Scattered Graves

well-being, please have someone get me whenever you are involved in any way in a severe trauma. Death and near-death experiences af fect you in ways you cannot handle alone.’’
‘‘Are you saying I need your strong shoulder to lean against?’’
‘‘Yes, that’s what I’m saying. It’s no weakness on your part...or mine. It’s a human need.’’
‘‘So, when you get shot up, you need my shoulder as well?’’ she said.
‘‘You know very well that I do,’’ Frank said.
‘‘That’s very sweet,’’ Diane said.
‘‘Call me if anything even remotely like this ever happens to you again.’’
‘‘Okay, I will.’’
‘‘You promise?’’ he said.
‘‘I promise.’’
‘‘Okay. Tell me the rest of it,’’ Frank said.
‘‘Edgar Peeks thinks I killed him,’’ she said. ‘‘I be lieve he would have arrested me had not Colin Pre hoda arrived to spring me.’’
‘‘Peeks strikes me as incompetent. Spence Jefferies wants to hire people who are loyal to him regardless of their qualifications. I doubt if Peeks can make a case even when he has one.’’
‘‘Maybe not, but he can leak it to the papers that I’m a suspect. That wouldn’t be good for me or the museum.’’
‘‘Don’t worry about it now.’’ Frank kissed the top of her head. ‘‘Other than hanging on the side of the cliff, how was the rest of your day?’’
She told Frank about Bryce hiring Goldilocks the forensic anthropologist from California and putting her in the museum forensic anthropology office. She told him about Jin having to strong-arm Curtis Crab tree, who was apparently also a detective. Then she told him about the closet.
Frank laughed during the whole narrative.
‘‘They were in the closet having a conversation?’’ he said, with a characteristic twinkle in his eye. ‘‘How big is the closet?’’
‘‘Pretty big,’’ said Diane. ‘‘Small room size. I sup pose that was the most private place they could find.’’
‘‘How could he not know the forensic anthropology lab belongs to the museum?’’ asked Frank.
‘‘I don’t know. It’s true that I haven’t done any work for the crime lab since Bryce took over. Nothing has come up. That’s not particularly unusual. Maybe that’s why he thought I was no longer working as the forensic anthropologist. But I would have thought the new administration would have known.’’ She shrugged. ‘‘It’s straightened out now. I feel sorry for the forensic anthropologist he hired. She was totally broadsided today. I don’t know why David or Neva didn’t tell him the lab belongs to the museum.’’
‘‘Why didn’t David tell you about the forensic an thropologist?’’ asked Frank.
Diane hesitated a second and sat up. That was a good question.
‘‘Perhaps he didn’t know about it,’’ she said.
‘‘He didn’t know?’’ said Frank with a raised eye brow. ‘‘Is that likely?’’ He pulled her back to him.
‘‘No. David always knows everything going on in the lab. He didn’t tell me because he wanted me to be surprised and more inclined to rip Bryce a new one.’’ She stared at the fireplace and wished there was a fire in it. ‘‘I’m worried about David. He is really very levelheaded, despite his playing at being paranoid. But lately he seems truly paranoid. Losing the lab was a blow to all of us, including me. And now is not a good time for either of us.’’
The two of them had worked together as human rights investigators. They probed and recorded the worst behavior of humankind in hopes of achieving even the smallest amount of justice. In South America they were uncovering mass graves filled by a particu larly vicious dictator. He struck back at them hard. In the massacre he led, Diane had lost her adopted daughter, and both she and David had lost many good friends.
Diane had spent months in despair and on benzodi azepine. When she finally stepped back into life again, she couldn’t go back to doing the work she had done before. The offer to be director of RiverTrail Museum of Natural History was a salvation. She was several months into her position when David Goldstein showed up and asked for a job. Like her, he had been aimless since the massacre, walking a fine line this side of sanity. He wanted to work in Diane’s newly estab lished crime lab. There he felt he could actually bring bad guys to justice.
And now it was coming up on the anniversary of the massacre. Every year it was hard. Every year