“En route. What’s up?”
“Can you swing around by my place and give me a lift?”
“Sure, something happen to the museum car?”
“Patrice Stanton, trying to work through her grief,” said Diane, before flipping her phone shut.
Diane stamped her feet trying to keep warm as she waited for Andie. She called Neva to come and photograph and print her car ASAP. Then she called a mechanic she often used and asked him to pick it up after Neva finished and take it to his brother’s shop for a paint job.
“Sure thing,” he said. “You want flames?”
Diane could see him grinning into the phone. “No, it got those last night. I want it like it was. Can he resist making it a canvas?”
“Sure thing. Somebody vandalize your car?”
“Indeed they did. They weren’t very poetic about it, either.”
“I’ll get it right away,” he said.
“It’s in front of my apartment building. You can’t miss it,” she said.
Andie pulled in front of the museum car, stopped and got out, and looked at it.
“Who is Patrice Stanton and why did she do this?” said Andie, her Orphan Annie curls bouncing as she shook her head.
“I’ll tell you on the way.” Diane got in Andie’s Honda and closed the door.
“OK, what happened? Why does this woman think you are a murderer?” said Andie.
Diane explained about Blake Stanton.
“The kid with one hand who held a gun on you and tried to take your car?”
“Yes, the same,” answered Diane.
“And this chick thinks you did him in and is harassing you about it?”
“Yes.”
“Bummer.”
When they were almost to the museum, Diane asked Andie to take the gravel access road that led around to the loading dock.
“You think she is waiting on you out front?” asked Andie.
“I wouldn’t be surprised. She’s a woman with a mission.”
Her son was dead. Diane tried to remember that. Grief takes many forms. Mrs. Stanton’s form was certainly destructive.
Andie turned in the gravel access road, drove to the back of the museum, and stopped.
“Thanks, Andie.”
Diane hopped out of the car and entered the museum by the back way, which was actually a quicker way to her office. She let herself in by her private entrance, locked the door behind her, set her coffeemaker to chugging, sat down, and began sorting through paperwork on her desk. The phone rang and she picked it up.
“RiverTrail Museum of Natural History,” she said automatically.
“I want to speak with that killer, Diane Fallon.”
Diane recognized Patrice Stanton’s voice. It crackled with hatred.
“May I take a message?”
“Yes, you can take a message. Before I’m through, everyone is going to know what a cold-blooded killer they have working for them at the museum.”
“May I say who’s calling?”
Patrice Stanton was quiet a moment.
Startled by the polite response? On to me? Wondering if she should reveal herself? Thinking of a snappy comeback?
“Tell her it’s the mother of the son she murdered,” Patrice said. “Murdered in cold blood.”
“In cold blood, got it.” Diane replaced the receiver.
In a few minutes she heard Andie come into her office. Diane rose and opened the adjoining door.
“Andie, we’re going to be getting some harassing phone calls today from Patrice Stanton.”
“Can’t the woman be stopped? Isn’t there anything we can do?” asked Andie.
“Yes, there is. I know she is suffering and is trying to vent her anger, but we have to exercise caution and protect the museum from whatever imprudent thing she might do.”
“So, what should I do?”
“I’ll have Chanell make necessary security arrangements. If you receive any calls from her, field them as best you can. Keep a log and a brief summary of them and notify Chanell. Check discreetly with the heads of the museum departments; instruct them to let me know immediately if any of them receive abusive calls from her, and I’ll have our attorneys get a restraining order against her.”
“OK, will do.”
Diane walked to the office of Chanell Napier, her chief of museum Security. She brought Chanell up to date on the situation, including calls at Diane’s home and the vandalizing of the museum car.
“I feel sorry for the woman,” said Chanell, “but she better get a grip on herself. I can record all the calls coming into the Director’s Office in the event that we take legal action. My people will have that set up within the hour. If she’s already been arrested once, I can get a mug shot of her and provide all of my security people with her picture. I think we better keep her off museum property until this whole thing is cleared up, don’t you?”
“All those sound like sensible precautions, Chanell. Thank you.”
“You don’t need to thank me, Dr. Fallon. You know I take the protection of you and this museum seriously. We’re not going to have any more of the kind of thing that’s happened around here in the past. We’re going to stop trouble at the door.”
Diane informed Andy of the security precautions being put into place, then returned to her office, her paperwork, and her e-mail-thankfully, Patrice hadn’t thought of e-mail yet. With any luck, perhaps she would be computer illiterate. Diane called the hospital and asked about Darcy Kincaid. The nurses station asked her for the family code word that would allow them to give out the information.
“Golden,” said Diane, looking at the note on her desk from the Kincaids.
“She’s out of her coma and drifting in and out of consciousness. Her condition has been upgraded from critical to serious.”
“Thank you,” said Diane. She went to the door between their offices and told Andie.
“That’s good, isn’t it?” said Andie “Yes, it is. I’m going to my other office,” she said. “If there are any problems, give me a call.”
Andy, clearly unnerved by the situation, asked, “Is there anything else we can do about Patrice Stanton?”
“I can find out who killed her son,” replied Diane.
Diane left her east-wing office and took the less visible route across the Pleistocene room, through the mammal room, and to the bank of elevators near the restaurant. Fortunately, she didn’t meet Patrice. She felt silly when she got on the elevator and just a little paranoid. She got off in front of the exhibit preparation room-where Darcy worked. She went in and updated Darcy’s coworkers on her condition.
From there she went to the crime lab. She hoped that Neva and Jin had found something that would lead them to Blake’s killer. Patrice’s harassment had just started, but Diane was already sick of it. As she passed the lounge, she ran into Madge Stewart, one of the museum board members, on her way out.
Madge was a small woman, several inches shorter than Diane. Her springy gray hair surrounded her head like a messy halo. She was quite a busybody, and Diane just knew she was in for an interesting run-in.
“I was just looking for you, Diane,” she said.
“Hello, Madge. Did you try my office?”
“Oh, I just came in here to get a Coke and some peanuts.” She held them up for Diane to see.
“What did you need to see me about?”
“I got this strange call. Some woman said you killed her son. Did you?”
“No, Madge, I didn’t kill her son. If I did, I’d be under arrest, wouldn’t I?”
“Well, I thought it might have been in the line of duty, that kind of thing.” She cast a furtive glance toward the crime lab just a few feet away. Many in the museum referred to the top floor of the west wing as the dark side. Apparently Madge did, too.
“No, Madge, I had nothing to do with his death.”
“Why does his mother think you did?” Madge made it sound like an accusation. It probably was. Her small dar
k eyes bore into Diane like she was looking for any kind of deception.
Because she’s nuts, thought Diane. Her words were kinder. “This just happened to her son last night. She’s in deep grief.”
“How did you hear about it?” said Madge.
From the look on her face, Diane could see that she thought she had caught Diane in a slip of the tongue. If you didn’t kill him, then how did you know when he died? — she knew Madge was dying to say.
“I was working another crime scene when the detective in charge got the call,” said Diane. Madge looked disappointed and Diane wanted to laugh.
“You know, if you would get rid of that crime scene stuff, this wouldn’t happen,” said Madge.
“Madge, the crime lab didn’t have anything to do with his death. Now excuse me, I need to go.”
Diane walked across the dinosaur overlook and into the hallway that represented the border between the museum and its dark side.
Chapter 24
“OK, I need to know who killed the Stanton kid,” Diane said as she came into the crime lab.
David looked up at her from his computer, Jin from his microscope; Neva was gone-processing her car, she hoped. However she saw a drawing she had been doing that looked like a picture of the back of a man. The Cipriano case, Diane guessed. She wondered about the usefulness of back view, but who knows? Someone may have seen him hanging around.
“Garnett said Stanton is a priority?” asked David. “Because they’re rich, I’ll bet. You know, just because Joana Cipriano’s not wealthy…”
“Garnett hasn’t said anything,” interrupted Diane. “I have.” She explained about Patrice Stanton and Patrice’s new goal in life.
“The woman who attacked you at the hospital?” asked Jin. “Nervy.”
“The woman is a bottomless well of nerve,” said Diane, “She’s already driving me crazy and she hasn’t even gotten started. I want her off my back. In particular, off the museum’s back. Tell me what you found.”
“We aren’t supposed to talk with you about it,” said Jin. “Garnett told us not to. But I will if you ask me.”
“No, I won’t ask you. He’s just protecting the evidence,” she said.
Too bad he didn’t do a better job protecting the evidence of the explosion, she thought.
“Did he tell you not to tell David?” asked Diane.
“No, he didn’t,” said Jin.
“Good. Tell David. I’ll be finishing my reports on the explosion remains. Have any of the DNA analyses come back?”
“No,” he said. “It’ll be a while. Now, if we were doing it…”
“I know,” said Diane. “We need our own lab. Find me Blake’s killer and I’ll go to the mat with Garnett for a DNA lab.”
Jin looked at her wide-eyed. “You serious, Boss?”
“Yes.”
Jin rubbed his hands together. “OK, David. Let’s do it,” said Jin.
“You are serious, aren’t you?” said David.
“I am,” Diane said.
Diane retreated to her osteology lab and began checking over all the forensic reports and filing them away in the vault with the pieces of bone.
The only skeleton not yet analyzed was the antique individual who was shot in the head. Diane laid him out in anatomical position on one of her tables. She placed the skull on a doughnut ring. She eyed the brown and black bones a moment, then began examining each one.
Most of the bones were present, with the exception of some very small ones. The tips of all the fingers of the left hand, except the thumb and index finger, were missing. All the distal phalanges were missing from the right hand. Three of the carpal bones-wrist bones-were missing from the left side and one from the right. All the foot bones were present. Diane thought that amazing under the circumstances.
The hyoid bone-the bone in the throat that supports the base of the tongue-was missing. All the long bones were present. They’re harder to lose, of course, if you’re keeping a box of bones. Human skeletons have twelve ribs on each side. The eleventh and twelfth-called floating ribs because they are not attached ventrally-were missing from the left side; the twelfth was missing from the right.
She checked all the ribs for nicks and cuts that might have come from a knife or gunshot wound. She found none. She measured the long bones using a bone board. The left leg bones-the femur, tibia, and fibula-taken together were shorter than the right by half an inch. He may have had a slight limp. Other than that, the long bones were unremarkable.
Two thoracic vertebrae were missing. The coccyx-the tail bone-had a small healed crack. At some point in his life he had fallen and cracked it. It probably gave him trouble the rest of his young life. Diane examined each vertebra. There were no healed breaks, nor were there any signs of lipping or degenerative disease. Other than his teeth, he was basically healthy.
In the middle of the examination David came in and pulled up a chair.
“Neva came back. She told us about your car. You have a hard time with vehicles, don’t you,” he said.
“Apparently,” said Diane not looking up from the bones.
“I had a long talk with both Neva and Jin,” he said. “I assume you would like to be filled in, as Garnett didn’t tell them not to talk to me about the case and he certainly didn’t tell me not to talk to you about it.”
David cast a glance at the skeleton on the table. “Is that the guy who was under the bed?”
“That’s him. I thought I’d analyze his bones. It’s rather relaxing.”
“What do you know about him?” asked David.
“Other than he is male in his early twenties? Caucasian, from the look of his skull and the indexes of his other measurements. He had a slight limp that he was born with. He was fairly healthy; broke his tailbone at one time; stood about five feet six, and was left-handed. I’m going to have a stable isotope analysis done on a sample of his bone to see what I can find out about where he grew up and what kind of diet he might have had.”
“Garnett won’t spring for that,” said David.
“The primate lab will,” said Diane. “What’s the use of being director of the museum and curator of the primate lab if I can’t order a SIA once in a while?”
“Who do you think he is?” asked David.
“Who do I think he is?” Diane repeated. “I have no idea.”
“How long has he been dead?”
“My guess right now, from the dry feel of his bones, would be over a hundred years. We’ll learn more after some tests on the bones. There’s a possibility he may be a Civil War veteran. That’s just a guess. Probably, someone accidently found the coffin, thought it was cool, robbed the bones, and sent him to college.”
“Interesting,” said David. “Poor fellow gets shot in the head and then a hundred years later gets caught in an explosion and fire. He’s one unlucky dude.”
“Speaking of unlucky dudes,” said Diane, “Tell me about Blake.” She stripped off her gloves, washed her hands, pulled up a chair, and sat down across from David and leaned forward.
“Blake,” sighed David. “Unlucky is right. You know, being born rich should give you an edge, but it didn’t in his case. Now, I should have been born rich. I wouldn’t have been such a pissant.”
“You would if you had his parents,” said Diane. “I actually feel sorry for him.”
“Yeah, so do I. OK, here’s what we know. Blake went from the hospital to arraignment. The judge released him to his parents, even though he is an adult. Money does buy a lot around here. Anyway, he went home with them. Sometime in the night his father woke up. He doesn’t know why. His mother had taken sleeping pills and she was zonked. The father went to Blake’s room and he wasn’t there. He went back to bed.”
“He didn’t look for him?” asked Diane.
“He said his son is an adult,” said David.
“He was released into their custody,” said Diane.
“I didn’t say his parents were consistent.” David rubbed the
top of his head. “Look, these chairs aren’t very comfortable. Can I sit on the couch in your office?”
“Sure.” Diane rose and stretched, easing the strain in her back. Followed by David, she went to her Osteology office.
“This is much nicer,” he said, dropping himself onto her stuffed sofa. “Where was I? AWOL, right. Anyway, the father thought the son leaving the house was what woke him up, so he went back to bed-thinking, I suppose, that a one-handed kid just out of the hospital could handle himself.”
“Where did he go?” asked Diane.
“Not far. He was found by the maid in the boathouse, shot in the head-no stippling.”
“What kind of gun?”
“Don’t know. Didn’t find a bullet. No exit wound, so it’s still in his head.”
“Could his father have heard the shot? Is that what woke him up?” said Diane.
“Then why didn’t it wake the entire community? The sound of gunfire carries very well over water. We think maybe the killer used a silencer.”
“Silencer. OK. Then it was premeditated. A hit maybe?”
“I’m thinking that. Someone he was involved with lured him out of the house in the middle of the night and shot him in the boathouse. The boathouse is open on the water end. The killer could have ridden up in a boat, tapped him, and left.”
“Wouldn’t the motor wake everyone up?”
“One would think. The police are canvassing the neighborhood.”
“Was there anything on the body? What was he carrying?”
“He was dressed in sweatpants, sweatshirt, and a coat. He had keys to the house and car in his coat pocket. He had no money, billfold, or credit cards. Those were in his room. Neva found a silver charm of a ballerina slipper on the dock. His parents didn’t recognize it. I don’t think he was expecting to go anywhere but outside for a minute or two. He put on his shoes without socks-in this cold weather.”
“It looks like a hit. The meth lab connection looks like the best bet,” said Diane.
“That’s what Garnett thinks. Of course, his mother thinks it was you.”
“Why?” asked Diane.
“Neva says she just wants it to be you.”
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