Diane pushed the doorbell and waited. The house was so well insulated she didn’t hear footfalls until the door was opened by the housekeeper, Mrs. Hartefeld, a fixture who had been with Vanessa for years. She was a tall, straight-backed woman in a dark gray pantsuit that matched her hair and eyes. Diane always thought she looked out of place in modern apparel-she should be wearing Victorian clothes to match her physical appearance. Despite her dour face, Mrs. Hartefeld was a friendly, happy person with a good sense of humor. She led Diane into the parlor, a white and gold French Provençal room that made her feel like she was waiting for the queen. Perhaps she was.
“Dr. Fallon, I wanted to thank you for giving my grand-daughters a personal tour of the museum. They felt so special. They are still talking about it.”
“I was happy to do it. I’m glad they enjoyed themselves.”
“I’ll get Mrs. Van Ross. She’ll be delighted to see you. May I get you something to drink-coffee, tea, soda?”
“No, thank you, Mrs. Hartefeld.”
Diane stood by the fireplace looking up at a portrait of Milo Lorenzo staring down at her. His hand was on a Greek Ionic column pedestal. She sensed his disapproval and she felt guilty.
“Diane, dear. What a surprise,” Vanessa Van Ross said.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call, but I’m afraid my phones might be tapped.”
Vanessa raised her eyebrows. “Sit down and tell me about it.”
Diane sat on a white silk chair, hoping that the seat of her pants wasn’t soiled from the basement. She told Vanessa about the kidnapping, the threats, what happened to her mother, and how the two thugs claimed responsibility-including what they wanted. She thought Vanessa would give her the now-familiar openmouthed stare of surprise, then chastise her for letting things get so out of control.
Vanessa did neither. She sat very still in her white and gold French sitting room, looking at the portrait of Milo.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
Diane outlined her suspicions of Emery and her plan. Vanessa looked thoughtful as she spoke. When she finished, Diane blurted out, “If you want me to resign, I will. . or I’ll resign from the crime lab.” She suddenly felt like a child in the principal’s office.
“Don’t be silly, girl.” Vanessa did look cross now. She glanced up at Milo again. “We can’t have people making threats and controlling what we do, and we certainly can’t have them threatening the museum. Milo would have hated that. They must be found, rooted out and taken to task. They can’t be allowed to get away with it.”
“I’ll do everything in my power to see that they are arrested.”
“What both Milo and I liked about you is that we sensed that you would care for the museum more than for your career. We were right. That’s what we want for the museum-someone who sees it as their job to take care of it, not just themselves.”
Diane was relieved. “Right now, I feel like I’ve put it in danger.”
“No. It’s being held hostage.”
“The board is going to be very angry-about the closing in particular,” said Diane.
Vanessa smiled thinly. “Probably so. You will just have to handle that.”
Diane didn’t look forward to it. “I must ask you not to tell anyone about this until it’s over.”
“Of course.”
“I don’t quite know how to say this.”
“Say what, my dear?”
“The indications are that something very large is at stake here. Perhaps a great deal of wealth or power. Maybe an organization or a family. Someone had to pay these guys to do what they did. They hurt my family just so I’d leave town and they could steal the bones before I got a chance to identify them. Then they kidnapped me when that didn’t work.”
“What are you trying to tell me?”
“I don’t yet know who may be involved. I can’t anticipate the direction the investigation may take. There are not that many rich and powerful people in the area whom you don’t know.”
Vanessa’s face became stern. “Put yourself at ease, Diane. If anyone I know is responsible for this, then I would regard their actions as a betrayal and a threat to all those things I hold dearest to me. I would expect that every effort within your power be made to apprehend and punish them in the most severe way allowed under the law. Anyone who threatens Milo’s museum is not a friend of mine.”
“Thank you for that. And thank you for seeing me unannounced.”
“Did you think I was going to have Hattie kick you out? I think you’re feeling a little sorry for yourself. It’s not like you.”
“I know.” Diane rubbed her temples. “I’m getting pathetic.”
“It looks like you’ve been crying.”
Diane looked over at an ornate mirror hanging on the wall. Her eyes did look puffy. “I had to tell my parents why someone wrecked their lives, destroyed their tranquillity and ruined their reputation. They are very angry with me. My mother blames me for what happened to her.”
“Oh, my dear, I see.”
“She has suffered a lot.”
“No doubt. It was a cruel thing that was done to her. But her blame is misplaced. I know family relationships can be difficult-Lord knows, mine are complicated enough. But you have to keep yourself anchored in reality. The reality is that there are some very bad people out there who are trying to get their way.”
Diane liked talking to Vanessa-she was good at putting things in perspective. She wished she had the same relationship with her family.
“I know that, deep inside. It’s just hard to put into practice sometimes.” Diane looked at her watch. “I need to ask another favor. I couldn’t call Frank on my phone at the museum or my cell phone. May I use yours? It’s long-distance, to Atlanta.”
Vanessa nodded. “Of course, dear. You can use the phone on the desk.”
She pointed to a white French Provençal desk with a glass-covered top. The phone matched the decor-white and gold.
“Would you like me to leave you alone?”
“That’s not necessary.” Diane sat down at the desk and called Frank’s cell. “Frank, it’s me,” she said when he answered.
“Hey, Diane. How are you? I understand you called your parents and they blame you for your mom’s arrest. Did you find out what happened?”
Frank caught Diane completely by surprise. “How did you know?”
“Mike called.”
“Mike called? He shouldn’t have.” Diane felt a little annoyed.
“He called about Neva,” said Frank. “He wants her to stay at my house again.”
Diane’s annoyance evaporated. “Why?” she asked.
“There’s some nut who’s been calling him-says something about being the top of the food chain and Mike isn’t going to get his rabbits.”
“Neva mentioned something about that. They thought it was someone on drugs.”
“He called this morning and told Mike that Neva would make a pretty little rabbit.”
“Oh, my God.” Talking with Vanessa had had a calming effect on her, but now she was scared again.
“It shook him up pretty bad,” said Frank. “He was going to ask you to ask me, but he said you had a lot on your plate and he didn’t want to bother you. What’s going on?”
Diane told him the whole story as she fingered the feathered ink pen on the desk. She wondered if anyone ever wrote with it. She could just see him staring at the phone with his mouth open.
“Did they hurt you?”
“They made my arm sore again. Pissed me off royally. But I’m basically all right.”
“So you think one is a hacker?”
“Yes.”
“I have a database of known and suspected hackers.”
Diane smiled. “David would be envious.”
“Tell me everything you know about him and I’ll start looking for possibilities. If Jin can get his DNA, he may be in CODIS. That was good thinking, by the way, getting them to yell into your ear and leave their DNA
.”
“Thanks. I think better in a blind panic.”
Diane told Frank everything she could think of about the men. It wasn’t much, but maybe he could find something useful.
“I’ll come stay with you tonight,” he said.
“That would be a comfort. Bring a bedroll; we’ll be sleeping in the museum.”
Diane hung up the phone. “Thank you, Vanessa. I appreciate your lending me your support and giving me some perspective.”
“I hardly said anything, dear.”
“Just talking it out helped.” Diane looked at her watch. “I need to get back to the museum. I just wanted you to know what’s going on, so you wouldn’t be shocked when I close it up.”
“I appreciate your keeping me informed. Take care of yourself.” Vanessa saw Diane to the door.
Diane drove back to the museum and straight to the crime lab, hoping that David had heard from Jin. He hadn’t. But he had swept the lab and her office for electronic bugs.
“We’re clean,” he said.
“We’re probably giving these guys too much credit,” she said. “At least I know I can talk on the phone now.”
Neva came in from the osteology lab carrying a stack of her drawings of the various victims. She laid them out on the table side by side.
“I have some new drawings,” she said, spreading them out on one of the empty tables.
Diane and David walked over to examine them.
“Frank told me about the phone call. Are you all right, Neva?” Diane asked.
“I’m fine. I think Mike is making too much of it.”
“What phone call? What’s going on?” asked David.
“You know how I told you that Mike’s been getting a bunch of strange messages?” said Neva. David nodded. “Whoever it is called again and made it more personal.”
She related the latest thing he said to Mike. Diane could see she was trying to downplay it.
“Mike’s not making too much of it,” said David. “You know, he’s looking to me like the guy who stabbed Mike.”
“Well, what if he comes back after him while I’m at Frank’s playing Monopoly?”
Neva’s voice was getting high-pitched. As much as she tried to hide it, she was scared.
“I’m staying at the museum for a while, so I’ll ask Mike to go over to my place,” said David. “You can go there too, if you like.” David explained to Neva why he would be at the museum.
While they were talking, Diane was examining the photographs.
“This last one-is this Jane Doe. . I mean Flora Martin?” she asked.
“Yes. The one next to it is the aged version of the woman in Caver Doe’s snapshot. I sort of thought she would turn out to be Flora Martin, but they are completely different,” said Neva.
Diane had had the same thought, that the snapshot would turn out to be the older woman found in the woods-she wasn’t. But Diane did recognize her, and she could almost hear the dominoes clinking against each other as they started falling.
Chapter 39
Diane surprised David and Neva when she told them who the aged version of the woman in the snapshot looked like.
“It could be a coincidence,” said David, “but her family does have money.” David paused a moment and rubbed his bald head. “You know, you can publish the drawings in the newspaper or give them to the TV stations in Atlanta. I bet you’d have people coming out of the woodwork who recognize the drawings.”
“I agree, but first, I need to secure the museum.” Diane turned to Neva. “David and I are staying in the museum for a few days. You are welcome to stay, or-”
“I’ll stay here with you. Can Mike stay?”
Diane shook her head. “I don’t want any civilians. No one outside the crime unit staff.”
Neva didn’t want to give up. “But what if whoever it is follows Mike to David’s? He would be safest here.”
“I’ll ask Frank to pick Mike up. He’ll see if anyone is following.”
Neva nodded reluctantly. “I hate this. It’s like somebody is after all of us.”
“Not all of you,” said David. “Just you guys who found the body in the cave.”
Diane was taken by surprise at David’s statement. He was right. Finding the body in the cave was like stumbling over a tripwire. Everything started happening after that event was in the newspapers, including all the current murders.
“He’s right,” whispered Neva. “Why didn’t we see that?
It’s so obvious. I mean, obviously Caver Doe is central. We knew that. But I never quite realized that all of us who were in the cave have become targets. The newspaper article named us all.”
She looked at Diane. “MacGregor,” they both said simultaneously.
Diane took out her cell, punched up the list of caving buddies and called MacGregor, who was also with them in the cave.
“MacGregor.” Diane was relieved to hear him answer.
“It’s Diane Fallon, Mac. How are you?”
“I’m fine. How are you?” He sounded slightly puzzled but glad to hear from her.
“Mac, has anything strange happened to you lately?”
“Strange like what?”
“Has anyone broken into your house?”
“No. But there is something kind of weird going on.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ve been getting these calls for the past couple of weeks-some guy tells me that he’s the one who’s the top of the food chain and I’m just a bottom-feeder and that I can’t have his rabbits.” MacGregor laughed. “It cracks me up just thinking about it. I asked him what the heck he was talking about and he just hung up. He’s called several times. Once in the middle of the night. I told him the calls had to stop, and if it made him feel better, I wouldn’t get any of his rabbits.”
“What did your caller ID say?”
“No data. I was hoping to be able to call him back in the middle of the night and tell him I’d changed my mind, that I like rabbit stew.” MacGregor chuckled.
“What was his voice like?” asked Diane. She frowned at Neva and David, who stood watching her closely. The calls were sounding less and less like a prank.
“Kind of high-pitched, like a girl’s, but I could still tell it was a guy.”
“Are you at work?” Diane asked.
“Yes, I’m here at my daddy’s hardware store.”
“Can you stay at your parents’ house for a while?”
“Why?”
“Mike’s getting the same calls. In the last one he referred to Neva as a nice little rabbit.”
“Oh, shit, is this some kind of real nutcase?” MacGregor’s voice went up several decibels, and Diane had to hold the phone away from her ear.
“I don’t know for sure what it is. I can’t give you any details, Mac, but there is some serious stuff going on. Why don’t you stay with your parents, or at your cousin’s?”
“I guess you haven’t heard. My cousin’s place burned down.”
Diane looked wide-eyed at David and Neva. “Mac, your cousin’s home burning falls under the category of unusual things I was asking about,” she said. Diane’s heart beat faster; it was like discovering a danger that she hadn’t known existed.
“I didn’t think about it. Nobody was hurt, but his trailer was gutted. The thing is, my cousin and his wife and kids are staying with my parents and it’s kind of crowded. And frankly, I kind of get on everybody’s nerves, if you know what I mean.”
Diane did. “Is there anyplace else you could stay?”
“You’re serious about this, aren’t you?”
David was making motions with his fingers to give him the phone. Diane handed it to him.
“Hi, Mac, this is David Goldstein; I work with Jin and Diane at the crime lab. I’m going to have Mike stay at my condo, and you can stay there too until we figure this out.” He paused awhile, listening. “You’ll be fine. I’m a paranoid guy, and I have a steel-reinforced door with four different locks, and bar
s on my windows.” He paused again for several long moments. “Good. Why don’t you come to the museum and I’ll give you directions to my place. Just ask for Diane at the front desk.”
David clicked off the phone and jiggled his ear with his little finger. “The guy can talk up a storm.”
“He’s getting the same calls as Mike?” asked Neva.
“Yes,” said Diane. She squeezed her eyes closed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “You know, this is not fitting together. The threats I’m getting about the museum are completely different in content and tone from the food-chain threats, or whatever they are.” She shook her head. “But MacGregor did say his cousin’s trailer burned down. His cousin owns the land the cave is on. Was that in the paper too?”
Neva nodded.
“I need to get in touch with Jin. Has anyone heard from him since he left?” Jin was in the cave with them too.
“No,” said David. He took his own phone and punched up Jin’s cell. “Jin, this is David. Call the lab as soon as you get this.” He shook his head. “It went straight to the answering service.”
“We need to find him,” said Diane. “Call the DNA lab. If you can’t get him, let me know. Kendel’s set up a meeting with the museum staff. I’ve got to send them home.”
Diane met with her staff in the auditorium on the second floor of the museum. When they were all assembled, she told them she was closing the museum for the weekend so that repairs could be made on a critical environmental system that was failing. It was a lame excuse. But most, she believed, would welcome a free vacation. It was the faculty curators who were conducting experiments whom she expected to have trouble with, and she was not disappointed.
“I have to check on my experiment every four hours,” said the botany curator.
“Turn in your schedule to security and they will escort you to your lab. But you will have to do it yourself; you can’t send a student.”
“What? What’s really going on?” asked the botany curator. Diane could see it was not going to be easy leaving them in the dark.
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