Diane saw that reaction a lot—a knot is just a knot to most people. ‘‘Yeah, I do. They’ve saved my life more than once.’’
‘‘How’s that?’’ asked Raymond.
‘‘I’m a caver. We rely on ropes and knots.’’ ‘‘Really?’’ said Lynn. ‘‘Have you explored many
caves?’’
‘‘Quite a few. Not many in Georgia, even though I
grew up here. But one of my employees at the mu
seum is introducing me to some of the Georgia caves.’’ ‘‘I’ve always wanted to see the one in Mexico with
all the crystals,’’ Lynn said.
‘‘The one on the Discovery Channel, right?’’ said
Raymond. ‘‘It didn’t look real, all those white
crystals.’’
‘‘The cave is called Lechuguilla,’’ said Diane. ‘‘The
formation you’re talking about is the Crystal
Ballroom.’’
‘‘Yeah, that’s it.’’
‘‘Those are gypsum crystals. They’re even more im
pressive in person.’’
‘‘You’ve been there?’’ asked Lynn.
‘‘Yes, I have. A couple of microbiologist friends in
vited me to go on an expedition with them. It’s a
protected cave. I was lucky to get the chance.’’ ‘‘It appears to be very beautiful,’’ said Lynn. ‘‘Stunning.’’ Diane looked down at the decayed
husk that used to house a young woman. ‘‘The line of
work I’m in, it’s very rejuvenating to be able to look
at something so breathtakingly beautiful.’’
‘‘What about this knot?’’ asked Raymond. ‘‘Is it
something special?’’
‘‘It’s a handcuff knot.’’
‘‘Handcuff knot? I don’t like the sound of that,’’
he said.
‘‘It’s good as a handcuff and for hobbling horses.
Our perp added a little twist. He took the working
line and wrapped it around the vic’s hands, tucking
the end through the loops. I guess he didn’t want her
wiggling her fingers.’’
‘‘Easier to cut them off,’’ said Raymond. ‘‘Did he
do that while they were alive?’’
‘‘I don’t know,’’ said Lynn. ‘‘I’m not sure I’ll be
able to tell.’’
‘‘I think I can secure the outer loops without cutting
them, but I’ll have to cut the loops on the handcuffs,’’
said Diane.
She took a blue cord and secured all the loops to
gether and tagged each one. She treated each loop
around the wrist in the same way she handled the
noose around the neck—tying them off before cutting
the loop free.
‘‘It’s like cutting an umbilical cord,’’ said Lynn. As Diane slid the rope free, a cool breeze eased
through the autopsy room.
‘‘I don’t believe it,’’ said Lynn. ‘‘They got someone
to fix whatever was wrong.’’
‘‘Just needed a little motivation,’’ said Raymond. ‘‘Oh, it feels good,’’ said Lynn. She took in a deep
breath, as if the cool air made everything smell better.
‘‘Let’s get this done. What do you say, Raymond?’’ She turned to Diane. ‘‘I hope you don’t mind me
running you off to the other room. I like to have as
few people as possible in the room when I’m working
on a body this decomposed.’’
‘‘Believe me, I don’t mind. I’ll take these ropes back
to the lab and start my team working on them, and
then I’ll come back. Do you intend to do the other
two victims today?’’
‘‘I’d like to try. Raymond and I will collect the in
sect samples.’’
As Diane was going out the door, Lynn started the
Y incision.
RiverTrail Museum of Natural History was housed in a beautiful gothic three-story granite structure that began its life as a museum in the late 1800s. The build ing was converted into a private medical clinic in the 1940s, and was now converted back to a museum. It had large rooms with Romanesque moldings, polished granite floors and rare wall-sized murals of dinosaurs painted at a time when everyone thought the huge animals dragged their tails behind them.
Diane had a sense of peace as director of the mu seum. It was a place of scholarship, learning and fun— and she ruled. Thanks to the late founder, there were no bureaucrats between her and what she wanted to do for the museum. It was idyllic, a dream career. She couldn’t imagine going back into forensics—working with death and evil in places where evil won often and was rarely punished. But she’d found, oddly enough, after helping Frank Duncan find justice for his murdered friends, that she enjoyed the hunt, the puzzle. Good thing too, for it kept the wolves from the ornate wood doors of the museum.
It was 10:00 A.M. when Diane carried the evidence from Lynn Webber’s autopsy lab to her crime lab on the third floor of the museum.
‘‘Start on the clothes,’’ she told Jin. ‘‘Wait on the rope. I’ll bring more clothing and insect specimens later.’’
‘‘Sure thing.’’ Jin took the boxes and attached crime lab tracking labels to them. He and Diane signed the labels, and he locked the boxes away. ‘‘This is a big case. People are talking about it.’’
‘‘We’re going to be watched closely on this one. Both the mayor of Rosewood and the chief of detec tives are going to be riding us pretty hard.’’
‘‘We’ll be brilliant. I’ll start on the clothes right away. We can have some results for the sheriff by the end of the day.’’
Only a couple of technicians were in the lab, filling out papers. David’s insect-rearing chambers sat in en vironmentally controlled containers in the entomology work space.
‘‘David and the others in the field?’’ she asked. ‘‘You know how he likes to take a final walk through. He’s got Neva with him. You’ve got her very nervous.’’
‘‘I have?’’
‘‘She said you’re the one who got Detective Janice Warrick demoted last year.’’
‘‘Not me. Janice botched a case and contaminated a crime scene. She’s responsible for her own career situation.’’
‘‘I guess Neva only knows what she’s heard in the police department.’’
‘‘How’s she doing?’’
‘‘She’s scared all the time.’’
‘‘Of me?’’
‘‘You, but mostly the chief of detectives. Afraid she’s going to screw up. She didn’t want this job. He assigned her to it.’’ Jin shrugged, clearly not under standing why anyone wouldn’t want a plum job like this one. ‘‘David’s got her out now. Showing her how to look for things. David’s a good guy.’’
‘‘Yes, he is.’’ Diane didn’t like hearing that about Neva. This was the kind of case they couldn’t mess up. ‘‘I’m going to check in with the museum, then I’m going back to the autopsy.’’
Jin nodded. ‘‘Want me to have David call you?’’
‘‘No. I’ll talk with him later.’’
‘‘When you analyze the rope, I want to watch. I’ve never done that.’’
‘‘You know anything about knots?’’
‘‘I was a Boy Scout.’’
‘‘Can you tie knots?’’
‘‘Sure... some.’’
‘‘Go to the museum library and get a book on knots. Study the types.’’
Diane left and went down to the first floor. The museum had been open for an hour and was filled with summer school students on a field trip. Loud ex cited chatter swept out of the dinosaur room as she passed it on the way to her office.
When she reached the main foyer, it was not the mixture of excitement from chil
dren and admonitions from teachers that caught her attention. It was the wooden anthropoid coffin lying on its back on a large metal cart next to the information desk.
Diane walked over to the large mummy case in the shape of a human figure and looked over at Jennifer on duty in the information station.
‘‘They brought it in about an hour ago.’’
‘‘They?’’
‘‘Some guys. Kendel—uh, Ms. Williams was with them.’’
At that moment a line of students with two adults at each end came into the museum.
‘‘We’re from the Rosewood Summer Library Pro gram,’’ one of the adults announced to Jennifer and then turned and cautioned the children—five girls and three boys—to stay together. They weren’t listening. Their attention had immediately focused on the coffin.
‘‘Is there a real mummy inside there?’’ asked a lit tle girl.
That’s what I’d like to know, thought Diane.
Jennifer, dressed in black slacks and a museum teeshirt, stepped from the booth and greeted them. She nodded her head vigorously.
‘‘Yes, there is. It just arrived, and it will be going up to our conservation lab. We’re all very excited. We believe it’s from the twelfth dynasty in Egypt. That was about four thousand years ago.’’
Jennifer was more forthcoming to the children than to Diane. That seemed to be one of her characteristics. She was good with children, somewhat absent with adults.
‘‘Can we see him?’’ asked a blond curly-haired boy of about eight.
The docent arrived before Jennifer had to answer, taking charge of the group in a way that was both firm and kind. The herd of children, pulling the adults behind them, skipped and bounced out of sight on the first leg of their tour.
Diane turned back to Jennifer. ‘‘What’s this?’’ she began, just as Kendel Williams came through the dou ble doors leading from the administrative offices.
Kendel had fine brown hair turned under in a 1940s style, cut to a length just above the padded shoulders of her gray tailored suit. She had brown eyes, straight posture, and a soft voice. Ladylike was how Andie had described her to Diane when Kendel had come to interview for the position of assistant director.
In looks and manner Kendel was the opposite of Diane—soft where Diane was hard. One of the things she had liked about Kendel was that her looks were deceptive. Like all the applicants, she had several years’ of experience in upper museum administration. What Diane had discovered in the interview and from the people she called for references was that Kendal was tough when it came to championing her museum and acquiring holdings. What’s more, Kendel knew museum culture.
That was a strength Diane didn’t have. She under stood the museum’s structure and administration, but she was also an outsider among those career museum people who had come up through the ranks. Diane had been plucked from the technical field of forensic anthropology and hired as director. She knew that some people inside the museum culture resented that.
The relationships among museums were a mixture of intense competition and helpful collaboration. Kendel was familiar with most of the major museums and how they worked and who she could work with. Diane liked her. She’d never asked Kendel how she felt about snakes.
‘‘Dr. Fallon,’’ she said breathlessly, ‘‘I’m so sorry about yesterday morning. I don’t usually go off like that.’’
‘‘It’s all right. I understand that you didn’t expect to find a snake coiled up in your desk drawer the second day on the job.’’
The elusive museum snake had made a rare appearance—unfortunately, in Kendel’s desk drawer— giving Diane another opportunity to rue the day she had told the herpetologists they could create a terrar ium for live snakes.
‘‘Only nonpoisonous snakes,’’ she had told them. ‘‘And make sure the terrarium is escape proof.’’
At least they were able to keep one of her condi tions. It was a harmless black snake that escaped. The only ones who ever ran across it were people who wouldn’t think of trying to catch it. The herpetologist and his assistants hadn’t even caught a glimpse of it.
Kendel was quickly followed by Andie Layne, Di ane’s assistant; Jonas Briggs, staff archaeologist; and Korey Jordan, head conservator. They gathered with Diane around the mummy case.
Diane looked at Andie. ‘‘I seem to remember saying something about not wanting to see any orders for mummies come across my desk.’’
Andie’s Orphan Annie curly brown-red hair bounced as she laughed. ‘‘And you won’t. This is a donation.’’
‘‘Nice,’’ said Korey. He placed a gloved hand on the case. ‘‘This is in good condition. Can’t wait to see inside it.’’ His white teeth were bright against his brown skin.
‘‘It’s from a James Lionel-Kirk,’’ said Kendel. ‘‘Lionel-Kirk inherited it from his father in New York around twenty years ago. His father had inherited it from his grandfather in England, who inherited it from his father, we think. We’re working provenance now.’’
‘‘Is there anything in it?’’
Jonas Briggs answered. Retired from Bartram Uni versity in Rosewood, and now the museum’s only ar chaeologist, he had been the first to express a desire for an exhibit on Egyptology. At the moment, he was beaming. ‘‘There is indeed. There is a mummy inside.’’
‘‘A mummy.’’
All nodded their heads vigorously. ‘‘We can’t be sure it’s the mummy that belongs with the case,’’ Kendel warned. ‘‘At the time this was acquired, mummies were a popular tourist item and the Egyptian sellers did some mixing and matching of mummy cases and mummies.’’
‘‘He’s apparently unwrapped,’’ said Jonas. ‘‘We think he—or she—was the centerpiece of a Victorian mummy unwrapping party. They were all the rage at one time.’’
‘‘You’re kidding.’’
‘‘Not at all,’’ said Kendel. ‘‘The guests would sit around and watch the host unwrap a mummy. We’re lucky this one survived. Most from unwrapping parties were burnt as firewood.’’
‘‘We were just about to take it up to the conserva tion lab and have a look,’’ said Korey.
Diane motioned toward the elevator. ‘‘By all means. Let’s have a look at our mummy.’’
Chapter 7
The conservation laboratory on the second floor was spacious, containing six shiny metal worktables, each with a microscope and a large swivel-mounted magni fying glass and light. Cabinets filled with chemicals used in conserving fragile objects of wood, paper, fab ric, metal, and bone lined the walls. There were a fume hood, sinks, and more microscopes on the countertops. From the ceiling hung the framework for mounting cameras.
It was a cool, shiny, clean room managed by Korey. Three of his assistants were seated at tables, busy at work.
Across from the lab was the X-ray room, complete with used endoscopy and low level X-ray equipment— Korey’s newest babies that he’d found at a medical surplus auction.
They wheeled the mummy case past the tables into the temperatureand humidity-controlled storage vault in the back of the lab. The small room was crowded with the five of them and the mummy. They all gathered around the case of heavy wood and inlay and lifted it onto a worktable.
‘‘We’ll lay the lid on the table,’’ said Korey. ‘‘I checked it when it came in. It’s not sealed. Okay, on three.’’
It was heavier than Diane had suspected but man ageable as the five of them lifted the top off and laid it aside.
‘‘Oh, this is nice,’’ said Jonas as they looked into the coffin.
The mummy, a mixture of brown, red and dark gray, looked as if it had been fashioned from resin. The face was especially well preserved. The skin ap peared as though it were pulled tight, and the outline of bones and ligaments could be seen under the flesh. The brow ridge and jawline looked male.
The arms were crossed over the chest. On its legs were piles of yellow-brown wrappings that looked like a bundle of well-worn rags.
‘‘He does, doesn’t he?’’ agreed Kendel.
‘‘It’s a he?’’ asked Andie.
‘‘I believe so,’’ said Diane.
‘‘A pharaoh?’’ she asked.
‘‘I doubt it,’’ said Diane.
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