Dead Secret dffi-3

by Beverly Connor

  “This would be a perfect time to work on the velociraptors,” interrupted the paleontology curator, before Diane could answer. “We’ve been wanting to close down the dinosaur exhibit so we can work.”

  “This might seem like a good time, but it is not. Now, everyone enjoy your long weekend.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Botany. “I can’t come every four hours throughout the night.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, I just can’t. I’ll be asleep.”

  “Who does it for you at night?”

  “My graduate student. That’s what they’re for.” There was a ripple of laughter throughout the room.

  “We have a critical and difficult system failing, and I have worked out the protocol for repairing it. I’ve tried to accommodate ongoing experiments. However, it will have to be you who takes care of your experiment. I don’t want a student doing it. You don’t have to understand my reasoning, just my instructions,” Diane said.

  The botanist looked at her, stunned. “I suppose I can set a clock.”

  “Good, before you leave today, I want to see your schedule at the front information desk in the lobby. If it’s not there, you won’t be allowed in.”

  “This is ridiculous. I’ve never been treated this way in my life.”

  “I’m sorry, really. But I need cooperation. When I don’t get it, I have to enforce it. This is just one weekend. If we get repairs done earlier than expected, I’ll call you and you can arrange for your student to do the work.”

  “Very well, since I have no choice.”

  This was a different botanist than the one she started with. When she had made the arrangements with the university, the departments were unwilling to send faculty to what they considered basically an unpaid position, and ended up sending the newest-hired or their retired faculty. When it was discovered what kind of lab space she was offering, some departments pulled rank and gave the part-time job to tenured professors. This was one of them. If she was lucky, he’d change his mind about the appointment and she’d get back her original curator. Diane stepped down, even though she was flooded with questions from the curators.

  When people left today, the museum would be virtually empty, and a search would be conducted for any devices that might be waiting to burn the museum. The possibility of those devices anywhere on the premises chilled her and made her face hot with anger.

  “Look, if it’s the air-conditioning, I’ve worked in heat before,” said the paleontologist. “I’ve excavated in the desert, for heaven’s sake.”

  “It’s something more she’s not telling us,” said Botany.

  “Now, gentlemen,” said Jonas Briggs. “Let’s not start treating this like the university. If Diane says she has an environmental problem that needs fixing, then let’s take her word and not cause problems.”

  “It’s just that I don’t understand why I have to be escorted to my own research lab.”

  “Is it going to alter the outcome of your research if you are escorted to the lab to attend to it?” asked Diane.

  “No, of course not.”

  “Then I don’t see your problem. This is the way it’s going to be.” She paused a moment. “What do you need to do for the experiments? If it’s simply recording observations or readings, I can do it. If we’re lucky, your graduate student can take it up on Sunday.”

  “Yes, that will work. Yes. I’ll go write out the instructions and leave them at the information desk.”

  Diane left them calling after her and started for her crime lab office to call Garnett. For several days something had been nagging at the back of her mind, something she had forgotten. She rubbed her eyes. It’ll come to the surface eventually, she thought. She started up the stairs.

  “Diane.” It was Jonas Briggs. “I think it’s obvious to everyone that something is going on. I won’t ask you what, but do you need help?”

  “Thank you, Jonas. But I have help coming.”

  “You look tired, and if I may say, that is just a terrible haircut.”

  Diane laughed and ran her fingers through the sides of her hair where Jin had cut samples. She’d forgotten about that.

  “Good, I made you laugh. For some women that would have made them cry,” said Jonas.

  Diane laughed again at the thought of what she must have looked like up there talking to the curators.

  “I have another suggestion,” said Jonas.

  “Shoot,” said Diane.

  “If it wouldn’t offend your sensibilities, I could hint that we may have a serious pest infestation that has gotten out of control and you’ll be using some highly toxic chemicals to rid the museum of them. If I can start some gossip in that direction, maybe that will keep their minds occupied. We all know when those pesky dermestids get out, they can reek havoc in a museum,” said Jonas.

  Diane nodded. “That’s a good idea. I’ll tell you what’s really going on when it’s over,” she said. “Have a good vacation. I’ll see you next week.”

  Diane left Jonas at the foot of the stairwell and climbed up to the third floor. She met David in the crime lab.

  “Have you heard from Jin?”

  “He’s in the GBI lab in Atlanta. They’re replicating, reproducing or whatever it is they do with DNA.”

  “That’s a relief. You told him about the possible danger?”

  “Yes. He’ll be careful. He’s going to be staying the night in Atlanta anyway.”

  “Do you have everything you need?”

  “I told Garnett about your suspicions of Emery. He was skeptical, but he’s bringing his men to search the building tonight.” David paused and put a hand on Diane’s shoulder. “We are going to figure all this out,” he said. “We know a lot. We’ve just got to put it together the right way.”

  “I know.” Diane put her hand over his. “I just feel like I’ve forgotten something. You know that feeling?”

  “Yeah, I have it too. Something’s nagging at me and I can’t remember what it was. It’s like an idea that passes through your head too quickly to grasp and aggravates your synapses.”

  She heard the phone ringing, and Neva answered it. She’d sent the receptionists home and put the museum guards on the crime lab. She trusted her handpicked museum guards more than the crime lab guards that Rosewood hired. And she wanted the museum searched and empty by the time Lane Emery’s men arrived the following evening. She fully expected either Emory or the two kidnappers to try and steal evidence from the crime lab.

  “Diane, it’s Sheriff Burns,” Neva called out. “He has some information on Flora Martin.”

  Chapter 40

  Diane settled in her chair and picked up the phone.

  “Sheriff Burns? What have you got?”

  “First off, I’ve talked to all my people. Nobody’s given out any information, general or otherwise, about the cases. I went to see Deputy Singer. He’s covered in this rash. Your guy said it was urti something.”

  “Urticaria,” said Diane.

  “That’s it.” The sheriff laughed. “I shouldn’t laugh at the poor fellow, but it’s some kind of strange justice. Singer likes to scare the ladies by putting bugs on their desk and such. Anyhow, he knows nothing that’s been going on, and he can’t talk about anything but himself at the moment.”

  “I’m sorry he’s so miserable,” said Diane. But she agreed with the sheriff: It looked like karmic justice had bitten him in the ass.

  “But the reason I called,” said Sheriff Burns, “is that I’ve been investigating Flora Martin’s murder. Finding out her great-grandson was Donnie Martin, another victim, has been a big help. I talked to Donnie’s girlfriend. Up until about a week ago, he’d been in prison for the past three years. Been in some kind of trouble all his life-burglary, bar fights, you name it. His one virtue was that he loved his great-grandma. She visited him every visiting day, and when he got out, he was going to live with her.”

  “I suppose everybody has some soft spot,” said Diane, wishing that the she
riff would hurry and get to the point.

  “Maybe. That was his only saving grace. By the time he got out, his great-grandmother, Flora Martin, had already gone missing.”

  “Why didn’t he report it?” asked Diane.

  “It turns out, he did. But he was still a prisoner at the time, and Flora lived way over in Gilmer County, and the sheriff there didn’t take it real seriously. He said he looked for her. Told me he thought she knew Donnie was getting out soon and moved away. Frankly. . Well, I won’t say anything about a fellow sheriff. The point is, Donnie’s girlfriend said she got a big envelope in the mail before he was released. Inside it was a smaller envelope addressed to Donnie and one to her. Hers was a letter from Flora Martin asking her to keep Donnie’s letter safe until he got out. Which is what she did. He read it and told his girlfriend that he had a family inheritance after all. Wouldn’t tell her what it was and kept his letter close to him all the time. We found no sign of it among his things.”

  Diane perked up. So Flora Martin’s-formerly Jane Doe’s-great-grandson expected to come into money. “Did you get a look at their house?” she asked.

  “By the time I got there somebody had ransacked it and the landlord had thrown everything out on the street.”

  Diane was disappointed. “That’s too bad.”

  “There were some old diaries, but they were ruined. Got rained on. I had a look; the pages were sopping wet and muddy and stuck together and the ink had run.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “My deputy put them in a sack. I’ll see what she did with them. But they were ruined.”

  “We have people at the museum who specialize in bringing ruined items back to life. My conservator can dry out and clean the diaries and separate the pages.”

  “Can he unrun the blurred ink?”

  “The conservation lab and the crime lab have an ESDA.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Electrostatic detection apparatus. We can read what was indented on the page.”

  “I think I saw something like that on TV. I’ll see what Sally did with them. That’s about all I’ve found out.”

  “That’s a lot, Sheriff. Thanks for calling.”

  “Sure thing. Tell me, is Singer going to get over that urti-whatever?”

  “It can last a long time, and it can come back in spots and itch. It’s a nuisance, but he’ll be fine.”

  “I think he’s going to rethink his attitude on bugs from now on. My secretary’s baking him a bug-shaped cake. She’s kind of looking forward to getting even.”

  “Oh, how old was Flora, exactly?” Diane had estimated the bones as putting her between seventy and eighty.

  “She was seventy-seven.”

  “Do you know where she lived when she was a little girl?”

  “No idea. I’ll see if I can dig that up.”

  “Thanks.”

  Diane sat thinking about what the sheriff had told her and did some figuring on her notepad. It seemed pretty evident to her that when Flora Martin was fourteen years old in 1942 she saw something, and whatever it was had to do with the submerged Plymouth. That was why her great-grandson Donnie was at the quarry with a scuba diver looking for it. Considering how things turned out, Diane guessed that Flora’s knowledge of what happened was the family inheritance, and it seemed likely that blackmail was how Donnie was going to collect that inheritance-unless there was something valuable at the bottom of the lake, he got it, and it was taken from him when he was killed.

  Before Diane left her office, she called Mike’s number. She was about to hang up when he answered, out of breath. “Neva?” he said.

  “No. It’s me, Diane.”

  “Hey, Doc. How’s everything going?”

  “Going well. I need a favor.”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “Don’t be so quick to agree. You aren’t going to like it.”

  “I’ll do it anyway.”

  Diane smiled at his eagerness to please her. “We called MacGregor. He’s been getting the same crazy phone calls about rabbits and the food chain.”

  “You’re kidding. What you think that’s about?”

  “I think it has something to do with the cave, but I have no idea what. It’s just that a lot of things have been happening since we found that body in the cave.” She paused and took a breath. “MacGregor’s cousin’s trailer burned down.”

  “Damn. Was anybody hurt? Is that connected with the calls, you think?”

  “No one was hurt, but I understand they lost everything. I don’t know if that is connected to the calls, but I told MacGregor to stay in David’s condo for a few days.”

  “Oookay.” Mike was sounding cautious now.

  “I told him you would be staying there too. Presumptuous of me, I know.”

  “Sure. I’ll do it. Is Neva staying at Frank’s?”

  “She’s decided to stay in the museum. All the crime unit are. I’ve sent the rest of the staff home until next week.”

  There was silence on the other end of the phone for several moments. “Look, Doc, I need to know if Neva is in danger. I should be with her.”

  “Neva is a police officer, as well as a criminalist, and she’s doing her job. She’ll be fine. We have an army of security, I assure you.”

  “Are you expecting a raid or something? What the hell is going on?”

  Diane could hear the frustration in Mike’s voice. She was tempted to confide in him. But she thought it better that as few people as possible know what she was up to. “Mike, I need you to trust me.”

  “I do, Doc, but you know, this sounds like it involves me too.”

  “It does. I won’t lie to you. I’m not giving you the cover story that I gave the rest of the staff. The danger is why I’m trying to get you and Mac both out of harm’s way. Please, Mike, trust me.”

  “When you put it that way. .”

  “Thank you.”

  “Either Frank or David will be by to pick you up. As I understand it, David’s condo’s a fort. He’s inclined toward paranoia.”

  “It sounds like an exciting evening. I’ll collect some books and some DVDs. He does have a player, doesn’t he?”

  “Oh, yes. I think you and Mac will enjoy his entertainment system.”

  “You know this is weird, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do. Just try to make the best of it.”

  The museum was clearing out. The restaurant owner was not happy when Diane told him he had to close for two of his busiest days. Fortunately, the contract with them specified that sometimes the museum would have to close and so would the restaurant. When she had had that clause put in, she’d thought of things like fumigating, but nothing like this.

  In a few minutes, the museum would be completely empty except for her security personnel and her crime scene crew. Diane sat down to collect her thoughts. Neva was digitizing her drawings. She looked up from the scanner and smiled at Diane.

  “David’s gone to take care of MacGregor and Mike. I talked to Mike. He says you owe him big-time for making him room with Mac.” Her grin turned into a chuckle. “Poor Mike.” Neva seemed much happier now that Mike was taken care of.

  Diane looked at her watch. It would be about an hour before Garnett and his crew arrived. She decided to pass the time by looking at the Moonhater Cave bones.

  “I’ll be back in the osteology lab seeing what the witch has to say.”

  “I thought I’d get my drawings ready to transfer to the newspaper when we decide to advertise them. When I finish, I’ll come back and map the witch’s skull.”

  “I think John Rose will be tickled to see what she looked like.”

  In her lab, Diane opened the box from the Rose Museum of Antiquities. The bones were carefully protected in bubble wrap. The small pieces were in separate boxes. Diane took the fragile bones from the box and laid them out on the table the way they would have been in her body. If it was a her. Diane never took on faith what people said about a skeleton’s gender un
til she could verify it. Diane looked at the pelvis as she put it in position on the table. She was indeed female.

  An amazing number of the bones were present. More than Diane expected from a set of bones handed down with only an oral provenance that could be mythical. There were a couple of vials of dirt packed with them. Diane smiled as she thought of Gregory and his wife surreptitiously collecting the dirt from the cave. She took the dirt samples and set them aside. She’d ask Mike to analyze them when the museum opened again.

  She surveyed the bones laid out on the table. They were fragile but in good condition. She’d ask John Rose if he wanted her to have Korey stabilize them. They were an amber color-a sort of mottled gold-red-brown-and had a patina that, though it wasn’t shiny exactly, did have a vague sheen. Around the skull and some of the bones was a crust of minerals-probably salt.

  The first thing Diane did was to take samples. She scraped the mineral deposit into a separate vial and labeled it. She looked inside the skull and other orifices and found samples of dirt, which she put in another labeled vial.

  Rose had given her permission to take samples of the bone and teeth for testing. She would take a piece out of a long bone and a couple of teeth. Isotope analysis of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, strontium and lead from her teeth could give interesting results about where she was actually from. These elements were taken into the body through the food that was eaten, the air that was breathed, and the water that was drunk as a person was growing, and became a fixed part of their chemical makeup. The proportions of the chemicals deposited in the teeth were different in different locales throughout the world. The chemical analyses would tell where she grew up.

  Diane could see the appeal of archaeology. There was something satisfying and calming about looking at the bones of the ancient dead, trying to figure out not just how they had died, but what their lives were like.

  I really should have Jonas Briggs here with me while I’m doing this, she thought. When the museum is cleared, I’ll bring him in on the analysis.

  Time was short, so Diane decided to look over the bones quickly and go back for a more thorough examination later. She focused on the ribs-on something she had spotted when she laid out the bones.