Dead Guilty

longer. But we’ll have a re port and facial reconstruction for the sheriff shortly.’’
‘‘Facial reconstruction? You can do that?’’
‘‘Of course ...I assume that’s why you sent me Neva Hurley.’’
‘‘Neva?’’ He stopped a moment and looked at Neva, who was donning a pair of gloves. ‘‘Oh . . . yes . . . of course.’’
Diane smiled inwardly, but made sure it didn’t reach her face.
‘‘Any sign of Steven Mayberry?’’ she said.
‘‘No. And I’m worried. We can’t afford to have wholesale murder going on and not be able to do any thing about it. The media will jump all over this.’’
‘‘Perhaps they won’t know where the bodies were autopsied.’’
‘‘Why wouldn’t they?’’ said Garnett. ‘‘It looks like the murderer did.’’
‘‘I know this is quite a coincidence,’’ said Diane. ‘‘But I just don’t see any reason behind the murders that would establish a connection. Not yet.’’
‘‘Neither do I. Perhaps it is just that. A coinci dence.’’ He did not sound convinced.
‘‘The evidence will tell us if there is a connection. I’m going back to it.’’
Diane gave her team instructions and left for the lab, relieved not to have to look at Raymond’s dead body. It would be bad enough when she looked at the photographs. She drove back to the lab and parked in the crime lab parking area, a gated lot to the side of the enormous museum building. She took the lab ele vator to the third floor, bypassing the museum.
Suddenly, it looked like she was bringing crime into the museum, and that was something she had no de sire to do and couldn’t afford to do. She would close the lab and take Rosewood to court about the taxes before she would allow that to happen.
But crime labs are not dangerous places. She knew of no cases where perps had targeted crime labs or the people who worked in them. After all, the people just analyze data. Why, then, was this happening? Per haps it wasn’t. Perhaps the flowers were from someone connected with the museum, or even a fan of the crime lab. Perhaps the E-mail note meant nothing.
Green Doe was where she had left him, waiting for her on the table. She measured the skull, made notes of his orthodontic work, examined and measured his long bones. His left radius had been broken and healed well. She examined the ribs and each vertebra. There were no nicks or cuts on any of his bones, ex cept, as in Blue, his terminal phalanxes were missing. Of the damaged medial phalanxes, only one showed the surface striations that she had seen on Blue. But that was enough. Diane entered all of Green Doe’s data into the computer.
Her team hadn’t returned yet. They could be out all night. She went to her office. Andie was gathering her things to leave for the day.
‘‘Hey, you got a message back from that weird Email about the dead being guilty. I printed it out.’’ She grabbed it off Diane’s desk and handed it to her.
Diane read it aloud. ‘‘ ‘I didn’t send this. Who are you anyway? Don’t bother me. My father’s a police man.’ Well, this is interesting. Sounds like a kid.’’
‘‘That’s what I thought,’’ agreed Andie.
‘‘Hey, anybody home around here?’’
‘‘Frank. When did you get in?’’ Diane gave him a hug and held him a little tighter than she felt comfort able with in front of Andie.
‘‘My plane landed a few hours ago. I stopped by to see Star and Kevin.’’
His thirteen-year-old son, Kevin, lived with his mother. Star, his new daughter, stayed with them while Frank was gone.
‘‘Cindy wanted Star to stay the weekend so that she and David could go out. I thought maybe we could get some dinner. Have you eaten?’’
‘‘No, and I’m starved. The museum restaurant is open for a while yet. Mind if we eat there?’’
‘‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’’ said Andie, going out the door. ‘‘Good to see you, Frank. Miss you at karaoke.’’
‘‘Bye, Andie. Thanks,’’ called Diane.
‘‘You want to eat at the museum? Sounds like you’re planning a late night working.’’
He stepped close and drew her into a kiss. Frank felt good—and safe, like home. She wanted to hang on to him, but she let go.
‘‘I’ve got to get the last skeleton done.’’
As Diane checked her E-mail and looked through the messages Andie had left for her, she told Frank the whole story—the Cobber’s Wood hanging victims, the timber cruisers who found the bodies, and now Ray mond, the diener. She