The Night Killer

the point to Diane. “Does this belong with Roy’s?” he asked, eyeing Slick.
    Diane looked at the projectile point, as Jonas Briggs, the museum’s archaeologist, called them. She had no idea what kind it was, but it was pretty. Long and jet-black. Near the base on a flake scar was a small rectangle of white paint with neat, tiny black numbers. Roy said he had numbered each of the items in his grandfather’s collections—all according to the carefully penned outline his grandfather did of each point he found, along with a rather charming description of where he found it and what he was doing that day. It must have taken Roy months to find which point matched what outline in his father’s diary. A real labor of love for him.
    “Yes, this is one of Roy’s,” said Diane.
    “You lying bitch,” said Tammy. “This is the last time we ever try to help anybody out. They can just lie out in the mud for all we care, can’t they, honey?”
    Diane ignored her and carefully put the point away, grateful that it hadn’t gotten broken in Slick’s pocket.
    “Tammy, why don’t you and Slick go in the house and fix yourselves some of that cocoa you were talking about,” said Conrad.
    “Travis, I never would have suspected what a little piece of shit you are,” said Tammy. “No wonder Carol steps out on you. I saw her getting it on with Pryce Moody the other day out by the lake.”
    “Tammy, how would you even know what that looks like?” said Deputy Conrad.
    “Why, you pig, I ought to scratch your eyes out,” she said, making clawlike movements with her hands.
    “Slick,” said Conrad, “why don’t the two of you go inside, like I suggested. And if, on the way, you find anything that belongs to Miss Fallon, just toss it over here.”
    Slick and his girlfriend, Tammy, turned and walked inside, hurling a few more insults that Diane didn’t quite hear. She shook her head. What a pair.
    Travis climbed in the back with Diane and looked over the boxes she was repacking.
    “Roy was so proud that the museum was interested in his arrowhead collection. He said he might get a plaque with his and his grandfather’s name on it hanging in the museum. He was worried that you might not accept the collection, ’cause he didn’t have an exact location where they were found.”
    “His grandfather left a detailed diary telling generally where he found things in the woods,” said Diane. “We don’t have an exact location, but our archaeologist assures me that the collection will be useful—at the very least, to catalog the types of points found in the area.”
    “So Roy’ll get his plaque?” asked Deputy Conrad.
    “Yes,” said Diane. “This is going to be a nice collection for the museum.”
    Travis Conrad nodded. “Good. I’d like to put that in his obituary, that he’s getting a plaque. He’d be proud.”
    “Yes, he would,” said Diane. “I’m glad Mr. Massey didn’t get into the boxes with the really large points,” said Diane.
    “He’d of taken them for sure,” said Deputy Conrad. “I was thinking about Dances with Wolves , ’bout them soldiers wiping their butts with John Dunbar’s diary. Slick didn’t get Ray’s grandfather’s diary, I hope?”
    “No. Fortunately, we have that. Our archaeologist has been studying it,” said Diane.
    Travis nodded. “Tell me, were you bullshitting about the details of that skeleton?” he asked.
    “No. All the information I mentioned I got from the skull. It’s pretty standard observation in my business. Although I didn’t see it for very long, I did get a reasonably good look at it. I may be wrong on some of the details, but I wasn’t making it up. They got rid of a human skeleton somewhere,” said Diane. “It had been cemented up in that hollow tree for no longer than a year. I’m fairly certain of that.”
    Diane got out of the vehicle and walked across the road to the ditch, where Slick had dumped the pieces of the rotten tree. Deputy Conrad followed her. She looked through the pile and picked up a curved piece of wood and a piece of concrete.
    “Souvenirs?” asked Conrad.
    “I thought this would make a nice bowl,” she said, smiling.
    “This . . . this thing . . . that happened to Roy and Ozella will take all our time,” he said. “We don’t have the manpower to investigate this right now.”
    “I understand. You don’t mind if I take some souvenirs, do you?” she said.
    “No, just let me know if they are interesting,” he