Dead Past

Great, now Patrice Stanton had become her stalker. The phone rang again. This time Diane looked at the caller ID. Unknown. She unplugged the phone from the wall and went to sleep.
    The clock went off too soon, awakening her from a dream in which she was plummeting toward earth with no parachute. It can’t possibly be four hours since I went to sleep, thought Diane as she struggled out of bed. She looked at her unplugged telephone and decided not to plug it in. She dragged herself to the shower and turned it on cooler than her usual setting.
    “Shit!” she screamed when the cold water hit her.
    Diane finished her shower and dried off, shivering the entire time. It would be warmer to lie naked in the snow, she thought as she slipped on her clothes. Well, at least she was wide-awake.
    She forced herself to eat a bowl of cereal before she dashed out the door to the museum. When she got to the curb where the museum loaner was parked she stopped cold. Someone had spray-painted in bright red letters the words MURDERER, KILLER, BITCH, and assorted obscenities all over the white Crown Victoria. Diane could guess who it was. The car was left driveable, she noticed. Diane took out her cell and dialed Andie.
    “Andie,” she said to the perky voice that answered. Andie was always perky in the morning. Diane bet she didn’t have to take a cold shower to get that way. “Are you at the museum or are you en route?”
    “En route. What’s up?”
    “Can you swing around by my place and give me a lift?”
    “Sure, something happen to the museum car?”
    “Patrice Stanton, trying to work through her grief,” said Diane, before flipping her phone shut.
    Diane stamped her feet trying to keep warm as she waited for Andie. She called Neva to come and photograph and print her car ASAP. Then she called a mechanic she often used and asked him to pick it up after Neva finished and take it to his brother’s shop for a paint job.
    “Sure thing,” he said. “You want flames?”
    Diane could see him grinning into the phone. “No, it got those last night. I want it like it was. Can he resist making it a canvas?”
    “Sure thing. Somebody vandalize your car?”
    “Indeed they did. They weren’t very poetic about it, either.”
    “I’ll get it right away,” he said.
    “It’s in front of my apartment building. You can’t miss it,” she said.
    Andie pulled in front of the museum car, stopped and got out, and looked at it.
    “Who is Patrice Stanton and why did she do this?” said Andie, her Orphan Annie curls bouncing as she shook her head.
    “I’ll tell you on the way.” Diane got in Andie’s Honda and closed the door.
    “OK, what happened? Why does this woman think you are a murderer?” said Andie.
    Diane explained about Blake Stanton.
    “The kid with one hand who held a gun on you and tried to take your car?”
    “Yes, the same,” answered Diane.
    “And this chick thinks you did him in and is harassing you about it?”
    “Yes.”
    “Bummer.”
    When they were almost to the museum, Diane asked Andie to take the gravel access road that led around to the loading dock.
    “You think she is waiting on you out front?” asked Andie.
    “I wouldn’t be surprised. She’s a woman with a mission.”
    Her son was dead. Diane tried to remember that. Grief takes many forms. Mrs. Stanton’s form was certainly destructive.
    Andie turned in the gravel access road, drove to the back of the museum, and stopped.
    “Thanks, Andie.”
    Diane hopped out of the car and entered the museum by the back way, which was actually a quicker way to her office. She let herself in by her private entrance, locked the door behind her, set her coffeemaker to chugging, sat down, and began sorting through paperwork on her desk. The phone rang and she picked it up.
    “RiverTrail Museum of Natural History,” she said automatically.
    “I want to speak with that killer, Diane Fallon.”
    Diane recognized Patrice Stanton’s voice. It crackled with hatred.
    “May I take a message?”
    “Yes, you can take a message. Before I’m through, everyone is going to know what a cold-blooded killer they have working for them at the museum.”
    “May I say who’s calling?”
    Patrice Stanton was quiet a moment.
    Startled by the polite response? On to me? Wondering if she should reveal herself? Thinking of a snappy comeback?
    “Tell her it’s the mother of the son she murdered,” Patrice said. “Murdered in cold blood.”
    “In cold blood, got it.”