his jewels. At least they put it in a pretty jar.’’

  ‘‘How confident are we that this belongs to him?’’ asked Diane.

  ‘‘His is missing,’’ said Korey.

  ‘‘The fact that this is a Victorian pickle jar . . .’’ began Kendel.

  ‘‘A pickle jar?’’ exclaimed Andie, as if this added insult to injury.

  ‘‘Yes. It’s authentic, so the time frame is right.’’

  Diane remembered that jars and their history were an expertise of Kendel’s.

  Korey took the jar and held it up. ‘‘This looks like an old seal. We’ll need a DNA sample from both to be sure.’’

  ‘‘Why don’t we just kind of put it with him when we wrap him back up?’’ said Andie.

  Jonas cleared his throat. ‘‘That organ is the best place to find good blood residue. If we want to look for certain parasites and the like.’’

  ‘‘Parasites? In his . . .’’ Andie couldn’t finish.

  ‘‘That’s true,’’ said Kendel. She handed the jar to Diane. ‘‘Your forensic lab should be able to sample it for us, shouldn’t it?’’

  Diane held the heavy leaded glass container in her hand. ‘‘Yes. We can handle it.’’ The thought of ex plaining this to Garnett flashed through her mind.

  ‘‘We’ll be able to get some good samples of flesh when we endoscope him,’’ said Korey.

  ‘‘We are more likely to get a good DNA sample from the root of a tooth,’’ said Diane. ‘‘We’ll extract one when we do the endoscopy.’’

  Andie looked horrified.

  ‘‘We’re doing the least invasive tests on him,’’ said Diane. ‘‘He will be completely intact, for the most part, when Korey rewraps him.’’

  ‘‘I know,’’ said Andie. ‘‘It’s just that this isn’t what he expected from his death.’’

  ‘‘I know, but we will treat him with respect,’’ Jonas told her, ‘‘and we will be getting a lot of useful infor mation from him about ancient illnesses.’’ Jonas shifted his gaze from Andie to the X-rays of the skull. ‘‘The dead can have a lot to say, and I think it’s important to listen to them.’’

  ‘‘Andie, I need you and Kendel to go through the mail from people wanting access to the mummy and tell them that we will be glad to share with them the information that we gather.’’

  ‘‘Will do,’’ said Andie.

  ‘‘We need to make a form letter,’’ said Kendel. ‘‘These requests will continue.’’

  ‘‘Okay. I’ll rely on you to say something diplo matic,’’ said Diane. ‘‘Speaking of form letters, Andie, I’ve been getting another round of complaints about the crime lab being attached to the museum. Look through the ones I haven’t deleted and send that Email we generated the first time—the one thanking them for their concern, et cetera.’’

  ‘‘I’ll get on it.’’ With a last incredulous glance at the Victorian jar in Diane’s hand, Andie bounced out of the lab.

  ‘‘I’m going to Virginia to the home of one of the relatives of our mummy donor,’’ said Kendel. ‘‘They have a collection of amulets that purport to have come from the mummy wrappings. I’m going to take a look and try to wheedle them away from them. Failing that, I’ll get pictures.’’ She hurried to catch up with Andie.

  ‘‘If anyone can wheedle things away from people, it’s Kendel,’’ said Jonas. ‘‘I don’t know if you’ve no ticed, but after you’ve talked to her awhile, you really want to please her.’’

  ‘‘Yeah,’’ said Korey. ‘‘Underneath that soft femi nine exterior, she’s tough. You kind of get the idea she can be ruthless if she needs to be.’’

  ‘‘I’m glad you two approve of my choice,’’ said Diane.

  ‘‘She can sure get the job done,’’ said Korey. ‘‘She’s got a set of lungs on her too.’’

  Jonas raised one of his white bushy eyebrows. ‘‘Lungs?’’

  ‘‘You were here when she found the museum snake in her desk drawer,’’ said Korey. ‘‘Her voice carried all the way up here.’’

  ‘‘Well, it was a shock,’’ said Jonas. ‘‘And speaking of getting the job done, I’m in the process of translat ing the case our mummy friend came in. I’m working with an Egyptologist friend from the University of Chicago.’’

  ‘‘Is there any way we can date the case?’’ said Diane.

  ‘‘I took the liberty of taking a few scrapings from the inside to send off for analysis. The translation will also tell us something. I’ve sent photographs to my friend.’’

  Diane looked from Jonas to Korey. ‘‘It looks like all of you have all this well in hand. I’ll be in the lab if you need me to sign something.’’

  Before Diane went back to the other bones in her lab, she asked Korey to send the X-rays to her office so she could study the complete set on her light table that evening. She was getting as excited about the mummy as the others. It felt good. She would like to have explained to the people who didn’t want a crime lab next to the museum that for the people working in the lab, the museum was a welcome oasis.

  Jin looked through the glass into the jar and back at Diane, his face somewhere between amazement and laughter. ‘‘Nice piece of glass he’s in,’’ said Jin.

  ‘‘I need a blood sample. My people in the museum tell me that this is the best place to get it.’’

  Jin nodded. ‘‘All that vascular tissue it has is needed to—’’ He grinned. ‘‘Well, you know.’’

  ‘‘Indeed. Will you take care of it?’’

  ‘‘You came to the right place. Did you break it off?’’

  ‘‘No. He came to us in that condition.’’

  ‘‘Want me to let you know if it was whacked off or broken?’’

  ‘‘Please.’’

  ‘‘I knew there would be perks in working here,’’ said Jin, taking the Victorian pickle jar to his work station.

  Diane started back to her lab, but abruptly turned and went to Jin’s desk—a large work space with mi croscopes, glassware and chemicals. It could have been the space of a mad scientist.

  ‘‘Jin, did you leave anything in my car?’’ ‘‘Leave anything? Like what?’’

  ‘‘Like anything.’’

  ‘‘No. Was I supposed to?’’

  ‘‘No. Just asking.’’

  Diane didn’t really believe that Jin would have sent her flowers, but you never know.

  She laid out the bones of Green Doe in order, head to toes, on the shiny metal table. As with Blue, she started with the pelvis, measuring, recording and ob serving. The pattern of Green Doe’s pubic symphysis, the front articulation of the two sides of the hips, was similar to Blue’s—rough and unworn. He hadn’t lived the years it takes to smooth out the ridges and in crease beveling along the margins. Green was around the same age as Blue Doe. Young—late teens or early twenties. There were no markings on his pelvis, nor were the muscle attachments overly prominent. He hadn’t been a particularly muscular fellow.

  She went to Green’s skull, which had strikingly in teresting facial features. Her mind flashed to the clay models that Neva had presented to them. The fact that she was an artist wasn’t on her vitae—it wasn’t something that Neva thought emp
loyers would find important. But it was important to Diane. She picked up the house phone and rang the lab. David answered.

  ‘‘Jin showed me the mummy’s crown jewels. Inter esting,’’ David said.

  ‘‘I imagine it will generate all manner of conversa tion among my staff.’’

  ‘‘How could it help but?’’

  ‘‘Is Neva there? Would you send her to the bone lab?’’

  ‘‘Sure thing.’’

  ‘‘Oh, and David. You didn’t happen to leave any thing in my car, did you?’’

  ‘‘No. What did you find there?’’

  Diane told him about the flowers and the card. ‘‘I didn’t think you or Jin sent them, but so far, no one I know has.’’

  ‘‘That’s really odd. I take it Frank didn’t send them, or Mike?’’

  ‘‘No, they didn’t.’’

  ‘‘Maybe you should get one of us, or museum secu rity, to walk you to your car for a few days.’’

  ‘‘It’s odd, but I don’t think it’s ominous.’’

  ‘‘Nevertheless . . . it doesn’t hurt to be careful. I’ll send Neva over.’’

  Diane met Neva at the entrance to her lab and let her in. Neva stopped at the entrance and gazed around the lab and over at the table where Green Doe was laid out.

  ‘‘I haven’t seen this lab. It’s big,’’ she said. ‘‘You didn’t put it on the chief’s tour.’’

  ‘‘No, I didn’t. Technically, it’s part of the museum.’’

  Neva looked uncomfortable . . . a little embarrassed. ‘‘I want to thank you for sending me to process the car by myself.’’

  ‘‘I had confidence you could do it. And now—why I asked you in here. You’re about to discover that there are hazards in letting your employer know you have a talent.’’

  Chapter 17

  Neva’s frown deepened as Diane said the word haz ard, as if bracing herself for a dressing-down, but by the time Diane reached the end of the sentence, Neva simply looked puzzled.

  Diane smiled. ‘‘Let me show you another room that wasn’t on the tour.’’

  She picked up the skull of Green Doe and led Neva into the vault. Neva’s gaze moved over the room, resting on each piece of equipment, then on Diane.

  ‘‘What is this room?’’

  ‘‘This is where I keep my special toys.’’

  Diane turned on the computer and equipment and set Green Doe on a platform in front of a machine.

  ‘‘This is a laser scanner. The laser reads the topogra phy of the skull as it rotates on the pedestal and gen erates a matrix of points. It looks like a wire frame on the computer screen. Other software uses a skindepth database to reconstruct and display a textur ized face.’’

  Diane turned on the computer and called up an image. ‘‘This is a reconstruction I’ve already done of Ethel—Fred and Ethel are the skeletons in the corner of the lab.’’

  She showed Neva the sequence of images for Ethel from the wire frame to the reconstruction of a thirty-year-old woman with dark hair and eyes, a small nose, thin lips and high cheekbones. The face had the masklike, lifeless look of a computergenerated face, but it was a remarkably detailed face.

  ‘‘Wow. This is some incredible software.’’

  ‘‘It is. It’s the absolute state of the art.’’

  ‘‘You want me to run it?’’

  ‘‘I’m assuming that if you can do the detailed sculp tures that you do, you can also draw.’’

  Neva nodded. ‘‘I wanted to take art, but my parents discouraged it. They said you can’t make a living with art.’’

  ‘‘Well, you are about to. There are several prob lems with facial reconstructions. One is characteris tics that the bones don’t show—the shape of the eyes, lips and tip of the nose. And these are the things that trigger recognition. People recognize the tip of Karl Malden’s nose without seeing any other feature.’’

  ‘‘Who’s Karl Malden?’’

  ‘‘Someone whose nose you would recognize if you were my age. I don’t suppose you know who Jimmy Durante is either.’’

  Neva held up a hand as if she held a hat, quivered, and sang ‘‘Hot-cha-cha-cha-cha!’’ in so perfect an im pression of Jimmy Durante that Diane almost fell off her chair laughing.

  ‘‘I used to entertain my relatives as a kid with that. Amazing what you can get by with as a kid.’’ ‘‘Your talents are apparently endless.’’

  Diane shook her head and returned her attention to the computer-generated photograph of Ethel.

  ‘‘We could show this to Ethel’s mother and there is a good chance she wouldn’t recognize her. Her mother knew her as an animated person, with mannerisms, facial expressions, and gestures. She knew all the de tails of her daughter’s face, and this just doesn’t have all those fine details that make up the person she knew as her daughter.

  ‘‘However, if we were to show this to a store clerk who bagged Ethel’s groceries, he might recognize her. He may not remember what the tip of her nose looked like, but he remembers the general look of her. What we need is pictures that both a mother and an ac quaintance can recognize. What I would like you to do is take an image like this and draw a more realis tic picture.’’

  Neva put her hands to her face and pressed the bridge of her nose. ‘‘Okay. I can do this.’’

  ‘‘It means you will have to learn the software.’’

  ‘‘I’m good with computers.’’

  ‘‘Good. Start by looking at computer-reconstruction files to with how it all works. Then we’ll do the three hanging victims. After we get a CT scan of the mummy, I’ll show you how to use the information from the scan to reconstruct his face.’’

  Neva nodded.

  ‘‘You’ll also have to learn the bones of the skull and how the bones affect the look of the face,’’ said Diane. ‘‘And you’ll have to pay attention to other details too. Sometimes knowing things like the person walked with a pronounced limp might give you a hint Fred’s and Ethel’s familiarize yourself about how to portray a facial expression. Or if a toxi cological report on a decayed victim comes back show ing a certain kind of thyroid medication, you might guess that the victim has a bug-eyed look that is a side effect of some of those medications. A big part of this work is intuitive.’’

  Diane watched her look at the skull sitting on the platform.

  ‘‘I’ve seen how they do those skin-depth points to make a sculpture of a face. But I’ve never understood how they know what the nose looks like.’’

  ‘‘You can’t know the shape of the tip. However . . .’’ Diane took the skull and sat down at a desk, mo tioning Neva to draw up a chair. ‘‘The width of the nose is indicated by the size of the nasal opening. The bridge of the nose and the nasal spine—this sharp projection at the bottom of the nasal passage— determine the length of the nose. A large nose needs a strut to hold it up. That’s what the anterior nasal spine does. If you draw a line coming off the end of the nasal bone and one coming from the nasal spine, where the lines meet gives you an idea how long the nose was. The angle of each line can suggest the tilt of the nose.’’

  Neva nodded. ‘‘That makes sense.’’

  ‘‘Another effect of a long nasal spine is upward angling of the skin between the upper lip and the nose. Notice what happens when I pull on the lower part of my nose.’’ Diane pulled the bottom of her nose forward, stretching the skin above the lip. ‘‘In a shorter nose, that part of the face is parallel to the plane of the face, but in a long nose it angles forward.’’

  ‘‘So this guy would have that characteristic,’’ said Neva.

  ‘‘I believe so. Look how far the tip of the nasal spine is from his maxilla—where his upper teeth are.’’

  Neva nodded and reached out and touched the skull with her fingertips, along the spine and down the max illa. She stopped abruptly and drew her hand away. ‘‘This is one of the hanging victims, isn’t it? How did his bones get so clean?’’

  ‘‘Yes, he i
s one of the victims. The diener at the morgue cleans the bones after we take all the samples we need from the flesh.’’

  ‘‘What a job—I’d hate to have to do that.’’

  ‘‘He seems to enjoy it. Having the proper equip ment helps.’’

  Neva laughed nervously. ‘‘But it has to be a mess.’’

  ‘‘Not a lot messier than dealing with his clothes— and you had to do that.’’

  ‘‘That’s true. Thank God for latex gloves.’’

  ‘‘And Febreze,’’ said Diane.