Carnosaur Crimes (9 page)

Finally she calmed down and focused on her next mission – visiting Glendive and Sidney where the other fossils had been stolen.

Chapter 12

“No answer is also an answer.”

Hopi

Ansel opened the door leading into the Glendive Community College Library and almost got trampled by a noisy herd of students exiting en masse, their backpacks full of notebooks and their arms burdened with textbooks. It was the first week of fall term and lunch hour to boot.

It hadn't been difficult to locate the school where Ranger Eastover had informed her that fossils were nabbed. The small Dawson County institution, which offered limited curricula for obtaining bachelor degrees, was the only campus in Glendive that was displaying them.

The intellectual and physical excitement generated throughout the campus was palpable in the air around Ansel. Slumbering memories of the rigors of academia life rose like a leviathan in her chest and feelings of nostalgia overwhelmed her. How hopeful these young scholars were, so sure of their dreams and their places in the world. Like salmon swimming upstream, she thought, watching their purposeful swerves and dashes.

All of their energies were devoted to chasing a chosen goal, an undefined destiny waiting always just out of reach but forever within sight. Many would fail to ford the rough waters ahead. Others would simply grow weary of the competitive, driving tempo and choose to quit. And those who made it to the end-run waters would probably find the reward less satisfying then all the racing to get there had been. Was it worth it? Ansel had no answer to that question even for herself.

She certainly loved what she was doing as an artist, but any career could become nothing but a breeding ground for stale successes which turned into carefully constructed death traps for the soul. Twelve years after graduating with dual degrees, had she really gotten what she needed out of life?

She'd been one of those blessed students, surviving the trials of university life and even surpassing her career goals in the real world, but she was still unhappy and unfulfilled on other emotional levels. She had her family, but no children. She had money and possessions, but she shared them with no one. Fame certainly didn't fill her home with happy voices. Fortune didn't warm her bed at night.

Ansel quelled her maudlin thoughts and allowed the cool, calm atmosphere of the brick and glass library to envelop her. She crossed a veldt of green carpeting toward the main checkout desk and skirted past the usual gaggle of study desks, carrels, computer stations, periodical stands, and towering rows of book shelves. A gorgeous panorama of the Yellowstone River Valley complete with grassland expanses and a river view was visible through large arching windows along the northeast wall of the room.

The front counter was empty except for an elderly gray-haired lady wearing an Assistant Librarian name tag. She looked up expectantly. “Hello. How may I help you?”

“Hello. My name is Ansel Phoenix. A woman from the administrative office sent me over here. I'd like to speak with Director Bogart, please.”

The librarian's eyes widened. “Not Ansel Phoenix the dinosaur artist?”

“Why yes, I am. Don't tell me somebody from administration called you

“Heavens, no,” she replied with a light chuckle. “I recognize your name. We've got one of your prints up on the wall.” She pointed a knobby index finger behind Ansel's shoulder.

Ansel glanced around. A large and signed limited edition print of an adult Albertosaurus tenderly nuzzling a clutch of eggs was situated over a potted plant. She'd painted the original oil and canvas artwork for display in a Butte gallery where it quickly sold to a well known Montana celebrity and avid dinosaur fan.

Soon after, an art publishing house had contacted her about producing the painting as a limited edition print of five-hundred. She'd always had a soft spot for that particular artistic creation. There was something almost mystical about the vision of such a fearsome, meat eater tending so lovingly to her unborn young that always tugged at her heartstrings.

“What a nice surprise,” Ansel said.

“It's a wonderful picture. You wouldn't believe how many students enjoy it. There was a red-haired young man here the other night that stared at it for quite a while. He seemed positively entranced.”

She faced the librarian again, thinking that if the man had been an Indian with a limp, she'd really have something concrete to work with. “The truth is, dinosaurs are what I want to speak with your director about.”

“Really? Goodness. Unfortunately she's gone for the afternoon. Maybe I can help you.”

“I wanted to ask her about the T-Rex foot bones that were on display. I just found out at the office that it was stolen last week, which is unfortunate. I'd planned to do some sketches of it today. Research for a drawing I'm doing. You wouldn't believe how much preliminary sketching goes into these paintings.”

The librarian's face turned dark. “Yup, they stole the foot right out of this big case we had over by the front door, all right. Don't know how they carted it away so fast. Everyone's upset about it. Mrs. Bogart will be very disappointed that she missed you, Ms. Phoenix. And missed the opportunity to have you working here in our library. Listen, you know, Dean Knowles is here. Back in audiovisual. He could tell you all about it.”

Pleased at her continued luck, Ansel said, “I'd like that very much. I won't be long.”

“Oh, he loves to talk. I'll get him.”

The woman left the counter and hurried into another room behind an alcove. She soon returned with a short, frizzy-haired man wearing brown pants and yellow shirt with a horseshoe bolo.

“Ms. Phoenix this is Dean Knowles,” the assistant said.

Ansel held out a hand. “ Nice to meet you, Dean Knowles. Hope I didn't disturb you.”

Knowles smiled effusively, his pudgy face a green-eyed vision of delight. He grabbed her palm and pumped it several times. “It's my pleasure, Ms. Phoenix. Absolutely. Elke tells me that you want to know what happened here last week. Very bad news. Terrible. The college is going to suffer the repercussions from this for some time. The foot wasn't ours. It was on loan for display purposes from the Makoshika State Park. Worth about five-thousand dollars.”

“Well, I don't mean to pry, but I'm horrified that something like this has happened to you. A similar incident occurred in my town of Big Toe. Somebody tried to steal fossil dinosaur tracks from a museum the same night. Fortunately, they didn't succeed.”

“Yes, I read about that in the papers. What a coincidence. Amazing. Small world. The police here believe that the two events are related, you know.”

“Do the police know how many people were involved in your theft?”

“More than one. They cut the alarm system, battered down a rear security door to the library, sledge-hammered the plexiglass case apart, and grabbed the foot. Nothing subtle about them.”

“I'm not being critical, but didn't security guards see or hear anything?”

“We're a small campus, just fifteen-hundred students even on a very busy day. In the middle of the night, we're locked down with minimal security resources,” Knowles admitted. “It was Friday night. Most of our trouble on campus, if it happens, comes from the dormitory. By the time the guards realized the library had been breached, the robbers were long gone, unlike your situation. The poacher at the museum was killed, right?”

Nodding, Ansel cast a glance at Elke, who still stood by them listening avidly. She needed to get the dean alone so she could talk more frankly to him. “Yes. Accidentally. Could we sit down, Dean Knowles?”

Knowles blinked, then clucked his tongue. “Absolutely. How thoughtless of me. I'm still reeling from all this. Let's go to a table, shall we? Elke, I won't hold you up. I know you've got a thousand things to do.”

“Not right this minute,” Elke said, grinning at Ansel.

“We'll be fine. You run along,” Knowles insisted gently to the woman as he turned Ansel toward a long wooden table with four empty chairs.

“Thanks for your help,” Ansel said to the kindly librarian.

“You need anything else, Ms. Phoenix, don't you hesitate to ask me,” Elke responded anxiously. “I love your work.”

Knowles pulled out a chair for Ansel and when she was comfortably seated, he yanked out another, sat down in it, and crossed his legs as if settling in for a while. “As I was saying, there's no telling where these thieves came from. They can find you if they want to. I have a friend who stumbled upon some nice smaller dinosaur fossils on his own property and a month later his house was broken into and they were stolen. The police think that his own excitement over the fossils did him in. He discussed the find with people he knew and word of mouth got around until somebody decided they wanted them. Whoever it was used his license plate number and hacked into DMV records to get his home address. You've got to be very careful these days when you go someplace with fossils or go looking for them.”

“I had no idea things were that bad.”

Knowles nodded. “Well, at least your museum footprints are safe. I doubt we'll ever retrieve the T-Rex foot. It will probably end up on the international, multi-million dollar black- market and sold to some Japanese businessman in Tokyo. With buyers like that, it's no surprise that museums and exhibitions, even a tiny one like ours, are fair game for smugglers.”

Ansel looked at her artwork. Nothing was sacred. She'd heard once that fossil eggs were a real hot commodity. Each egg in her drawing symbolized up to fifteen-hundred dollars in the real world of illegal fossil trading. Entire nests were pandered to foreign buyers. Years ago she'd read that a Los Angeles undercover operation had grabbed an illegal shipment of one-hundred Chinese dinosaur eggs and nests worth four-hundred thousand dollars, exactly the kind of wholesale destruction that Outerbridge was asking her to help eliminate.

“And then, there was that other fossil theft incident in Sidney just north of us,” Knowles added.

The Sidney theft was exactly what she wanted to know more about. She feigned ignorance. “Another robbery? Do you know where it happened?”

The dean grimaced. “I certainly do. A fossil store called Earthly Pleasures. It's run by Hillard Yancy.”

“You aren't fond of him, I gather.”

With a shrug, Knowles replied, “I'm not fond of his business practices. It's nothing personal. Calls himself a private commercial dealer. I've only dealt with Yancy through college affairs. He's approached us several times. I hear he's solicited every campus in the state, trying to sell his fossils as educational tools.”

“How does he contact you?”

“He sends me catalog lists. Anything from dinosaur dung in bulk at a dollar per pound up to a Triceratops skull for sixty-thousand. If I don't respond, which I never do, he gives me a personal follow-up call.”

“Is he a certified dealer?”

“Yes. He's got all the proper credentials. He's even a member of the AAPS. That doesn't make him a saint.”

Ansel knew that the American Association of Paleontology Suppliers had a code of ethics which stated that its members would strive to place specimens of unique scientific interest into responsible hands for study, research, and preservation, but their policy wasn't purely altruistic.

A lot of dealer-excavated fossils from private lands were fragments which had no scientific value for institutions, museums, and repositories and were sold to customers who wanted “something beautiful” and which they could relate to. Many AAPS members firmly believed that fossils weren't rare at all and that commercial sales by dealers ultimately reduced bone prices by finding more fossils than academics could ever hope to excavate.

“Do you suspect Yancy's involved with any illegal fossil hunting activities?”

“I couldn't say one way or the other, but he's an original Jurassic Shark in my mind. He hunts down fossils, gobbles them up, and digests the cash to get fatter and fatter. All the while he claims he's saving fossils before the forces of nature or poachers destroy them.”

“Did you tell the police this?”

“Absolutely, but they didn't think Yancy would be involved in robbing the campus library and burglarizing himself at the same time. According to them, his supply store got ripped off for a lot more fossils than the foot bones taken from this college.”

Knowles grunted. “Serves Yancy right though. Even if he is on the up and up, he's doing a lot of damage to the academic and scientific community he professes to serve. He may be properly excavating a fossil, but I bet he's not doing the research and paperwork that should go along with it. A lot of contextual knowledge about bone locations and the biology around them is being lost and it's irreplaceable. Education isn't displaying fossil curiosities on a wall to be ogled, Ms. Phoenix. It's collecting scientific data and disseminating it to the public. Maybe the theft will put him out of business for good.”

Ansel took all this in with a grain of salt. It was the same old story she'd heard before from academics in the Pangaea Society. Commercial dealers are bad. Scientists are good. Dean Knowles was a nice man, but he was a typical soapbox advocate for stricter fossil regulations. Things weren't always so black and white.

She felt sure that when she talked to Hillard Yancy, he'd be a rabid advocate for government de-regulation of fossil excavation laws. The dealer probably believed that he was exerting his god-given right as a businessman to search for bones on private lands where he had owner permission, contractual or otherwise, to excavate and sell his inventory for profit. The problem was that neither side of the sell-not-sell coin bought positive results when it came to stopping illegal poaching on public or state lands.

“Thank you, Dean Knowles. You've been very kind,” Ansel said, rising.

“Don't mention it. You're going to visit Yancy?”

“Of course. You've raised my curiosity and shopping for fossils is my passion.”