Dead Past dffi-4

by Beverly Connor

  “I finished reconstructing the skull on the second basement skeleton. Imagine my surprise when I looked at the computer-generated face and saw a facsimile of McNair.”

  “Hmph. Kind of puts a new light on things,” said Garnett. “I imagine that was a shock. So, that’s where Eric got to.”

  “Who is he and what’s his story? And why didn’t anybody report him missing?” asked Diane. She stared at the face rotating on the screen as she spoke with Garnett.

  “Eric’s one of those family members you kind of hope will go off and not come back. Always in trouble. Spent time in jail for dealing, assault and battery, spouse abuse, you name it. He was shot in a drug deal that went sour. His family had hoped that cured him, but he was a hard case. I guess he’s cured now.”

  “Must have been what McNair was trying to hide,” said Diane.

  “Probably so. Discovering Eric’s involvement with the meth lab would definitely have implicated Marcus. They were tight. Marcus was the only relative Eric was close to.”

  “How did Marcus get to be arson investigator?” asked Diane.

  “Marcus kept out of trouble himself. He also had a benefactor,” said Garnett.

  “Who?” asked Diane.

  “Guess.”

  “Adler?” answered Diane.

  “First try. It’s looking worse and worse for Adler. The more we find on McNair, the more we have on Adler. I don’t know if you’ve seen the news. He’s been trying to distance himself from McNair. But his political career is circling the drain. I’d love to arrest the bastard. That would be icing on the cake.”

  What did David say about payback being a bitch? thought Diane. Adler had no friends in the police department. He should have thought of that. You’d think a politician would have.

  “Can I get dental records on Eric McNair or x-rays of his shoulder?” asked Diane.

  “The guy may never have gone to a dentist. The hospital should have x-rays from the shooting injury. I’ll get them sent over to you,” said Garnett.

  “That’ll confirm the identification,” said Diane. “I don’t guess there’s any line on where the occupants of the Impala went,” she said, jumping subjects.

  “None. They obviously ditched the car. They’re probably in another vehicle by now and long gone.”

  “They’ll hang around,” said Diane.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because they didn’t get what they wanted,” said Diane.

  “You mean the secret code thing you were talking about?” asked Garnett.

  From the tone of his voice and the ambiguity of his understanding of what the secret code thing represented to the gunman, Diane could see that Garnett wasn’t buying the looking-for-treasure motive. It didn’t matter. She bought it. And she knew they would return to get the coded message.

  “You’ll let me know if he’s sighted?” she said.

  “You know I will,” replied Garnett. “But I think you can relax.”

  She hung up with Garnett. The face of Eric McNair rotated in three dimensions on her screen. What a tragic life to have gotten as far as his midthirties and have no one miss him. She printed out both faces-the two men who died together in an instant in the basement of the house-and saved them to a portable memory stick.

  Jin, David, and Neva had made significant progress sorting through the cigarette butts. The map was full of small x’s, each representing a Doral. But she didn’t like what she saw. The vast majority of the x’s clustered near the morgue tent and the coffee tent.

  “Doesn’t look good, does it?” said David.

  She looked up and caught him watching her.

  “We’ll need to find out what the people at tent city smoke,” said Jin.

  What the people at tent city smoke, thought Diane. None of them wanted to say that who they were looking at as a murder suspect was one of the medical examiners, their assistants, or a policeman. Those were the only people allowed in the area.

  “I hate this,” said Neva, “but I’ll find out what the policemen smoke.”

  “I’ll do it,” said David. “They’re your friends.”

  “Neither of you will do it,” said Diane. “We’re going to give the information to Garnett and let him investigate. That’s what we do: We supply objective information from the scene and he uses it to investigate the crime.”

  “Since when?” said Jin.

  “I’m not willing to alienate the police department any more than I have to. I’m taking the coward’s way out of this one. It’s up to Garnett now.”

  “That works for me,” said Neva.

  Diane didn’t hear Jin or David objecting. Good.

  “This is something for you to mull over,” said Diane. She laid down the printout of the face she had reconstructed.

  “Why did you have the computer draw Marcus McNair?” said Neva. She looked at Diane with a puzzled frown.

  “Yeah, Boss,” said Jin. “You testing your software?”

  “Is this McNair?” asked David, picking up the page and examining the printed picture.

  “We’re waiting for confirmation, but it appears to be Eric McNair, Marcus McNair’s cousin,” said Diane.

  Jin grabbed the page out of David’s hand to look at it again. “His cousin? Was he the second guy in the basement?”

  “Yes, he was. I’m having x-rays sent over for confirmation,” said Diane.

  “What does this mean exactly?” asked David.

  “Garnett believes that it connects Marcus McNair to the meth manufacturing. He’s hoping that proving McNair was involved will mean he can prove Adler was involved. Failing direct proof, I suppose Garnett hopes the insinuation that Adler was involved will forever ruin Adler’s political career,” said Diane.

  “You sound like you don’t approve,” said Jin. “I wouldn’t waste any sympathy on Adler.”

  “I’m not,” said Diane. “I have no sympathy for him. I… It’s just that…”

  “You like a clean kill,” said David.

  “Blunt way of putting it, but I suppose that’s true. Anyway, that’s not our problem. Our problem is to recover the best evidence we can from the crime scenes. Speaking of which, David, I need you to go meet Garnett at a crime scene. Here are the directions. He found the Chevrolet Impala in a ravine and burned to a crisp.”

  “Were the suspects in it?” asked David “No, it looks like they just got rid of the car. Probably got another one. It’s my feeling they’re still in town.”

  “Why would they hang around?” asked Neva.

  “Because they were after the coded message, and I removed it from the doll before they got it.”

  The three of them gave her a blank stare. “Coded message?” said Jin.

  “I think you skipped a chapter,” said David.

  “I guess I did. The doll had what may be a coded message inside.” She briefly told them the story of Leo Parrish and the missing loot.

  “And these guys are looking for it?” said Jin.

  “I’m guessing,” said Diane. “I don’t know for a fact.”

  “That’s just a weird story,” said David, as if it offended his sensibilities. “How did Juliet get involved?”

  “That I don’t know. I have only vague guesses.” Diane didn’t want to give them Juliet’s life history just yet. She turned to Jin. “I have a job for you. I know how you like to solve puzzles.” Diane pulled the printed copy of the code from her pocket and handed it to Jin.

  “That was in the doll?” said David. “How did you know to look?”

  “Long story,” said Diane.

  “It must be,” he said. “It just keeps getting longer.”

  “This looks like a cryptogram,” Jin said. “I can do these in my sleep. See, all you have to know is the frequency with which each letter of the alphabet occurs in everyday language-a few other things too-but it’s easy.”

  “Good. Do it tonight when you get home. Right now, you and Neva get the cigarette information to Garnett. And David…”


  “I know, I’m going,” he said. He grabbed his case and headed for the elevator.

  “I’ll meet you out there,” she called after him. “I have some things to do here first.”

  “I can do it myself,” he said.

  “It’ll be faster if I help,” she said.

  The elevator door opened and David stepped in.

  “When you guys finish your report, go home,” Diane said to Neva and Jin. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Diane left them and walked downstairs to the conservation lab. She met Korey on the Pleistocene overlook near his lab.

  He grinned and his eyes twinkled when he saw her. “I have your forgery, Dr. F.,” he said.

  “That’s great. I was just coming to get it. I’m going fishing and I need bait for my hook.” It was in a glassine envelope. She took it out and examined it.

  “This looks just like the original,” said Diane.

  “I went down to the thrift shop and bought some old books,” he said. “I tore a piece from one of them-they weren’t valuable, I checked. I wrote the message with vegetable ink. It all looks pretty old.”

  “Thank you, Korey,” said Diane. “This is excellent. If I decide to go into a life of crime, you’re my man.” She slipped it back in its envelope and put it in her pocket.

  “I’m glad to know that’s not what we are doing,” he said still smiling. “Tell me, the jobs you gave to Kendel and Beth, are they related to this?” He gestured to her pocket.

  “Yes,” said Diane smiling.

  “I really can’t wait for this,” he said.

  “I’ll tell you when it’s over, all three of you,” she said and left by the overlook elevator and rode down to the main lobby.

  She looked at her watch. Shortly, the night lighting would come on. Andie was probably already gone. She waved at the guard at the information desk and went to her office.

  Korey really did a good job, she thought as she moved open the door to the safe. After that, everything went black.

  Chapter 46

  “Dr. Fallon! Are you all right?”

  Who is that talking? Diane was confused and had a pounding headache-and she was on the floor. But someone was helping her to a chair. She sat down and put her head in her hands for a moment, then looked up.

  Clarice, one of the night cleaning crew, her long hair in a high ponytail, wearing jeans and a museum sweatshirt, was standing over her with a look of fear on her face.

  “You need to go to the emergency room, Dr. Fallon. Your head’s bleeding.”

  “Bleeding?” Diane touched the back of her head. It was wet. What is going on?

  “Diane?”

  The new voice sounded like David.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “I just found her on the floor like this,” said Clarice.

  “I need to take you to the hospital,” said David.

  What I need, thought Diane, is to just sit right here until I feel better.

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  “No, you’re not,” said David. “I’ll go get the car. Clarice will walk you to the door.”

  “What happened?” asked Diane.

  “It looks like someone attacked you,” said Clarice. “Here in your office.”

  “Don’t clean her office,” said David as he hurried out the door.

  Clarice helped Diane toward her door. They were met by a security guard who took Diane’s arm and assisted her the rest of the way.

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Fallon. Chanell is going to rip us a new one,” he said. “She’s on her way down here to try and find out how this could have happened-twice. I’m really sorry. We didn’t see anyone.”

  “What?” said Diane.

  “I was saying that I don’t know how this could have happened,” he repeated.

  “Check to see what classes are meeting tonight. Someone could have come and gone with a group that is meeting here,” said Diane.

  David appeared and escorted her to his car and helped her in.

  “You can take me home,” said Diane.

  “No. We are going to the hospital,” he said as he buckled himself in. “What was the last thing you remember?”

  Diane thought a moment. Her head seemed to be clearing some. “I saw Korey. He gave me the forgery.”

  “You’ve lost me already,” said David. “What forgery?”

  “The code. Didn’t I tell you about the code?”

  “The one in the doll?” asked David.

  “Yes. I asked Korey to duplicate it for me, make it look just like the original, but scramble the letters so they don’t make sense.”

  “It doesn’t make sense now. None of this does. When did we make this giant left turn? You said this was about the Cipriano case and lost treasure.”

  “David, you know, I don’t feel like explaining it all now. How about in the morning? I’ll get everyone up to speed. Before I forget, I stashed Juliet Price and her grandmother, Ruby Torkel, in a hotel. Museum Security is in an adjoining room, though I’m kind of losing faith in my security of late.”

  He drove to the same hospital that stitched up Jin when he was hit on the head. They took Diane immediately and examined her. The doctor looked at her pupils, tested her reflexes, and tended to her head wound, giving her five stitches.

  She had the same doctor that Jin had. To Diane he didn’t look old enough to be a doctor. He had one of those baby faces that would probably carry him well into his sixties still looking like a kid.

  “Is there an epidemic?” he said when he finished stitching her up.

  “Possibly,” she said.

  “How do you feel? Headache?”

  “Yes, I definitely have a headache.”

  “How about dizziness? Weakness in your arms or legs?”

  “No,” she answered.

  “Have you vomited?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have any memory loss?” he asked.

  “I don’t remember what happened.”

  “What’s the last thing you do remember?”

  Since David had asked that same question, she had had time to think. “I talked to an employee, went to my office… That’s the last thing I remember.”

  “Do you know how long you were unconscious?”

  “No. The night lighting in the museum was already on. It comes on at nine thirty. But I don’t know how long it had been on. Actually, I have no idea how long I was out.”

  “Have you noticed any irritability?” he asked.

  “I’m really pissed at whoever did this.”

  He smiled. “I’m going to order a CT scan. Do you know if you’re allergic to contrast dyes?”

  “I’m not,” said Diane.

  “I’m going to keep you overnight, just to watch you. I think you’re fine, but we need to be sure.”

  “You didn’t keep Jin overnight,” she said.

  “I suspect you were out longer. I’m just being cautious. It’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Just as long as you don’t say it’s because I’m older,” said Diane.

  After the CT scan, Diane was taken to a semiprivate room. No one was in the other bed. She was glad of that. The last thing she wanted right now was a room-mate. David came in to see her.

  “I’m fine,” said Diane, as he walked in the door.

  “I talked to the doctor,” said David. “He said if everything looks good tonight you’ll be going home in the morning. Do you want me to call Frank?”

  “I will. If you call him, he’ll worry. How was the Impala crime scene?”

  “I didn’t find much. It was rocky and there weren’t any tracks. The car is pretty much a burned mess. I had it hauled to our impound, anyway. Maybe something escaped the flames. Who do you think attacked you?” said David.

  Diane gave him a blank stare for a moment. “Damn. Hand me my jacket.”

  He got her jacket from the tiny closet on her side of the room and handed it to her. She searched the pockets.
/>   “It’s gone,” she said. “Did you find a glassine envelope in my office with a fragment of paper in it?”

  “I haven’t been to your office. Was it valuable? Was that what Korey gave you?”

  “Yes,” she answered. “It was Korey’s forgery. No, it wasn’t valuable.”

  “Can he make you another one?” asked David.

  “Why?” said Diane.

  “To replace the one stolen, I don’t know. What was it for, anyway?” he asked.

  “It was bait. I wanted whoever stole the doll to get it-just not in this way. They worked faster than I had planned.”

  “What did you have planned?” said David.

  “It wasn’t completely worked out yet. I was maybe going to plant a story in the paper about the doll and finding the code. I was trying to think of a way to contact them so they would know I had the message from the doll. I thought they would contact me-I really hadn’t thought it out completely.”

  “I guess they did contact you,” he said.

  Diane felt her head. “They did indeed.”

  Diane awoke early and felt much better than she had the evening before, except that the whole back side of her scalp was painfully tender. The nurse came in and checked her temperature and blood pressure.

  “Can I go home now?” she asked.

  “The doctor didn’t leave instructions for you to be dismissed. He’ll be making his rounds soon,” she said.

  The nurse left and a woman with a breakfast tray came in. Scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, orange juice, and cereal. Big breakfast, she thought. As the breakfast lady left, a policeman came in. He was one of the young policemen she had seen guarding the morgue tent. He had a pen and pad in his hand and a cigarette stuck behind his ear.

  “Hi, Dr. Fallon,” he said, grinning.

  Diane wondered if she looked that funny sitting in a hospital bed wearing the terrible hospital gown.

  “It’s good to see you again,” he said. “Though, not like this. I need to get a statement.”

  He pulled up a chair and as he sat down, Diane sneaked a peak at the cigarette behind his ear.

  “You really shouldn’t smoke,” she said, taking a bite of bacon. “It’s bad for you.”