DF08 - The Night Killer (10 page)

“Please.”

“I think you are happy,” she said.

“What?” Diane expected more.

“After Ariel was killed, your psyche felt that nothing worse could happen, and it responded with this fearlessness that you’ve possessed. But now, with this job you’ve become comfortable in, your friends, Frank, Star, you have become happy, and it scares you. Now you have something to lose again. You responded by being afraid. It’s normal. And in addition, you think you don’t deserve to be happy, because of what happened in South America.”

“I don’t deserve to be happy? That’s a little Psych 101, isn’t it?”

“It’s called 101 because it’s basic. That’s what you are feeling,” said Laura.

“Okay, say I buy that. What can I do about it? I don’t want to ever feel afraid like that again,” said Diane.

Laura took a deep breath, changed her position on the couch, and looked back at Diane. “First, you can acknowledge that just because you lost Ariel, it in no way implies that you will lose what you have now.”

“Is there a ‘second’? I need something more concrete. I can’t acknowledge feelings that I didn’t know I have,” said Diane.

“You can find out who the skeleton belongs to and who killed the Barres. Slaying dragons is always a good way to get your mojo back,” said Laura.

Diane thought for a moment. “Okay, that’s more practical.”

Laura rolled her eyes. “Diane, you are really the limit sometimes.”

Laura was about to say more when Andie knocked on the door and slipped in.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Fallon, but there’s this man in my office who insists on speaking with you. He said his name is Sheriff Leland Conrad.”

“Talk about slaying dragons,” said Diane.

Laura rose. “I’ll go out your rear door and leave you to it,” she said. As she glided out the door she said, “Have fun. Off with his head.”

“I’ll see him in my office,” Diane told Andie, straightening her clothes and running her fingers through her hair.

“I need to go to archives,” said Andie, “but I’ll stay if you want.”

Diane smiled at her. “I’ll be fine.”

“He’s not going to arrest you or anything, is he?” asked Andie. “I mean, you just found the bodies.”

“It will be all right,” insisted Diane. “Go to your meeting. This is the meeting with the collection managers, right?”

Andie nodded. Diane had been giving Andie more responsibilities because she had asked for them. Andie was in charge of a webcam project they were starting up for the schools, and she also met with the collection managers. She had been doing quite well and Diane was proud of her.

Diane walked into her office with Andie, closing the door to her meeting room behind her. She sat down behind her desk before she asked Andie to bring Sheriff Conrad in.

Andie opened the door and introduced Diane’s guest, Sheriff Leland Conrad. Diane had heard about Sheriff Conrad, but had never met him. His son looked nothing like him. The sheriff had a large, square, stern face with permanent frown lines on either side of his small mouth. He had smooth skin pulled tight, almond eyes, and high, rounded cheekbones. He had a small nose and deep nasal folds. His thick brown hair was reminiscent of the fifties hairstyles in men. He wore his brown sheriff’s uniform, which looked like it had been starched. Leland Conrad was a tall, barrel-chested man who looked as if he liked to scare people into a confession. Diane found his whole demeanor to be off-putting, but it may have been simply that she didn’t like the things she had heard about him. He didn’t look like a happy man; nor did he look like he thought he ought to be happy.

“Afternoon, Miss Fallon. I usually ask people I interview to come to my office. Most people find that intimidating, but I reckoned that you wouldn’t, being in the business yourself, so to speak.”

Diane raised her eyebrows. So, he was interviewing a suspect.
Best not to show any fear
, she thought.

“No, I wouldn’t,” she said. “I used to work in human rights investigations in South America. You’d be hard-pressed to be more intimidating than some of the people I had to deal with down there.”
Although Slick gave it a good go
, she thought.
And you’re not doing too bad a job, just walking in here.

“That so? Interesting.”

“Please sit down, Sheriff,” she said.

He’d wandered over to the photograph of her dangling at the end of a rope, rappelling into a cave.

“I like to get a look at where a person works. Tells me a thing or two about what makes them tick. What’s this photograph?”

“It’s of me. I’m rappelling into a cave that has a vertical entrance,” she said.

“Entering a cave. That right? Looks dangerous,” he said.

“Not if you know what you’re doing. It’s really very relaxing. Strenuous, but relaxing.”

“That what you do to relax?”

It was more of a comment than a question. Diane was used to people thinking that caving was anything but relaxing.

“Yes,” she said.

“Interesting,” he said. “Don’t look too relaxing to me.”

Diane wondered what assessments he had made of her so far. He moved to the other side of the office and looked at her Escher prints: a castle with an endless ascending and descending staircase, an impossible self-filling waterfall, and a tessellation of angels and devils. It was the angels and devils he stared at.

“You religious?” he said.

“Depends on what you mean by it,” she said.

“Simple question.”

“I believe in God,” she said. “I sometimes go to church. When I do, I go to the Presbyterian or First Baptist, because I know and like the people who go there. I consider religion personal and private.”

“Humm . . .” was all he said.

Diane saw that he was trying to get to know her, trying to place her in perspective in his own worldview. Religion was important to him.

“What does this mean?” he said, pointing to the angels and devils drawn in such a pattern that there were no overlaps of the individual angels and devils; nor were there any voids between them.

“I suppose it means something different to whoever looks at it. For me, it’s like the work I do in forensics. It could be seen as the endless struggle between good and evil. It’s also an interesting interlocking pattern.”

“It’s either an angel or a demon. I like it.”

The way he said it left Diane with the impression that he was surprised that he could like a piece of art. It didn’t surprise her, however. He probably believed deep in his soul that there was a clear delineation between good and evil, and no overlapping or voids in between.

“Let me show you the crime lab,” she said.

“Not interested in your crime lab. Won’t avail myself of its services,” he said.

“I’m not asking you to use it. You said you like to look at where a person works, to understand them. This is only part of the picture.” Diane gestured with a sweep of her arm. “There is a whole other part of what I do on the other side of the building.”

“Have a point there,” he said.

Diane led him out of the office wing and into the lobby of the museum. Several tour groups were looking at the Pleistocene Room just beyond the lobby. Andie stood near the mastodon. She appeared to be giving directions to a man dressed in Dockers and a golf shirt. Several of the collection managers were with her, probably going together for a meeting up in Archives. It was not uncommon to get sidetracked just walking through the lobby.

Korey Jordan, her head conservator, was talking to one of the groups, with a docent standing beside him. His long dreadlocks were pulled back in a low ponytail that swung when he turned his head. He was probably explaining what they did to conserve some of the specimens. Visitors often enjoyed talking to the curators themselves, or in this case the conservator.

Diane saw one of the docents glance over at her and watched a look of alarm spread over her face. Diane realized that Sheriff Conrad had been in the museum before. They’d had some visitors who were in church groups take exception to the ages of the dinosaurs and the rocks. On one occasion a woman even yelled at the docent who was giving them the tour.

The sheriff, however, didn’t appear to recognize the docent. In fact, Diane thought he looked scared. Not of any particular person, certainly not of Diane. And it wasn’t that he had fright plastered on his face. But there was a subtle look of dread that changed his appearance from the overconfident man she had just had in her office.

She frowned and looked around at the people going and coming, using cell phones, iPods. Some had laptops tucked under their arms. Some of the children held models of dinosaurs they had gotten from the museum shop. There was also a lot of noise. The lobby was usually noisier than the rest of the building. People tended to quiet down near the exhibits.

With a flash of insight, Diane wondered if what he was afraid of was the world turning into something he didn’t understand. Here, amid all the colors of clothes and skin tones, amid the different accents and appearances, it was the opposite of the black-and-white picture of the angels and devils. And quite a different place from his kingdom in Rendell County.

“Lot of chaos,” he muttered.

“You should be here on a busy day,” said Diane, as they walked to the elevator. She decided she would take him to the third floor from this side of the building and walk across the third-floor overlook, which gave a wonderful view of the dinosaurs.

The overlook was crowded with visitors looking down at the dinosaur skeletons. Sheriff Conrad seemed more interested in looking at the visitors than at the giant beasts. But for several moments he did look at one of the huge pterodactyls hanging at eye level. Diane wondered what he made of it all. After a moment he was ready to go and followed Diane across the overlook in the direction of the crime lab.

He made no comment on anything he had seen on their trek through the museum. He was apparently a man with little curiosity. Or perhaps his curiosity was reserved for specific things, like sizing up the people who came into his sphere of influence.

Beyond the overlook they went through a doorway and stepped into a hallway. One end housed a security guard in a room behind a glass partition. He waved at Diane as she keyed in her access and entered the lab.

The crime lab was a maze of metal-and-glass-walled workspaces that were sparkling clean. Inside the workspaces were all kinds of wonderful equipment. At least, Diane thought it was wonderful. She wasn’t sure Sheriff Conrad was going to be impressed with it.

She was pretty much on the mark about his interest. He observed without comment each piece of equipment Diane showed him. He listened politely as she explained how it worked. Normally, things like gas chromatography, spectral analysis, and electrostatic detection impressed visitors. He seemed indifferent. In the main, he looked as if he were visiting another planet.

“We also have many national and international databases,” said Diane. AFIS for fingerprint identification, CODIS for DNA identification, of course. We also have databases for bullet casings, tire treads, fibers, glitter, shoe prints, cigarette butts, paint, hair, feathers, buttons, soil. . . .” She trailed off, feeling she had lost his attention. She didn’t mention the many computer programs that matched, categorized, imaged, mapped, and correlated all those database items.

“Find all this useful, do you?” he said at last.

“Extremely,” said Diane. “Data from evidence analysis is what physically links the criminal to the crime. Everyone leaves something behind or takes something away from a crime scene.”

“Can’t replace good old- fashioned talking to people, sizing them up,” he said.

“It’s not meant as a replacement,” said Diane. “Interviewing and sizing up bring to bear your knowledge, your years of experience, and your judgment toward the solution of a crime. Data from analysis of physical evidence provides the hard proof that the law requires. It’s our job here to extract all the information that evidence can give us.”

She saw David working in one of the cubicles on the other side of the room. He glanced at her and looked back down at whatever he was working on.

Diane led the sheriff to the forensic anthropology lab, a large white-walled room with shiny tables, sinks, microscopes, measuring devices, and Fred and Ethel, the male and female lab skeletons standing in the corner. Whereas the crime lab was affiliated with the city of Rosewood, the osteology lab belonged to the museum. It was completely her domain.

“What do you do here?” he asked, looking at the metal table. He touched it on the edge and gave it a slight shake, then took his hand away.

“I’m a forensic anthropologist. I analyze skeletal remains in this room,” she said.

He raised his eyebrows. “How many jobs you got?” he asked.

“Three, you could say. I’m director of the museum, director of the crime lab, and I’m a forensic anthropologist. I’m sent skeletal remains from all over the world and I try to get as much information as I can about the people they were,” she said.

“How’s that work out, having so many jobs?” he asked, looking around the room, his gaze resting on Fred and Ethel.

“I work a lot. But I also have a lot of people working for me,” she said.

“You do a good job at all of them?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

For the first time he almost smiled.

Diane led him to her office, a room in the corner of the lab. This office was smaller than the one in the museum—and more stark. The walls were painted a pale off-white color. The floor was made of green slate. The furniture was spare and unimaginative—a dark walnut desk, matching filing cabinets, a burgundy leather couch and matching chair, and a watercolor of a wolf on the wall. That was it. As Diane sat behind her desk, she directed him to the stuffed chair nearby.