Dead Guilty

might not look. And then I thought, if not Ed
wards’ clothes, why not the hanging victims’? She
seemed to take offense at my tone of voice. She told
him about it. I tell you, the guy’s hopeless.’’ Diane was only half listening to what Garnett was saying. What had caught her eye was a poster for
colon cancer screening.
‘‘She was saying,’’ continued Garnett, ‘‘that you
were there when they removed Blue and Green’s
clothes and you took them with you, and Red’s clothes
were bagged immediately. It seemed to me like a way
to connect up Braden’s murders with mine.’’ ‘‘And it was,’’ said Diane, staring at the poster.
‘‘There was something Raymond did by himself that
wasn’t in sight of either me or Lynn Webber.’’ ‘‘What was that?’’
‘‘He cleaned the bones.’’
‘‘What?’’
‘‘Before I do a thorough analysis of bones, they are
cleaned by a process that dissolves all the flesh and
cartilage. Raymond is the one who cleaned them.
When he strained the solution to capture any of the
small bones that might be trapped in it, that’s where
he found the diamonds. I’ll bet one of the victims had
swallowed the diamonds, maybe to smuggle them, like
they do cocaine.’’
‘‘You know, that makes sense. Raymond had never
been in trouble, even as a teenager. It bothered me
that he would suddenly turn to something this big. But
if he found them, he probably counted himself lucky—
poor fellow.’’
‘‘That would also explain why he was targeted.
Someone out there knew where the diamonds were
hidden, and with a little asking around about what
happens to bodies, could have figured out Raymond
was the one who had them.’’
Diane felt more comfortable with this explanation
of how Raymond Waller got the diamonds than she
did with the idea of his being in league with Edwards and Mayberry. She turned it over in her mind as she
drove back to the museum.
If Raymond happened upon diamonds, why not
Chris Edwards and Steven Mayberry? They were out
doing their timber cruises all over the woods for days.
From their explanation of what a timber cruise is, they
walked over every inch of ground. What if they also
had the misfortune of stumbling across more of the
diamonds? But if she were right and Blue, Green and
Red Doe had swallowed theirs, then where would the
ones have come from that Edwards and Mayberry
might have found?
Her head was beginning to ache. When she got back
to the museum, she changed into the running clothes
she kept in her museum office. If she was going caving
on the weekend, she needed to start exercising again.
She hadn’t done anything in a week.
‘‘Andie, I’m going for a run on the nature trail. Go
ahead and lock the offices when you leave. I have
a key.’’
‘‘Sure. See you tomorrow.’’
The nature trail made a tangled loop a little over
half a mile long around the back of the museum. It
was an exhibit in itself and Diane considered it an
important part of a museum of natural history. It was
a wooded trail, full of more species of trees than
Diane could name. When the leaves turned in the fall,
it was dazzling. In the spring and summer, it was the
flowers and shrubs that shined: rhododendrons, aza
leas, bluet, violets, trilliums. She tried to remember
the names as she passed the plants. Late summer, the
museum staff liked to pick blackberries that grew
along the trail, and Diane was thinking about having
a staff blackberry picnic in July. The crowning jewel
of the nature trail was the swan pond in the center— a small, quiet lake that could have come from a
fairy tale.
She never tired of running the nature trail and she
always saw something she hadn’t seen before. Nor
mally, there were many people running in the evening,
but it had been so hot that a lot of people headed for
the treadmills in an air-conditioned gym. She was
mainly alone, only occasionally spotting a runner
through the trees.
She wanted to run five miles. That usually took her
anywhere from thirty-five to forty minutes, depending
on how leisurely she wanted to make it. She looked
at her watch. It wasn’t too late.
Today, she felt like running fast. She sprinted
through the trail. Her heart beat fast. It felt good. She
thought she heard the steady rhythm of footfalls be
hind her. Another runner, she thought. It sounded like
a runner. She barely heard it, but she felt the rhythm.
She speeded up her pace. The rhythm was still there.
She glanced back, but she’d just