‘‘I don’t know,’’ said Diane. ‘‘How did you know something happened?’’
‘‘Izzy called. I think he’s trying to make up for being a horse’s ass. Get some clothes and come spend the night at my house.’’
Diane nodded. That sounded safe. She was sure her neighbors would feel safer if she were gone. Her new est neighbors must think this kind of thing happened to her every night.
As she left, Veda Odell, the neighbor across the hall, stuck her head out. ‘‘Marvin says he’d rather have a load of cats living next door than you.’’
‘‘Mrs. Odell,’’ said Diane. ‘‘I can’t say as I blame him.’’
Diane called Garnett the next morning from the crime lab the minute she arrived. ‘‘What’s his status?’’
‘‘Critical. He seems to be hanging in there. Hasn’t been conscious for more than a few minutes at a time. Won’t talk when he is.’’
‘‘Do you know who he is?’’
‘‘He had no identification on him. We found what we believe is his vehicle. Stolen plates, no registration. And like I said, he isn’t talking. We’re sending you a copy of his fingerprints.’’
‘‘Here they are now.’’
David stood in front of her with an envelope in his hand. David, Jin and Neva had been hanging around her desk as if she might disappear if they looked away for a moment. Jin was stretched out on the sofa. Neva perched on the edge of one of the chairs.
‘‘These are fingerprints of the guy who came into my apartment last night. Check them against all our crime scene prints and every fingerprint database we have access to. We need a match if there’s one out there.’’
‘‘I’ll get on it,’’ said David. ‘‘I’ve just installed a new identification algorithm. I’m anxious to try it out.’’
‘‘Jin. Find out how the GBI is doing with the shed hair project.’’ She took a key off her key chain. ‘‘Go to my apartment and get some of his blood off my floor or on the towel they used to cover the wound, and take it with you to Atlanta. See if we can match it.’’
‘‘Neva.’’ Diane picked up a piece of paper from her desk. ‘‘This report from the bone samples came back yesterday. All of our victims grew up in the northeast ern United States. Sheriff Braden isn’t having any luck with missing persons. I want you to scan your drawings and save them as graphic files, JPEG, GIF, whatever works best on the Internet. I want you to locate a professional list serve, discussion board or whatever it’s called for plastic surgeons. Post the drawings of Blue and Green Doe, and see if anyone recognizes either of them. Mention where they grew up, Green’s heart condition and Blue’s tattoo of a butterfly on her ankle.’’
‘‘I could do the same thing with the tattoos,’’ said Neva. ‘‘Look for a discussion board about tattoos. Might get something.’’
‘‘Good idea. Okay, guys, you have your assign ments.’’ Diane stood up. ‘‘I’m going to be working in the museum if you need me.’’
‘‘You seem hyper today,’’ said David.
‘‘Hand-to-hand combat does that to you.’’
‘‘You weren’t hurt, were you?’’ he asked.
‘‘I’m fine. When I finally got to a safe bed, I got a good night’s sleep.’’
‘‘You’ve had some reporters calling,’’ said Andie, eying Diane as she came through the office.
‘‘What did you tell them?’’
‘‘That I didn’t know what the heck they were talk ing about. What the heck were they talking about?’’
Diane described the events of the previous evening, trying to make it sound casual, but failing miserably.
‘‘He’s in critical condition. Have no idea who he is.’’
Andie stared at her with her mouth open. ‘‘Is that the guy who sent the flowers?’’
‘‘Yes.’’
‘‘How is it that you attract all these weirdos?’’
‘‘I have no idea. I’m contemplating hiring someone to steal that interview the TV station has on file so they can’t play the damn thing again. I thought I was just giving generic answers, but they certainly seemed to set this guy off.’’
‘‘He was in your bedroom all the while?’’
‘‘Apparently so.’’
‘‘That’s creepy, not to mention scary.’’
‘‘I’m going to get some work done. I want only museum business calls. Send all reporters to the police for information.’’
‘‘Dr. F.’’ Korey stood in the doorway. ‘‘I’ve got something you need to see.’’
‘‘What’s that?’’
‘‘It’s up in the conservation room.’’
Diane nodded. ‘‘Sure.’’
She walked with Korey to the conservation lab lo cated on the second floor.
‘‘How did our mummy fare on his outing?’’ she asked.
‘‘He did fine. When we got him back, I went back in with the endoscope and took a sample of the tumor. That ought to be interesting.’’
Diane quickened her pace.
‘‘You have the amulets up there?’’
‘‘Sure do. Great stuff. You haven’t seen them?’’
‘‘No, and I would like to.’’
Korey grinned. ‘‘You’re going to like this, then.’’
Mike Seger was in the conservation room looking at the amulets when Diane arrived.
‘‘You tell her what you found?’’
‘‘Not yet. She wanted to see the amulets first.’’
‘‘This sounds mysterious.’’ Diane stopped at a table where twenty-one Egyptian artifacts were laid out on a piece of batting. ‘‘These are absolutely lovely.’’
They were small. The largest piece was a scarab about four inches long. Each piece had a card next to it saying what it was and what materials it was made from.
The scarab was alabaster and probably had been over his heart. Several small fish figurines made of alabaster and lapis lazuli lay in two rows. An in scribed cylinder of sandstone had the name Senusret III written on it, according to the card. There was another row
figure made
SHABTIS.
of several limestone figurines and a of black steatite that was labeled
‘‘That’s a Get Out of Work Free card for the after life,’’ said Korey, as Diane picked up the shabtis and turned it over in her hand. ‘‘According to Jonas, the writing on the back is a spell to let the person send the shabtis in his place if he was ever asked to do work. It seems that’s what the rich folk did in life too. When there was mandatory work to be done, they could send in a sub. The work they were opting out of was the hard labor variety. Seems that ancient Egypt had a big public works program. Very useful when the Nile flooded.’’
Two figures lying next
pottery. colored glazed FAIENCE.’’
‘‘Kendel says to each other looked like The card was labeled
faience ceramic is made of lime,
crushed quartz and alkali and makes a glaze when it’s fired,’’ said Korey. ‘‘She says a lot of their jewelry was made that way.’’
‘‘These are wonderful,’’ said Diane. ‘‘They’ll make an incredible exhibit.’’
‘‘The designers are already at it. I’ve just about had to run them out of here to get any work done. Can’t blame them, though. This is really fine stuff.’’
‘‘Now, what did you ask me up here for?’’
‘‘The lawyer for Raymond Waller called and asked us if we could make the arrangement to send the base ball collection to the Negro Leagues Baseball Mu seum. I told him sure, we interact with museums all the time.’’
‘‘Certainly, we can handle it. Is there a problem?’’
‘‘I think you need to call the lawyer and talk to him. I mean, in order to make sure what’s supposed to go the museum and what’s supposed to go to his heirs.’’
‘‘I’m not following,’’ said Diane.
‘‘You will.’’ Korey and Mike led her to th
e climatecontrolled vault in the rear of the lab, where he stored the baseball collection.
Chapter 37
The vault was cool. Diane shivered and rubbed her hands over her bare forearms. It had rows of shelves filled with items that had to be stored in a stable envi ronment, always kept at the same temperature and humidity. Some items never left the vault until Korey was sure they would not deteriorate outside. Some of the objects couldn’t stand the normal museum envi ronment and had been in the vault since the museum opened. The mummy was there, lying on a table, with the plastic wrapping removed.
‘‘Alicia’s working on the wrappings that came with him,’’ said Korey, with a nod of his head toward an other table holding the linen mummy wrappings. ‘‘It’s in pretty bad shape, but we’d like to use it to re wrap him.’’
A large table in the center of the room held Ray mond Waller’s pride and joy—his collection of arti facts from the Negro Leagues. There was the bat that David mentioned, and the ball. In fact, there were several balls and bats. There were uniforms and pen nants, stacks of photographs, cards, signs and newspa per clippings.
‘‘I went ahead and deacidified the paper, checked out the material. I figured you wouldn’t mind me tak ing care of his stuff.’’
‘‘Sure. That’s fine.’’
Korey picked up a handkerchief that had something wrapped in it. ‘‘I was checking out the uniforms for moths and things and I found this stuffed in the pocket of the Birmingham Black Barons uniform with the number ten on it. That’s significant.’’
‘‘Korey.’’
‘‘I’m getting to it.’’
He unwrapped the handkerchief. In the center were
three crystals about the size of marbles, each shaped like two pyramids stuck together at their base. They looked like they were made of clear ice.
‘‘When I found these, I called Mike.’’
‘‘What are they?’’
She looked at Mike, who had that amused glint in
his eyes again.
‘‘You tell me,’’ he said.
‘‘Are you saying these are diamonds?’’
Mike nodded his head. ‘‘Good-quality, uncut dia
monds. I’ve already mapped and photographed the internal structure—thought it’d be nice to have on file.’’
‘‘How much are they worth?’’
‘‘Cut price, we’re talking in a range over two hun dred thousand dollars.’’
‘‘For three rocks?’’ said Diane.
‘‘Three very sweet rocks.’’
Diane shook her head. ‘‘You were right, Korey. We have to call the attorney back and let him know.’’
She took the stones and let them rest in the palm of her hand.
‘‘Damn. This is what the thief was looking for. Where in the world did Raymond get them?’’ she whispered almost to herself.
‘‘There is a way to trace a diamond back to the mine of origin,’’ said Mike.
Diane looked up at him sharply. ‘‘How?’’
‘‘Every diamond has a chemical signature that is specific to its origin. It would require drilling a micro scopic hole in it with a laser beam. The only problem is that not all the world’s mines have been cataloged. And there’s also the problem of diamonds mined from alluvial plains that have been washed maybe hundreds of miles from their origin.’’
‘‘I’ll present that option to Mr. Waller’s executor.’’
‘‘It’s a very new methodology. It was developed to help legitimate diamond dealers. There’s a big blackmarket trade in blood diamonds. Those are the dia monds used to finance the various African civil wars, and most dealers want to make sure their diamonds aren’t part of that trade.’’
Blood diamonds, thought Diane. She wondered if that would turn out to be an appropriate name for these stones if indeed they were what caused Ray mond’s death.
‘‘I’m going to have to tell Garnett too.’’ Diane started to put the diamonds back in the handkerchief.
‘‘Here.’’ Mike handed her a jeweler’s box with de pressions in which to fit each diamond. ‘‘Stones like these don’t need to be knocking around against each other.’’
‘‘You put them against black,’’ she said, smiling.
‘‘Well, since we already know the color, you might as well present them at their best.’’ Mike put the box in a jeweler’s bag and handed it to Diane.
‘‘I feel like I need a guard to go back down to my office.’’
‘‘I’d be happy to oblige,’’ said Mike, holding out an arm for Diane to pass.
Diane walked with Korey and Mike out of the vault as Alicia, one of Korey’s assistants, was entering.
‘‘Dr. Fallon? Andie told me about last night. That must have been terrifying. Jeez, two nights in a row. You must be feeling besieged.’’
‘‘I’m fine. Thanks, Alicia.’’
‘‘You were attacked again?’’ asked Mike and Korey at the same time.
Diane gave them the briefest description of the events. The two of them gawked at her.
‘‘A few cuts on the soles of my feet from having to flee the house without my shoes, but other than that, I’m fine.’’
‘‘But they caught the guy?’’
‘‘Yes,’’ said Diane. ‘‘They have him.’’
‘‘You be careful, Dr. F.,’’ said Korey when Diane and Mike left the conservation lab.
‘‘Could you use that technique to compare the cut stone I was telling you about with these to see if they were from the same place?’’ Diane asked Mike.
‘‘Yes, but that stone’s already been cut. The owner might not want even a microscopic hole in it. You could ask her.’’
‘‘No, I can’t. She was murdered.’’
Mike stopped in his tracks. ‘‘Her diamond?’’
‘‘Gone.’’
‘‘Damn, Boss. Do you think you should stay in your apartment?’’
‘‘I’m not. I’m staying with Frank.’’
‘‘He’s got a gun, right?’’
Diane frowned. ‘‘It looks like they have the guy.’’
‘‘He’s the one doing all the killings?’’
‘‘That’s what the crime lab is trying to determine.’’ ‘‘If there’s anything you need...’’
‘‘Thanks, Mike. I’d like to relax in a nice, cool dark cave.’’
‘‘Now you’re talking. How about next weekend?’’
‘‘Sounds good. I’ll tell Neva.’’
Mike escorted Diane to her office. She sat down behind her desk, found the business card for Russell Keating, Raymond Waller’s attorney, and gave him a call.
‘‘Mr. Keating, we’ve found items in the baseball memorabilia that probably don’t belong with the base ball bequests. It may be the reason he was murdered, so I need to tell Chief Garnett about it too. Could you come to the museum this afternoon?’’
‘‘This is going to cause me problems with the twins, isn’t it?’’
‘‘I think so.’’
‘‘Lord have mercy.’’ He paused and shuffled some of his papers on his desk. ‘‘I can be there at three thirty.’’
Russell Keating and Chief Douglas Garnett sat in front of Diane’s desk staring at the stones she had in front of her.
‘‘And you say these are worth how much?’’ asked
Keating.
‘‘Our geologist says they would be worth more than
two hundred thousand dollars after they were cut.’’ ‘‘That’s what his murderer was after,’’ said Garnett.
‘‘It has to be. We’ll have to hold these as evidence.’’ ‘‘Hold on now, evidence of what? Of your idea that
this is what the murderer was after? You thought the
murderer was after the collection and you didn’t hold
it as evidence. You told me you brought it to the
museum for safekeeping.’’
‘‘We don’t know who the diamonds belong to,’
’
said Garnett.
‘‘The hell we don’t. They belong to Raymond Wal
ler’s estate. They were in his possession.’’
‘‘Where did he get diamonds that valuable on his
salary as a morgue assistant?’’
‘‘It doesn’t matter,’’ said Keating. ‘‘He could have
found them in his backyard. He owned his house and
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