One Grave Too Many dffi-1

by Beverly Connor

  “I hate saying I’m relieved he’s not here.”

  “I know. I have some more news too. I’ve been checking around, and found out that someone in your State Department was discussing the events of last year at a small private party a few weeks ago. I don’t think he meant harm, but I chastised him just the same. God knows they’ve been giving me a hard time. One of the people at the party was from Rosewood.”

  “Really? Who?”

  “Gordon Atwell. Do you know him?”

  “I do indeed. He’s on my board of directors and one of the people siding with Mark Grayson. He also holds the mortgage on the museum-or, rather, his bank does.”

  “Then maybe this news will help.”

  “It will.”

  “How is everything else?”

  “Are you sure you want to know?”

  “Something’s happened, I can hear it in your voice. Tell me about it.”

  “It’s a long story. Will you be able to get your four hours’ sleep?”

  “Fire away.”

  Diane told him the entire story, ending with Mrs. Odell behind her drapes. That part left him laughing.

  “I shouldn’t laugh. I’m sorry, but the image of this woman dressed in-what did you say, pink chenille? — hiding behind your draperies. . not to mention you about to club her with a cast-iron skillet, of all things. Is it an antique?”

  “Not exactly. I bake cornbread in it.”

  “Cornbread? Just that one thing?”

  “Yes. It takes several years to season it just right for cornbread. You don’t wash it, so you can’t cook anything else in it.”

  “You’re joking. How do you clean the thing?”

  “You wipe it out after you take out the bread. The next time you use it, you rub it with shortening and put it in a four-hundred-and-twenty-five degree oven until it sizzles. That pretty much gets rid of any germs.”

  “Is that one of those Southern things?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll have to allow you to bake me a-do you call it anything special? It can’t be a loaf, can it? I remember hearing something about a pone.”

  “Some call it that. I simply call it a pan of cornbread.”

  “You’ll have to make me a pan sometime.”

  “I’d be happy to. Let me know when you plan to come to the U.S. I’d love for you to see my museum.”

  “Marguerite and the boys would love that. I’m planning a trip in a couple of months. I’ll let you know. I’m sorry to hear about your friend Frank, and especially about you. I need to let you get some sleep. It sounds to me like you’re still injured.”

  “A little pain now and then.”

  “Go to bed and get some sleep. Let me know how things progress. I’m still concerned about you.”

  “I know. It’s good talking to you. It really is.” Diane hung up the phone and finally tucked herself into bed. She was glad he called. Gregory had a way of helping keep her feet on the ground.

  Morning came too soon. She slapped the alarm off and dragged herself out of bed and into the shower. The warm water felt soothing on her sore muscles. She thought she must be getting better. No sharp pains, and the soreness in her kidney wasn’t as acute.

  She pulled a pearl gray pantsuit from her closet, slipped it on and grabbed a nutrition bar for breakfast on the way out. The sun was shining. It looked like it was going to be a clear day. A surprise, because rain was in the forecast. She headed for the hospital, praying that Frank was improved.

  Diane slowed down as she approached the front desk. Fear was creeping inside her, fueled by the vision of asking to see Frank and being told he was gone-dead. This is just silly. She marched up to the desk and asked if she could visit Frank Duncan. As she asked, she saw Linc and Henry in the waiting room and walked over to them.

  “He’s stable,” Linc said before she asked.

  “That’s a relief.”

  “You look better too.”

  “Got a little adrenaline rush last night.” She grinned and told them about Mrs. Odell and the draperies. The two of them laughed with her, and it felt good.

  “Thanks for your help last night,” said Diane.

  “I may be mistaken,” said Linc, “but I’d be willing to bet he’s an avid hockey player.”

  “I’m going to call Frank’s partner today and ask him to put out a missing persons query. Maybe we’ll come up with something.”

  “Would you like to see Frank?” asked Linc.

  “Yes. Yes, I would.”

  Linc led her to the ICU and stayed outside the door as she went in. Frank was awake. He looked so pale. She took his hand.

  “Hey,” he whispered. “Thinking about you.”

  “Good, I hope.”

  “Always.”

  “Linc’s been a big help. Did he tell you?”

  Frank nodded. “Interesting.”

  “I met your partner. I thought I’d ask him to put out an inquiry about our guy.”

  “He’ll do that.”

  “I won’t stay long. I just needed to see how you are. Getting an infection wasn’t a good idea.”

  “No. Seemed like it at the time, though.” He gave her a wan smile.

  Diane squeezed his hand. “I saw Star yesterday. She’s OK. Her lawyer’s trying to get her bail. I said she could stay with me.”

  Frank held tightly onto her hand. “Thanks.”

  “Get better.” She kissed his cheek. “There’s something I need you to do for me when you get well.”

  He attempted a grin. “And what would that be?”

  Diane leaned over and whispered in his ear. “Teach me how to box.”

  “How’s he doing, really?” she asked Linc on the way out of the ICU.

  “Holding his own. Frank was never one to overuse antibiotics, so that’s in his favor. He usually responds well to them. That’s always a concern-finding an antibiotic that will work.”

  “Has there been any. . other trouble?”

  “No. Henry and I are always here. Most of his visitors don’t go into ICU. They’re content to get information from us or the desk.”

  “Perhaps I’m just being paranoid.”

  He smiled. “Maybe, but if you’re not, it’s good to be prepared. Henry and I don’t mind.”

  When Diane left the hospital, she went to the jail. She didn’t expect to be able to see Star, but thought perhaps the person on duty would tell Star she had been there checking on her. She was surprised when they put her in the same room as before and brought Star in to see her. Her bandages were off her arms, and Diane could see the four-inch red scars running up each arm. She also noticed that there were no telltale needle marks on either arm. Whatever drugs Star had been taking were not intravenous. That was something.

  “How’s Uncle Frank?”

  Diane told her about the infection. She feared if Star heard it from another source and she hadn’t told her, it would damage the shaky trust Star was building with her.

  “He’s doing well. His brothers are there. One is a doctor himself and he gives me the real poop on how Frank’s doing.”

  “All this is my fault, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If Mom and Dad hadn’t given Uncle Frank that bone to get the police to look for me. . that’s what started everything.”

  “First of all, we don’t know if the bone is related to what happened to them. Second, and most important, it’s the person’s fault who murdered them. Don’t lose sight of that.”

  “Still.”

  “Star, don’t borrow trouble. You have enough to deal with. How are the guards treating you?”

  “The one on duty now’s nice. Her name’s Mrs. Torres. She’s good to me.”

  “That’s good. Are you good to her?”

  “You bet. In fact, she wanted me to ask you if there are any openings at the museum for a gardener. Her son’s looking for a job.”

  Diane laughed. “What’s his name?”

  “Hector Torres.
”

  “Tell her to have him come to the museum. I’ll give the head groundskeeper his name.”

  Star grinned. Diane could tell she liked the idea of being a broker from her jail cell. If it kept her happy and made her life easier, a job for her guard’s son was a small price to pay. Diane just hoped the guy had something to recommend him.

  She said good-bye to Star and got in her car. As she started it up, she realized she was counting on Star’s being innocent. What if she wasn’t? She didn’t want to think about that possibility.

  The first order of business when she got back to her office was to call the head groundskeeper and ask him to look positively on Hector Torres when he made an application.

  “If he turns out to be a problem, send him to me to work it out.”

  “Sure thing,” he’d told her. “No problem.”

  Whoever was trying to make Diane look irresponsible should have simply waited a while and she’d have done it herself; they need not have tried so hard forging order forms. Hiring someone just to make Star’s life easier, putting both Jonas and Sylvia on the excavation-none of this had anything to do with the museum. She hoped Torres turned out to be a good worker. She shoved her feelings of guilt aside and went up to the second floor to finish with the skeleton.

  As she opened the door to the vault, she half expected the bones to be gone, that someone had come in during the night and taken them away.

  But the skeleton was there, brown bones laid out in basically the order they appeared in the body, on the table waiting for her to discover something else that would help identify them.

  Chapter 38

  Before she started Diane gave Jonas Briggs a call at the site to see how they were doing.

  “Just fine. Sylvia just identified a Cebus capucinus.”

  “A monkey?”

  “We also found a Sus scrofa.”

  “Someone had a pig stuffed?”

  “It was hard for me to imagine too.”

  “Interesting finds. How about a Homo sapiens skull?”

  “No, not so much as an H. sapiens tooth.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “We’re still looking. Have you made another move?”

  She hadn’t. She thought for a moment. “King-side castle.”

  “That’s really the most logical.”

  “Are you going to play both sides now?”

  “You’re not one of those people sensitive to critique, are you?”

  “You’re not one of those cocky winners, are you?”

  Jonas chuckled. “I E-mailed you my report. Testing this new computer, which the entire crew wants now. It’s really nice.”

  “I’ll tell Kenneth. He’ll be pleased.”

  Diane thanked him for the work and started back on those bones of the skeleton that she did have, which was about 86 percent of them. She examined each bone again, looking for any mark that might give a clue as to what had happened to him.

  She had found all the healed breaks and lesions already. She didn’t find any new cut marks or chipped bones that might indicate if he were stabbed or shot. His hyoid bone was intact, which indicated that he was probably not strangled, but she couldn’t rule it out either. There was nothing but the severe injury to the shoulder and underlying bones. Although not a fatal blow in itself, he could have bled out from such an injury, or gone into shock and died. But there was no way to know.

  She looked at the gentle curve in the femora. Blacks tend to have straight femora; other races have a slight curve to them. She punched up the measurements in her computer and ran ratios through her program. She knew what they would reveal, but she always liked to check her conclusions against her math. As she thought, the race was probably white.

  Comparing the length of his long bones with the chart for white males, she estimated his height to be six feet, two inches. Before she left the vault, her gaze lingered on the skeleton-tall, avid sports player, young, five years dead. She turned and went out, thinking about the parents he had somewhere.

  The lab was warm compared to the vault storage room. She pulled off her gloves and washed her hands. Korey’s staff was hard at work.

  “Any news on the fingerprints?” they asked.

  “Nothing yet.” Actually, they were still in her office drawer waiting. . waiting for her to give to Frank.

  Korey was in his office on the phone. She poked her head in and thanked him for the use of the storage area. “I’m going to leave the bones out for a while. If you have time later, would you help me photograph them?”

  He put his hand over the receiver and nodded. “Sure thing. Let me know.”

  On her way to the stairs she met Mike Seger. “Mike,” she said, “I owe you an apology.”

  He looked at her for a moment before he spoke. “Thanks. The whole thing’s strange.”

  “Melissa’s furious with me at the moment.”

  “Me too,” he said. “But I can’t figure out why. I don’t understand it. It’s too weird for me. I just can’t hack it.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s a relief, really. You know, I like her music. I wish. .” He shrugged, letting the sentence go. “I convinced Dr. Lymon of the virtues of her office space.”

  “I’m happy about that.”

  “She’s not going to be here that much anyway.” He paused. “I suppose I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “She does have to be here a specific number of hours, and a curator does have responsibilities that go along with the title, but we’ll see how it works out. I’m sure the collection manager will let me know if he feels put-upon.”

  When Diane got to her office, she found Frank’s partner sitting in Andie’s office, his legs crossed, reading a copy of Museum News. He stood up when she entered.

  “This is Ben Florian,” said Andie.

  “We met briefly at the hospital.” She opened her door and motioned him in.

  He followed her, holding a cup of coffee in a museum mug.

  “Good to see you again,” she said. “I was going to call you. I’m glad you came by.”

  He stood in the middle of the room and looked around. “Nice office.”

  “Thank you. Have a seat.” Diane sat down behind her desk. “I just saw Frank this morning. I guess you know he had a setback, but he’s doing well.” She kept telling everyone he’s doing well-it was as if it was only her positive declaration that was keeping him alive.

  He frowned. “I hadn’t heard. What happened?”

  “Infection.”

  “Oh, that’s bad. My old sergeant got an infection after open-heart surgery. Wouldn’t heal. They ended up putting sugar in the wound and it finally healed up. Of course, that was a long time ago. I’m sure they have more modern methods now. Like I said at the hospital, Frank’s tough.”

  “His brother tells me he’s responding well to antibiotics.”

  As she said it, she realized that was not what he said at all. In fact, he hadn’t really told her anything-she simply kept pulling positive notes from what he said. The thought alarmed her.

  “I’m sure he’s right.” He must have seen the expression on her face.

  Ben looked to be about ten or fifteen years older than Frank. He wore the same gray suit he had worn at the hospital. He ran a hand over his short brown hair and pulled out a small notebook and a sheaf of papers from a pocket inside his coat.

  “I suppose this is a smoke-free building.”

  “Yes,” said Diane. “Museums have to be.”

  He nodded. “I have the results from some tests Frank wanted processed.” He handed the papers to her.

  They were the test results from the blood analysis and the analysis of the plastic she’d found near Jay Boone. The plastic had powder residue, as she suspected.

  “Thanks. This helps.”

  “Good. I have some information, too. Frank was checking on some falsified documents for you. He asked me to pass along what he discovered.” Ben flipped open the notebook. “H
e was checking the backgrounds of some of your employees. One name popped out and he circled it. You have an employee named Leonard Starns?”

  “Yes. He’s one of the night security guards.”

  “His youngest son, Danny Starns, is an agent in the Mark Grayson Real Estate Agency. Are you familiar with them?”

  “Yes,” said Diane, “I am. Grayson is one of my chief detractors.”

  “That may be something, then. He said you wanted to handle this in-house.”

  “I do. Nothing has actually been stolen. But duplicates of some very expensive exhibits were ordered illegally. I appreciate the information. I hope you didn’t have to drive all the way from Atlanta just for this.”

  “No, I thought I’d try to see Frank this afternoon. I thought maybe he’d be in a private room by now.” Ben put the notebook back in his pocket. “Frank said you might have some fingerprints or something?”

  Diane took out the envelope of photographs and the fingerprint card from the conservation lab break-in.

  “One of the labs was broken into a few days ago. They upset a lot of supplies and emptied drawers, but nothing was stolen, so the police here really can’t do much. I took some fingerprints. I was wondering if you could run them for me.” She handed him the envelope.

  “That shouldn’t be a problem. Sounds to me like you have some vandals running around the place. I can’t stand people whose only mission in life is to tear up other people’s stuff. It’s as bad as stealing. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  “Yes. This concerns Frank and what happened to him.” Diane laid out the whole story of the skeleton, the Boones, the attack on her and then Frank.

  “Yes, you mentioned in the hospital that you were attacked, or someone did. You think all this is related?”

  “Either that or a lot of coincidences.”

  “Yeah, too many coincidences.”

  “I’ve analyzed the skeletal remains, and this is what I came up with.” She took her laptop and plugged it into its docking station, called up her report and printed it out.

  She cast a glance at the laptop Kenneth had sent, which was sitting on the table. She hadn’t even tried it yet. In fact, she’d forgotten that Dylan Houser was bringing it over. It must have been brought when she’d been out, which lately was entirely too much. She should at least give it a try. Her absence from the museum was weighing her down.