As she stood looking at the knots, basking in the pleasure of her discovery, something about the profile of Green Doe’s skull peeking out from its plastic con tainer caught her attention.
Chapter 14
Diane cradled the back of Green Doe’s skull in her hand and inspected his face, drawing a finger over the long nasal bone. The nasion, the place between the eyes where the nasal bone meets the frontal bone, the top most landmark that defines the height of the nose, was only slightly indented. The bridge of the nose con nected with the frontal bone, making an almost flat plain. Below the nose opening, the anterior nasal spine was quite long. Green Doe had a large nose. What she found interesting was not the size of the nose, but that if Green Doe had decided to have a nose job, it would have been of the same type that Blue Doe had. Odd.
Diane glanced at her watch. It was late. If she ex pected to get any sleep, she didn’t have time to do another skeleton, no matter how loudly this one now called to her.
‘‘Damned interesting,’’ she muttered to herself as she reluctantly put the skull back in the box.
She locked the osteo lab and walked back to the crime lab. She was glad to see that her crew was gone. They all needed sleep. The night operator was settled behind her desk reading a book. Diane waved as she left by the museum entrance.
Diane rarely used the lab’s private elevator that al lowed her to come and go and never set foot in the museum. Walking through the large exhibit rooms gave her psyche a rest after dealing with all the grim aspects of crime.
When she stepped out of the third-floor crime lab wing and closed the door behind her, the change in ambiance was startling. The shiny metal antiseptic fur nishings and white walls were replaced by dark, rich wood walls, granite floors, vaulted ceilings and the sweet smell of wood polish. She crossed the overlook that allowed a view onto the huge first-floor dinosaur room, where she saw the silhouette of David sitting on a bench in the dim light. Looking at the wall paint ings, no doubt. The pictures of dinosaurs didn’t exactly have the soothing quality of Vermeers, but she herself often unwound by sitting quietly and looking at them—or at any number of wonderful things in the museum.
She took the museum elevator to the first floor and joined David in the dinosaur room with the skeletons of the twenty-five-foot-long T. rex–looking Alber tosaurus, the suspended pteranodon with his bony wings nearly spanning the width of the room, the aquatic tylosaurus, the three-horned triceratops, and the newly arrived brachiosaur.
She sat down beside David on the bench. ‘‘Relaxing?’’
‘‘Looking at that little unicorn.’’
The museum’s wall paintings were done in a style of dated realism that gave them a charming antique quality. A distinctly unique characteristic of the twelve wall murals was the tiny unicorns hidden in each painting. Diane never tired of looking at them. Appar ently, neither did David, for she often found him sit ting with the Mesozoic Era dinosaurs or in the Pleistocene room.
‘‘What are you thinking about it?’’
‘‘Some days I think he’s going to get trampled. Other times, I think he’s just going along with the big guys.’’
‘‘They never get trampled,’’ said Diane. ‘‘They’re magic.’’
‘‘That’s good to know. Sometimes I worry about them.’’
‘‘You don’t have to worry.’’
David’s voice was calm, quieter than usual. ‘‘My divorce became final today,’’ he said.
Another casualty of our work, Diane thought.
‘‘You okay with that?’’
‘‘Actually, yes. I don’t feel much about it. It’s not that I don’t still love Carolyn, but . . . I don’t feel it anymore—if that makes any sense whatsoever.’’
‘‘I guess I can understand that.’’
‘‘I thought we might get back together. She was excited when I got a job at a museum.’’
‘‘Then she discovered you would still be doing crime scenes?’’
‘‘Yeah.’’
‘‘You know, David...’’
‘‘I need to do this. I need to see justice done. De spite all the little political undercurrents, this is a good place to work.’’
‘‘Yes, it is, despite all the political undercurrents— as long as you can swim.’’
David smiled. ‘‘That was a good thing—sending Neva to work the car. She just left here a while ago. Found some blood. A few fibers and some miscellany. She’s getting a warrant to go over Mayberry’s trailer.’’
‘‘Blood’s not good.’’
‘‘There wasn’t much of it. So who knows? We may yet have a happy ending. What do you think’s going on?’’
‘‘I don’t have a handle on it yet.’’ Diane told him about the discoveries she found on the skeletons.
‘‘Interesting about the noses. What you figure?’’
Diane shrugged her shoulders. ‘‘Coincidence, maybe? Perhaps a familial relationship? Maybe they met each other in Blue’s doctor’s waiting room?’’
‘‘It’ll be interesting to compare DNA. The M.E. did take samples, didn’t she?’’
‘‘Sure. But you know how DNA is. Good chance it’s all degraded. I’m going home to get some rest. You head home too.’’
Diane left the dinosaur room, walked down the hall way past the museum store and cut through the pri mate section to the main lobby of the museum. Chanell Napier, the museum’s head of security, was at the desk.
‘‘What’re you doing here this late?’’ asked Diane.
Chanell was slender and athletic. She had dark skin, a round face and black hair cut close to her head.
‘‘I like to rotate out with the night guards once in a while. Keeps me up to date on what goes on at night. I get to know the night custodial staff.’’
‘‘I hope not a lot goes on here at night.’’ Diane laughed.
‘‘It’s pretty quiet. Just a lot of polishing of these shiny floors and walls. I like things quiet.’’
‘‘So do I. Carry on.’’ Diane passed through the dou ble doors that led to the private area of the museum where she and many of the other staff had their of fices. The office corridors were empty. The carpeting looked freshly vacuumed, so she guessed the custodial staff had already cleaned here.
She unlocked the private door to her office. On her desk was a stack of mail Andie had left for her. She sifted through the letters and placed them in stacks according to how urgent they were. Some she simply threw away.
Kendel had put a stack of requisition forms from the museum curators with notes attached to each re quest saying whether she thought it had merit.
‘‘I think this is a good idea. Good price,’’ read one note.
Diane looked at the form. The paleontology curator had found a small museum that was selling its collec tions. They had two casts of velociraptor skeletons for what really did appear to be a good price. The casts were damaged, but the paleontologist assured Diane that this wasn’t a problem.
Velociraptors were the speedy, vicious villains of Jurassic Park. Everyone who came to the museum wanted to see one. They were not nearly as large as the Albertosaurus or brachiosaur, but the movie gave them a long-lived reputation. Diane wrote on Kendel’s note to tell the paleontologist to purchase the skele tons. When they were assembled, it would mean an other round of good publicity for the museum.
The next item was another memo from Kendel. She discovered that members of the family who gave them the mummy had amulets that had come from the mummy’s wrapping. She thought she could negotiate a good deal on them. Diane agreed with that too. As long as they had a mummy and a case, it would be good to have everything that went with it. They cer tainly couldn’t afford an entire Egyptian collection.
The last item was from Korey. He had X-rayed the mummy, and she could come up to the conservation lab at any time and take a look. He had also scheduled an MRI for next week.
Things seemed to be going along nicely at the mu seum. So far, w
orking two jobs hadn’t been too much of a problem—and she really didn’t need that much sleep. She wrapped up the museum business and left her office, walking directly into the Pleistocene room.
She liked the museum at night. The cavernous rooms were dark except for a few low-level lights fixed close to the floor so that one could navigate through the museum at night without running into the exhibits. Museum lighting was its own problem, light being a destructive force, yet completely necessary. The light ing of a museum must take into consideration angle, distance, strength and type of light, and requires more mathematics than one might think possible for what for most people is a commonplace matter. The light must have destructive UV rays filtered from it, but it also must render accurate representations of color. Diane had staff whose only job was to take care of the lighting.
Her footfalls echoed a hollow sound on the granite floor. Walking though the Pleistocene hall was like being in the twilight area of a cave—that place where only a small amount of light filters in from the en trance and gradually diminishes to total darkness. Here she could see only the silhouettes of the skele tons of the mammoth, the giant sloth, the huge shortfaced bear.
Caves are places of dramatic opposites. Some rooms and passages are so small you have to suck in your breath just to get through. Others, Diane could have fit her entire museum inside. The big rooms of mapped caves have glorious names—the Chandelier Ballroom, Pellucidar, Cathedral Hall, Grand Ball room, Throne Room, or sometimes simply Big Room. Diane had the same love of the museum as she did for caves. It was calming to her, which was why she always took the museum route out of her crime lab.
She opened the huge doors to the Pleistocene room and entered the main lobby again. Chanell wasn’t at the front desk. Probably making her rounds. Diane unlocked the outside doors and walked out into the hot night air. Her car was parked almost alone in the middle of the lot. As she walked toward it, an uneasy feeling crept over her.
She looked around, wondering what might be caus ing the feeling. The lights from the high poles illumi nated the entire parking lot. Beyond the lights was darkness. It never bothered her before. She scanned the dark border, looking for something that she might have subconsciously seen from the corner of her eye. Nothing. Silly, she thought, as she clicked the button that unlocked the driver’s side door of her Taurus.
Chapter 15
When the car door unlocked, the dome light illuminated the interior. As she reached out to open the door, she saw a bouquet of red roses lying on the backseat. Diane smiled. Frank must be back. She looked around the lot but didn’t see his car. Why hadn’t he come into the museum? She took the flowers into her arms and smelled one of the roses, a bud just barely open. Nice. The card was slipped between the flowers and the tis sue wrapping—no name, simply two words printed in a script font that read: TO JUSTICE.
Frank’s side must have won the case, she thought. Diane slid onto her car seat and put the flowers on the passenger’s seat. The aroma of the bouquet filled the car. It was odd, though, not like Frank to just leave flowers. Perhaps Star, his adopted daughter, put him up to it. Diane started the engine and drove home.
She lived in a huge old Greek revival house con verted into apartments. It had a good feel to it. Once inside, she put the flowers in a vase of water, kicked off her shoes and headed for the shower. The cool water felt good, a relief from the heat. The landlady still had not fixed the air-conditioning.
Out of the shower, Diane turned on the ceiling fan, slipped into a nightgown and started to set her radio alarm for the morning when she noticed the red blink ing light on her answering machine. She crawled in bed, hit the replay button and lay back to listen to the messages. The first was from Frank.
‘‘Hi. Since you’re not there, you’re probably work ing yourself to the bone, so I won’t try your cell phone. I’m still in San Francisco, but I’m catching a plane tomorrow. I’ll call. Get some sleep.’’
If he was still in San Francisco, who sent the flowers? Diane wondered as she listened to the next message play nothing but road noise. She deleted it, and the machine cycled to the third message. A deep male voice she didn’t recognize spoke.
‘‘Why won’t you talk to me? I’ve tried your cell phone, your E-mail and your home. I need to talk to you.’’
Wrong number? She checked the caller ID. One call came from San Francisco; that was Frank. The next two were from Denver, Colorado, and Omaha, Nebraska.
Denver. ‘‘I wonder if that’s the same number as the cell phone call earlier at the lab,’’ she said aloud. ‘‘Who do I know in Denver?’’
Couldn’t be a wrong number; he had tried both phone numbers and her E-mail. She didn’t know any one in Omaha either.
She shrugged, deleted the message and lay back in bed, thinking that perhaps Frank had the flowers de livered. But who put them in her locked car? Andie? Made sense. Had she given Andie a key? She drifted off to sleep.
Diane awakened abruptly at the sound of the ring ing telephone. She looked at the clock—6:00 A.M. Her radio came on as soon as she reached for the phone. She shut it off as she picked up the receiver.
‘‘Yes?’’
‘‘Diane, this is Lynn Webber. I hope I didn’t wake you.’’
Lynn’s voice sounded strained, and Diane was sud denly wide awake, wondering if something else had happened.
‘‘No, you didn’t. Have they found another body?’’
‘‘I had a very disturbing conversation with Sheriff Braden yesterday.’’
Diane waited.
‘‘He told me you contradicted my time of death in the Cobber’s Wood murders. That was very in appropriate.’’
‘‘What? What are you talking about?’’
‘‘Those bodies were not far enough advanced to have been out in the woods more than a week.’’
‘‘Why are you calling?’’ said Diane.
‘‘My reputation is important to me. I am very con scientious in my work. To have someone who’s not even an expert go to the sheriff and contradict me is unacceptable.’’
Diane was so surprised at the outburst, she didn’t quite know what to say.
‘‘I didn’t go to the sheriff. The chief of detectives brought him by the crime lab to discuss the two cases. I simply brought him up to date on what we had dis covered so far.’’
‘‘Now Sheriff Braden doesn’t know what to think.’’
Then I made progress with him, thought Diane, but figured it would not be a good idea to voice that thought.
‘‘I’m sure he’ll read both reports and come to his own conclusion.’’ Diane wondered if she should be biting her tongue so hard.
‘‘You’re simply wrong about the time of death. This isn’t even your field of expertise.’’
Time to quit biting.
‘‘I’m not wrong, and yes, it is in my purview of knowledge and authority. If you like, I’ll send you some research on the retarding of decay in hanging victims.’’
‘‘Sarcasm and insults are unnecessary. I’m just tell ing you, when it comes to matters of time of death on bodies that lie on my autopsy table, my conclusion takes precedence and you are to fall in line.’’
Dr. Webber hung up before Diane could respond.
‘‘Great,’’ said Diane to the dead phone. ‘‘She’s in a snit and will probably call Garnett, upset him, he’ll call me and worry me to death about how we can’t make any mistakes and definitely cannot offend any one of importance.’’
While Diane had the phone in her hand, she checked caller ID for the number Frank had called from, dialed his hotel and asked for his room. When she heard his sleepy voice, she remembered the threehour time difference. Shit.
‘‘I’m sorry. I forgot about the three time zones.’’
‘‘Diane. You sound good—anytime.’’
‘‘I got your message. Did you by any chance send me flowers?’’
‘‘Flowers? Was I supposed to? Did I miss an anni versary, birthday—no, no
t birthday. Okay, what was it?’’
Diane felt the laughter rising up through her body until it reached her face and made her smile. How that must sound—calling him at three o’clock in the morning all the way across the country, asking if he sent flowers. She scooted back into the pillows of her bed and crossed her legs.
‘‘No. You didn’t miss anything. Someone left flow ers in my car yesterday. I found them in the backseat. I assumed they were from you.’’
‘‘Was there a card with them?’’
‘‘All it said was ‘To Justice.’ ’’
‘‘To Justice? I’m not much of a romantic, but I could do better than that.’’ Diane laughed again. The whole thing was silly, and silly felt good.
‘‘Must be from a secret admirer. Do you have one?’’ he said.
Secret admirer. ‘‘No . . .’’ She thought of Mike. Of course, Mike Seger must have left them.
‘‘You do, don’t you? I’ll bet it’s that guy—the one with the hair. What’s his name?’’
‘‘The one with the hair?’’
‘‘You know. That modern, just-got-out-of-bed, cool kind of style. I think he’s a geologist.’’
‘‘Mike? Why do you think it’s him?’’
‘‘That challenging-the-alpha-male look he gives me. Admittedly, I haven’t gotten the look for a while, now that I’ve been an adult for a number of years, but I remember that provoking stare with a touch of amuse ment behind it. You and he go caving, don’t you?’’
‘‘Well, yes.’’
‘‘Yes. It was him, though I figure he could also do better than ‘To Justice.’ Don’t you keep your car locked?’’
‘‘It was locked. Someone must have borrowed my key from my office, or opened the door with one of those things.... What do you call them?’’ ‘‘A slim jim?’’
‘‘Yeah, one of those. Oh, maybe I forgot to lock it. I’ve had a lot on my mind.’’
‘‘That’s interesting.’’
‘‘How are things in San Francisco?’’
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