One Grave Less

by Beverly Connor

  Diane said nothing, merely raised an eyebrow.

  Barclay smiled grimly at her.

  “Thomas,” said Vanessa.

  Her tone was sharp and all of them gave her their attention, as if she had addressed each of them.

  “Having Diane’s wedding in the museum was my idea. She wanted to elope, but I wanted her to have a ceremony here, in the museum. I, with Laura, and Diane’s assistant, Andie, are planning the wedding. Diane hasn’t even seen the invitations.”

  Vanessa had caught Barclay by surprise. He stuttered a moment before he found his voice.

  “I didn’t realize,” he said. “If you approve, then, of course . . .”

  “Is there anything else?” said Diane. “No? Then we are adjourned. Good to have seen all of you.” Now go away, she thought.

  They filed out. Barclay was out the door first, muttering that he had to get back to the bank.

  “Do you have time for lunch?” said Laura when she reached Diane. Vanessa was with her.

  “I can make time,” she said. “But I need to go to the crime lab first.”

  “That will be fine,” said Vanessa. “There are some things I want to look at.” She smiled and patted Diane’s arm as they left.

  As Diane turned to leave, Martin Thormond came back in, brushing lightly past the departing Madge Stewart, who tilted her head in disapproval and gazed at him suspiciously through narrowed eyes.

  Martin looked very much the history professor that he was, in his brown tweed sports coat, well-trimmed beard, and spectacles. But he looked worried.

  “What can I do for you, Martin?” said Diane, smiling.

  He glanced behind him in the direction of the door before he spoke in a low voice.

  “I got a call this morning. It was from a reporter at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution . . . ,” he began.

  “About the fire?” said Diane.

  “No, funny, he did not even mention the thieves or the fire. He asked about you.”

  “Me?” said Diane. “What about me?”

  “Now, I don’t credit it. I know how reporters are. But I thought you should know.”

  Diane smiled. “Know what?”

  She thought she would have to drag it out of him he was so hesitant to tell her.

  “He asked about your involvement with drug smugglers when you were in South America,” he said.

  Chapter 8

  The man moved in the seat of the pickup but appeared not to wake up. Maria knew he would eventually awaken, realize how long his partner had been gone, and go looking for him. She could ambush him in the dark, but she had no idea when he might wake up, and time was their enemy.

  She looked down at her new little friend who insisted on being called Rosetta. She was a paradox—a little kid, yet too grown-up. She was going to get home to her mother. Maria would make sure of that.

  Maria and Rosetta were hiding behind a thicket of dense foliage. Hiding had its challenges. They wanted to remain obscured from view but they didn’t want to get unwanted creatures on them. The place in which they were secreted was like a curtain of flora hiding them from view of the truck driver. It was a good place to not be seen, but Maria had to do something.

  “I want you to stay here, Rosetta. He must not see you. Understand?” Maria said in her raspy voice.

  The little girl nodded. “You don’t want him to know who helped you escape. You aren’t going to kill him.”

  It was a statement, not judgmental.

  “That’s right,” said Maria. “And if I fail, I don’t want you captured.”

  “You won’t fail.”

  Maria hoped she was worthy of the little girl’s faith. She couldn’t imagine Rosetta alone in the rain forest, but she had the feeling Rosetta could get along out here better than she could.

  Maria put the smaller of the guns in her waistband. She picked up the club that had worked so well against Luis Portman and eased closer to the truck. She was fairly sure that when he left the truck in search of Portman he would come down the animal trail they had followed. She selected a secluded spot by the trail to wait.

  She picked up a handful of nuts and pebbles and tossed them onto the roof of the pickup. They made a rattle that was loud to her ears but apparently not to the sleeper.

  She tossed more. He stirred.

  She picked up a larger rock and threw it at the back window. It bounced off and landed in the bed of the truck. The man awoke. She saw him sit up straight and look around. The truck door opened and he got out. Her heart thudded against her ribs. He was a big man.

  He had blond hair and sunburned skin and was dressed in the same camouflage and khakis as Portman. She was told before she visited here to wear solid colors rather than camouflage or clothes with designs. Easier to see bugs that get on you. She wondered why these men wore camouflage. It wasn’t to stay hidden. His was desert camouflage. It must be some kind of macho thing.

  “Luis, where the hell are you? How long does it take you to take a dump?”

  He came walking down the trail, as Maria predicted.

  When she was in her cage searching for a way to escape and spied the thick stick lying on the ground, she mentally practiced with it over and over—in her mind swinging it at all the pain points on the body. Swinging hard, not hesitating.

  He came closer, easy strides. He wasn’t worried.

  Maria gripped her club tight. She listened for his footfalls coming closer to her hiding place.

  One. Two. Three.

  She swung hard, aiming for his knees.

  He went down hard with a yelp and curses. Maria followed through with a strike to an elbow and another to the sacral plexus.

  “What the fuck!” he screamed.

  Maria was breathing hard and her heart thudded against her chest. She raised the club over her head and aimed at his brachial plexus when suddenly she hit the ground hard. Her club tumbled out of her hands.

  The man had her by the ankle and was pulling her to him. His face was red with rage and pain. Maria kicked at him and reached for the gun in her waistband. He found his first and pointed it at her.

  “Who the fuck are you?” he asked. His hand was shaking. He was having a hard time holding on to the gun—it was the hit to his ulnar nerve.

  She stopped moving and thought hard. She had to do something before the pain subsided to the point where he had better use of his hands. But then again, that might take a while. She had hit him pretty hard.

  “I know who you are,” he rasped. “You’re that Fallon woman—Julio’s prize catch.”

  “Why does he want me?” she whispered. She figured it might be easier to interrogate him when he had the gun. He would feel freer to talk, maybe brag.

  “Money. You’re worth a lot of money to some guy he knows.”

  “Who in the hell would I be of that kind of value to?” she asked.

  “Julio won’t tell us that. He trusts only that bitch he’s with. But I got you now . . . and maybe I’ll make the deal.”

  The man spoke good English. He sounded American—Midwestern.

  “You don’t know who to deal with,” she said.

  “Minor detail,” he said. “I can find out. See, he’s gonna be all panicked that you’ve escaped. He’ll be calling people. Talking. Patia will be screaming and cursing. She’ll let something slip. Or he will. I’ll find out.”

  She already had her hand on the gun in her waistband behind her back. She could swing it around and shoot, if she could be sure . . . sure of her aim . . . sure she would be quicker . . . sure she could even shoot the damn thing.

  His face was still screwed up with pain. She’d done a number on his knees—at least his right knee. It was hurting him.

  He was having a hard time holding the gun. He needed to switch hands. He needed the gun in his good hand.

  “What does May third mean?” she asked.

  “What do you mean? Why you asking so many questions?” he said.

  “Because, damn it, I want t
o know why this is happening to me. I overheard the head guy, Julio, talking with someone on the phone about May third. That’s some kind of important date. That’s a long way off—past the rainy season. What does May third have to do with me?”

  “Julio has lots of deals going, not just you,” he said.

  “It has to do with me,” she said. “He was talking only about me.”

  She had been gently pulling her leg, gradually adding pressure. Just look away, she willed. Look away, damn it, just for a second.

  She waited for an opening. She knew one would come. He didn’t strike her as being a patient man.

  “I have friends who will ransom me,” she said. “Maybe for more money than you can get from Julio’s man.”

  “It might come to that. But, see, I get the idea this guy Julio’s got is willing to pay a lot of money.”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” she said. “I’m simply not that important.”

  She had been pretending she was Diane Fallon. It seemed easier. It seemed like a way to get information about what they wanted without exposing her own identity to them. She wondered what Diane Fallon had done in South America that had made someone want her so badly.

  “Was it Patia who pointed me out to Julio?” said Maria.

  “She sometimes works for archaeologists here—a good way to get information. Julio lives off information,” he said.

  Then you’d think he’d have been better at gathering it, she thought. Do they think Georgia has only one forensic anthropologist?

  His face screwed up again, apparently from a wave of pain. “My leg hurts, damn you,” he said. “I might just teach you a lesson before I turn you over to the buyer.”

  Suddenly he made his move. She hadn’t seen it coming. He acted so quickly she had no time to respond. He was on top of her with his gun pointing at her face, his good hand resting on her throat.

  Chapter 9

  Diane stared openmouthed at Martin Thormond.

  “What?” she managed to say after several moments of being completely dumbfounded. “Drug smugglers? Someone told him I was involved with drug smugglers?”

  “I told him, of course, that it was ridiculous.” Martin pulled a piece of paper from his inner coat pocket. “I have his name—Brian Mathews.”

  Diane took the paper and stared at it for a long moment.

  “I have no idea what this is about,” she said, “but I’ll find out.” She paused. “You said he asked nothing about the events that happened here in the museum last evening?”

  “He didn’t. I thought that was odd,” Martin said.

  He stood there awkwardly, as if searching for something else to say, shifting slightly from one foot to the other. He was going through, Diane guessed, what people often go through when confronted with an accusation about someone they know. Not believing it but, at the same time, entertaining the notion that it might be true.

  Hell. What some people will say.

  “Thank you, Martin,” she said. “I’ll find out what this is about.”

  He nodded, gave her a lopsided self-conscious smile, and made his exit—a little quickly, thought Diane.

  She turned off the lights, closed and locked the door to the boardroom. Outside the door in the hallway she smelled the familiar odor of the treacly perfume Madge Stewart wore. Diane was thinking that the scent certainly had staying power.

  As she walked past the door to the storage closet adjoining the boardroom, she heard a faint noise from inside. She stopped, opened the closet door, and found herself confronting a wide-eyed and very much surprised Madge Stewart.

  “Are you lost?” said Diane.

  Madge smoothed her frizzy hair with a hand.

  “Lost? I, uh, I guess I am.” She attempted to regain her composure, smoothing her frizzy hair again. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

  She fled the closet, her shoes clicking on the granite floor of the museum as she hurried down the hallway.

  “This is just great,” Diane whispered to herself.

  In the back of the closet was a door that opened into the boardroom. Madge obviously had been listening to Diane’s conversation with Thormond. That was all that was needed to make a bad situation worse. Madge would spread the rumor of Diane’s involvement with drug smugglers to everyone she knew.

  Diane’s own heels clicked on the floor as she made her way to her osteology office. She had two offices, one for each hat she wore—museum director and crime lab director. Her museum office was decorated with Escher prints, photographs of her caving, paintings, and a desk fountain. And it had an attached lounge with a full bathroom.

  Her osteology office, by contrast, was small with pale walls and comfortable no-frills furniture. There was adequate space, but no more. On the wall opposite her desk hung a watercolor of a lone wolf hunting. Perhaps that was symbolic, she thought, as she sat down at her desk and reached for the phone.

  Diane called the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper and asked for Brian Mathews.

  “I have a note on my desk saying he wanted to speak with me,” she said.

  It was almost true. She did have a note on her desk. And no doubt, at some point he probably would want to speak with her.

  “Oh, really? Let me see.” The woman answering the phone sounded confused. “Well, you are a museum, right?”

  “Yes,” Diane confirmed. She probably read the caller ID.

  “It must have been about Machu Picchu. That’s where he is. Are you following his blog?”

  Blog?

  “No,” Diane said. “He has a blog?”

  Diane searched for his name on the AJC Web site using her computer while she was talking. She found quickly that Brian Mathews was a travel reporter currently on vacation, going to major archaeological sites in Mexico and Central and South America. He was recording his trip on a blog at the AJC Web site.

  Odd, thought Diane.

  “I’ll wait until he contacts the museum again,” she said, thanking the woman.

  Machu Picchu. That’s in Peru.

  Diane sat for a moment, questions running through her mind about Mathews’ call to Martin Thormond. Did Mathews call from Peru? Had he been talking to someone who wished her harm? Someone who thought telling a reporter lies was a way to hurt her? Was it really Mathews . . . or someone pretending to be a reporter?

  Damn. As if she didn’t have enough problems at the moment. She stood up and smoothed her blazer. One problem at a time.

  Her office was adjacent to her osteology lab, which connected to the crime lab. She left her office intending to pass through her bone lab . . . stopping abruptly when she saw a box on the metal table. It was one of the crime lab boxes used to store bones and other evidence.

  The bone from the backpack, she thought.

  She looked in the box. It was there, lying softly but securely on brown paper over batting—the small upper arm bone of a child. It was a sad little bone. Bones of children were always sad—a life just starting . . . and ending too soon . . . often violently.

  Diane put on her white lab coat and disposable gloves and picked up the bone. It was only a diaphysis—the bone shaft. The ends were gone. The epiphyses hadn’t fused.

  The bone was a light yellow-gray in color, the color of the soil from which it was taken. She sniffed it. It wasn’t old, perhaps a few years. Not from an archaeological dig.

  She measured the length of the bone and looked on a reference chart on the wall. The child was just over three feet tall. Probably between four and six years of age. Small for six.

  The bone had no abnormalities, no healed breaks, no evidence of malnourishment, nor of any pathology. Murder victim? Illegally disinterred? What was it doing in the backpack with a bunch of feathers and animal parts?

  Diane slipped off her gloves and dropped them in a trashcan. She walked across the room and opened the door. As she crossed the threshold, she took off her museum hat and put on her hat as director of the crime lab of the city of Rosewood, Georgia
.

  The first thing she saw when she entered the lab was an image of feathers projected on the large viewing screen. Elegant plumes with their parts neatly labeled.

  Feathers are one of nature’s many well-designed inventions. They look and feel fragile and soft, they have great beauty, yet they are great protectors, better than an overcoat.

  Diane recognized the illustration as being from one of David’s many databases. He was telling Izzy about feathers. They sat at the conference table looking at the screen. The new system they had recently installed for debriefing about evidence was money well spent. She pulled a chair out, sat down, and listened patiently, only because she knew when she finished with her crime scene crew, she had to go have lunch with Vanessa and Laura.

  “Two main types,” David said.

  He clipped his phrases short, as if he were going down a bulleted list of characteristics. Probably because deep down he felt Izzy had a short attention span for details.

  “Contour and down. A contour feather is the large, flat feather that covers the body of an adult bird.”

  “The ones Indians wear in a headdress,” said Izzy. He grinned at David.

  Izzy, like Jin, liked to irritate David whenever the opportunity arose. And the main way to irritate David was to act either sophomoric or not interested in his databases.

  “And down is in pillows. See, I know feathers.”

  David rolled his eyes. “Contour feathers have a long, thick central shaft called a rachis.” He pointed at examples on the projection as he talked. “The branches off the rachis are called barbs. More branches off the barbs are called barbules, and they are held together by tiny hooks called barbicels. Together these form the vane or vexillum of the feather—the main part of the feather. All this structure makes it so you can zip a feather up and down. Got that? Because I’m giving a test.”

  “What?” said Izzy. “Zip them?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” interrupted Diane. “Kind of like Velcro. It protects the bird. Now, David, will you bottom-line it for me?”

  Diane was getting impatient, even though finishing meant having to go to lunch. But she knew David would expand his explanation into the variations in feathers that allowed people like him to tell what kind of bird a feather came from.