Dead Past

Frank?”
    “I will. If you call him, he’ll worry. How was the Impala crime scene?”
    “I didn’t find much. It was rocky and there weren’t any tracks. The car is pretty much a burned mess. I had it hauled to our impound, anyway. Maybe something escaped the flames. Who do you think attacked you?” said David.
    Diane gave him a blank stare for a moment. “Damn. Hand me my jacket.”
    He got her jacket from the tiny closet on her side of the room and handed it to her. She searched the pockets.
    “It’s gone,” she said. “Did you find a glassine envelope in my office with a fragment of paper in it?”
    “I haven’t been to your office. Was it valuable? Was that what Korey gave you?”
    “Yes,” she answered. “It was Korey’s forgery. No, it wasn’t valuable.”
    “Can he make you another one?” asked David.
    “Why?” said Diane.
    “To replace the one stolen, I don’t know. What was it for, anyway?” he asked.
    “It was bait. I wanted whoever stole the doll to get it—just not in this way. They worked faster than I had planned.”
    “What did you have planned?” said David.
    “It wasn’t completely worked out yet. I was maybe going to plant a story in the paper about the doll and finding the code. I was trying to think of a way to contact them so they would know I had the message from the doll. I thought they would contact me—I really hadn’t thought it out completely.”
    “I guess they did contact you,” he said.
    Diane felt her head. “They did indeed.”

    Diane awoke early and felt much better than she had the evening before, except that the whole back side of her scalp was painfully tender. The nurse came in and checked her temperature and blood pressure.
    “Can I go home now?” she asked.
    “The doctor didn’t leave instructions for you to be dismissed. He’ll be making his rounds soon,” she said.
    The nurse left and a woman with a breakfast tray came in. Scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, orange juice, and cereal. Big breakfast, she thought. As the breakfast lady left, a policeman came in. He was one of the young policemen she had seen guarding the morgue tent. He had a pen and pad in his hand and a cigarette stuck behind his ear.
    “Hi, Dr. Fallon,” he said, grinning.
    Diane wondered if she looked that funny sitting in a hospital bed wearing the terrible hospital gown.
    “It’s good to see you again,” he said. “Though, not like this. I need to get a statement.”
    He pulled up a chair and as he sat down, Diane sneaked a peak at the cigarette behind his ear.
    “You really shouldn’t smoke,” she said, taking a bite of bacon. “It’s bad for you.”

Chapter 47

    “I know smoking is bad, ma’am,” he said. “I quit for a long time, but with all this explosion tragedy, I started up again.”
    “Do you know that none of the three medical examiners, Webber, Pilgrim, or Rankin, smoke?” said Diane. “You know why?”
    He shook his head.
    “Because they’ve all seen firsthand what smokers’ lungs look like,” said Diane.
    “Well, I’ll probably quit again. Right now I need to take a statement,” he said.
    Diane gave him a brief version of what happened to her, not going into treasure hunts, dolls, secret codes, or historic hurricanes. She’d tell Garnett, but she didn’t really want to go into the whole thing right now—especially while her mind was focused on something else.
    “Did he take anything?” asked the policeman.
    “I haven’t been back to my office to check my safe. I’ll notify the police if anything’s missing. Why do you carry your cigarette behind your ear?” she said, trying to bring the conversation back to the Doral held in place between his ear and his brain. He looked under twenty-six. So much for David’s statistics.
    “Cause it’ll get crushed in my pocket, ma’am. I’ve been trying not to start back, so I bum cigarettes instead of buying them. That way, I have only one at a time.” He took the cigarette between his fingers and looked at it. “Actually, I prefer a Marlboro, but beggars can’t be choosers.”
    “Who did you bum that from?” asked Diane.
    “Archie Donahue,” he said.
    So, perhaps David’s statistics were right after all.
    “Well, I wish you luck in your efforts to stop smoking,” she said.
    “Thank you, ma’am.”
    He folded his pad of paper and put it in his pocket with his pen. He stuck his cigarette back behind his ear and left.
    Diane finished her breakfast, pondering what she’d