Dead Guilty

didn’t usu ally question researchers on their methodology, cer tainly not on something that wasn’t her field. She supposed it was some gut reaction to defend the skills of the South American Indians, with whom she was very familiar.
‘‘Yes, well, I don’t really want to argue the point. My research design requires Egyptian samples, so you can see why I’m interested in your mummy.’’
‘‘Yes. You and many others. We just acquired the mummy. How did you find out about him?’’
‘‘A few months ago, a friend told me about him. I couldn’t get access, but I kept in touch with its disposi tion. I assure you, my research isn’t frivolous.’’
‘‘No. I’m sure it’s not. I’m just surprised at the inter est in him so soon. I’ll read your proposal.’’
Andie led in Mike Seger who was carrying a large three-paneled poster board. They began setting it up on the desk in Diane’s office. Andie stepped back to look at it.
‘‘Look, Dr. Fallon,’’ Holloway continued, ‘‘I sent you my list of publications. You don’t propose to eval uate my research. . . . You are a small museum. . . .’’ ‘‘I assure you, size doesn’t matter.’’
This assertion caught the attention of both Andie and Mike. They looked at each other, then at Diane, eyebrows raised, amusement written on their faces. Diane rolled her eyes.
‘‘I didn’t mean to suggest,’’ said Dr. Holloway. ‘‘Of course, I recognize your competence, but...’’
‘‘Dr. Holloway, if you know about the mummy, then you know he is without provenance. We don’t even know if he is actually an ancient mummy or of more modern origin.’’
‘‘I understand that, but there are tests...’’
‘‘Yes, and we are in the process of running them. Right now, I’m not prepared to address your request one way or the other.’’
‘‘You aren’t saying no, then. That’s good. We’ll keep the lines open, then.’’
‘‘Kendel said we’d be getting requests from re searchers,’’ said Andie when Diane had hung up the phone.
‘‘Apparently, they’re calling my cell phone and my home.’’ The calls had nagged Diane, but she felt better knowing they were probably from researchers. ‘‘Just a moment,’’ she told Andie and Mike.
Diane decided to return the calls while she was think ing about it and refer them to Kendel and Jonas. She di aled the Colorado number and got a recorded message:
‘‘You are returning a call to a prepaid calling service system, and the party cannot be reached at this number.’’
The Omaha number gave her the same message.
‘‘That’s odd.’’
‘‘What?’’ asked Andie.
‘‘These calls . . .’’ Diane explained the calls and the recorded message she just reached.
‘‘Calling card,’’ said Mike. ‘‘It’s a standard birthday and Christmas gift my parents give me, hoping I’ll call more often.’’
Andie nodded. ‘‘One of a handful of cities comes up on the caller ID every time you use it.’’
‘‘Oh.’’
She’d just have to wait until they called her again. She rose and walked from behind her desk.
‘‘What do you have here?’’ she asked Mike.
‘‘An illustration of the earth science exhibit,’’ said Mike. ‘‘The entrance starts here.’’ He pointed to the upper-left part of the poster. ‘‘The crust is divided into the horizons. We’re working on mechanical devices— kind of like Disney World stuff—that look like insect and parasitic life found in the soil. It will be large— the visitors will seem like they’ve shrunk.’’
‘‘I like that,’’ said Diane.
‘‘Next we have the mantel, the convection currents, then the core. It’s all pretty straightforward. The ex hibit designer and I are trying figure out the best way to display all of this. One option is to have it on video as they descend the exhibit. But we also had the idea of building a mechanical device that will move a vis cous substance around in a tank to illustrate the man tel, its convection currents and how the crust floats on top. We plan to reference everything with the current exhibits in the geology hall.’’
‘‘Cool,’’ said Andie.
‘‘I’m thinking something like the tunnel in an aquar ium,’’ said Mike. ‘‘A place where the visitor can de scend into the exhibit and have the earth all around him.’’
‘‘You need to make it wheelchair accessible,’’ said Diane.
‘‘We know. We’ve discussed a winding ramp, an ele vator sort of