Scattered Graves dffi-6

by Beverly Connor

  and authority.’’

  ‘‘I have another employee whom I can recommend,’’

  he began.

  ‘‘Neva would be acceptable, if you wish to transfer

  her to us. But she would need extensive training and,

  as I said, she would function one hundred percent

  under our authority.’’

  Jin grinned. He would like to have Neva. They were

  a team when he worked in the crime scene unit. Neva

  was a former police officer given to Diane by the

  Rosewood Police Department when Diane started the

  crime scene unit. Now that Diane was no longer head

  of the unit, Neva worked for Bryce.

  ‘‘I’d rather keep Neva working crime scenes,’’ said

  Bryce. ‘‘I was thinking of Rikki Gillinick. She’s very

  bright.’’

  ‘‘Rikki Gillinick?’’ repeated Diane.

  Jin jumped out of the chair and came at Diane shak

  ing his head. Diane waved him back.

  David had told Diane about Rikki, also known as

  Lollipop, and her inability to understand the differ

  ence between what she knew and what she believed,

  and how she carried her preconceptions with her to

  crime scenes.

  David was another of Diane’s former crime scene

  crew. He was a friend she had worked with doing

  human rights investigations. David took the news that

  Diane was being replaced hard and more than once

  had said he was going to quit. He and Neva frequently

  joked about the unit over their weekly dinners with

  Diane, their way of debriefing, Diane supposed. Their

  biggest complaints were Bryce’s assigning David to do

  only lab work, taking him out of the field, and putting

  the inexperienced Rikki on the larger cases—like the

  murder of Judge Karen McNevin. Neva was sent to

  process a downtown break-in while Bryce and Rikki

  worked the judge’s scene. David analyzed the evi

  dence collected by Bryce and Rikki, and the police

  arrested the brother of a man the judge had put away.

  It was a slam dunk according to Bryce, but Diane had

  sensed that David was not satisfied with the way it

  was handled.

  Rikki as a DNA tech was out of the question. ‘‘We are committed to the protocols that regulate

  us and ensure the quality of our work,’’ said Diane.

  ‘‘I’ll tell you what I told Mr. Crabtree. The GBI has

  a fine DNA lab. Perhaps you can work out something

  with them.’’

  ‘‘Look, Diane, I know you are ticked at being re

  placed as the crime lab director, but don’t let your

  emotions cause you to overlook the merits of working

  with us.’’

  That did pique Diane’s ire. She straightened up and

  put her feet on the floor.

  ‘‘Lloyd,’’ she said, ‘‘the DNA lab tests and analyzes

  samples. There is no ‘working with’ anyone in the way

  that you are suggesting. And Crabtree is off-limits

  here. That’s the end of the discussion.’’

  ‘‘You’re being foolish,’’ he said.

  That word again. ‘‘I don’t think there is much point

  in continuing this conversation.’’ Diane flipped her

  cell shut.

  Diane called security and made arrangements with

  Chanell Napier, her head of security, to post a guard

  in the museum basement at Jin’s lab until further

  notice.

  ‘‘That’s a hell of a note, isn’t it?’’ said Jin. ‘‘We have

  to post a guard to keep out the crime scene people.’’ ‘‘It’s a peculiar turn of events,’’ agreed Diane, stand

  ing up. ‘‘Call me if there are any more problems.’’ Diane took her box of bones and rode the elevator

  up to her osteology lab—adjacent to the Rosewood

  Crime Lab. She entered, locking the door behind her.

  Like the DNA lab, the osteology lab was part of the

  museum—and her domain. She liked being in the

  quiet room. Its shiny tables, white cabinets, and sterile

  atmosphere were calming to her.

  She set the box down on one of the metal tables

  and donned her lab coat and a pair of gloves. Then

  she tore a piece of white paper from a roll, spread it

  on the table, and began taking the broken bones from

  the box. She examined each piece as she laid them

  out, looking for anything of note that might be cling

  ing to them, examining them for tool marks. All of

  them had deep cuts. Diane tried to keep the image

  out of her mind of someone feeding body parts into

  a wood chipper.

  She picked up a fragment cut from the left zygo

  matic arch—the cheekbone. Muscles anchored to the

  head for chewing pass through the zygomatic arch and

  attach to the lower mandible. She noted that the piece she held in her hand was small compared to the early hominid replicas she had been working with for the Neanderthal exhibit. Small zygomatic arches meant smaller jaw muscles and were thought to be indicators of the introduction of tool use in early hominids. Be fore tools were developed for slicing and dicing food, the jaw was the power tool, and a big muscle gave a significant advantage for survival. After tools came into use, just any old size of zygomatic arch had sur

  vivability. At least that was one hypothesis. She had a brief unbidden mental image of a head

  going through a chipper. She pushed it from her mind. Diane took the bones to one of the sinks, put them

  on a screen, and gently sprayed the dirt and detritus off

  them, passing the runoff over a finer-meshed screen to

  filter out smaller items, and from there catching the

  wash water in a plastic tub. She placed the cleaned

  bones on a drying screen and the screen onto a rack.

  Returning to the finer-meshed screen, she collected

  the fragments that had dropped through the holes of

  the first screen.

  A small object caught her eye, and she picked it up.

  She recognized it as a piece sliced from the greater

  horn of the hyoid bone—the small bone in the throat

  critical to speech that anchors the tongue and is con

  nected to the muscles of the jaw and larynx. Higher apes don’t have hyoid bones, but Neander

  thals did—ones very much like human hyoids—which

  led to the hypothesis that Neanderthals had the same

  higher-order speech capability that humans have. The hyoid bone, the zygomatic arch—tiny clues to

  human evolution. The pelvis, bones of the hand, shape

  of the skull, cranial capacity, shape of the spine and the

  long bones—bigger clues. And then there was context—

  stone tools, hearths, graves, and grave goods—more

  big clues. All the tiny clues and big clues together

  provided an idea of what early ancestors of man were

  like. These were the things she was incorporating into

  the exhibit. Diane hoped that the bone fragments she

  had of this unknown skeleton held as many clues to who the individual was and why he or she was now

  in bits and pieces.

  Something metallic, partly covered by the detritus

  in the dirt on the small screen, reflected a glint of

  light. She picked it up and swished it in the water. It

  was a piece of thick wire, iridescent blue-green in

  colo
r. She turned it over in her palm and examined it

  before she took it to the dissecting microscope—one

  that allowed her to view three-dimensional objects.

  The microscope confirmed that the mashed piece of

  metal had been round or oval. Was it from a piece of

  jewelry? Earring? From a body piercing? She labeled

  it and bagged it. A tiny clue.

  Diane looked at the bones on the drying rack again.

  They were a mixture of fragments from the skull, pieces

  of rib, sections of long bone. When they dried she would

  start laying them out in anatomical position on the table.

  Who knew, maybe she could put Humpty Dumpty back

  together again—after a fashion—provided it was one

  individual. So far she hadn’t seen any indication that

  there was more than one.

  She picked up the petrosal and examined it. It

  should produce a good cast of the ear canal. De

  termining the sex would be another good clue. As she put the petrosal back on the drying screen,

  she noticed something on one of the occipital bones.

  On the corner of the piece was some beveling. The

  fragment was not big, and the beveling could be an

  artifact of the chipper—probably was—but it was

  something worth looking at, especially if she could

  find the adjacent bones. There was a possibility it was

  a gunshot or projectile wound. That would be a big

  clue.

  A half-inch piece of metal, a petrosal, a possible

  bullet hole—not even a handful of clues, but she had

  just begun, and who knew what else the sifters would

  find in the field.

  Diane doffed her lab coat and gloves, washed her

  hands, and was ready to lock up her lab. As she was

  hanging her coat on its hook, she heard voices. The wall she stood next to separated her office from

  the crime lab. She knew that on the crime lab side of

  the wall was a large walk-in supply closet. The voices

  seemed to be coming from there. The wall wasn’t

  thick. There had been no reason to make it sound

  proof when they constructed the closet as part of the

  crime lab. Odd. The closet was not a place one usually

  held conversations.

  Though slightly muffled, the voices were loud enough

  for her to hear some of the words. She stopped and

  listened when she heard Bryce’s high-pitched speech

  pattern and another voice that sounded like Curtis

  Crabtree’s.

  ‘‘. . . apply for... job, not beat him up.’’ ‘‘I didn’t... wasn’t taking applications...’’ ‘‘. . . you’ve screwed...upnow...’’

  ‘‘Easy to fix...’’

  There was the sound of a door opening.

  ‘‘What the hell do you want?’’ Bryce’s voice was no

  longer in hushed tones.

  ‘‘Oh, sorry.’’ The new baritone voice was David’s.

  ‘‘I need some evidence envelopes. The four-by-nine

  inch size. And a resupply of phenolphthalein for my

  blood test kit—here we go.’’

  She heard some rattling of supplies.

  ‘‘We have more supplies in the cabinets if you can’t

  find what you’re looking for,’’ David said.

  ‘‘If you have what you need, go,’’ said Bryce. ‘‘Sure thing,’’ she heard David say, and the door

  closed again.

  Diane smiled. She didn’t have any doubt that David

  interrupted them on purpose just to make Bryce un

  comfortable. She immediately

  David wasn’t getting reckless

  frowned. She hoped in his dealings with Bryce. It wasn’t like David to be reckless, but lately

  he’d been so moody. She let the thought slide. Diane stood there, reluctant to move, not wanting

  to be heard near the wall. For several moments they

  said nothing. Then Curtis spoke.

  ‘‘I have to go... later.’’

  She heard the door open and close—presumably

  leaving Bryce in the closet by himself. The oddity of

  it brought another half smile to her lips. Strange. After

  a moment she heard the door open and close again.

  After another moment, she stepped back from the

  wall quietly.

  Chapter 4

  Diane was disturbed by Bryce and his employees, but it was nothing she could put her finger on. There was just something not right about the way Bryce was try ing to encroach on the DNA lab. David said Bryce was a control freak. It was probably nothing, just his aggressive, slimy personality.

  If she was honest, she thought to herself, there was a tiny speck of truth to Bryce’s accusation. She had been angry when the new chief of police, Edgar Peeks, showed up with no warning and introduced Bryce as her replacement as director of the crime lab. But that was three months ago and had nothing to do with Curtis Crabtree coming down to the DNA lab insisting on a job. Diane shook the nagging feelings as she left for home.

  Home. That was another change in Diane’s life of late. Her neighbors had asked her to move out of her apartment because, through no fault of her own, too many unsettling and sometimes horrific things had happened there. The neighbors had been awakened by the arrival of the police just one too many times, and they were frightened. Diane understood that. Everyone needs peace in their lives.

  She was staying with Frank Duncan temporarily until she found herself a new place. Frank was a detec tive in the Metro-Atlanta Fraud and Computer Foren sics Unit. Atlanta wasn’t far from Rosewood, and Frank drove into the city daily to work. He wanted her to move in with him permanently. She was think ing about it, but she was also thinking that she wanted her own house. Despite Frank’s terrific hospitality, she still felt like a guest. Somehow, coming into someone’s house and using it as her own didn’t seem right to her.

  However,

  working out

  for the moment, the arrangement was better than she had expected. She had

  gained a measure of peace in her own life by moving in with Frank. And if the truth be known, no longer being director of the crime lab gave her time—a price less commodity. She had time to design the new pri mate exhibit, she had more time to spend with Frank, she was learning to play the piano, and she’d been caving three times this month alone. And she was even considering getting a dog, maybe an Irish wolfhound or a Lab. Life was good. She was thinking about her good life as she turned into the driveway.

  Frank’s house was a Queen Anne set back from the road. It was a house much like Frank—traditional, reliable, solid. It had polished hardwood floors, sandcolored walls, and oak and walnut furniture as substan tial as the house itself. It always smelled like furniture polish and always shined.

  Frank wasn’t there when Diane arrived. He’d left a message on his answering machine saying he wouldn’t be back until the following day. It wasn’t uncommon— Frank traveled a lot in his job—but it was a shame; it was nice when they both got home early. Diane spent the evening watching the Sci Fi channel—that was also nice. Frank wasn’t the science fiction fan she was, and Diane would not subject him to a Star Trek marathon if he was home.

  Frank called just before Diane got into bed.

  ‘‘How was your day?’’ she asked as she snuggled into the softness of the down mattress.

  ‘‘Good. Love putting the white-collar guys away. They never expect it. I’ve been chasing a spate of identity theft complaints. Those are always fun to track down. And I got an Atlanta mortgage embezzler who’s been on the run with a few million of his com pany’s money. They picked him up in Hawaii.’’