Beverly Connor - Dead Past

“In cold blood, got it.” Diane replaced the receiver.

In a few minutes she heard Andie come into her office. Diane rose and opened the adjoining door.

“Andie, we’re going to be getting some harassing phone calls today from Patrice Stanton.”

“Can’t the woman be stopped? Isn’t there anything we can do?” asked Andie.

“Yes, there is. I know she is suffering and is trying to vent her anger, but we have to exercise caution and protect the museum from whatever imprudent thing she might do.”

“So, what should I do?”

“I’ll have Chanell make necessary security arrangements. If you receive any calls from her, field them as best you can. Keep a log and a brief summary of them and notify Chanell. Check discreetly with the heads of the museum departments; instruct them to let me know immediately if any of them receive abusive calls from her, and I’ll have our attorneys get a restraining order against her.”

“OK, will do.”

Diane walked to the office of Chanell Napier, her chief of museum Security. She brought Chanell up to date on the situation, including calls at Diane’s home and the vandalizing of the museum car.

“I feel sorry for the woman,” said Chanell, “but she better get a grip on herself. I can record all the calls coming into the Director’s Office in the event that we take legal action. My people will have that set up within the hour. If she’s already been arrested once, I can get a mug shot of her and provide all of my security people with her picture. I think we better keep her off museum property until this whole thing is cleared up, don’t you?”

“All those sound like sensible precautions, Chanell. Thank you.”

“You don’t need to thank me, Dr. Fallon. You know I take the protection of you and this museum seriously. We’re not going to have any more of the kind of thing that’s happened around here in the past. We’re going to stop trouble at the door.”

Diane informed Andy of the security precautions being put into place, then returned to her office, her paperwork, and her e-mail-thankfully, Patrice hadn’t thought of e-mail yet. With any luck, perhaps she would be computer illiterate. Diane called the hospital and asked about Darcy Kincaid. The nurses station asked her for the family code word that would allow them to give out the information.

“Golden,” said Diane, looking at the note on her desk from the Kincaids.

“She’s out of her coma and drifting in and out of consciousness. Her condition has been upgraded from critical to serious.”

“Thank you,” said Diane. She went to the door between their offices and told Andie.

“That’s good, isn’t it?” said Andie “Yes, it is. I’m going to my other office,” she said. “If there are any problems, give me a call.”

Andy, clearly unnerved by the situation, asked, “Is there anything else we can do about Patrice Stanton?”

“I can find out who killed her son,” replied Diane.

Diane left her east-wing office and took the less visible route across the Pleistocene room, through the mammal room, and to the bank of elevators near the restaurant. Fortunately, she didn’t meet Patrice. She felt silly when she got on the elevator and just a little paranoid. She got off in front of the exhibit preparation room-where Darcy worked. She went in and updated Darcy’s coworkers on her condition.

From there she went to the crime lab. She hoped that Neva and Jin had found something that would lead them to Blake’s killer. Patrice’s harassment had just started, but Diane was already sick of it. As she passed the lounge, she ran into Madge Stewart, one of the museum board members, on her way out.

Madge was a small woman, several inches shorter than Diane. Her springy gray hair surrounded her head like a messy halo. She was quite a busybody, and Diane just knew she was in for an interesting run-in.

“I was just looking for you, Diane,” she said.

“Hello, Madge. Did you try my office?”

“Oh, I just came in here to get a Coke and some peanuts.” She held them up for Diane to see.

“What did you need to see me about?”

“I got this strange call. Some woman said you killed her son. Did you?”

“No, Madge, I didn’t kill her son. If I did, I’d be under arrest, wouldn’t I?”

“Well, I thought it might have been in the line of duty, that kind of thing.” She cast a furtive glance toward the crime lab just a few feet away. Many in the museum referred to the top floor of the west wing as the dark side. Apparently Madge did, too.

“No, Madge, I had nothing to do with his death.”

“Why does his mother think you did?” Madge made it sound like an accusation. It probably was. Her small dark eyes bore into Diane like she was looking for any kind of deception.

Because she’s nuts, thought Diane. Her words were kinder. “This just happened to her son last night. She’s in deep grief.”

“How did you hear about it?” said Madge.

From the look on her face, Diane could see that she thought she had caught Diane in a slip of the tongue. If you didn’t kill him, then how did you know when he died? — she knew Madge was dying to say.

“I was working another crime scene when the detective in charge got the call,” said Diane. Madge looked disappointed and Diane wanted to laugh.

“You know, if you would get rid of that crime scene stuff, this wouldn’t happen,” said Madge.

“Madge, the crime lab didn’t have anything to do with his death. Now excuse me, I need to go.”

Diane walked across the dinosaur overlook and into the hallway that represented the border between the museum and its dark side.

“OK, I need to know who killed the Stanton kid,” Diane said as she came into the crime lab.

David looked up at her from his computer, Jin from his microscope; Neva was gone-processing her car, she hoped. However she saw a drawing she had been doing that looked like a picture of the back of a man. The Cipriano case, Diane guessed. She wondered about the usefulness of back view, but who knows? Someone may have seen him hanging around.

“Garnett said Stanton is a priority?” asked David. “Because they’re rich, I’ll bet. You know, just because Joana Cipriano’s not wealthy…”

“Garnett hasn’t said anything,” interrupted Diane. “I have.” She explained about Patrice Stanton and Patrice’s new goal in life.

“The woman who attacked you at the hospital?” asked Jin. “Nervy.”

“The woman is a bottomless well of nerve,” said Diane, “She’s already driving me crazy and she hasn’t even gotten started. I want her off my back. In particular, off the museum’s back. Tell me what you found.”

“We aren’t supposed to talk with you about it,” said Jin. “Garnett told us not to. But I will if you ask me.”

“No, I won’t ask you. He’s just protecting the evidence,” she said.

Too bad he didn’t do a better job protecting the evidence of the explosion, she thought.

“Did he tell you not to tell David?” asked Diane.

“No, he didn’t,” said Jin.

“Good. Tell David. I’ll be finishing my reports on the explosion remains. Have any of the DNA analyses come back?”

“No,” he said. “It’ll be a while. Now, if we were doing it…”

“I know,” said Diane. “We need our own lab. Find me Blake’s killer and I’ll go to the mat with Garnett for a DNA lab.”

Jin looked at her wide-eyed. “You serious, Boss?”

“Yes.”

Jin rubbed his hands together. “OK, David. Let’s do it,” said Jin.

“You are serious, aren’t you?” said David.

“I am,” Diane said.

Diane retreated to her osteology lab and began checking over all the forensic reports and filing them away in the vault with the pieces of bone.