One Grave Too Many

by Beverly Connor

  She wheeled her Taurus into the parking space between Andie’s Toyota and Donald’s Lexus, and walked across the pavement to the museum entrance.

  The string quartet had just arrived. Diane held open the door for the four college-student musicians. They looked elegant in their long black dresses, carrying their instrument cases.

  “Thanks, Dr. Fallon,” said the cellist.

  “We really appreciate your asking us here,” tall, willowy Alix, the first violinist, added.

  From the music to the caterers, Diane had used people from the surrounding community. She wanted local support, and thought that giving it in turn would make her job easier.

  “My pleasure. Thank you for coming.”

  Diane peeked into the Pleistocene room on her way to the kitchen. The large vaulted room was now transformed from a work in progress to a rather wonderful exhibit. To make room for a long table of party food, Diane had omitted some of the animals and Paleo-Indian dioramas that would eventually appear in the exhibit. She included only the megafauna, the spectacular big guys, the ancient giant species who always impressed.

  The caterers had laid out an appetizing array of finger food on a table decorated with leafy long-blade plants, hard plastic museum-quality replicas of dinosaurs and a magnificent ice sculpture centerpiece of a mammoth with long curved tusks.

  The head caterer, a woman in her late fifties, stood back smiling and folded her arms. “I think it looks rather good.” She leaned and whispered to Diane, “We found a mold for the ice sculpture. We were quite pleased.”

  “Well, I like it very much. And the food looks wonderful.”

  The first of the guests had started flowing through the doors. Among them were real estate agent Mark Grayson and his wife, Signy. As Diane approached to greet them, she overheard Mark Grayson telling board member Craig Amberson that the museum would be better served if they would sell this piece of prime real estate and move into a building closer to Atlanta. Diane greeted him with a smile anyway. Tonight was not the night for fighting.

  “Good to see you, Mark. Signy. I’m glad you could make it.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it.” His lips stretched into a thin smile.

  Model-thin Signy, in a red shiny dress, muttered something and gave Diane a smile that looked more mocking than polite. Diane shifted her attention to the other guests. Kenneth Meyers, CEO of NetSoft, and his wife, Katherine, edged in beside the Graysons.

  “Looks like quite a crowd.” Kenneth gave Diane’s hand a firm shake. He was lean and tan, a contrast to his soft, pale wife. “Tell me, did CyberUniverse do a good job for us?” It was no secret that Kenneth was thinking about buying the budding company.

  “They did a wonderful job. I’m very pleased,” Diane told him. “You’ll have to see their animations.”

  She welcomed each guest—board members, contributors, the cream of Rosewood society, fashionably arrayed in black, white and diamonds, rich greens, deep blues and dark maroons. Signy stood out like a bright ruby among them. The quartet began to play a Brahms violin concerto.

  Frank, looking handsome in his tux, arrived with his son, Kevin, his ex-wife, Cindy, and her husband, David Reynolds.

  “I’m sorry,” Frank apologized. “I was late getting back from Columbus.”

  “That’s all right.” She was actually surprised, and pleased, that he had made it.

  Frank’s ex-wife was blond, petite and very pretty in a plain, long black gown with a string of pearls. David—tall, handsome and friendly—pumped Diane’s hand up and down, telling her how very happy he was that she had invited them.

  “My pleasure.”

  Kevin, sporting a tux and a fresh haircut, shook Diane’s hand solemnly.

  “Frank told me you’re interested in forensic anthropology,” she said.

  “I’m interested in bones and detective work. Is that what you do?”

  “It’s what I used to do.”

  “And damn fine at it.” Diane felt a heavy arm wrap around her shoulder.

  “Harvey Phelps, how are you?”

  Diane gave him a big smile and leaned into him as he kissed her cheek. Aside from his being a large contributor to the museum, Diane genuinely liked him—loud voice, bad jokes and all. He was on the museum board and had been a strong supporter of Milo and now her.

  “I’m better than I have a right to be. I like what you’ve done here. Looks good—all of it.”

  “Oh, Diane you’ve done a great job.” Laura Hillard was a psychiatrist and Diane’s oldest friend, dating from their kindergarten days in Rosewood. She shimmered in a dark blue gown. Even her blond hair, done in a perfect French twist, sparkled. As she gave Diane a light cheek-touching hug, she whispered, “No matter what Signy Grayson says.” Her blue eyes twinkled as she laughed. Mark Grayson was Laura’s ex-husband. After three years their marriage had dissolved into irreconcilable differences. The differences being Laura’s opposition to Mark’s girlfriends.

  Diane managed a genuine laugh along with Laura. “The staff and students worked very hard to get ready.”

  “The catering is great. I adore that ice sculpture. I wish Milo could see this. He would just love to see you carry on his work.” Laura leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Beware of Mark. He’s working the crowd tonight.”

  “Milo would be right at home here.” Harvey Phelps raised a glass to the mammoth.

  As Harvey and Laura looked in the direction of the mammoth, they seemed reflective. “Poor Milo,” said Harvey. “He died right here, you know.”

  “Here, where?” said Diane.

  “Where the mammoth is standing,” said Laura. Milo Lorenzo was Diane’s predecessor, as well as the one who recruited her to the museum. Most of the renovations and ideas for the exhibits were Milo’s. Taking RiverTrail from the old-fashioned model of simple static cataloging and displaying of artifacts into the current concept of museum philosophy—interactive, educational, and research oriented—was his dream. The building plans Donald wanted to complain about were Milo’s.

  “This is where he had his heart attack?” said Diane. She remembered the last time she had talked to him on the phone. He was in as much hurry as she was for her to finish her job in South America and come to Rosewood to take up her new position as his assistant director. He’d died two days later.

  Laura and Harvey nodded. “If the old boy had to die,” said Harvey, “this was as good a place as any.”

  Diane left Laura and Harvey reminiscing about Milo and walked to the giant short-faced bear exhibit, stepped up on the platform, and picked up a microphone placed there for her. She caught the attention of the quartet and gave them a signal to stop playing. With the sudden cessation of the music the crowd stopped talking.

  “Hello, everyone. I am pleased to welcome you, our board of directors, our best and most generous supporters and honored guests, to the preopening reception of our Pleistocene room.

  “Most of you knew Milo Lorenzo and knew about his dreams for the museum. So it is with great pleasure that I invite you to see what we’ve been doing to make his dream a reality. Thanks to each and every one of you for your help and support, which have made it possible.”

  Diane looked at the faces and wondered if she had made any sense. She hated speaking in public and had this vision that halfway through all her speeches, she began speaking nonsense syllables. But they clapped, and considering herself lucky, she quickly stepped down and threaded her way through the sea of tuxedos, fancy dresses and champagne glasses and greeted all the guests.

  It was tiring, making small talk and smiling, being political. She felt like a shape-shifter becoming weary of holding the same shape, and the evening was just getting started. At least, everyone seemed to be having a good time, and there was a genuine interest in the exhibits. That was the most important thing: the exhibits.

  On her way to join guests who were touring other rooms, she stopped by to speak to Gary, Leslie and Samantha, standing with their proud parents next to the s
loth exhibit.

  “They all did a great job,” Diane told the parents. “It is a fine sloth.”

  “Does that mean we get an A?” asked Gary.

  Diane nodded. “Sure does.” She smiled as a father took a photo of her and the students with the huge skeleton towering over them.

  As she was making her way out of the Pleistocene room, the quartet started a piece from the Peer Gynt Suite. Diane froze in her tracks, her heart pounding against her ribs. She grasped the edge of a huge planter to keep herself from running out of the building.

  Chapter 5

  Diane’s body was crushed by waves of almost unbearable grief and fear. I’m in the museum, she told herself over and over as the music taunted her, growing louder and louder until the violins were screaming at her. She wanted to scream at them to stop, but she stood still, making her hands into tight fists, breathing deeply. She caught her breath, stood several moments longer, turned and looked at the faces of the musicians, then at the crowd of guests. Everyone appeared normal. The music ended abruptly and the only sound was clapping. Diane stood still, collecting herself. Finally, she was able to walk on unsure legs to the quartet.

  “That piece wasn’t on the play list,” she said, trying to sound casual.

  It must not have worked, because that look of having done something wrong but not knowing what swept across their faces.

  “It was in your note,” said Alix, the first violinist. She flipped through her music and produced a piece of paper.

  Diane took it from her. The hand-printed note on museum stationery said, Please add “In the Hall of the Mountain King” to the play list. Her initials were at the bottom.

  “It was here when we returned from our first break. Luckily, we knew an arrangement for it. I mean . . . is there something wrong?”

  Diane forced a smile and shook her head. “No, nothing’s wrong. Someone from the staff probably wanted to hear it. They often use my name when ordering things.” Apparently, with wild abandon, she thought. “All of you are doing a beautiful job. I’ve gotten several compliments, and Mrs. Harris wants to talk with you about doing a library function.”

  “That’s great. We really appreciate this opportunity, Dr. Fallon,” said Alix, and the other three murmured in agreement before they took up their bows and prepared to perform their next arrangement.

  Diane turned and took another long look at the crowd. Everyone was eating, talking or looking at the exhibits. No one was looking in her direction. She walked among the guests, the note folded up in one hand, smiling at each face she met. No mischief-makers or secret enemies showed themselves.

  Frank, his son and his ex-wife were looking at the computer video depiction of the receding Laurentide Ice Sheet that brought a close to the Pleistocene period. She relaxed at the sight of Frank. Silly, she thought. It was probably nothing. One of the staff just wanted to hear that piece of music. It’s a well-known piece.

  She was starting toward Frank when she thought she heard her name jump out of the flow of voices around her. She looked in the direction from which she thought it had come. Over by Bison antiquus a group of board members, contributors and local real estate brokers, looking like a clutch of emperor penguins, stood talking to each other.

  David Reynolds, Cindy’s husband, was there. Diane suspected that the reason the pair had wrangled an invitation through Frank was so David could meet with some of Rosewood’s high rollers. She strolled in their direction.

  “Diane,” said Mark Grayson. “We were just talking about you. Great party. I’ve got some good news.”

  Mark held out his arm as though he intended to wrap it around Diane’s shoulders. She stopped beside Harvey Phelps, opposite Mark, leaving his arm to gather air. Donald was there. Diane met his gaze briefly. She wondered if somehow he was responsible for ordering almost a hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of unneeded museum exhibits and signing her name to the order. Donald was a good illustrator. Did that translate into the ability to forge a signature?

  “Good news?” she asked Mark. She glanced at Harvey, who raised a bushy eyebrow in her direction. “Tell me.”

  “The price on the old Vista Building has come down considerably.”

  “And?” Diane prompted.

  “With those picture windows, big rooms, and its central location, it would make a great museum. The board can sell this property for a premium price and have money left over for some of the other things on Milo’s wish list.”

  “I’ve seen the Vista. It has only one large room. The rest are too small for our needs. The parking is miserable. There is absolutely no place for a nature trail, and I suspect the price is dropping because it’s hard to sell, sitting as it is on the edge of a high-crime area. Besides, we’ve spent quite a bit restoring this place, and I think it’s wonderful.”

  Mark’s face hardened. The others looked into their drinks. “This building’s much too big for our needs. Besides, it’s a steep climb up here in the winter,” he said. “It could be dangerous for busloads of children.”

  Harvey Phelps slapped him on the back. “Oh, I don’t know, Mark. We haven’t had a decent winter in years.”

  Diane gave Harvey’s arm a squeeze and left them talking about the weather. She sought out Frank and Kevin. “I hope you guys are having a good time,” she said.

  “Great.” Kevin answered for everybody. “Do you have any human bones?”

  “Yes, we do. Actually, a great many of our skeletal exhibits are made from casts of real skeletons. They aren’t real bones, but they’re exact replicas. We have a nice exhibit of Homo sapiens and his distant ancestors in the primate room.”

  “Do you have any bones from murder victims?”

  Diane shook her head. “This is strictly natural history. We have rocks, shells, bugs, dinosaurs, mammals and plants. But no murder.”

  “Why did you quit investigating murders?” he asked.

  “Kevin!” cautioned his mother.

  “Yes, Diane, why did you quit?” This was from Gordon Atwell, president of the bank that held the museum’s mortgage.

  “Traveling all over the world got tiring. I wanted to settle down in one spot. Lead a normal, quiet life, for a change.”

  “I guess when you’ve seen one mass grave, you’ve seen them all, huh?” He patted her on the shoulder. “There’s Amberson. I need to talk to him.”

  Diane was glad to see him go off in another direction.

  “What do I need to take in school to learn about bones?” asked Kevin.

  “What grade are you in?”

  “Eighth.”

  “You need to be strong in your sciences, especially biology. You need math. If you have any anatomy courses, that would be good. You’ll need chemistry later on. And, of course, you have to learn your bones.”

  Kevin frowned. “Why do I need math?”

  “There’s a lot of measuring and calculations to do. Bones have a consistent size relationship with each other. You get as much information from the size indexes and ratios as you do from the physical examination of the bones themselves.”

  “You should see what she told me about a piece of collarbone,” said Frank. “Darn near told me what the guy had for his last meal.”

  Diane started to laugh with the others when a thought flashed through her mind. She looked at Frank. “I think I can tell you what he ate.”

  Frank looked shocked for a moment. “I was joking. You mean you can? From a bone?”

  “Not his last meal, but we may find a bit of information that might help identify him.”

  “How?” asked Kevin. “How can you tell what he ate by looking at his bone?”

  “You have to remove the collagen—that’s one of the components of bone—superheat it and turn it into gas so a mass spectrometer can detect the chemicals in the collagen.”

  “Wow. I really want to be a forensic anthropologist.”

  “Actually, the person I’m going to ask is a physical anthropologist. He studies bones too, a
mong other things, but without the crime part. This is called stable isotope analysis. It’s the same method used to tell us the diet of Neanderthal man. We’re going to put one of the computer information programs about it in the primate exhibit.”

  “How do you tell what he ate?” asked Kevin.

  “Have you studied isotopes in school?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Then you know isotopes are like different species of atoms of the same element.”

  “Yeah . . .”

  “You know about carbon fourteen, used for dating objects. Carbon fourteen is an unstable isotope—it’s radioactive and decays over time. Because it decays at a constant rate, you can measure the decay to tell how old something is. It’s a little more complicated, but that’s basically it.”

  Kevin nodded. Diane was watching to see if his eyes were about to glaze over at all the science, but he listened attentively, so she continued.

  “Carbon also has two stable isotopes that don’t decay. So does nitrogen. And each has different ratios in the different types of foods—like vegetables, meats and fish. When we eat these things, the same ratios of the isotopes are absorbed in our bones, which means we can measure the ratios with a mass spectrometer and possibly find out what the person ate all his life. Like carbon fourteen tests, it’s more complicated, but you get the idea. Using it for this bone is a long shot. Most people in the U.S. have pretty much the same diet, but it could supply some more information about the individual. We might get lucky and he ate only red meat and potatoes all his life.”

  “Kevin, come here and look at this.” David Reynolds motioned his stepson to another of the computer animations. Kevin was reluctant to leave the conversation, but his mother, Cindy, pulled him away and went over to watch the mammoth animation with her husband.