Dead Hunt Part 26

"She's alive, but . . ." Diane let the answer fade away.

"I don't need to know. I'm sorry I wasn't around to save this little girl," he said.

"I don't think she was ever reported missing. We think, though this is not confirmed, but we think her father sold her," said Diane.

"Aw jeez. Aw jeez."

Diane could hear the pain in his voice.

"She looks to be fifteen or sixteen. I'm sending you just her face. I don't think you need to see the rest of the picture. I'll send the whole pics along if you need them, but-"

"I don't really want them in my head," said Diane. "Is there any information with the pictures?"

"I do have some information. This set of pictures has been on the Internet p.o.r.n sites for years. A favorite collection, it seems. It was originally posted by a man who called himself Jurgen Heinrich, but his real name was Simon Greene. He's from the U.S. but lived all around Europe in the seventies, eighties, and early nineties. Had family money but made his real fortune selling s.e.x slaves. He was a mean one. I'd like to have had him at the end of my fist."

"Is he still out there selling slaves?" asked Diane.

She had called up the browser on her computer and found Alex Kade's e-mail. She looked at the pictures. He had cropped out everything but the head and tops of the shoulders. Diane was glad. As she listened to Kade, she looked at the face in the images. She was so young, but it was Clymene. Clymene when she was about fifteen. In the photographs her mouth was always in some kind of seductive pout, but the eyes told the story. They were angry.

"No. Greene was murdered. One of them misdemeanor homicides, if you ask me. Someone doused him with kerosene and lit a match to him. He lived for a few months before getting an infection and dying. A bad end to a totally miserable human being."

Clymene's first murder, Diane was willing to bet. Kingsley had told her the first murder usually set the pattern for the rest. This Heinrich, or Greene, died violently and painfully. Clymene may have changed her method of killing to suit the situation, but the death of Archer O'Riley was painful. Her previous husband, Robert Carthwright, died a painful death too. The odds that his death was an accident were dropping by the day. She killed wealthy men in a painful way. Her twist was to marry them first to get their money.

"I appreciate what you do," said Diane. "I know it has to be the most repugnant and emotionally draining undertaking."

"I have some pictures people send me of them and their kids reunited. I posted them so I can look at them while I work at the computer. That gets me through. I know a little bit about your background and former line of work. That wasn't easy either."

"No," said Diane simply.

"The hard thing is that I know even when I find them and they go back home, their life will never be the same. They've always got to live with what was done to them. I saw on the news the other day about a new drug. Propranolol? It's for high blood pressure, but they're saying it might get rid of bad memories and traumatic events. I was thinking, when these kids come home, if they could be treated with something like that they might have a better chance at life," he said. "Have you heard of that? You think it's possible?"

"I haven't heard of propranolol, but I'm sure something like that's possible," she said.

Diane wasn't sure she believed that, but Alex Kade was a man who desperately wanted to give back a normal life to kidnapped and abused kids and their families. That was his hope and Diane didn't want to take that away from him with doubts about the efficacy of such a drug.

"Is there any information on what happened to the girl?" asked Diane.

"No, not a thing," he said.

"This helps a lot," said Diane. "Thank you."

"Glad to be of service anytime," he said.

"Was that the guy who looks for missing children?" asked Jin when Diane hung up the phone.

"That's him. He found Clymene at around the age of fifteen," she said. "Kingsley and I are thinking that her father sold her to the s.e.x trade."

"Kind of makes you feel sorry for her," said Jin. "Like all she's doing is getting even."

"I think on one level she is getting even. But she's a rational adult now and she knows what she is doing is wrong. If she applied her considerable skills to doing good, like Colonel Kade, think of all she could do."

"I guess so. Hey, you want to go eat? I'm starving," he said.

"Yes, I do," she said. "See if Neva and David would like to join us. I haven't asked David if he found anything more about the artifacts."

"Maybe Arachnid could be modified to look for stuff like that too," said Jin. "What do you think?"

"You can bring it up with David," she said. "I'll meet you at the restaurant. I need to call Garnett first."

Chapter 42.

Garnett was in his office and Diane was put through immediately.

"What's up?" he said. He sounded busy.

"Just updating you with some information," she said. "I can call back if this isn't convenient."

"No, this is fine. Just doing a little paperwork. One of the necessary evils of this job," he said. "But I really hate it."

Diane filled him in on everything they had discovered about Clymene. "I know this is in the marshals' jurisdiction, but I just thought you would like to know the latest," she said.

"That's quite a bit of information your team's dug up," he said. "My detectives here didn't have any luck finding anything about her. Of course by that time she was already in the system and the DA had other murders to solve. I'd be interested to see how you did it," he said.

"A lot of luck."

Here she was, fibbing again to protect David's project. She told Garnett about the lawyer who called to scold her about e-mailing the Listserv and finding said lawyer in a picture with Clymene in one of her other lives.

"Of course, I'm a.s.suming it's Clymene. It could be one of her sisters. At least we have some names and people to talk to. That's more leads for the marshals."

Garnet was silent and Diane could hear paper rustling.

"So, if it is Clymene," he said after a moment, "she's probably been doing this a long time. That was what? Ten years ago? No telling how many bodies she's racked up."

"She probably started before ten years ago," said Diane. She told him about Colonel Kade and his mission to find missing children. "He searched for Clymene on Internet p.o.r.n sites-making adjustments for a younger age." She described what Alex Kade found.

"You're having quite a bit of luck," he said. "Of course, you have a lot of resources we don't have here. I'll remember this next time we have a missing person."

"My staff is very talented and creative," said Diane. "I'm very proud of them."

"That stuff Jin did with the blood a.n.a.lysis was pretty good. The mayor and the commissioner were very impressed," said Garnett. "They like having a DNA lab."

Diane wondered if they realized the DNA lab, like her osteology lab, was part of the museum and not owned by the city. They should know it, since they didn't pay for it. But they sometimes forgot trivial details like that and took a proprietary att.i.tude toward anything in the west wing.

"His a.n.a.lysis was impressive," said Diane. So was his presentation, she thought. "I'm glad the marshals got a look at what we can do."

"My bosses liked that idea too. They have aspirations of being Atlanta, but I guess you know that." He laughed. "You using some of that face recognition software?" he asked. "They particularly wanted to know about that. Seems the commissioner saw it on television the other night."

Diane rolled her eyes. Television had a lot to answer for. "We're searching the national and international databases. So far we've come up empty on those. What I'm hoping is that another estate attorney will contact us."

Diane updated Garnett on the findings in apartment 1-D and finally about the hairs from her attacker matching the blood on the money wrappers.

"What money?" he asked.

"I didn't tell you about the money?" said Diane. "Right, I told Agent Jacobs. You know, between you, two marshals, and two FBI agents, I'm having trouble keeping track of who knows what and who has jurisdiction over what, not to mention who is investigating what."

"You are getting a lot of law enforcement attention lately. The mayor was a little upset over the item in the paper about the museum and those . . . looted antiquities, I think is what it said."

"Did you tell him he doesn't have a dog in that fight?" said Diane.

"The problem with the mayor is he thinks all dogs are his," said Garnett. He chuckled. "Jacobs, now, he's investigating that thing about the artifacts, right?" said Garnett.

"Yes," said Diane.

"And he thinks Clymene has something to do with it?"

Diane could hear the confusion in his voice. Nothing they had discovered pointed to that.

"Just an angle he's looking at," said Diane. "Clymene does know something about archaeology and might have the contacts to mess with the museum. There's no evidence of that whatsoever. So far everything's a dead end in that investigation."

"So, what about the money?" he asked.

Diane told him about receiving a padded envelope filled with packets of one-hundred-dollar bills.

"So the guy's attacking you and sending you money. He sounds conflicted."

Diane smiled. "He does, doesn't he? I have no idea what the attacks or the money are about, but we're following some leads," she said. "I think I have you up-to-date on what's going on here. We still have several searches going on. I'll let you know if something comes of them."

Diane and Chief of Detectives Douglas Garnett had a good working relationship, and that still sometimes surprised her. In the beginning, before the crime lab, she hadn't gotten along with anyone in the police department or the mayor's office. It had to do mostly with her not being willing to sell the museum property to a real estate broker.

The broker told anyone who would listen that unless she sold the property, the city was in line to lose new jobs, extra taxes, and other promised benefits. Diane pointed out that the museum provided jobs and two private businesses-the restaurant and the gift shop. If she had to move, she would move out of the county and all those people would lose, including the city. She was amazed that they wouldn't listen to her, until the real estate broker was shown to be a crook. But now she was forgiven. The mayor found her useful, and she got along well with Garnett, who was a good buffer between her and the rest of the powers in Rosewood. Today everything worked. In the back of her mind, though, Diane was always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

At her stomach's insistence Diane templating the fickle power structure and went down to eat lunch with her crime scene staff. The restaurant always provided such a pleasant respite. The murmur of the luncheon crowd today sounded soothing. Diane was greeted at the entrance by a waitress carrying vases of spring wildflowers to the tables.

Over a salmon salad Diane told Neva about the bones she was trying to identify of the little Ohio girl and asked Neva to find time to make drawings of her-not just her face, but of her standing.

Diane could describe for Neva how the girl would look with one leg a little shorter than the other. How she might rub her fractured forearms because they would hurt, how her eyes would look afraid, and how her face would show pain. Diane's facial mapping software did a great job, but Neva's drawings put life into the image. Diane didn't want the little girl to get shoved aside because her justice wasn't as urgent. It was urgent and it was important.

After lunch Diane checked in with Andie and started back up to the crime lab. In the lobby she met Kingsley coming through the door among a group of schoolkids rushing and screaming around him, their teacher calling for them to get in line.

"Can't stay away from the museum?" said Diane.

"There's just so much going on here." He grinned at her. "I have some news." He motioned to the lobby elevator. "Shall we go to the other side?" he said.

When the doors opened, before they could get on, a small kid of about five rushed past them and stood stopped conof Rosewood in the back of the elevator laughing. One of Diane's docents, a young woman by the name of Emily, came in after him, grabbed him, put him under her arm, and hauled him out.

"Emily," said Diane, shocked at the way she handled the boy.

Emily turned and grinned at Diane. "It's all right, he's my brother. That's our mother over there with the scowl on her face."

The kid giggled and tried to wiggle out of her grasp.

"I'm going to feed you to the dinosaur," she said.

He laughed harder.

"And I think my job is tough," said Kingsley.

Diane shook her head. "They sometimes run away and get lost in the museum. Drives the docents nuts."

Diane pushed the elevator b.u.t.ton for the third floor.

"I have some news too," she said when the doors shut. "I'm not sure what I've told you, but we have information coming in a little faster now."

The doors opened and they got out on the overlook to the Pleistocene room.

"Jacobs is very impressed with your museum," said Kingsley, walking over and looking down at the mammoth. "He said he will be greatly disappointed if it turns out you are involved in buying and selling looted antiquities."

"I would think by now he would have discovered that we aren't," said Diane.

"He believes you're an honest museum. He's just cautious. Plus, he says he's at a standstill." Kingsley laughed. "He's hoping Clymene did it."

"Me too, at this point, but I really doubt it. All this seems a little too much for even Clymene to organize," said Diane. "Of course, there are three of her."

"Three Clymenes." Kingsley laughed again. "Who would have thought it?"

They walked through the exhibit preparation room and were stopped by Janine.

"I don't think we should have a dinosaur that p.o.o.ps kids," she said with her hands on her hips.

Kingsley looked startled and laughed.

"I didn't think so either," said Diane, "but talk to Emily Fellows and see what she thinks."

"The docent?" said Janine.

"Yes. The docents are around kids a lot."

"You want to do it?" asked Janine.

"Not necessarily. I think it's a ridiculous idea, but then, I'm not five. I'll leave it up to you," said Diane.

"I'll talk to her." Janine shook her head and walked away.