Dead Past

the reassembled pieces of skull on the modeling pedestal. It looked like a strange piece of artwork. When the modeling software was up, she turned on the apparatus and watched as the pedestal rotated and the laser read the topography of the fragments and generated a matrix of points on which to construct a wire frame of the head and face.
    Diane asked the software to interpolate the missing part of the face from the parts that were present. The result would be a face that looked more symmetrical than it actually was because the computer only had one side to calculate what the other side looked like. But it would be a likeness that would be useful.
    When she had a wire frame on which to work, she asked the software to use the skin depth database to reconstruct the face. Building the face was a slower process. She watched it being constructed.
    She felt free in the vault. At least Patrice Stanton couldn’t get to her here.

Chapter 26

    Diane studied the completed 3-D model of the face generated from the glued-together skull fragments. It was not someone she recognized. She didn’t think he would be. But she was willing to bet that he was known to someone in the police department.
    Armed with a new face to work with, Diane printed out several paper copies, put an electronic copy of the image file on a memory stick, turned off her fancy equipment, and left the vault, locking it behind her.
    She looked at her watch. It was a couple of hours past her usual lunch time. She hoped David, Jin, and Neva had stopped for lunch, but they were like her in that respect—often working right though it without noticing. Diane left her osteology lab and walked over to the crime lab. She found her crew busy. Jin and Neva had their heads together over a map. David was on the phone.
    “Have you guys eaten?” asked Diane.
    “Eat,” said Jin. “No time. We’ve got criminals to catch. Neva and I were just looking at the jogging route Marcus took. I’ll make a matrix of the access points and . . .”
    “How did you find out where he was killed?” asked Diane.
    Jin gave her his “Please, I’m a detective” look.
    “What have you been doing?” asked David, placing the phone back on the hook.
    Diane produced the printouts of the facial reconstruction.
    “This skull was one of two that I hadn’t identified. The other was found on the first floor near a window. These bones were in the basement and they were the only bones found there—that is, the only bones McNair’s team turned over to us.” Diane was sure that there were bones in the material that McNair took that she would never see.
    “You think this is the cook?” said David.
    “I’m thinking that he is,” said Diane.
    “Let’s send a copy to Garnett,” David suggested. “This should make him happy. It’s the best lead they’ve had on the meth lab thing. They’re up against the wall, and that Adler person’s been giving them hell about it.”
    Diane handed David the memory stick; he put it in his computer and e-mailed the image to Garnett.
    “OK,” said Diane sitting down at the table where Jin and Neva were looking at the map. “I thought you were working on the Stanton murder, Jin.”
    Jin looked at Neva and over at David. “We’ve come up with a theory—hypothesis, to be more precise.”
    “An idea would be the most accurate,” said David.
    “OK, an idea,” said Jin. “What if McNair is mixed up somehow in the meth lab mess?”
    “Mixed up how?” asked Diane. If that were true, it would be a sticky wicket, indeed.
    Jin shrugged. “Not sure. He could have been investigating it on his own in hopes of cracking it and taking the glory. Found out too much and was killed.”
    “Or,” offered David, “he’s in it up to his beady little eyeballs. He’s been spending a lot of money—I know Garnett said that his wife has money, but what if he’s really getting money from a drug operation? What if he’s the shadow the police are all looking for behind the meth cook? He went to great lengths to get all the evidence under his control, you’ll have to admit that.”
    “OK,” said Diane, “I’m buying it so far.”
    “We have several scenarios to look at,” said Jin. “McNair might have killed the Stanton kid because he was afraid the kid would talk, and then someone killed Stanton for the same reason, or for revenge, or something. Or, there is some other person above McNair in the meth operation who wanted to protect himself. Maybe he