One Grave Too Many

museum?”
    “Yes, we’ve had a graduate student and a lab technician, but I’ve had no reason to suspect them. Besides, they were both from Venezuela.”
    “I think the music is probably an unfortunate coincidence, but let’s not take any chances. We can’t allow people like him to take revenge on humanitarian workers, and certainly not in their homes. I’ll contact our people who are watching him.”
    “It’s so hard sometimes.” Tears brimmed her eyes and almost overflowed onto her cheeks.
    “I know. But remember that you have many friends. Call me anytime, even if you just need to talk.”
    “Thank you, Gregory.”
    She placed the receiver back on the phone. She could handle whoever it was who had placed the orders. But she wasn’t sure she could handle whoever had left the note for the quartet. If the music wasn’t an innocent coincidence, then it was something very mean and ugly. She finally stood up to go back to the party when she heard movement just on the other side of the adjoining door to Andie’s office.
    Diane searched around her desk for a weapon. All she could find was a letter opener decorated with Mayan symbols. She took hold of it, trying to think what to do. Call Leonard? He would still be upstairs. This was foolish. It was probably Andie. She put the letter opener back on the desk and walked out into the hall and around to Andie’s office door. If she opened it from the hall side, at least she would have a place to run. From there someone could hear her shout.
    She touched the door so that it slowly swung open. A figure silhouetted by the desk lamp was going through Andie’s desk drawer.

Chapter 6
    Diane switched on the ceiling light and heard a sudden intake of breath as the figure popped up from her stooped position, her hand over her chest.
    “Oh . . . Dr. Fallon . . . You scared me.”
    “That makes two of us. Can I help you?” Diane relaxed, relieved she hadn’t brought the Mayan letter opener with her. The intruder was Melissa, the second violinist from the string quartet.
    Melissa smoothed a strand of light brown wavy hair away from her face. “Your assistant, Andie, said she had some extra-strength aspirin in her drawer.” She held up Andie’s keys as if to verify that she had permission to be rambling around in her desk.
    “I imagine that playing for hours can bring on a headache.”
    Her blue eyes looked relieved. “You’re not kidding. That, and dealing with people. Do you know someone asked us to play ‘Memory’?”
    Diane laughed. “I can see it now. Next they’ll want karaoke night at the museum.”
    “Here they are.” She poured two tablets out onto her hand and put the bottle back.
    “There’s a water fountain just outside the door.”
    Melissa’s passage out of Andie’s office left a trail of heavy perfume in her wake. She downed the pills at the water fountain and took a deep breath. “We really do appreciate being asked here. We’ve had several people wanting to hire us.”
    “I’m not surprised people are impressed. The music’s been wonderful.”
    As Melissa turned from the fountain, Diane noticed that under carefully applied makeup, she had a black eye. A brief glance down at her arms discerned no more bruises, but the dark, floor-length sleeveless dress the young woman wore had a turtleneck. Diane fought an urge to turn down the collar to look at Melissa’s throat.
    Too much time spent investigating the products of abuse, she thought. She needed to mind her own business, which was now the museum, and not man’s inhumanity to man. But it haunted her that she had always been too late to help the victims. They were already decayed flesh and bones by the time she saw them. It would have been nice just once to be in a position to stop some atrocity.
    “That black eye looks like it might hurt,” Diane said, letting the sentence hang between them.
    Melissa was young, shy, and that evening Diane was her employer—powerful stimuli to say something about what had happened, if only to lie. They both stood, paused in the hallway.
    “Yes, it does, some. Clumsiness,” Melissa said at last.
    “I was exercising. I have to keep strength in my arms to play the violin. You wouldn’t believe how much stamina it takes to keep your arms at that level for hours. I don’t know how Lacy manages that viola for so long. Anyway, I accidently hit myself in the face with one of my hand weights. Almost knocked myself out.”
    Melissa laughed at herself