Beverly Connor - One Grave Too Many

“I know it’s going to be a big task,” she said. “But I’m sure he made copies of the keys. From now on, I want you to work up a plan to coordinate the night security with the custodians. But get your paperwork done first. You want your paycheck to reflect your new job.”

“Sure will. I’ll get to everything right now. You want me to see about the faunal lab, too?”

“Tell me about the faunal lab.”

“We had someone try to break in. Bernie scared him off.”

“Bernie?” said Andie. “I’d have thought they would have scared him off.”

“Bernie’s not as wimpish as he looks. He’s just scared of the primate skeletons and the snakes.”

“You have any idea who it was?”

“He didn’t get a look at him. He knocked Bernie down and started to kick him. Bernie pulled his gun, and whoever it was ran off. Bernie said he was dressed in black and had a ski mask.”

“Was he white or black?”

“Bernie said he was white.”

“Did you call the police?”

“Sure. They took our statement and said they’d get back to us. Me and Bernie’s holding our breath. We were going to call you, and I. .” She hesitated. “We handled it, and you were already handling so much, I just thought I wouldn’t disturb your sleep since I was coming in to see you this morning anyway.”

“Looks like you and Bernie had everything under control. Call one of the temporary security companies and get some extra people for the night shift.”

“OK.”

“I’ve given you a lot of work for your first day as the new head of security.”

“You won’t be disappointed.” Chanell left smiling.

Andie stood in Diane’s office with her hands on her hips. “I feel as though there’s a lot of stuff going on in the museum that I don’t know about.”

“There’s stuff going on here that I don’t know,” said Diane. “But I’m going to find out. Send a message to all the departments telling them that no one is to be working alone. And if anyone wants me, give me a call on my cell.”

Diane ran up the stairs and stopped midway when a sharp pain shot through her lower back. It was acute enough to deliver a wave of nausea. “Shit,” she said and tried to remember if she’d been drinking enough liquids, or too much. Probably not enough rest. She waited until the pain subsided and continued up to the lab at a slower pace.

Korey was in his office on the phone. Barbara, one of his staff, came up as she entered.

“Korey told me to help you photograph the skeleton.”

“Good. It shouldn’t take too long.”

They went into the vault where Barbara or Korey had already set up the camera equipment on a long arm so it would reach over the bones.

“I heard someone tried to break in the faunal lab,” said Barbara. “What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure,” said Diane. “Security’s working on it.”

“We seem to be generating our own crime wave. Who’d’ve thunk it in a place like this?”

“It’s going to stop,” said Diane. “I believe some of it has to do with this guy here.”

They set up a shot of the shoulder girdle.

“You think someone’s looking for him? His murderer?”

“Maybe. I’ve just promoted Chanell to head of security, and I’m going to hire extra people. I don’t want anyone to work alone at night until this is solved.”

They photographed the entire skeleton, including close-ups of all the remarkable characteristics. As they worked their way around the bones, Diane explained the history of the skeleton and the steps they’d taken to discover its story.

“Cool stuff. You know, some museums have a forensic unit,” Barbara said.

“So I’ve been told,” said Diane.

She packed up the bones and labeled the box. Just for added security, she put the box in a large empty supply box, taped it up and stored it next to the excess supplies apparently ordered by Leonard Starns. She wrote the initials J. D. on the outside of the box.

When she left, Korey was still on the phone.

As she got back to her office, Sylvia Mercer darted through the closing door.

“Hi,” she said breathlessly. “Is there such a thing as a forensic zoologist?”

“A forensic zoologist? Is that what you’ve become?” Diane showed her faunal curator into her office. Sylvia sat down at the table under the Escher prints and began spreading out her papers. Diane pulled up a chair, sat down beside her and picked up one of the sheets of paper.

“This looks like a copy of the Abercrombie taxidermy records.”

“It is. I’ve been looking at the animals directly under and over the main part of the human skeleton. We have a Canis lupus directly above, and on that same level we have a Vulpes fulva and four Odocoileus virginianus . Below we have a Sus scrofa and two O. virginianus .”

“Wolf, fox, deer and pig?”

“Right. That was lucky, really lucky. It could have been nothing but O. virginianus above and below, and that wouldn’t have given us much to work with. I’ve been working with Whit Abercrombie on his father’s records. They’re a bit difficult to read.” She paused and looked over at Diane. “By the way, Whit’s a babe. I don’t like what he does for a living-the taxidermy stuff.” She shrugged. “But then again, I collect roadkill.”

“He’s also the county coroner.”

“There’s that too. You know he carves the taxidermy armatures himself from wood? He’s really an artist. He gets all the musculature beautifully. I told him it’s a shame to cover them up with the animal skins.”

“I didn’t know he carves. Sounds like you two had a good time.”

“We did, actually.” Sylvia sounded surprised. “Any-way, the wolf wasn’t a problem. They mounted only three in the past six years. Of the two most recent, one was mounted last winter and the other one just last spring. So, thinking that the one we found was the one mounted for the museum, we looked up the date it was mounted: June 6, 1998.”

“So we know the human bones were dumped no later than that date,” murmured Diane.

“Right. Now S. scrofa was a bit of a problem.”

“How’s that?”

“One, the skull was missing.”

“I understand that problem.”

“Yeah, Jonas said they’re still looking for your skull. I can see how that makes identification harder.”

“It’d certainly be nice to have it.”

“Another problem is that they mounted several pigs in the target years. Some were feral pigs shot by hunters, and some were pets.”

“People mount their pet pigs? People have pet pigs?”

“I found it hard to believe too. A couple just last week had their pet potbellied pig mounted. Whit said he and his dad have done several potbellies. Some were in our time frame, but, unfortunately, Luther recorded only pig or deer or whatever, the name of the client, the date, kind of mount and what he charged. He didn’t differentiate by genus and species and certainly not subspecies.” Sylvia seemed to think that it was amazing of Luther not to include that information. “And, of course, he didn’t include where he dumped the carcass.”

“So what did you do?”

“Went on a road trip with Whit.” She grinned. “First, I identified the subspecies of S. scrofa -the pig bones. I had to take them to the university’s faunal collection for that. We have a more complete range there for comparison. One of the things I’d like to do here is increase the collection of reference skeletons for the lab.”

“I think that’s a good idea.”

“From the bones we recovered, we identified our pig as a potbellied pig. So we went to visit all the people on the taxidermy list to look at their stuffed pigs to see which ones were potbellies. Interesting-of most of the pigs that were hunted, only the heads were mounted. The people with pets had the whole animal done. That should have given us a clue in the records, but we were having a good time and didn’t stop to make that deduction. Only two on the list had a stuffed potbellied pig. One was significantly larger than ours. The other one looked right. The date was March 1, 1998.” Sylvia had a look of triumph on her face.