Dust to Dust

events that occurred later in the morning with the intruders.
    She also realized Hanks was off his game. He should have asked if the hutch still had its contents when he asked Jonas what was in it. He must have been very uncomfortable, not thinking at his best. He didn’t strike her as a man who liked to load up on painkillers.
    “David Goldstein found pieces of broken pottery on the road behind the house,” said Diane. “That’s where the thieves had their vehicle parked and made their getaway this morning.”
    “When Marcella Payden was attacked,” said Hanks, “the perp or perps took some paintings. Then the guys we ran into early this morning took the pottery from the hutch, I’m guessing. So, are we looking at art thieves?”
    “Maybe,” said Garnett. “But I don’t know. I wouldn’t expect them to be geniuses, but these guys seem pretty incompetent as art thieves. The stolen pottery isn’t even authentic Indian artifacts, if I understand correctly. Is Dr. Payden’s pottery valuable?”
    Both Hanks and Diane shrugged.
    “She made pottery more for research, I believe,” said Diane. “She tried to re-create methods used by prehistoric American Indians. And she experimented to replicate past phenomena.”
    Garnett and Hanks both raised their eyebrows at this and traded glances.
    “For example, one experiment she did was to make vessels with different-colored glazes, put them on a shelf as they may have been arranged in an aboriginal shelter. She’d tip over the shelf and analyze the breakage pattern of the pottery fragments on the floor.”
    “And this tells her what exactly?” asked Hanks.
    “When excavating a site, you find a lot of broken pottery. Mapping the location of the pieces and then reconstructing them back into a whole vessel tells you something about how it got broken in the first place. In the example I gave, would the patterns of breakage that have been found at many archaeological sites result if the early people had pottery on shelves or racks in their houses? I know it seems like a lot of work for useless information, but archaeology is a lot like crime scene reconstruction—you keep adding pieces to the puzzle and after a while you have the whole scene. They are trying to reconstruct the past in as much detail as they can discover.”
    Diane didn’t think she told it as clearly as Jonas did when he spoke with students or tour groups, but Hanks’ and Garnett’s expressions weren’t entirely glazed over with confusion. Then again, neither had she enthused them to become archaeologists.
    “So she didn’t take a lot of care making the pottery pieces if she was going to break them,” said Hanks. “They probably weren’t valuable.”
    “I think she did take a lot of care,” said Diane. “She wanted to get as close as possible to matching the kind of vessels the Indians used. I doubt her pots were valuable enough to steal. But it may be the thieves thought they were real. Perhaps someone working on her house saw them, knew there was some money to be had in trading in antiquities, and came back with some of his buddies to steal them. Just a thought,” she said. “Do we know who the body in her backyard was?”
    Hanks nodded. Apparently he felt more comfortable sharing, at least in the company of Chief Garnett.
    “His name was Ray-Ray Dildy. He was a high school dropout, a day worker, and petty thief. Not much on the ball, so I’m thinking he wasn’t the mastermind, just the muscle. I’m looking into his associations now.”
    “Could he have worked on Marcella’s house?” asked Diane. “I noticed her front porches are new, as is the floor in the living room.”
    “Could have. I’d like to get her daughter to go through her mother’s receipts,” said Hanks. “They might tell us something.”
    Diane had been hesitant to ask. Afraid of the answer. But, she had to know. “How is Marcella?” she asked.
    “The doctors have her in an induced coma,” said Hanks. “Something about her brain swelling.”
    That was what Diane was afraid of. She didn’t know Marcella well, but to a person of intellect like Marcella the possibility of brain damage could be of greater fear than the possibility of death. Diane needed to find out who did this to her.
    No one said anything for a moment. Finally Hanks broke the silence.
    “You believe Jonas Briggs is innocent of involvement in the attack, don’t you?” Hanks asked Diane.
    “Yes,” said Diane.
    “Why?” asked