Dead Secret

often weren’t convicted—and she had no evidence whatsoever. Even if Valentine and MacRae rolled over on their benefactors, she had no corroborating evidence. The snapshot from the cave didn’t mean anything. It was just an old picture Caver Doe had in his pocket, and the resemblance to Mrs. Taggart could be a coincidence.
    She pulled into the parking lot of the museum. Few cars were there—mostly her crime lab people. She recognized Mike’s SUV. The RV was gone. She smiled to herself. That was a nice thing Frank had done.
    As she entered the building a woman who looked to be in her forties and an older man somewhere between sixty and seventy were arguing with the security guard. The woman was dressed in an inexpensive dark blue pantsuit that fit snugly on her slightly overweight frame. The man wore jeans, a plaid short-sleeved shirt, and a cap that hadn’t been conditioned to put a curve in the bill. The woman was shaking a large manila envelope she held in her hand.
    “We don’t want to see the museum; we want to see this Fallon woman. It’s about the people they’re asking about on TV,” the woman almost shouted at the security guard.
    Diane’s spirits lifted. Already there was a bite.
    “I’ll see them.”
    They turned toward her.
    “I’m Diane Fallon.”
    “I’m Lydia Southwell. This is my father, Earl Southwell,” said the woman. “We think the woman they’re asking about may be my grandmother Jewel Southwell.”
    “Come inside, please,” said Diane.
    She led them inside to her office lounge and sat them down at the table. She offered coffee, tea or a soda. Each took a Coke. Diane took one as well from the small refrigerator.
    “You recognize someone in these drawings?” Diane had copies of the originals lying on the table.
    The woman touched the drawing of Plymouth Doe with her fingertips.
    “That looks like my mother,” Earl said. “The TV said she worked at Ray’s Diner. My mother worked there a long time ago before she disappeared.”
    The woman still held the large brown envelope in her lap. “We have these pictures.” She pulled the photographs out and they spilled over the table.
    “Lydia,” said her father sharply, “you didn’t need to bring all our pictures.”
    “I didn’t want to take the time to hunt through them.”
    Lydia picked out a large portrait of her grandmother. One corner was singed.
    “My daddy tried to burn the pictures,” said Earl Southwell, “but my granny—Mama’s mother—pulled them out of the fire.”
    “Do you have any dental records or X-rays?”
    “No. That was a long time ago,” said Lydia. “I don’t think they had that stuff then.”
    Diane looked at the photograph. It was a woman smiling into the camera. She looked very much like Neva’s drawing of Plymouth Doe.
    “Can you tell me about her?” said Diane. “What happened to her?”
    “We thought she left us,” said Mr. Southwell. “I was just a little bit of a thing, only five years old. My daddy was working in Atlanta, coming home on weekends. Those days it took longer to get from here to there. Mama was a pretty woman and kind of forward, if you know what I mean.”
    He paused and took a long drink of Coke. “My daddy was angry. I remember that more than anything. He wanted to burn everything that had anything to do with Mama.”
    “Why did he think she left?”
    “The story was, she ran off with Dale Wayne Russell,” he said. “That was a cussword at our house. The two of them just up and left. Mama left my daddy and me when I was just a young’un, and Dale left a sweetheart.” Mr. Southwell was quiet for a moment. “You think she’s been dead all these years?”
    Tears welled up in Lydia Southwell’s eyes. “Grandpa was a bitter man because of it—so was Daddy.” She looked at her father almost accusingly. She turned back to Diane. “Can you tell us if it’s really her?”
    Diane nodded.
    “Right now? Can we know right now? Please, we need to know.”
    “Come with me.” Diane helped Lydia gather up her photographs and she led them up to her osteology unit office.
    As they walked through the museum, Diane got whiffs of an unpleasant odor. It wasn’t strong, like something that had lingered, a little like something rotting, or decaying tissue. I hope it’s not that damn snake, crawled up and died in the wall, Diane thought. Maybe it was something in a garbage bin. She’d have to ask janitorial services to check.
    “Grandma was a hard worker,”