Dead Secret

he’s going to preserve the stuff from the car,” said Neva. “Do you know he froze all the magazines in a little battery-powered freezer he had in the van at the site?”
    Diane nodded. “That immediately stopped any destructive chemical or biological processes going on. In his lab he’s using a process called vacuum freeze-drying. He’ll put the frozen magazines in a chamber and pump the air out and form a vacuum—that will dry them at freezing temperatures. It’s a method that changes the ice directly into gas so it never goes through a liquid state. The magazines will be dry documents when it’s finished.”
    “That’s amazing.”
    “Sometime when we have some downtime—if we ever do—you might enjoy spending some time in the conservation lab. They do interesting work.” Diane measured and recorded all the craniometric points on Plymouth Doe’s skull as she and Neva talked. The laser would do the same, but Diane still liked to take the measurements herself—as with caving, she liked to get to know the bones.
    “You know,” said Neva, “I like the older crimes better than the new ones.”
    “Less blood and putrid flesh,” said Diane.
    “Yeah. And the tragedy is farther away.”
    “I know what you mean,” Diane agreed.
    Neva gestured toward the skeleton. “How is Korey handling her clothes?”
    “There are several methods for working with waterlogged fabric, but I think he’s going to use a process that impregnates the material with silicone oil. Jin’ll have to look for trace and blood before any processing is done. I think he and Korey have come up with an experiment to see how much these methods affect the ability to do blood analysis. I know Korey wants to go to the fabric store to get different kinds of textiles for the experiment. He and Jin are writing a paper together.”
    Diane finished measuring the skull and began her examination of the other bones. She started by feeling along the ribs with her fingers, searching for nicks.
    “I can see how that kind of information helps us,” said Neva. “But what are Korey and the museum going to get out of the experiments?”
    Diane looked up from the skull. “For one thing, archaeologists also look for blood residue. Even after thousands of years, they can still find protein markers from different kinds of animals on arrowheads. Same thing with ancient textiles they run across. It would be good for them to know how preservation techniques affect blood or other kinds of stains that might be on artifacts.”
    “How do you know all this stuff?”
    Diane looked up from the rib she was examining and paused a long moment, grinning. “I’ve got this really big museum connected to the crime lab and it knows all kinds of stuff.”
    Neva hit her forehead with the heel of her hand.
    “Speaking of the museum, how’s Mike doing?” asked Diane.
    “Antsy and a little obnoxious about having to rest, if you can imagine Mike being obnoxious.”
    Diane couldn’t. “He’s only been out of the hospital, what—two, three days?”
    “That’s what I keep telling him. He wanted to come in to the museum today. I think I talked him out of it. But he’s really excited about his new job.”
    “So is Shelly, the collection manager for Geology. She’s so glad Dr. Lymon is gone that I’m expecting her to be doing cartwheels down the halls. She and Lymon have gotten into it a few times.”
    “I wanted to thank you for . . . well, you know, keeping me out of the harassment business. I know I shouldn’t have been such a coward.”
    “Don’t worry about it. Sylvia Mercer’s witnessing the incident was all the evidence that mattered. David checked out Dr. Lymon, by the way, and she had an alibi for the day of the stabbing at the funeral.”
    “That’s a relief.”
    Diane was about to hand Plymouth Doe’s skull over to Neva when David called on the intercom.
    “Diane, Jin and Korey want us in the conservation lab ASAP. Jin sounds excited.”

Chapter 33
    “Jin just loves this job.” Neva grinned. “You know, he’s decided he likes caves too. He said he’d like to go with us sometime. I invited him to come to the caver club meeting at the museum.”
    “You did tell him we don’t always discover bodies?” Diane covered the bones with a special absorbent material that she had saturated with water, hung her white lab coat on a wall peg and washed her hands.
    Neva laughed. “I did. He and Korey came over for dinner last night and Mike showed