Beverly Connor - One Grave Too Many

“There are other alternatives for the museum. Do you realize how many jobs are at stake?”

“No, and neither do you. Not only are the other alternatives for the museum inadequate, but they will take it out of the county. Many of the current employees won’t be able to move with it. The county will not benefit from any of the tourism the museum brings or the taxes generated. What jobs would come our way from the sale of the museum land is merely speculation. What we have is solid.”

“There are things about this you don’t know.”

Diane sighed-that old shoe. “Yes, there are, and it would be foolish of me to make decisions of the magnitude that you are suggesting until I have all the facts.”

“I have learned it’s impossible to reason with a person who thinks she has all the answers. Let me just say this-there’s a lot of money involved, a lot. Right now, sitting up in your ivory tower, you seem to think you’re invincible, but you aren’t. There are ways to unseat you, despite what you believe, and when you fall, it will be hard.”

Diane set the pencil down and leaned forward. “If all else fails, try to scare me? Mr. Sutton, I have been threatened by men who will go to far greater lengths to obtain my cooperation than you are even willing to think about. You’re not scary.” She stood up. “I think it’s time this meeting ended.”

Mayor Sutton stood, looking for a moment as if he were searching for something that would be the last word. However, he turned on his heels and walked out the door. Diane watched him through the open office door as he headed for the elevators and punched the DOWN button over and over.

When Jonas Briggs came in, Diane was still standing behind the desk, scowling. She couldn’t shake the notion that had taken hold of her, that there was another, hidden piece to this. Despite the trite old excuse politicians and bureaucrats were wont to drag out about there being things unknown to mere plebes, this time she believed there were.

“I have to hand it to you,” said Jonas Briggs. “I thought I was good at making him red faced, but you’re so much better than me. I’ve never seen him quite so agitated.”

Diane turned her attention to Briggs and smiled. “Thanks for letting me use your office.”

“It’s only my office at your discretion.” He made an elaborate bow. “While you’re here, I’ve got an exhibit idea I’d like to talk to you about.” He sat down in the recently vacated chair. Diane sat back down behind his desk. “I don’t know if you’ve heard about the archaeological excavations in West Africa at the chimp nut-cracking site.”

Chimp nut-cracking site? It sounded like a lampooning of a Christmas musical. “This is a joke, right?”

“No. Since Jane Goodall, we’ve known that chimpanzees use tools. Well, a primatologist and an archaeologist got the perfectly reasonable idea that an excavation of an area where they were seen carrying out that activity might yield some interesting information. So far they have excavated at least six wooden anvils and debitage-waste flakes-from pounding their hammers to crack nuts. There’s a remarkable resemblance to stone waste flakes found at some early human sites. It’s all quite fascinating.”

“And you want to do an exhibit on-what did Andie call it? — ape archaeology?”

“Not exactly. See that painting?” He pointed to the colorful painting hanging over the chessboard. “Do you know who did that?”

Diane shook her head. “I’m not very well versed in modern art.”

Briggs beamed at her. “But do you like it? You see it as art?”

“Yes, I do.”

“It was painted by Ruby.”

“I’m not familiar with modern painters, either.”

“Ruby was an elephant housed in the Phoenix zoo.”

“An elephant?” Diane stared at the painting for a moment. “I think I have heard of elephants that are trained to paint.”

“Ah, but are they trained? Some animal behaviorists say so, but Ruby’s handler gave her a brush and paint because she saw her doodling in the sand with her trunk. If we see a child doodling in the sand and give him crayons, is that training or nurturing a talent?”

“Where are you going with this?”

“Did you know that elephants play music? Have you heard of the Thai Elephant Orchestra?”

“Actually, I have their CD. However, I do have a hard time wrapping my brain around the idea that it’s the elephants and not their handlers that are composing the music.”

“What I’m suggesting is an exhibit designed to look at animals in a little different way than a collection of instinctive behaviors. Making the familiar strange and the strange familiar, if I may paraphrase T. S. Eliot. That makes good poetry, good anthropology, and good museums.”

Diane’s face turned up in a grin. “I think I like that idea. Go ahead and start working on it. Discuss it with the exhibition planner and designer-she’s up on the third floor. Let me see what you come up with.”

Briggs’s head bobbed up and down happily. “I’ll do that. I haven’t been up to the third floor yet. Thanks for listening to an old man. I’m happy to have a home here.”

“I had a hard time getting the archaeology department to send anyone,” said Diane.

Jonas Briggs studied the subtle leaf pattern woven into his bronze-colored carpet. “A little bit of snobbery, I’m afraid.”

“Snobbery?”

“I probably shouldn’t say anything, but hell, it’s never stopped me before. The physical anthropologist has some issues with your appointment here.”

“I don’t even know him. What issues could he possibly have?”

“My dear, I see you are unfamiliar with the subtle workings of the academic mind. You’re a forensic specialist. You don’t do research, you apply research, which means you are a mere technician of the art of studying bones. And thereby have no real qualifications for a position of this kind.”

“I see.”

“Willard quite put everyone off, then Julie decided she liked the idea of an extra office. Of course, later, she got a job out of state. They weren’t going to replace her until I said I would like to come. They jumped at that, so here I am. They were glad to get rid of an emeritus faculty member. For all their love of old things, they aren’t much fond of old faculty.”

“I rather think the geology department had the same feelings.” Diane’s eyes sparkled in amusement.

“Well, we’ll just have fun without them.”

Diane rose and headed for the door. “You play chess, I see.” She nodded in the direction of the chessboard.

“A little. I’m not very good, but I was hoping I could con somebody into a game with me now and then.”

She walked over to the board and moved the white pawn to king four square before she went out the door.

By the time Diane got to the lab, the police were ready to leave. From the frowns on everyone’s faces, they hadn’t given the conservation team much satisfaction.

Izzy Wallace turned to Diane. “Not a lot we can do, really. Sort of a nonstarter. Got in with a key, didn’t take anything, not much messed up, really.” He glanced over at one of the assistants and back to Diane. “No use in taking any prints. There’s not a lot we can do with them. It was probably someone who works here, and their prints would be here anyway.”

Diane folded her arms and looked at him a moment, wondering if he had anything to do with the mayor’s misinformation. “That’s all right, Officer Wallace. We didn’t expect a lot, but we did want it on record in case it happens again and they do take something.”

“We’re real sorry, ma’am,” said the other policeman, “but there’s nothing to be gained by pursuing this. The DA would just drop it.”