Beverly Connor - One Grave Too Many

She looked at the gentle curve in the femora. Blacks tend to have straight femora; other races have a slight curve to them. She punched up the measurements in her computer and ran ratios through her program. She knew what they would reveal, but she always liked to check her conclusions against her math. As she thought, the race was probably white.

Comparing the length of his long bones with the chart for white males, she estimated his height to be six feet, two inches. Before she left the vault, her gaze lingered on the skeleton-tall, avid sports player, young, five years dead. She turned and went out, thinking about the parents he had somewhere.

The lab was warm compared to the vault storage room. She pulled off her gloves and washed her hands. Korey’s staff was hard at work.

“Any news on the fingerprints?” they asked.

“Nothing yet.” Actually, they were still in her office drawer waiting. . waiting for her to give to Frank.

Korey was in his office on the phone. She poked her head in and thanked him for the use of the storage area. “I’m going to leave the bones out for a while. If you have time later, would you help me photograph them?”

He put his hand over the receiver and nodded. “Sure thing. Let me know.”

On her way to the stairs she met Mike Seger. “Mike,” she said, “I owe you an apology.”

He looked at her for a moment before he spoke. “Thanks. The whole thing’s strange.”

“Melissa’s furious with me at the moment.”

“Me too,” he said. “But I can’t figure out why. I don’t understand it. It’s too weird for me. I just can’t hack it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s a relief, really. You know, I like her music. I wish. .” He shrugged, letting the sentence go. “I convinced Dr. Lymon of the virtues of her office space.”

“I’m happy about that.”

“She’s not going to be here that much anyway.” He paused. “I suppose I shouldn’t have said that.”

“She does have to be here a specific number of hours, and a curator does have responsibilities that go along with the title, but we’ll see how it works out. I’m sure the collection manager will let me know if he feels put-upon.”

When Diane got to her office, she found Frank’s partner sitting in Andie’s office, his legs crossed, reading a copy of Museum News . He stood up when she entered.

“This is Ben Florian,” said Andie.

“We met briefly at the hospital.” She opened her door and motioned him in.

He followed her, holding a cup of coffee in a museum mug.

“Good to see you again,” she said. “I was going to call you. I’m glad you came by.”

He stood in the middle of the room and looked around. “Nice office.”

“Thank you. Have a seat.” Diane sat down behind her desk. “I just saw Frank this morning. I guess you know he had a setback, but he’s doing well.” She kept telling everyone he’s doing well-it was as if it was only her positive declaration that was keeping him alive.

He frowned. “I hadn’t heard. What happened?”

“Infection.”

“Oh, that’s bad. My old sergeant got an infection after open-heart surgery. Wouldn’t heal. They ended up putting sugar in the wound and it finally healed up. Of course, that was a long time ago. I’m sure they have more modern methods now. Like I said at the hospital, Frank’s tough.”

“His brother tells me he’s responding well to antibiotics.”

As she said it, she realized that was not what he said at all. In fact, he hadn’t really told her anything-she simply kept pulling positive notes from what he said. The thought alarmed her.

“I’m sure he’s right.” He must have seen the expression on her face.

Ben looked to be about ten or fifteen years older than Frank. He wore the same gray suit he had worn at the hospital. He ran a hand over his short brown hair and pulled out a small notebook and a sheaf of papers from a pocket inside his coat.

“I suppose this is a smoke-free building.”

“Yes,” said Diane. “Museums have to be.”

He nodded. “I have the results from some tests Frank wanted processed.” He handed the papers to her.

They were the test results from the blood analysis and the analysis of the plastic she’d found near Jay Boone. The plastic had powder residue, as she suspected.

“Thanks. This helps.”

“Good. I have some information, too. Frank was checking on some falsified documents for you. He asked me to pass along what he discovered.” Ben flipped open the notebook. “He was checking the backgrounds of some of your employees. One name popped out and he circled it. You have an employee named Leonard Starns?”

“Yes. He’s one of the night security guards.”

“His youngest son, Danny Starns, is an agent in the Mark Grayson Real Estate Agency. Are you familiar with them?”

“Yes,” said Diane, “I am. Grayson is one of my chief detractors.”

“That may be something, then. He said you wanted to handle this in-house.”

“I do. Nothing has actually been stolen. But duplicates of some very expensive exhibits were ordered illegally. I appreciate the information. I hope you didn’t have to drive all the way from Atlanta just for this.”

“No, I thought I’d try to see Frank this afternoon. I thought maybe he’d be in a private room by now.” Ben put the notebook back in his pocket. “Frank said you might have some fingerprints or something?”

Diane took out the envelope of photographs and the fingerprint card from the conservation lab break-in.

“One of the labs was broken into a few days ago. They upset a lot of supplies and emptied drawers, but nothing was stolen, so the police here really can’t do much. I took some fingerprints. I was wondering if you could run them for me.” She handed him the envelope.

“That shouldn’t be a problem. Sounds to me like you have some vandals running around the place. I can’t stand people whose only mission in life is to tear up other people’s stuff. It’s as bad as stealing. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Yes. This concerns Frank and what happened to him.” Diane laid out the whole story of the skeleton, the Boones, the attack on her and then Frank.

“Yes, you mentioned in the hospital that you were attacked, or someone did. You think all this is related?”

“Either that or a lot of coincidences.”

“Yeah, too many coincidences.”

“I’ve analyzed the skeletal remains, and this is what I came up with.” She took her laptop and plugged it into its docking station, called up her report and printed it out.

She cast a glance at the laptop Kenneth had sent, which was sitting on the table. She hadn’t even tried it yet. In fact, she’d forgotten that Dylan Houser was bringing it over. It must have been brought when she’d been out, which lately was entirely too much. She should at least give it a try. Her absence from the museum was weighing her down.

The page came out of the printer, and Diane handed it to Ben.

“This is what we think we know about the remains. I make it clear in the report what’s observation and what’s simply possibilities.”

Ben read the report and whistled. “This seems pretty thorough to me. Didn’t know you could get this much stuff from bones.”

“We haven’t found the skull yet, unfortunately. That could tell us a lot more.”

“Frank said you’re a forensic anthropologist. I didn’t know museums had them.”

“Many have forensic units. Museums are often repositories of skeletal collections, so a lot of research goes on in them. I’d like to try to match up this information with a missing person.”

“I’ll put it out. Not every place in the country, or even Georgia, will see it right away, but who knows? We might get lucky.”