Dead Past dffi-4

by Beverly Connor

  Diane could only imagine. Had Blake gotten cold feet?

  “I found out who the thief is,” said Diane. “His name was Blake Stanton. He’s the young man who was murdered.”

  “That boy?” said Chanell. “I’m sorry, Dr. Fallon, I don’t know how he got access to the museum. But I’ll sure be looking into it.”

  “Unfortunately, I know that, too. He’s the boyfriend of Darcy Kincaid.”

  “Oh, no, not Darcy. That’s a shame. Is she in on it with him, do you know?”

  “I don’t know and I’m reluctant to ask right now,” said Diane.

  “I understand. Now that we know who’s behind it, we can get a line on the other stolen items. How did you find out it was him?”

  Diane explained about the shells being found in her car with his prints on them.

  “So, you’ve recovered the shells?”

  “Just the golden cowrie shells,” said Diane. “I don’t know where the others are.”

  “I’ve instituted a search of all the plants,” said Chanell. “In case that’s where the items were stashed for later pickup or something. Darcy Kincaid.” She shook her head. “I hope that child isn’t involved.”

  “Me too,” said Diane.

  Diane wasn’t feeling as perky as when she awakened this morning. Finding out about Darcy had depressed her. She didn’t believe there was any way Darcy couldn’t have known what Blake was doing. At least, some things were falling into place. She went back to her office and called to make an appointment with Laura Hillard.

  Chapter 32

  Before going to her appointment with Laura, Diane walked upstairs to the crime lab. It was early and she didn’t expect anyone to be there, but she would leave a note. To her surprise, all three of her crew were in the lab working.

  “Do you guys spend the night here?” asked Diane.

  “Just about,” said Neva. “You can get only so much warmth from a webcam, so I might as well work. By the way, Mike told me to go by and have a look at the crystal skull he got for you-do you have it yet?”

  “It’s in my museum office on my desk. It’s very nice. I like it a lot.”

  “Crystal skull? Like the Mayan skull, the Mitchell-Hedges skull?” asked David. “Really? Are you going to display it?”

  “It’s similar to the Mitchell-Hedges skull,” said Diane. “Jonas Briggs wants to put on an exhibit on archaeology and legend or false archaeology, something like that. The provenances are suspect on all the crystal skulls, but there’s a lot of myth and superstition surrounding them. Jonas said he’s been working up an exhibit. Apparently everyone but me knew I was getting one.”

  Before Mike began dating Neva, it was no secret he was interested in Diane, an interest she made it plain she could not accept or reciprocate. Even now he played at flirting on occasion but never seriously. Diane sometimes felt uncomfortable with his faux flirtations because of Neva, but Neva seemed to recognize it as no more than teasing. Mike appeared always to be up front with Neva in everything he did. Diane was relieved to know that. They were all caving partners, she, Neva and Mike-and Jin, too, now. Because of his skills in rock climbing and caving, Mike was the best caving partner she’d ever had. She was loath to lose that. In any other instance she would never accept such a gift from someone she was not involved with, but this was, after all, a crystal skull.

  “Enough about the skull,” said Diane. “I just found out something I need to talk with you about.”

  “What’s that, Boss?” said Jin.

  “I’d like to go see the skull,” said David. “You know they are all supposed to communicate with each other?”

  “Who?” asked Jin.

  “All the crystal skulls,” said David.

  “Are you serious?” said Jin, giving David a sidelong look. “You don’t believe that?”

  “Why not? Transmitters are made from quartz crystals,” said David. “And it makes more sense than that white noise you listened to trying to hear dead voices all last month-driving us all crazy. I still hear white noise in my sleep.”

  “Any dead voices?” asked Jin.

  “Seriously, the skulls are supposed to possess an aura,” said David.

  “Jonas Briggs is going to love talking with you,” said Diane. “The skull’s in my office. You can go ask Andie to let you in. In the meantime…” Diane jerked her thumb to the round table where they debriefed and discussed matters of crime. When they were seated she told them about Darcy Kincaid and Blake Stanton.

  “Well, that clears up one mystery,” said Neva. “How Blake got access to the museum.”

  “I think there are a lot of things we have to rethink,” said Diane. “Darcy was at the ill-fated party. So was Blake. I think we can assume it was a date. We’ll know more when we can talk to Darcy. But it’s possible he may have known no more about the meth lab than the other victims.”

  “His and McNair’s murders may not be related,” said David. “Is that what you are saying?”

  “I don’t know,” said Diane. “I just brought it to you guys to think about. Blake Stanton’s murder may have had to do with his thievery and not be related to McNair at all. Maybe someone was supposed to meet him to purchase something, but killed him and took the item instead-or something along those lines.”

  “Maybe McNair was involved with him in his stealing,” said Neva. “Maybe he had nothing to do with the meth lab, either. Maybe the thefts are the connection and why they were killed in a similar manner.”

  “I know,” Diane said, “This raises more questions than answers.”

  She told them about Vanessa Van Ross’ diamond being found in the dirt of the potted palm.

  “Maybe buyers were expecting Blake to have the stones, and when he didn’t deliver, they killed him. I don’t know. Think about it.” She looked at her watch. “I have an appointment. You guys come up with something.”

  Diane left them sitting at the table reworking their theories. On her way to Laura’s she stopped and bought a vanilla milk shake. Nothing like gluttony to make you feel better, she thought. The frozen drink made her shiver. She wondered how many shakes they sold in the dead of winter.

  Laura’s office was a small cottage with a picket fence and a flower garden. Right now the picket fence was capped with snow and the flower beds were covered over and glistened white. But in the spring and summer it was awash with colors and butterflies. It didn’t look like you were heading to a psychiatrist’s office when you came through the gate and up the walk to the door.

  Inside, the cottage was as cozy as the outside. There was even a fire in the grate. The receptionist told Diane to go on into Laura’s office. It also had a fireplace with a warm and gentle fire. The room looked more like a snug den than a doctor’s office. Diane imagined that the atmosphere must put everyone at ease.

  Laura’s blue eyes twinkled as she greeted Diane. “I knew you would find something,” she said.

  She was dressed in a lime green silk suit. Her blond hair was shoulder length and turned under. Laura always looked so well groomed, thought Diane. She and Kendel would make a pair.

  “I’m not sure I have,” said Diane. “I wanted to bounce it off you first.”

  “Bounce away. Can I get you some coffee first? Tea?”

  Diane shook her head. “Just had a milk shake.”

  “How do you do that and stay so slim? I have to watch everything I eat,” said Laura.

  “I burn it, I suppose. Nervous energy.”

  Diane sat down on a small sofa next to the warm fire. Laura sat opposite her in a comfortable looking wingback chair.

  “I looked over the information you sent. Only two things caught my attention in the reports. One was the jogger who fell, and the other was the kid next door who heard Juliet say something suggestive to someone.”

  “I agree about the child next door, but what about the jogger?”

  “I think the jogger’s fall was a ruse to divert attention while the kidnapper grabbed Juliet. I’ll call the
authorities in Arizona where she was kidnapped and find out if a composite sketch was ever drawn of her. But the main thing I wanted to talk with you about is this: Listening to the tape of her talking about her memories of that time, I had an epiphany.”

  “What’s that?” Laura leaned forward, her elbows on the arms of her chair.

  “I don’t think her memories are of one crime, but are of two separate crimes,” said Diane.

  Laura sat back in her chair, shocked.

  “How in the world?” said Laura. “Two crimes? Tell me.”

  “Remember, it’s a tenuous thread I’m working with here,” warned Diane.

  “It would have to be. If it were obvious, I’d have seen it. This is why I asked you to look at it. Please, go on. I’m all ears.”

  “In what Juliet was saying on the tape, she is having a hard time separating her dreams and her fears from her memories.”

  Laura nodded. “That’s common, especially in early memories.”

  “Sometimes those memories are in code,” said Diane.

  “OK…” Laura was more tentative in her affirmation this time.

  “When you asked Juliet what she meant by new dolls, she said “dolls in boxes.” I don’t think she meant that. I think her brain has combined memories.”

  “Combining memories is common even when a person is an adult,” agreed Laura.

  Diane was trying to explain her reasoning in a linear fashion to Laura, but the idea had come to her all at once and she wasn’t sure where to begin.

  “Juliet said her grandmother accused her of stealing a doll. I think this was real and occurred near the time of Event One-Event Two being her kidnapping. And because the grandmother’s accusation was close in time to the two major traumas and held some visual similarities, the doll became the code for the rest of it.

  “When Juliet first came to work at the museum, Andie made her a gift basket, as she does for all new employees. Because seashells were a speciality of Juliet’s, Andie used that as a basis for the theme of the basket. The centerpiece was a doll-Ariel, the mermaid from Walt Disney.”

  Diane saw the frown that briefly creased Laura’s forehead. Ariel was the name of Diane’s adopted daughter, who was killed. Ariel had named herself after the Disney character because she wanted to start a new life with a new name-Ariel Fallon. Diane continued.

  “When Juliet saw the basket on her desk, she freaked. I mean really freaked. It was much worse than when Kendel found the museum snake coiled up in her desk drawer-and that was an event we will all remember for some time to come. Juliet was very embarrassed at her reaction and muttered something about being afraid of new dolls. Andie had taken the doll out of the packaging when she made the basket. It wasn’t in a box.”

  Diane stopped to let it sink in.

  “I’m sorry,” said Laura. “I don’t see the significance of that, and I can see by your face that it is significant, but I need a little more.”

  “Juliet said, ‘I remember being in a dark room with new dolls.’ You asked what she meant by new dolls, and she said, ‘Dolls still in the box.’ But we know from her reaction to the welcome basket that she was scared witless by a doll that was not in a box.”

  “OK,” said Laura, still sounding unsure. “So what did she mean?”

  “There is something else common to new dolls besides the cardboard box they often come in. I saw it last night when I passed the museum store and saw all the Dora the Explorer dolls lined up together on the shelf. It was really very eerie. In the low nighttime lighting of the gift shop, each of the little dolls was peering out at me from behind the cellophane window in its box. Andie’s basket didn’t have the doll in a box, but there was cellophane around the whole basket-and Ariel the mermaid was peering out from inside the plastic.”

  Diane could see from the puzzled look on Laura’s face that this really cleared it up for her.

  “Are you saying Juliet would be afraid of an old doll if it was wrapped in cellophane?”

  “Yes.”

  “And this means?”

  “The room of dolls she saw in her memory weren’t dolls; they were murdered people wrapped in plastic, and this was the first psychological trauma for her and may have led to Event Two-her kidnapping.”

  Chapter 33

  If Laura was shocked before, she was stunned into silence now. She sat back in her chair, staring in disbelief at Diane.

  Diane pulled out the tape that Laura had sent her.

  “Here, play the part where she is telling you what her memories are. Instead of it being a room full of dolls, think mass murder scene and listen to how the rest of her memories sound.”

  Laura put the tape in her recorder, found the right place, and played it. At the end of the sequence she stopped the tape.

  “It is scarier, hearing it from the perspective you describe, I’ll grant you that,” said Laura.

  “The sequence also makes more sense,” said Diane. “The fear she has of the room makes more sense and the running makes more sense.”

  “Yes, it does,” agreed Laura. “But…”

  “I know. I said it’s tenuous. But I think it is worth investigating.”

  “What in the world made you think of murder victims?” asked Laura.

  “A couple of things. In the morgue tent, we were short on body bags and had to cover the victims with plastic until bags arrived. Looking at the burned bodies through the plastic was eerie, to say the least. It reminded me of a murder in Atlanta recently where the killer used plastic to wrap the victim and hid him in a wall. Plastic is popular with killers because if you wrap the victim up just right, the blood doesn’t leak out.”

  “My God.” Laura shook her head as if shaking the image out. “Can you investigate this?” asked Laura. “Would you even know where to begin? I really don’t want to hit Juliet with this, especially since at the moment it’s no more than speculation.”

  “I agree. And, yes, I can investigate it. First, there are some things I’d like to know. We know she was kidnapped from her home in Arizona, but what was she doing in the weeks before the kidnapping? Was she at home in Arizona or was she somewhere else? You can ask her that, can’t you?” said Diane.

  “Where she was?” asked Laura. “What makes you think she may not have been at home?”

  “Because of something else that struck me on the tape,” said Diane.

  “I must say, Diane, you got a lot more out of the short conversation than I did,” said Laura. “What else did you notice?”

  “Andie’s basket had the mermaid doll that we think was the trigger that set off Juliet’s fear attack, but the basket also contained a lot of seashells. Even though Juliet likes seashells-she’s made a career of mollusks-the juxtaposition might be important in her memory.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Do you know where her grandmother lives?” asked Diane.

  “No. Is that important?”

  “Along with all her fearful memories are also good memories of her grandmother and memories of collecting seashells on the beach. She didn’t collect seashells on the beach in Arizona,” said Diane.

  “You think all of these memories are connected in time,” said Laura. She got up and walked over to a small refrigerator and took out a couple of Dr. Peppers and gave one to Diane. “I need something to drink, and they won’t let me drink and take care of patients at the same time. And I don’t like to drink alone.” She glanced at her watch.

  “Do you have an appointment coming up?” asked Diane.

  “In about fifteen minutes. Go on,” said Laura.

  Diane opened the drink and took a sip. It was ice-cold. “I think the memories are connected by fear, at the least.” Diane took another drink.

  “Look, Laura,” said Diane. “I’m not really saying anything, except that it’s something to investigate. I agree, you shouldn’t mention this to Juliet. Right now it’s just a flight of fancy of mine, but I’d like to look into it.”

  “Well, I must say, y
ou’ve surprised the hell out of me,” said Laura.

  “I could be completely wrong and probably am. I’ve certainly not been able to do much with the other cases I’m working on now,” said Diane.

  “And why are you working on them at all? I thought your job is to analyze bones and collect evidence from crime scenes. Is Rosewood having a shortage of homicide detectives? Come to think of it, I wouldn’t be surprised, the way Adler has been attacking the police.”

  “I got interested in solving those crimes when Patrice Stanton vandalized my car,” said Diane.

  “The woman’s obviously crazy. She really thinks you killed her son? I know she said that, but I thought she was just sticking it to you for turning the little carjacker in.”

  “No, she actually thinks I killed him. The only bright spot is that she’s stopped her harassment because she thinks I also killed McNair and she’s afraid I’ll come after her.”

  Laura threw her head back and laughed out loud.

  It was getting colder outside. Diane was glad to be back in her office and warm. She reached for the phone to call Garnett when Andie knocked on her door and stuck her head in.

  “You have some visitors from the dark side,” said Andie.

  “Send the creatures in,” said Diane.

  David, Jin, and Neva all came into her office, pulled chairs away from their places against the wall, and sat down. Jin turned his chair around so that he sat straddling it, resting his arms on the back.

  “Is this some kind of protest?” said Diane. “Have I been working you too hard?”

  “We came to see the skull,” said David.

  “OK.” Diane picked up the crystal skull and handed it to David.

  “Wow,” he said. “This is nice.” He turned the skull over in his hand and caressed the surface. “Is it ancient?”