When Jonas Briggs came in, Diane was still standing behind the desk, scowling. She couldn’t shake the notion that had taken hold of her, that there was another, hidden piece to this. Despite the trite old excuse politicians and bureaucrats were wont to drag out about there being things unknown to mere plebes, this time she believed there were.
“I have to hand it to you,” said Jonas Briggs. “I thought I was good at making him red faced, but you’re so much better than me. I’ve never seen him quite so agitated.”
Diane turned her attention to Briggs and smiled. “Thanks for letting me use your office.”
“It’s only my office at your discretion.” He made an elaborate bow. “While you’re here, I’ve got an exhibit idea I’d like to talk to you about.” He sat down in the recently vacated chair. Diane sat back down behind his desk. “I don’t know if you’ve heard about the archaeological excavations in West Africa at the chimp nut-cracking site.”
Chimp nut-cracking site? It sounded like a lampooning of a Christmas musical. “This is a joke, right?”
“No. Since Jane Goodall, we’ve known that chimpanzees use tools. Well, a primatologist and an archaeologist got the perfectly reasonable idea that an excavation of an area where they were seen carrying out that activity might yield some interesting information. So far they have excavated at least six wooden anvils and debitage—waste flakes—from pounding their hammers to crack nuts. There’s a remarkable resemblance to stone waste flakes found at some early human sites. It’s all quite fascinating.”
“And you want to do an exhibit on—what did Andie call it?—ape archaeology?”
“Not exactly. See that painting?” He pointed to the colorful painting hanging over the chessboard. “Do you know who did that?”
Diane shook her head. “I’m not very well versed in modern art.”
Briggs beamed at her. “But do you like it? You see it as art?”
“Yes, I do.”
“It was painted by Ruby.”
“I’m not familiar with modern painters, either.”
“Ruby was an elephant housed in the Phoenix zoo.”
“An elephant?” Diane stared at the painting for a moment. “I think I have heard of elephants that are trained to paint.”
“Ah, but are they trained? Some animal behaviorists say so, but Ruby’s handler gave her a brush and paint because she saw her doodling in the sand with her trunk. If we see a child doodling in the sand and give him crayons, is that training or nurturing a talent?”
“Where are you going with this?”
“Did you know that elephants play music? Have you heard of the Thai Elephant Orchestra?”
“Actually, I have their CD. However, I do have a hard time wrapping my brain around the idea that it’s the elephants and not their handlers that are composing the music.”
“What I’m suggesting is an exhibit designed to look at animals in a little different way than a collection of instinctive behaviors. Making the familiar strange and the strange familiar, if I may paraphrase T. S. Eliot. That makes good poetry, good anthropology, and good museums.”
Diane’s face turned up in a grin. “I think I like that idea. Go ahead and start working on it. Discuss it with the exhibition planner and designer—she’s up on the third floor. Let me see what you come up with.”
Briggs’s head bobbed up and down happily. “I’ll do that. I haven’t been up to the third floor yet. Thanks for listening to an old man. I’m happy to have a home here.”
“I had a hard time getting the archaeology department to send anyone,” said Diane.
Jonas Briggs studied the subtle leaf pattern woven into his bronze-colored carpet. “A little bit of snobbery, I’m afraid.”
“Snobbery?”
“I probably shouldn’t say anything, but hell, it’s never stopped me before. The physical anthropologist has some issues with your appointment here.”
“I don’t even know him. What issues could he possibly have?”
“My dear, I see you are unfamiliar with the subtle workings of the academic mind. You’re a forensic specialist. You don’t do research, you apply research, which means you are a mere technician of the art of studying bones. And thereby have no real qualifications for a position of this kind.”
“I see.”
“Willard quite put everyone off, then Julie decided she liked the idea of an extra office. Of course, later, she got a job out of state. They weren’t going to replace her until I said I would like to come. They jumped at that, so here I am. They were glad to get rid of an emeritus faculty member. For all their love of old things, they aren’t much fond of old faculty.”
“I rather think the geology department had the same feelings.” Diane’s eyes sparkled in amusement.
“Well, we’ll just have fun without them.”
Diane rose and headed for the door. “You play chess, I see.” She nodded in the direction of the chessboard.
“A little. I’m not very good, but I was hoping I could con somebody into a game with me now and then.”
She walked over to the board and moved the white pawn to king four square before she went out the door.
Chapter 18
By the time Diane got to the lab, the police were ready to leave. From the frowns on everyone’s faces, they hadn’t given the conservation team much satisfaction.
Izzy Wallace turned to Diane. “Not a lot we can do, really. Sort of a nonstarter. Got in with a key, didn’t take anything, not much messed up, really.” He glanced over at one of the assistants and back to Diane. “No use in taking any prints. There’s not a lot we can do with them. It was probably someone who works here, and their prints would be here anyway.”
Diane folded her arms and looked at him a moment, wondering if he had anything to do with the mayor’s misinformation. “That’s all right, Officer Wallace. We didn’t expect a lot, but we did want it on record in case it happens again and they do take something.”
“We’re real sorry, ma’am,” said the other policeman, “but there’s nothing to be gained by pursuing this. The DA would just drop it.”
“I appreciate your coming.”
It was a second or two before Izzy’s eyes left Diane’s. “Is the mayor downstairs?” he finally asked.
“Presumably.”
He nodded. “We’ll be going, then.”
As soon as they were out the door, the staff began complaining.
“They hardly did anything. They even so much as implied that we left the lab in a mess.”
“I’ll alert the night guards to keep a lookout. Don’t worry too much about it.” Diane left them grumbling and took the stairs back down to her office.
On her desk was a note from Andie to call Frank. She picked up the phone and dialed his number.
“Diane, I have the autopsy report. It will be a while before I can have the blood samples you collected analyzed. Would it be all right if I come over around quitting time and discuss it? I’ll bring Italian.”
“Sounds good. If the restaurant were open, I’d treat you to a meal at the museum.”
“You guys have a restaurant?”
“We will have one in a couple of weeks. I’ll see you around six-thirty.”
Diane took out her laptop and memory stick from her digital camera. After she printed out the photos she took of the crime scene, she called up a program she hadn’t used in a while. One that computed directional trajectory and gave a three-dimensional animated image of the scene when the information was plugged into it. If she hurried, she could have a rough set done by the time Frank arrived.
“What’s this you have here?” Frank pointed to a corkboard on the table leaning against the wall. Pinned to it were two rows of computerized 3-D images of the crime scene.
“It’s a storyboard depicting the events at the crime scene. I find it helps me see the sequence of events and what’s missing from the sequence.” She looked at the bags in his hand. “You think we can eat all that food?”
“You never know who might drop in—like a murder suspect on the lam. Besides, it’s just a few appetizers to go with the main meal.”
“I thought we might eat out on the terrace, then come back here.”
“Suits me.” He glanced again at her storyboard before following her out the door.
The terrace was an open patio in the rear of the museum looking out onto the nature trail. She spread their meal on a wrought iron table. It was hotter outside than she’d realized, but the sun was going down and the table was in the shade. The air had a sweet, hot fragrance of some shrub. She made a mental note to find out its name. Here in the rear of the museum it was quiet. Road noise sounded so distant they could have been deep in a glade.
Neither spoke about murder or autopsy reports. Diane didn’t tell Frank about the break-in or her talk with the mayor or her uncertainties about his friend Izzy Wallace. Instead, they looked out at the nature trail, and she told him about the various plants located on the trail and the pond with a family of swans. He laughed as she told him about Jonas Briggs, ape archaeology and elephant fine arts.
“Elephants actually make music?”
“Apparently. Jonas is going to look into it. Speaking of music, what’s this karaoke thing you and Andie have going? You’re a crooner?”
“Was last time. I might be Elvis next time. It’s just a fun thing I do occasionally. Turns out Andie’s a big karaoke fan, too. You’ll have to come sometime. Do you sing?”
“Not for any amount of money.”
“Oh, we don’t get paid.”
Diane laughed and looked out into the woods. It was getting dark—and late—and she hated the idea of going back to her office to examine what awaited her there. But better to get it over with.
“I think that’s about all I can eat.” She looked over the quantity of leftovers. “How many carts do you fill up when you do your grocery shopping? Why do you always buy so much food?”
“Actually, I don’t keep much in my house—except when Kevin comes over. I’m in Atlanta most of the time, working. Which I’ll be getting back to in a few days.”
Diane thought that getting back to his job would probably be a relief for him. It would be hard enough if he only had to arrange the funerals of his friends, but all the crime scene analysis must be hard for him to handle.
Frank helped pack up the leftover food and pick up the trash. “Have any idea what we can do with the leftovers?” he asked.
“We’ll put it in the refrigerator in the staff lounge. You can take it home with you when you leave.”
In Diane’s office Frank handed her an envelope from his jacket pocket. The autopsy report. She opened the envelope reluctantly and removed the contents slowly, as if there might be the possibility that if she just held off long enough, some intervening event would make it unnecessary for her to look at them. But there they were. Autopsy reports for young Jay and his parents.
Jay was shot once. The bullet went though his spine and lodged in his heart. There was no gunpowder residue on his clothing. Melted plastic was present in the wound. Diane stopped for a moment and thought about the pieces of plastic she had found in the grass. It’s what she had suspected. Attached to Jay’s autopsy report was a mention of other plastic pieces. They lifted a partial fingerprint from one, but the expert was of the opinion that they couldn’t make a match, especially with the new federal court ruling that fingerprinting didn’t meet the U.S. Supreme Court’s standards for scientific evidence.
George and Louise’s were more complicated. Just as the blood spatters showed, they both had been bludgeoned and shot. The bullet entered his upper chest, went through his spleen, traveled downward through the small and large intestines and out his lower back. The presence of gunpowder and smoke on his clothes indicated that it was a close shot.
There were contusions on the left side and front of the scalp, depression fractures in the left parietal and frontal bones. His left zygomatic bone was crushed, and his nasal bone was fractured.
The left parietal bone of Louise’s skull was fractured, and she was shot through the same part of the head at close range. Jay, George and Louise had no alcohol or drugs in their systems. From the drawings by the medical examiner, Diane noted that the fractures were consistent with a baseball bat.
While she read over the autopsy reports, Frank was looking at the computerized 3-D pictures pinned on the corkboard. He held the photo of Jay lying face down in the grass in his hand.
“I’ve talked to Jay’s teachers, his friends, his soccer coach. . . . I have no idea what he could have been doing out that late.”
“I don’t think he was,” said Diane. “That is, I don’t think he had left their property.”
In her hand she had a stack of index cards which she laid on the table along with the photographs she had taken of the crime scene. She sat down at the table and motioned for Frank to take the seat beside her. He eyed her a moment as he sat.
“You think Detective Warrick’s scenario is wrong?”
“Yes, I do, and so will she when she examines the evidence closely.”
“What do you think happened?”
“Warrick thought Jay was shot last because she believed that George would’ve been awakened and armed himself, and therefore would not have been shot in his bed. I think he was awakened, armed himself with a bat, but simply did not have time to get out of bed.”
Diane laid Jay’s autopsy report on the table. “First of all, Jay had no alcohol or drugs in his system,” she continued. “Though it’s certainly not automatically true, a kid who sneaks out of the house at night often will at least drink a few beers. But the important thing is the plastic. We’ll see when the report comes back on the plastic pieces I found, but I believe it was a silencer.”
“A silencer? Out of plastic?”
“I asked Star’s boyfriend, Dean, if he knew how to make one. He didn’t. He may have been lying, but he did seem puzzled by my question. You can take a plastic liter soft-drink bottle and put it over the muzzle of a gun and have a onetime-use silencer that is moderately effective. Jay had plastic embedded in his skin. I think the killer used a plastic bottle silencer and Jay was killed first.”