Beverly Connor - One Grave Too Many

“Couldn’t you just skip it?”

“Not this one.”

“I didn’t realize being a museum director was so demanding.”

Diane laughed, and it hurt.

When they pulled up in front of the museum she was out almost as soon as he stopped.

“Take it easy, Doc,” said Mike.

“I’ll be fine. Thanks for the ride.”

She went straight to her office. Jonas was with Andie. He was writing her a note.

“What are you doing out?” he asked.

“Very long story.” She turned to Andie. “I’ll bet Donald has an advance copy of Grayson’s figures, and I want to see them. Go to his office and tell him you’re delivering a message from me, but don’t tell him I’m here in the museum.”

“Sure.”

“Tell him it’s time for him to choose whose side he’s on.”

Diane turned to Jonas. “Anything new?”

“Yes. I have something I need to show you. I’m not certain, but it may be important.”

“Let’s go to your office. I want to hide out for a while.”

“Not only do I sense a long story, but an unusual one.”

“Andie, have you heard from Korey?” asked Diane as she was leaving.

“No. You want me to call him for you?”

“When you find him, send him to Jonas’ office.”

Diane led Jonas from Andie’s office through a private door into the Pleistocene room, across the mammal exhibit to the set of elevators that ran up the middle of the museum and opened at Jonas’ office. She managed to traverse the whole area without being seen.

“Who knew this job would call for this much stealth?” said Jonas.

“I know this must seem very bizarre.”

“Yes. Why are you hiding from your staff?” Jonas pulled out a chair, one of the comfortable stuffed ones at the chess table, for Diane, and he took the other one. “Of course, I’ve known a department head or two who’ve hidden out from the faculty.”

“We’re having a board meeting.”

“Ah. They must be like our faculty meetings.”

Diane managed a laugh. “This involves the man who’s been after me to move the museum. I don’t want him to know I’m here until it’s time for the meeting. He thinks I’m in the hospital. We’re at the endgame.”

“I see. Who’s going to win?”

“We’ll see. What do you have to show me?”

He handed her an arrowhead. “Do you remember Rick finding this?”

“At the pit?” Diane thought a minute. “Yes, I remember. They all thought it was rather ironic.”

“He didn’t notice when he picked it up, but after he cleaned it he found a number on it.”

Diane looked at him, not understanding the significance.

“It’s been cataloged. It has provenience,” he said.

“You’re going to have to spell it out for me.” She paused. “We know where it came from. Oh, if it happens to have belonged to the perp or the victim, we know where he got it.”

“That’s our thinking. Rick didn’t notice the number at first. Someone’s tried to scratch it off, which means it’s probably stolen. Makes sense-it’s a nice stemmed point. I’d say Laurentian, from around New York, but I’m not sure. I thought we could look at the number through the microscope.”

They took the arrowhead to his workroom, where he had a dissecting microscope sitting in the corner. Diane looked at the table covered with potsherds and at his small amount of space.

“You need a better lab, don’t you?”

“This is fine for my needs. As I understand it, this is the largest office space in the building.”

“Still, if you ever need more room. .” She put the dark gray chert point on the stage and looked at a strip of partially scratched-off white paint with fine writing on it in black ink. “I see a one and a nine-and what looks like a B or an E.”

“Nineteen. That’s Massachusetts.” He went into his office and came back with a book. “The possibilities are Barnstable, Essex, Berkshire and Bristol.”

“What are you looking at?” asked Diane.

“A map of Massachusetts-these are counties that begin with B and E. Do you have any clue what the second letter might be? The county designations are like the postal abbreviations for states-GA for Georgia, TN for Tennessee. Same principle. The second letter might be a clue as to which county in Massachusetts.”

“No. It’s gone.”

“There should be a third set of numbers after the letters. They reflect the site number within the state.”

“Maybe the first digit is a. . could be a zero, or maybe a nine or an eight. It could possibly even be a two or a three. Only the portion between the cap line and the X line are there.”

“Which means?” he asked.

“The bottom of the number is missing. The second number is a four, I think. There aren’t any more on that line.”

“There’s another row?” Jonas said. “That may be an artifact number. Can you read it?”

“No. It’s just white paint now. They were successful in scratching it off.”

“I’d vote for zero or three on the first digit. I don’t think Massachusetts has that many sites, but I may be wrong. I’ll make some calls, if you like.”

“That would be good. Thanks for doing this.”

“Because the site is in Massachusetts, doesn’t mean the person got the point from there. University of Arizona, for example, could have excavated the site and stored the artifacts there. But I’ll start with the Massachusetts state archaeologist and see if he’ll fax me a list of their sites and site numbers.”

Jonas went into his office to make his calls. Diane stayed in his workroom and called Frank’s partner, Ben Florian, on her cell phone. He picked up his phone immediately.

“Hi,” he said. “I got your message about the missing persons query and passed it along immediately to the police in Rosewood.”

“What do you mean?” Diane had a sinking feeling.

“My boss thought it would be better if Rosewood handled sending out the query. It’s not an official case for us, and he likes to maintain good relations with the surrounding jurisdictions.”

“They won’t do anything with it.”

“Sure they will. . ” He hesitated.

“No, they won’t. They’ll sit on it. That’s why Frank was doing it himself. They have their theory of the crime and that’s it for them. Besides, the skeleton wasn’t found in the city of Rosewood’s jurisdiction, but in the county under Sheriff Bruce Canfield’s jurisdiction. They don’t like him either, so they’ll have given it to some secretary and told her to put it on the bottom of her to-do list. The sheriff won’t get it probably for a few months.”

The other end of the line was quiet for several long moments. “I’m real sorry, I didn’t know.”

Suddenly Diane wanted to cry. She bit her lower lip and tried to keep her voice from quavering.

“We’ve only lost a couple of days,” she said. She told him about the artifact number she and Jonas were trying to translate. Trying to express as clearly as she understood it what the site number meant. “I’m going to call some of the Massachusetts universities and ask if they’ve had any students go missing in the past five years. I’ll give Sheriff Canfield the information too, so he can send out a query.” Diane wondered if she sounded bitter-at that moment her voice reminded her of her mother’s “well, if you can’t do it, I’ll have to do it myself” voice.

“I’ll call a few people and see if I can hurry the process along,” said Ben. “How’s Frank doing?”

“Getting better. We have rooms across the hall from each other.”

“You’re in the hospital too?”

“I was.” She told him about her kidnaping and the desire of the kidnapers to get their hands on the remains. “I’ve got out to go to a board meeting, but I had to promise the doctor I’d come back.”