Beverly Connor - The Night Killer

“I’m all right,” she repeated, looking into his eyes. “Don’t worry about the way I look. I got caught out in a thunderstorm.”

“You look wonderful,” he said.

Frank didn’t let her go for a moment. Diane was inclined to hang on to him too. Feeling safe was like an elixir, an opiate; she could happily drown in the feeling. Reluctantly, she pulled away.

Izzy stared at the hood of her vehicle. “Did you have a wreck?”

Jin and David, just noticing the hood of the SUV, walked over and examined the huge dent.

“Sort of. Let’s get the boxes in first.” She knew they had a million questions, but it was such a long story, and her muscles were aching, and she wanted to be clean. God, she wanted to be clean.

They each took a box of projectile points and carried them to the second floor, where Jonas Briggs’ archaeology office was located. They stacked the boxes against the wall after Diane moved some of Jonas’ books and journals out of the way. When the last box was delivered from her vehicle, she sat down a moment in Jonas’ chair behind his desk and stared at the boxes, each one neatly labeled in Roy Barre’s hand.

“That place up there gets no cell service,” commented David. “We tried to call the Barres to find out where you were. Their landline was out of order.”

Diane broke into tears. She couldn’t help it. It just came out like water through a broken dam. She put her head down on her arms on Jonas’ desk and sobbed. Frank knelt by her side and put an arm around her shoulders. She didn’t mind Frank or David seeing her cry. They had witnessed her breaking down before. But she was embarrassed to show weakness in front of the others.

“Diane, what’s wrong?” Frank whispered.

She raised her head and sat up. “The Barres are dead,” she said. “The phone was out of order because their murderer cut the wire.”

Diane heard someone suck in a breath.

“Dead?” said Jin. “When?”

Diane stood up, drying her eyes with a Kleenex from Jonas’ desk. “I’ll tell you all about it in my office.”

She locked up Jonas’ office and walked downstairs and out to the parking lot and retrieved the poncho and knife from the SUV. Frank went with her, holding her hand as if she might bolt away at any moment.

She asked one of the security personnel to drive the SUV around the building and park it inside the fence on the crime lab side of the museum.

“I can take it to the barn,” he said, referring to the place where they stabled the fleet of museum vehicles.

“I want it processed for evidence,” said Diane.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

Diane stood a moment, watching it leave; then she and Frank walked back into the museum. David, Jin, Izzy, and Hector were in the lobby. They all walked silently together to the east wing, where her office was located.

So much walking. Diane was tired of walking. She’d been doing it all night. She wanted to sleep, but there was a lot to do before she could go home and rest.

Diane’s museum office suite had a shower. She had thought it an absurd luxury at first, but she had used it so many times that it was now a necessity. On more than one occasion she’d been grateful to have it. She was grateful now. Frank and her crew sat in the lounge part of her office while she showered and changed into the clean clothes she always kept on hand.

Diane ran the shower as hot as she dared and stood under the steaming water, letting it run over her shoulders and down her back. She would have stayed until the hot water ran out if they hadn’t been waiting on her. She scrubbed her hair and body until she was almost raw. When she got out, she put on jeans and a white T-shirt and combed her hair slicked back. She wiped the steam off the mirror and looked at herself. I look androgynous , she thought. The shower was supposed to refresh her, but she still felt so tired.

The meeting lounge attached to her office had a soft sofa and stuffed chairs, a large round oak table, a refrigerator, and a sink. It was a comfortable place, like a small apartment. Frank, Jin, David, Hector, and Izzy all sat in various chairs in the room. Hector and David sat at the table with Izzy. Jin and Frank were on the sofa. Someone, probably David, had handed out drinks from her refrigerator. While she was in the shower, Frank had mixed her a drink of milk, Carnation Instant Breakfast, protein powder, orange juice, and strawberry yogurt. It was one of her favorite power drinks. She took it and looked at him gratefully. He guided her to the stuffed chair and put her feet on the ottoman. Those at the table pulled their chairs around to face her. Diane took a few sips of the drink before she began telling them her story.

Diane told the story as if giving a report-clear, concise, dispassionate. She captured their attention from the start with the tree falling on the hood of her SUV and the appearance of the skeleton. Their jaws dropped an inch and they stared at her. Hector started to speak. Diane saw Jin giving him a warning glance, apparently sensing that she needed to get it out. Like her tears, the story needed to flow out of her in its own way and time.

She told them about Slick-though she hadn’t known his name at the time-trying to grab her; about her trek through the woods in the lightning and rain, chased by dogs-or at least trailed by dogs; about the mysterious stranger; about finding the Barres in their home, still in their nightwear, with their throats cut. She described how she and Deputy Conrad went back to the house on Massey Road, and finding that her things had been rifled through. She described meeting Slick Massey and Tammy Taylor. She also told them about the plastic skeleton they tried to pawn off as part of her “delusion.” She took sips of her drink during the story, and by the time the story was done, so was her power drink.

David let out a sigh and rubbed the dark fringe around his mainly bald head. “I don’t know where to start,” he said.

“Well, dang, Diane,” said Izzy, “I figured you were just out of gas somewhere and couldn’t get to a telephone.”

Diane smiled, glad for the levity. Oddly, no one had any questions immediately. Perhaps not odd at all. Like David, none of them knew quite where to start.

“So,” said Hector, “they pilfered your stuff, and he brought it back and threw it at your feet. What was that about?”

“They don’t want anyone investigating the skeleton, I suppose,” said Diane. “And it was also a thinly veiled threat. He was telling me he knows where to find me.”

“The bastard,” said David. “The low-life bastard.”

“Well, who was the skeleton?” asked Hector. He had removed his lab coat, revealing a bright blue-and-yellow Hawaiian shirt. He and his brother looked vaguely like Elvis-if one squinted one’s eyes-and sometimes they subtly dressed like him.

“How would she know that?” said Jin.

“I thought maybe someone was missing or something. It’s just really weird,” Hector said.

“You think this stranger you met in the woods might be the killer?” asked Frank.

“I don’t know.” Diane picked up the poncho and rolled-up rain hat on the table beside her.

“Jin, I want you to look this poncho over for any signs whatsoever of blood. The killer would have been drenched in it. It rained hard practically the whole time I was out, but the poncho has a drawstring and stitching.”

“Sure, boss,” said Jin.

She rose from the chair and went to a cabinet where she kept a supply of bags for storing evidence. Oddly enough, there were several times she had use for them here in the museum side. Sometimes it seemed as if the museum and the crime lab were slowly coalescing. She sat back down again and unwrapped the knife.