Scattered Graves, page 6
part #6 of Diane Fallon Forensic Investigation Series
‘‘You’re half right. Just a little mishap on the way to work. Henry, how are you?’’ she said before Jonas could question her further.
‘‘I’m fine, Miss … I mean, Dr. Fallon,’’ he said. ‘‘This is my brother, Caleb.’’
‘‘I remember the sheriff mentioning Caleb.’’ She held out her hand and he shook it.
Henry and Caleb didn’t favor each other. Henry was going to be much bigger than his older brother. Caleb nudged his brother and smiled warmly at him. ‘‘Go ahead,’’ he said.
Diane could see how fond Caleb was of his younger sibling. The thought of it made her smile.
‘‘So, what brings you here?’’ she asked.
Henry looked at his brother, who nodded at him.
‘‘When I was here yesterday,’’ he said, looking back at Diane, ‘‘I . . . well, I really like it here, and I was wondering if there are ever any jobs for someone my age. I’m in eighth grade.’’
‘‘So, that makes you, what, thirteen, fourteen?’’ asked Diane.
‘‘Yes, ma’am,’’ he said. ‘‘I’m fourteen—almost—in a week.’’
‘‘Well, we have a student after-school intern program you can apply to,’’ she said.
‘‘See,’’ said Caleb, gently poking his brother on the arm. ‘‘I told you it wouldn’t hurt to ask.’’ He turned to Diane.
‘‘He was real shy about asking, figured you’d say no, but I told him it never hurts to ask and that he should always let the other person be the one to say no—don’t do it for them.’’ Caleb looked very self-satisfied.
‘‘Good advice,’’ said Diane. ‘‘Andie, can you get him the papers to fill out and some information to take back to his grandparents?’’
‘‘Sure thing.’’ Andie went to a filing cabinet.
Mike and Jonas left, waving good-bye. Jonas looked back at Diane one last time and shook his head.
‘‘You go to Bartram, I understand,’’ Diane said to Caleb as Andie looked for the forms. ‘‘What do you take?’’
‘‘History and computer science,’’ Caleb said. ‘‘I’d like to go to graduate school in advanced computational methods.’’
‘‘So, you have one foot in the past and the other in the future,’’ said Diane. ‘‘That must be interesting.’’
Caleb grinned. ‘‘Yeah, a little cognitive tug-of-war sometimes, but I like them both.’’
Andie handed Diane the application form and several brochures.
‘‘Show the brochures to your grandparents and fill out the form and bring it back. You’ll be called in for an interview, but that will be mainly to make sure you are really interested. I’ll put in a good word with our education director,’’ Diane added.
Henry grinned. ‘‘I like the dinosaurs. Do you think I could work with them?’’
‘‘It will probably be with a variety of things— everything from dinosaurs to rocks to conservation. You still interested?’’
‘‘Oh, yes, ma’am,’’ he said.
Diane liked Henry and his brother Caleb. They were polite and smart. She would like to clone them.
‘‘Can I take your picture with Henry?’’ asked Caleb, pulling out a digital camera.
Diane unconsciously touched her face. Andie looked distressed. For a moment, Diane thought she was going to forbid it.
‘‘I’ll Photoshop the bruises out, I promise,’’ said Caleb.
What the heck. ‘‘Sure,’’ she said and let him take a picture of her with Henry. Diane saw them to the door and told Andie she was going upstairs to her osteology lab. On the third-floor overlook, she glanced down and saw Henry and Caleb looking at the dinosaur bones. She smiled, walked down the hall to her lab, and went in.
The first thing she noticed was a treacly smell of perfume, and she wondered whether Neva, who had wanted to work with Diane’s imaging computers in the lab vault, had changed perfumes. But Neva didn’t usually wear it as heavy or as sweet as the aroma she smelled. Diane walked into her office just off the lab and stopped abruptly. There was a young woman sitting at her desk. Her first thought was that it was Goldilocks sitting in her chair.
8
‘‘Can I help you?’’ said Goldilocks. ‘‘Are you lost?’’
Diane stared at her, wondering whether perhaps the woman had escaped from an asylum.
‘‘Oh, by the way,’’ Goldilocks continued. ‘‘I’m Dr. Jennifer Jeffcote-Smith. I’ve just arrived from California.’’
And you got lost somewhere over Utah, thought Diane.
‘‘Nice to meet you, Dr. Jeffcote-Smith, I’m Dr. Diane Fallon and I’m wondering what you are doing in my office.’’
Jennifer Jeffcote-Smith, attired in a powder blue silk suit that matched her eyes and went great with her shoulderlength wavy blond hair, stared blankly at Diane for a moment.
‘‘Oh,’’ she said finally. ‘‘Well, this is awkward.’’
The expression on her face looked to Diane as if Dr. Jeffcote-Smith thought it was awkward only for Diane. There appeared to be a tiny gleam in her eye and an almost imperceptible twist at the corners of her evenly lipsticked mouth that could easily turn into a smirk.
‘‘No, not awkward,’’ said Diane. ‘‘I’m sure it must be some kind of strange misunderstanding.’’ Like I just walked into a parallel universe.
‘‘Lloyd said you—well, aren’t working here,’’ she said.
‘‘That would be Lloyd Bryce?’’ said Diane.
‘‘Yes; let me go get him. This had better come from him, don’t you think?’’
Dr. Jeffcote-Smith rose and started out the door.
‘‘Oh, I need to get in the vault to familiarize myself with the equipment. I understand it’s state-of-the-art. If you would write the key code down for the door, I’d appreciate it.’’ She walked out of the office, across the lab, and out the door that led to the crime lab.
Diane was still speechless at the effrontery. What was Bryce thinking? Obviously Bryce had asked either Neva or David to let the woman in the lab. No one else had the code to Diane’s door.
It was several minutes before Jennifer Jeffcote-Smith returned with Lloyd Bryce. He came bustling in with a deep frown on his face, his dark eyes ablaze with annoyance. He wore jeans, a brown sport coat, and a yellow-gold shirt. Diane could tell it was an expensive shirt, but oddly, it made him look cheap. He wasn’t a tall man. He was trim, had dark short hair, and wore too much aftershave. She tried not to breathe deeply.
Diane hadn’t liked him from the beginning and wasn’t sure why. Now she was beginning to think her initial reaction had been a premonition.
He hesitated a moment, studying her face, but he didn’t ask the obvious question. ‘‘Diane, you are just making a fool of yourself.’’ Bryce sounded a bit like a machine gun with words for bullets.
Dr. Jeffcote-Smith’s mouth was definitely starting to look like a smirk. She was enjoying this, and Diane wasn’t sure why. She’d never met the woman.
‘‘I think not, Lloyd,’’ said Diane. ‘‘Look at that brass plaque on the wall. What does it say?’’
‘‘Aidan Kavanagh Forensic Anthropology Lab. I’ve read it. I don’t know who Aidan Kavanagh is, but he has nothing to do with this. You don’t work here anymore. I’ve hired Jennifer to be the new forensic anthropologist, and that’s that. Any effort to hang on will only prove humiliating to you. Now, go run your little museum.’’
‘‘Aidan Kavanagh has everything to do with this,’’ said Diane evenly. ‘‘His father is the major funding source for this lab. The other major funding source is the museum. This is a private lab, privately funded, under the control of the RiverTrail Museum of Natural History and its director. That would be me. This lab predates the crime lab, and there are no public monies involved. It is not an agency of the city of Rosewood. You have no authority here whatsoever.’’
Bryce stared at her like she was speaking a language he didn’t understand. Perhaps she was. Perhaps you can’t do this was completely foreign to him. Jennifer’s smirk had lost some of it’s momentum. In her eyes Diane saw what looked like fear. That was odd too.
‘‘You would say anything,’’ he said at last. ‘‘I’ve seen contracts.’’
‘‘This is not a matter of what I would or would not say to keep my lab. It’s a matter of legal record. What you saw may have been the contract the forensic lab has with Rosewood, but apparently you didn’t read it. There is not so much as a paper clip that passes between these units that is not recorded and checked by accountants. When Rosewood had their idea of putting the crime lab in museum space, the contracts were carefully worked out between the city attorneys and ours. At no time did this forensic anthropology lab relinquish any of its connection to the museum. It belongs to and is administered by the museum.’’
She hoped like hell that Colin and the museum accountants could find a way to break the contract with the crime lab and get rid of this damn nuisance. Bryce had suddenly become a major pain in her backside.
One problem with breaking the contract was the taxes the museum would have to pay each year. That was the little blackmail scheme the last administration had thought up. They upped the taxes because of valuable assets the museum owned, then offered to forgive them if Diane would house and run the crime lab.
She thought they could work around the taxes. They hadn’t fought it at the time because she and the board liked the idea of the crime lab. And it had worked out well. She had not, however, accounted for such a change in the thinking of new administrations—she should have.
‘‘You are a disturbed woman who can’t let go, and you’ve concocted this tale,’’ said Bryce. ‘‘I’ll have the city attorney look at the contract right now.’’ He grabbed his cell, punched in a number, and spoke to someone in low tones.
Jennifer had retreated from the two of them and was leaning against one of the metal tables. She had her arms wrapped around herself as she gazed around the room. She looked both angry and scared. Diane wasn’t sure who she was angry with, her or Bryce.
‘‘Now do we have everything under control?’’ said Diane when Bryce was off the phone.
‘‘This thing about the forensic anthropology lab is not finished by a long shot,’’ he said.
‘‘No, you’re wrong. It’s over,’’ said Diane.
‘‘We’ll see. In the meantime, Jennifer will be working here,’’ he said.
‘‘Have you heard nothing I said? This is my lab, and I don’t need an assistant,’’ said Diane.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Jennifer flinch at the word assistant. Diane needed to ratchet the tension down, but she wasn’t sure how, other than give away her lab. And she wasn’t going to do that, even temporarily.
‘‘Jennifer is the official Rosewood forensic anthropologist. She is the person all skeletal remains will be given to for analysis. What will you need a big lab for then?’’
David had told her Bryce was clueless. She’d thought David was just overly critical, but apparently he was right. The man really didn’t know anything.
‘‘Bryce, Rosewood gets how many skeletons a year? Almost none. Virtually all of the bones we analyze come to me from neighboring counties, other states, and other countries. I’m all for Rosewood having its own forensic anthropologist, but the city will have to supply her with a lab and equipment. You can’t ask the museum to do it. Now, I have work to do.’’
‘‘I’ll see you later today—with the police if necessary,’’ said Bryce. He stomped out of the lab. Diane looked over at Jennifer.
‘‘I need to get my purse,’’ she said.
Diane followed her into the office. ‘‘You moved here from California?’’ said Diane.
‘‘Yes, with my family. My husband quit a job he loved in order to support my career,’’ she said, retrieving her purse from the bottom drawer of the desk.
Diane hardly knew what to say. She should have been kinder to her. This had to be a blow. Bryce may not have believed her, but Jennifer knew something was not right.
‘‘I’m sure they’ll find you very good lab space,’’ began Diane.
Jennifer looked sharply at Diane. ‘‘I don’t need your pity.’’
Diane was surprised at her vehemence. ‘‘I wasn’t offering you pity,’’ she said, ‘‘just friendliness.’’
Jennifer put her purse under her arm and walked out of the office, the heels of her Dolce & Gabbana pumps clicking on the floor like ricocheting bullets. At least she’s rich, thought Diane. Diane stood for a moment staring at the closed door. ‘‘This has got to be the strangest day,’’ she said under her breath.
She saw that the watercolor of the lone wolf hunting that she kept on the wall, the only decoration in her osteology office, had been taken down and was leaning against the wall. She walked over and picked it up.
‘‘Now, why didn’t Goldilocks like you?’’ she said to the picture. ‘‘Maybe she’s friends with Little Red Riding Hood.’’ Diane hung the painting back on the wall.
She then changed the key code on the doors to the lab. Safely locked in, she went to the drying racks to look at the wood-chipper bones.
She put on her lab coat and gloves, stopping momentarily to see whether she could hear any more closet conversations. All was quiet. She checked the bones. They were mostly dry, and she began laying them out on the table in basically anatomical position. They looked like a fossil find—like Lucy laid out with her tiny ribs and scant bones. Diane had only seventy-two pieces of bone to work with.
She picked up the petrous part of the temporal bone, the bone she hoped would reveal the sex, made measurements of the fragment, and recorded them. She mixed up casting compound and began making a cast of the acoustic canal. She set the poured cast aside and examined the rest of the fragments one by one, looking for any anomalies, any cut marks that might not have been made by the wood chipper, anything that might have identification value. She reached for a piece of the hip bone that included the pubic symphysis—the place where the two sides of the hip bones join. The surface was rugged with well-defined grooves, which meant the person was young—late teens, early twenties.
Diane turned to get the camera to photograph the piece when she was suddenly jarred out of her thoughts by very loud yelling coming from the crime lab next door.
9
Diane stood for a moment, uncertain what to do. The voices were coming from deeper within the lab and not the closet. She reached for a phone to call the crime lab when she heard her name.
Okay, she thought, it’s somehow about me. I am the landlord, so to speak, and this sounds serious. Landlords check into serious noises.
She walked to the adjoining door, unlocked it, and entered the crime lab. It hadn’t changed much, still all glass and metal cubicles and fancy equipment. The voices were clearer now. One was Sheriff Canfield’s; he was red faced and very angry. He was standing in front of Bryce, yelling at him. Bryce was backed against a desk, staring wideeyed at the taller sheriff. A woman with long blond hair in a ponytail, wearing khaki slacks and a pink polo shirt, sat in one of the cubicles with her door open. Her eyebrows were raised and her lips turned into almost a smile. Must be Rikki. Diane thought the look on Rikki’s face was far too excited. She was obviously enjoying the confrontation. Diane glanced around the room but didn’t see Neva.
‘‘Did you really think you could get away with this? What goes on in the heads of you people? We didn’t elect you…’’
Bryce caught sight of Diane. He straightened up and pointed a finger at her.
‘‘What are you doing here?’’ he said.
‘‘I heard the yelling,’’ she began.
Sheriff Canfield turned and saw Diane’s face. ‘‘You’ve been hurt,’’ he said. ‘‘What in the world happened to you?’’ His concern was obvious and sincere.
‘‘Police brutality,’’ she said.
Bryce shook his finger in her direction. ‘‘Get out. This is none of your business.’’
Bryce’s callousness angered Canfield just that much more. ‘‘It is most certainly her business,’’ said Can-field.
‘‘Now, get the bones and give them to her right now. Do you hear? Now!’’
‘‘Sheriff, we’ve hired a forensic anthropologist to analyze our bones, if you will give her a chance,’’ said Bryce. His voice and manner were remarkably calm, considering the situation.
‘‘I don’t give a shit if you hired Britney Spears to buy your underwear. You don’t get to decide who the bones go to; I do.’’
‘‘What’s going on?’’ asked Diane.
‘‘This son of a bitch waylaid my deputy on the way to bring you the rest of the bones we’ve found so far—and it was a lot of them, with some hair and fingernails mixed in. My deputy was on his way to your lab with them when this dirtbag stopped him and took them away from him. He and a security guard damn near wrestled them out of my deputy’s hands. My deputy told me Bryce said he would deliver them to you, but I knew better.’’
‘‘We didn’t wrestle them from him,’’ said Bryce.
‘‘How did you know they were on the way?’’ Diane asked him.
‘‘Huh?’’ Bryce looked at her, silent for a moment. ‘‘We didn’t. The security guard and I just happened to be out there when the deputy drove up.’’
‘‘The bones,’’ repeated the sheriff. ‘‘Get the damn bones and give them to Diane. And if you ever do anything like this again, I’ll put your ass in a sling.’’
Their attention was diverted at the sudden sound of the elevator. After a moment the doors opened and Jennifer Jeffcote-Smith stepped out, carrying a tray with three cups of coffee.
‘‘Jennifer,’’ said Bryce, ‘‘give the sheriff back his bones.’’
She gave one of the coffees to Rikki and brought another to Bryce. The third she held in her hand.
‘‘I haven’t finished with them,’’ she said. ‘‘I just got them an hour ago.’’
‘‘I don’t care,’’ said Sheriff Canfield. ‘‘You shouldn’t have had them in the first place.’’
