Beverly Connor - Dead Secret

“We have the unknown fingerprint in the bug terrarium,” said Jin.

Diane looked at him for a moment, puzzled. “Oh, the break-in at the dermestarium on the university campus?”

“Yeah, that,” said Jin. “We got that one fingerprint inside the bug box that doesn’t match any of our known exemplars. But that could be a long shot. Lots of people come and go from a university lab. The print could have come from almost anyone.”

Diane looked at David. “I don’t suppose you can match the stolen bugs with the Flora Martin crime scene?”

David shook his head. “They’re all Dermestes maculatus, wild and domestic. I can’t tell the wild ones from the others. I don’t really know if the dermestids stolen from the university are the same ones found on Flora Martin’s remains-just that she had more beetles than are usually found with a body in the wild. And speaking of bodies and beetles, has anybody noticed a smell in the museum?” asked David. “Kind of bad.”

“I did,” said Diane.

“Me, too,” said Neva. “I think a couple of the dogs took a dump somewhere.”

“More like that snake crawled up somewhere and died,” said Jin.

Diane laughed. “That’s the first thing that came to mind to me too.”

“I just get a whiff and then it’s completely gone,” said David.

“I’ll have the custodial staff go through the place when this is over,” said Diane. “And I hope it’s over soon.” She looked at her watch.

“We have a bet going,” said Jin. “I say your suspicions about the museum break-in are wrong. David says you’re right-but he’s paranoid and doesn’t trust anybody. Neva’s with you, only because you have a good track record of being right. So I hope you’re wrong about Emery and I win a lot of money.”

“So do I, Jin,” said Diane. “Is that all the information we have on any of this? Have we exhausted all leads?”

“The sheriff brought diaries that belonged to Flora Martin and I took them to Korey,” said Jin. “He said it would take a while. They’re pretty bad off. Saturated with mud.”

“Speak of the devil,” said David. “Here he comes in dreadlocks.”

Korey came in carrying a folder, followed by Mike carrying several flat boxes.

“Anybody order pizza?” said Mike.

Korey and Mike pulled up chairs. Diane got everyone soft drinks from her refrigerator and they passed slices of pizza around the table.

“I ran your samples, Doc,” said Mike. Diane looked blank for a moment. “The ones Neva gave me. She said they’re from England.”

“The dirt samples, yes. What did you find out?”

“Sample one, the dirt from the cave, and sample two, the dirt from the bones, are the same. Sample three, the mineral deposits on the bones, is sodium chloride.”

“Salt?”

“Salt.”

“So the bones did come from the cave,” mused Diane.

“According to the dirt,” said Mike.

“I appreciate your analyzing them so quickly.”

“As a show of your appreciation, can I stay here tonight, Doc? Don’t get me wrong, David; I really like your condo, and it was good of you to let me stay there. But I’m going to get a concussion banging my head against the wall,” said Mike.

“MacGregor?” said Diane.

“I like Mac, I really do, but in smaller doses. When we were cleaning David’s kitchen, he sang ‘Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall’-all the way to the end. And then started over again.”

Neva collapsed into giggles with the others and patted him on the back. “Poor baby.”

“Okay, you can stay here,” said Diane.

“Oh, thank you, Doc. You don’t know how I appreciate it. Does your evidence tell you who’s been making the prank calls to us?”

“No.” Diane didn’t say she wasn’t sure the police were looking. She was suddenly filled with guilt. She hadn’t thought about the crank calls since she heard about them. “Did the police tap your phone?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“I’ll check into it.”

“Someone want to tell me what’s going on?” said Korey. “Why did you empty out the museum? Nobody believes we have a critical environmental system failing. I mean, what exactly would that be?”

“I’ll tell you about it tomorrow,” said Diane.

“Does it have something to do with what happened to you and Mike?”

“I don’t know.” She didn’t. They had not been able to match any of the evidence of the knifing or Neva’s break-in to the murders they were working on. Valentine and MacRae had a whole boxful of those surgeon’s gloves they used. Why would they have used another brand to break into Neva’s apartment?

“So it’s a maybe,” said Korey.

“Possibly, but that’s all I’m going to say right now. I know this is terribly inconvenient for you and all the curators.” Especially for botany, she thought. All in all, she had missed three readings on their experiment because of the search.

“I don’t mind the inconvenience.” He shrugged. “Is everything going to be all right?” Both Korey and Mike were looking intensely at her; both wanted reassurance.

“Yes,” said Diane. “That’s my job.”

Korey nodded and smiled. He set down his slice of pizza and grabbed up the folder he had laid on the desk behind him.

“I don’t know why you even bothered to build a crime lab. I can do everything in my conservation lab that you all can do.” He opened the folder and took out a piece of paper that looked like a photograph of an electrostatic copy of. . something.

Diane craned to see the page. “What is it?”

Korey held it to his chest out of her sight. His dreadlocks fell forward, shielding his face.

“All in good time. You know those magazines found in the submerged Plymouth?”

“Yes,” said Diane cautiously. “This had better not be Miss October, 1942.”

“Just wait,” Korey said, motioning with his hand. “Most of them were pretty much pulp. When we dried them, what we got was very thick handmade paper. . impossible to separate into pages.”

Jin looked disappointed.

“But,” continued Korey, “it was good practice for my technicians.”

“You got something, though?” said David.

“On one of the magazines that we could separate from the rest, there was a shape just under the cover, which was translucent by this time. It looked like a piece of paper-something I recognized-was stuck in the magazine. I used various lighting, even X-rayed the thing. That didn’t work, by the way. But light did, and by slicing the magazine paper off what was under it, I was able to bring out writing on the piece of paper inside the magazine.”

“You’re going to stretch this out, aren’t you?” said David.

“As long as I can,” said Korey.

He handed the photograph to Diane. She was audibly startled when she looked at the page.

“What is it?” said Jin.

“It’s a receipt,” said Diane. “From Cash or Casher General Store, made out to D. W. Russell for a carbide lantern, forty feet of rope, and two Moon Pies-three dollars and sixty cents.”

Neva’s eyes grew wide and she sucked in her breath. “You have got to be kidding.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” said David.

“Way to go, Korey.” Jin pounded the table with the flat of his hand. “You’re right: What do we need the crime lab for?”

“When I read the list,” said Korey, “it rang a bell, since I’d seen all of Caver Doe’s things. It was the Moon Pie wrappers that cinched it for me. You think maybe this D. W. Russell is Caver Doe?”

“The probability is high,” said Diane.

“Has to be,” said David. “Jewel Southwell and Dale Wayne Russell disappeared at the same time, supposedly ran off together. Here is a receipt made out to D. W. Russell in the car with Jewel Southwell for the very items we found with the body of Caver Doe, which we know to have been there since that time period. Caver Doe has to be Dale Wayne Russell.”