Dead Past dffi-4

by Beverly Connor

  “I’m getting to that,” said her grandmother. “You never were a patient girl. Leo Parrish lived in Glendale-Marsh in the late 1930s. I don’t know much about him or where his folks were from, but he was-I guess-in his twenties about then. He was one of these boys always looking for the quick buck. The story is, he got interested in the tale of the missing fortune and, as he was a fellow with a head for numbers, he somehow figured out where the loot had to have ended up.”

  The cake came and the waitress brought one for each of them. Diane realized she had missed lunch. Well, what the hell, she thought, if cake was good enough for the peasants of France, it was good enough for her. She took a bite.

  “I usually don’t eat so much,” said Mrs. Torkel after a big bite of cake. “But, I’m on vacation.” She took a sip of coffee. “Now, where was I?”

  “Leo Parrish figured out where the treasure was,” said Juliet.

  “Oh, yes,” said her grandmother. “He found it-the legend says. And he brought it to Glendale-Marsh in secret and hid it. Not long after, he went off to war-that’s World War II. He was worried about the treasure, so he wrote down where it was in some kind of fancy code that nobody could decipher-and sent the code home in a book. I don’t know anything about what kind of code it was, but since the thirties, we’ve had tourists coming to Glendale-Marsh looking for the book with the code and for the treasure. It was a real popular thing to do back in the fifties and sixties. I reckon poor Leo Parrish’s family land has been dug up from one end t’other looking for that treasure.”

  “What happened to Leo Parrish?” asked Juliet.

  “He went missing in action. Nobody ever heard from him again. If there ever was a treasure, it got lost with him,” said her grandmother. She stopped talking and ate several bites of her cake.

  “The treasure hunters have slacked off for several years. Occasionally, we get a few now and again, but not like we did in the fifties.”

  “That’s an interesting story,” said Diane. “You think this might be the code?” She tapped the paper in front of them.

  “Who knows?” said Mrs. Torkel. “I don’t know of any other code, but I can’t say how it got in that doll. The doll’s not that old.”

  “Maybe some treasure hunter found the code and hid it in the doll,” said Juliet.

  “Do the Parrishes still live in Glendale-Marsh?” asked Diane.

  “No, they been gone from there for about thirty or forty years. Died out, mainly.”

  “Wow,” said Juliet. “Treasure right there and I didn’t know about it?”

  “We found lots of treasure in our shells,” said her grandmother. “They seem to have served you well. I imagine you’ve made more money from your interest in shells than you ever would from looking for treasure.”

  Diane finished the last bite of her cake. “Juliet…,” began Diane.

  “I really don’t want to stay in a hotel,” said Juliet. “I will if I have to, but…”

  “I’ll have museum Security watch your apartment,” said Diane.

  “You think the guy who held you up for the doll is my kidnapper, don’t you?” said Juliet.

  “Yes,” said Diane, “I do. I don’t know how it all fits together, but I’m working on it. I really don’t want to alarm you, but I think he may be afraid you remember him.”

  “Why?” asked Juliet.

  Why? A good question, thought Diane. It was something else that had been nagging at the corner of her mind. Then, like the slow movement of molasses, it simply flowed into her brain.

  “I think it has something to do with what you said before you were kidnapped. In the newspaper articles, neighbors were quoted as having heard you say, ‘I don’t know you’ to someone near your backyard. Just before Joana Cipriano was murdered, she was heard to say to a man at her door, ‘Do I know you?’ The phrases are so close, I think her murderer was convinced he was recognized. Joana turned out to be the wrong person, but the conviction that you would be able to identify him carried over.”

  “You think it is about the treasure?” asked Juliet.

  “He wanted the doll. A code was in the doll. That’s the only story we’ve heard so far that contains a code. So, yes. It may be just a treasure story, but he may believe it to be true.”

  “So he was trying to get the doll when he kidnapped me twenty years ago?” said Juliet.

  “Maybe. We won’t know that until we find him. But the police are on it. We are taking precautions, so don’t you or your grandmother worry.”

  “Maybe we should stay in a hotel,” said her grandmother. “A nice one.”

  “Why don’t you do that?” said Diane. “I’ll have someone from museum Security stay next door.”

  “That sounds just fine,” said Mrs. Torkel. “They can follow us over to your apartment to get some things, Juliet. I’ll get a chance to see where you live, then we’ll stay in a nice hotel.”

  Juliet smiled at her grandmother. Diane got the idea that Mrs. Torkel had mellowed considerably since Juliet was a little girl.

  When they finished eating their cake, Diane took them to the Security office and arranged for an escort and guard. From there she went to her office and removed the evidence bag with the original code from her safe, put it in her pocket, and walked up to the top floor of the east wing to the museum library and archives.

  Beth, the museum’s librarian, was a slender middle-aged woman with snow white hair whom Diane had hired when she was eased out of the university library in favor of younger employees. Age discrimination was against university regulations, but being passed over for promotions, and other passive-aggressive measures, were hard to prove and to defend against. She was clearly Bartram’s loss and the museum’s gain.

  The door issued a gentle jingle as Diane opened it. Beth, holding a book, was standing on a tall library ladder. She looked down to see who had entered, placed the book on the shelf, and climbed down.

  She looked warm in her navy pantsuit. Diane shivered. Beth kept the library slightly cooler than Diane liked, but she apparently found it very comfortable.

  “Dr. Fallon,” she said, “what can I do for you?”

  Among Beth’s abilities as a librarian and archivist, she was an outstanding genealogist and taught several community classes at the museum. Genealogy wasn’t in the domain of natural history, but it was history and it was in the domain of classes people would pay to take, and that made it good for the museum.

  “Beth, I have a task for you,” said Diane.

  She smiled. “I hope it’s not as difficult as the task you gave Kendel.”

  Diane smiled, too. “I don’t think so. I have someone I want you to trace for me. I would like to know his ancestry at least one or two generations back, but mainly his descendants-and not just his direct descendants.”

  Beth went to get a pen and paper. She held the pen poised over the pad. “What’s his name?”

  “Leo Parrish. I don’t know the exact spelling. He was in his twenties in the late 1930s and lived in Glendale-Marsh, Florida, at that time. He enlisted in the Second World War, but I don’t know which branch of service. He was listed as missing in action. He wrote to relatives while he was in the service, but I don’t know who they are. I know that’s not much to go on.”

  “Actually, that’s quite a bit. When do you want the information?”

  “Yesterday, if you can manage it,” said Diane.

  “Time travel’s my speciality. I’ll see what I can do.”

  Beth smiled, and Diane thanked her and walked downstairs to the conservation lab and into the head conservator’s office.

  “Korey,” said Diane, “do you have a minute?”

  “Dr. F.,” said Korey, “I’d be a bad employee indeed, if I didn’t have time for my boss. I’ve got that analysis Kendel asked for. It’s not newsprint, but paper used in books circa thirties and forties.”

  “Book paper. Interesting.” Diane took the evidence bag from her pocket and removed the original paper containi
ng the code.

  “What you got here, Dr. F.? Looks like some kind of cryptogram.”

  “This is the paper the sample came from. What I want you to do is duplicate it-it doesn’t have to be exact, just look old. And I want the printing changed to simple random letters, but basically the same format and near the same handwriting as you can get it.”

  Korey put a hand on the back of his dreadlocks, raised his eyebrows, and grinned. His brown eyes sparkled.

  “When you get finished with whatever it is you’re doing,” he said, “I’ll buy you a steak if you’ll tell me what this is about.”

  “You’ve got a deal. Can you do it?”

  “Sure. When do you need it?” he asked.

  “As soon as you can get to it,” said Diane.

  “You got it,” said Korey.

  “Put the original in your vault for me,” said Diane. “And don’t talk about it to anyone.”

  “Sounds like a serious scrap of paper,” he said as he held it up to the light.

  “Deadly serious,” she said.

  As she left his office, her cell phone vibrated. The display said it was Garnett.

  “Diane,” he said, “just called to tell you we have a line on the Impala.”

  Chapter 44

  “You’ve found the Impala? That’s a relief,” said Diane. She climbed the steps to the third floor.

  “We don’t have it yet. It’s been sighted and we have a lead on it. I just thought I’d let you know, so when we find it, your people can process it,” said Garnett.

  “I’ll give them a heads-up,” said Diane. “I’m really eager to find this guy. He told me that if I didn’t give him the package, he would open fire on the busload of children visiting the museum.”

  “This is somebody we need to catch soon,” said Garnett.

  “You won’t get an argument from me.”

  “So, it’s your thinking that the Cipriano murder was a case of mistaken identity?” said Garnett.

  “I believe so. The perp was after the doll all along. The woman I think was the intended target is named Juliet Price, one of my employees. The doll belongs to her. She lives just around the block from Cipriano in the same apartment complex and has a very similar address, 131 H. They are both blue-eyed blondes of similar age-their descriptors are close enough that they could be mistaken for each other. Plus, there’s the Impala present at both crime scenes. The one used today was dark blue, so it’s likely to have a blue interior. If we can match carpet fibers found at the Cipriano murder, we’ll have him connected to both crimes.”

  “Napier said there was a doll involved. What’s that about?” asked Garnett.

  “I’m not sure. I think it’s a hunt for lost treasure,” said Diane.

  “Lost treasure? You’ve got to be kidding,” said Garnett.

  “I’m not kidding, but I may be wrong,” she said. “It’s kind of a long story. I’ll give you the complete rundown later.”

  “In your 911 call, you said there may have been two perps?” said Garnett.

  “Two or more. He told me not to move for five minutes while ‘we get out of here.’ ”

  “You may have found us the break we needed,” said Garnett.

  “I wish I could take credit, but he came to me,” said Diane as she walked across the museum in the direction of the crime lab.

  “That was a dangerous experience for you. Are you all right?” asked Garnett.

  “I’m fine. He got what he was after,” she said. “I was more mad than scared.”

  Diane walked past the lounge and across the dinosaur overlook and came face-to-face with Darth Vader. She stopped in her tracks.

  “I have to go,” she said. “Something’s come up. Let me know if you find him.” Diane flipped the phone closed.

  A life-sized cardboard cutout of Darth Vader stood holding a sign that read: STOP HERE MUSEUM PERSONNEL ONLY

  He stood just behind one of the museum’s velvet covered chains used for roping off nonpublic areas. Kids sometimes break away from their group and decide to make their own tour of the museum. Some get lost in the huge building and require rescuing. So, the docents post Authorized Personnel signs in various places. Today was an especially busy day for tours of schoolchildren. One of the docents must have wanted to keep the kids out of the west wing and thought this particular sign was a funny inside joke. Diane stepped over the rope past Darth Vader and went to the dark side.

  Jin and Neva, counting cigarette butts, were in one of the glassed-in rooms with their booty spread out on a long table.

  “Hey, Boss,” said Jin. “You all in one piece? We saw the video image of the guy with the gun on you.”

  “I’m fine. How are you doing here?” she asked.

  Jin gestured to a table full of evidence bags. “We got a lot of butts.”

  Also lying on the table was a large piece of white butcher paper with a map drawn on it showing the relative locations of the morgue tent, the coffee tent, the media tent, and where the onlookers stood. Jin and Neva wore gloves and were sorting through the butts looking for Dorals. Apparently they hadn’t found any yet, for there was nothing on their map.

  David entered the room just as Diane donned a pair of gloves to help with the sorting. It looked like hundreds of them.

  “I got the photos from museum Security,” said David. “That was a big gun he had trained on you. Must have been scary.”

  “Made me more mad than scared. All he wanted was the doll. Were you able to clarify the photographs?”

  “I got a partial plate. AXE and it looks like a Georgia plate.”

  “AXE,” said Jin. “You think that was on purpose?”

  “I doubt it. What criminal has vanity plates?” said Neva.

  David shook his head. “I also got the interior. The seats look blue. I imagine the carpet is, too.”

  “Garnett’s chasing down a lead to the car right now,” said Diane. “If he finds it and them, I’m going to need you guys to process the car and their clothes too, ASAP.”

  “Sure thing, Boss,” said Jin.

  “What about the face?” asked Diane. “Could you do anything with that?”

  “Not really,” said David. “He had on sunglasses. My face recognition software needs to see the eyes. But I cleared it up as much as I could and sent it to the police department. They can use it to show around. Someone might recognize him.”

  “OK, I’m going to finish the facial reconstruction. David, do you mind helping Jin and Neva sort the cigarette butts?”

  “Not at all,” said David, putting on a pair of gloves. “By the way, why did the guy steal a doll? Was it valuable? And what did it have to do with Cipriano?”

  “Because of what was inside the doll,” said Diane. “Cipriano, I think, was a mistake. I’ll tell you more later. Right now we’ve got evidence to process.”

  Diane left them sorting cigarette butts and went to her lab where the bones were still waiting for her. She had already pieced together most of the face the last time she worked on them. There weren’t that many pieces left. She made quick work of it, and when she finished she had two complete skeletal faces.

  She took them both to her vault, put each in turn on the pedestal, and scanned each with the laser scanner. She asked the software to reconstruct the unknown victim first, then do another construction of the first victim. Now that she had a more complete face, there would be fewer extrapolations and a more accurate rendition of the face. Even though the first reconstruction was already identified, a more accurate picture would be helpful to the police in tracing the guy’s steps before he got blown into tiny pieces.

  As the software worked its magic-growing a face- she went back out to the bones and began the tedious task of trying to separate the two skeletons. She accomplished that through measurements and articulated surfaces. The task was made easier by the fact that the two individuals were of different heights. One had been athletic, as indicated by large muscle attachments on his arms and legs and pelvi
c bones. The other individual had been more sedentary.

  The athletic individual was about ten years older than the other, as shown by the sternal end of his ribs, various epiphyses, and the condition of the pubic symphysis. He had a healed wound in his scapula-probably a gunshot wound. It would have reduced the range of motion in his arm and shoulder. From the size of the muscle attachments, he compensated by strengthening his arm and shoulder within the range of motion he had. Gradually she separated out the two skeletons until each lay on a separate table.

  She went back to have a look at the faces. The image on the screen when she walked in was the re-scanned face of the identified victim from the basement. It was similar to the first version, but looked more realistic. Faces aren’t actually symmetrical. There are always slight variations from one side to the other. Duplicating one side and flipping it to substitute for missing bones creates a rather strange looking facsimile. This face no longer had that odd appearance.

  She flipped it over and looked at the next face-and sat stunned. He could have been Marcus McNair’s brother, he was so similar.

  Chapter 45

  Diane stared at the reconstructed face on the computer screen. Was this what Marcus McNair didn’t want them to find? A relative? Why wasn’t he reported missing? Didn’t he have other family who missed him? Parents, wife, children, girlfriend, friends?

  She reached for the phone and called Garnett.

  “I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed,” said Garnett, answering her call. “We found the car down a ravine ten miles outside of town. It’s been burned out. No bodies.”

  “I’ll send David out,” said Diane. “Maybe he’ll find something useful.”

  She was disappointed, but not surprised they ditched the car. She was willing to bet it was a stolen car, anyway. She wrote down the directions to it before she addressed the reason for her call.

  “Did McNair have a brother or cousin, midthirties, who was shot in the shoulder, and looked a lot like him?”

  Garnett was silent for a few seconds. “He has a cousin Eric McNair who fits that description. Why are you asking?”