Beverly Connor - One Grave Too Many

“Don’t touch the pages,” he said as she reached for them. Frank barely held them at the very edges. “I know your fingerprints are already on them, but there’s a chance we can get the perp’s prints if we’re careful-and lucky.”

The signature on the copy of the duplicate order the Bickford Museum had faxed to her matched exactly with the signature on the letter-as did the signatures on the copies of the other orders. They were all exactly the same.

“Tracing is the quick and dirty way to forge a name,” said Frank. “Amateurs often do it that way. And professionals, when discovery of the forgery after the fact won’t matter. It’s easy to detect in the original because it doesn’t have the smooth quality of a normal signature, among other things.”

“I really don’t know why anyone would go to the trouble,” said Diane, going back to her desk. “It’s an annoyance at worst, as long as we return the excess.”

“You mentioned that it might be to make you look bad. If you look bad enough, can you be replaced?”

“Yes, but bad enough means some kind of maleficence or gross incompetence. I don’t believe ordering too many supplies would qualify.”

“But the exhibits-that’s one hundred fifty thousand dollars’ worth. If they hadn’t called. .”

“That’s just it-they would have. These are casts made from fossil bones belonging to the Bickford. Making casts is a big deal. It’s not as if they have them sitting in a warehouse with a sign that says, ‘some assembly required. ’ They have to send their preparators here to work with mine. There’s a lot of planning and coordination involved.”

“Who would know those details?”

She lifted her arms slightly, sighed, and let them fall. “Everyone who works here. At least, all the collection managers and their assistants, and the administrative staff.”

“Just the senior staff?”

“Not necessarily. Many people working in lower-level positions are interested in a museum career. They make it a point to learn how we work.”

Frank thought for a moment. “The person we’re looking for is someone who doesn’t know museum procedures but has access to museum files.”

That leaves Donald out, Diane thought. He knows procedures very well.

“Whoever it is had to order things from purchase orders already on file. They wouldn’t know how to choose and order new things. Assuming this is not for personal gain, it must be a grudge of some sort. I’m thinking custodial staff, guards. Didn’t you say you have students from the university working here?”

“Yes. But why would they. .?”

“That’s what we’re going to try to find out. Who else works here but wouldn’t know much about your procedures?”

“We have new faculty from the university coming in as curators of the various collections. They haven’t had any orientation. But they just began arriving yesterday and today.”

Frank shuffled through some of the papers and shook his head. “It’s probably someone with a key. Your fax records show that the dinosaurs were ordered on Wednesday evening after normal working hours. Who was here?”

“Everybody. Most of us have been working late for weeks, getting ready for the contributors’ party.”

“Does security log in and log out personnel after hours?”

“Yes. But as I said, that’s almost everyone here.”

“Would your office have been open at that time?”

“Yes. Andie and I are in and out.”

“Do you know anyone who holds a grudge, or someone who might do what a disgruntled board member wants?”

“That might be anyone. And I wouldn’t necessarily know.”

Frank eyed her for a moment. “Don’t get discouraged. I believe I can find out who it is.”

“Do you think so? I hope so. It’s a pain in the butt right now.” Diane looked at him-his sad eyes, the grim set of his mouth. “I know this must seem trivial, in light of. . of your friends.”

Frank shook his head. “Trivial is restful. Besides, it’s a small way to repay you for your help.”

Diane took a folder from her desk with the note in it about the change in music at the party. “Could you look at this too? It may be related.”

Frank read the note without touching it and raised his eyebrows.

“Someone changed the play list,” said Diane. “I know that sounds like an odd thing to worry about, but I’d rather not explain right now.”

Frank took the folder and added it with the others. “You want it checked for prints?”

Diane nodded. “Thanks.”

Diane looked back down at the photographs on her desk that she’d been trying not to think about. She spread out the ones showing the bedroom where George and Louise Boone were killed.

Crime scenes are ugly. Whatever distinction or beauty a room once possessed is displaced by the look and smell of murdered bodies. Bodies. Victims. Not people anymore, not individuals, always something else. She reached for her professional objectivism that had threatened in past months to pack up and leave, and pulled it to the front of her brain.

The floor plan of the bedroom was laid out such that someone entering through the door would be facing the windows. The bed was immediately to the left. The door opened to the right, so that someone walking into the room would have been seen by George, who was on the side of the bed nearest the door, if he was awake.

It’s shocking how death takes away all signs of personality. The dead are hard to recognize, even by family members. People’s individual looks are due as much to their animation as to the shapes of their noses or the color of their eyes. Even a still photograph of a live face is more recognizable than a real face in death. And dead bodies never look anything but lifeless-not sleeping, not unconscious, just dead.

Diane couldn’t tell what George had looked like. His head and chest were covered with blood. He was on his back, his upper torso almost in the center of the bed, lying against his wife. His right arm was stretched out on the bed. The left arm lay across his middle. His legs were all but covered by bedclothes that were pulled halfway down from his body. Louise Boone lay under a blood-spattered sheet with her face buried in her husband’s shoulder. A thick mat of blood covered the left side of her head.

“You said they were shot.”

Frank looked up from the papers. “That’s what I was told at the scene. What are you saying?”

“That I need to look at the crime scene.”

Diane started at a sudden knock on Andie’s office door. “Dr. Fallon?”

Not Andie. But the voice through the closed door sounded familiar. Diane lay a piece of paper over the pictures.

“Yes?”

The door opened and the first and second violinists from the string quartet walked in, looking very different in their pantsuits than they had in the gowns they had worn at the reception. Melissa’s shoulder-length locks were now trimmed short. The hairstyle was becoming on her well-shaped head.

“Alix, Melissa. What can I do for you?” asked Diane.

They glanced at Frank, who rose and complimented their music.

“Sorry to disturb you, but there’s no one in the office,” Alix said, indicating Andie’s office.

“I’m sure Andie will be back shortly. Can I help you?”

They were silent for just a beat, glancing at each other before Alix spoke. “We just wanted to let you know we’ve been hired to assist the tour guides. We were told we need to fill out some papers.”

“Ms. Fielding also asked us to bring you this.”

Melissa’s sleeve slid up a fraction as she stretched her arm to hand a file folder to Diane. Diane noticed bruises on her forearm. She made a mental note to call Laura, and as quickly dismissed her concern about the bruises as probably nothing, and none of her business.