One Grave Too Many

by Beverly Connor

  “They haven’t found him?”

  “No.”

  “You said she was trying to sell the coins. What about the jewelry?”

  “Warrick believes they either stashed it somewhere or the boyfriend still has it.”

  Diane looked at the photograph again. “Why does Detective Warrick think the parents were killed first?”

  “Looks as if they were asleep in their beds.” He gestured to a photograph half exposed under the stack. “If Jay was killed first, they’d have heard the shot. Neither were heavy sleepers, and George was not shy with a gun.”

  “What was Jay doing out so late?”

  “That I don’t know. It wouldn’t have been like him.”

  “Can you find out from his friends?”

  “Maybe.”

  Diane picked up the photographs, stacked and fanned them. “Are there any more of Jay?”

  “That’s all Izzy gave me. You need something else?”

  “The tree.”

  “The tree?”

  “There might be spattering on the tree. I’d like to see it.”

  Through the door that joined Diane’s office to Andie’s came the sound of Andie’s voice. She was talking with Korey.

  “So you didn’t order all this stuff?” Andie was asking.

  “No. You think I was expecting a run on ammonium citrate?” Korey answered.

  “Just a minute,” said Diane. She rose from her desk and opened the adjoining door.

  “Dr. Fallon,” said Andie. “Korey says—”

  “I know. We’ve had some other orders duplicated, too. Did you bring the paperwork, Korey?”

  He handed her a folder. “Like you said, I’m sending the chemicals back. We can keep some of the other supplies. Have you had a chance to look at my proposal?”

  “Not yet. But I’m sure I’ll like it. You already have Miss Stewart interested in the workshop. And thanks for taking care of her and Mrs. Grayson.”

  “No problem. Always glad to tell people what I do. I was wondering, Dr. Fallon, a couple of my assistants and I would like to work late some evenings on the stuff from the basement. It’s like an ancient treasure trove down there. Just yesterday we found a box of Merycodus mandibles.”

  “What’s that?” Andie asked.

  “A Pliocene antilocaprid,” said Korey, grinning.

  “Oo-kay,” said Andie.

  “Artiodactyl,” continued Korey.

  “Small fossil deer,” supplied Diane.

  “I knew that,” said Andie.

  “I won’t say no to such dedication,” Diane told Korey.

  “I’ll see about finding you some more help. I think I’ll have an intern or apprentice from the tech school within the month. That’ll involve you teaching a course once a week for the school.”

  “I can do that. In fact, that might work out. Don’t a lot of people at the tech school have day jobs? Some of them would be perfect for an evening shift here.”

  “I’ll let you know when I’ve worked out the details,” Diane said.

  Korey left, happily mumbling to himself about his timetable.

  “I wish all my staff were so happy in their work.” Diane turned to Andie. “Check with the other departments and see if they’ve been receiving unusual amounts of supplies or double orders.”

  “Sure. What’s this about?”

  “I don’t know yet. Let me know if you find any. I’m meeting with Frank. Don’t disturb me unless it’s an emergency.” Diane closed the door, sat down and lay Korey’s folder on the stack of eight-by-tens.

  “I really appreciate this, Diane. I know you’re busy,” Frank said.

  She pointed to Korey’s folder. “Someone’s been placing orders for exhibits and supplies we already have. It’s like some childish prank, except for the amounts of money involved. Almost a hundred and fifty thousand dollars on one order.” She opened the folder Korey had given her. Copies of orders for excessive amounts of supplies for his lab were there—with her signature. “The strange thing is, I appear to have signed all the orders. At least, it looks like my signature.”

  “But you didn’t?”

  “Not unless I did it in my sleep. Besides, I wouldn’t have signed these order forms, anyway. The department heads would have. It’s hard for me to imagine anyone here forging my name. Doesn’t that take a certain amount of skill? And whoever’s doing it doesn’t seem to have been ordering anything out of the ordinary for themselves. It’s just the things we normally order, only in huge quantities. The purpose seems to be to annoy—or to make me look incompetent.”

  “Maybe I can help. Can I see the papers?”

  Diane handed him Korey’s folder, along with hers containing the duplicate orders she’d discovered. “I received a call from a supplier verifying the order for dinosaur casts. That’s how I first found out about it.”

  Frank took the folders and opened the one on top. “Do you have copies of the original orders?”

  “You think you can find out who’s doing this?”

  “Maybe.”

  Diane buzzed Andie and asked her to bring the paperwork on the particular museum exhibits she’d ordered months ago.

  “Hey, Frank,” said Andie, handing Diane the file. “I was sorry to hear about what happened to your friends. I don’t imagine you’ll be coming to the karaoke bar this Friday. We’ll miss you.”

  Frank shook his head. “No, not for a while, Andie.”

  “Frank mentioned the two of you do karaoke,” said Diane.

  Andie nodded. “Frank’s a real . . . what exactly was it you called yourself last week?”

  “Crooner,” said Frank.

  “Well, that’s a side of you I didn’t know about.”

  His lips curved into a lopsided smile. “I guess we’re all full of surprises.”

  “You should see him in his sunglasses and black suit when he’s imitating the Blues Brothers.” Andie mimed her impression of Frank’s dance moves.

  “I can’t wait. You sing too, Andie?” Diane asked.

  Andie, in her short black denim skirt, glittery chain belt and shiny gray blouse, looked convincing as she pretended to hold a microphone and did a fair imitation of Britney Spears.

  “It’s a lot of fun. You should come sometime.” Andie’s bright grin froze as her gaze rested on one of the photographs on Diane’s desk. “Oh, God. Is that? Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be dancing around.”

  “It’s all right, Andie,” said Diane. “Thanks for bringing the folder.” Diane watched Andie return to her office, closing the adjoining door.

  Both were silent for a moment. Frank took the file folder and sat down at a table against the wall under a trio of Escher prints: a castle with its endless ascending and descending staircase, an impossible self-filling waterfall, and a tessellation of angels and devils.

  “I should have covered the photographs,” Diane said.

  “It’s my fault,” said Frank. “You said you came back to find some peace. I shouldn’t be bringing this to you.”

  “It’s the fault of the murderer,” said Diane.

  Diane watched Frank examine two pieces of paper he held up to the bronze desk lamp. “This is it,” he said. “They traced your signature from this letter you sent the Bickford Museum confirming an order of . . . whatever these things are.”

  “Albertosaurus, Pteranodon sternbergi, Tylosaurus and a triceratops?”

  “Yeah, those guys.”

  Diane rose and joined Frank to look at the documents through the light of the lamp.

  “Don’t touch the pages,” he said as she reached for them. Frank barely held them at the very edges. “I know your fingerprints are already on them, but there’s a chance we can get the perp’s prints if we’re careful—and lucky.”

  The signature on the copy of the duplicate order the Bickford Museum had faxed to her matched exactly with the signature on the letter—as did the signatures on the copies of the other orders. They were all exactly the same.

&nb
sp; “Tracing is the quick and dirty way to forge a name,” said Frank. “Amateurs often do it that way. And professionals, when discovery of the forgery after the fact won’t matter. It’s easy to detect in the original because it doesn’t have the smooth quality of a normal signature, among other things.”

  “I really don’t know why anyone would go to the trouble,” said Diane, going back to her desk. “It’s an annoyance at worst, as long as we return the excess.”

  “You mentioned that it might be to make you look bad. If you look bad enough, can you be replaced?”

  “Yes, but bad enough means some kind of maleficence or gross incompetence. I don’t believe ordering too many supplies would qualify.”

  “But the exhibits—that’s one hundred fifty thousand dollars’ worth. If they hadn’t called . . .”

  “That’s just it—they would have. These are casts made from fossil bones belonging to the Bickford. Making casts is a big deal. It’s not as if they have them sitting in a warehouse with a sign that says, ‘some assembly required. ’ They have to send their preparators here to work with mine. There’s a lot of planning and coordination involved.”

  “Who would know those details?”

  She lifted her arms slightly, sighed, and let them fall. “Everyone who works here. At least, all the collection managers and their assistants, and the administrative staff.”

  “Just the senior staff?”

  “Not necessarily. Many people working in lower-level positions are interested in a museum career. They make it a point to learn how we work.”

  Frank thought for a moment. “The person we’re looking for is someone who doesn’t know museum procedures but has access to museum files.”

  That leaves Donald out, Diane thought. He knows procedures very well.

  “Whoever it is had to order things from purchase orders already on file. They wouldn’t know how to choose and order new things. Assuming this is not for personal gain, it must be a grudge of some sort. I’m thinking custodial staff, guards. Didn’t you say you have students from the university working here?”

  “Yes. But why would they . . . ?”

  “That’s what we’re going to try to find out. Who else works here but wouldn’t know much about your procedures?”

  “We have new faculty from the university coming in as curators of the various collections. They haven’t had any orientation. But they just began arriving yesterday and today.”

  Frank shuffled through some of the papers and shook his head. “It’s probably someone with a key. Your fax records show that the dinosaurs were ordered on Wednesday evening after normal working hours. Who was here?”

  “Everybody. Most of us have been working late for weeks, getting ready for the contributors’ party.”

  “Does security log in and log out personnel after hours?”

  “Yes. But as I said, that’s almost everyone here.”

  “Would your office have been open at that time?”

  “Yes. Andie and I are in and out.”

  “Do you know anyone who holds a grudge, or someone who might do what a disgruntled board member wants?”

  “That might be anyone. And I wouldn’t necessarily know.”

  Frank eyed her for a moment. “Don’t get discouraged. I believe I can find out who it is.”

  “Do you think so? I hope so. It’s a pain in the butt right now.” Diane looked at him—his sad eyes, the grim set of his mouth. “I know this must seem trivial, in light of . . . of your friends.”

  Frank shook his head. “Trivial is restful. Besides, it’s a small way to repay you for your help.”

  Diane took a folder from her desk with the note in it about the change in music at the party. “Could you look at this too? It may be related.”

  Frank read the note without touching it and raised his eyebrows.

  “Someone changed the play list,” said Diane. “I know that sounds like an odd thing to worry about, but I’d rather not explain right now.”

  Frank took the folder and added it with the others. “You want it checked for prints?”

  Diane nodded. “Thanks.”

  Diane looked back down at the photographs on her desk that she’d been trying not to think about. She spread out the ones showing the bedroom where George and Louise Boone were killed.

  Crime scenes are ugly. Whatever distinction or beauty a room once possessed is displaced by the look and smell of murdered bodies. Bodies. Victims. Not people anymore, not individuals, always something else. She reached for her professional objectivism that had threatened in past months to pack up and leave, and pulled it to the front of her brain.

  The floor plan of the bedroom was laid out such that someone entering through the door would be facing the windows. The bed was immediately to the left. The door opened to the right, so that someone walking into the room would have been seen by George, who was on the side of the bed nearest the door, if he was awake.

  It’s shocking how death takes away all signs of personality. The dead are hard to recognize, even by family members. People’s individual looks are due as much to their animation as to the shapes of their noses or the color of their eyes. Even a still photograph of a live face is more recognizable than a real face in death. And dead bodies never look anything but lifeless—not sleeping, not unconscious, just dead.

  Diane couldn’t tell what George had looked like. His head and chest were covered with blood. He was on his back, his upper torso almost in the center of the bed, lying against his wife. His right arm was stretched out on the bed. The left arm lay across his middle. His legs were all but covered by bedclothes that were pulled halfway down from his body. Louise Boone lay under a blood-spattered sheet with her face buried in her husband’s shoulder. A thick mat of blood covered the left side of her head.

  “You said they were shot.”

  Frank looked up from the papers. “That’s what I was told at the scene. What are you saying?”

  “That I need to look at the crime scene.”

  Diane started at a sudden knock on Andie’s office door. “Dr. Fallon?”

  Not Andie. But the voice through the closed door sounded familiar. Diane lay a piece of paper over the pictures.

  “Yes?”

  The door opened and the first and second violinists from the string quartet walked in, looking very different in their pantsuits than they had in the gowns they had worn at the reception. Melissa’s shoulder-length locks were now trimmed short. The hairstyle was becoming on her well-shaped head.

  “Alix, Melissa. What can I do for you?” asked Diane.

  They glanced at Frank, who rose and complimented their music.

  “Sorry to disturb you, but there’s no one in the office,” Alix said, indicating Andie’s office.

  “I’m sure Andie will be back shortly. Can I help you?”

  They were silent for just a beat, glancing at each other before Alix spoke. “We just wanted to let you know we’ve been hired to assist the tour guides. We were told we need to fill out some papers.”

  “Ms. Fielding also asked us to bring you this.”

  Melissa’s sleeve slid up a fraction as she stretched her arm to hand a file folder to Diane. Diane noticed bruises on her forearm. She made a mental note to call Laura, and as quickly dismissed her concern about the bruises as probably nothing, and none of her business.

  “Thanks. How do you think you’ll like your new jobs?” Diane opened the folder. A note attached to the first page said that it was paperwork for yet more duplicate orders for supplies.

  Melissa’s smile made her look pixielike with her new cut. “Great. We start tomorrow learning the nature trail.”

  “We really appreciate the jobs,” said Alix.

  “The museum needs dedicated staff, so we’re glad to have you,” said Diane. “Melissa, I see you cut your hair. It looks very chic.”

  “It looks good now,” said Alix. “You should have seen it when she first whacked it off. She looked like she’d been at
tacked by a weed eater. I had to even it up for her. I told her if she wants anything done right, don’t do it herself.”

  Both girls laughed, and Diane looked forward to having the two of them around.

  “I believe I hear Andie back. She’ll give you the forms to fill out.”

  They closed the door behind them and Diane turned her attention to Frank.

  “We need to go to the crime scene,” she said.

  Chapter 12

  There were two cars in the drive as Frank rounded the corner and drove up to the freshly painted two-story farmhouse.

  “This place is so secluded in the woods, I’ve hired some security to keep anyone from taking things out of the house. It looks like that was a good plan. That’s the McFarlands.”

  “George’s parents?”

  “His mother. She married Gil about five years ago.”

  As Frank parked the car Diane watched the couple arguing with the security guard, a large man who looked as though he should be able to handle himself. Clearly, however, he wanted to back away from the woman yelling at him. Crystal McFarland was a tall woman, cigarette thin, with hair as blond as yellow corn piled on top of her head. She had on snug-fitting coral capri pants of some shiny fabric. Her matching tank top was stretched tight across her chest, which, Diane guessed by the shape and cleavage, was as natural as the color of her hair. Despite her thin frame, the backs of her arms shook—along with her ornate earrings—as she punched the air with her fist in front of the guard.

  Her husband, equally irate, was as lean as she and looked about ten years younger. His straight brown hair came just below his ears. He had on tight jeans and a torn white tee shirt. The mild kyphotic curve of his spine caused his long torso to look slightly concave. Diane guessed it was from years of poor posture and not congenital.

  Diane and Frank got out of the car and Diane retrieved the suitcase of crime-scene paraphernalia. She’d had Frank stop by her apartment on the way so she could dig the case from the depths of her closet.

  They started toward the house and as they neared, Diane noticed Gil McFarland’s hands were stained black with grease. Abruptly, as if the sound of closing car doors only now reached their ears, Crystal and Gil turned.