Beverly Connor - Dead Secret

“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.