Dead Hunt Part 19

"The DNA is a match to Clymene O'Riley," said Diane. He looked startled. "Ross' Clymene?" he asked. "The very one," said Diane.

"I thought she was in jail," said Jacobs, ". . . or did I hear that she escaped?"

"Yes, she escaped, right after I visited her at her request. That's another long story," she said. "Well, you're right. None of this makes any sense.

Why would Clymene escape and then show up at your apartment?" he asked.

"I don't know. Why would someone else decide to kill her there? The whole thing had to be premeditated and coordinated. And why drug me?" said Diane. "I'm aware that all of this makes me look guilty of something."

"Maybe that's the point. If Clymene blamed you for her conviction, could she be behind the artifact problem? It started before her demise," he said. "I don't see how . . ." She stopped.

"What?" he asked.

"Clymene's late husband, the one she was convicted of murdering, was an amateur archaeologist. Clymene boned up on archaeology in order to lay her trap for him," said Diane.

"So she could have made contacts," said Jacobs.

"See?" He patted Diane on the hand. "You need to tell your doctor all your symptoms, no matter how much you think they are unrelated, and let him make the diagnosis."

Diane smiled. "It hadn't occurred to me that Clymene might have masterminded this. All she would have to do is get Golden Antiquities to switch the artifacts and make a call to the newspapers." "That's a possibility," said Jacobs. "I'll look into it.

I'll see if Randal Cunningham had any dealings with Clymene. Did she have friends, known a.s.sociates?

Some people in prison have a following."

"She had visitors. And there's a possibility she conned Rev. Rivers, the prison counselor, into helping her escape. He was found murdered at his home after she broke out," said Diane.

"Something went bad for her," mused Jacobs. "If it's true that she orchestrated all of this, I wonder what went wrong."

"Orchestrated. That's what's been going through my mind. The whole thing feels like some kind of game.

If it were just a simple crime, it wouldn't be so hard to understand. Motives would be more straightforward. I know there is no way either Kendel or I or anyone else at the museum could make the artifact switch work as a moneymaking plan the way it was done." "Could it be a game Clymene started but now can't finish?" he said.

"Maybe." Diane began gathering up the money. "I need to take the whole package for a.n.a.lysis,"

he said.

Diane shook her head. "We don't know if it's related to the artifacts. I'll have my lab do it. Look, yours is backed up and this isn't a priority for the FBI, but it is a priority here. Besides, it might just be a contribution to the museum. Granted, patrons don't usually insult me when they are donating, but some of them are not pleased with me lately."

He smiled and agreed. But Diane knew it was because he had no choice. There was no physical connection to the envelope and money he could make with his case. It just looked suspicious. For that matter, he didn't even know if the wayward artifacts were his case either. It was all just suspicion.

"So, you run the museum and the crime lab. Anything else?" he asked.

"I'm also a forensic anthropologist and have an osteology lab in the building," said Diane.

"I know there's a story here," he said.

"There is. A very long one," she said.

"Maybe over lunch when Ross comes," he said. There was a knock on the door and Andie entered.

"I'm sorry to interrupt."

Diane walked over to her with the envelope. "David called and you are wanted in the crime lab,"

Andie whispered. "The federal marshals are here again. So is that FBI guy, Kingsley, and some other folks from the police station. David is afraid they may want to...well... arrest you."

Chapter 31.

"Okay, thank you, Andie," said Diane as she looked into Andie's worried eyes. She was a little surprised that Andie hadn't suggested she go out the loading dock exit and avoid the whole thing altogether. "It's all right. Go back to your desk. I'll let you know if you need to bring me a toothbrush."

Diane smiled at her as she shut the door. Diane stood for a moment and closed her eyes before she turned back to Agent Jacobs.

"I have to go," she said. "I'll have Andie show you to Bookkeeping."

"I have really good hearing and the acoustics in this room are quite superior," said Agent Jacobs. "I'd like to come with you. See how Ross is doing. Do you think you are going to be arrested?"

He said it as if it was such a normal thing. Not cause for alarm or disgrace. Just a simple statement. Diane was wondering if he was that unflappable in his un-FBI persona.

"I think they probably found where I hid the body. I probably left my letter opener stuck in her back with my fingerprints on it," she said. Then she added, "That's a joke."

"I can tell a joke from a confession," he said. "So, you think they found the body?"

"I think that's probably why the marshals are here-tying up loose ends," Diane said. "I guess it's all right if you come along. It'll give you a chance to fight over who gets to take me in."

"You believe that I'm about to arrest you?" he said, amus.e.m.e.nt twinkling in his eyes. Diane was glad that someone found all this funny.

"I'm sure you catch a lot of people with your friendly charm," said Diane.

"You think this is an act?" Jacobs put his hand over his heart in mock pain. "And here I thought you trusted me."

"I obviously do; I spilled my guts to you, didn't I?" said Diane.

"I see, you just weren't fooled." He was still smiling, but Diane thought he probably had elicited a lot of information with his friendly manner.

She got a light sweater out of the closet and put it on.

"Like all of us, you have a job to do," she said. "Those artifacts came from somewhere and they are unprovenanced. You have to be suspicious. But I hope you see that neither Kendel nor Jonas could have hoped to get by with anything. If anyone could, it would be me. I control everything here. Or at least I thought I did."

"I think it's too early to fall on your sword," he said as Diane led them out the back door of her office.

"I'm not falling on my sword. I just think Kendel and Jonas need to be protected from whatever mischief is going on here," said Diane.

"Ross said you have a highly developed sense of justice," said Jacobs as they walked through a small door into the Pleistocene room.

A docent was telling a group of j.a.panese tourists about woolly mammoths. One man was arguing about whether or not the giant beasts were really here in Georgia.

"I hope he didn't mean I'm p.r.o.ne to take justice into my own hands," said Diane.

"You mean like killing Clymene? No. He said you believe in a justice system. That's why, when you were a human rights investigator, you collected evidence all those years even when there was no court in which to present it," he said.

So Jacobs knew more about her background than he had admitted, she noticed.

"I'm glad he thinks so highly of me," said Diane.

"He does. All these Richard the Third T-shirts have fair trial fair trial written all over this museum's ident.i.ty," he said. written all over this museum's ident.i.ty," he said.

"You're familiar with Richard the Third issues?" said Diane.

"I took a lot of history and art history in college. That's how I ended up in this section of the FBI. These guys were really big," he said as they pa.s.sed a giant bison.

"You should visit the dinosaur room while you're here," said Diane.

"I will. I'll visit the whole building before I leave."

"Do you know where the artifacts belong?" Diane asked after a moment.

She went through the large entrance to the mammal room, where more tourists were viewing the dioramas of taxidermied and skeletonized animals in artists' recreations of their natural habitats. This is where I was attacked, This is where I was attacked, she thought. Here among all the animals. It looked so harmless in the daylight. she thought. Here among all the animals. It looked so harmless in the daylight.

"No. It's hard to prove something is stolen when you didn't know it existed in the first place. That's the problem trying to deal with looted artifacts. The thing that made the Getty Museum case so great was one of the princ.i.p.als had photographs in his apartment of the artifacts actually being looted. You don't get that kind of hard evidence often. I need a witness. And with Cunningham Jr. dead, there isn't one at the moment. Cunningham Sr. apparently knows nothing about what his son was into, and a couple of his employees have vanished. I've got BOLOs out for them. So far, nothing. That says a lot. The other employees either know nothing or are not talking. I'm hoping the Clymene thing is a lead."

"I hope so too," said Diane.

They reached the elevators in the center of the museum. Several people were waiting. When the doors opened, more people poured out. Diane was always glad to see the museum so busy. Walking into an exhibit room during open hours and finding no one was disheartening.

All the visitors got out on the second floor. The third floor was dedicated to exhibit preparation, library and archives, and offices. Except the west wing. That was the crime lab.

"You know, you didn't have to cooperate with me," said Jacobs. "You could have stonewalled me."

"We don't want objects that are not ours. We would like to have the ones that are ours. I couldn't see how not cooperating would help in any way."

They were walking past the staff lounge when a hand reached out and tapped Diane's shoulder. She jumped back, ready to fight-or run.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Fallon. I didn't mean to startle you." Diane caught her breath. "That's alright, Dr. Albright. What can I do for you?"

Dr. Albert T. Albright was the curator of dinosaurs and had helped acquire a couple of very nice velociraptors.

"I had this idea for an exhibit," he said.

Diane could see the excitement dancing in his eyes. She hated to brush him off.

"Dr. Albright,I..." she began.

"We make this life-size model of a dinosaur, probably a T. rex T. rex-that would be the most exciting for the youngsters. Anyway, we use"-he motioned quickly with his hands-"whatever that stuff is they use in Hollywood to make dinosaur skin look real. The exhibit would allow the kids to go through the dinosaur, starting through it's mouth and walk through the throat and down to the stomach-you know, to show digestion-and finally the kids are p.o.o.ped out the back end. I think they would love it," he said.

"I... don't know exactly what to say," said Diane. "I think you need to run your idea by Janine, the exhibit planner. Do you have it on paper?"

"No, I thought of it just now as I was eating some popcorn," he said.

"See what the two of you come up with and I'll take a look at it," said Diane.

He nodded happily and went on his way toward Exhibit Preparations.

Shane Jacobs stood trying to laugh silently.

"You going to do it?" he asked.

"The exhibit?" said Diane. "I'm going to let Janine take care of it. Right now I'm not thinking about new and unusual exhibits."

They walked across the dinosaur overlook and Jacobs stopped to look at the real giants of the museum-the Jura.s.sic dinosaurs. The Brachiosaurus that stood on the first floor came all the way up to the third floor. They were staring at his head. The T. rex T. rex was only half as tall. That surprised most kids because was only half as tall. That surprised most kids because T. rex T. rex, with his carnivorous behavior, was king.

"Now, this is fun," said Jacobs.

"It is. I enjoy the dinosaurs," said Diane. She stepped away from the fenced railing. "We're crossing over to what the rest of the museum staff call the dark side, and the things that go on there are dark matters."

She proceeded forward to see what dark matters the marshals and Rosewood police had come about.

Chapter 32.

The first thing Diane noticed when she walked into the crime lab was the two tabletop Christmas trees.

"I must have overslept," she said, eying the trees, one with red ornaments, the other with blue. She exchanged glances with Jacobs. He grinned.

The chairs weren't around the debriefing table but were facing a flip chart. It looked like someone was going to give a lecture. Garnett was there. So was Kingsley. They were talking to the marshals. Jacobs caught Kingsley's eye and walked over to him.

David was about to look under a piece of fabric draped over some object sitting behind the trees. Instead he stepped over to Diane and whispered in her ear.

"I didn't know when I talked to Andie that it was Jin who set up this meeting."

"Jin?" said Diane. "Where is he?"

David shrugged. Diane looked over at Neva. She shrugged too.

"What's with the Christmas trees?" asked Diane. "I have no idea," said David.

Again Neva shrugged. "You know Jin," she said. "I can tell you he's really got his motor revved up. And you know how that is."