Dead Secret (18 page)

“Scuba diving is like caving. You don’t do it alone. It’s very dangerous. There has to be another diver. If the other diver was Quarry Doe, then where’s his equipment?”

“You tell this to the sheriff?”

“Yes. He had the deputies search near the lake. But, see, if the other diver had his weight belt on and got into trouble, he may be at the bottom of the quarry. And that’s another thing. I asked the sheriff how deep it is and he said a hundred feet or more. In that case, where’s the descent line? You go that deep, you have to descend slowly and stop at intervals to adjust for the pressure changes. You use a marked descent line to do that. I looked and didn’t find one.”

“What did you get from the crime scene?”

“It’s all laid out on the table,” Jin said, pointing to one of the analysis rooms.

“Let’s go have a look.” Diane rose, scooped up the papers and put them in the file.

Scuba gear and an assortment of evidence bags were arranged on the metal table. The room had the aroma of death from pieces of the victims stuck to their clothes. Diane had never really gotten used to that aroma.

“I checked out the tank,” said Jin. “Nothing hinky about it. No tampering. It’s out of air, and one of the hoses was punctured. There was a small twig stuck in it. That may have been what punctured it. Part of the wood is still lodged in the hose. I haven’t examined the hole itself yet.

“I checked his goggles for prints. Found one set,” Jin added. “David ran them and they didn’t show up. The ME’s going to try to get prints from the body.”

“I have Scuba Doe’s prints.” Neva walked through the door and waved a large envelope at them. “I just came from the ME’s, where I got to wear the skin from the dead scuba guy’s fingers. I can’t tell you how much fun that was. I think this Halloween I’m going to borrow one of his cadavers and wear a cadaver suit.” She wrinkled up her face—so did Diane. Jin and David laughed. “Quarry Doe—he’s the floater by the log—had his fingertips nibbled off. No prints there.”

“Neva,” said David, “I thought you were with Mike.”

“I was. I got him into his apartment, fixed him something to eat, made him promise to rest and went to the ME’s office.” She handed the envelope to David. “Grist for your algorithm machines.” Neva looked happy and rested. Her camel-colored slacks and wine silk blouse looked new. She and Star must have gone shopping to replace some of her clothes. Diane liked seeing her in good spirits.

“I’ll go run these right now,” said David, heading out the door.

Neva pushed her hair behind her ears. “Dr. Fallon, it’s good to have you back. I had a lot of fun at Frank’s house. His daughter, Star, is a hoot. We played Monopoly, ate ice cream and looked at fashion magazines. Frank’s a really nice guy.”

“He’s pretty decent, I have to admit,” Diane said with a smile.

“That’s nice what you’re doing for Star. Makes me want to go to the university. Of course, you’re going to be broke by then. You should see the things Star is looking at.”

Diane rolled her eyes. “I always say, if you’re going to resort to bribery, make it good.” She shook her head thinking of Star, then refocused her attention on work. “I’m glad you’re here. We need you.”

Neva grinned. The last time she saw Neva she had been crying over the shambles the vandal had made of her home.

“You’re going to have to change clothes. I need you and Jin to go to the woods.”

“You know that deputy we had the pleasure of meeting when we brought Caver Doe out of the cave?” said Jin. She nodded, and he told her about the garbage bag of bones.

Neva cocked her head to one side. “Why am I not surprised?”

“I’m sure he didn’t get all the bones,” said Diane.

David stuck his head in the door.

“Found a match already?” asked Diane.

“No, not yet. It’s still running. But you’re not going to believe this.” He jerked his thumb back toward his desk. “I called Sheriff Burns to get Deputy Duck to take Jin and Neva out to the woods, and found out that he’s in the hospital.”

“What happened?” they all asked together.

“After delivering the bones, he was driving back and had an accident. He told the sheriff that a swarm of bugs crawled all over him as he drove down the road.”

Chapter 28

Jin and Diane looked each other, then at David, with their mouths agape.

“A swarm of bugs?” Neva wrinkled her nose. “In his car?”

“That’s what Sheriff Burns told me. Said it was right out of a horror movie.”

“I believe our deputy must have been drinking,” said Neva.

“That’s not what I’m thinking,” said David.

“Ah,” said Jin. “It’s a good thing we put the bag in isolation.”

“We need to make sure none escaped,” said Diane, horrified. “Dermestids are terrible museum pests. If they get into the taxidermy displays or the insect collection . . . or, God forbid, the mummy . . .”

“Maryanne downstairs told me the deputy came in and handed her the garbage bag with a smirk. It smelled so bad, she tied off the top of the bag with string. It was plenty tight. As I brought it up the elevator, I checked for holes. There weren’t any, so I think we’re safe.”

“I’ll make sure Maryanne has a bonus in her next pay-check,” muttered Diane. “What else do we have here?”

Diane picked up and examined each evidence bag. One contained the clothes of Quarry Doe. Another had the scuba diver’s underclothes. Others held assorted things found at the scene—one spent shotgun shell casing. . . .

“Were they shot?” asked Diane.

“No,” said Jin. “At least, the medical examiner on the scene said they weren’t, but we don’t have an autopsy yet.”

There were also two cigarette boxes and thirteen cigarette butts.

“This is interesting,” said Diane. She held up a clear plastic bag containing a soiled photograph. The picture was a blur.

“I thought we might get some prints from it,” said Jin.

All Diane could see were murky shapes and shades of a nondescript gray-green color. “Can you tell what it is?” she asked.

“Bad photograph. Whoever took it probably threw it away,” said Jin.

Diane stared at the picture, squinting her eyes, looking at the shapes in the foreground.

“You see something, Boss?” asked Jin.

“I don’t know.” Diane paused, studying the print through the plastic, turning it different directions. The others looked over her shoulder. “You know, I think this is a photo taken underwater.”

“You think so?” said Jin. “Maybe.”

Diane turned to David. “Okay, Mr. I-love-a-good-algorithm, you think you can clear this up?”

David took the evidence bag and studied the photograph. “The various pieces of software I use essentially reverse the blurring process, so the formula for sharpening it depends on how the image was blurred. For example, in simple out-of-focus pictures, the blurring is equal in all directions.” He made an oval of his hands, touching the tips of his fingers together.

“On a pixel level that means one pixel expands into a circle of pixels of a different color value. But if the blur is caused by motion, like a moving car, then the blurring is in only one direction, hence pixel expansion is in one direction. And, of course, digitizing and scanning have their own formulas, which can cause a blurred image of a different pixel pattern.”

“TMI,” said Neva, swiping her hand over the top of her head.

“Can you clear it up?” repeated Diane.

“Well, it may be that underwater shots simulate out-of-focus shots in the directionality of the blurring effect. I have some new NASA software that does well with hazy—”

“David, can you do it?” said Diane.

“I’ll give it a try.”

“Good, thank you.”

David took the photograph to his workstation.

Diane spread the photos of the quarry crime scene out on the table and looked them over again, this time paying more attention to the woods that surrounded the quarry, looking for anything that her crew or the sheriff’s people might have missed.

“Did you notice that this is an old roadway?” She put her finger on a less-dense avenue through the woods, with trees shorter than their neighbors on either side.

“No, I didn’t notice that,” said Jin.

“Is it relevant?” said David. “It’s overgrown now.”

“Not through here.” She pointed to a place that, if one looked closely, might have been a deer trail.

“How are you seeing this?” said Jin.

“Something my archaeologist friend Jonas Briggs taught me,” said Diane. Archaeologists are good at finding old house sites and roadways after they are all grown over.

“Want me to go back and take a look?” said Jin.

Diane nodded. “Interview the deputy and the Scouts. Get them to draw how the bones were positioned.”

“Okay, Boss.”

“I want you to do something else, too.” She pulled out the photo showing the scuba diver’s body underwater. “I want a sample of the underwater twigs and tree limbs in which the diver was entangled. Bring them to the lab, and have Korey examine them. He’s an expert in submerged and waterlogged wood.”

“Oh, so you’re thinking that maybe he didn’t get tangled and run out of air,” said Jin. “Your thinking that the wood was put on top of him after he was dead?”

“I don’t know. I’d like to examine the possibility. Okay, everyone has their assignments. Jin and Neva, find out where in the woods the bones were discovered and work the scene. Deputy Singer pretty much messed it up, but look for more bones. After that, go to the quarry, take a look along the trail and get samples of submerged wood. Maybe the perp came from that direction and dropped something. David, you said you want to collect a bug or two from the deputy’s car?”

“Neva and I can stop by and do that too,” said Jin. “I’ll find out where they took his car.”

“Then David, you start on the evidence here,” said Diane. “I’m going to examine the bones in the garbage bag. Caver Doe will have to wait for a while.”

Diane headed for her lab, and David stayed and watched the computer screen as the AFIS software looked for a match between fingerprint from the quarry crime scene and fingerprints from the AFIS databases.

“Diane, wait,” David said just as she reached the door. “I have a possible match on our scuba diver—Scuba Doe.” She walked back to the computer and looked over his shoulder.

“Okay,” he said, “let me see if this really matches.” David examined each print, overlaid them, then separated them back out. “It’s only a six-point match, but it’s a place for the sheriff to start. It’s a Jake Stanley—arrested five years ago for vandalism. He would be twenty-two right now. I’ll give Sheriff Canfield a call.”

“This is good. We’re making progress.” Diane shrugged her shoulders. “Is it just me, or are we suddenly overwhelmed with work?”

David put a hand on the telephone. “It’s not just you. I’m having a hard time figuring out which sheriff to call for what crime scene. Are we in a full moon or something?”

“Or something,” she said as she walked back to the door.

“After I call Canfield, I’ll come over and brief you on the other investigations,” said David.

With all the dead bodies, Diane had momentarily forgotten about his investigations of Dr. Lymon and Alan Delacroix. “Like I said, too many things going on.”

Diane changed to lab clothes in her office. The last thing she wanted was the smell of death clinging to her good clothes. She put a disposable cap over her hair, donned a pair of latex gloves and went into the isolation room.

She cut the string and opened the garbage bag the deputy had delivered. An unpleasant aroma wafted out of it. She looked in, frowned and swore at Deputy Singer under her breath. Bones with black flesh clinging to them stuck out through a bag filled with leaves and other forest litter.

Diane pulled a long sheet of butcher paper off the roll, put it on the table and placed the garbage sack on it. She turned down the top of the sack, like rolling down a pair of socks. Several bugs scurried among the leaves.

The first bone she pulled from the jumble was a femur—a thigh bone. There was a fresh cut in the shaft. She would bet Deputy Singer had shoveled the bones up and deposited them in the bag. She swore at him again.

There was also another cut, shallower, a scratch partway down the bone. But that one was not fresh. Examination under her hand lens showed it not to be a continuous line. There were gouges, like hesitations or missteps, followed by slices. A knife, she thought. She forced herself to think of the bone, not the victim. Impossible, but she always tried.

The ilium of a pelvis peeked out from behind a clump of dirt and leaves. As she took it out of the bag, the other half hung by a thread of skin. She saw immediately that it was a female pelvis.

Removing the pelvis had uncovered the dome of the skull. She lifted it out with both hands and set it on the table. Dried skin held on to the lower jaw and clung to the cheeks, in the eye sockets, and on part of the skullcap. Several clumps of gray-white hair stuck to the skin on the skull. Enough of the top of the skull was exposed that she could see the sutures were almost gone. This was an old individual.

Other marks were visible where the bones of the face showed through the remnants of flesh—striations cut into the bone on the forehead, cheeks and chin, as though someone had sliced her face with a knife.

Diane dipped her hand in the sack, recovering bone after bone, placing them in position on the table. Even with the brief inspection of the bones as she laid them out, several charistics stood out. The bones were thin and brittle, exhibiting signs of arthritis and osteoporosis. In addition they had been damaged by animals—and sliced by a knife. The ends of the long bones showed the identifiable destructive pattern left by the gnawing of dogs. The shaft had been cut by something sharp, probably a knife. The ribs on each side, the femora, tibias, humeri, and radii and two cervical vertebrae all showed the same marks.

She caught a glimpse of a bit of pink fabric among the leaves in the bag. She gently moved the leaves and dirt away, uncovering a larger and larger piece. It was cotton, faded pink and stained by the body fluids from the decomposing corpse. The dress was thin and handmade and buttoned up the front with small white buttons. She hadn’t been a large woman at all. Diane put the remains of the dress in a paper evidence bag and labeled it.

David opened the door and came into the room, sporting a disposable cap, gloves and a glass container. “Thought I would help you with the insects. Good heavens,” he said, looking into the sack filled with litter. “What did he do, shovel the body in?”

“From some of the markings I’m seeing, yes, that is exactly what he did.”

“I called Sheriff Canfield. He was happy we were able to tentatively identify one of the quarry victims. I told him we will process the evidence as soon as we can.”

Diane nodded. “What did you find out about Dr. Lymon?”

“She has an alibi for the time of the graveside attack. I spoke with several of her geology graduate students. I didn’t find any hint that she has ever sexually harassed any other student. Most of the gossip was about her teaching methods. She isn’t well liked. In fact, Mike seems to be one of the few who got along with her. In her classes she’ll zero in on a particular student and verbally quiz them during the lecture. The more they don’t know, the more she focuses in on them. Geology has lost several students because of her.”

David stopped to scoop up several bugs and put them in his container. “
Dermestes maculatus
. Nice little scavengers,” he said.

“We need to be sure we get them all. I don’t want any infesting the museum colony of beetles,” said Diane, staring at the dark beetles running around in David’s jar.

“I’ll get them all. You know, there are a lot of them.” he said as he peeked into the bag. “And I’m seeing a lot of bug parts.”

“What do you mean?”

David shook his head. “I don’t know. It just looks like more beetles than usual, if you think about all the bugs left behind and the ones that scared the deputy.”

Diane pulled another bone out of the sack and held it in her hand. It was cleaner than the others, a long bone, a humerus, but not human.

“What is this?” She said out loud and put paper out on another table and set the bone on it. “I’ll get Sylvia Mercer in here to identify this. Go ahead with what you were saying about Lymon.”

“Not a lot more. The students were aware that Mike lost his assistantship, but no one knew why. They thought maybe it was because she was angry over his changing his dissertation research to crystallography, which is out of her field. But she apparently encouraged him and helped him pick someone in crystallography to replace her on his committee. That doesn’t sound like anger. I’m thinking maybe this harassment was a onetime thing, and her anger came later.” He stopped talking a moment and stared at the bones Diane was laying out on the table.

Diane turned to look at him. “You look like you have something else to say.”

“Just trying to think it out. From what I can find out, her husband’s leaving hit her hard. I think she wanted to get some self-esteem back and thought Mike would be receptive.”

“Because he worked for her?”

“Because she knew he was attracted to another older woman.”

“You mean me. Is there something I should know about that?”

David looked up at her, surprised. “About you? No. I’m just thinking out loud. You said she thought you and Mike were having an affair. Everyone knows you and Mike go caving and that you’re friends. Some even know Mike would have liked to go out with you. She probably thought that Mike would be a safe place for her pride to land. She was wrong, and that’s why she got so angry.”

Diane noticed that David was tiptoeing around calling her an older woman, like Dr. Lymon—they were about the same age. She smiled. “You may be right. I guess the question is, how angry was she? If she didn’t stab us, could she have gotten one of her students to do it?”

David leaned with his back against the wall and folded his arms. “I don’t think so. Not the ones I talked to. I didn’t find evidence of any students who liked her well enough to carry her briefcase, much less kill for her.”

“How did you get all this information, if I may ask?” said Diane, looking in the garbage bag again and finding a foot bone.

David grinned. “The students were pretty easy to talk to. I pretended to be a father checking out the department for his kid.”