One Grave Too Many

any more on that line.”
    “There’s another row?” Jonas said. “That may be an artifact number. Can you read it?”
    “No. It’s just white paint now. They were successful in scratching it off.”
    “I’d vote for zero or three on the first digit. I don’t think Massachusetts has that many sites, but I may be wrong. I’ll make some calls, if you like.”
    “That would be good. Thanks for doing this.”
    “Because the site is in Massachusetts, doesn’t mean the person got the point from there. University of Arizona, for example, could have excavated the site and stored the artifacts there. But I’ll start with the Massachusetts state archaeologist and see if he’ll fax me a list of their sites and site numbers.”
    Jonas went into his office to make his calls. Diane stayed in his workroom and called Frank’s partner, Ben Florian, on her cell phone. He picked up his phone immediately.
    “Hi,” he said. “I got your message about the missing persons query and passed it along immediately to the police in Rosewood.”
    “What do you mean?” Diane had a sinking feeling.
    “My boss thought it would be better if Rosewood handled sending out the query. It’s not an official case for us, and he likes to maintain good relations with the surrounding jurisdictions.”
    “They won’t do anything with it.”
    “Sure they will. . . .” He hesitated.
    “No, they won’t. They’ll sit on it. That’s why Frank was doing it himself. They have their theory of the crime and that’s it for them. Besides, the skeleton wasn’t found in the city of Rosewood’s jurisdiction, but in the county under Sheriff Bruce Canfield’s jurisdiction. They don’t like him either, so they’ll have given it to some secretary and told her to put it on the bottom of her to-do list. The sheriff won’t get it probably for a few months.”
    The other end of the line was quiet for several long moments. “I’m real sorry, I didn’t know.”
    Suddenly Diane wanted to cry. She bit her lower lip and tried to keep her voice from quavering.
    “We’ve only lost a couple of days,” she said. She told him about the artifact number she and Jonas were trying to translate. Trying to express as clearly as she understood it what the site number meant. “I’m going to call some of the Massachusetts universities and ask if they’ve had any students go missing in the past five years. I’ll give Sheriff Canfield the information too, so he can send out a query.” Diane wondered if she sounded bitter—at that moment her voice reminded her of her mother’s “well, if you can’t do it, I’ll have to do it myself” voice.
    “I’ll call a few people and see if I can hurry the process along,” said Ben. “How’s Frank doing?”
    “Getting better. We have rooms across the hall from each other.”
    “You’re in the hospital too?”
    “I was.” She told him about her kidnaping and the desire of the kidnapers to get their hands on the remains. “I’ve got out to go to a board meeting, but I had to promise the doctor I’d come back.”
    “This isn’t good,” he said. She could hear the regret in his voice. “Look, I’m real sorry about the misunderstanding.” Diane could hear from his tone that he was, but the anger still sat in her stomach like undigested food. She was working as hard as she could to solve this, and the people in authority—even the friendly ones—did nothing but throw up roadblocks. When she hung up, she wanted to put her head down and cry. She was so tired and her body ached all over.
    Instead, she called the sheriff. To her great surprise and relief, he had sent out a query as soon as he heard about the results of the stable isotope tests, making updates when he found more information. Diane thanked him so profusely it seemed to confuse him.
    “Just doing my job. I heard something else happened to you.”
    Diane related a quick version of the incident.
    “Whoever did this is here and desperate. You take some serious precautions, you hear?”
    “I am.”
    “I’ll get on this new Massachusetts information right away. Who knows? We might come up with something in a hurry.”
    Diane thanked him again and pushed the disconnect button.
    “They’re going to fax my computer with a list of sites,” said Jonas from his office. Diane went back and sat in the comfortable chair, closing her eyes, grateful that the sheriff, at least, knew what his job was. “You need someplace to rest.”
    “I . .