One Grave Too Many (44 page)

“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.”

“This isn’t good,” he said. She could hear the regret in his voice. “Look, I’m real sorry about the misunderstanding.” Diane could hear from his tone that he was, but the anger still sat in her stomach like undigested food. She was working as hard as she could to solve this, and the people in authority—even the friendly ones—did nothing but throw up roadblocks. When she hung up, she wanted to put her head down and cry. She was so tired and her body ached all over.

Instead, she called the sheriff. To her great surprise and relief, he had sent out a query as soon as he heard about the results of the stable isotope tests, making updates when he found more information. Diane thanked him so profusely it seemed to confuse him.

“Just doing my job. I heard something else happened to you.”

Diane related a quick version of the incident.

“Whoever did this is here and desperate. You take some serious precautions, you hear?”

“I am.”

“I’ll get on this new Massachusetts information right away. Who knows? We might come up with something in a hurry.”

Diane thanked him again and pushed the disconnect button.

“They’re going to fax my computer with a list of sites,” said Jonas from his office. Diane went back and sat in the comfortable chair, closing her eyes, grateful that the sheriff, at least, knew what his job was. “You need someplace to rest.”

“I . . .” She was interrupted by a knock on Jonas’ door. “I hope that’s Korey.”

Jonas opened the door slightly as if checking credentials before letting anyone in. It was Korey and a petite woman with short salt-and-pepper hair and a face much younger than her gray hair suggested.

“This is Dr. Allison Onfroi, an art historian from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”

Diane rose and greeted her. “We’re glad you could come to look at our murals.”

“I am just mesmerized by them.”

“So they are authentic Robert Camdens?”

“Oh, no question.”

Diane and Korey grinned at each other.

“These are those wonderful dinosaur and Pleistocene paintings?” asked Jonas. “I go in the rooms sometimes and just sit and look at them.”

Dr. Onfroi nodded. “I find his work, though some of my colleagues disagree, similar in mood to William Trost Richards. Of course, they both were American Pre-Raphaelites. Richards created such emotion with his realism. Camden does the same for me. Most people don’t know him—he was never in favor in his own time, partly because of his rather strange insistence on inserting those whimsical unicorns in his paintings, juxtaposing the utter realism with the utter unreal. Now people identify with that.”

“Were wall murals his usual work?” asked Diane.

“It turned out that way. He had to make a living painting illustrations and murals for buildings. Most haven’t survived. And there weren’t that many of his other works. Your paintings are the best I’ve seen. I’d love to work with Korey on protecting them for you.”

“Allison had another interesting tidbit of news,” said Korey. “It seems that several months ago, someone from the Heron Museum of Art was asked to have a look at a collection of Camden murals for a museum.”

“It was all very secretive, as a lot of our work is.”

“Grayson,” said Diane.

“I’m sure,” said Korey. “I told Allison about the secret plans to buy the museum building and move us somewhere else.”

“I wish I could say I was shocked,” said Allison Onfroi, “but I’ve seen a lot of underhandedness going on in the art world. I’m sure the Heron thought it was on the up-and-up. I deal with them a lot, and they’d be shocked to know what they were a party to.”

“I’ve booked Allison into a Sudwith’s bed and breakfast,” said Korey.

“Oh, you’ll like that,” said Diane. “Thanks again for coming. I look forward to working with you on this project.”

Before they left, Korey handed Diane a piece of paper. It was Dr. Onfroi’s appraisal of the monetary value of the paintings. Diane stared hard at it for a moment and put it in her pocket.

Andie arrived on their heels, carrying a folder. “Donald made his decision,” she said, handing Diane the folder. “I also brought you the original museum budget for comparison.”

“Thanks, Andie. How is Donald?”

“Odd, even for him. I gave him your message and he sat for the longest time, stroking that desk of his. I thought maybe he’d been going quietly nuts all this time and this was somehow the final straw.” Andie shook her head. “I don’t know. He really took your attack hard. Hard enough it made me suspicious of him—but if the attack on you was about the skeleton, I don’t see how that makes any sense.”

“It might, if he thought it was connected with the Graysons.” Diane told Andie what Mike had related to her about the switched drinks.

“Why, that flashy, trashy bitch,” said Andie. “Can’t you have her arrested?”

“For what? Apparently, she’s the one who ended up with the drug.”

“Serves her right. Why would they go to such lengths?”

“This.” Diane handed her the paper Korey had given her. Jonas looked over her shoulder. She watched both their eyes widen until they were almost round. Andie, with her remarkably curly hair, looked like Little Orphan Annie.

Between the sheriff and Korey, Diane was feeling optimistic for the first time in a while. There were still a couple of hours to go before the meeting, so she sat down and relaxed with Jonas and their game of chess. It was a lot more fun sitting at the chess board than E-mailing moves back and forth.

Korey knocked on the door and came in just as Jonas captured Diane’s queen with his rook.

“Looks like you’re in trouble, Dr. F.,” said Korey, looking at the chess board.

“It’s not over until it’s over,” said Diane.

“Andie sent me to escort you to the meeting,” he said.

“Escort me?”

“You’re supposed to be in the hospital.”

“OK. It’s time, then.” She turned to Jonas. “Well, I suppose the endgame is starting.”

“You talking about the museum or chess?”

“Both.”

Jonas chuckled. “For our game, you could resign now.”

Diane smiled and left with Korey to go up to the third-floor meeting room. In the lobby they met Mark and Signy Grayson, who both looked surprised and a little disappointed at seeing her.

“You must not have been as bad off as people have been saying,” said Mark.

“I’m very sorry to disappoint you. I’m injured but not dead. And how is your cold, Signy? I’ve been concerned about you after that strange episode after the party. I hope you’ve changed your cold medication.”

“I’m fine, thank you.” She gave a thin smile, and Diane noticed that both she and Mark eyed her closely.

“I’m going to the meeting room,” said Mark. “I’ll see you there, Diane. Glad you could make it.”

Diane watched him stride confidently to the conference room. She started to follow, but the elevator doors opened and Vanessa Van Ross stepped into the lobby.

“Mrs. Van Ross,” acknowledged Signy. “You’re looking well. I’ve seen your limousine at the hospital more than once. I feared you were ill.”

“No. I’ve just been visiting the Center for Research on Aging there at the hospital.”

“Looking into the latest research on longevity?” Signy gave her a bright smile.

“My dear, are you hoping I’ll hurry and move on to the next world and make space for you and your husband?”

“Nonsense. Why would we want that?”

“You think if I were gone, Diane would be more vulnerable—in fact, you think many of Mark’s other real estate ventures would be easier. I’ve been a thorn in his side for quite a while, opposing all those zoning changes he wants.”

“I think you’re just oversensitive. We don’t wish you ill.”

“Good, then you’ll be happy to know that not only is my mother still alive and kicking, so is my grandmother.”

“Your grandmother? That’s not possible,” said Signy.

“Yes, dear, it is. If you and Mark weren’t so self-absorbed, you’d know that my grandmother is the second oldest person in the United States. So, dear, when you’re my age I’ll probably still be alive and going to those city council meetings to oppose Mark and his self-serving projects.”

Diane and Vanessa left Signy standing openmouthed in the lobby. “The herpetologist is putting in an interesting exhibit,” she heard Korey telling Signy.

Almost everyone was in the meeting room when Diane entered. They all greeted her with surprise and sympathy. Her usual seat was vacant, and Craig and Mark had taken up their positions on either side of her.

She sat on one end; Vanessa Van Ross on the other. If it were chess, Vanessa would be the queen defending her king—the museum. She was the one who wielded the greatest power for Diane’s side. Diane wasn’t sure what she was—a pawn, perhaps. No, a knight. A good guard with power to move in creative ways.