One Grave Less

by Beverly Connor

  Chapter 6

  “Is it some kind of voodoo paraphernalia?” asked Garnett.

  “Looks more like a Native American medicine bundle,” said Jin.

  “Just looks spooky,” said Izzy.

  Diane, freshly attired in jeans and a T-shirt, having surrendered her clothes to Neva to process for blood and any other evidence, looked at the large high-definition TV screen on the wall near the shiny, round stainless-steel conference table in the crime lab. The screen image showed the contents of the knapsack laid out on white butcher paper in one of the evidence rooms. Diane had installed the cam system so people like Chief Garnett could have a look at the evidence before it was processed without worrying about contaminating it with any of their own trace. She and several members of her crime lab crew stood around the conference table looking at the items on the screen.

  There were several brightly colored feathers of blue, red, green, and yellow; two dried monkey paws; a large orange beak; numerous sharp teeth; several talons; and a long bone. All had been stuffed in a long woven black textile bag embroidered with sunbursts and what appeared to be stylized leaves.

  “What does all this mean?” asked Garnett, looking at Diane as if she should know.

  “I don’t know, but the bone is a humerus from a human,” she said.

  “Who had this? Did your friend hide it?” asked Garnett.

  “I don’t know,” Diane answered.

  “I think the chief’s right,” said Izzy. “Looks like voodoo to me.”

  “I don’t know what it is,” she repeated.

  She stared at the bone. The epiphyses—ends of the long bones and the place of growth—were missing. They had become detached because they hadn’t yet fused.

  “The bone is from a child. A young child.”

  Each of them sat down around the table and stared, as if getting off their feet would give them more energy to figure out what the collection meant. They studied the items without speaking. The various machines in the glassed-in cubicles of the crime lab gave off a soft, quiet background hum. The jarring sound of the opening of the elevator doors startled them.

  There were two main entrances to the crime lab—one on the museum side and one from an elevator that went up the outside of the west wing of the building. The entrances could be accessed only by members of the crime lab, so none were surprised when David stepped out of the elevator into the room. He made his way through the warren of glass cubicles to the stainless-steel table.

  “You weren’t going to call me on something like this?” he said. He looked at Diane as he pulled up another chair and sat down.

  David Goldstein was a friend from World Accord International. He knew Simone. Like all the members of the WAI team, he suffered from the loss of their friends. After drifting around the country and after the breakup of his marriage, he had come to Diane for a job. She was glad to have him. He was one of the best forensic investigators.

  “We figured that since you were out doing something normal for a change, we wouldn’t bother you,” said Jin.

  David made an exasperated face at Jin. He rubbed the dark fringe of hair around his balding head as his attention focused on the contents of the bag.

  David had been out on a date. One of the rare times he ventured away from work to do something simply for the fun of it. Diane had been reluctant to disturb him.

  “How did you find out?” asked Diane.

  “I have my sources,” he said.

  “David, you’re going to have to learn to unplug yourself sometime,” said Diane.

  He gave her a half smile. “Like you do? What are you doing here this late? Why aren’t you getting fitted for a wedding dress or something? What actually happened here anyway, and what is this stuff?” He gestured to the screen. Then paused. “Was it really Simone?”

  Diane nodded. “Yes. I don’t know what she was doing here. And I’m not sure what all these items mean. Have you heard from Simone anytime recently?”

  David shook his head. “She flew home to her family shortly after . . . after we all came home. I haven’t heard from her since. But I’m not the best at keeping in touch.”

  “Nor am I,” said Diane.

  “But she said something,” said David.

  “She said, ‘It was one of us.’ That was all,” said Diane. “I don’t know what it refers to, or who exactly us includes.”

  “I’ll contact her employers and her family tomorrow,” said Garnett. “Perhaps they can shed some light on what she was doing here, and whether she was carrying around this bag of voodoo trinkets. I know you don’t know what this collection of things means, but can you identify the individual items?”

  “The feathers, I believe, are from a macaw,” said Diane. “The beak is from a toucan. I don’t know what kind of monkey is represented by the paws. The teeth are canines from a predator, but I don’t know the species. I don’t know what animals the talons were taken from. But we will know tomorrow after we process.”

  “What about the bag?” said Garnett. “Looks kind of nativelike.”

  “I’m not familiar with the design,” said Diane. “But we can identify it.”

  Garnett rose. “I’ll talk with you tomorrow, then,” he said. “I think it would be a good idea if, officially, you let Neva, Izzy, or Jin work on the evidence, since you and David know this Simone woman.”

  “Please let us know what you find out about her,” said Diane. “She was a friend and she came here for a reason.”

  A growing unease that started with a chill in her spine was now resting in the pit of Diane’s stomach.

  “I’ll keep in touch,” he said.

  It sounded noncommittal, but Diane knew he would keep her in the loop.

  “Right now, I’m treating this like a theft gone wrong,” he said. “That’s what it looks like.”

  Diane knew that Garnett sensed there was something more to this. But he was going to take the easy way with the press. Not let them speculate. In a way, that was good. The idea that it was an attempted theft was not good. But she couldn’t think of a better story. Garnett left, probably to go home.

  Diane was far from that pleasure yet. She had to tell Vanessa Van Ross about the damage to the new special exhibit; that it probably would not be ready to receive the artifacts from Mexico on schedule; and that the Mexican officials were going to worry about the safety of their cultural treasures when they heard what had happened.

  Vanessa Van Ross was a tall, elderly woman who was the real power behind the museum. People called Diane the queen because of the extraordinary powers the museum covenant granted her as director. But she liked to tell them she was only the viceroy. Vanessa was the queen. And now she had to tell the queen that something bad had happened in the kingdom.

  “We’ll meet tomorrow,” Diane told her crime scene team. “Neva, would you put the evidence in the vault?”

  Neva nodded. “This is all very strange.”

  “Yes,” agreed Diane. “I’d like to find out what it’s about as soon as we can.”

  She left them talking amongst themselves and went to her osteology office. David followed her.

  “There is only one it we all have in common,” he said.

  Diane glanced at the lone-wolf watercolor hanging on the wall in her mostly bare osteology office.

  “Yes,” she said.

  She knew what she had in common with Simone: the massacre. They each lost someone close to their hearts in the massacre.

  “But the sentence didn’t make sense, did it? It was one of us. That doesn’t make sense.”

  “If she was referring to the massacre, we know it was Ivan Santos who carried it out. But she meant something,” said David. He rubbed his hands over his face. “She meant something.”

  “And who was the us she was talking about?” said Diane. “Simone and me? The three of us? The three of us and someone else? Who? She was in very serious condition from a head injury. She probably didn’t know what she was saying. It mi
ght be nonsense.”

  “Maybe. But we need to investigate this. Garnett doesn’t know the people we know. He doesn’t know Gregory. We need to call him.”

  “Maybe. Let’s see how Simone is doing tomorrow. Perhaps she’ll straighten it out. If not, I’ll call Gregory tomorrow evening, or whatever time corresponds to a decent hour in England. Now I have to tell Vanessa I allowed the special exhibit to get torched.”

  Chapter 7

  Telling Vanessa about the fire at the museum had gone better than Diane expected—mainly because of the long silences on Vanessa’s end of the phone line. Diane told Vanessa she was calling a meeting of the board for the next day to tell them the news and to tell them to refer any reporters to her. Vanessa agreed but suggested that Diane leave out certain information. Diane agreed. Until she knew why Simone Brooks was in the museum, it would do no good to tell the board about her and her connection to Diane. Some members of the board had great temptation to gossip.

  So here she stood in front of them in the boardroom on the third floor of the museum. Diane hated meetings in the best of times. She wasn’t looking forward to this one. She had dressed in what Andie Layne, her assistant, said was her power outfit. Diane wasn’t sure why the suit had power, but she bowed to Andie’s superior knowledge of clothes. The linen navy pantsuit with its long fitted blazer looked good with the blue silk blouse she usually paired with it, and it was comfortable. She stood at the head of the long mahogany table and finished giving the board members a brief description of the events of the previous evening, hoping Andie was right about the power thing.

  “Do you have an estimate on the damage from the fire?” asked Harvey Phelps.

  Harvey was usually Diane’s ally, but he was clearly disturbed by this turn of events. Diane didn’t blame him. He had gone to Mexico with Kendel to work out the details for the loan of the artifacts. Now the Mexican treasure’s temporary home had been firebombed.

  “The exhibit designers are working on that right now. They and Korey from Conservation are looking at how much can be restored and how much must be rebuilt. There’s not much fire damage and the water damage is minimal. The smoke left stains that will require some repainting, refinishing, and cleaning. The real damage is to the partnership with the museum in Mexico. They will need to be convinced that their artifacts will be safe here.”

  “Do we have to tell them?” said Madge Stewart.

  “Of course we have to tell them,” said Diane.

  She tried to keep her face straight and not show annoyance at Madge, who often seemed clueless about ordinary protocol and had a child’s view of candor in the face of calamity.

  Thomas Barclay, the banker member of the board, was usually at odds with everything Diane did, but only because he didn’t like anyone but himself to be in charge. The governance of the museum was set up so the board was only advisory and the director held all the power. Only in the most extraordinary conditions could her decisions be overridden, and that rankled his sense of self-importance. Barclay had been silent. Diane could see he was building up for something. But when he spoke it was a simple question.

  “What do the police think happened?” he asked.

  “That it was an attempted theft that went wrong,” said Diane.

  “And you’re saying they just waltzed in and took over,” said Barclay with a flourish of his hand. “What do we have security for if they can’t keep track of their own?”

  The dam that kept Barclay’s temper in check was developing a crack. It was Diane’s policy in these situations to encourage the dam to break. Laura Hillard, another board member who was a good friend of Diane’s from childhood—and a psychiatrist—had the opposite viewpoint. Whereas Laura liked to smooth over ruffled feathers, Diane liked to make them fly.

  “If they had been waltzing when they entered they would no doubt have attracted attention. As I briefed all of you earlier, the perpetrator who joined Diggs in responding to my call for security wore a uniform virtually identical to those our security people wear. Diggs is new on the job and didn’t realize the man with him wasn’t Vic Jones. The impostor never went near the security office, where he would have been outed. It appears he was secreted somewhere in the museum. We are still investigating.”

  “I think Thomas just wants to understand why security didn’t catch this person earlier—where he was hiding out,” said Laura, smiling sweetly at Diane.

  Diane gave her an amused half smile before she turned to Thomas Barclay. “Was that what you were asking?” she said.

  Barclay gave Diane a curt nod.

  “He could have worn a jacket or coat over the uniform and blended himself among participants in a class. We have several classes in session every evening. That is one of the challenges for our security people—guarding a place where the public is invited.”

  “Perhaps we should close down the classes,” Barclay said.

  “This is a museum, not a bank,” said board member Anne Pascal.

  Anne’s hands were flat on the table in front of her. Diane got the impression that she wanted to pound them on the wood surface. Anne was one of the newer members of the board and a schoolteacher. Diane liked her for many reasons, but she especially liked her for frequently being at odds with Barclay.

  “The classes are of value to the community and they are good for the museum,” said Anne.

  Barclay brought his gray bushy eyebrows together as if he were about to turn Anne down for a loan. “But if they pose a problem for security . . . ,” he began.

  “I didn’t say they pose a problem for security,” said Diane. “I said they pose a challenge.”

  “Same thing,” he said.

  “You think so?” said Diane.

  That explains so much, she thought. She didn’t speak it. Laura gave her a brief warning glare. Laura probably knew what Diane was thinking. Her face was easy to read.

  “We work from a different dictionary,” Diane said.

  Barclay huffed. “You know, you haven’t told us much of anything. Are you withholding information?”

  “Of course,” said Diane. “However, I’ve told you as much as the police will allow. They are very concerned about information leaks that would give the thieves an advantage.”

  “I’m sure they didn’t mean the board,” he said, taking in the whole group with a nod.

  “I’m sure they did,” said Diane. “Let’s face it—in the past the board has been a sieve.”

  Out of the corner of her eye Diane saw Madge shift uncomfortably when several members glanced her way. More than once, Madge’s loose tongue with the press had caused Diane problems. Laura, she saw, was about to throw up her hands and give up trying to rein Diane in. Diane didn’t mind making board members uncomfortable—at least, the ones who didn’t contribute anything helpful to the conversation.

  Kenneth Meyerson, computer company owner and another member friendly to Diane, cleared his throat.The board members looked over at him, it seemed to Diane, hopefully.

  “If I’ve understood everything correctly, the thieves knew the name of a security guard who was on vacation. They knew how to hide in the museum. They had people and tools on hand in case anything went south. And they carried out the rescue—if that’s what it was—quickly, with a fair amount of precision. They sound like professionals, yet they didn’t know the special exhibit didn’t have anything in it.” Kenneth paused and took a sip of the orange juice he had in front of him. “Two things come to mind. Have they hacked into our computer system to discover schedules? And could they have been after something other than the Mayan artifacts, and simply used the special exhibit room as some kind of staging area because they thought it would be empty at night?”

  “I’ve asked the curators to inventory their items,” said Diane.

  Kenneth nodded. “What is the most valuable thing we have?”

  “Other than the dinosaur bones—both real and casts, which would be a clumsy steal—the gemstones,” said Diane. “Mike secures t
he most valuable of those in a vault. During exhibition hours he has them displayed in such a manner that they can be removed easily for safekeeping in the evening. However, we have other rare items that might be attractive to a collector.”

  “Was there a falling out among thieves?” asked Anne. “I’m a little unclear about the two wounded people.”

  “I don’t have an answer for that. Neither the police nor I have much information yet. All of us are working on it.”

  “Well, if someone has hacked into the system, there is certainly something we can do about that,” said Barclay. “Don’t you have adequate firewalls or whatever you call the damn things?”

  “We do,” answered Kenneth. “But a determined, talented hacker can get into anything, given enough time and resources.”

  Barclay nodded, looking a little pensive. “Didn’t we have some little hacker get into the system a while back? The one that apparently got into every system in town—except my bank, of course. Might we talk to that little beggar?”

  Diane stared at Barclay for a long moment, long enough for him to actually blush and look away. Diane knew all the banks that were hacked, and Barclay’s bank was certainly among them.

  “I think he works for the FBI now,” said Kenneth.

  “Seriously?” said Barclay.

  “Or the CIA. One of the two. He was quite talented,” said Kenneth.

  “That’s all the information I have,” said Diane quickly. “I’ll call another meeting when we know more.”

  She was eager to get back to the crime lab and see what her team had come up with. She started to adjourn when Barclay looked up at her.

  “I have one more item I want to talk about,” he said.

  He took out an envelope and tossed it in front of him.

  “I got this invitation in the mail and I was surprised that you are using the museum for your own wedding. I think that is an inappropriate use of your authority. Are you using museum staff as well? Will we be reimbursed?”