“Anything we can get to verify where the two of you were, the better for you and Star,” said Diane.
“She’ll get all mad if I bring trouble to her. The only way she’d let us stay was if Star’d clean her house and take care of her baby.”
Diane raised an eyebrow and took a bite of her cheeseburger.
“And you,” said Frank. “How did you contribute?”
“I got odd jobs.”
“Were you there when Star’s parents were killed?”
He shook his head. “We’d moved on by then.”
“Where to? I thought you said you were in Atlanta?”
“Places. Around Atlanta. Why you asking so many questions? You’re just like Star’s parents. Always wanting to know our business.”
“You may know things you’re not even aware are important,” said Frank, pushing another cheeseburger in Dean’s direction. “Where did you and Star stay after you left your cousin’s?”
“We camped out some. That was fun.”
“How did the two of you eat? What were you living on?”
“Odd jobs. I told you.”
“What kind of odd jobs?”
“People pay for stuff. No big deal.”
Both Diane and Frank let that rest for now. “Why didn’t Star want to come home?” asked Frank.
“Her parents were too hard to get along with. They’d gotten into some kind of tough-love crap someone at their church was feeding them. They didn’t understand me or Star. Them folks think by calling something love, it’s good. They kicked Star out. I bet they didn’t tell you that.”
From the look on Frank’s face, Diane guessed Dean was right. That might account for their desperate attempt to lie about the bone in order to get the police to look for her—guilt and fear that their tough love might have driven her to her death.
“Tell me, Dean, do your parents have a pile of animal bones behind their house?” asked Diane.
“Lady, you ask the weirdest questions. Silencers and now bones. No, not that I know of, they don’t. What would Mom and Dad be doing with a pile of bones behind the house?”
“Why don’t you go back to your parents?” asked Diane.
“Dad’s always drinking and Mom’s always fussing and crying. They don’t want me back, and I don’t want to go back.”
“Dean, can you think of anyone that saw you about the time Star’s parents were killed?” asked Diane.
“I don’t know. I think we were with some friends in Cherokee County. They don’t want anything to do with the police.”
“They don’t have to get involved with the police. All they would have to do is say you were there,” said Frank.
“Trust me. They wouldn’t make a good alibi.”
“Dean. I have a son,” said Frank. “He has this dog—a lab who loves to play keep-away. She gets a stick, or one of her toys, and brings it to you. Just as you reach out to get it, she pulls it away and runs. I think you like that game too. I know you think you’re being pretty smart, keeping information from us while you get to scarf up our food, but it’s not smart. And you aren’t doing yourself a favor.”
“Look. These guys are probably gone. Anyway, they’d just say we weren’t there, and that’d be worse.”
“Do you know anyone who might have killed Star’s family?” asked Frank.
“No. I just know we didn’t. Star’s been going crazy, especially about her brother, Jay.” Dean took another drink of Coke and got another corn dog. “What are you two doing upstairs?”
“Looking for clues,” said Frank. “How did you get in the house?”
“The back way.”
“It’s locked.”
“Star showed me how to get in when we got the coins.”
“Show me,” said Frank.
“No. I told Star I wouldn’t tell anybody.”
“Look, son—” said Frank.
“I’m not your son. I’m not anybody’s son, so don’t you call me that.”
“OK, Dean. Let me take you down to the police station. We’ll tell them you want to clear your name.”
“So you’re going to turn me in anyway.”
“I know it doesn’t seem like it to you, but it would really be best if you went to the police yourself. They will find you eventually,” said Frank.
“Not unless you turn me in, they won’t. I’ve got friends.”
“No one has enough of that kind of friends. You’ve already said your friends won’t give you an alibi. Your own cousin made you work in order to stay at her place. You’ll just get into more and more trouble unless you start getting your life together now.”
“Look, it was nice of you guys to feed me and all, but . . .” He jumped up from the table. “Gotta go. . . .” he sang as he ran to the front door and threw it open.
“Hey, young fella, where you going in such a hurry?”
Diane had jumped up after Dean. Frank followed. A barrel-chested man in a Rosewood policeman’s uniform held Dean by the arm. “Drove by and saw some lights on. Thought something might be going on. Frank Duncan, what are you doing here?”
“I’m having Dr. Fallon take a look at the crime scene.”
“Is that a fact? This young fella here helping?”
“He was on his way to turn himself in,” said Frank.
“Was he now? In a bit of a hurry to do that, it seems. What’s he doing here?”
Frank shrugged. “Looking for some kind of help, I suppose. We’ve been having a late meal.” Frank pointed from the foyer into the dining room. “And he’s been telling us about where he’s been and how he’d like to clear all this up. Weren’t you, son?”
“Sure.”
“Well, then, we’ll go, and you can tell the detectives why you and your girlfriend were trying to sell her parents’ coin collection.”
Dean looked at Diane and Frank. Diane guessed he wasn’t sure whether or not to go along with what Frank had said or to protest. He looked at Diane again and she held his gaze, cocking an eyebrow, silently reminding him of the butcher knife and his attack on her. Dean’s shoulders sagged, and the policeman led him away without protest.
Diane didn’t say anything until Frank had closed and locked the door. “You called the police when you went to get the aspirin, didn’t you?”
Frank nodded. “That was Izzy Wallace. I knew he was on duty. I called his cell phone so I’d get through quickly and told him to come in about fifteen minutes. I knew the little punk wasn’t going to give himself up.”
“What did I just witness? Your version of good cop, bad cop?”
“Yeah. I told Izzy I want to remain on good terms with the kid if I can.” He smiled and motioned toward the dining room. “I brought some apple turnovers I was saving from that little bio-vac. Now that he’s gone, why don’t we have them with some coffee?
“Sure. Then I have to get back to work.”
They sat down and Frank fished out the apple turnovers and poured two cups of coffee in a couple of Styrofoam cups.
“I wonder how he got in here. I’ll have to look for a key to the back door. The little creep may have pocketed it.”
“He came in through the basement,” said Diane. “Did you see his clothes?”
“Ah, I’ll bet you’re right. I’ll have to secure the windows. Very observant of you.”
“Look for any bones while you’re down there. You might check the garage too. If both Jay and his father got the bone from a pile, Jay might have taken some more he thought were cool. We might get a clue as to where they came from.”
“Good thinking. I’m glad you’re working on all cylinders this late.”
“I was refreshed by the adrenaline rush I got from Dean.”
“How did you find him?”
“He surprised me upstairs. Knocked me on my ass and threatened me with a knife.”
Diane said it so calmly it took Frank a second to respond. When he did, it came out as an explosion.
“What! Why didn’t you say som
ething?”
“I thought he had a lack of resolve.”
“Lack of resolve? Are you crazy? The kid’s probably on or coming off drugs, and he’s desperate. You can’t take chances like that.”
“Like what? We were alone in the house. He had a knife. I talked him down. Was that dangerous? Yes. However, I didn’t really have a choice.”
“You should have said something to me.”
“He was disarmed. I thought we might get some information from him. As it was, he didn’t know anything. Or won’t tell. The knife’s up in the guest room on the dresser, if you would like to have a look, get some prints or something.” Diane took the last bite of her pastry, wiped her hands on a napkin and stood up. “If you clear up our trash, I’ll water these plants. Then I have to get back upstairs.”
Chapter 16
The sun had been up a couple of hours when Diane finished. The last thing she did was to collect blood samples. She had photographed, drawn and diagramed the impact and cast-off spatters. She had measured and located the point of origin of the medium-impact spatters, so that now the trajectory string displayed an eerie blow-by-blow scene of the events that took away George and Louise Boone.
“It looks like a giant cat’s cradle.” Frank stood in the doorway with a box under his arm.
“Do I look as tired as you?” Diane asked.
“Not a bit.”
“Liar.”
Frank surveyed the crisscrossed string from different angles. “What can you tell me?”
“Can you get me the autopsy reports first—and get these samples analyzed at a crime lab?”
“I’ll get you the reports tomorrow. About the samples, that’ll take longer.”
“I’m going to plug my numbers into a computer program.” She gestured toward the bloodstained wall. “It will show us a three-D image of what the string is showing us. Come to my office tomorrow with the report and we’ll talk. What’s in the box?”
“You were right. I found a couple more bones in the garage.”
“Let me see.”
Diane took the box from him, set it on the dresser and opened the flaps. Inside was a deer skull and what she thought was a racoon skull—items Jay probably thought were cool enough to keep. The Boones probably believed the bone they showed Frank belonged to this deer.
“Let me take these back to the museum.”
“Sure. Diane, I know this has been a pretty big favor. I appreciate what you’ve done for me.”
You have no idea, she thought.
Diane stopped by her apartment and took a long shower—as hot as she could stand it. She soaped up and just let the water run over her body. She didn’t realize how long she had stayed until the water started getting cool. She stepped out of the shower, dried off and went to the closet to select clothes, giving the bed a longing glance as she passed by. Damn Frank and his favors. Her dreams would probably recur after this. She selected a maroon pantsuit and pulled it onto her still-weary body.
Out in the hallway, Mrs. Odell came charging out of her apartment. “I want you to know, I took Marvin to the hospital today. Allergies. If you don’t get rid of that cat, I’m going to sue you for every penny you’ve got.”
“Mrs. Odell, I don’t have a cat. Have you talked to the landlady?”
“Humpf, a lot of good that does. She refused to let me search your apartment.”
“Good for her. Do you think maybe someone else here has a cat?”
“There’s the upstairs people, the downstairs people and us. It has to be on this floor, and we are the only ones here.”
“I can’t help you, Mrs. Odell. I don’t have a cat, but I do have to get to work. I hope Mr. Odell gets better soon.”
“Poor man. I got some funeral home brochures for him to look at while he’s there. It was the only thing that cheered him up.”
Diane started to say something, but kept her mouth shut. She didn’t even want to know. She headed for the stairs.
When she arrived at the museum parking lot and got out of her car, she saw two spaces over that Alix Nils seemed to be involved in an argument with Mike Seger, the geology student who supplied the content for the computer animations.
She heard Mike say, “Why don’t you get a life, Alix—or help—and leave us alone?”
Alix fixed a stare on Mike that would have killed him had it been bullets. “Don’t . . .”
“Is there a problem, Alix?” said Diane, stopping next to the car.
Both of them turned abruptly and stared at her.
“Problem?” said Alix, recovering her composure. “No. Just having a word with Melissa’s boyfriend.”
Melissa’s boyfriend. Diane looked over at him sharply. He must have noticed her expression, for he narrowed his eyes very slightly. It was then she noticed that both he and Alix were wearing museum tee shirts.
“Are you working here?”
“Part-time,” he answered. “Dr. Lymon is my major professor, and she asked me to assist her here.”
Alix and her boyfriend—and his father, and now Melissa and her boyfriend. This was getting to be one big family affair.
“I guess I’ll be seeing more of you around, then,” said Diane.
“I guess so.”
“Are the two of you coming or going?”
“We just arrived,” said Alix.
Alix and Mike avoided looking at each other as they walked into the museum with Diane. Alix stepped into the elevator to go to the third floor where the docents’ office was located. Mike watched the closed elevator doors for a moment, then turned to Diane.
“Dr. Fallon, Dr. Lymon wanted me to ask you about the office space.”
“What do you think of the office space?”
“Me? I, uh, I like it. It’s near the rock lab and the exhibits.”
“Good. Then perhaps you can persuade her of its good qualities.”
Mike made a pained face. “She was thinking maybe a larger office is available.”
“No, one isn’t.”
“All right, I’ll try to sell her on the one we have.”
“I would appreciate it.”
Mike took the stairs to the second floor, and Diane headed down the hallway to her office. Instead of using her private entry, she went to Andie’s office.
“Andie, how is everything this morning?”
“Great. Some more of the Bartrum faculty curators are moving in today. So far, most of them like the facilities, especially the lab space. So did you and Frank go out last night?” Andie sat behind her desk, grinning, her hypercurly hair held on top of her head with Japanese hairpins.
“In a manner of speaking. He asked me to examine the house where his friends were murdered.”
“Oh, great. Dinner and a crime scene. I’m going to have to give him lessons on romantic evenings. He did at least feed you, didn’t he?”
“We had takeout from Krystal.”
“Lessons, definitely needs lessons.”
Korey burst into Andie’s office looking winded. “Dr. Fallon, we had a break-in in the lab.”
“A break-in? What was stolen?”
“Nothing—that I can find. The drawers are pulled out, things scattered. It looks more like a vandal, or someone looking for something.”
“Have you called security?”
“I thought I’d call you first.”
Diane had a pang of guilt for having not yet hired a chief of security. It was time she did that. She and Korey walked up the stairs to the second-floor conservation lab. On the way, Diane stopped at the security office and asked the guard on duty, Chanell Napier, a slender, round-faced black woman, to come with her.
“Do you know who was on duty last night?”
“Leonard and that new kid, the skinny one with the red hair.”
“Bernie,” said Korey. “He’s the one scared of the skeletons in the primate room.”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
Oh, great, thought Diane.
Diane examined
the lock on the second-floor lab door. It indeed had tool marks all over the brass plating. However, any tool the size of a screwdriver or larger would have gotten them into the room. Her guess was that they got in with a key.
Inside she was greeted by a sullen group of Korey’s assistants, who stood in the middle of the room with their arms folded, angry that someone had violated their space and was now keeping them from their work. The room was in disarray—mostly open drawers and cabinets, supplies pulled out and dumped on the floor, equipment moved. A box of latex gloves lay with its contents scattered across the floor, along with packages of photographic paper, pens, exhibit forms. It looked to be mostly a mess, with no real destruction.
“Any damage?” she asked.
“I haven’t tested all the equipment, but I think it’s all right,” said Korey.
“What about the vault?” Diane walked to the back of the room to the environmentally-controlled storage vault. Someone had pried at the handle, marked up the door jam, but it appeared that they were unsuccessful in gaining entry. Only she and Korey had a key to the vault.
“Someone was looking for something.” Diane glanced around the room.
“It doesn’t look like they found it. I checked the vault,” said Korey. “They didn’t get in.”
As she walked around the room looking at what the intruder had done, her gaze stopped on one of the worktables. A handprint was visible on its polished surface—or rather the terminal and intermediate phalanges of four fingers, as if someone had gripped the tabletop and squatted down to pull out the drawer.
“Does this belong to any of you?”
They all came over to look, but all shook their heads.
“I doubt it,” said one of the assistants. “The last thing we all do is clean the surfaces before we leave.”
Korey nodded in agreement.
“Don’t we have a fingerprint kit in the security office? Would you mind getting it for me?”
The security guard nodded and left. Diane turned to Korey.
“I wonder what they were after.”
“I’ve no idea. Most of the really valuable stuff is in the exhibits.”
“Was anyone working late last night?”
“Barbara and I were here until nine. Nothing strange happened, no strangers hanging around.”
One Grave Too Many Page 13
