One Grave Too Many

by Beverly Connor

  “Everything’s running smoothly here. The herpetologist is installing his friends today.”

  “I hope I didn’t make a mistake by telling him he could exhibit a few live snakes and lizards.”

  “He did say they would all be small, and nothing poisonous.” Andie seemed to be asking as well as repeating what the herpetologist said.

  “He gave me a list and I approved it,” said Diane. “We’ll have to make sure he didn’t include anything we can’t live with.”

  “I can handle anything that comes up, so you stay home and rest today.”

  Diane was beginning to think her presence wasn’t needed anywhere. “I may drop in later on today. I’ll see how I feel.”

  “If anything comes up, I can call or E-mail you. Stay home. You’ll thank me tomorrow. Oh, you did get a letter from Dr. Ranjan Patel—same guy that sent the fax. It’s another copy of the same document—much more readable.”

  “Thanks. Put it on my desk. Anything else?”

  “Yeah, Jonas called with a message. ‘Bishop to queen three.’ He made me write it down and read it back to him. Is that some kind of code?”

  “No. We’re playing a game of chess.”

  “Oh. I wondered.”

  “That’s it, then?”

  “Just the usual stuff. Nothing earthshaking. We’re getting a lot of people calling about the museum opening. A reporter called wanting to know if we’re going to move the museum after we just renovated it.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “No.”

  “Good girl. Keep in touch.”

  When Diane hung up the phone she stretched out on the couch and pulled a throw over her. As she drifted off to sleep, she remembered she hadn’t told Frank about food allergies—another long shot, but sometimes they pay off.

  She was awakened out of a dream she didn’t want to end by a knocking on the door. She was running through the jungle, Ariel in her arms.

  Frank, she thought, stumbling to the door. She released the chain and opened it.

  Chapter 29

  Melissa stood in the doorway, the scowl on her face made darker by the shadows cast from the dim hallway lights.

  “You’ve ruined my life. Who are you to interfere in my life? No one asked you. I hardly know you.”

  “Melissa? What . . . ?” Diane thought of the visit from Lacy and Emily. “Come in.”

  Melissa marched in, sweeping past Diane so abruptly she almost knocked her over.

  “Where do you get off telling people that Alix is beating me up?”

  “I didn’t tell people that.”

  “You did. Laura’s a busybody, but she’s not a liar.”

  “No, she isn’t, and I doubt she told you that I said Alix was beating you up, because what I told her was that it had been reported to me that she was hitting you and making the bruises. I told her I didn’t know if it was true.”

  “It isn’t true. Alix and I are friends. Who are you to interfere in my life anyway? What business is it of yours?”

  “I was ready to consider firing Mike Seger because I thought he was abusing you and bringing it to the museum. That made it my business.”

  “Nobody’s abusing me. You’ve got my parents all worked up over nothing. I’m very active and I get bruises.”

  “Fine. That’s all you have to say to Laura. I have to wonder at the level of your anger and why you came to my house. That belies your protest that the story isn’t true.” Diane felt unsteady on her feet, so she went back to the sofa and sat down.

  “What’s wrong with you? Are you drunk?” asked Melissa.

  Diane looked at Melissa for a moment, her angry flushed face, her clenched fists. “No, I was mugged last night in front of the apartment. I just got home from the hospital.”

  “Oh. Well, I want you to stay out of my business.”

  No Oh, I’m sorry. How are you? Diane was seeing a new Melissa, a very self-centered one.

  “Don’t bring your personal business to the museum,” Diane said.

  “I won’t. Alix is really hurt. I wish we’d just let whatever was going on happen to you.”

  “What does that mean?”

  But Melissa turned and left, almost running into Frank on her way out.

  “What was that about?” he asked.

  “It’s too odd and convoluted to explain. How’s Star?”

  “Feeling a little contrite, which is unusual for her. She really is sorry she snapped at you.”

  “She’s right, I’m not her mother.” But it had stung, Diane had to admit. Shakespeare knew what he was talking about—“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth, it is to have a thankless child.”

  “You were someone being kind. She needs to respect that. How are you? Tell me about last night. Why didn’t you call?”

  “You’ve had enough to worry about. And I can take care of myself.”

  “Why didn’t you call?”

  “Just what I said—and I don’t want to be dependent.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  Diane gave him a blow-by-blow of the event, along with what she remembered of the attacker’s description. “I’ve been thinking about it. I don’t believe it was a random mugging. When he ran, it was down the street and up another street. I think he didn’t want his car to be seen on this street, and he wasn’t looking for just anyone to mug—I think he was looking for me.”

  “Because of the bones?”

  “That would be my guess. It’s been on TV. I think whoever it is, is in a panic.”

  “Hurting you won’t stop the bones from being found—they’re already found.”

  “No. But what if the person thinks that I’m the impetus for connecting the bones with the Boone murders? What if he thinks that if I’m put out of commission, no one else will follow through? The police aren’t interested. They want it to be Star. Perhaps he thinks with me out of the way, the digging will stop.”

  “There’s me,” said Frank.

  “Yes. There’s you. I don’t know. Maybe they had plans for you too. Maybe I’m wrong and it was a random mugging. Or maybe it was someone who wants me to just leave so the museum can be sold.”

  “Would Grayson go that far?”

  “I don’t think so. He doesn’t want to go to jail. I think he’s a shark, not a maniac.” Diane looked at her watch. “I’m going to go to the site and to the museum.”

  “You’re going to do no such thing. If I heard right, you require bed rest.”

  “That’s what people keep saying, but I’m just fine and I’ve been resting all morning.” She looked over at the bags sitting on her coffee table. “What have you got there?”

  “I figured you’d need some lunch and you probably wouldn’t fix any yourself, so I stopped by a restaurant. How does potato soup and a salad sound?”

  “Actually, it sounds good. You brought yourself something, didn’t you?”

  “A cheeseburger and fries.”

  Frank put everything out on the kitchen table, and they sat down to eat. She poured the soup into a mug and sipped it. It was warm and soothing going down her throat. The salad was good too; just the right thing. Frank knew just what to do in a crisis. She wondered what he was like on a day-to-day basis, living an ordinary life. She was beginning to get used to him, and that frightened her.

  “I wonder how the digging is going?” asked Frank.

  “I called Jonas this morning. It was going well.”

  “Nice to know that Luther and his wife didn’t kill the crew during the night.”

  Diane made a face at him. “Yes, I was relieved to hear his voice.”

  After eating, Diane felt much better. “I’m going to put in an appearance out at the pit. You can go with me if you like.”

  “Can I talk you out of it?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’ll drive you.”

  By the time they got to Abercrombie’s farm and hiked to the pit, Diane was having serious misgivings about the decision to come.
Her whole body ached and her lower back throbbed. It was hotter than she expected, and the sweat trickled down her back.

  “Should you be here?” Jonas said.

  “Yes,” Diane answered. “I won’t stay long. I just want to take a look.”

  After several solicitations from the crew, Whit and the sheriff, and another brief description of the evening’s misadventure, Diane set about examining the work in progress.

  The crew had actually gotten a lot done. All of the grid units in the pit as well as the outlying areas had some work done on them. The pit looked like a mosaic of bones in relief. The skeletons were brown, like the earth, except for the ones that had been exposed; they were off-white. A few were bleached white.

  The human bone she’d seen yesterday was now completely exposed. It was a right humerus. Like the clavicle, it had similar parallel markings on the shaft where rats had gnawed.

  “I did a quick measurement,” said the woman who’d uncovered it. “It’s about thirty-seven centimeters—but that was rough, with a tape measure. I guess you’ll use a bone board.”

  Diane nodded. “I’ll have to know the race and have a more accurate measurement, but it looks like we’re in the six-foot range. See these muscle attachments? He was a muscular guy.”

  “You still think it’s male, then?”

  “I need to see the pelvis, but so far, yeah, it looks male.”

  “You feeling okay? You look a little pale.”

  “I’m going to go home, I think. I probably shouldn’t have come out here, certainly not hiking in here.”

  “Dr. Fallon, I think we may have his leg and foot.”

  Diane looked in the direction of the voice. It was a male crew member standing with the sheriff at an excavation unit several feet away from the pit.

  “Looks like the guy’s going to be all over the place,” said the woman, rising to go over with Diane.

  Frank and Whit came over too, and all of them peered down at the excavated leg and foot bones.

  “Nice excavation,” said Diane.

  “Thanks,” said the digger.

  “Whew,” said the sheriff. “Sure looks like you found another part of him.”

  Diane stooped down, looking at the bones, and raised her eyes to Whit.

  “What?” asked Frank, looking back and forth from Diane to Whit.

  “Oh, God,” Whit said. “Do we have to mention this?”

  “You do now,” said the sheriff. He was beginning to look at Whit with a measure of suspicion.

  “It’s a bear,” said Diane. “With the claws removed. Poached, I imagine.”

  “Look, I don’t know. The guy brought it in and we mounted it for him. It was a couple, maybe three, years ago, and I told Dad the next time one came in, we needed more information on where it came from.”

  “It sure looks human,” said the sheriff.

  “That’s because bears, like us, walk on their feet,” said Diane.

  “Well, what else?” asked the sheriff.

  “Deer walk on the tips of their toes, so do horses. Dogs and cats, for instance, walk mostly on their digits, but not on the soles of their feet.”

  “Well, I sure didn’t know that,” said the sheriff. “They walk on their toes?”

  “Deer have longer and larger metapodials than we do so they can do that. Because the bear walks on the soles of his feet, the bones—without the claws—can look very human.”

  “You learn something every day,” said the sheriff. “Ain’t that right, Whit?”

  Whit rolled his eyes.

  “You look like you’re getting tired,” said Frank, taking Diane’s arm and helping her up.

  “I am. I think I’ll skip going to the museum and go home,” she said. “All of you are doing a great job.” She thanked Jonas and the crew and let Frank lead her to the car.

  “I’m getting to be such a wimp,” said Diane.

  “You’re not a wimp. Getting beaten up isn’t like it is in the movies, where you get the shit beat out of you and get up and go some more. I’m going to take you home, and you are going to stay there.”

  “You won’t get an argument from me.”

  Diane felt doubly tired by the time she got back to Frank’s car. He drove her home. Diane stopped by her landlady’s apartment to see if the locks had been changed.

  “They just left.” She smiled sweetly and handed Diane two keys. “I hope you’re feeling better. It’s a shame how crime’s just moving into a nice neighborhood like this.”

  Diane thanked her, backed out the door and let Frank see her safely inside her apartment.

  “I need to go visit Star awhile. The doctors want to keep her another day. I’ll come back and stay the night here.”

  “I imagine you’ll be glad to get back to work so you can get some rest.”

  Frank smiled and kissed her. “When all this is over, we need to go do something fun—just the two of us. You like fishing?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. How about you, think you’d like to go caving?”

  “Maybe we’ll compromise and go to the beach.” He kissed her again. “I haven’t forgotten your problem with the forgery. I’m checking on some of your employees right now. I’ll let you know what I find out.”

  “You have a lead?”

  “Not sure. Get some sleep. I’ll be back soon.”

  Frank left, and Diane settled into the comfort of the couch and dozed off. Hours later she was awakened by the ringing of the phone. She reached over and picked it up and managed a muffled hello.

  “Diane? Is this Diane Fallon?” The voice sounded hysterical and came in gasps and sobs.

  “Yes. Who is this?”

  “It’s Star. Please come. Please. It’s Uncle Frank. They told me somebody shot him. I’m afraid he might be dead. Please come.”

  Chapter 30

  Diane put down the phone and fell on the sofa, sick, shaking and panicky. She ran to the bathroom and threw up.

  “Oh, God, no. Not again, no. Please, no. Please not again.”

  When she thought she was finished vomiting, she rinsed her mouth and washed her face with cool water. She had told Star she would come as soon as she could. At the moment, she wasn’t sure she could even drive. One thing at a time. First, she packed an overnight bag, just in case. I’ve got to get control, she told herself as she tried to calm her shaking hands. Packing done, she raced down the stairs of her apartment and out to her car.

  She hardly remembered the drive to the hospital, but there she was, pulling into the visitors’ parking. By the time she got inside, she was shaking almost too much to walk straight. She went up to Star’s room first and found her sobbing uncontrollably while a nurse was trying to give her a sedative.

  “Can you take off these restraints?” asked Diane.

  “I’ve asked the policeman outside and he said no. You’d think he’d have more compassion.”

  Star cried and pulled at the restraints. Diane stroked her hair as the nurse gave her the shot.

  “This will take effect pretty quickly,” she said.

  “Will you find out for me?” said Star. “Go see him and tell him not to die.”

  “I will. I’ll go right now. I know it’s hard, but try to stay calm. The shot the nurse gave you will help.”

  Diane left the room, sweeping past the guard at Star’s door who was reading his Western. She resisted the urge to pull it out of his hands and toss it down the corridor.

  The nurse at the front desk downstairs told her that Frank was in surgery and gave her directions to the waiting room. When she got there, Izzy Wallace and his partner were already there.

  “How is he?” she asked.

  “We don’t know. He’s in surgery. It didn’t look good.”

  “What happened?”

  “He’d just taken some money out of the ATM outside the hospital and was leaving, when this black guy came up, shot him and took his wallet.”

  Diane looked at Izzy in amazement. “Frank and I are certa
inly having a run of bad luck, aren’t we?”

  “We have witnesses to what happened.” Izzy sounded defensive. He didn’t like Diane, and she didn’t care.

  “What did the witnesses say?”

  Izzy hesitated a moment, as though thinking whether he should give her information.

  “A black guy in a cap and dreadlocks came up to within about ten feet of Frank and pulled out a gun and shot him just as he was putting his money in his wallet. The perp grabbed the wallet off the ground and ran. He got lost in the dark. It happened quickly. Two people saw it—well, three, but one was a little girl, a little black girl.”

  The way Izzy said a little black girl made Diane suspicious. “What did she say?”

  “Well, naturally, she didn’t want it to be a black person. That’s understandable. She was just a kid.”

  “So she said the perp wasn’t black?” Diane prodded. She was going to have to pull this out of him.

  “She gave a similar description—black skin, dreadlocks, but she said he wasn’t really black.” He shook his head. “She was only about nine years old. What would she say? Look, I need to ask you—now, don’t get mad, but I have to ask. The guy who works for you at the museum. We met him when we were there. He fits the description. Do you know if he has something against Frank?”

  “Who?” asked Diane. “Do you have a name?” She knew who, but was going to make him say it.

  “He was in the lab, the one he said got broken into.”

  The one he said got broken into. Damn you, Izzy. As much as she wanted to, Diane didn’t voice her thoughts. If I didn’t need information from you, I’d tell you where you can put that tiny brain of yours.

  “Korey, the head conservator?” said Diane. “He hardly knows Frank, and Korey has impeccable credentials. He doesn’t rob ATMs.”

  “I had to ask. He does fit the description.”

  One good thing about talking to Izzy; the adrenaline rush his conversation gave her was helping with the shakes.

  A doctor came out of the swinging doors toward Izzy. Diane held her breath.

  “A bullet grazed his heart, and another pierced his lung. He’s fortunate he was at the hospital when it happened. Time is everything in cases like this. The surgery went well. We’ll know something more in the next twenty-four hours.”