Dead Past

him. She cast a glance at a brachiosaurus in the dinosaur room in front of her before she turned left and walked straight to the seashell section.
    Seashells are the houses and bones of mollusks—soft-bodied creatures that mostly inhabit aquatic environments. The museum had a fairly decent collection from among the more than fifty thousand possible varieties.
    As in bones, if you know the code contained in seashells, you can read the history of the animal. The distinctive pattern of pigments laid down on a shell is governed mostly by DNA but is shaped by the experiences of the animal. Even among the members of the same variety, no two individuals have exactly the same pattern. A mollusk enlarges its shell along the edge, just like human bone growth at the epiphysis. On these growth edges the pigmentation pattern is laid down. Whatever happens to the mollusk—feast, famine, injury, temperature changes—has an effect and is recorded in the pattern. The mollusk wears its history on its back. A computer monitor in the shell room graphically illustrated the process, but Diane skipped that tonight. She’d seen it many times when it was being created.
    She lingered a moment by the Humans and Shells exhibit to wonder at the cowrie shell necklaces from Africa, the mother-of-pearl jewelry, the carved conch shells loaned from the Archaeology Department depicting religious and ceremonial engravings of the southeastern Indians of the United States. There were display examples of kitschy souvenir shells from Florida. One of the prize specimens in this particular exhibit, acquired by Diane’s assistant director, Kendel Williams, was a gilded saltshaker in the form of a rooster made from the shell of a chambered nautilus.
    Just beyond the Humans and Shells exhibit was the Math of Seashells. Not a favorite with most visitors, but Diane liked it, as did all the math teachers in the area. They often brought classes on field trips to watch the video explanation of the mathematics of the spiraled chambered nautilus based on the Fibonacci sequence of numbers. The video went on to show that pinecones, sunflowers, spiral galaxies, movement of bees, and even the Parthenon contain the same mathematics. Teachers loved that. For those really into the math of seashells, there was a video of the algorithmic process involved in the laying down of the pattern. Not very popular, but Diane left it on the computer, anyway. The instructors of higher mathematics loved her for that.
    The fossil shells were a favorite of visitors mainly because they loved looking at the spiral shells whose component minerals had been replaced by pyrite so that they looked like pure gold. But these weren’t Diane’s favorites.
    What she liked best were simply the shells themselves, the spiky, shiny, swirling, spiraling, multicolored unaltered seashells. There was something very calming about just looking at them—much like the joy of looking at the Vermeers.
    She was looking in wonder at the details of a particularly lovely pelican shell when she heard raised voices coming from the aquatic lab.

Chapter 15

    The door to the aquatic lab was ajar and Diane moved toward the opening. Only one of the voices was doing the shouting. Diane recognized it as belonging to the new aquatic collections manager, Whitney Lester.
    “I know you stole the shells. It will be easier on both of us if you just admit it now.”
    Diane didn’t hear the answer, only a soft murmur.
    “I’m tired of wasting my time with you. You are going to lose your job. That’s certain. Whether or not it goes to the police is up to you. Where are the damn shells? I’m not going to have valuable articles go missing on my watch, do you hear?”
    Diane walked into the lab and found Lester glowering over Juliet Price. Lester had backed her up against a table. Juliet looked terrified.
    “I’m sick of your mousy ways. Tell me, damn it!” yelled Lester.
    “What’s going on?” said Diane, in a voice she hoped was calm.
    Whitney looked in Diane’s direction with the same angry look she was giving Juliet, ready to light into whoever was interrupting her. Her expression turned to surprise, then an attempt at a smile.
    “Dr. Fallon, I didn’t hear you come in.”
    How could you with all your yelling, thought Diane. “What’s going on?” she repeated.
    “Miss Price stole several valuable shells from the collection. I’m trying to persuade her to give them back.”
    Diane looked at Juliet Price. Her