Dead Guilty

places where evil won often and was rarely punished. But she’d found, oddly enough, after helping Frank Duncan find justice for his murdered friends, that she enjoyed the hunt, the puzzle. Good thing too, for it kept the wolves from the ornate wood doors of the museum.
    It was 10:00 A.M. when Diane carried the evidence from Lynn Webber’s autopsy lab to her crime lab on the third floor of the museum.
    ‘‘Start on the clothes,’’ she told Jin. ‘‘Wait on the rope. I’ll bring more clothing and insect specimens later.’’
    ‘‘Sure thing.’’ Jin took the boxes and attached crime lab tracking labels to them. He and Diane signed the labels, and he locked the boxes away. ‘‘This is a big case. People are talking about it.’’
    ‘‘We’re going to be watched closely on this one. Both the mayor of Rosewood and the chief of detec tives are going to be riding us pretty hard.’’
    ‘‘We’ll be brilliant. I’ll start on the clothes right away. We can have some results for the sheriff by the end of the day.’’
    Only a couple of technicians were in the lab, filling out papers. David’s insect-rearing chambers sat in en vironmentally controlled containers in the entomology work space.
    ‘‘David and the others in the field?’’ she asked. ‘‘You know how he likes to take a final walk through. He’s got Neva with him. You’ve got her very nervous.’’
‘‘I have?’’
‘‘She said you’re the one who got Detective Janice Warrick demoted last year.’’
‘‘Not me. Janice botched a case and contaminated a crime scene. She’s responsible for her own career situation.’’
‘‘I guess Neva only knows what she’s heard in the police department.’’
‘‘How’s she doing?’’
‘‘She’s scared all the time.’’
‘‘Of me?’’
‘‘You, but mostly the chief of detectives. Afraid she’s going to screw up. She didn’t want this job. He assigned her to it.’’ Jin shrugged, clearly not under standing why anyone wouldn’t want a plum job like this one. ‘‘David’s got her out now. Showing her how to look for things. David’s a good guy.’’
‘‘Yes, he is.’’ Diane didn’t like hearing that about Neva. This was the kind of case they couldn’t mess up. ‘‘I’m going to check in with the museum, then I’m going back to the autopsy.’’
Jin nodded. ‘‘Want me to have David call you?’’
‘‘No. I’ll talk with him later.’’
‘‘When you analyze the rope, I want to watch. I’ve never done that.’’
‘‘You know anything about knots?’’
‘‘I was a Boy Scout.’’
‘‘Can you tie knots?’’
‘‘Sure... some.’’
‘‘Go to the museum library and get a book on knots. Study the types.’’
Diane left and went down to the first floor. The museum had been open for an hour and was filled with summer school students on a field trip. Loud ex cited chatter swept out of the dinosaur room as she passed it on the way to her office.
When she reached the main foyer, it was not the mixture of excitement from children and admonitions from teachers that caught her attention. It was the wooden anthropoid coffin lying on its back on a large metal cart next to the information desk.
Diane walked over to the large mummy case in the shape of a human figure and looked over at Jennifer on duty in the information station.
‘‘They brought it in about an hour ago.’’
‘‘They?’’
‘‘Some guys. Kendel—uh, Ms. Williams was with them.’’
At that moment a line of students with two adults at each end came into the museum.
‘‘We’re from the Rosewood Summer Library Pro gram,’’ one of the adults announced to Jennifer and then turned and cautioned the children—five girls and three boys—to stay together. They weren’t listening. Their attention had immediately focused on the coffin.
‘‘Is there a real mummy inside there?’’ asked a lit tle girl.
That’s what I’d like to know, thought Diane.
Jennifer, dressed in black slacks and a museum teeshirt, stepped from the booth and greeted them. She nodded her head vigorously.
‘‘Yes, there is. It just arrived, and it will be going up to our conservation lab. We’re all very excited. We believe it’s from the twelfth dynasty in Egypt. That was about four thousand years ago.’’
Jennifer was more forthcoming to the children than to Diane. That seemed to be one of her characteristics. She was good with children, somewhat absent with adults.
‘‘Can we see