Dead Secret

should go about this?”
    “We can call a company,” said David. “They’ll probably do something like inflate a balloon inside the vehicle—or tie special balloons to it. That’s how they got those enormously heavy antique logs that Korey was talking about off the bottom of Lake Superior. Depending on what condition it’s in, they’ll try to contain it in some way. Jin can tell us how the process works.”
    “Well,” the sheriff, said as he stood up. “thanks for finding me another crime scene—one that looks expensive.” He chuckled. Canfield went to the door and Diane buzzed him out.
    “Good job, David,” said Diane. “You did good. More than good. I’m really impressed.”
    “We all are,” said Jin. “I thought the sheriff’s eyes were going to drop out of his head.”
    “All the praise is appreciated—and deserved.” He made a flourishing bow. “Thank you.” He turned to Neva. “So, Neva, what’s in the box?” said David.
    “I found something at my house.”
    “Something that I missed?” cried Jin.
    “Sort of. In a way.”
    Jin’s look was a mixture of amazement and horror.
    “What is it?” said Diane.
    “You know that the intruder destroyed all my polymer clay figures. He also got into my workplace and messed up my clay, mashing it all together.” She took a twisted and folded piece of red, blue and brown clay and set it on the table with a clunk. She had clearly baked the mass of clay.
    “I went by my place before visiting Mike and sort of got to crying over my clay and looking at it. I think the intruder made a mistake. There was an imprint in the clay.”
    “Fingerprints?” asked David.
    “No, not fingerprints. I think he wore latex gloves.” She tapped the piece she had set on the table. “I found an imprint in here that looks like the folds of a glove. I baked this piece to make a mold. Then I put another piece of clay in the mold and made a cast. This is what I found.” She put another piece of baked clay on the table. This one was the color of terra-cotta pots.
    Diane picked it up and looked at the form in the clay. “It’s an impression of his fingers.”
    “I’m thinking that he took my clay and was mashing it together and made the impression with his four fingers. Look at the folds, kind of like the inside of a gloved hand, and the impression itself is sort of muted, as if it had something covering it. You can see the back side of a ring and fingernails. You can also see that one finger is badly damaged.”
    “Very good, Neva,” said Jin. He grinned at her.
    “I’ll put it in the evidence drawer for my house break-in,” said Neva.
    “Call Garnett,” said Diane. “Tell him what you found.”
    “Me?” said Neva.
    Neva had always been a little intimidated by Garnett. “You found it,” said Diane. “And it’s an identifying characteristic.”
    Neva nodded, then smiled. “Sure.”
    Diane turned to Jin. “What did the two of you find at the Jane Doe crime scene?”
    “A running shoe, a pair of socks, several small plastic buttons,” said Jin. “But I may have missed something.”
    “Get over it, Jin,” said Diane.
    “Yeah, Neva was there,” said David. “She would have found anything you didn’t.”
    Jin shrugged and continued. “We found some of the bones of her hands and feet and a few others we couldn’t identify. We photographed the place, but didn’t find anything but the bones. The deputy did a number on the site. Oh, I did get a bug out of his car. It’s a dermestid, just like we figured.”
    “Did you find a femur?” asked Diane. “Our Jane Doe is missing one.”
    Jin and Neva looked at each other. “No,” they said, shaking their heads.
    “Are there any nursing homes in the area?” Diane asked.
    “The closest one is ten miles. Sheriff Burns said no one is missing that he’s aware of,” said Jin. “The sheriff took us to the site. He’s pretty steamed at Deputy Singer, especially when he saw all the shovel marks in the ground and we told him how the bones arrived. Singer was supposed to have called us to photograph the scene and collect the bones.”
    “I got the impression,” said Neva, “that he won’t be having a job when he gets out of the hospital.”
    “Whenever that is,” said Jin. “Sheriff Burns said that besides his injuries, he developed some kind of rash thing.”
    “Urticaria, probably,” said David. He rubbed his arm unconsciously. “It’s a skin condition brought on by an allergic