Beverly Connor - The Night Killer

Korey Jordan, her head conservator, was talking to one of the groups, with a docent standing beside him. His long dreadlocks were pulled back in a low ponytail that swung when he turned his head. He was probably explaining what they did to conserve some of the specimens. Visitors often enjoyed talking to the curators themselves, or in this case the conservator.

Diane saw one of the docents glance over at her and watched a look of alarm spread over her face. Diane realized that Sheriff Conrad had been in the museum before. They’d had some visitors who were in church groups take exception to the ages of the dinosaurs and the rocks. On one occasion a woman even yelled at the docent who was giving them the tour.

The sheriff, however, didn’t appear to recognize the docent. In fact, Diane thought he looked scared. Not of any particular person, certainly not of Diane. And it wasn’t that he had fright plastered on his face. But there was a subtle look of dread that changed his appearance from the overconfident man she had just had in her office.

She frowned and looked around at the people going and coming, using cell phones, iPods. Some had laptops tucked under their arms. Some of the children held models of dinosaurs they had gotten from the museum shop. There was also a lot of noise. The lobby was usually noisier than the rest of the building. People tended to quiet down near the exhibits.

With a flash of insight, Diane wondered if what he was afraid of was the world turning into something he didn’t understand. Here, amid all the colors of clothes and skin tones, amid the different accents and appearances, it was the opposite of the black-and-white picture of the angels and devils. And quite a different place from his kingdom in Rendell County.

“Lot of chaos,” he muttered.

“You should be here on a busy day,” said Diane, as they walked to the elevator. She decided she would take him to the third floor from this side of the building and walk across the third-floor overlook, which gave a wonderful view of the dinosaurs.

The overlook was crowded with visitors looking down at the dinosaur skeletons. Sheriff Conrad seemed more interested in looking at the visitors than at the giant beasts. But for several moments he did look at one of the huge pterodactyls hanging at eye level. Diane wondered what he made of it all. After a moment he was ready to go and followed Diane across the overlook in the direction of the crime lab.

He made no comment on anything he had seen on their trek through the museum. He was apparently a man with little curiosity. Or perhaps his curiosity was reserved for specific things, like sizing up the people who came into his sphere of influence.

Beyond the overlook they went through a doorway and stepped into a hallway. One end housed a security guard in a room behind a glass partition. He waved at Diane as she keyed in her access and entered the lab.

The crime lab was a maze of metal-and-glass-walled workspaces that were sparkling clean. Inside the workspaces were all kinds of wonderful equipment. At least, Diane thought it was wonderful. She wasn’t sure Sheriff Conrad was going to be impressed with it.

She was pretty much on the mark about his interest. He observed without comment each piece of equipment Diane showed him. He listened politely as she explained how it worked. Normally, things like gas chromatography, spectral analysis, and electrostatic detection impressed visitors. He seemed indifferent. In the main, he looked as if he were visiting another planet.

“We also have many national and international databases,” said Diane. AFIS for fingerprint identification, CODIS for DNA identification, of course. We also have databases for bullet casings, tire treads, fibers, glitter, shoe prints, cigarette butts, paint, hair, feathers, buttons, soil. . ” She trailed off, feeling she had lost his attention. She didn’t mention the many computer programs that matched, categorized, imaged, mapped, and correlated all those database items.

“Find all this useful, do you?” he said at last.

“Extremely,” said Diane. “Data from evidence analysis is what physically links the criminal to the crime. Everyone leaves something behind or takes something away from a crime scene.”

“Can’t replace good old-fashioned talking to people, sizing them up,” he said.

“It’s not meant as a replacement,” said Diane. “Interviewing and sizing up bring to bear your knowledge, your years of experience, and your judgment toward the solution of a crime. Data from analysis of physical evidence provides the hard proof that the law requires. It’s our job here to extract all the information that evidence can give us.”

She saw David working in one of the cubicles on the other side of the room. He glanced at her and looked back down at whatever he was working on.

Diane led the sheriff to the forensic anthropology lab, a large white-walled room with shiny tables, sinks, microscopes, measuring devices, and Fred and Ethel, the male and female lab skeletons standing in the corner. Whereas the crime lab was affiliated with the city of Rosewood, the osteology lab belonged to the museum. It was completely her domain.

“What do you do here?” he asked, looking at the metal table. He touched it on the edge and gave it a slight shake, then took his hand away.

“I’m a forensic anthropologist. I analyze skeletal remains in this room,” she said.

He raised his eyebrows. “How many jobs you got?” he asked.

“Three, you could say. I’m director of the museum, director of the crime lab, and I’m a forensic anthropologist. I’m sent skeletal remains from all over the world and I try to get as much information as I can about the people they were,” she said.

“How’s that work out, having so many jobs?” he asked, looking around the room, his gaze resting on Fred and Ethel.

“I work a lot. But I also have a lot of people working for me,” she said.

“You do a good job at all of them?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

For the first time he almost smiled.

Diane led him to her office, a room in the corner of the lab. This office was smaller than the one in the museum-and more stark. The walls were painted a pale off-white color. The floor was made of green slate. The furniture was spare and unimaginative-a dark walnut desk, matching filing cabinets, a burgundy leather couch and matching chair, and a watercolor of a wolf on the wall. That was it. As Diane sat behind her desk, she directed him to the stuffed chair nearby.

“You know bones?” he said, sitting down in the stuffed chair and crossing his legs so that his left ankle was on his right knee.

“Yes,” she said.

“You sure those were bones at Slick Massey’s place?” he said.

“I have no doubt,” said Diane.

“Slick and Tammy say it’s a plastic Halloween skeleton you saw,” he said.

“It wasn’t,” said Diane. “I’m quite sure of what I saw.”

“Slick’s no-account. His daddy wasn’t much better. This Tammy’s about the kind of woman his father usually took up with. Still, I need to see bones before I can do anything,” he said. “Got no missing persons.”

“I understand,” said Diane.

“Travis said you took some wood with you from that tree that fell on you,” he said.

“I did. I wanted to see if a body had decomposed inside the hollow tree,” she said.

He shrugged his shoulders. “Slick might say it was a deer,” he said. “Not that it would make a bit of sense. But you can’t know if it’s human, is what his lawyer would say.”

“His lawyer would be wrong,” said Diane. “We can identify human antigens if they are there.” Diane didn’t explain immunochemistry to Sheriff Conrad. She would let him ask if he wanted a lengthier explanation.