Dust to Dust

by Beverly Connor

  “The merits of using junk DNA . . . ,” said Hector.

  “For ancestry testing,” said Scott.

  When they were excited they spoke in that alternating way. She thought she might actually get dizzy listening to them, moving her head from one to the other. She understood how it might drive Jin crazy on occasion. They expounded on the disadvantages of using particular strands of DNA often referred to as “junk” because they no longer seemed to serve an active purpose.

  “I’m sure Dr. Fallon didn’t come down here for that,” said Jin. “What’s up, Boss?”

  “I was wondering if you could analyze the DNA in pieces of pottery,” said Diane.

  That stopped the three of them. They stood for several moments just staring at her with completely blank expressions.

  Finally Hector spoke. “It has to be something that was alive.”

  Diane laughed. “I’m sorry, I started in the middle of a thought.” She laughed again. “The pieces of pottery were tempered with human bone.”

  “Who would do that?” said Jin.

  “And why?” asked Scott.

  Diane gave a minilecture on what little she knew of pottery making, similar to the spiel she gave Hanks.

  “I honestly don’t know why the aboriginal inhabitants in Texas used bone for tempering. Nor do I know why the person who once inhabited Marcella’s house did. But do you think you could get any usable DNA out of it?” asked Diane.

  “The firing would have destroyed any DNA,” said Jin.

  “They were fired in a bonfire kiln, which has a much lower temperature than a regular kiln,” she said. “I know it’s still a high temperature, but I was just wondering.”

  “You know,” said Scott, “if the bases of the pots were thick—wouldn’t they have to be thicker than the sides?” He shrugged. “Anyway, if we could find some very thick pieces that just happened to be at a place in the fire where the temperature was lower . . . like sitting on the ground . . . I’m just thinking here.”

  “Yes,” said Hector, “perhaps the thick pieces might contain some strands that survived. Of course we would have . . .”

  “To use Jin’s protocol for shed hair,” said Scott.

  They looked at Jin.

  “What do you think?” Diane asked Jin.

  “It never hurts to try, but I don’t really hold out any hope. But we may get a paper out of it.” He grinned. So did Hector and Scott.

  “I’ll send you some samples,” said Diane. “Thank you.”

  “By the way,” said Jin, “I’ve done some analysis on our evidence. That large stain on the floor near the table was a combination of urine and feces, just as you said. Probably the spot where she died.”

  Diane nodded. “Thanks, Jin.”

  She left them and rode the elevator up to the third floor and walked over to the crime lab.

  Neva, David, and Izzy were there. They were getting a lecture on handwriting analysis from a member of the museum archives staff. The sample under discussion was the writing on the back of Marcella’s desk drawer.

  Chapter 19

  “I personally think that you can’t tell much about what slant means in the young,” Lawrence Michaels, one of the museum’s archivists and their only handwriting expert, was saying when Diane walked into the dimly lit lab. “Children, especially early teenage girls, experiment with different handwriting on a whim—for fun. However, in the adult . . . Ah, Dr. Fallon. Good to see you. I was just explaining that I get a bit of mixed messages from the handwriting on the desk drawer.”

  Michaels was a middle-aged man with striking silver hair. He always dressed in a suit and tie, clothes he apparently found comfortable. Occasionally he wore a bow tie, which Diane thought gave him an entirely different persona. Today he had on a dark brown suit, a light pink shirt with a tie that was a dark shade of pink decorated with small brown fleurs de lis. Diane pulled up a chair and sat down beside David.

  “This is a woman’s hand,” Michaels continued. “She is intelligent and creative—as suggested by the rounded w and the one u. These coiled shapes and counterstrokes that curve in what we might call the wrong way, suggest a self centeredness. The closed a’s and o’s suggest that she is hiding something.”

  He indicated each of the characteristics with a laser pointer that jumped quickly from character to character, making lightning zigzags of neon red on the dry-erase board where he had projected the image of the note.

  “The characters are largest in the middle zone—the ascenders and descenders don’t go much above or below the baseline. This suggests immaturity—could be young at heart. Immaturity doesn’t always have to be a bad thing. The way the letters slant in different directions is a little disturbing. Bottom line, I’m not really sure what you have here. Perhaps an intelligent, creative, selfish, and childishly disturbed woman with something to hide. Or maybe not. This isn’t an exact science. I hope this helps.” He grinned at his audience.

  “No offense,” said Izzy, “but I could have gotten most of that from the words she wrote. What adult, but a disturbed one, writes a message like that on the bottom of a drawer? Who did she expect would find it?”

  Michaels shrugged. “The handwriting is consistent with the message. I can say that,” he said.

  “Thank you, Dr. Michaels,” said Diane. “Quite possibly, it does help. What would really help,” Diane said to all of them, “is if we could get an approximate date for when the message was written.”

  “Okay,” said Michaels. “There is one other thing. See the double s in the word missing—how the first s is like an f, only backward? That’s the way kids were taught to write about a hundred years or so ago. That’s called a leading s because it is the first s in the sequence.”

  “Now, see,” said Izzy. “That’s helpful. You should have said that right off.”

  “Sorry,” Michaels said, grinning. He dusted off his hands as if he had been using chalk instead of a laser pointer.

  “Well, I think it’s neat,” said Neva. “Thanks, Dr. Michaels.”

  Neva escorted Lawrence Michaels to the door that was the threshold between the dark side, the crime lab, and the museum proper.

  “I couldn’t help but notice,” David said to Diane when Neva returned, “that you said that quite possibly it does help. What is it you know?”

  The others looked at David in surprise. Apparently they hadn’t taken note of what Diane said.

  Diane explained about the phone call from the lab in Arizona and what they had discovered about the sherds Marcella sent them. “I don’t know that those were sherds she found in her yard, but for now, let’s suppose they were.”

  “Okay,” said Izzy. “That’s a sign of a disturbed person. Crushing up human bones to make pots? It’s downright spooky. Maybe the handwriting guy had something after all.”

  “Yeah,” said Neva. “We have a creatively disturbed, immature woman—writing a secret message on the bottom of drawers doesn’t seem to be a sign of maturity. I think we ought to find out who she is.”

  “What we need,” said Diane, “is a list of all the people who ever lived in the house. We can start with ownership records.”

  “That ought to be easy,” said Neva. “I’ll go down to the courthouse and do a search.”

  “Hanks mentioned that he would do it, but if we do it, it will save him time. I don’t think this is a high priority with him, and it shouldn’t be. It’s unlikely to be related to what happened to Marcella.”

  “Except,” said David, “they did steal objets d’art.”

  Diane nodded. “The paintings they took were hidden in the wall for no telling how long. Even though the pottery they stole was Marcella’s own work, the thieves may not have known that.”

  Neva rubbed her hands together. “I like this.”

  David rolled his eyes. “She’s become Nancy Drew. You know we solve crimes all the time, don’t you?”

  “I like this old stuff,” she said. “It’s interesting. I can see the attr
action to archaeology—lots of old mysteries there.”

  “Okay, then,” said David. “Like Diane said, the thing we need to find out is how old the note is, and how old the pottery is.”

  “I’ll go down to the courthouse first thing and search the property records,” said Neva.

  Izzy stood, hitching up his pants as he stretched and yawned. “Tell you what, Neva, next time you decide to have a speaker, let me know so I can maybe sleep in or go wash my car.”

  “You didn’t find that fascinating?” said Neva.

  “I think it’s voodoo,” said Izzy. “It’s like them profilers. I don’t buy them either. Have you ever heard them?”

  Diane smiled to herself.

  “I noticed you didn’t give him a sample of your handwriting,” said Neva.

  “Yeah, well, like I was going to let him say a bunch of gobbledygook about me and have you guys never let me live it down. I’m smarter than that.” Izzy grinned at Neva.

  Diane noticed that Izzy smiled and even laughed more and more since he had started to work with them. His good friend Frank Duncan had noticed it too. The crime lab had been good for Izzy—oddly enough—even with all the death they dealt with. It was catching the evildoers with proof of their evil deeds that did it for him. Izzy’s son had been killed in a meth lab explosion. Not a meth lab of his making, but he and thirty fellow students died not knowing that someone was cooking meth in the basement of the house they were partying in. It wasn’t fair and it hurt Izzy to the core. Izzy needed to do something that worked, something that he could see would put bad people in prison. He decided that maybe the crime lab would be that place where he could make a difference. So he eased his way in. So far it seemed to be working for him and for the crime lab.

  “I’m going home, folks. See you tomorrow,” Izzy said.

  “I’m going home too,” said Diane. “You guys do the same.”

  It was dark when Diane got in her SUV. She drove home thinking about Harmon Dance. His daughter was exhumed today. She wondered whether it was just more pain, or a relief that he might find out something better than what he had been trying to live with. Lynn Webber would probably carry out the autopsy right away. They might know something tomorrow.

  Diane drove home to Frank’s house. It had taken a while for her to call it home. In the beginning, it was a temporary arrangement until she found a house of her own. It turned out to be more comfortable than she thought it would be, and a lot easier than her apartment with her bizarre neighbors had been. Of course, they all thought she was the bizarre one. It was why they asked her to move. She couldn’t blame them. There was an awful lot of havoc surrounding her when she lived there. Not so much at Frank’s. Perhaps it was because he was there. She was not alone. She was not as easy a target.

  Diane pulled into the drive. The lights were on in the house, but Frank’s car wasn’t there. The lights were controlled by a timer so that it always looked like they were home in the evening. She walked up to the steps just as a car pulled in behind hers. It startled her for a moment. She turned the key in the lock, ready to bolt inside if she had to. The headlights went out and she heard a car door open.

  “Hi, Dr. Fallon. I hope I’m not disturbing you. It’s Mark Tsosie. Jonas told me how to find your house. I was going to call when I got close, but with my cell phone I couldn’t get service until I was in your drive. I wanted to talk to you about the police here, if you think they are doing everything—”

  Diane’s phone rang.

  “Excuse me a moment,” she said.

  She pulled the cell phone out of her pocket and answered it, listened a moment, said a few words, and flipped it closed.

  “That was Paloma,” said Diane. “Marcella is awake. We can talk on the way there.”

  Chapter 20

  Marcella lay so still in bed, it scared Diane. Her skin was almost as pale as her pillow. Her head had been shaved and bandaged. There were dark circles under her eyes. Diane glanced at the monitor beside her bed. It was calming to see the iconic heart flash with the steady beat of Marcella’s pulse.

  Paloma said her mother didn’t remember anything about the day of the attack. She didn’t even know why she was in the hospital. She did remember she wanted to speak with Diane. The original need to speak with Diane obviously occurred a day or more before Marcella was attacked.

  Diane pulled up a chair by her bed. The nurse told Diane she had five minutes for the visit, no more.

  “Hello, Marcella. It’s good to see you awake,” said Diane.

  Marcella opened her eyes. “Strange,” she whispered.

  “What is strange?” asked Diane.

  Marcella moved her eyes to Diane. “Desk,” she whispered.

  “We’ve seen the desk. The writing on the back of the drawer,” said Diane.

  Marcella nodded. The movement of her head was barely perceptible. “The pottery. Bone.”

  “Yes. Is that the pottery that was in your workroom?” said Diane.

  “Yes. Sent samples,” she said.

  “The lab called,” said Diane.

  “What?” asked Marcella.

  Diane didn’t quite know what to do. She knew Marcella was asking what species, but she was afraid the answer would be too disturbing.

  “Species,” whispered Marcella. It came out as almost a command, even in her quiet voice.

  “Homo sapiens,” said Diane. Somehow the genus and species designation seemed more academic and less disturbing than calling it human.

  Marcella closed her eyes for several moments.

  “Strange. Look in pitcher.”

  “The ones that were hanging in the living room?” asked Diane.

  Marcella closed her eyes again and shook her head. “No. Pitcher. Water. Face.”

  “The piece of pottery you were gluing back together?” said Diane.

  “Yes. Examine?” she said.

  “Have I examined it?” asked Diane. “No. I packed up your work and took it to your office in the museum.”

  “Good. Examine face inside,” she said.

  “Look at the back of the face?” said Diane.

  “Yes. Strange. Sherds too. Look at them,” Marcella said.

  “You need to leave,” said the critical care nurse who had hovered nearby during what had to be a weird conversation.

  Diane smiled at Marcella, squeezed her hand, and stood up. “I’ll come back,” she told Marcella. “Get better.”

  Marcella smiled faintly and nodded.

  Diane started out the door and Marcella called behind her. She barely heard her.

  “Artist,” she said, and she drifted off.

  Diane looked at the monitor of the vital signs. Everything was still steady and regular. She left the room.

  “She seems to be doing well,” Diane said.

  Paloma and Mark stood with Jonas, who had come while she was with Marcella. He looked as anxious as Marcella’s daughter.

  “The doctor said he is hopeful,” said Paloma.

  Diane wondered whether she knew she was wringing her hands.

  “She made a lot of sense when she spoke to me,” Paloma said. She looked at Diane and Diane could see that Paloma desperately wanted her to agree.

  “She did,” said Diane. “She was weak, but we managed to carry on a conversation. She gave me instructions.”

  Paloma smiled and looked at Mark.

  “See.” He hugged her. “You see. I told you she was going to be fine.”

  “Jonas. I’d like you to help me look at some of her work tomorrow,” said Diane.

  “Be glad to, but surely she doesn’t want to work on her sherds?” he said. His expression said that kind of dedication to work would be going beyond reason.

  “No. She wants me to see something she found,” said Diane. “The desk was one of the things that concerned her, but the sherds she was gluing together are another.”

  Diane decided not to mention that the pottery Marcella was finding around her home was bone tempered. She
remembered she hadn’t told them about the desk either. She would put that off. They didn’t need to have on their minds what it all might mean.

  “Does this stuff she wants you to look at have anything to do with what happened to her?” asked Paloma.

  “I don’t know,” said Diane. “I wouldn’t think so, but it was something that seemed to concern her. Most of Marcella’s side of the conversation was one or two words.”

  Paloma nodded. “That’s the way it was with us. Still, she made sense.”

  That was a concern for Paloma, Diane could see—that her mother would still have her brain function and that she would still be her mother.

  “Yes, she did,” Diane agreed. “She seems very coherent.”

  Mark drove Diane home. She hated for him to leave Paloma in the hospital, but they both seemed better now that Marcella was awake.

  Frank’s car was in the drive when Diane arrived. She said good-bye to Mark and went into the house. She was too tired to eat much. She drank a handheld soup and took a warm shower. When she came out she lay on the bed and Frank massaged her back—something he did very well. She was enjoying his hands on her bare skin when the phone rang.

  “Don’t answer it,” she said.

  Frank did anyway. “She’s here,” he said, and handed the phone to her.

  She turned her head and made a face at him. He grinned and continued stroking her back.

  “Diane, I thought we were beginning to have a good working relationship.”

  “Detective Hanks?” she said. “I thought we were too.” So why are you calling me this late? she thought. “What’s up?”

  “Why didn’t you call me when Marcella Payden woke up?” he asked.

  “I thought you had left word with the hospital to call you. I assumed you were informed.” It’s not my job to inform you, she thought.

  Her muscles must have tensed, for Frank increased the pressure on her back, kneading her muscles with his fingers.

  “If I had been thinking, I would have called,” she said. “But I’ve had a long day and was tired.” Making efforts to soothe over Hanks’ hurt feelings was a lot easier when Frank was there to rub her back.