One Grave Too Many

by Beverly Connor

  Diane pulled her arm back reflexively, but smiled despite herself. “You haven’t changed. What are you doing at the museum this late?”

  His eyes were smiling again, searching her face. “I just got off from work. I was passing this way.”

  “Don’t tell me that. You don’t pass this place going anywhere.” She stepped out of the exhibit, still holding the artificial leaves like an odd bouquet.

  “It’s been a couple of years. . . .” he began.

  “Three years.”

  “I wanted to see you. How about a late dinner?”

  He was wearing jeans and a navy sweater and smelled like aftershave. He hadn’t just stopped off from work. Diane wished she didn’t feel so comforted by that realization. She lay the leaves next to the exhibit and dusted off her hands, aware that she must have the aroma of the day’s accumulation of glue, paint and perspiration. “How about you telling me why you’re really here?”

  “I really came to see you. Talking with you got me worried about you. What happened? Why did you give up your career?”

  “I changed jobs. People do that.” Diane turned away from his gaze and started toward the Bison antiquus. “I need to check out the exhibits before I leave. We’re having a preopening party for the contributors tomorrow evening.”

  “Wait.” Frank put a hand on her arm. “I want to know about you. What do you mean, you aren’t a forensic anthropologist anymore? What happened in South America?”

  Diane stopped and looked into Frank’s blue-green eyes. “Just one mass grave too many.”

  Chapter 2

  Diane walked with Frank to pick up his briefcase and led him to her office off a corridor to the right of the museum entrance. She moved a stack of books from a chair, pulled it up to her desk and motioned for Frank to sit down. She tore off a piece of butcher paper from a roll standing in the corner beside a tall oak bookcase and spread it on her desktop. “I’ve been back in town three months.”

  “I just found out last week. I saw Andie in the grocery store and she told me. I’ve been on a big computer fraud case for a couple of months and staying in Atlanta, shuttling back and forth to New York. Why didn’t you call?”

  “I didn’t know you knew Andie.”

  “We met a few months ago in a karaoke bar.”

  “Karaoke? There is so much about you that I don’t know.”

  “I know, boggles the mind, doesn’t it?”

  Diane held out her hand for the bone, half dreading to touch it. “If the parents want to know if it’s their daughter, they might be able to have a DNA test run.” Though when she saw the bone, she doubted that there would be any DNA strands left.

  Frank shook his head. “She was adopted.”

  Adopted. Diane was unsure if she could go on with the examination. She fingered the bone a moment through the plastic bag before taking it out. Be professional, Diane. This is Frank Duncan asking for your help. Maybe this isn’t her.

  “Okay—This is a right clavicle, a collarbone. Been gnawed by rats. See these parallel teeth marks?”

  “Rats. Does that mean anything?”

  “Just means the body was where animals could get to it. You don’t happen to have X rays of the girl’s shoulder, do you?”

  “No. But I have these.” He handed her a large tan envelope.

  Diane opened the envelope and removed several photographs of the missing girl and flipped through them. One was of her at the beach with her family. Most were portraits. Diane looked at Frank. “Even you know this isn’t a bone from her head. Why the head shots?”

  “These are what her parents gave me.” He shrugged. “They’re all I have.”

  Diane selected an 8-by-10 studio photograph of the girl wearing a drape, showing a bare, slender neck and shoulders. She turned it over and looked at the back of the photograph, hoping there was a date or an age. It was blank. “How recent is this photo? Do you know?”

  “I believe her mother said that one was taken three or four months ago.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Sixteen. Her name’s—”

  Diane cut off his words. “I don’t want to know her name. How tall is she?”

  “Five-four or five-five.”

  Diane raised her eyes from the picture to Frank. “Exactly how tall is she?”

  He took a notebook from his briefcase and flipped through a few pages, stopping to read his notes. “Five-five and a half,” he said.

  Diane took calipers from her drawer and measured the length and breadth of the girl’s face and scribbled numbers on the butcher paper. Knowing the measurements of the image in the photograph and the girl’s actual height, and knowing that bones usually have a standard ratio to each other, she could make a reasonable guess as to what percent smaller the photograph was, compared to the girl herself.

  She made three pencil points along the girl’s right collarbone in the picture and measured the distance between each point. “I don’t suppose you know if this is a mirror image of the girl or not?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “Sometimes when the photographer develops the film he—oh, never mind. It doesn’t matter that much. I don’t even know why I’m doing this.”

  “To stop me from asking you questions about why you abandoned your career.”

  Diane picked up the bone and turned it over in her hand, ignoring his prodding. “I don’t believe it belongs to her. There’s a good possibility it’s male.”

  Frank raised his eyebrows.

  “Males have broader shoulders than females. Their clavicles are longer. You guys are also more muscular than us girls. Your collarbones are going to be more robust. The girl in these photographs is relatively small and delicate.”

  Diane measured the bone and compared it with the math-altered measurements she made from the photograph. She shook her head. “It’s not a match. Not even close. This bone is much bigger than hers would be.”

  Frank leaned forward. “She would be larger than the photograph.”

  Diane stared at him for a long moment. “Frank, I took that into consideration.”

  “Well, I’ve never seen you work. If I knew how to do this, I would have done it myself.”

  The way he grinned, she didn’t know if he was kidding her or not. She shook her head and gave him a lopsided smile, then turned back to the analysis.

  “The distal end is broken. It happened antemortem or perimortem and would have been very painful.”

  Frank frowned. “What would make a break like that?”

  She shook her head. “A fall, like from a horse. Hit with something big like a club. Hit by a truck—any number of things.”

  Diane laid a piece of typing paper on her desk and searched in her drawer until she found a long pair of tweezers. Holding the bone under the desk lamp, she pulled a gossamer wad from the small cavity in the shaft.

  “What?” asked Frank, leaning forward.

  “Spiderweb.”

  She put the web in a small wax envelope similar to ones that stamp collectors use. She gently tapped the bone. Tiny dark specks fell from the hollow of the bone to the paper. She examined the detritus with a hand lens. Frank stood and leaned on the desk. The hair on the tops of their heads touched. Diane raised her head and looked directly into his eyes, which were so close to hers she thought she could probably feel the flutter of his eyelashes.

  “Bug parts,” she said.

  “Bug parts? Is this important?”

  “It is, indeed. It tells us that during warm weather when these creatures are up and about, the bone was bare and open for them to take up residence.”

  “Died during the warm months, then?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “How long ago? Can you tell?”

  Diane rubbed the tips of her fingers along the shaft of the bone. She was relieved that it was not from the adopted daughter of Frank’s friends. “I’d say this bone hasn’t seen flesh for several years. How long have the girl and her boyfriend been missing?�
�

  “A couple of months.”

  “Does anyone know where the boyfriend is?”

  Frank shrugged.

  “Do you see the roughening of the bone here and here?” Diane touched two areas on the bone.

  “Yes.”

  “Those are where the neck and shoulder muscles were attached.”

  “That would be here—” Frank traced his fingers down Diane’s neck to her collarbone.

  “Approximately. Yes.”

  “I’ve missed you,” he whispered.

  “The size and texture of the attachments make me suspect that this was a rather strong lad.”

  “Lad?”

  She pointed to the proximal end of the bone. “The epiphysis has only begun to unite, which suggests an age of between seventeen and thirty.”

  Frank stood up straight. “So that means that at the place they suspect their teenage daughter disappeared, they found the partial remains of possibly a teenage boy who had been hit with enough force to break his collarbone.”

  “Yes.”

  Frank frowned. “I don’t like that.”

  “No. I shouldn’t think you would.”

  “What are the odds that it’s just a coincidence that they find the bones of this boy in a place where they were looking for a missing girl?” he said.

  “Slim to none.”

  Diane put the insect parts in another envelope, inspected the original plastic bag for more debris and handed everything back to Frank. “It looks like you have a serious problem on your hands.”

  Diane was craving sleep as she walked up the steps of the converted old Greek revival house containing her apartment. The dark shadow of herself cast by the dim porch light reflected in the glass pane of the outside door. She looked at her watch—2:10 A.M. She counted to herself. Four hours’ sleep, max. She looked up at the sky. Dark clouds backlit by a full moon.

  “Don’t rain,” she commanded the sky. “I don’t want to deal with rain tomorrow.”

  Her fingers, made tender from assembling the exhibits, hurt as she turned her door key in the lock. As she climbed the stairs leading to the second floor, her back muscles burned and her legs cramped from stooping and lifting all day. She fumbled with her keys and opened her door to a dark apartment. She reminded herself to start leaving a light on.

  She was bone tired, and, to top off the long day, she had offended Leonard, one of the security guards, by asking him not to be rude to the workers. From the set of his mouth she could tell he hadn’t liked being told how to act. She’d figure out something to say to him tomorrow. He’d get over it in time. After Milo, she must seem like an intruder to some of the older staff.

  Diane would have liked to soak in a tub of warm water for an hour, maybe two, but settled for a quick shower and crawled into bed and dropped off into the unconsciousness of sleep.

  Even in the dark, the foliage blazed a brilliant green. The color was blinding and Diane didn’t know how to find her way through it. Fear burned white-hot in her stomach. Off in the distance, a burst of gunfire startled her into full running panic. Everywhere she turned, vines clutched her legs, pulled at her body. Enormous heavy leaves slapped her face. She fought, trying to push them out of the way. Each slap of her hand against the leaves left a bloodred print. The gunfire was deafening—she must be getting closer. Vines grabbed her shoulders, turning into hands, pulling her away from the sound. “No, no!” she screamed, trying to pull the hands off her. The sound of gunfire came so fast it sounded like ringing.

  Diane awoke suddenly, breathless, sweating. The phone on her nightstand was ringing. The illuminated radio display read 3:40. She snatched the receiver off the phone.

  “Diane. It’s Gregory. I’m sorry for calling so late.”

  Diane sat upright, hearing the familiar British accent, and held her breath. “Gregory. No, it’s all right.”

  “I wanted you to know. They turned us down. They’re not going to arrest him.”

  Diane was silent.

  “We’re not giving up. I’m going to the United Nations next week—and to the International Court of Justice. We won’t stop. We’ll never stop.”

  “Thank you, Gregory.” Diane suddenly hadn’t the energy to hold the phone. She lay back down on the pillow, propping the receiver to her ear.

  “I wanted you to hear it from me, just in case a wire service might have picked it up. It’s not big news. For now we want to keep it that way.”

  “I understand.”

  “Are you all right? You sound out of breath.”

  “I’m better.”

  “Nightmares?”

  “Occasionally.”

  “How’s your weight?”

  “Weight? It’s fine.”

  “Are you eating?”

  “Of course.”

  “You know how it is in our line of work. Even now, Marguerite sometimes has to remind me to eat.”

  “I’m better, Gregory, really.”

  “Are you?”

  “As well as is possible. I miss Ariel every day. I curse myself every day for not leaving in time, and I still break down in tears when I look at her picture.” Tears were now streaming down Diane’s face. She was angry at Gregory for making her talk about the most painful thing that had ever happened to her, but in a strange way she was relieved to talk about it. No one here knew about her daughter. As painful as it was, Ariel lived on only when Diane talked about her with someone who knew her.

  “I know,” said Gregory. “I curse myself for not rushing through the adoption papers so you could take her out of the country, or for not arranging to smuggle her out for you. I thought she was safe at the mission. I didn’t know Santos’ men would cross the border, that he would retaliate. . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “What happened wasn’t your fault.”

  “And it wasn’t yours. We were getting too close, hurting him, showing the world he’s a liar and a cold-blooded mass murderer. I thought President Valdividia was stronger. It was a miscalculation I made, and I have to live with that every day.”

  “Why is it so hard to have evil men arrested, even with a mountain of evidence against them?” It was a question she’d asked before, and didn’t expect an answer.

  “We’ll keep trying. It’s thanks to you and your team that we have that mountain of evidence. You paid a terrible price to get it.”

  “I am better, Gregory, really. A year away from everything was good for me. I’m completely off the benzodiazepine. I love the museum. It’s just what I’d hoped it would be.” I wish I’d gotten out with Ariel before . . . The thought was too painful to finish. She would have loved it here.

  “Met any new friends?”

  “A great many. Renewed some old acquaintances too. Frank Duncan came by today. You remember, I told you about Frank.” She told Gregory about the bone and the missing girl.

  “You were able to handle that all right, then? Examining the bone, I mean.”

  “It wasn’t easy, and I don’t intend to do it again. I did it for Frank because he knew the missing girl and her parents. If it hadn’t been for that, I wouldn’t have done it.”

  “But you were able to do it—that was good. I’ll call back at a more decent time and we’ll talk again.”

  “I’d like that. Thanks for the call. Let me know if anything happens.”

  Diane lay for a moment, listening to the dial tone after Gregory hung up. She swung her legs to the floor, replaced the phone on the nightstand and stumbled into the bathroom. She splashed her face with cool water and stared into the mirror, running her hands over the angles and planes of her face. She did look thin. The result of six months of eating nothing but cottage cheese and yogurt because it hurt less coming back up.

  She went back to bed and lay her head on the pillows. She clenched her teeth until her jaw burned, and didn’t release the grip even when she escaped into sleep.

  Chapter 3

  As Diane opened the large carved wooden doors to the museum at 8:10 the
next morning, she felt late and tired. The guard on duty at the information center greeted her with a broad smile on her friendly round face. Diane returned the smile as she passed, trying to remember her name. She’d just hired her last week.

  Andie was arranging reproductions of large prehistoric plants at the entrance to the exhibition hall. Inside the hall, the folks from CyberUniverse were setting up computer monitors next to each display.

  The Pleistocene room looked grand. Murals covering three walls depicted stunning panoramic scenes of the Paleolithic period, perfectly complementing the exhibits. The tall paintings on hardwood panels, discovered during renovation behind a layer of plaster and a layer of wainscoting, appeared to have been part of the original design of the building, a late 1800s museum turned private clinic, and now back to a museum. In the dinosaur room in the opposite wing, more wonderful old murals painted at a time when scholars still thought dinosaurs dragged their tails behind them now formed the backdrop of the dinosaur exhibits.

  The current remodeling had removed false ceilings to reveal high domed ceilings with Romanesque molding in the exhibition halls, forming enormous rooms for the display of enormous beasts.

  The head guy from CyberUniverse motioned her to the computer monitor at the sloth exhibit. “You’re going to love this.”

  Diane watched a narrated animation explain how animals can become fossilized after they die. “I do like that. All of you did a great job. The animation is terrific and the explanation is clear and easy to understand.”

  A young man wearing faded jeans and a blue short-sleeved shirt leaned against the podium and gave her a half smile. “Thanks.”

  “You’re Mike Seger, aren’t you? From the geology department at Bartrum University?”

  He had the kind of short hairstyle that looked as if he got out of bed and simply ran his hands through the top, then went outside to let the sun bleach the ends—a messy, rugged effect that probably took quite a bit of styling to achieve. He eyed Diane for a second before responding. There was something about him that seemed intense—his light brown eyes, studious expression, or maybe it was simply the crease between his eyebrows, like a permanent frown.