Dead Hunt Part 21

Drew nodded. "Less stress, I guess."

"Yes, I couldn't handle the politics in academia," said Jacobs.

They all chuckled.

"So," said Merrick, looking from Diane to Kingsley, "Drew and I are open to any suggestions you have on where to start looking for Clymene. You guys seem to know her inside out, so to speak."

"Diane and I have been discussing that," said Kingsley. He nodded toward her as if yielding the floor.

"Clymene and her sisters may or may not be in our databases. But we can search for a relative," said Diane.

"If we don't know who she is, how the heck are we going to find a relative?" said Drew.

"By looking for a close match of her DNA in the various databases we have access to. Instead of an exact match, look for anyone with alleles in common," said Diane. "We might get lucky and one of our databases will contain the DNA profile of a cousin or other relative. They could tell us who she really is."

"I guess the whiz kid over here can manage that," said Drew.

"We can fax or e-mail her photo to estate and family lawyers," continued Diane. "Clymene's husbands that we know about were wealthy men. One of those kinds of lawyers is likely to have met her. That might lead to her ident.i.ty and give us clues to other victims."

"Great idea, but do you know how many lawyers there are in the country? Even pared down to estate lawyers, that's a lot of e-mails and faxes." said Merrick.

"I know it is," said Diane. "Maybe we can think of a way to pare it down even more."

"Her mug shot isn't that good," said Garnett.

"We don't want to use that anyway," said Diane. "These lawyers are people who don't normally deal with criminal cases. They have chosen to a.s.sociate with wealthy clients who don't get into that kind of trouble. They would probably dismiss her mug shot out of hand, thinking that it couldn't possibly be anyone they would know. We need to get one of the photos the media took of her coming out of court- where she was dressed up and looked the part she was playing."

Merrick nodded. "Okay. I'm buying all of this. What else?" he said.

"This is a little more"-Diane searched for the right word-"a little more Hail Mary. Get someone in linguistics to a.n.a.lyze her core vocabulary if we can find any recordings of her voice. We can check with the prison-"

"What do you mean her core vocabulary?" asked Garnett.

"Body part words, colors, action verbs-the words she would have learned first as she learned to speak. Her early use and p.r.o.nunciation of those words would be heavily influenced by the region of the country in which she lived and what kind of environment she lived in. Some of the words might have retained hints of her original accent. The linguist can also look at her journal writing in her sc.r.a.pbooks and any other writing samples we can find." Diane shrugged. "It might lead to where she's from, even though her accent will have changed over the years. Clymene speaks fluent French and Spanish. I think she may have lived abroad. That would change her accent. As I said, this one's more of a long shot."

Merrick knitted his brow and shook his head. "If this woman is as chameleon as you say, h.e.l.l, she could have dyed her hair black and gone to work somewhere as an illegal."

Diane nodded. "She's accomplished at many things, which gives her many choices."

"Shoot," said Drew, "she could be working here as one of your tour guides."

Diane laughed, then stopped. "d.a.m.n.... Not her, but one of her sisters. d.a.m.n."

Chapter 34.

All eyes were on Diane as she sat lost in thought, trying to remember everything that Karalyn had told her about Bobby Banks.

"What?" said Garnett. "Are you telling me that one of them is here? Where?"

"I'm not sure," said Diane. "Agent Kingsley and I were both drugged, and it apparently happened here in the museum restaurant. When I went to interview our waitress I found that our drinks were actually filled by another waiter, who didn't show up for work the next day. He was described as being pretty for a male. I was just wondering if it could be one of Clymene's sisters, or Clymene herself in disguise."

"Surely they wouldn't be that bold," said Neva.

"Is it really that easy for a woman to pa.s.s as a man?" asked Garnett.

"Not easy, but it's been done. It's easier for a woman to pa.s.s as a boy. The wait staff are young, some just out of high school," said Diane.

"That would be bold on her part," said Kingsley.

"What's the waiter's name?" asked Garnett.

"Bobby Banks, and he apparently lives in the woods. At least that's where his address puts him." "In other words, he gave a false address," said Garnett. "I'll go talk to your staff."

"Ask them if he had an Adam's apple," said Diane. "Guys over fourteen have them; women don't."

"Always?" asked Garnett.

"Nothing's always. But in the great majority of cases," said Diane.

"While you guys do your thing," said Merrick, "Drew and I will get back to some old-fashioned detective work and talk with everyone Clymene was in contact with while she was in prison. Who knows, that might actually work."

"She had to be getting information to and from her sisters someway," said David. "Might check with the other inmates and see if they were pa.s.sing information along or if someone was getting her throwaway cell phones."

"Gee, why didn't we think of that?" said Merrick. "You know, if we hadn't listened to you guys, we would still be out there looking for her, maybe even found her by now." His words had a little bit of a sting, but Merrick looked good-humored when he said them.

David just smiled at him. "Call me if I can help some more," he said.

The meeting broke up, with the marshals and Garnett going to interview witnesses and Kingsley calling to get a linguistics expert. Diane's staff already had a full load of a.s.signments. That left Jacobs and the misdirected artifacts.

"You still want to see my books?" asked Diane.

"Just to be thorough," he said, smiling.

Diane had made arrangements for a crime scene cleanup crew to clean her apartment. She looked at her watch. She'd agreed to meet Kingsley for lunch and had just enough time to go to her apartment and get some photographs and other personal items she wanted to retrieve.

The crisp white Greek Revival house looked almost luminescent in the bright sunshine. Years ago it had been converted to apartments. Diane didn't know who originally owned it. She would have to ask the landlady sometime. Speaking of the landlady, she needed to speak with her. Diane entered the wide double doors that led to the hallway and all the downstairs apartments. The landlady's apartment was immediately to the right of the front door. She knocked.

The landlady, a small, white-haired, elderly woman, opened the door. She was normally a nonstop talker, but at the moment she was speechless as she stared at Diane with a rather startled look on her face. Diane was beginning to wonder if she had morphed into an insect as she walked up the steps.

"Oh, dear, this is awkward," the landlady said finally.

"Who is it, Aunt . . . oh," her nephew said as he came to the door. "You're right, awkward's the word. Come in," he said with a rather faint smile.

As she entered she heard one of her neighbors from upstairs speaking. Leslie had just had a baby a few months earlier. She and her husband were students at Bartram. They were a nice couple. In the aftermath of a meth lab explosion on a nearby street, they had knocked on everyone's door to make sure all their neighbors had heard the evacuation order. Later the two of them served coffee to Diane and the others whose grim task it was to identify the bodies in the house that blew up while a student party was in progress.

"This isn't right. It's un-American," said Leslie. Her voice was full of feeling. She sounded close to tears.

"I don't even think you can," said her husband. "You're turning this into the Salem witch trials. It's just wrong, and Leslie and I won't have any part of it."

Everyone went quiet as Diane entered the room. She looked around at the landlady's quaint living room. The entire population of her apartment building was sitting either on the rose-covered upholstered sofas, or the matching stuffed chairs, or her needlepoint dining room chairs.

Leslie and her husband were standing with their backs against the darkened fireplace. Diane's fortysomething downstairs neighbors were sitting on the sofa. Ramona always looked to Diane as if she were about to implode in on herself-there was something tightly constricted about her whole person. She sat with her husband. They were the ones who frequently complained about Diane making too much noise, even though Diane was at home very little.

Diane recognized several other neighbors. One of the most recent was a professor of history at Bartram named Lawrence Donner, a distant relative of the Donner family who lent their name to the ill-fated Donner party. It was Diane's understanding that he was writing a book to clear their reputation of cannibalism. He had moved into the bas.e.m.e.nt apartment vacated by another of Bartram's professors a few months before.

The Odells, her neighbors across the hall known for their interest in everything funerary, sat in two straight-backed chairs. Several others Diane knew by first name only. Most would not meet her eyes. Diane had the strangest urge to laugh. She bit it back.

Leslie looked at her with tears in her eyes. Their baby wasn't with them. Probably being babysat by her aunt.

"I'm glad you're here," said Leslie. "They need to face you. I just want you to know that we didn't vote for this."

"Oh, dear," said her landlady. "I really like you, Diane, I do..."

Diane's cell phone rang and saved the landlady from further embarra.s.sment.

"Frank," said Diane when she saw the display. "Excuse me one moment, please," she said and turned aside to take the call.

"Hey, I just called to say that I'm going to have to stay in Atlanta this evening."

"That's fine," she said. "No problem."

"You sound like you're holding back a laugh," he said. "Having a good time, are you?"

"Well, I think I was just voted off the island," said Diane. She saw Leslie and her husband smile at her.

"What?" asked Frank.

"I'm at my apartment house. I inadvertently interrupted a meeting."

"They're kicking you out? They can't do that." Frank started laughing and Diane thought she was going to lose it.

"I'd better go. I'll talk to you later," she said.

He was silent a moment.

"What?" said Diane.

"You know I love you," he said.

"I'm so glad you do," she said and let a laugh es- cape her lips. "I love you too." Diane didn't remember if she had ever told him that. She thought she had, but she certainly picked a strange time to say it now. She flipped her phone closed.

The room was still silent, and Diane started to tell her landlady why she had come to her door when her downstairs neighbor spoke up.

"We might as well say it in front of her. She brings just too much violence to the building. We all had to leave our homes just a few months ago."

Leslie jumped in with a huff. "That wasn't her fault-she had nothing to do with the explosion."

Ramona, the downstairs neighbor, sniffed. "She had something to do with it."

"She was identifying the victims," said Leslie's husband. "You might as well blame us because we were there serving coffee. Jeez."

"Well, there were other times. Many other times," Ramona said.

"She kept a cat," said Veda Odell. "Marvin's allergic."

Her landlady sighed. "Veda, no she didn't. That was me. I was just keeping him temporarily until I found him a home."

Veda looked at her, stunned. "You? You know Marvin's allergic."

Diane was thinking, were she to vote, she would vote to get out of here too. Most of her neighbors were nuts. But she had to admit, there had been many occasions when something bad had happened at her apartment that needed police attention. It wasn't Diane's fault. It had kind of come with her position at the crime lab, but she was sure it had scared the neighbors more than once. She didn't really blame them.

Diane turned to the landlady. "I came to tell you that the crime scene cleanup crew will be here tomorrow. They will sanitize everything."

"Oh, that's good. I was wondering what to do," she said.

"You don't have to do anything. I'll take care of it," said Diane.

"Diane. I really hate this," said the landlady.

"It's all right," said Diane. "It's nice that all of you could meet and get to know each other."

"It is, isn't it?" said the landlady. "This could be a party at a happier time. That boy in 1-D is the only one who didn't come. He must be gone."

"I don't know him," said Diane. "Isn't he new?"

"Yes, he is. Just moved in about a month ago. Bobby Banks is his name."

Chapter 35.

"Bobby Banks," said Diane. "What does he look like?"

"Nice-looking boy. He has sort of wavy blond hair, pretty eyes a kind of blue-green color. He has the nicest complexion you've ever seen."

All their eyes were on Diane when she fished her cell phone out of her jacket pocket. She dialed David.

"Hey, Diane, what's up?" he said.