to have gotten fibers all over him.’’
‘‘Someone was obviously looking for something,’’
mused Diane. ‘‘You don’t think it was the collection?’’ David shrugged. ‘‘Maybe. That seems the most ob
vious. It’s just that...’’
‘‘There are those other murders,’’ finished Diane. ‘‘Yeah, those other murders. And why would he rip
up the upholstery in search of baseball bats? Doesn’t
add up.’’
David cast a glance at the lone rope lying on the
table, the one found on the ground at the Cobber’s
Wood crime scene. ‘‘You going to be able to do any
thing with that?’’
‘‘I don’t know. It was tied in knots long enough to
leave kinks in the rope. I thought I might be able to
do something with those.’’
‘‘What can you possibly do? The knots are gone.’’ ‘‘But they were there.’’
‘‘So was my hair, but we can’t reconstruct where
the cowlick was.’’
‘‘It was on the front right side, opposite where your
part was.’’
David opened his mouth, then shut it, and stroked
his bald head as if feeling for something. ‘‘How could
you know that?’’
Diane took a rope she had purchased that morning and laid it beside the crime scene rope. ‘‘You forgot,
I’ve seen pictures of you as a kid.’’
David threw back his head and laughed one loud
Ha! ‘‘You had me going. Good thing you told me. I’d
have been thinking about that all day.’’
‘‘You’d have figured it out. The point is, there’s
always evidence.’’
David went back to the crime lab, shaking his bald
head, leaving Diane to study the rope. Near one end
was a cluster of six kinks about an inch to an inch
and a half apart—some kinks were more crimped than
others. Fifteen inches down, there was a larger kink
with significant wear on the inside of the curve. Two
and a quarter inches from there, another series of
worn places. The wear was not continuous, but in
patches down the rope.
She photographed the rope and measured all the
places where it was kinked and worn. Altogether,
there were eleven kinks of varying sizes and seven
places where the rope had been worn, some quite ex
tensively, some barely noticeable. Sometimes the wear
was inside the kink, other times it was alone. Diane lay her new rope beside the crime scene
rope—called the ‘‘lone rope’’ in her notes. She took
red and green Sharpies and began marking the new
rope to match the lone rope—green signifying a kink,
red signifying wear.
‘‘Okay, smarty,’’ she muttered to herself, ‘‘what
kind of knot was tied in this rope?’’
The obvious first choice—obvious to her, at least—
was a sheepshank. Perhaps the person wanted to use
the rope, but was worried the worn places had weak
ened it. A sheepshank is a method of strengthening a
rope by tying it in such a way as to take the strain off the weak areas. It shortens a rope, but is a good way
to use a damaged rope in a pinch.
She tied a sheepshank several times, each time try
ing to match the green kinks to the turn of the knots
and placing the red worn areas where they would be
strengthened by having good rope on either side. Even
after numerous attempts, she never got close to match
ing her red and green points to the turns of the
sheepshank.
The initial failure made her
Okay, the kinks are the turns of
more determined. the knots—or . . . where the rope looped around an object. And so where does the wear come from—from rubbing
object, or itself ? Diane fished a handful
against an of colored rubber bands out of a drawer and dropped them on the table next to the experimental rope.
First she located each green kink with no red wear on the inside, made a bight—a loop—and placed a yellow rubber band around it to hold it in place. She took the kinks with inside wear and did the same thing. Where the rope showed several kinks close to gether, she didn’t bother with how the knot was actu ally tied, but simply looped them together and held them with a blue rubber band. Okay, now it looks like a mess, but that’s all right.
Diane examined the crime scene rope again and studied the red wear marks on her experimental rope. She tried several ways of folding the rope so that the wear marks—the red marks on her experimental rope—touched each other. Each way was a tangle of rope with no significant pattern.
There was about a foot and a half where several spots of wear spiraled around the rope. She folded her arms and frowned at the two pieces of hemp lying on the table. The lone rope had been twisted in some way. She made a loop at the widest space between wear marks and then twisted the rope so that all the wear marks touched, securing it with a red rubber band. It now almost looked like something. But what?
Neva came out of the vault, stretching her arms. ‘‘I thought I’d break for lunch,’’ she said.
Diane looked at her watch. She’d been at this damn rope far too long, and what was it going to tell her anyway?
‘‘I didn’t realize it’s getting so late. How’s the recon struction going?’’
‘‘Good, I think. I’ll have something by the end of the day. If people will refrain from killing each other for a while, I’ll get all three done pretty quickly.’’
‘‘What’s your take on the most recent murder?’’ asked Diane.
‘‘We don’t have that many murders here, and now we have a cluster of five, maybe six. It doesn’t look like a serial killer to me. Not that I’ve had any experi ence with serial killers, but the last two killers seemed to be looking for something. I’m kind of thinking it may be Steven Mayberry. And he, Chris Edwards and Raymond Waller were involved in something.’’ She shook her head. ‘‘But none of them have any criminal record that we know about, and as far as I know, they were all decent, hard-working guys.’’
Diane nodded. Not a bad analysis, she thought. ‘‘Fortunately, the who and why are Chief Garnett and Sheriff Braden’s problem. We just uncover the evidence.’’
Neva looked at the tangle of rope. ‘‘What are you doing here?’’
‘‘I’m trying to figure out what kind of knot was tied in the rope.’’
‘‘You can do that?’’
‘‘So far, no. But that hasn’t stopped me. I’ll leave it alone for a while. Maybe something will come to me if I get my mind off of it.’’
Diane faxed her initial report on the analysis of the skeletons to Sheriff Braden, letting him know that photographs and copies of the report would arrive by messenger in the afternoon. By the time all that was taken care of, she was starved. She brought tomato soup in a Styrofoam cup and a chef salad back to her museum office. As she sipped the soup and ate her salad, her gaze rested on envelopes containing the mummy’s X-rays sitting in her in-box. It made her smile. Diane was getting into the mummy thing like the rest of her staff. She quickly finished her lunch, disposed of the remains and sat down at the light table.
She selected the X-rays showing the thorax—the midsection—of the mummy. As was her custom, she started by examining the pelvis. It was a male pelvis. That was no surprise. The innominates, the large flat hip bones, showed signs of thinning. It looked as though he had suffered inflammation of his ischial tuberosities—the site of several muscle attachments as well as the place where he sat.
How
ever, it was the mummy’s lumbar vertebrae that were the most interesting. She pulled out two other X-rays, a side and back view, from the envelope. He also suffered from vertebral scoliosis, and on the margins of the body of his lumbar vertebrae there was a significant degree of lipping.
Interesting. While the condition of Red Doe’s lum bar vertebrae was caused by excessive arching of her back, the mummy’s condition was caused by a pro longed position in the opposite direction. The mummy, whoever he was, had spent long periods bending over in a seated position.
Diane stared at the X-rays, but saw the mummy and tried to visualize the person. What came to mind was a small Egyptian statue she had seen—a scribe in a cross-legged seated position. The kind of inflammation in the ischium was also called weaver’s bottom, be cause of the prolonged sitting in front of a loom that weavers had to endure. Could the mummy have been a scribe? Or maybe he was some artisan, like a jewelry maker, who was seated over his work for hours a day. She liked both of those possibilities.
Diane examined the remainder of the X-rays and found more evidence of arthritis, but no other condi tions. Perhaps when they discovered when he had lived, her observations would have more meaning.
Andie brought in more mail for Diane to go through.
‘‘Probably more requests for mummy tissue,’’ said Andie. ‘‘Want me to go ahead and deal with it?’’
‘‘Please.’’ Diane handed them off to Andie.
‘‘You’ve been looking at the X-rays. What did you find?’’ Andie pulled up a chair and sat with her elbows on the desk and her chin in her hands.
Diane went into detail about all of the conditions and her speculation about what they meant. ‘‘We should get even more information from the CT scan.’’
‘‘This is so cool. Do you think he could be a pha raoh? Maybe one with a hobby?’’
‘‘I hope not. We’ll have to give him back to the Egyptian government if that turns out to be the case. They like to keep their heads of state.’’
‘‘Oh, I never thought of that. Well, scribe is good. Maybe he was an architect. Did they spend more time drawing up plans or building stuff?’’
‘‘I have no idea. You’ll have to look to Jonas and Kendel for details of Egyptian life. I’m going to have Neva draw his face from the data we get from the CT scan.’’
‘‘Okay, now, that is really neat. This is as much fun as when they were assembling the Albertosaurus.’’
Diane nodded. ‘‘It is, isn’t it?’’
Andie went back to her office, and Diane returned to her paperwork. She checked her E-mail and was relieved to find no more messages from whoever sent her the flowers. Probably just a crackpot.
She reviewed several proposals, signed several order forms for everything from pens to chemicals and an swered queries from her board members. As she worked, an idea came to her about the lone rope from the crime scene. She jumped up from her chair, looked on her shelf for her book on knots and headed for the lab, telling Andie where she would be as she flew out the door.
Chapter 22
Diane’s museum office was in the opposite wing from the crime lab. She enjoyed the walk across the mu seum, even when she was in a hurry. She liked seeing the visitors going from room to room, looking at the exhibits, and hearing children’s delighted voices squeal upon seeing a display upon which the museum staff had worked hard. But today Diane’s mind was focused on a nagging problem, and she bypassed the crowd and took the east wing elevator to the third floor and hurried across to her osteology lab. David met her in the hallway coming from the crime lab.
‘‘Andie said you were on your way up.’’
‘‘Yes. I have an idea.’’
‘‘Chief Garnett called. He traced the E-mail and
talked to Officer Lenderman and his daughter.’’ Diane’s cell rang and she held up a finger motioning
David to wait while she answered it. The ID showed
Frank’s work number.
‘‘Hey,’’ he said. ‘‘Loved seeing you last night.’’ ‘‘Me, too. Frank, I’m...’’
‘‘I traced the origin of the E-mail. It was from inside
the museum.’’
Diane stood there, dumfounded. ‘‘Inside the
museum?’’
David began nodding in agreement.
‘‘You need to tell Garnett,’’ said Frank.
‘‘I will, Frank. Thanks. David’s here, and I think he
has some more information on it.’’
‘‘Good. Call if you need me.’’
‘‘Inside the museum?’’ Diane asked David. ‘‘Yes. Garnett talked to the daughter. She’s a stu
dent at Bartram and comes to the museum to work
on a paleontology project. She said she sometimes
uses the computers in the restaurant—that’s where the
E-mail originated from.’’
‘‘She sent it?’’
‘‘She says not. She remembers sending some mes
sages and leaving the computer for a minute or two
when she saw some friends come into the restaurant.
That’s when someone must have hijacked her E-mail
account. She was still logged on.’’
‘‘Damn. Does she remembering seeing anyone?’’ ‘‘No. I think she was very focused on herself and
her friends.’’
Diane put her hands to her face. ‘‘Not the museum.
This is my worst nightmare.’’
‘‘Wait a minute,’’ said David. ‘‘Why are you worried
about the museum? Whoever this guy is, he’s focused
on you.’’
‘‘But he’s coming into the museum. I can’t have
that. Did Garnett have anything else to say?’’ ‘‘Yes, he wants you to meet him at his office in
about an hour. He’s meeting again with Sheriff Braden. I have a file full of reports you can take to each
of them.’’
‘‘Good. I prefer going over there to them coming
here.’’
‘‘They’re talking to Kacie Beck,’’ David said. ‘‘Kacie Beck. Isn’t she...’’
‘‘Chris Edwards’ girlfriend.’’
‘‘Why is that?’’
‘‘She was there very close to the time of death.
They’ve discovered a witness who puts her there even
earlier than she reported—a lot earlier than her 911
call.’’
‘‘I can’t see her hitting him over the head, dragging
him to the closet and tying him up like that. She
weighs what, a hundred ten pounds at the most?’’ ‘‘They’re thinking maybe she had help—like Steven
Edwards’ partner. But there’s another Mayberry.
problem.’’ ‘‘What’s that?’’
‘‘It was in the report, but I’m not sure it registered
with them. On Chris Edwards’ nightstand we found a digital thermometer—the under-the-tongue variety that keeps the last temperature reading. Whoever used it had a 103-degree fever.’’
Diane pictured Lynn taking the liver temperature at the crime scene. She had commented on the early rigor. ‘‘If it was Chris who had the temperature, that changes the time of death by several hours.’’
David nodded. ‘‘Three hours earlier at least.’’
‘‘Well, damn. That’s all I need is to tell Lynn Web ber she got another time of death wrong.’’
Jin came bopping through the hallway from the crime lab and stopped when he saw Diane and David.
‘‘You tell her about the time and temperature thing?’’
David nodded. ‘‘Just now.’’
‘‘The babe at the scene didn’t have a fever,’’ said Jin.
‘‘You sure about that?’’ asked Diane.
‘‘Sure, I’m sure. How you going to break it to Doc Webber?’’
‘‘Gently,’’ said Diane. She thought f
or a moment. ‘‘Okay, she’s sure to have noticed at the autopsy if Edwards had any kind of infection.’’
‘‘One would think,’’ said David.
‘‘The medicine on the nightstand with the thermom eter suggests that it was upper respiratory,’’ said Jin.
Diane recalled Chris Edwards coughing a time or two at the Cobber’s Wood crime scene.
‘‘Lynn Webber probably hasn’t alerted Chief Garnett about any possible change in the time of death, so here’s what I want you to do. David, call her at home if she is taking time off, and tell her about the thermometer and the fever, and you are concerned about someone else being in the house and you want to know if Edwards was sick. That ought to give her enough of a nudge to call Garnett herself.’’
‘‘You’re going to tell him too?’’ asked Jin.
‘‘Of course,’’ said Diane. ‘‘I’m just trying to keep the peace.’’ She shrugged. ‘‘I probably shouldn’t bother, and just let the chips fall.’’
‘‘Speaking of letting things fall,’’ Jin said. ‘‘It was cut clean with a sharp knife.’’
Diane stared at him for a moment. ‘‘What was?’’
‘‘King Tut’s jewels.’’ Jin pushed his hair out of his eyes.
‘‘Ouch,’’ said David.
‘‘It was postmortem.’’ Jin grinned broadly. ‘‘That must have been some unwrapping party,’’ Jin contin ued on his way through the museum. ‘‘I’ve sent a sam ple of his blood off,’’ he called as he went through the doors into the museum proper.
‘‘Garnett wants to see me in an hour?’’ said Diane. David nodded. ‘‘Okay. I have just enough time to test an idea about the rope.’’
‘‘Don’t tell me you discovered what kind of knot was tied.’’
‘‘Maybe.’’
‘‘This I gotta see.’’ David followed Diane into her lab.
Diane flipped to the index of her handbook and looked under hitches until she found the knot she was looking for. She found the page and lay the book down next to the rope that she had trussed up with rubber bands.
‘‘They sort of look alike—in a way,’’ said David, comparing the illustration in the book and the rope on the table, tilting his head as if that would give him the ability to see the resemblance more clearly.
Diane took the rubber bands off the experimental rope and looked around the lab for a place to tie the hitch. The cabinets. She studied the rope a moment, looking at the green and red marks that represented kinks and chafes. She secured one end of the rope to the handle of the cabinets above the counter. Then she made a crossing turn at the first green mark and a bight farther down at another green mark. After several complicated twists and loops, she placed one of the loops over the handle of the bottom drawer, tightened the rope, and stood back, surveying her work.
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