‘‘The thing you said on the TV—about all murder ers being evil.’’
‘‘That’s not exactly what I said.’’
‘‘It’s close enough. That’s what you meant. You can’t say things like that without knowing all the cir cumstances. Sometimes it’s the so-called murder vic tim who’s evil. The so-called murderer is just seeing that justice is done.’’
Diane tried to stall for time. ‘‘First of all, you need to know the television interview was some old stock footage they had from when we opened the crime lab. I was talking about murder in general.’’
‘‘I know. That’s just the thing. You can’t talk about murder in general, unless you know all the circum stances all the time, and you don’t.’’
‘‘I know that everyone deserves their life.’’
‘‘Then you don’t believe in giving murderers the death sentence?’’
‘‘I believe in following the law.’’
‘‘You’re just playing with words.’’
‘‘It sounds like you have some personal experience . . .’’ She heard a click. Damn. She hadn’t handled that well.
‘‘I’m sorry,’’ she said as Frank came into the office. ‘‘I couldn’t hold him on the line any longer.’’
Frank took a pen and scribbled a number on Di ane’s desk calendar. ‘‘The call was made from this pay phone at the Rest Aplenty Motel out on 441.’’
‘‘You had time to trace it?’’
‘‘That business about losing the trace if you don’t keep people talking for several minutes is just a device used by the movies to keep the detectives from finding the killer too quickly.’’ Frank pulled his chair closer to Diane and sat down. ‘‘Phone companies have been able to trace a call in a matter of seconds for more than twenty years.’’
‘‘You’re kidding.’’
‘‘No, I’m not. You just have to know who in the phone company to talk to. I called the police and asked them to check it out, but I imagine he’s gone by now.’’
‘‘I didn’t know there were any pay phones any more.’’
‘‘There’s a few still left, but they’re disappearing. So, what did this guy say?’’
‘‘Not much.’’
Diane related the conversation almost verbatim. She watched Frank as she talked. He listened, leaning for ward in his chair, his elbows on his knees, hands loosely clasped together. His short salt-and-pepper hair looked steel gray under the lights of her office. He looked good in his blue jeans and white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to just below his elbows. Frank seemed to listen with his blue-green eyes—he nar rowed them in a way that made them glitter. He’d been gone for a couple weeks, and she realized it seemed like a couple of months. She was glad he was back.
‘‘Do you think he’s the perp?’’ Frank asked.
‘‘I don’t know. He hasn’t mentioned the murders specifically. Just allusions to justice. We’ve had a lot of people contact me to protest the location of the crime lab in the museum.’’ Diane threw her hands up. ‘‘For all I know, I could have picked up a stalker when I appeared on television.’’
‘‘You need to get some rest.’’
‘‘Does it show?’’
‘‘I wasn’t going to mention it.’’
‘‘You just did.’’
‘‘No. I said you need to get some rest.’’ He gave her a broad smile.
‘‘The key to solving this is the identity of the vic tims. I need to finish the last set of bones.’’
‘‘Why don’t I stay with you, drive you home when you’re done?’’
‘‘You must be exhausted after your trip back from San Francisco.’’
‘‘Don’t you have a comfortable couch in your office up in that fancy lab of yours?’’
‘‘Yes. But...’’
‘‘There you have it. Problem solved. Let’s eat, then go identify a skeleton—I’ve always wanted to learn how to do that. I’m pretty good at recognizing clavi cles now. I’ll betcha I can tell the left from the right.’’
Diane called David at the Waller crime scene first to check up on her team.
‘‘How’s everything going?’’ she asked.
‘‘Going fine. I sneaked some pictures of the peo ple watching.’’
‘‘Good for you.’’
‘‘We found a secret closet.’’
‘‘No. A secret closet?’’
‘‘It was next to the main closet, with a bookcase for a door. You can imagine what ran through our minds as we were opening it.’’
‘‘Collections of fingertips.’’
‘‘That’s what we all were thinking.’’
‘‘Well, what was in it?’’
‘‘His collection of memorabilia from the old Negro Leagues. I’m sure he was keeping it hidden from bur glars. You know he’s got a bat signed by Josh Gibson? He hit over nine hundred home runs in his career, eighty-four in one season. I actually held a ball signed by Satchel Paige. I mean, you should see the stuff the guy had.’’
‘‘You think it was a burglary gone bad?’’
‘‘That’s what Chief Garnett thinks.’’
‘‘Was Raymond tied up like Chris Edwards?’’
‘‘No. His hair, face and chest are wet. That’s what Garnett is keeping back.’’
‘‘Do I detect a note of disagreement? Is there any evidence this is connected to Edwards or the Cobber’s Wood victims?’’
‘‘Not exactly. But . . .’’ Diane heard sounds of David walking. She assumed he was going someplace where Garnett couldn’t hear him. ‘‘The place is tossed like Edwards’. Chris Edwards was caught unawares in his bathroom, dazed by a blow to the head and then tied up, but he was able to put up a fight. I think there’s a possibility that the killer tried the same thing with Raymond, but hit him a little too hard, tried to revive him, but he had killed him.’’
‘‘The perp could still have been looking for the baseball stuff.’’
‘‘Yes, he could. We’ll see if there’s anything in the trace evidence similar to Edwards.’’
‘‘Keep up the good work. I hope we are all able to get some sleep sometime this week.’’
‘‘Sleep? You don’t still do that, do you?’’
‘‘Call me if you need me.’’
‘‘Frank not back yet?’’
‘‘As a matter of fact, he is.’’
‘‘Does he know about the flowers?’’
‘‘The flowers. It turns out the person who left them called.’’
‘‘Oh, who was it?’’ David had asked about the flowers in jest, but he sounded cautious now. Diane briefly told him about the caller. David whistled. ‘‘Okay, this isn’t good.’’
‘‘It could be completely innocent...’’
‘‘Normal people don’t act like that—only crazies or people guilty of something.’’
‘‘Can you hand your phone to Garnett.’’
‘‘Sure.’’
After a moment, Garnett’s voice came on the phone and Diane related the story a third time.
‘‘I don’t like this. You say you kept him talking long enough for the phone company to trace the call?’’
Diane hesitated a beat. ‘‘Yes. A policeman went to check it out, but I imagine he’s long gone.’’
‘‘I’ll call and tell them to talk to anyone who might have seen anybody using that pay phone.’’
‘‘I got an answer from the E-mail. You know of a policeman named Lenderman or something like that?’’
‘‘There’s a Marty Lenderman. You saying it’s him? He’s a very down-to-earth guy. I can’t even imagine it’s him.’’
‘‘The person who replied said they didn’t send the message and not to bother them, that their father was a policeman. The address was JMLndrmn. I just added some vowels to what looked like it might be the last name. Does he have a kid with the initials J. M.?’’
‘‘Sure does. Jennifer Marie. She’s only about six teen. You think
she did this as a prank?’’
‘‘I don’t know. Can’t spammers hijack E-mail addresses?’’
‘‘I’ll talk to Marty. In the meantime, I’ll have some one trace where the E-mail message came from.’’
‘‘I can probably do that here.’’
‘‘Okay. All this may be just some prank, but be careful anyway. I think Raymond was probably killed for his collection. It’s pretty valuable, according to your guy David.’’
‘‘I heard him drooling over the phone.’’
Garnett laughed. ‘‘I haven’t heard of most of the guys except Satchel Paige, but that ball by itself should be worth some money.’’
* * *
The museum restaurant was a maze of tall archways made of salvaged bricks that looked like it could have been an ancient monastery library, and yet for all its vaulted height and medieval atmosphere, it felt cozy. Five dark rough-hewn wood tables sat in each of the five chambers made by four contiguous archways at right angles to each other. Booths in arched brick al coves lined the walls. Diane and Frank chose a booth.
Near the entrance in another recess sat a line of four computers—for all its Old World museum look, the restaurant was also an Internet cafe.
The restaurant was known for its great salad and fruit bar. It also had a varied menu. Diane made her self a chef salad with a fruit side dish and took it back to the table. Frank ordered a steak.
‘‘How’s Star?’’ Diane asked as she sat down oppo site Frank.
He tore off a piece of bread and dipped it in herbed olive oil. ‘‘She’s like that little girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead.’’
‘‘She’s not really horrid, is she?’’
The waitress brought Frank’s steak. As Diane ate her salad, she was beginning to wish she’d ordered a piece of red meat too. She felt the need for a lot of protein.
‘‘Star’s doing pretty good, considering her family was murdered a year ago. She wanted to go with me to the West Coast—insisted that she didn’t need any one watching her while I was in court. Can you imag ine me letting her loose by herself in San Francisco? Want some of my steak?’’
‘‘No, go ahead and eat,’’ she said, but Frank cut off a piece on the tender side and put it on her salad. ‘‘Frank, that’s the best part.’’
‘‘If you’re going to insist on burning the candle at both ends, you need to eat. So, tell me about your mummy. Know anything about him yet?’’
‘‘So far, we’ve X-rayed him. Jonas is translating the sarcophagus, though it’s probably not his.’’
Diane related what they had discovered, skipping over the details of what abscesses were like at a time when dental care was not what it is today. Frank was laughing over the story of the Victorian pickle jar when Diane took the last bite of her fresh pineapple.
Chapter 20
‘‘Nice place,’’ said Frank, looking around Diane’s os teology lab.
The white walls and overhead lighting did make the room look bright, as the shiny tables, sinks and micro scopes made it look new.
‘‘You’ve been here. You’re one of the few who’ve had the grand tour.’’
‘‘I suppose I’m surprised it hasn’t fallen into that dingy hospital look. Do you paint the walls every few weeks?’’
‘‘I’m very neat in my work. I clean all the blood spatters off my walls every day. You remember where my office is?’’
Diane led him to a corner door, unlocked it and turned on the light. The small office had pale off-white walls that, if she remembered correctly from the paint can, was called Candle Glow. The floor was green slate, the desk and filing cabinets a dark walnut. A long burgundy leather couch sat against one wall, its matching chair close to her desk. There was adequate space, but no more.
Although she needed a private office in the osteol ogy lab, it was her second office, and she hadn’t wanted to use more space than absolutely necessary. She chose the leather and wood furniture so the room wouldn’t look as hard-edged as the lab with its stark metal tables and impersonal equipment, but something about the room was still cold. Perhaps it was the lack of a carpet. She didn’t have a carpet installed because she wanted neither the static electricity nor the fibers it would generate. The walls were mostly bare—one lone watercolor of a wolf hunting in the wild.
‘‘You can rest in here, if you need to,’’ she said.
‘‘Actually, I got a lot of rest on the plane. Why don’t I watch you work?’’
‘‘All right. But it’s like watching paint dry.’’
‘‘I think you underestimate yourself.’’ He drew her into another kiss. In the privacy of her office, Diane didn’t feel obliged to break off as soon. ‘‘You know,’’ said Frank, when he pulled away, ‘‘this looks like a real comfortable couch.’’
‘‘It is. If you need to rest, I’m sure it’ll be soft enough. I have to look at Red Doe now. If we can find where these people belong, we can discover who killed them.’’
Red Doe sat in the box on a table, waiting. As Diane laid out the bones, Frank walked around the lab looking at the microscopes, wall charts, books and various other lab paraphernalia. When she started the examination, he wandered back over and watched.
‘‘Male or female?’’
Diane looked up at him silently.
‘‘Sorry, I’ve never seen you work before and I’d like to know how you do it. You know, in case I come across some bones.’’ He grinned.
‘‘If you come across any bones, you call in an an thropologist,’’ she said. A moment passed before she spoke again. ‘‘It’s female. You can tell by the pelvis.’’
The pubic symphysis had more wear than the other two, but not enough to throw it into another age cate gory. All the victims were around the same age. Red may have been a little older, but she also may have been more active. The muscle attachments on her pel vis were more developed than Blue’s—and Green’s. Interesting.
Red Doe’s face was orthognathic, with an almost flat profile. Her cranial index—the ratio of breadth to length—was the lowest number in the mongoloid range. In fact, all her cranial indices measured at the low end of the mongoloid range. Red’s teeth had even-edged occlusion, but she did not have shoveltooth incisors. Like Blue and Green, Red had no cavi ties. They all had grown up with fluoride and regular dental checkups.
‘‘She’s Asian,’’ said Diane.
Frank squinted at the skull. ‘‘How can you tell?’’
‘‘There are certain features you look for, but mainly it’s in the math. There are indices calculated from measurements of precise points on the skull. The index numbers fall within ethnic ranges. There are also differences in the rest of the skeleton that fall within ethnic categories. That’s why accurate measurement is important and why I must do so much of it.’’
‘‘Looks like there’d be computer programs that would compute these things.’’
‘‘There are and I have them, but I still have to do the measuring.’’
‘‘Your fancy machine doesn’t take the measure ments?’’
‘‘It does make external measurements for the skull, but I still have to make all the other measurements on the skeleton the old-fashioned way and put the numbers into the program. In the end, I’ll have a very detailed mathematical description of the three skele tons to give Sheriff Braden.’’
‘‘These bones look nice and clean,’’ said Frank.
‘‘Raymond . . .’’ She paused. Her mind went back to the autopsy, his good humor, his competence, his interest in what she did. ‘‘Raymond Waller, Lynn Webber’s assistant, cleaned them.’’
‘‘You all right?’’
Diane met Frank’s gaze and realized he didn’t know anything about Raymond. ‘‘He died tonight—he was murdered.’’
‘‘Is that the crime scene your team’s on?’’
Diane nodded.
‘‘That’s certainly a coincidence—him having just worked on these bodies.’’
/>
‘‘Especially when you consider that one of the men who found the bodies was also murdered and the other one is missing.’’
Frank stared at her a long moment. Having said it out loud to Frank, it didn’t sound like it could possibly be a coincidence, even though she had been kind of buying into Garnett’s theory that Raymond’s murder had to do with his collection of Negro Leagues base ball memorabilia.
From the look on Frank’s face, she could tell he didn’t think it was a coincidence. But Frank never believed in coincidences. In his universe, everything was connected; you just had to follow the train of consequences of that butterfly flapping his wings.
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