by Julie Cave
• • • •
The main building of the museum was full of school children and tourists, all oblivious to the drama unfolding in the background of the famous institution. Once again, Dinah and Ferguson ignored Catherine Biscelli’s hapless secretary and threw open her door. She was on the phone and looked up, startled. Within seconds, she hung up her phone and sprang to her feet behind the desk. Her flinty eyes glared at them.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded. “I’ve had enough of you storming into my office every five seconds!”
“Really?” shot back Dinah, unable to keep the snarl out of her voice. “We’ve had enough of your pathetic lies. You have done nothing but hinder our investigation since it started, and despite your best efforts, we finally know the truth.”
Catherine kept her expression extraordinarily bland, but her eyes glanced away. “What? Do you know who killed Mr. Whitfield?”
“I’ll ask the questions, thank you,” snapped Dinah. “Now sit down and think very carefully about your answers. If I find any hint of a lie, you’ll be charged immediately with conspiracy to commit murder. Do you understand?”
Catherine tried to maintain her dominating glare but finally sank down into her chair. It was probable that she remembered Dinah whipping out the plastic handcuffs last time she tried to resist the FBI agent’s requests.
“We know that there was an enormous source of conflict between the board and Thomas Whitfield,” began Dinah. “We know it stems from his decision to convert to Christianity and his desire to present within the museum creationism as an equally valid explanation to the origins of man. Does this sound familiar to you?”
Catherine seemed to be debating within herself. Finally she conceded: “Yes.”
“In fact, on the morning Thomas Whitfield disappeared, he was going to present his ideas regarding creationism to Congress, hoping to get approval. Did you know about that?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Did the board of regents know that he was planning to do that?”
“Yes, they did.”
“So Thomas Whitfield did not try to hide that he was a Christian and that he wanted to change some of the museum to reflect that?”
“No, he didn’t. The board had already declined his request.”
“So by attempting to obtain approval from Congress, Whitfield was effectively going over the heads of the board?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
Dinah glanced at Ferguson, who looked troubled.
“I suppose the board didn’t really like that, did they? After all, Whitfield was deliberately flaunting their authority.”
“No. Theoretically, the museum is responsible to Congress, so any member of the board, which includes the secretary, can petition Congress.”
“So which member of the board had the biggest problem with what Whitfield was doing?”
“I don’t….”
“Catherine, don’t start lying to me now!” Dinah noticed that the other woman was actually starting to sweat.
“I’m not, I swear!” protested Catherine. “The board closed their meetings to everyone except members. I wasn’t privy to much of what went on at those meetings.”
“But you did know about the conflict, so someone must have been passing information to you.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“So who was that?”
Catherine swallowed hard. “Justice Pryor.”
Dinah glanced at Ferguson again. “Okay, so what was he telling you?”
“He didn’t tell me much. He only told me what Mr. Whitfield wanted to do and that the board disagreed. Specifically, I was to monitor everything Mr. Whitfield attempted to tell the press. He said the board had decided that the public didn’t need to know that there was a difference of opinion here until it was resolved by Congress. He was worried that Mr. Whitfield would try to rally the fundamentalist Christians on his side.”
“Did he ever mention anything that might make you think he or the board would try to harm Whitfield?”
“No, absolutely not!” declared Catherine. “I can tell you I was just as shocked as anyone when I found out he had been murdered.”
“So who has been telling you not to talk to us?”
Catherine massaged her temples and sighed. “Justice Pryor.”
Dinah shook her head in amazement. “Doesn’t that strike you as odd? I would have thought a man in his position would know how important it is to cooperate with the law.”
“I know a lot about public relations,” said Catherine wearily. “I don’t know much about the law. He told me that Mr. Whitfield’s death had nothing to do with the Christianity thing. He said that if it got out it would be blown out of proportion and would give the conservatives more media time. He said eventually the real culprit would be found and in the meantime not to drag the museum’s name through the mud.”
Dinah sat back and thought about this. There was a great deal of circumstantial physical evidence linking Kenneth MacIntyre to the murders — the use of his factory in the crime and chalk dust being found on every dead body that had turned up in the course of the investigation. But there was nothing to link him personally: he had an alibi and his support of IAFSI didn’t necessarily amount to murder. On the other hand, there was absolutely no physical evidence linking Justice Maxwell Pryor to the murders, yet he was the one behaving as if he had something to hide. Dinah sighed in frustration. If she could somehow combine the two, she would have the perfect suspect.
Dinah leaned forward. “Listen, Catherine, I want you to tell me something. You must admit that there is something particularly nasty happening within these four walls. I want your personal opinion on exactly what is happening. Do you think this is simply a fight between the evolution and creation camps, or is it deeper than that?”
Catherine took her time to answer. Her forehead was starting to shine with sweat and she twisted her lower lip between her teeth. Finally she said, “I don’t know exactly what happened to Mr. Whitfield or Lara, and I don’t know exactly why they were killed. I can tell you this — if you look at the history of this museum and the people who have worked here, you will notice that anyone who has dared to mention Christianity or creationism has immediately been fired or publicly smeared or both. I don’t know who is behind it and I don’t really understand why, but I do think it might just be as simple as evolutionism versus creationism.”
Dinah sat back, her mind spinning. Catherine Biscelli might be abrasive and assertive, but she was by no means stupid. If that’s what she truly thought was behind the deaths of Whitfield and Southall and even Mason, then perhaps she was right.
The war between creationism and evolutionism had just turned particularly nasty.
• • • •
When the two agents emerged into the crisp sunlight, Dinah discovered she had several missed calls from the lab. On her message bank, Zach had left several excited voicemails.
Dinah held up her hand to halt Ferguson’s progress, and called Zach.
“I found a mistake!” he crowed when he answered the phone. “He finally made a mistake!”
Dinah felt a surge of adrenalin. “What? Who made a mistake?”
“I found a fingerprint in the belongings of Damon Mason,” reported Zach. “A fingerprint, in blood, on Mason’s watch clasp. It’s as clear as day. It’s beautiful.”
Dinah closed her eyes briefly in relief. “Did you find a match?”
“Sure did! It belongs to a Peter Ivanov, who was once an infantryman in the army,” said Zach. “I’ve faxed a copy of his papers to your office.”
The name didn’t ring any bells with Dinah. “So is he anyone we should know?” she asked. “Did you get any hits?”
“I’m afraid there are no outstanding warrants on him and no prior convictions,” said Zach. “That’s about as far as I got. The lab is getting further and further behind so I’ve only done the preliminaries.”
“Okay, great! Thanks for tha
t.” Dinah hung up and motioned to Ferguson. “Come on, there’s a fingerprint; it’s at the office.”
Ferguson didn’t bother asking what she was talking about.
At the office, the fax was waiting on her desk. Ferguson and Dinah examined the identification photo and Ferguson snapped his fingers. “He’s the guy from the funeral,” he exclaimed. “I saw him at the funeral.”
Dinah stared intently at the photo and knew she’d seen him before too, from somewhere other than the funeral. The hair color was slightly different and the clean-shaven face was much younger. Dinah flipped through the lists of suspects and witnesses they’d spoken to throughout the investigation. And there it was. The same man listed as Peter Ivanov in the army identification kit was also a person they’d spoken to by the name of Ivan Petesky. The biggest difference was that when they’d spoken to Ivan Petesky, his body had been encased in plaster as the result of a car accident.
“I know who he is,” she told Ferguson. “It’s Petesky, the supposed second grade teacher. We spoke to him about the wrecked car in which Thomas Whitfield’s body was found. Do you remember? He was covered in plaster head to toe!”
Ferguson remembered. “And I saw him only a few days later at Whitfield’s funeral, no plaster in sight. He was walking around just fine. I just didn’t recognize him.”
Dinah groaned. “Why did we assume that stupid car accident actually happened?”
“Well, it probably did,” conceded Ferguson. “We just didn’t check that Petesky was in the car accident.”
“Who encases themselves in full body plaster to convince the FBI they’ve been in a car accident?” grumbled Dinah.
“Someone who needs to cover up the fact that he’s a killer,” replied Ferguson moodily.
Dinah knew how he felt. They had accepted Ivan Petesky’s car accident story on face value and fallen for a clever disguise. They were supposed to be smarter than that. “Do you think he’s just a killer? Or do you think he’s a professional?” Dinah asked.
“Up until five seconds ago, I thought he was a second grade teacher!” Ferguson glared at the computer screen. “I don’t think we even know where he taught.”
“We’ll have to run the usual traces on his real name,” said Dinah. “I’ll ask Zach to put a priority on it. But I have a hunch that if he is a professional, he’ll have disappeared a long time ago. There won’t be any social security numbers or recent addresses or teaching records.”
“So if he’s a pro, who hired him?”
“That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?” Dinah thought hard for a moment. “Is it possibly Justice Maxwell?”
“Or Kenneth MacIntyre?” added Ferguson. “This is so frustrating. Either of them have the means to hire a professional killer. Suddenly MacIntyre’s alibi looks a little too convenient.”
“Kenneth MacIntyre is somehow involved — his factory was used as the murder scene, and there is chalk dust all over every single body we find. Yet Maxwell Prior is the one cautioning everybody in the museum not to talk to us and essentially asking them to lie.” Dinah pursed her lips. “What if they’re both involved?”
“A joint conspiracy?” Ferguson was silent as he mulled over the idea. “That may actually be a possibility. What I still don’t understand is why? Why would Whitfield’s conversion to Christianity threaten either of those men?”
“And it didn’t just merely threaten them — it induced them into such a state to kill him, and anyone else who might talk about it,” added Dinah.
“And also we can’t just pressure or threaten Maxwell Pryor into talking.” Ferguson socked his fist into his other hand in frustration. “We’ve effectively been hamstrung!”
Dinah considered. “That’s true, but we could always try it with MacIntyre. We’ve gotten no orders to keep away from him.”
Ferguson nodded. “And let’s do it on our turf this time. We’ll bring him in and make him sweat.”
“Excellent,” agreed Dinah. “I love making suspects sweat. Do you think a judge would give us a warrant to search Petesky/Ivanov’s home?”
“Well, we have his fingerprint on a murdered victim,” conceded Ferguson. “I don’t see why not. I’ll contact a judge tonight. Hopefully tomorrow morning we can search and question this guy.”
“Imagine encasing your entire body in plaster just to convince us that you’d been in a car accident!” Dinah shook her head in wonder.
“To be fair, it wasn’t a bad idea,” Ferguson said. “It also helped to hide his identity for a long time because we didn’t have a sharp image in our heads of what he looked like.”
“True,” agreed Dinah. “But now I think I’ve seen it all.”
• • • •
For the first time that winter, snow threatened the city. Evening rush hour was atrocious as commuters took a look up at the bleak sky and tried to get home. It took Catherine Biscelli twice as long to get home to her Wesley Heights house, and the temperature had dropped to well below freezing by the time she eventually made it inside her home. Once there, she turned the heat up, changed into sweats, and turned on the television. Dinner could wait a few moments, she thought, while the tension of the drive home drained from her body. It had been a hard day, she reflected. Being caught in the middle with her superiors on one side and the FBI on the other was not at all enjoyable. Even someone as glib as she had difficulty keeping her story straight.
She found some old X Files reruns and settled in to watch. She was comfortably ensconced when there was a sudden knock at the door.
Exasperated, she went to the door and looked through the peephole.
“What on earth are you doing out in the cold?” she asked, unbolting the door and allowing her visitor inside. “Come into the warm.”
“Thanks,” said her visitor, shaking the sleet off his shoulders. “It’s threatening to snow now, I’d say.”
“Do you want a drink?” Catherine asked. “I can make some hot chocolate.”
“Sure, sounds good.” Her visitor glanced around the apartment, and while Catherine slipped into the kitchen to make chocolate, he quickly checked that the bedroom and bathroom were clear before he settled on the couch.
Catherine reappeared with two steaming mugs. “So what brings you here?” she asked.
“The boss is a little worried about the FBI investigation,” he replied. He took the mug but didn’t drink it.
“I thought the FBI was supposed to have backed off by now,” Catherine said.
“What do you mean by that?” her visitor asked.
“I didn’t realize they’d be so …unrelenting,” explained Catherine. “That woman agent barges into my office every second day demanding to know about one thing or the other.”
“So what do you tell them?”
Catherine laughed. “Well, there’s not much to say. They know about Mr. Whitfield’s conversion to Christianity. They wanted to know if that was the source of the conflict between him and the board. I guess they’re trying to work out why that’s such a big deal.”
“How did they find out about the Christianity thing?”
“I don’t know. They already knew by the time they appeared in my office this morning.”
“What else did you tell them?” The visitor leaned forward on the couch.
Catherine drained her mug. “I think that’s about it. I don’t really know anything else. Why? What’s going on?”
“The boss just wants to make sure it’s contained. He doesn’t want it to turn into a circus.”
“Do you know who actually killed Mr. Whitfield?” Catherine asked, starting to feel uncomfortable.
Her visitor ignored the question. “Do you know that we listened to your conversation with the FBI agents this morning?”
Catherine stared at him. “What do you mean?”
“We’ve listened to every conversation you’ve had with them in your office,” continued the visitor. “Just to make sure you haven’t overstepped the mark.”
Catherine was beginning to realize she might be in a bit of trouble. “You bugged my office?”
“The boss is a little …paranoid.”
Catherine glanced around her, trying to estimate how long it might take to get to the phone. Her cell phone was in her handbag that she always stashed in her bedroom. The wall phone was a lot closer, in the kitchen.
“You neglected to mention that you told the FBI agents about what happens to other scientists who get it into their heads that Christianity is a good idea.” The visitor leaned close to Catherine. “Why would you say that? Why would you want to confirm their suspicions?”
Catherine shrank away from him. “I …I didn’t …think . . .” she stammered.
“Well, Catherine, that’s a problem. We are happy to have you around if you know how to keep your mouth shut. But it would appear that you don’t know how to keep your mouth shut.”
“I do! I just didn’t know…. I swear I won’t talk!” Catherine edged away from her visitor and eyed the front door. How long would it take to sprint through the door to get help from a neighbor?
Her visitor seemed to sense her thoughts. “I’m sorry, Catherine. You know we can’t let this go on, don’t you?”
Catherine stared at him in horror. “What …do you mean?” she whispered.
Her visitor stood and Catherine suddenly knew what was planned for her. For a fraction of a moment, she debated whether to run or fight. She turned and moved quickly toward the door, but in a moment she felt a gloved hand wrapped around her mouth and another arm lifting her from the ground.
Catherine tried to kick out at him, claw at him, bite him, but he was much stronger and bigger than she, and it made no difference. She saw that he was headed to the bathroom, and with complete clarity, saw that there would be no escape.
Chapter 17
Snow began to fall at about eight o’clock that evening, at about the same time Dinah had nearly finished her first bottle of wine. Snow always brought back bad memories. Sammy had been born in the middle of a snowstorm in January and seemingly, as a result, had been a snow bunny. He had never been happier than when he was making snow angels or snow men or being pulled in his sled by Luke, his high-pitched squeals of laughter filling Dinah’s heart. They had planned to take him on a skiing trip when he was just a little older, knowing that in no time he would have been zooming between their legs at breakneck speed. She and Luke had tried to fit a skiing trip into their schedules and finances at least every two years. There was nothing better than the crisp air, nose numb from the cold, and the crunch and swish of the snow as the skis cut into it in a lazy S down the mountain.