Dead Past (21 page)

“Curiouser and curiouser,” said Diane. “OK, so the best bet seems a drug-related hit.”

David started to answer when Neva, who looked like she hadn’t slept in a couple of days, entered, escorting Chief Garnett. The osteology lab was actually a part of the museum and it had a digital lock on the door. Diane’s staff knew the combination, but visitors had to be escorted. Diane’s office door was open and he entered. Neva waved and left.

Garnett sat down in a stuffed leather chair that matched the couch where David sat.

“I didn’t expect to see you today,” said Diane. “Is there a break in one of the cases?”

He cleared his throat. “Diane,” he said, “can you give me a rundown on your activities this morning?”

 

Diane stared at Garnett for a very long moment.

“You want to know my activities this morning? What happened? Did someone kill Mrs. Stanton?”

“This isn’t a joke,” he said.

And indeed from the look on his face, he wasn’t in a humorous mood. But Diane hadn’t been joking.

“I can see that. I’ve been here all morning. What happened?”

“Marcus McNair was murdered this morning while he was jogging.”

Diane opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. David sat up straight on the sofa, equally speechless. After a moment Diane found her voice.

“McNair, murdered? My God, what is happening? We have very few murders in Rosewood, and now suddenly in less than a week we meet our annual quota?”

“I need to give the commissioner and Councilman Adler your alibi. I don’t think the commissioner actually thinks you are guilty, but as far as the councilman is concerned, you are now a suspect in two cases.”

“Well, hell. OK, after working the Cipriano crime scene until three a.m, I took a nasty phone call from Mrs. Stanton about how she was going to stalk me for the rest of my life. I went to sleep and got up at seven. I had a cold shower to wake me up, ate a bowl of cereal and went outside to go to work, and found my car decorated with KILLER, MURDERER, BITCH, and WHORE written all over it in red spray paint.”

“What?” said Garnett. “Who?”

“I’m thinking Mrs. Stanton. She’s been calling the museum, my board members, and anyone else she thinks can give me a hard time.”

“I’ll look into it.”

“If you’re looking for her to give me an alibi, I wouldn’t count on it.”

“What happened after you found your car vandalized?”

“I called to have it photographed, processed, towed, and painted. I also called Andie to give me a ride to work. She did. I went to my museum office, Patrice called again, I did paperwork—Andie was in the next room. I talked to my security chief and told her to look out for trouble from Patrice in the museum; I called the hospital to check on an employee who was injured in the explosion; I went up to her department and updated her coworkers. On the way to the crime lab, I ran into a board member who had been called by Patrice. She was wondering if I am a murderer. I told her no, then went to the crime lab and said ‘hi’ to everyone and came to the lab to work on bones. David came in and wanted to know about the hundred-year-old bones he’d found. I told him. I’ll tell you if you think the information will be helpful. David was just about to fill me in on what he’s found out from the Joana Cipriano evidence; then you came in. I think that’s it.”

“Marcus was killed at eight thirty a.m. Do you know exactly where you were then?”

“I think I was taking the call from Patrice Stanton. I talked to Andie and my security chief and the hospital right after that.”

“OK. I’ll tell the commissioner. If you would write down all the people you talked to, it would help,” said Garnett.

“You can pull my LUDS,” said Diane, “if you need extra verification. I mean, most of my alibis are from people I employ, except Patrice. You’ll have to trick her. Don’t tell her I need an alibi.”

“Diane, I didn’t come here to make you mad.”

“I’m sure you didn’t, but I’m getting a little tired of being a suspect. This is twice in a row, for heaven’s sake. And there is zero supporting evidence for even one accusation or suspicion. The facts of my schedule and corroborating witnesses put the lie to it.”

“You’re not really a suspect. I just need to tell the commissioner where you were.”

“Tell him that if I were a murderer, I’d be after him and the councilman.”

“I won’t tell them that,” said Garnett. He stood up. “I don’t need to know a combination to get out of here, do I?”

“No.”

“I am sorry. If it weren’t for politics, I wouldn’t be here talking to you. It’s just gotten strange lately.” He paused. “The commissioner wants the GBI to handle McNair’s scene. He says it’s just so everyone will know it’s all on the up and up.”

“Sure,” said Diane.

When Garnett left, Diane and David stared at each other with a what-the-hell-is-going-on surprised look on their faces.

“We have got to get to the bottom of this,” said Diane.

“I’ll get with the gang and we’ll come up with a plan,” said David. “You know Jin is motivated; that’s a big plus for us. Were you really serious about a DNA lab? You think Garnett will go for it?”

“I’m not sure, but I may ask accounting to crunch some numbers for me. It may pay the museum to have a DNA lab that’s dedicated to forensics and not research. We can bypass the local government.”

“Jin’ll like that even better. He already tells everyone he works for the museum.” David started to rise off the sofa.

“Tell me about Cipriano first,” said Diane. “We still have other cases.”

David dropped to a seated position again. “I didn’t get much from the scene,” he said. “I’ve been running the fingerprints through AFIS. Most, as you expect, are hers. There are a few of her ex-husband in the kitchen and bathroom. One of her neighbors said he usually did the cooking. His prints were on the books that he said were his—the biographies and history books. I’ve got three unknown prints, but I have to collect some more exemplars. She had a repairman in to fix the dishwasher a couple of months ago. She’s had friends in and I have to get their prints. Her mother visited a couple of weeks ago and I have to get her prints. That’s going to be difficult for the poor woman. I’m glad I’m not going to be the one doing it. She lives in Maryland. The authorities there are going to do it for me.”

“We have nothing?” said Diane.

“Not nothing. I have foreign carpet fibers from the area rug in her living room and from the carpet in her bedroom. Gray, beige, turquoise, red, and cobalt blue. Jin has identified them as carpet fibers coming from a Saturn, a Chevrolet, two high-end floor coverings, and a cheap floor covering. Again, we need to check exemplars. I did check the husband’s car. He has a 2002 Saturn with gray interior. Jin is matching the fibers now. The cobalt blue is from a 1999 Chevrolet Impala. So far, neither her mother or any of her friends have a Chevrolet Impala with a cobalt blue interior carpet. Her mother does have an expensive beige carpet throughout her house. The Maryland authorities will take a sample of her carpet, too.”

“That’s something. Anything else?”

“Neva sat down with Jere Bowden and has a sketch of the man she saw. It was from the back, so I don’t know how much good it will be, but Mrs. Bowden said it is accurate. The police are canvassing the neighborhood and put the picture on the news. I’m sure that drew a lot of laughs from viewers—the back of a man. Right now the detectives are asking the public about the stranger and a 1999 Chevrolet Impala.”

“How about the books?”

“I’ve looked through a number of them, and so far nothing jumps out. It would help if I had some idea what I am looking for.”

“If we had the solution, we’d have the solution, wouldn’t we?” said Diane.

“Cute. I’ll keep you informed on all the cases,” said David.

“I’ll take the Cipriano case, and you three work on the rest. Garnett will probably tell you what the GBI finds at the McNair crime scene if you ask him nicely.”

“You think the cases could be linked?” asked David.

Diane shrugged. “Right now I can’t see how. The only commonality between Stanton and McNair is me, unfortunately. And I really can’t see a connection with Cipriano—maybe Stanton and the meth lab, but you can’t get too far with rhyming words.”

David stared at her for several moments. “What? Did I miss something? Was there something in one of the poetry books about the meth lab explosion?”

Diane smiled. “No. I just wondered to myself, What if Jere Bowen heard wrong? She said the voice was muffled and she couldn’t hear exactly what he said.” Diane went over her rhyming list with him, stopping at cook. “It was just a thought.”

“Interesting. Long shot, but could be true.” David looked like he was going to laugh.

“OK, it was crazy, but who knows,” she said. “It will be a while before the GBI processes the trace from McNair, but maybe you can get some of the details of the crime scene from Garnett.”

“I’ll get to work.” David stood up. “We’ll solve this,” he said.

Diane could tell from his voice that he meant it.

“I’m glad you’re confident. I don’t relish people casting wondering glances at me for the rest of my life.”

“Like I said, we have Jin. I tell you, I don’t think you know how you motivated him.”

“Yes, I do,” said Diane.

Diane sat staring at the lone wolf for several minutes after David left her office, hoping that some pattern would form in her mind. She concluded that she didn’t have enough information. Blake Stanton, she was sure as she could be with so little information, was hit to keep him from talking. If the meth lab had exploded with only the cook inside, there wouldn’t be near the seriousness as it exploding with a house full of young people. It would be worth killing to keep secret any connection with that—provided that there was someone behind the lab besides the poor fellow who got blown to smithereens. The meth lab connection was a good place to start, she thought.

She opened up her bone vault where her computer equipment for reconstructing 3-D facial images from skulls was stored. She turned on the computer and the laser scanner.

Three partially reconstructed skulls were sitting in boxes of sand. One was from bones found in the burned-out basement. Not much was there—the brow and top of the eye sockets, the cheek and lower socket on the right side that included part of the nasal area. Part of a maxilla—the bone anchor for the upper teeth—and a fragment of a mandible—the lower jaw.

She was able to match the upper and lower parts because the wear patterns on the upper and lower molars and premolars fit exactly. Luckily, those teeth had been still in their sockets. Unfortunately, no dental records had been submitted that matched the remains she had.

Diane used clay to prop up the reassembled pieces of skull on the modeling pedestal. It looked like a strange piece of artwork. When the modeling software was up, she turned on the apparatus and watched as the pedestal rotated and the laser read the topography of the fragments and generated a matrix of points on which to construct a wire frame of the head and face.

Diane asked the software to interpolate the missing part of the face from the parts that were present. The result would be a face that looked more symmetrical than it actually was because the computer only had one side to calculate what the other side looked like. But it would be a likeness that would be useful.

When she had a wire frame on which to work, she asked the software to use the skin depth database to reconstruct the face. Building the face was a slower process. She watched it being constructed.

She felt free in the vault. At least Patrice Stanton couldn’t get to her here.

 

Diane studied the completed 3-D model of the face generated from the glued-together skull fragments. It was not someone she recognized. She didn’t think he would be. But she was willing to bet that he was known to someone in the police department.

Armed with a new face to work with, Diane printed out several paper copies, put an electronic copy of the image file on a memory stick, turned off her fancy equipment, and left the vault, locking it behind her.

She looked at her watch. It was a couple of hours past her usual lunch time. She hoped David, Jin, and Neva had stopped for lunch, but they were like her in that respect—often working right though it without noticing. Diane left her osteology lab and walked over to the crime lab. She found her crew busy. Jin and Neva had their heads together over a map. David was on the phone.

“Have you guys eaten?” asked Diane.

“Eat,” said Jin. “No time. We’ve got criminals to catch. Neva and I were just looking at the jogging route Marcus took. I’ll make a matrix of the access points and . . .”

“How did you find out where he was killed?” asked Diane.

Jin gave her his “Please, I’m a detective” look.

“What have you been doing?” asked David, placing the phone back on the hook.

Diane produced the printouts of the facial reconstruction.

“This skull was one of two that I hadn’t identified. The other was found on the first floor near a window. These bones were in the basement and they were the only bones found there—that is, the only bones McNair’s team turned over to us.” Diane was sure that there were bones in the material that McNair took that she would never see.

“You think this is the cook?” said David.

“I’m thinking that he is,” said Diane.

“Let’s send a copy to Garnett,” David suggested. “This should make him happy. It’s the best lead they’ve had on the meth lab thing. They’re up against the wall, and that Adler person’s been giving them hell about it.”

Diane handed David the memory stick; he put it in his computer and e-mailed the image to Garnett.

“OK,” said Diane sitting down at the table where Jin and Neva were looking at the map. “I thought you were working on the Stanton murder, Jin.”