DUST TO DUST

BEVERLY CONNOR

Marcella Payden straightened the silverware beside the  two cobalt blue dinner plates, then lit the fat cinnamon- scented candle in the middle of her small oak dining table. 
A breeze from the open window carried the tinkling sound  of ceramic wind chimes and made the candle ?ame dance. 
Nice, she thought as she surveyed the table, smiling at her- self and the giddy feeling in her stomach. How long had it  been since she'd had a date?
Marcella smoothed her cotton Navajo-style skirt and ran  a hand over her hair, tucking stray tendrils back into the  beaded barrette that loosely bound her graying locks. She  felt like a teenager. It felt good.
She looked at her calloused hands-deeply tanned, a  few wrinkles. Much like her tanned and lined face. It was  a good face. She liked the way she looked-the roughness  was the mark of what she was.
The woman next door back in Arizona had smooth, un- lined skin and soft, manicured hands that Marcella's hus- band had found more to his liking. It hurt, of course, when  he left her, but the strongest emotion was surprise. She was  astonished that her husband would ?nd someone who sold  lipstick for a living more interesting than an archaeologist.
"No accounting for taste," she muttered to herself. That  was what she got for marrying a philosopher. It would serve  him right if he had to drive around in that lilac convertible  for the rest of his life.
The wind picked up and the napkins ?uttered on the  table. Marcella walked to the window to close it. Outside  was already dark, even though it was still early by her reck- 
Beverly Connor oning. Along with the rustling of leaves and the ringing of  wind chimes, the wind carried a chill. She stood for a mo- ment, taking in the cool fresh air. North Georgia was so  much cooler than Arizona. It was very pleasant.
But the chill... or something else... brought a sudden  shift in mood. Marcella's hair stood up on the back of her  neck and her heart beat faster. She clutched at her silver  squash-blossom necklace.
What brought that on? she wondered, squinting and  looking out into the darkness through the open window. 
She saw nothing but the silhouettes of trees moving in the  wind, and heard no sound but the rustling leaves, wind  chimes, and distant road noise.
It was a Lewis moment.
Lewis was a cognitive archaeologist in Arizona, a col- league and intellectual sparring partner. He had a keen  interest in how Paleo-Indians managed to survive among  lightning-fast saber-toothed tigers and other giant preda- tors of stealth and speed. His research into the function- ing of the human brain led to the interesting discovery that  the subconscious can perceive a movement or a threat and  the body can respond several seconds before the conscious  mind even becomes aware. A nice little brain function that  helped early humans survive at a time when animals were  bigger, faster, and had way sharper teeth.
Marcella agreed with this idea because she had expe- rienced the phenomenon ?rsthand. It happened while she  was walking through an overgrown ?eld surveying for signs  of prehistoric inhabitants-looking for arrowheads, actually. 
She found herself suddenly breathing rapidly, her heart  pounding... and inexplicably she was standing more than  three feet to the side of where she had been a moment be- fore. She had no idea what had happened or why she had  jumped to the side. But her eyes were ?xed on the spot  where her next step would have been. There, hidden in the  grass, lay a rattlesnake. Subconscious awareness and invol- untary response had kicked in. A prehistoric survival func- tion had saved her from harm.
Marcella called such moments of subconscious wariness 
"Lewis moments." She looked through the open window  again but saw no sabertooths in the shadows. She wondered 
 whether such automated responses could really have been  that effective. With snakes maybe, but tigers?
Silly woman , she thought. 
It's probably all those towering  trees waving in the wind . Marcella missed the desert colors:  earth tones, red rock. There was just too much giant, vivid  green here.
She closed the window and walked across to the living  room to turn on the light. Her eye stopped on the desk  where the light sat and she realized that it was the desk-or rather what she had found in it-that was nagging at the  back of her mind. That must be it.
Marcella had cleaned out the ramshackle potter's shed  behind her house. Among miscellaneous pieces of broken  furniture and weathered plywood, under a piece of old  linoleum long ago ripped up from the kitchen ?oor, with  myriad items littering its top, she had found the old desk. 
A rough pearl constructed of distressed maple, it had three  drawers down each side and one long drawer in the middle. 
Although it was not an extraordinary desk, she liked its  solid promise.
When she was cleaning the layers of dust and grime from  the desk, she found writing on the bottom of the middle  drawer. The house had been a treasure trove of nice sur- prises, but this surprise was disturbing. It was also old; too  old to do anything about. Still, she intended to speak with 
Jonas about it and ask him to mention it to Diane Fallon.
Marcella partially pulled out the drawer as she turned  on the banker's lamp on top of the desk. The ?uorescent  bulb had a second's delay before the light came on. Just as  it brightened, she felt another Lewis-moment shiver and  the world went black.
Another bright shining light appeared and Marcella  wondered whether she should crawl to it. It shouldn't be  this hard, she thought, as she struggled to move across the 
?oor.
Diane Fallon parked her car well out of the way alongside  the narrow drive. She closed her car door and stood look- ing at the old farmhouse illuminated by the headlights of  a police car and the forensics van already there. Diane was  director of the RiverTrail Museum of Natural History and  director of the Rosewood Crime Lab, which was housed in  the museum. It was in her role as crime lab director that  she was here, but she suspected on this occasion she would  be wearing both hats. That was because the house belonged  to Dr. Marcella Payden, whom the museum's archaeology  curator, Jonas Briggs, had hired to create a reference col- lection of prehistoric potsherds for the museum's archaeol- ogy department.
It was an old house, perhaps from the early  s, set  among trees that looked old enough to be original to the  place. The two-story white wooden structure had a blue tin  roof and long open porches on the ?rst and second ?oors  that stretched across the front of the house. There was a  redbrick chimney on each end. At one end of the house a  metal carport contained a light-colored SUV. Large square- cut stones lined the gravel driveway.
The yard was mainly dirt with rock-bordered areas  that had once been ?ower beds. Broken concrete yard  ornaments-statuary, fountains, vases-littered the yard. 
From its appearance, the place could have been an archae- ological dig. In reality, it was just an old farmhouse yard  containing an odd assortment of disused items.
Diane changed from her heels to comfortable loafers  and slipped a ?annel shirt over her dark metallic burgundy 
Beverly Connor cocktail dress. She held the shirt tight around her as she  walked toward the house to shield herself from the wind,  which was becoming chilly.
Neva Hurley and Izzy Wallace were taking their kits  from the crime scene van as they spoke with a patrolman. 
Diane waved to them.
"What do you know?" asked Diane as she got within  earshot.
Neva and Izzy were police of?cers with the Rosewood 
PD and two of the four crime scene investigators who  worked for Diane. Neva was energetic, slim, and in her late  twenties. Izzy, the newest member of the crime lab, was a 
?ftysomething, sturdily built guy. They grinned at her when  she approached.
"You know Of?cer Daughtry?" asked Izzy, with a tilt of  his head to indicate the patrolman.
"Diane Fallon," she said, shaking the of?cer's hand.
"Good to meet you, ma'am," he said.
He seemed a little green. 
Must be a rookie , Diane  thought.
"Nice out?t," said Neva. "I like the way your dress  matches the burgundy in the plaid of your shirt. Very lum- berjack chic."
Diane smiled. "I've been to a bene?t at Bartrum Uni- versity."
Neva looked at her watch and up at the sky. It was close  to dawn.
Diane gave her a weak smile. "Frank hasn't given up on  teaching me to dance. We went out afterward."
There was a gust of cool wind and Diane folded her arms  across her middle to keep the chill out. She thought she  heard the faint ring of wind chimes in the distance. She  nodded toward the house.
"David called me about this. What's going on?"
David Goldstein was assistant director of the crime lab. 
This evening he was on duty handing out assignments while  he worked in the lab.
"David called you?" said Neva. "He didn't have to. We've  got it covered. Ol' Izzy here is doing pretty good." Neva  punched him affectionately in the shoulder. "Rosewood 
PD said a woman was attacked here earlier tonight."
"Attacked? She survived?" Diane asked. Her body re- laxed.
"Yes, but I don't know how bad off she is," said Neva. 
"The lead detective's on his way. I think he's been ques- tioning someone. That's all I know."
Neva looked at Patrolman Daughtry as if he might have  more information. He shook his head and shrugged.
"I was told to wait here for Detective Hanks," he said.
Neva squinted, observing Diane. "Is there something  special about this case?"
"Marcella Payden is an adjunct professor of archaeology  at Bartrum and a consultant for the museum," said Diane.
"Oh," said Neva. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."
The crunch of gravel and two blinding headlights her- alded an approaching car. Diane stepped closer to the van  with Izzy, Neva, and the patrolman, and they watched the  car pull in behind the police car.
Detective Hanks , she thought. She recognized him, but  she hadn't worked with him before. He took a step in their  direction just as gun?re cut the ground at his feet.
Loud bursts of gun?re exploded one after another. Diane  ducked beside the van, pulling Neva down with her.
"What the hell?" she heard Izzy shout, ducking for cover  himself.
The shots were coming from the woods beyond the drive  where they were parked. Bullets dug out plugs of dirt from  the ground. One ricocheted off a rock and hit the van; some  hit the piles of lawn sculpture; others ?ew over their heads. 
The gunman didn't seem to be aiming at anything in par- ticular, or he was aiming at everything. It sounded to Diane  like a ri?e, but she wasn't an expert on guns.
Izzy, his gun out, eased to the rear of the van. Neva took  out her gun and followed him. Patrolman Daughtry moved  toward the front of the vehicle and peeked out at the dark  woods. A bullet struck the side of the van and he pulled back.
"Shit," he hissed. "Hey, you crazy son of a bitch, what the  hell do you think you're doing? Lay down your gun and  come out with your hands-"
His reply was cut short by a hail of bullets.
Keeping low, Diane climbed into the van through the  sliding side door. She crawled to the driver's seat and cut  off the inside lamp and the headlights. As she called for  backup on her cell phone, a bullet zinged through the  driver's window and exited on the passenger side. Diane  jumped and hit her elbow on the gearshift.
"Diane, you hurt?" called Neva and Izzy together.
"Fine. Just startled-and pissed." Diane crawled out of  the van, cursing herself for being in a cocktail dress. 
What kind of idiot comes to a crime scene in fancy dress?
Kneeling on the ground, she could see that Detective 
Hanks was down. Because of the positions of the parked  vehicles in the drive, he was open to the woods when he  got out of the car.
"Hanks is down," Diane said. "Keep the shooter occu- pied long enough for me to get him to cover."
"What?" said Izzy. "Well, hell."
He ?red in the direction of the shooter. Daughtry ?red  a couple of shots blindly across the hood of the van in the  general direction from which the bullets seemed to be com- ing.
Diane dashed out in the open to Hanks, only a few feet  away. He was already struggling to his feet just as she  reached him. She slipped an arm around his waist and  helped him take cover beside the patrol car. A bullet would  have to go through the van and the police vehicle to get to  him. It was a safe place to wait.
Diane examined the wound in his thigh by what little  illumination his headlights provided to their position. It  was bleeding, but blood wasn't pulsing out, nor was it pro- fuse. The bullet hadn't hit his femoral artery. It had only  nicked him.
"My leg is ?ne. It's my shoulder," he said. "Damn it. I fell  and landed on my bad shoulder. Who the hell is that?"
"I don't know," said Diane. "Is your shoulder out of  joint?"
Hanks rolled his shoulder, stretched his arm across his  chest, and rolled the shoulder again, wincing the whole time. 
"No. Just hurts like hell. I'm ?ne. What's this about?" He  stood halfway and peered over the hood of the police car.
"I have no idea. I just got here," said Diane.
"How's Hanks?" shouted Izzy.
"I'm ?ne. Just mad as hell," he shouted back.
"Backup should be here soon," said Diane.
Diane eased the police car door open, intending to turn  off the headlights and use the radio as a link to the police  who were on their way. As she reached to cut the lights, she  thought she saw a shadow cross a window of the house. It  was quick, just a roundish shape passing one of the lower  windows.
"That's why the random shots," she whispered.
Beverly Connor She cut the lights. Now only light from the ?rst-quarter moon illuminated the area. At least the shooter would have  a harder time targeting them.
"What are you talking about?" said Hanks.
He was shifting his weight, trying to look around the pa- trol car toward Neva and Izzy at the van.
"They're trying to keep us pinned down. Someone is in  the house," she said. "That's why they're just spraying bul- lets around, not targeting anything in particular."
Hanks looked over at her sharply, then turned his head  toward the house. "Now? There's someone in the house  now?"
"I'm not certain, but I thought I saw someone inside the  house." Diane stared at the windows again, squinting, as if  that would give her better night vision.
The shooter ?red two more shots that dinged off the de- tective's vehicle and a tree beyond the car. Diane listened  for the distant sound of sirens. She heard none.
"I'm going to ease over in the direction of the house,"  she said. "Do you have a second gun?"
Hanks lifted his pant leg and gave her the Chief's Special  he had strapped around his ankle.
Diane weighed the gun in her hand. It wasn't a particu- larly heavy gun, and she was strong, but it felt heavy in her  hand, as if its lethal potential had a weight all its own. She  didn't particularly like guns, but it would be foolish to be  without one now.
She put her cell in her shirt pocket and moved a couple  of steps in the direction of the house and woods, away from  the shooter.
"I'll go with you," Hanks said.
"I'm just going to watch," she said. "I have my cell phone  to keep in touch. If there's someone in the house, I can tell  backup when they come."
"Fine. I'm still going with you."
Hanks stood halfway, keeping the vehicle between him  and the shooter. He leaned with his good side against the  car.
"Are you sure you can walk?" asked Diane.
"My leg was just grazed and my shoulder's been worse. 
I'm ?ne," he said. "I'm thinking I'd like to get inside the 
  house and see if I can spot the shooter from the second- ?oor windows."
Diane didn't think that was such a good idea, but she  didn't say anything immediately. She called Neva on her  cell and, speaking in a whisper, told her what she and 
Hanks were going to do.
"Gotcha," said Neva. "We'll be here at the OK Corral  hanging out."
"Backup will be here soon," said Diane. She listened  again for distant sirens, but still heard none.
"If we stay near the trees and outbuildings," said Diane, 
"I don't think the shooter will be able to see us."
She hesitated a moment. She had been trying to make  nice with the detectives ever since Izzy told her they thought  she interfered in their investigations a bit too often. But 
Hanks was about to interfere with her crime scene.
"Detective Hanks," she whispered, hoping a soft voice  would make her words sound soft as well, "if you go into  the house, you will contaminate the crime scene."
"That's not the priority right now. We have a shooter and  maybe someone in the house," he said.
Diane stared at him a moment, weighing how to respond. 
Hanks was maybe in his late thirties, she guessed. His sandy  hair was roughed up by his fall. She couldn't read his ex- pression in the dark and she didn't know very much about  him. He was new to the department. And he wasn't making  a good impression on her.
"Backup will be here any moment," she said. "You're  bleeding, your arm's hurt, and there may be someone on  the second ?oor-who is armed."
"And if there is, I'll nail his butt to the wall. Come on, if  you're coming." Hanks rose to his feet, keeping his head  down.
Diane's plan of simple reconnaissance had turned into  something that she really thought was a bad idea. But even  in the dark she could see the tight set of his face.
Well, damn .
"If you are determined to go in," she said, "take Of?cer 
Daughtry inside with you. He has more police training than 
I have for that kind of thing. I'll watch your backs from  outside the house. We don't know how many may be in the 
Beverly Connor house and we don't know whether they have more friends  than just the shooter out in the woods. Izzy and Neva can  keep an eye on the front door from where they are."
She glanced at the house. It looked more foreboding  than it had just ?ve minutes ago. In the darkness without  the headlights shining on it, she could barely make it out. It  was a shadowy giant looming in the night and Diane didn't  really want to approach it.
Hanks stared at Diane a moment, nodded, and called  for Daughtry to come over. Diane watched the patrolman  race the few feet between them in a half-crouched position  and dive next to them beside his car. Diane thought he was  a little too dramatic. Daughtry looked wide-eyed and just  a little scared-and he seemed very young. Diane called 
Neva again and updated her on the plan as Hanks gave the  policeman a quick brie?ng.
Diane was satis?ed to let the two of them take the lead. 
With Hanks wounded and Daughtry looking rather green  behind the ears, she didn't want them behind her with guns. 
As they crept among the large grove of ancient pecan trees, 
Diane heard Izzy trying to talk the shooter down, and get- ting only gun?re for his trouble. From the direction of the  shots, the shooter seemed to be moving about.
This was not a good idea , Diane thought. The sound of  pecan shells crackling underfoot was too loud. She slowed  her pace, being careful where she put her feet, careful of  tripping over unseen objects that might be on the ground. 
Weeds scratched at her legs and briars grabbed at her dress. 
She should have taken the time to change into jeans.
Her foot hit something hard at the base of a tree. In the  dark, its shape looked much like a gargoyle leaning against  the trunk, nestled between roots. 
Guarding the pecan trees  from evil spirits, no doubt , she thought. The wind picked up  and blew open her shirt, bringing in chilly air. She pulled it  close around her.
It didn't take long for the three of them to reach the ?rst  outbuilding-a one-room shack.
Hanks stopped under its eaves, massaging his shoulder. 
"Daughtry and I'll go from here to the back door," he whis- pered.
"And if it's locked?" asked Diane.
Hanks studied her for a moment. "Then we'll check the  windows," he said. "They got in some way."
"It's a big house," said Diane, looking at the structure  looming in the darkness. "It probably has a side door too,  maybe a cellar door."
"We'll look. You stay close to the house and watch," 
Hanks added.
Though his features were in darkness, Diane thought he  was trying to stare her down. Was that what this was about, 
Hanks controlling the investigation? wondered Diane. 
Standing out in the chilly wind, she was growing increas- ingly irritated.
"Please remember that the house is a crime scene and  take as much care as you can not to touch anything, and  remember where you walked," she said.
Hanks nodded. Diane thought the movement looked  rather noncommittal.
"Keep a line open with me," he said. "And try not to  shoot us."
Diane took her phone out of her pocket and keyed in  the number he gave her. She heard his phone vibrate in his  hand and put hers back in her pocket when he answered. 
With that, Hanks turned and made his way to the house  with the patrolman close behind.
Diane followed but walked more slowly, carefully pick- ing her way through underbrush to the backyard. Ahead,  she heard someone stumble and curse. She thought it  was the patrolman. She stopped a moment and watched  their dark ?gures making slow progress toward the house. 
Hanks hadn't wanted to use a ?ashlight. No sense in mak- ing yourself a target. But it was dark and the thin layer of  clouds that drifted past the quarter moon only deepened  the darkness, making Marcella's backyard look like a piece  of grisaille artwork. The trees were deep black silhouettes  against a black background. Diane made out a willow tree  near the edge of the yard, its vinelike, black leaf-covered  branches moving in the wind.
From what she could see in the dim moonlight, the yard  had the familiar patchwork of the rock-bordered ?ower beds 
Beverly Connor she had seen in the front. At the edge of the yard the trees  became more numerous and gradually became a forest.
Diane waited near a stand of box hedges. She didn't have  the automatic fear response to darkness that many people  had. She was a caver and she enjoyed the dark. Sometimes  in a deep cave she liked to sit down and turn off her lamps  and let the absolute blackness surround her. Perfect dark- ness had a kind of beauty to her, so she didn't mind the  darkly waving trees or the black forms that dotted the  yard. Her gaze shifted from what looked like a birdbath  to a bench, to a planter, and to several things she couldn't  identify.
She lost sight of Hanks and Daughtry. They'd gone  around to the opposite side of the house looking for entry. 
It grew quiet. The only sound was the breeze. She stood  staring at the house, watching. She became aware of the  sound of breathing.
Diane wasn't afraid of the dark, but she was afraid of peo- ple lurking in the dark. A chill went down her spine with  the realization that the steady, faint whisper easing into  her awareness was the sound of someone breathing. She  gripped the gun ?rmly as she reached with her other hand  for the phone in her pocket. Trying not to look like she was 
?eeing, she started walking toward the house.
She had taken only a few steps when she heard the sound  of footfalls behind her crunching on the forest detritus. The  sound was too close. Some unexpected instinct rose in her  and instead of running, she dropped low to the ground and  sprang back hard with her shoulder into the knees of the  approaching ?gure, knocking his legs from under him. He  fell forward across her and landed hard with a loud groan  as Diane rolled away. The voice sounded male.
Being tripped over didn't hurt as much as Diane had  feared. She didn't get kicked in the side or ?attened and was  on her feet quickly. As she stared at the prone ?gure on the  ground, she heard someone calling her name. The phone. 
She'd dropped it and it lay a couple feet away, too far to pick  up. It was Hanks' voice shouting through the receiver.
"Hanks," Diane yelled as she brought up her gun and  pointed it at the ?gure rising slowly to his feet.
He was taller than she-about six feet in height, she  guessed. He was dressed in black and wore a ski mask. 
He stood frozen in front of Diane's gun. It was too dark  to make out any details at ?rst, but a sudden shift of the  clouds away from the moon illuminated him enough that  she saw his gaze move to the right and behind her.
Beverly Connor What came next was a blur of dark shapes and sounds. 
She spun around in time to see a clublike weapon swinging  toward her. She jumped out of the way and was only nicked  by the tip. But it was enough, along with her own sudden  movement, to propel her down an embankment that bor- dered the box hedges. It was not steep and she almost didn't  fall. Her ?rst few steps were a forced run down the slope  before she tripped and rolled to the bottom. She'd held on  to the gun for those ?rst few steps, but dropped it when she  fell. Diane glanced up the embankment and saw a ?gure at  the top. He reached out his hand to hold on to one of the  slim tree trunks, preparing to climb down toward her.
Damn .
Diane searched the ground for her gun. She saw a glint  in the moonlight about halfway up the slope. Not good. If  she went for it, she'd meet the intruder halfway. She picked  up a nearby thick piece of limb to use as a club. Not nearly  good enough. She'd go for the gun.
Just as she started to move, she heard shouts and a gun- shot. The gun?re was very close, just a few yards from her. 
The ?gure at the top of the bank turned and disappeared  from her sight. Diane lunged for her gun and picked it up. 
As she ran her shaking hands over it, she discovered the  safety was on. Good thing the ?rst guy hadn't been able to  see in the dark either. She felt for dirt or debris and tapped  the side of the gun against her hand, hoping nothing had  lodged in the barrel.
Diane scrambled up the embankment, her heart beating  hard in her chest. At the top she heard two more gunshots  and more shouts. She crouched to catch her breath and  pick up her phone. It was no longer connected to Hanks. 
Her thumb started keying in his number, then stopped. 
No use distracting him. Diane scanned the backyard from  her vantage point, hidden in the box hedges. It was now  strangely quiet except for rustling in the woods and dis- tant sirens. The sirens were the backup ?nally on its way. 
But the sounds in the woods, the rustling and crunching of  leaves- Are the intruders retreating?
Diane was hesitant to step out into the open. She clicked  the safety off with her thumb.
"Diane," Hanks' voice shouted from across the yard.
She saw a ?ashlight come from somewhere.
"Here," she shouted, and cautiously started for the house,  scanning the area as she walked, watching for movement.
As she neared the house, she saw Hanks and Patrolman 
Daughtry both limping to the steps. Daughtry sat down and  was holding his leg, whimpering. Hanks, holding his arm,  sat down beside him. Both seemed to be in considerable  pain.
The three of them automatically turned their heads to- ward the sound of a distant car engine starting up. Hanks  groaned.
"They're getting away," he said. "Hell."
"What happened?" asked Diane. She clicked on the  safety and gave Hanks back his gun, relieved to be rid of  it-though having it probably saved her.
"What didn't happen?" Hanks took the gun from her  and put it in his ankle holster. He turned his head to look  at the back door and winced again in pain. "Damn it, I've  got to quit doing that."
He took a deep breath. "We found a side door that was  open and we went in. Some kind of mudroom, I suppose. 
We heard someone moving in the next room and saw his  shadow pass by the door. Daughtry clicked on his ?ash- light, identi?ed himself, and called out for the perp to stop. 
The bastard bolted before we even got a good look at him. 
It looked like he was carrying a box or something. When 
Daughtry ran after him, his leg went through the boards on  the porch and he broke his ?ashlight. But he kept on after  him and managed to get off a shot. I followed and almost  caught up with the perp, when someone blindsided the  two of us, knocked us down, ran, and shot at us. To tell you  the truth, it got kind of confusing." He tried to shrug and  winced in pain. "Daughtry's leg is skinned up pretty bad."
"Skinned?" said Daughtry. "It hurts like hell. I'm going to  sue that damn woman. Why didn't she ?x her damn porch?"
Diane frowned at him. "Marcella just bought the house. 
She was in the process of ?xing it up," she muttered, and  almost added her thought, 
Let's not forget that she is the  victim here.
"The son of a bitch hit me in the leg with a bat or some- thing," Daughtry said. "He just about killed me."
Beverly Connor Diane took Hanks' ?ashlight and examined Daughtry's  leg.
"Oh jeez," he said, "holy shit... my leg... oh God." He  looked away and groaned.
The broken boards had torn a deep gash in the side of his  left leg from his ankle to midcalf.
"It looks worse than it is," said Diane. Lame, she thought,  but she wanted to give him some comfort. It looked ter- rible. She diverted the ?ashlight beam from the wound.
"I don't know why the damn backup took so long," said 
Hanks.
Diane noticed that Hanks' breathing was off-more labored than it should have been, even considering the  exertion-and it obviously hurt him to turn his head.
"Are you all right?" she asked him.
"I fell on my damn shoulder again," he said. "It's kind of  hard to move and hurts like hell."
Diane shined the beam from the ?ashlight on Hanks'  shoulder. His clothes were covered with leaves and dirt from  the tumble he took. She moved the collar of his shirt aside  and shined the light on his throat and collarbone area. As she  suspected, there was a lump under his skin on the clavicle.
"Your collarbone is broken," she said.
"Yeah, I know," he said, rubbing his eyes and forehead  with his good hand.
"Look," said Diane, "both of you stay-"
The three of them jumped when a beam of light ?ashed  in their direction. Daughtry put a hand on his gun.
"It's me-Izzy," said the voice behind the light. "Neva's  waiting out front for backup. We heard the shooting back  here. Is everyone all right?"
"More or less," said Hanks.
"The shooter in the woods seems to have got away," said 
Izzy. "He hasn't ?red any more rounds at us." Izzy stopped  in front of them, letting his light play from one to the other. 
"The three of you look terrible. What the hell happened?"  he said.
Hanks gave him a brief version of events. "We lost them,"  he ?nished. Hanks looked at Diane for a moment. "What  happened to you? I heard some commotion right before  we went in after the intruder."
"There were lookouts in the woods. I happened upon  them," she said. "At least two that I saw. We had a little  scuf?e."
"Are you all right?" asked Izzy.
"Fine. Tore my dress," she said.
"Great," said Daughtry. "You tore your dress and we get  maimed for life."
Diane smiled. "I knocked one down and got the drop  on him. The other one tried to brain me with a club. I very  cleverly fell down an embankment to get away from them. 
I feel your pain."
"So that means there are between ?ve and three people,"  said Izzy, counting on his ?ngers.
"Probably four," said Diane. "The shooter in the woods  who ambushed us, the one carrying the box, and the two 
I met near the box hedges. They left when the shooting  started. They may have been the same ones who attacked  the two of you."
"Could be three," added Izzy. "The shooter in the woods  could've left his post and come back here. That might be  why he stopped shooting at us."
"So, no less than three," said Hanks. "What is this? Some  kind of gang robbing houses when the owners are out?"
"How would they know that the owner of the house  wasn't here?" asked Diane. "It was early evening when 
Marcella Payden was attacked, wasn't it? It's almost sun- rise now." She could see the sky had gone from black to  dark blue. Dawn was coming. "Unless they were the ones  who attacked Marcella, how would they know?"
"I don't know," said Hanks. "But why would they wait  hours before coming back?"
Diane was relieved to hear police cars come to a stop  in the driveway and the sirens die down. She, Hanks, and 
Daughtry had botched it, she felt. The two of them were  hurt. It was just dumb luck that she wasn't. She wanted to  leave the whole mess to Neva and Izzy-as she should have  in the ?rst place-go home, and get some sleep.
"The two of you need to get to the hospital," she said.
"I won't argue," said Hanks.
Diane sensed that he was embarrassed. She understood. 
So was she-standing in a ruined cocktail dress at a com- 
Beverly Connor promised crime scene where she had let at least three perps  get away.
"I can take you in my car," she said. "Neva and Izzy can  work the crime scenes."
As she spoke she looked around the yard. She could  see more of it now in the approaching dawn. Some of the  shapes decorating the yard that she couldn't identify ear- lier were evident now-a boulder carved into a bench, a  galvanized metal tub containing a dead plant, and... there  at the end of the yard near the trees... a body.
The body lay facedown in the grass. He was dressed in black  pants and a leather jacket, a ski mask over his head-and a  bullet hole in his back.
Diane was kneeling beside the body. She'd put on the  jeans and T-shirt she kept stashed in her SUV-what she  should have done before she reduced her dress to a ruin of  dirty tatters.
The paramedics had immobilized Hanks' arm, bandaged  his wounded thigh, and given Daughtry ?rst aid for his leg  wound. The paramedics wanted to take the two of them to  the hospital, but Hanks insisted on staying until the coro- ner showed up. He was standing beside her.
Whit Abercrombie, the coroner, was sitting on his  haunches on the other side of the body. He had straight  black hair, dark eyes, and a short black beard that made  his white teeth look very bright and his face look rather  rakish.
An ambulance had arrived to take the body. The driver  and paramedic were standing back with a stretcher, waiting  for Whit to give his okay. The sun was just below the hori- zon, providing only enough light for the growing numbers  of personnel from the police department, the crime scene  lab, the coroner's of?ce, and the ambulance services to not  stumble over one another or the numerous yard ornaments. 
Whit shined his ?ashlight on the bullet wound.
"That would de?nitely result in his death," he said.
"I'd like to see his face," said Hanks.
Whit nodded. He and Diane turned the body over and 
Whit rolled up the ski mask. The beam from the ?ashlight 
Beverly Connor cast angled shadows across the contours of the lean face. He  was young, perhaps early twenties, with a pale face showing  a scattering of whiskers that he had hoped would make him  look more rugged. He had a black eye that was fading to  yellow. Diane didn't recognize him. Neither did Whit.
"Don't know him," said Hanks.
Whit and Diane rose and stepped away from the body. 
Whit nodded to the paramedics. They transferred the corpse  to the stretcher and rolled the gurney to the ambulance for  transport to the hospital morgue in Rosewood.
"What happened here?" Whit asked.
Hanks explained in a brisk, no-nonsense way the night's  events leading up to the discovery of the body.
"I don't know how he was shot," he said. "There was a  lot of gun?re."
Whit nodded and eyed Hanks. "Looks like you need to  go along to the hospital."
"Yeah, I suppose so," he said, shifting his weight from  one leg to the other.
Hanks looked to be in considerable discomfort, but  he sounded reluctant. Diane thought he would have wel- comed the chance to receive some painkillers. After a few  moments' thought and with what appeared to be some re- gret, he left with the others, walking at a brisker pace than 
Diane thought she could have mustered under the same  circumstances.
Whit watched Hanks a moment, then turned back to 
Diane. "How are things in your life now that you have con- trol of all the museum operations again?" he said.
"So far, things are running smoothly," she said.
Diane walked with Whit around to the driveway where  he was parked. Hanks' car was there, and the patrolman's. 
So were two other police vehicles. They watched the ambu- lance leave with its cargo.
"What are you doing here?" asked Whit. "I was under  the impression you didn't do on-site crime scene work  much anymore. Someone told me you had ?nally learned  to delegate." He gave her a wide grin.
"I'm trying," said Diane. "Marcella Payden is a consul- tant to the museum."
Whit's eyebrows went up. "Dr. Payden? The archaeolo-  gist? Is this her home?" He glanced over at the house and  back at Diane. "Sylvia and I heard her give a talk a few  days ago on the analysis of pottery in archaeology. Not ex- actly my idea of a hot date, but Sylvia wanted to go. Dr. 
Payden was entertaining. She can make a dull topic sound  interesting, even to us archaeology dummies."
He paused. "What happened? Is she-" He stopped and  let the question hang between them.
"I'm told she survived the attack, but I don't know her  condition. It happened early last evening," said Diane. "I'm  not sure why it took so long for my crew to be called in."
"I can answer that," said Neva, who was coming from  the van with a case, heading for the house. "One of the po- licemen was telling me and Izzy about it. Dr. Payden was  unconscious when she was brought in. At ?rst, the doctors  thought she had fallen accidentally and hit her head. It  wasn't until they did a thorough exam and took some X-rays  that they came to the conclusion she might have been at- tacked. That's when they called the police."
"How was she discovered?" asked Diane.
Neva shrugged. "That's all the policeman knew." She  motioned toward the house. "Izzy and I have a path cleared  if you want to come have a look around."
Diane nodded. "Thanks, Neva."
"How's your dress?" Neva asked, eyeing Diane's change  of clothes.
"About what you would expect after a trek through a  briar patch, a little hand-to-hand with a thug, and rolling  down a hill in it. Not good. It's what I get for wearing a  cocktail dress to a crime scene," Diane said.
Neva grinned and went on her way.
"It must have been some exciting night," said Whit.
"More so than I would like," said Diane.
"About this Detective Hanks," said Whit, nodding in the  direction the ambulance had taken him. "Do you know  him?"
"Not really. He was one of the hires during the previous 
Rosewood administration. He was cleared of any involve- ment in the misdeeds involving the mayor or the chief of  police, but I think he feels he has to be overly competent in  order not to be suspect. You know how it is in Rosewood 
Beverly Connor these days. After the destruction left by the mayor and his  gang, everyone is a little on edge."
Whit grinned happily, nodding his head in agreement  about the state of anxiety in Rosewood. Like all those who  lived outside the city limits of Rosewood itself, Whit was a  little smug and self-righteous about the recent Rosewood  corruption. After all, Rose County residents weren't the  ones who voted the mayor and his cronies into of?ce. That  was Rosewood City folks' doing.
He took his leave, wishing Diane luck as he got in his  jeep and drove away. She wanted to yell after him that she  hadn't voted for the scoundrel either. He was no friend  of hers, and she had the scars to prove it. Instead, she just  waved.
Diane proceeded toward the house. At the edge of the  front yard there was a picket fence that might have been  white at one point in its life but was now weathered to a  dusty gray. In the middle of the fence was a trellised arch- way with no gate. There were remnants of dead vine in- tertwined in the wood slats, signs of recent attempts by 
Marcella at clearing the growth.
Behind the fence, the front yard contained more cement  ornaments-birdbaths, more broken statuary. From the  fresh dirt stains on most of it, Diane guessed that Marcella  had dug the pieces up from the yard. Must be interesting  for an archaeologist to have things to dig up in her own  yard.
Diane climbed the steps to the newly refurbished front  porch. The light was now on and the porch and surround- ing area were well lit. She looked up at the bottom of the  second-?oor balcony. The wood looked new there too. Un- fortunately for Of?cer Daughtry, Marcella's renovations  hadn't yet gotten to the dilapidated back porch.
The house had four tall windows across the front. 
Through one of them Diane could see Neva inside using  electrostatic lifting ?lm to collect a footprint off the ?oor. 
Diane donned the plastic head and foot coverings she'd  retrieved from the van earlier and slipped on a pair of  gloves. She started to enter the front doorway, stopped, and  stepped back.
Her eye was caught by glints of light re?ecting from 
 something embedded in the wood frame around the door. 
Sparkling from underneath ?akes of peeling white paint  were what looked to be the broken sherds of ceramic in- serts inlaid in the wood frame. Diane tried to think what  the inserts might have been before they were apparently  vandalized, but there was nothing identi?able left. They  had all been shattered. 
How odd , she thought.
She moved to just inside the threshold and looked  around at the room. There was an aroma of Mexican food  in the house.
"We've found some good boot prints," said Neva. "Sev- eral sizes larger than what Dr. Payden would wear." She  nodded toward the door. "I think she took her shoes off in  the house."
Diane looked down at a pair of leather sandals sitting on  a wooden stool near the door. "Could be right," she said.
The ?oor was dark, wide-plank hardwood with a satin  sheen-another of Marcella's renovations. A few rugs were  scattered around. They were mostly decorated in geomet- ric patterns that looked Southwestern.
The walls were a cream color and the furniture was  mostly leather with chenille throws and pillows decorated  similarly to the rugs. There was no television in the room  and no place for one. Against one wall was a large, dark  wood hutch that was open and empty.
Under the window just to the left of Diane was an old  wooden desk that had seen better days. There was a lamp  on it and the middle drawer was half open.
"Have you looked in the desk?" she asked.
Neva nodded. "All the drawers are empty. I haven't yet  dusted for prints there or on the hutch."
Just in front of the desk, surrounded by small ?ags  that the forensics crew used to mark notable features at  the crime scene, was a dark stain on the ?oor, almost in- visible because of the dark wood. Blood, Diane realized. 
Marcella's blood. There wasn't a large pool of it. The stain  was about the size of a large dinner plate. This was where 
Marcella was felled, thought Diane, about the time she and 
Frank were at the bene?t at Bartrum listening to a speech  about funding for the arts.
Neva and Izzy had marked a clear path through the 
Beverly Connor house with ?ags. This was the walk zone they examined ?rst  so they could move about the house without contaminating  evidence. Diane walked into the dining room. The odor of  food was stronger here. Marcella had been cooking a Mexi- can dinner. She was expecting company. The table was set  for two. The candle in the center of the table had burned  down and the pool of wax around the wick had hardened.
Diane heard Izzy working in the nearby room, probably  where the most recent intruders had entered. She didn't  like two crime scenes-the attack on Marcella, and the re- cent deadly trespass-intertwined with each other. It con- fused things trying to distinguish one crime scene from the  other. Jonas Briggs, her good friend, chess partner, and ar- chaeology curator, wouldn't be quite so daunted. Archae- ologists are accustomed to working sites that are one on  top of the other and that leave the archaeologists to make  sense of the layers.
Jonas Briggs , she thought. He was probably the one hav- ing dinner with Marcella. They were good friends. He may  have found her. That would make Jonas a suspect to Hanks. 
Diane ?shed her cell from her pocket.
Diane started to key Jonas Briggs' number, but stopped  and retraced her steps to the living room. Neva was rolling  up the ?lm of the boot print and sliding it into a tube.
"Neva, you said the policeman didn't know who found 
Marcella. Is that right?"
Neva looked up and nodded. "That's what he said. The  two policemen are with David, searching the woods for evi- dence. You could call him."
"I didn't know David was here. I didn't see his car," said 
Diane.
"He arrived a little bit ago. It was getting crowded near  the house, so he parked on down the drive," said Neva. She  gestured out the window in the direction of the driveway. 
"Did you ?nd something?" Neva put away the ?lm tube  and picked up the case with the electrostatic lifting device.
"No, I just thought of something. Jonas might have been  the one who discovered Marcella," began Diane.
Neva opened her mouth in surprise, wrinkled her brow,  and looked in the direction of the dining room. "She was  having someone for dinner. And they were... It could be 
Jonas. I didn't think about that."
"I'll call him," said Diane.
She punched in the number of his cell. No answer. She  tried his home. No answer there either. She called his cell  again and left a message asking him to call her.
"No luck?" Neva, still with the anxious expression on  her face, stood with the electrostatic device under her arm.
"He may be at the hospital," said Diane. "His cell may be  turned off. I left him a message."
Beverly Connor "Of course," said Neva. "That's where he would be."
Diane didn't know why she was so worried, but she was. 
She called David's cell.
"Hey, Diane. Hear you've had one of your usual eve- nings out," he said.
"It has been interesting. Found anything?"
"Shell casings. Maybe we'll get lucky with them. One of  the policemen tells me there's an old road back behind the  house. That's probably where they parked. We'll be looking  there next."
"Do you know who found Marcella Payden?" asked 
Diane.
"No. When the call came I recognized the address. I did  some computer work for her out here," he said. "Hooked  up a scanner system for her. Nice lady."
"I'm probably just being paranoid," Diane said, "but it  bothered me the way Hanks seems sure the attack and the  theft were unrelated incidents. They may be, but we don't  know. It was as if he already has a suspect for her attacker. 
If Jonas found her, Hanks might have him at the head of  the list of suspects. Jonas is so far removed from things like  crime. I hate to think of him going through an interroga- tion."
Neva held the lifting device close to her chest, staring at 
Diane in alarm. Everyone at the museum and the crime lab  was very fond of Jonas Briggs. He had come to work for the  museum after he retired from the faculty at Bartrum. With  his white hair, bushy white eyebrows, toothbrush mustache,  and crystal blue eyes, he was everyone's grandfather, or  mentor, or maybe wizard.
"Jonas is pretty tough," said David. "You know that."
"In academics," said Diane.
"In city council meetings. Hell, you know they are all  scared of him."
Diane laughed. "You're right. All this is just speculation  anyway. I have no idea whom she was planning to have din- ner with."
"Speaking of food, maybe we can have some breakfast  after this," David said.
"Good idea-Waf?e House?"
Neva was nodding. She loved their pecan waf?es.
Diane called the hospital to check on the condition of 
Marcella Payden. She got only the words "critical but sta- ble" from them because she was not on the list of people  authorized to receive information about the patient. But  that didn't matter. Diane was just looking for the word  alive , and she got that.
Diane went up the stairs to look over the rest of the  house. The ?rst room she entered was the bedroom. It was  a simple bedroom with a double bed made from cherry  wood and covered with a plain tan chenille bedspread. A  dresser stood on one wall. It held a comb, brush, perfume,  and lotion. A chest of drawers opposite the bed had a large- screen TV on top. A stuffed chair sat by the window with a 
?oor lamp beside it. Marcella's nightstand had a picture of  a young family. She had a married daughter. Diane guessed  it was a picture of the daughter and her family.
The bedroom was neat and uncluttered. The adjacent  room was a different matter. It was a study in clutter. Long  library tables ?anked by bookcases lined three of the walls. 
Additional bookcases stood on each side of the door. All  were over?owing with books, journals, and papers. More  books were stacked on the ?oor, in corners, and on chairs.
On the table to her left sat a computer, printer, and  scanner-probably the one David installed. Scattered  across the table near the computer were printouts of pot- sherds she had scanned, many annotated in her own hand- writing.
The wall above the table and every available wall space  were covered in an amazing collection of maps: satellite  maps of canyons, deserts, and terrains with oxbow rivers, topo- graphical maps, road maps, and maps of archaeological sites  showing postholes and other ground features. Many of the  maps had numerous red dots scattered across them in clus- ters. After a moment Diane realized each dot probably rep- resented a location where a potsherd had been found. As in  crime scene investigation, the location of items reveals much.
The table on the opposite wall had several reconstructed  pots and boxes of sherds. One box looked as if it might  be part of the reference collection Marcella was creating  for the museum. At one end of the table, relatively clear of  clutter, were a microscope and a box of slides.
Beverly Connor But the star of the room was on the center table. In a  box of sand stood a face being reconstructed from broken  pieces of ceramic pottery. Diane walked over to it. The  piece appeared ancient to her eyes. It had the look of tem- pered American Indian ceramic. Its dark tan surface was  sprinkled with white inclusions of the tempering material. 
But Diane had never seen any Indian artifact like this-a mask, not stylized, but with re?ned, realistic features. It was  quite beautiful.
It was a reconstruction in progress, a broken three- dimensional puzzle being reassembled. The sand allowed  the pieces to stand on edge as Marcella worked with them. 
Several sherds lay on the table waiting to ?nd their place  in the emerging form. So far almost half the face had been  reconstructed-most of the chin, the nose, one cheek, an  eye, half a forehead. In the sand behind the larger piece  was a smaller reconstruction. It looked as if it was going to  be the ear and the other cheek. Several sherds were glued  together in clusters but still lacked the links that connected  them to the main piece.
Beside the box of sand were drawings of the face. One  was an extrapolation of the ?nished work. Diane wondered  where the mask was from. She was lost in thought when 
Marcella's phone rang.
It startled her for a moment-a phone ringing in a house  whose owner was gone. Diane walked over to the computer  table and answered it with a simple "Hello."
"Who is this, please?" It was a female voice, possibly  young. Sometimes it was hard to tell. The accent seemed 
Midwestern, but Diane wasn't good with accents.
"Whom are you trying to reach?" Diane asked.
"Someone in my mother's house... I mean, are you  a detective? I'm Paloma Tsosie. Marcella Payden is my  mother."
"Mrs. Tsosie," said Diane, "I'm very sorry about what  happened to your mother. I'm Diane Fallon. I'm with the  police looking over the house." Diane didn't like to say 
"crime scene" to relatives. It was too harsh, too scary.
"Are you one of the crime scene people?" Marcella's  daughter asked.
"Yes."
Paloma Tsosie paused a moment. "That's a coincidence,"  she said almost absently. "Mother does contract work for a  museum director named Dr. Diane Fallon."
"Same person," said Diane. "I have several jobs."
"How odd," she said.
"It is, a little. How can I help you?" asked Diane.
"My husband and I are ?ying out to Georgia. We're in 
Arizona now." She paused. "We would like to stay at the  house. Is that possible?"
Diane thought of the blood on the ?oor. Marcella's  daughter couldn't see that.
"We have a lot of ?ngerprint powder, equipment, and  lights all over the house," said Diane. "But I think I can  have it cleaned up for you by this evening. I'll have to ask  the lead detective, of course." Then, as an afterthought, she  added, "The museum can put you up in a hotel in Rose- wood. It would be closer to the hospital."
"Oh, that would be very kind. Thank you," said Paloma,  clearly liking the idea.
"Do you have someone to pick you up at the airport?"  asked Diane.
"Jonas Briggs. He's a family friend. He's going to meet  us," she said.
"Fine. I'll let him know your hotel," said Diane.
"This is very kind of you," she said.
"I wish you were visiting under better circumstances," 
Diane said. She paused a moment. "I'm in your mother's  workroom. She has a lot of work in progress and the house  just had a break-in," said Diane.
"A break-in? You mean after Mother was attacked? 
No."
"Yes, several hours after. I don't know what they took. 
But they didn't get her computer equipment. I was wonder- ing if you would allow me to take her work and her com- puter to her of?ce at the museum?"
"That would be good. Mother's work is really important  to her, and I know she has a lot of it on the computer. She  does all kinds of three-dimensional scans of her pottery  sherds. She would want it kept safe."
"Good. I'll give you an inventory of what we take," she  said.
Beverly Connor "She just bought a big-screen TV that she loves. Did they  get it?" asked Paloma.
"No. It's in her bedroom," said Diane.
"That's a relief. Could you take that to her of?ce as  well?" she asked.
"Certainly," said Diane. "I'll see if the police will keep an  eye on the house too."
"Thank you-for everything," said Paloma.
Diane stood for a moment after the call and looked  at the computer equipment, then at the television in the  bedroom. None of this was taken. Did they not have time? 
They seemed to have cleaned out only a hutch and an old  desk in the living room. That was odd.
"Diane," called Neva from the lower ?oor, "can you  come down here? I've found something strange."
Downstairs in Marcella's living room Neva was standing  over the desk with a magnifying glass in her hand. She had  removed the middle drawer and set it upside down on the  top of the desk.
"What you got?" asked Diane.
"I'm not sure," said Neva. "The drawer doesn't have a  handle or knob, so I thought there might be prints under  the bottom rim where you have to grab to pull the drawer  out, and, well, what I found is just really weird. I don't think  it's important-I mean, it's old. It looks old. It's just really  strange."
Diane looked down at the desk to see what had Neva all  tongue-tied. The back of the desk drawer was raw unvar- nished wood discolored with age. Nothing noteworthy about  it except there was small handwriting in one of the corners.
Neva gave her the magnifying glass and Diane moved  the desk lamp to view the writing. It was in a small, clear  hand, a combination of cursive and printing, composed into  simple declarative sentences and phrases. It was odd, poi- gnant, and a little chilling.
They want to make me disappear. I don't know what  to do. There is no one I can trust, no one to call for help. 
If I disappear, they have taken me. To where, I don't  know. I'm afraid. Please look for me if I disappear. 
Please. MAG
"Well," said Diane, straightening up. "What do you make  of that?"
Beverly Connor "I have no idea," said Neva. "Is it a joke? Is it Marcella's  handwriting?"
"No," said Diane. "I've seen hers, and it's nothing like  this."
"Then what? Where did the desk come from, I wonder? 
Did she buy it in some antiques shop, get it at Goodwill, a  family heirloom?" asked Neva.
"That's something we can ask when we can talk with 
Marcella," said Diane.
"I wonder how old the message is?" said Neva. "Is some- one in trouble? I suppose if they are, it's too late to help  them now. It looks to me like it was written a long time  ago."
"It does to me too, but we'll let David take a look at it. 
I'll get Korey to have a look too."
Korey Jordan was Diane's head conservator at the mu- seum. She frequently called upon him for various jobs  where his expertise would be useful.
"Questioned Documents might have some insight," said 
Neva. "Couldn't they?"
"Yes," said Diane, "but I doubt this has anything to do  with what happened to Marcella. It looks too old-a kid  may have done this years ago as some kind of play. We can't  devote many resources to it."
"I know, but, well, it's spooky," said Neva.
"It is. How about the other drawers?" she asked. "Any- thing on them?"
Neva shook her head. "I don't know yet. I'll let you  know."
"You might want to look at the back of the desk too,"  said Diane. "Maybe something is written there. People  often tape notes on the back of furniture."
"I will. Maybe Jonas knows were the desk came from. 
It's kind of shabby compared to the rest of her furniture. 
Maybe it is some childhood piece she's never been able to  part with-you know, fond memories. But that message is  not quite the stuff fond memories are made of," observed 
Neva.
"Could've just been a game," said Diane. "I used to stuff  secret spy messages in my dolls that some people might  have found creepy if they read them."
"I heard about that," said Neva, smiling.
Diane smiled back at her. "Marcella's daughter called. 
Her name's Paloma Tsosie. She's coming in from Arizona. 
She may know something about the desk."
"Tsosie?" said Neva. "I've never heard of that name be- fore. What is it, do you think?"
"I'm not sure. There's a picture of her and her family  upstairs. Her husband looks American Indian. Could be  a Navajo or Zuni name, maybe. Anyway, I'm going to put  them up in a hotel, but she's going to want to see the house. 
I'd like there not to be a bloodstain on the ?oor. Call the  cleaners when you ?nish."
"Sure," said Neva.
"Mrs. Tsosie is allowing me to take Marcella's work to  her museum of?ce, so I'm going to pack it up. Do we have  boxes in the van or do I need to go get some?"
"We have a few in the van. They need to be put together,"  said Neva.
"I'll pack up her work... ," began Diane.
"Not her whole of?ce?" exclaimed Neva. She had seen  the over?owing shelves.
"No. Just her computer and the pottery she was working  on. I don't think I could tackle all those books."
Diane left Neva with the enigmatic desk and went out to  the van to ?nd the packing boxes and foam peanuts they  kept for occasions when they needed to transport fragile  objects. She carried them up to Marcella's workroom and  surveyed the task. Even without packing all the books and  journals, the job looked daunting.
A little searching in the of?ce revealed more boxes of  various sizes stored under the tables. She located a linen  closet outside the bathroom and took several pillowcases  and towels.
Diane carefully packed many of the loose sherds in the  various smaller boxes and labeled them. There were seven  whole pots, some reconstructed from sherds and some  never broken. She wrapped them in towels and packed  each in a separate box.
She gathered only the paperwork on the tables, ignoring  all the papers stuffed in the bookcases, and packed it in  a single box. She started to leave the microscope because 
Beverly Connor it would be more easily replaced, but it was small, so she  packed it and the slides amid a cushion of towels.
Then there was the mask. It would be harder to pack. 
She experimented ?rst by gently testing to see if the pieces  were glued fast. They were. Diane wrapped the larger re- constructed piece in a pillowcase and packed it in the mid- dle of the peanuts. She did the same to the smaller section  of glued-together sherds.
The single sherds, presumably more pieces to the puzzle  yet to be ?tted together, lay on the table next to the mask. 
They presented a bit of a challenge because she thought  she might need to keep the integrity of their position in  respect to one another. When she began to pick them up,  she discovered that each one was outlined on the paper  underneath. She put the paper with the pottery pieces in  place in a box and ?lled the box with folded towels over  the sherds. There were four boxes she had to pack this way  to accommodate all the single sherds in this set. It was in  one of the transfers that she noticed another page under  the paper holding the sherds. It contained drawings Mar- cella had made of the mask. From the drawings it appeared  not to be a mask at all, but the front of a pitcher of some  kind. An odd pitcher. Water, or whatever liquid it might  have held, would have been poured out through the eyes. 
Not practical. It must have been simply an art piece, or as  archaeologists often categorized puzzling things, a vessel  meant for religious ritual. 
Interesting.
 Diane had never seen  anything like it.
She was taping the last box closed when David and Izzy  came in. David Goldstein was a good friend of Diane's. 
She had known and worked with him for many years and  they shared a common tragedy. While they were working as  human rights investigators in South America, many of their  friends were massacred. It had made her and David close. 
Other than Frank, the man Diane lived with, David was the  man she trusted most. He was in his forties, balding except  for a fringe of dark hair around his head. He had dark eyes  and an interesting, paranoid view of the world.
Izzy Wallace had been a policeman on the Rosewood  police force and a good friend of Frank's. He hadn't liked 
Diane much at ?rst, but with the unexpected death of his 
 son came a change in his priorities. Observing how Diane  and her team collected evidence that actually put criminals  behind bars, he decided he wanted to join their team. Neva  said he was learning forensics very quickly. Diane noticed  he did seem, if not happier, more involved and satis?ed  with life.
"What are you doing?" David asked.
"I'm taking Marcella Payden's work to her of?ce in the  museum. David, I need you to pack up her computer equip- ment. And, Izzy, would you mind ?guring out a way to pack  up her television?"
"Her TV?" said Izzy. "You're taking her TV? Can you  do that?"
"Sure," said David. "Diane's powers would let her come  into your house and take things away if she wished. Be- sides, the crime lab could use a large-screen, high-de?nition television."
"Seriously," said Izzy, frowning at David.
"I spoke with her daughter," said Diane. "She asked  that we take Marcella's work, her computer, and the TV  to her of?ce in the museum for safekeeping because of  the break-in."
"Just checking," said Izzy.
"What have you found?" Diane asked them, making a  fruitless effort to dust off particles of Styrofoam peanuts  that clung to her clothes.
"I found several bullet casings," said David. "The road  in back of the house is paved, even though it's a pretty  old road-no tire marks. I did trace their getaway through  the woods and collected some ?ber evidence. That's about  it. One odd thing. I found two broken pottery sherds on  the road. Looked kind of archaeological. I collected them. 
I don't know if they're connected to our suspects, but  since Marcella is an archaeologist..." He shrugged. "Who  knows?"
Diane raised her eyebrows. "I wonder if they were look- ing for Indian artifacts? If they were, I don't think they  made it to this room."
David shrugged again. "Maybe that was what they were  after, but... I don't know. It doesn't feel right. That many  guys for some Indian pottery? Is it that valuable?"
Beverly Connor "I don't know either," said Diane. "Some is, I think. But  you're right. It doesn't feel quite right. What about you, 
Izzy? Find anything?"
"I took a couple of casts of shoe prints outside in the  dirt. Like David, I found ?bers where they rolled around  on the ground. I found lots of sequins." He grinned. "You  must have rolled all the way down to the bottom of the  bank."
Diane smiled. "I did. Good work. What's your sense of  what's going on?" she asked Izzy. "Do you think the attack  on Marcella and the break-in early this morning are two  separate events or part of the same crime?"
"I don't know," said Izzy. "Like David said, it feels  strange, but hell, guys will break in to steal just about any- thing these days. I'm thinking they would've been inter- ested in the electronics up here. But maybe they didn't get  this far. I'm with you on the problem of how they knew the  house would be empty-maybe they didn't care. Maybe  they knew that just one little old lady lived here. Maybe  they saw activity here earlier and her being carried away." 
Izzy shrugged. "There's also the problem of there being  no sign of forced entry. Did she leave her doors unlocked? 
Did she let the attacker in and he left without locking the  door behind him? I know some people leave their doors  unlocked, but usually not older women living alone away  from neighbors, like this house is."
"I agree," said David. "Too many questions and not  enough information for answers."
"Besides," said Izzy, "it's Hanks' job to ?gure this stuff  out."
Izzy had told Diane that some of the Rosewood detec- tives thought she insinuated herself too many times in their  cases. Diane thought it was an unfair accusation. She never  interfered in cases unless she was brought in by the detec- tives themselves. Or in some cases, the perpetrators made  sure she was involved.
Since Izzy joined her team, he had become her con- science in that regard-trying to make sure the Rosewood  detectives had a good impression of Diane and the crime  lab. She started to tell him that the county sheriff didn't  have any problems with how she did her job, but her cell 
 rang. She looked at the display. It was Garnett, Rosewood's  chief of detectives. Diane answered.
"Hey, Diane. Just giving you a heads-up. Hanks is bring- ing Jonas Briggs down here for questioning. Thought you  might want to observe."
Diane, still in the change of clothes she kept in her car  for emergencies and still with Styrofoam packing peanuts  clinging to her, stood in the observation room looking with  some apprehension at Jonas Briggs on the other side of the  glass in the police interrogation room. Douglas Garnett  was standing next to her.
Garnett was his usual well-dressed self: dark charcoal  suit, crisp white shirt, and light blue silk tie. He was a tall  man, ?ftyish with thick, graying, well-styled hair and dark  eyes. He hadn't called Diane because he was personally  concerned for Jonas Briggs; his concern fell more under  the heading of protecting the museum from bad publicity  and political repercussions. The crime lab, a really big jewel  in Rosewood's somewhat thorny crown, was housed in the  museum building. Garnett and the mayor knew if anything  bad happened to the museum because of the crime lab, 
Diane would move the crime lab out. And having the mu- seum house the lab worked out so well for the city that it  was worth the little extra political trouble to watch out for  the museum's welfare. Plus, Garnett owed Diane for pull- ing him out of hot water. And Diane did have a personal  interest in the welfare of Jonas Briggs.
Jonas was sitting there alone, his forearms resting on the  table. He was dressed in a light denim jacket, white shirt,  and Dockers. He looked worried, but Diane guessed he was  worried about his friend Marcella, not the circumstances  he found himself in at the moment. Garnett told her that 
Jonas had waived his right to council. She didn't think it 
 was a good idea, but Garnett's help stopped at allowing 
Diane to talk to Jonas before Hanks did.
Diane's fears had been correct. Jonas had discovered 
Marcella Payden, which made him an automatic person of  interest.
Diane heard the rattle of the door and Detective Hanks  walked into the interrogation room. He didn't look partic- ularly threatening, with his arm immobilized and his neck  in a brace because of his broken collarbone.
Jonas raised his eyebrows at Hanks but didn't men- tion Hanks' condition. He waited for Detective Hanks to  speak.
"How well do you know Marcella Payden?" asked 
Hanks.
"Very well. She is a fellow archaeologist and a friend. I  know her family," replied Jonas.
"Did the two of you get along?" Hanks asked.
"Of course," Jonas said.
"Were the two of you dating?" asked Hanks.
"Dating? That sounds like such a young term. We went  places together and had a good time. Is that what the young  do on dates these days? There is an element of romance  that goes along with dating, so I guess you could say we  were dating," said Jonas.
"Were you intimate?" asked Hanks.
"Now, young man, that's a very private question. How- ever, I will answer. No."
"Did that make you frustrated?" asked Hanks.
Diane felt uncomfortable for Jonas. She wanted to bang  on the window and tell Hanks to be more respectful.
Garnett must have felt her frustration. He leaned toward  her and said, "He has to ask these questions."
Diane nodded. But she didn't have to like it.
Jonas chuckled. "Do I look like I'm nineteen? What kind  of question is that?"
"You may have wanted to go faster in the relationship  than Dr. Payden," said Hanks. "Take it to the next level."
Jonas shook his head. "Next level? Where do you young  people come up with these phrases? And go faster? Son, at  my age, I'm happy just to go at all. You know, you haven't 
Beverly Connor analyzed your target audience in forming your assump- tions and questions. You're targeting a different age group  from mine."
"Did you and Dr. Payden have a lot of arguments?" 
Hanks asked.
Diane had a desire to pound on the window again. 
These are trick questions , she wanted to shout.
"A lot of arguments? As in getting mad at each other? 
No."
"What if I told you I had witnesses who heard you and 
Dr. Payden arguing heatedly just two days ago?"
Diane watched Jonas raise his bushy eyebrows and  frown. "Then I would say you had a witness who couldn't  tell the difference between spirited scholarly discourse and  arguing," said Jonas.
"Is that what you call it, 'spirited scholarly discourse'?"  asked Hanks.
"Yes," said Jonas.
"What did Dr. Payden call it?"
"Marcella called it spirited scholarly intercourse," said 
Jonas.
Diane smiled.
"Intercourse?" said Hanks.
"Yes. Communication between individuals, organiza- tions, or nations," said Jonas. "You'll ?nd it's the ?rst de?- nition in the dictionary. It's kind of overshadowed by the  second de?nition. Marcella likes the surprise aspect of  using the ?rst de?nition."
"I see," said Hanks. "What was the argument about?"
"Let's see. I believe the topic of discourse was the  de?ni- tion  of archaeology and how it relates to the proper subject  matter of archaeology," said Jonas.
"That seems pretty basic. Are you telling me you couldn't  even agree on a de?nition of your own subject matter?"  said Hanks.
"It's an academic thing," said Jonas.
Diane could see he was getting annoyed with Hanks.
"It's a common issue with all us archaeologists, one that  will never be resolved because we will never completely  agree. However, if you think this or any discussion I've had  with Dr. Payden in any way would drive me to attack her, 
 you're just being plain silly. Marcella loves academic dis- cussions of all kinds." Jonas looked at his watch. "I'll have  to leave soon to pick up her daughter at the airport. She  and her husband are ?ying in from Arizona today."
"Do you know who might have done this to her?" asked 
Hanks.
"No. Marcella is a nice person whom everyone likes. I  can't imagine anyone doing this to her."
"There is a large hutch in her living room. Do you know  what was in it?" asked Hanks.
"Several pieces of pottery," said Jonas.
"Indian pottery?" asked Hanks.
"Hanks didn't go into the house," said Diane. "How does  he know about the hutch?"
"He said he was going to call David Goldstein to see  what kind of things your crew found," said Garnett. "I'm  sure he called before he began the interview."
Diane wondered why Hanks hadn't called her, but she  didn't say anything.
"... pottery she made herself," Jonas was saying. "It does  look very much like pottery from archaeological digs. She  experimented with various clays and tempering material. 
She always signed it to be sure no one ever acquired one of  her pots and tried to pawn it off as an authentic prehistoric  artifact."
"Did she have any valuable artifacts in the house?"  asked Hanks.
"Valuable to archaeologists as objects of study. She had  a few vessels, but as to monetary value... to tell you the  truth, I really don't know what the market is for stolen ar- tifacts."
"There's a desk in the living room that had been emp- tied. Do you know what was in it?"
"Nothing. She found the desk in one of the sheds out  back of her house and was going to re?nish it," said Jonas.
"You said that when you found her she spoke," said 
Hanks. He looked down at his notes. "I believe you said  she said, 'Tiger after all loose moment.' Is that right?"
"Yes," said Jonas. "That's what it sounded like she said."
"Do you know what that means?" asked Hanks.
Jonas shook his head. "I don't have any idea."
Beverly Connor "When you drove up, did you see anyone else there or  anything out of the ordinary?" asked Hanks.
Jonas shook his head and looked as if he were trying to  remember. "I stopped at the gate-or that arch thing. My  headlights shined in the house and I could see the paintings  on the wall over the sofa, but I didn't see her, or anyone. 
I went up to the door and knocked. She didn't answer. I  waited and knocked again. She didn't come to the door. I  knew she was expecting me. The door was locked, but she'd  given me a key to look in on her place when she was away. 
I opened the door, called her name, and went in."
He stopped and closed his eyes for a moment and took  a deep breath. "She was there on the ?oor and there was  blood. I thought she had fallen and hit her head. I called 
  and stayed with her. I talked to her and she came to  brie?y. That's when she spoke. It was hard to hear. I may  have gotten it wrong." Jonas hesitated a moment. "Later  when I found out someone had attacked her, I tried to re- member if I saw or heard anything. I just don't remember. 
Everything was ?ne until I found her on the ?oor."
"Thank you for coming down. Please don't leave town,"  said Hanks.
"I have to go to the Atlanta airport to pick up her daugh- ter, Paloma, and her husband," said Jonas.
"Just make sure you come back," said Hanks.
Hanks ended the interrogation. It wasn't as bad as Diane  had feared. And it was informative. She found out what was  in the empty hutch. If the thieves thought they were valu- able artifacts, then they were bound to be disappointed. It  was interesting to discover where the desk came from too. 
Apparently, Hanks didn't ?nd the note on the back of the  drawer important, for he didn't ask about it. It was also  interesting that Marcella had spoken. Diane couldn't imag- ine what the words meant either.
Jonas stood up, then sat down again. "I just remembered, 
Marcella told me earlier she found something she wanted  to talk to Dr. Fallon about. She didn't say what it was. I  don't know whether it is related to what happened to her. 
What with Diane being the museum director and the crime  lab director, it could be something about museum business  or something from the dark side."
"The dark side?" asked Hanks.
"It's what we in the museum call the crime lab," he said.
Hanks' back was to Diane, but she could see the round  of his cheek change. Apparently he had smiled.
"Would she have mentioned it in a note or diary?" asked 
Hanks.
"Most of Marcella's notes were about her work. I don't  know if she kept a diary," said Jonas.
"Tell the daughter I would like to speak with her when  she is up to it," said Hanks.
"I will," said Jonas. He rose again and walked out the door.
Hanks turned around and stared at the two-way mirror  for a moment. Diane thanked Garnett for allowing her to  watch and hurried out to catch up with Jonas. On the way  to the police station she had called her museum assistant, 
Andie, and asked her to make hotel reservations for Pa- loma and her husband. She needed to tell him.
"Jonas," said Diane when she caught up with him at the  door.
"Diane. I'm glad you're here," he said. They walked out  together. "Were you behind the mirror? Do they really do  that? It's not just a TV thing?"
"Yes. I was there," she said.
"Then you heard the questions he asked. Does he really  think I had anything to do with this beastly thing?"
"If I had been the one to ?nd her, I would be the one  answering questions," said Diane. "It's not uncommon that  whoever ?nds a victim becomes a person of interest. It's  just procedure."
"It's not pleasant," said Jonas.
"It's not supposed to be. It's just the way it is. I wanted to  tell you that I made Paloma reservations at the Latimeer."
"That's pretty expensive. Paloma and her husband aren't  rich," said Jonas.
"The museum is picking it up. I spoke with her today. She  called the house. She wanted to stay there, but I thought  with the blood on the ?oor and all the ?ngerprint powder,  it would be easier if they stayed closer to town. It's also  near the hospital."
"That's good of you," he said, taking her hand and  squeezing it. "I'm sure Marcella will appreciate it," he said.
Beverly Connor "Drive safely," said Diane.
Jonas nodded and got in his car. It wasn't until he drove  away that she realized what he had said in the interrogation  room about seeing the paintings over the sofa. When she  and her crew were in the house, there weren't any paintings  over the sofa.
Diane walked back into the police station, past the recep- tion area, past the detectives' desks, to Garnett's of?ce. 
She could see through the window in the door that he was  meeting with Detective Hanks. She knocked and entered  when Hanks opened the door.
Douglas Garnett had a no-nonsense, no-frills of?ce. The  chairs were faux leather and chrome; his desk was gray  metal. A long, wood conference table surrounded with  wooden chairs sat off to the side. The tan walls were deco- rated with an array of diplomas, awards, framed newspaper  clippings, and photographs of Garnett shaking hands with  many politicians from around Georgia.
He rose when she entered and waved her to a chair op- posite Hanks. The two of them sat back down when she did. 
Hanks stared at her. It wasn't exactly daggers coming out  of his eyes, but his gaze wasn't particularly friendly either. 
Despite what he may have felt, he was having a hard time  looking aggressive in his neck brace and with his arm in a  sling.
"I was just telling Chief Garnett I don't want you inter- fering in my case," said Hanks.
"Have I interfered?" asked Diane.
"You're here. What's the purpose of that?" he asked.
"Just observing," said Diane. "Comparing witness testi- mony with evidence gathered from the crime scene. I came  back in because of something Jonas said during your inter- view that may be of importance."
Hanks sat up straight and leaned forward. "What was  that?" he asked.
Beverly Connor At least he was eager for any information he could get  from her. Diane was glad of that.
"Jonas said that when he arrived at the house, his head- lights shined in the window and he could see paintings over  the sofa. When my team and I were in the house, there were  no paintings over the sofa. I only just a moment ago real- ized what I'd heard or I'd have mentioned it before he left  for the airport."
Hanks' expression changed to one less suspicious of her  intentions. "Were the paintings stolen? When? I wonder if 
Briggs remembers if they were there when he was in the  house. Can you call him? Do you have his cell number?"  asked Hanks.
Diane ?shed her cell from her pocket and called Jonas.
"Diane, what's up? Nothing else happened did it, this  soon?" Jonas asked.
"No. Just a question. When you were in the house with 
Marcella, did you notice anything about the paintings over  the sofa, the ones you saw in your headlights a few minutes  before?"
"Not that I remember. Let me think." Jonas was quiet  for a long moment.
Diane thought he might have entered a dead zone in cell  service; then she heard him whispering to himself, going  over the evening's events, refreshing his memory.
"I remember my headlights shining through her front  window, lighting up the back wall. The pictures stood out  for me because I had not seen them before. I got out and  walked across the yard and up on the porch. I knocked on  the door, but there was no answer. I looked in the window,  but didn't see her. I knocked again, then unlocked the door  and went in, started to call out for Marcella, but there she  was on the ?oor. I stayed with her there on the ?oor. I didn't  know what to do for her."
There was another long pause. She heard him breathing.
"Yes, I can see it now as I stood on the porch and looked  in the window. The paintings were not there! I'll be damned! 
The paintings were gone. You mean her attacker was there  in the house stealing the paintings as I was walking from  my car to the house? The absence of the paintings hadn't  registered until you mentioned it. Damn."
"What kind of paintings were they?" asked Diane.
"Portraits. Three of them. But I didn't see them clearly  from my car-too far away."
"You'd not seen them before?" asked Diane.
"No, I'm sure of it. Marcella had a tapestry hanging over  the sofa the last time I was there. The paintings were a new  addition."
"What about the hutch?" asked Diane. "Was the pottery  in it when you were with Marcella?"
"Yes, it was there. I remember looking at the pottery and  thinking how it looked just like authentic artifacts... and  what a good potter she is. Are you saying the pottery is  gone too? That young fellow, Hanks, asked me about it. I  didn't think about the implication until now. Was her at- tacker hiding in the house while I was there-waiting for  me to leave so he could rob the place? You know, Marcella  had a lot of work on her computer. If it's gone..."
"No, we have her computer. We'll talk when you get  back," said Diane. "Thanks for the information. You've  been very helpful."
"I'll call you when I get Paloma and her husband settled. 
I'm sure she'll want to get to the hospital right away," he  said.
Diane had the phone's speaker turned on as she spoke  with Jonas so that Garnett and Hanks could hear. When  she hung up, Garnett spoke ?rst.
"You see why I've found it's a good idea to have some- one from the crime scene listen to the interrogations," he  said. "They often hear things that are important."
Diane knew he had made that up on the spur of the mo- ment to mollify Hanks. It was effective. Hanks nodded. 
After all, she  had  noticed something that probably was  important. They had also made some progress in separat- ing events that belonged to the attack from events that oc- curred later in the morning with the intruders.
She also realized Hanks was off his game. He should  have asked if the hutch still had its contents when he asked 
Jonas what was in it. He must have been very uncomfort- able, not thinking at his best. He didn't strike her as a man  who liked to load up on painkillers.
"David Goldstein found pieces of broken pottery on the 
Beverly Connor road behind the house," said Diane. "That's where the  thieves had their vehicle parked and made their getaway  this morning."
"When Marcella Payden was attacked," said Hanks, "the  perp or perps took some paintings. Then the guys we ran  into early this morning took the pottery from the hutch, 
I'm guessing. So, are we looking at art thieves?"
"Maybe," said Garnett. "But I don't know. I wouldn't  expect them to be geniuses, but these guys seem pretty  incompetent as art thieves. The stolen pottery isn't even  authentic Indian artifacts, if I understand correctly. Is Dr. 
Payden's pottery valuable?"
Both Hanks and Diane shrugged.
"She made pottery more for research, I believe," said 
Diane. "She tried to re-create methods used by prehistoric 
American Indians. And she experimented to replicate past  phenomena."
Garnett and Hanks both raised their eyebrows at this  and traded glances.
"For example, one experiment she did was to make  vessels with different-colored glazes, put them on a shelf  as they may have been arranged in an aboriginal shelter. 
She'd tip over the shelf and analyze the breakage pattern  of the pottery fragments on the ?oor."
"And this tells her what exactly?" asked Hanks.
"When excavating a site, you ?nd a lot of broken pottery. 
Mapping the location of the pieces and then reconstructing  them back into a whole vessel tells you something about  how it got broken in the ?rst place. In the example I gave,  would the patterns of breakage that have been found at  many archaeological sites result if the early people had  pottery on shelves or racks in their houses? I know it seems  like a lot of work for useless information, but archaeology  is a lot like crime scene reconstruction-you keep adding  pieces to the puzzle and after a while you have the whole  scene. They are trying to reconstruct the past in as much  detail as they can discover."
Diane didn't think she told it as clearly as Jonas did  when he spoke with students or tour groups, but Hanks'  and Garnett's expressions weren't entirely glazed over 
 with confusion. Then again, neither had she enthused them  to become archaeologists.
"So she didn't take a lot of care making the pottery  pieces if she was going to break them," said Hanks. "They  probably weren't valuable."
"I think she did take a lot of care," said Diane. "She  wanted to get as close as possible to matching the kind of  vessels the Indians used. I doubt her pots were valuable  enough to steal. But it may be the thieves thought they  were real. Perhaps someone working on her house saw  them, knew there was some money to be had in trading in  antiquities, and came back with some of his buddies to steal  them. Just a thought," she said. "Do we know who the body  in her backyard was?"
Hanks nodded. Apparently he felt more comfortable  sharing, at least in the company of Chief Garnett.
"His name was Ray-Ray Dildy. He was a high school  dropout, a day worker, and petty thief. Not much on the  ball, so I'm thinking he wasn't the mastermind, just the  muscle. I'm looking into his associations now."
"Could he have worked on Marcella's house?" asked 
Diane. "I noticed her front porches are new, as is the ?oor  in the living room."
"Could have. I'd like to get her daughter to go through  her mother's receipts," said Hanks. "They might tell us  something."
Diane had been hesitant to ask. Afraid of the answer. 
But, she had to know. "How is Marcella?" she asked.
"The doctors have her in an induced coma," said Hanks. 
"Something about her brain swelling."
That was what Diane was afraid of. She didn't know 
Marcella well, but to a person of intellect like Marcella the  possibility of brain damage could be of greater fear than  the possibility of death. Diane needed to ?nd out who did  this to her.
No one said anything for a moment. Finally Hanks broke  the silence.
"You believe Jonas Briggs is innocent of involvement in  the attack, don't you?" Hanks asked Diane.
"Yes," said Diane.
Beverly Connor "Why?" asked Hanks.
"The same reason I believe Chief Garnett wasn't in- volved. I know them both," said Diane.
"That's hardly a reassuring answer," said Hanks. "No of- fense, sir."
"It is if you trust my judgment," said Diane. "But you  don't know me."
"Is your judgment that good?" he asked.
"I think it is most of the time," she said.
Hanks actually started to smile.
"Other than the fact that he discovered her and called  for help," Diane continued, "there is no reason whatsoever  to suspect Jonas. You might as well suspect me."
"There is the matter of the arguments that were over- heard," said Hanks.
"That's nothing," said Diane. "That is the world they  live in. Many academics revel in debate. Marcella is one of  them. You might as well use breathing as evidence."
"The witnesses said they were pretty heated," said 
Hanks.
"They may have been perceived that way from an un- informed observer's perspective, but I'd have to have wit- nessed it myself to put any value on it," said Diane.
"Are you that rigid with all eyewitness testimony?"  asked Hanks.
"I don't really deal in eyewitness testimony," said Diane. 
"I collect empirical data. But when confronted with eyewit- ness accounts, I don't automatically believe them without  corroboration. In this case it would take a lot of corrobora- tion because I've known Jonas long enough to be able to  judge his character."
"Interesting perspective," said Hanks.
Diane wasn't sure what he meant. No one seemed to  have anything else to say at the moment, so she stood and  the two of them stood with her.
"We'll have a full forensics report for you as soon as we  can," said Diane.
Hanks thanked her and Diane left the police station. 
Hanks followed her out to her car.
"I had been told that you are prone to take over a case,"  he said. "I didn't want that happening with this one."
Diane supposed he was trying to explain his hostility, but  he still sounded defensive.
"I don't know where that rumor came from exactly,"  said Diane. "Those times when I have been more involved  in a case than my position as a director of the crime lab  would dictate that I should, I have been either asked by  detectives-here"-she gestured toward the station-"or the perpetrators themselves have pulled me into it by com- ing after me. I have never just showed up and told a detec- tive that I was taking over his case and would he please  hand me his ?le."
"I got the impression you were more subtle than that,"  he said, almost smiling again.
"There are reasons Garnett occasionally invites me to  observe interrogations, and they have nothing to do with  any personal interest I might have in the case itself. And he  only allows me to observe, nothing else. Today, for instance, 
I would have advised my friend not to answer your ques- tions without a lawyer present. Not because he was guilty,  but because we all know why detectives want to interview  people without an attorney present. But Garnett wouldn't  have allowed me to interfere-just observe."
"That's very cryptic. Why does he extend that courtesy? 
He doesn't to anyone else. Do you get to observe the ques- tioning of all your friends?" asked Hanks.
Diane smiled. "Well, my friends don't often ?nd them- selves in this situation. But the answer is no, not all my  friends. Just certain types of friends. After you have been  here longer, you'll ?gure out why."
Diane got in her car and left him with a puzzled look on  his face. Sooner or later he'd ?gure out it was not so much  about her as it was about the museum and its relation to  the crime lab. Garnett and the mayor didn't want her to tell  them to leave and take their crime lab elsewhere.
Diane drove home-home to Frank's house. She'd left  him early this morning when David called and she hadn't  talked with him since. And it was Sunday, the day they usu- ally spent together. She should have told Hanks she was  very content to leave his case to him. Did they all think she  just went around making work for herself?
Diane parked the SUV in the driveway behind a car she 
Beverly Connor did not recognize. It had Atlanta plates. As she passed by  she felt the hood. Warm. It hadn't been here long.
Frank was a detective in the Metro-Atlanta Fraud & 
Computer Forensics Unit. It must be for him. She hoped  they didn't want him to go in to work. She walked up to  the door of the familiar, old Queen Anne-style house and  went in.
Diane was greeted with the aroma of hot coffee when she  opened the door. She walked through the small entry into  the living room, where she heard talking. She was going to  pass by, let Frank know she was home, go take a shower,  and let him get on with his business. Then she recognized  the voice.
It was Ross Kingsley, an FBI pro?ler friend of hers. He  and Frank were drinking coffee and laughing over some- thing.
They rose when she entered holding her dress over her  arm and clutching her evening bag and heels in her hand.
"Diane," said Frank, his blue-green eyes sparkling as he  spoke, "look who dropped by."
Something was up. Diane could tell by the way his eyes  crinkled at the corners as he smiled at her.
She hadn't seen Ross in several months. When she ?rst  met him, she didn't think he looked like an FBI agent. 
She still didn't. He looked like a college professor, with  his neatly trimmed beard and tweed sport coat. She noted  some small changes since she last saw him: His brown hair  was a little longer, and he looked tanned. He must have  been on vacation.
"Ross, this is a surprise. How are you?" said Diane.
"Quite well, thank you. I hope this is not inconvenient. 
I should have called-you might have been in a cave  somewhere-but I had to be in Rosewood anyway, so...  anyway, here I am."
Frank looked at the distressed dress over her arm, arched  an eyebrow, and looked back up at her.
Beverly Connor "Long story," she said.
"Did you have to go to the hospital?" Frank asked.
Diane knew he was only half joking.
"No," she said, smiling sweetly at him. "I was lucky. It  was a short drop."
She noticed Kingsley had a briefcase. It was sitting on  the ?oor near his feet. This was business. The last time he  came to her about business hadn't turned out well. Actu- ally, it eventually turned out well, but the journey was hell. 
He followed her gaze.
"I have something I would like to talk to you about," he  said.
"Okay. Would you mind if I hop in the shower and  change into some fresh clothes ?rst? I've had an eventful  morning that began long before dawn. It won't take me  long," she said.
"Sure," said Kingsley. "Frank is being a very entertaining  host."
Diane went into the bedroom, stripped off her clothes,  and got into the shower. The warm water felt good on her  sore muscles and she would have liked to stay longer. But  she hurriedly washed her hair, soaped up her body, and  rinsed off. Frank came in as she was dressing.
"You all right?" he asked.
"Fine. I'll tell you about it in a minute." She smiled and  kissed him. "Really, I'm ?ne this time. I only rolled down  an embankment."
He laughed and left the room. Diane ?nished dressing in  slacks and a sweater and combed back her short wet hair.
Frank had her a cup of fresh, steaming coffee sitting on  the table next to her favorite chair when she came back  into the living room. It felt good to get comfortable in the  cozy room with its stuffed chairs, polished wood, and sunny,  cream-colored walls. There was no ?re in the ?replace, but  its presence in the room dialed up the cozy factor. Ross 
Kingsley certainly looked comfortable.
"So," said Kingsley, "what happened this morning? I've  had interesting mornings myself, but I don't think they ever  quite reach the same level of interest that yours do." He  grinned and took a sip of his coffee.
Diane told them about the early morning's events, leav-  ing out details of the case. Kingsley listened with a combi- nation of openmouthed disbelief and amusement. Diane  tried to make it more of a comedy of errors than the real  danger it was. Frank had his usual, I-can't-let-you-out-of- the-house-can-I expression on his face.
"As I said, my mornings aren't nearly as interesting," said 
Kingsley. He paused for a moment as if looking for another  excuse not to get down to his business.
"How's the FBI?" asked Diane.
"I'm not with the FBI anymore," he said.
Diane hadn't expected that. Ross had seemed so com- fortable there. "I wasn't aware," she began.
"I had an identity crisis. I discovered I wasn't wearing  clothes; I was a fraud," he said.
Diane glanced over at Frank. He looked as puzzled as  she felt.
"You're going to have to explain," she said.
"I came to the realization as I was working on my book  on pro?ling that it was all smoke and mirrors. I was a con,  no different from those psychic-astrologer folk you visit at  carnivals for a psychic reading," he said.
"I'm not sure I understand," said Diane.
"I'd been regarding pro?ling as if it were a science," he  said.
"You have repeatedly told me it isn't an exact science,  that it's a tool," said Diane.
"I know I said that, but down deep I believed it was  something more than that. I thought it rested, at least, on  good psychological models that were veri?ed by empirical  studies, hard data, statistics, and probabilities."
"What changed your mind? How did you come to your  epiphany?" asked Frank.
Frank, Diane knew, was a critic of pro?ling, so he prob- ably approved of this turn of events.
"Looking at some of the research done in the UK on  pro?ling and case histories. Looking back at my own work  and seeing in reality how fuzzy some of my pro?les and  those of my colleagues were."
"Like... he's someone you wouldn't suspect of being  violent," said Frank.
Diane smiled and Kingsley nodded. "You know, before 
Beverly Connor now, I never really realized how that statement ?t most  people." He shook his head. "So many descriptions are like  that-'He's someone who tends to be a hermit, but some- times enjoys being with friends.' You know, when I read  my pro?les in hindsight, I am astounded at how hazy and  contradictory many of them were. They would be concrete  enough to point to particular individuals, and yet vague  and general enough to ?t a lot of very different people. I  mean, the pro?les sounded good, but what did they really  say? I don't know how detectives got anything worthwhile  out of them. And the lack of consistency. You have two  pro?lers evaluate the same case and their pro?les point in  completely different directions. You remember the BTK  killer?"
Diane and Frank nodded.
"A little," said Diane. "The serial killer in Kansas?"
"I didn't work on his pro?le, but I studied it. He was  pro?led out to be basically lower class, an outsider, prob- ably unmarried, and uncomfortable with women. When he  was caught, he turned out to have been married for thirty  years, a father of two children, president of the congrega- tion council of his church, a Cub Scout leader, and a right- upstanding member of his community." Kingsley shook his  head again. "They got some things right, but only because  so many of the descriptions were so general, they would  have ?t about anyone."
"How did they catch him?" asked Diane.
"Old-fashioned detective work and a little trickery on  the part of detectives," said Frank. "The killer was sending  the police taunting messages. They got him to send a mes- sage by ?oppy disk, telling him there was no way to trace  it. There is, of course, and they traced it back to him." He  grinned.
Diane could see that it pleased him that computer tech- nology had played a part in the apprehension.
"There was a lot more to his capture, but that's the Cliffs 
Notes version," said Frank.
"It was a research report that ?rst tested my faith," said 
Kingsley. "A British study analyzed a couple hundred crim- inal cases in which pro?les were used by the police. Pro- ?les led detectives to the guilty party in fewer than three 
 percent of the cases," said Kingsley. He straightened up in  his chair and leaned forward for emphasis. "That statistic is  what got me started on my own reevaluation of pro?les."
"Is that what made you give up on pro?ling?" asked 
Diane. She was a little puzzled by Ross and wondered  whether he was having more of a burnout than a career  crisis. But then again, she had been a skeptic of pro?ling  too. On the other hand, she did believe there were observ- able patterns of behavior that could be traced back to the  psychology of the person, and those behaviors were pre- dictable.
"I think the ?nal straw was a case that several of us pro- ?lers were assigned to." Kingsley gestured with his hands,  then put his ?ngertips together. "We were called in on a  series of rapes. There were nine of them. In each case the  victim was tied with her hands behind her and had a hood  put over her head or a large blindfold over her eyes. The  rapist used a condom and bathed the victim in the shower  or bathtub afterward, so there was little forensic evidence." 
Kingsley settled back in the chair again and relaxed. He  took another sip of his coffee.
"Want me to warm that for you?" asked Frank.
"No. This is ?ne," he said. "Not all the rapes took place  in the same city. Five were in a college community and  four were in a suburb about forty miles away. The rapist  was never seen by the victims. We went back and forth on  the pro?le. We were throwing out ideas left and right. But  most of us decided he worked at the university and lived  in the suburbs and was raping in his comfort zone. We had  an elaborate pro?le that I won't go into except to say that  when unsubs do things like cover the victim's face, it has  meaning. We'd look at the other elements of the crime and  decide which set of meanings made sense. We had it ?gured  that he was young, not experienced with women, and didn't  want them looking at him, either from inadequacy or to  hide his face, et cetera."
He paused a moment. "See, that's the problem. Different  unsubs do the same things, but for different reasons," he  said. "Anyway, we were pretty sure of our pro?le."
"And?" asked Frank.
"The case was broken by two detectives working sep- 
Beverly Connor arately: one from the suburbs and one from the campus  police. It turned out there were two rapists who had no re- lationship to each other, but who had more or less similar 
MOs, but different motivations for their respective meth- ods. One blindfolded the women because he didn't want  to be identi?ed and washed them because he wanted to  get rid of any trace evidence. He chose his victims from the  university because there were lots of young women there  and they were easily available. He did not work at the uni- versity. He worked at a car repair shop.
"The other rapist started out as a stalker. His stalking  victim committed suicide and he was overcome with grief. 
He made an iron-on transfer from a photograph of her and  attached it to a hood. He fantasized about her when he was  raping his victims. The washing of his victims was part of his 
'romantic evening' with them. He was a delivery guy and  actually lived somewhere else. He delivered in the area and  chose victims from there because he was familiar with all  the streets and houses. Both of the rapists tied their victims  because they didn't want them pulling their blindfolds off. 
Not one of us guessed there were two unsubs, because the  rapes were so similar. We were driven by our pro?le. The  detectives who ended up solving the case had more open  minds."
Kingsley paused. "We had actually been encouraging  the detectives to look at another guy who came up on the  radar because he ?t our pro?le. Fortunately, the detectives  didn't get around to pursuing our suspect before the cases  broke in both locales." Kingsley shook his head. "First, do  no harm," he said.
"Remember the guy accused of the Atlanta Olympic  bombing? Turns out he was innocent. But just because he  had wanted to be a policeman and failed, it looked like he 
?t a classic pro?le and was made out to be the perp. His  life was turned upside down and just about ruined. Terrible. 
Anyway, it all just fell apart for me." He took a sip of coffee. 
"So here I am."
"What are you doing now?" asked Diane.
"I work for a detective agency in Atlanta-Darley, Dunn,  and Upshaw," he said.
"I've heard of them," said Diane. "Big ?rm. They do a lot 
 of client defense work. What do you do? Tear down pro?les  in court?"
He grinned. "As a matter of fact, I have, but that's not my  goal. What I would like is for pro?les to be used as a simple  tool, a guideline, and not to drive the case."
"What brings you here?" asked Diane, staring at the  briefcase that Kingsley put his hand on.
"I have a case I'm working on. It's pro bono. The ?rm  likes to do a few freebies when they can. Makes them look  good. It's a case where I think the police misused pro?ling  techniques we taught them. I was hoping you would help."
"This is going to need more coffee," said Diane. She took  their cups and disappeared into the kitchen and returned  with a tray of cups of fresh coffee.
Frank had cleaned off the coffee table to make room for  the ?les Kingsley pulled from his briefcase. Diane put the  tray on an end table and passed around the fresh cups of  still-steaming coffee. Ross Kingsley took a sip, then another  one, and Diane had the ?eeting impression he was numb- ing his tongue against the upcoming narrative contained in  the folders he'd set on the table.
"This isn't pleasant," said Kingsley.
"When you ?nd murder that is pleasant, please come  and share it with me," said Diane. "You are talking about  murder, aren't you?"
"Maybe. That is why I've come to you. The ?rm I work  for-although they like and encourage pro bono work, they  don't put the entire staff on it. That's why I need to consult. 
How do you feel about pro bono?" he asked, looking up at  her with a thin smile.
"I've done my share," said Diane, smiling back.
Kingsley pulled a ?le off the bottom of the stack and  opened it. "I have to start with a murder that took place  nine years ago. That's where the story begins."
Diane looked down at an eight-by-ten mug shot of a  man who looked to be in his mid-twenties. He had straight  blond hair and brown eyes. His face was thin. He had a nar- row, crooked nose and full lips. He looked frightened.
"This is Ryan Dance. He's serving a life sentence for the  murder nine years ago of Ellie Rose Carruthers. El, as her 
 friends called her, was ?fteen years old. She was reported  missing on a Saturday. She had been left alone at home in  an upper-middle-class neighborhood while the rest of the  family visited her grandmother in a nursing home. When  the family returned, El was not at home. They called all her  friends, drove to all her favorite spots looking for her, and 
?nally called the police. She was discovered two days later  when an anonymous caller reported a possible body on  the side of the road near I- . She had been strangled and  there was an attempted rape. She apparently fought and  was killed before the assailant could complete the rape. At  least, that was the analysis."
Kingsley stopped speaking and took another drink of  coffee.
"Who was the anonymous caller?" asked Diane.
Kingsley shook his head. "Don't know." He set down his  coffee cup and continued the story.
Diane looked at the stack of folders and sensed it was  going to be a long one. She stared at the picture of Ryan 
Dance.
"This is not a cold case. They made an arrest," said 
Diane.
"Yes. They found cigarette butts near the body and  matched the DNA to Ryan Dance," said Kingsley.
"He stuck around and smoked cigarettes after he  dumped the body?" asked Diane.
"I found that a little odd too, but it was an out-of-the- way place, and God knows, perps do strange things," he  said. "Besides, as I was told, the cigarette butts could have  been carried there when he carried the body."
"Is there more evidence?" asked Diane.
"The police searched his car and found strands of her  hair, a button from her dress, and a smear of her blood in  the trunk," Kingsley said.
"Then this was a slam dunk," said Diane.
"Ryan Dance's sister, Stacy, didn't think so. Stacy Dance  was fourteen years old when her brother, Ryan, was ar- rested, tried, and convicted. She always believed him to be  innocent. When she turned twenty-one, she started an in- vestigation on her own. Four weeks ago, Stacy Dance, age  twenty-three, was found dead in her apartment over her 
Beverly Connor father's garage. Her father came to see me last week, and  that's why I'm here." Kingsley closed the ?le and picked up  another one. He started to open it, then stopped. "As I said,  it's not pleasant." He opened the folder.
"Stacy's death was ruled an accident by autoerotic as- phyxiation. The father believes it was murder. The police  won't listen to him. Understandably, their position is that  the father simply does not want to believe his child would  do what it appears that she did."
Kingsley handed the detective's report, the autopsy re- port, and the crime scene photo to Diane.
"Most cases of autoerotic asphyxia are male," com- mented Diane as she read the police report.
"I know," said Kingsley. "One thing that attracted me  to his case was the pro?ling. The detective in charge had  taken basic pro?ling courses the FBI offered to local law  enforcement departments-I was the instructor. I should  be jailed for malpractice."
Diane glanced up at him. He sounded bitter.
"The detective ?rst suggested that because she was a  little overweight, and  homely -his word, not mine-that she was dateless and therefore frustrated. That led her to  practice this form of  entertainment -again, his word, not  mine."
"I imagine her father had a reaction to that," said 
Frank.
"He did," said Kingsley. "He pointed out that his daugh- ter had a boyfriend, and many other friends, she was en- rolled in the local community college, and she and a couple  of her friends had a band. They practiced in his garage. He  was sure she was not into anything kinky."
"What did the detective say about the boyfriend?" said 
Diane.
"He revised his original 'pro?le' to suggest that since she  was a college student and involved in a band, the autoerot- ica was probably something kids in her group were trying  out. He made it sound like snif?ng glue or taking drugs. 
When his ?rst pro?le hadn't panned out, he revised it to ?t  his conclusion of what happened. First she did it because  she was unpopular; then she did it because she was popu-  lar." Ross Kingsley threw up his hands as if in surrender. 
"Anyway, tell me what you think. I promised Mr. Dance 
I would look into it. In the space of nine years he has lost  both his children. He is a devastated man with no other  recourse. He was going to give us his life savings to open  an investigation. I talked my bosses into letting me work  on it pro bono."
Diane read the report twice and handed it to Frank  when he reached for it. She took a breath and looked at the  photograph. It showed a young adult woman, nude, with a  rope around her neck. She was in a kneeling position on  a bed. One end of the rope was tied to a bedpost and she  was leaning forward into the noose. There was a towel half  under the rope and half falling out. There were clothespins  attached to each of her nipples.
"Her father didn't ?nd her, did he?" said Diane.
"No. How did you know?" asked Kingsley.
"He wouldn't have left her this way. No father would,  even if it meant disturbing evidence," said Diane.
"She was found by a friend, who called " said Kings- ley.
Diane put down the photograph and picked up the au- topsy report. She read it several times, picked up the pho- tograph again, and looked at it. She rose from her stuffed  chair and went into the kitchen and came back with a mag- nifying glass.
"Is this the only crime scene photograph?" asked Diane.
"Yes," said Kingsley. "Have you found something?"
Diane didn't answer; she continued examining the pho- tograph with the magni?er. After a minute she put the pic- ture and the magnifying glass down on the table.
"There are two things that make me question the ?nd- ing," she said. "The ?rst is the knot in the rope. Do you have  the rope?"
"That's right, you do forensic knot analysis," said Kings- ley. "How could I forget that? What about the knot? Oh...  no, we don't have the rope."
"Anyone who is into this form of self-grati?cation would  use some variation on a slipknot to hold the rope around  the neck so that when pressure is released, the rope loos-  
Beverly Connor ens. This is a granny knot-an incorrectly tied square knot. 
Granny knots are known for their dif?culty in untying. 
Look at this." Diane handed the photograph to Kingsley  along with the magnifying glass. "The rope is tied tight  around her neck. No way did she do this. Frankly, I'm sur- prised the forensics people didn't notice it. Did any foren- sics person work it as a crime scene?"
"No, just the detective assigned to the case," said Kings- ley. "I see it now. Of course. She would never have been able  to get out of this. In fact, as tight as the rope was around her  neck, she would have passed out before she could even ar- range herself in this position. Funny, I never noticed how  the rope was tied, and I studied crime scene photographs  of autoerotic asphyxia. They contained elements much like  this one-accessories to aid in arousal, rope around the  neck, a towel to prevent ligature marks...."
"But that's the second thing," said Diane. "She does have  ligature marks on her neck."
"Are you saying... What exactly are you saying?" asked 
Ross Kingsley.
"Ligature marks are brie?y mentioned in the autopsy re- port, but only that they are present. They are not described  in any detail," said Diane. "But look at the photograph. 
Look at the marks on the neck where the towel has slipped. 
See this ligature mark?" She pointed to a clear linear bruise  on the victim's neck and looked up at Kingsley. "It's an inch  lower on the neck than where the tightened rope is cush- ioned by the towel. If I could see autopsy photos, I believe  they would show two ligature marks. One made perimor- tem, and the other made postmortem."
"You're saying she was strangled; then this was staged  after her death?" said Kingsley.
"It looks that way. What I believe is the second liga- ture mark looks very deep and appears to extend under  the towel-at least, the mark is deep right up to where the  towel covers the neck. The rope should have made a lighter  impression on the skin at the edge of the towel."
"The towel at that point would start to hold the rope off  the neck," said Kingsley.
Diane nodded. "I think this makes the manner of death  worth a second look." Diane looked at the signature of the 
 medical examiner-Oran Doppelmeyer. "I'm not familiar  with this medical examiner. Is he new?"
"I believe so," said Kingsley. "So, does this mean you will  help me?"
"You have enough here to get the lead detective to re- open the case," said Diane. "The father would probably  give permission to exhume the body."
"Yes, well, I'm sure we could do that. But it would be  really good for my ?rm if we could get the credit for solv- ing the case." He raised his hand when Diane opened her  mouth to speak. "I know we will have to hand it off to  the police eventually, but I, on behalf of the ?rm that  so graciously hired me, would like to hand the detective  a truckload of evidence along with the solution. After  all, it's a closed case and we would not be interfering in  an ongoing investigation. Besides, they might botch it up  again."
Frank had been quiet the whole time Kingsley and Diane  discussed the case. He eyed Kingsley.
"You think Stacy was killed because of her investigation  into her brother Ryan's murder conviction," said Frank. 
"But you're afraid the detective will ignore that angle  and try to hang her death on the boyfriend, or some other  friend. You think he's a man who likes to take shortcuts."
"You're pretty good at this pro?ling thing yourself," said 
Kingsley.
"Why do you believe her death is connected with her  brother's case?" asked Frank.
"Because Stacy's father told me that in her room she  kept a thick folder ?lled with documents, clippings, inter- views, and notes on her investigation into the case against  her brother. Now the folder, along with all her ?ndings, is  missing. It's too much of a coincidence," said Ross. "I felt it  before. And now, with what you've found in the evidence, 
I'm convinced there is a connection, and her death was no  accident."
Diane was quiet for a moment. She understood what 
Ross wanted; so did Frank. It wasn't so much that he  wanted credit for his ?rm. He wanted to control the inves- tigation against people he believed were incompetent to  carry it out-or wouldn't carry it out.
Beverly Connor "Is her room still intact?" Diane hoped that Stacy's fa- ther had kept the room as it was.
"Yes," said Kingsley. "It is. And I've got an appointment  at the prison for tomorrow to talk with Ryan Dance. I know  how you love to visit prisons and would want to get it over  with ?rst thing."
Diane hated prisons. They were drab, depressing, and they  smelled bad. Prisons were places people wanted to leave. 
The last time she visited someone in prison was when she  came to interview Clymene O'Riley, a black widow she had  put away. It was more or less an of?cial visit then and, al- though not pleasant, it was bearable. This time she almost  decided to just forget about it and leave. She would have if 
Ross Kingsley hadn't been with her.
She ?lled out the mandatory forms that, among other  things, gave the guards permission to search her person and  allow the drug dog to sniff her up and down. The papers  must also have given them permission to be ill-mannered. 
The prison personnel probably didn't like being there ei- ther. Once she passed the sniff test, she was allowed to go  into the visiting room. Ross went to see the warden on his  own mission.
The visiting area wasn't a bad room. It was painted  salmon pink, and she wondered whether the color meant  anything-perhaps that it sapped your strength or some- thing, kind of aroma therapy for the eyes. On the back  wall was a row of cubicles with telephones. Each cubicle  contained a stool screwed to the ?oor. The communica- tion stalls resembled those small doorless phone booths  you used to see everywhere, except for the window in the  wall that separated visitors from the prisoner on the other  side.
Diane sat down on the stool in cubicle three, as she had  been instructed. In a few minutes Ryan Dance came into 
Beverly Connor the room on the other side of the window, sat down, and  picked up the phone.
He looked older than the young man in his mug shot. 
Of course, the photograph was taken nine years ago. He  was thirty-one now. He looked older. His once gold-blond hair was now brown, dull, and stringy. His nose looked even  more crooked. He had a front tooth missing and prison tats  on his arms and ?ngers.
Diane picked up the phone, introduced herself, and told  him she was sorry about his sister.
"Thanks," he mumbled.
"Your father believes Stacy was murdered because she was  getting close to discovering who framed you," said Diane.
Ryan nodded his head and looked away for a moment. 
"She is a neat kid-was a neat kid" he said.
Diane saw his eyes sparkle with moisture.
"I told her not to do anything dangerous. Dad doesn't  have anybody now."
"I'm working with someone your dad hired to ?nd out  what happened to her. The police ruled her death an ac- cident," said Diane.
Ryan's face transformed into a cruel mask. "I know what  they said and they're full of shit. Stupid bastards. They were  stupid then. They're even stupider now." He spat out the  words as if they were bitter seeds. "She don't deserve none  of this. None of us do."
More visitors came in and ?lled the cubicles, and the  noise level rose. Most everyone spoke in low voices, but 
Diane could pick out snif?ing, sobbing, whispered anger,  and laughing among the low cacophony of sounds. She  wanted to ?nish this, get the hell out, and go home.
"Would you mind telling me what you think put you  here?" said Diane. "From your point of view."
He was quiet for a moment and his face went back to the  emotionless mask it had been before she'd mentioned the  death of his sister.
"Don't you think I've been laying awake at night for  nine years trying to ?gure that out? I don't know. I didn't  know that Carruthers girl. Never knew her. I was twenty- two years old, for Christ's sake; she was in fucking high 
 school. I never went driving by her house like they said I  did. I never went into that neighborhood."
"Start from the beginning and tell me what you do  know," said Diane.
"The beginning was me sitting watching the Atlanta 
Braves on TV and the police coming in with a search war- rant. That's the ?rst I ever heard of that girl."
"A witness reported seeing your car in the neighbor- hood, and took down your tag number," said Diane. She  tried keeping her voice even and calm.
"Don't I know it. She was at my trial. I never saw that  bitch before and I wasn't in that neighborhood. A lot of  rich folk live there. What would I be doing there?"
"She said she recognized you in your Atlanta Braves cap,  your gold Chevrolet, and your license plates," said Diane.
"Maybe my car was there, maybe my hat was there, but I  wasn't there. Somebody put the frame on me."
"You have any idea who would do that?" asked Diane.
"No damn idea whatsoever. I've never hurt nobody bad  enough to do this to me," he said.
"Sometimes people overreact to something hurtful. Is  there anyone you can think of who might have a small grudge,  something that got blown out of proportion in their mind?"
"I've broke up with girlfriends, but none of them would  do this. Like, they'd have to be crazy to kill somebody and  blame it on me. What kind of maniac would do that? I never  went with no girls that crazy... or that mean."
Diane wasn't getting anything useful out of Ryan. It was  a wasted trip. He genuinely seemed clueless, or he was a  really good actor. On the other hand, many criminals were  really good actors.
"Did you have your car stolen or used by anyone else  around that time?" asked Diane.
"No, not that I know," he said.
"How would you not know?" she said.
"Well, I wasn't in my car all the time. Somebody could've  borrowed it and brought it back while I was working or  watching TV or... sometimes I'd go out drinking and, well,  somebody could've borrowed it then," he said. "I might not  know about it."
Beverly Connor "Did you always take your car keys with you?" said Diane.
"I left the keys shut up in the sun visor, you know, like in 
Terminator 
," he said.
"I understand you were a truck driver at the time," said 
Diane.
"Dad got me the job. He was a loading dock foreman  at Walker Ace. They transport all over. But I only drove  local," said Ryan.
"Where was your car when you were working?" asked 
Diane.
"Sometimes at my apartment, when I rode to work with 
Dad. Sometimes in the lot at work. They keep the lot locked  so nobody can steal stuff out of your car."
"Did Stacy tell you what she was working on?" asked 
Diane.
"Just that she was going back and talking to witnesses  and stuff. I told her to be careful. I told her to get a detec- tive to do that, not do it herself. But she was stubborn."
"Did she tell you any details about what she found?"  asked Diane.
He shook his head. "She had a hard time getting people  to talk to her, but..."
"But what?" prodded Diane.
"Last time we talked she seemed, well, happy. She never  wanted to get my hopes up, but I know she felt good about  something," he said.
"When was that?" asked Diane.
"About a week before she... before she died," he said. 
"She should have left it alone. Maybe she could've found  some detective real cheap to do the legwork for her. She  shouldn't 'ave done it by herself. You ?nd out who killed  her. It's not right for her to be dead and me stuck in here. 
None of us did nothing to deserve this."
Diane saw movement of the guards in the background  and looked at her watch. 
Time to go .
"Thank you for talking to me," she said.
"Thanks for helping my sister and my dad."
He spoke as if there was no hope for him. Diane watched  him leave before she rose from the stool.
She didn't wait for Ross inside the prison. Instead, she  left and waited outside by the car for him to return. It didn't 
 take long. Within ?ve minutes he came walking out of the  gates and over to the car.
"How was it?" he asked.
"Waste of time," said Diane. "Either he knows nothing  or he's a good liar. I don't know which."
They got into Kingsley's Prius and he started the engine. 
Diane felt relief when they pulled out of the prison grounds  and into traf?c toward Rosewood.
"He did seem genuinely sad about his sister," she said. 
"How did you do?"
"Interesting, in a way. No information, but he had some  pinups under his mattress. All were more mature and vo- luptuous ladies than Miss Carruthers. Judging from that,  his tastes don't seem to run to high school girls."
"He was closer to her age back then," said Diane. "Be- sides, maybe those were the only kind of pictures he could  get hold of."
"I know the pictures don't mean anything. But if he had  pictures of younger girls hidden in his cell, that would have  meant something," said Kingsley.
"Anything else in his cell?" asked Diane.
"Books about sports, a Bible, hygiene stuff, letters from  his father and sister," he said.
"How did you get the warden to let you in his cell?"
"You'd be surprised at how many career employees  would like to retire from criminal justice and take a job  with a private ?rm-and take home two salaries, as it were. 
To that end, they can be awfully accommodating to ?rms  such as the one I work for," said Kingsley.
"Interesting," said Diane. "Did you read the letters?"
Kingsley nodded. "Nothing there that contributes to our  purposes. His sister didn't keep him apprised of what she  was doing."
"That's what he told me. He said she didn't want to get  his hopes up. But he did say that about a week before she  died, she was optimistic about something. She didn't tell  him what."
"Well, I'm glad we got the prison visit over with." Kings- ley grinned at her. "I'm sorry. I know you hated it."
"It's so depressing. Surely there must be a better model  for a penal system," she said.
Beverly Connor "I'd like to go to Stacy's apartment. Are you up for it?"  he asked.
"I need to check in at the museum for a while, then the  crime lab. I'll pick up a crime scene kit and meet you there. 
We need to process her apartment the right way, even  though it's been trampled all over."
When Ross Kingsley dropped Diane off at the museum,  the ?rst thing she did was go to her of?ce suite, take a hot  shower, and change clothes. Relieved to have the smell of  prison off her, she went to her desk and checked in with 
Andie Layne, her administrative assistant, and Kendel Wil- liams, her assistant director.
The museum had been running so smoothly lately, it  almost scared her. And today hadn't brought any emer- gencies either: no ?res to put out, no problems to solve,  no large shipments overdue, no displays to put on hold, no  cranky curators, no lost children-and the number of visi- tors to the museum was still on the rise. They were making  money. So far, so good.
After her meetings, Diane spent an hour doing paper- work. Most of the time she didn't mind the budget reports,  the requests, the letters, or even cutting through the red  tape that frequently accumulated in the course of business. 
Doing paperwork was like oiling the machinery of the mu- seum. Paperwork kept things running; it gave her staff what  they needed to do their jobs; it kept the museum on the  cutting edge. Less paperwork meant the museum was get- ting static. Diane particularly didn't mind it today. It was  so far removed from the world of prisons. The moment  she walked into the old Gothic building, she welcomed the  smell of the museum, the smooth wood walls, brass ?xtures,  polished granite ?oors-and most of all, the happy people. 
She ?nished signing the last report and headed upstairs to  archaeology to see Jonas Briggs.
Jonas had a two-room suite on the third ?oor, across 
Beverly Connor from the archaeology exhibits. One room was his of?ce;  the other was a small lab where he did most of his work. 
His of?ce was wall-to-wall bookcases and was ?lled with as  many books and papers as Marcella's. He did have a couple  of blank spaces on the walls where he had hung enlarged  photographs of archaeological excavations from the thir- ties. In another space he'd hung an abstract painting with  bold, bright slashes of color, which he said was done by an  elephant. A table ?anked by two stuffed chairs sat in one  corner of the room. A Staunton sandalwood chessboard  was always set up on the table and he and Diane played  when time would allow.
Jonas was sitting at his desk. A young couple Diane rec- ognized from a photograph as Paloma Tsosie and her hus- band, Mark, sat in the two stuffed chairs.
"Diane, come in," said Jonas. He rose from behind his  desk and introduced Marcella Payden's daughter and son- in-law. Jonas had said they were both teachers on the Navajo  reservation. They looked younger than Diane had imagined. 
They also looked younger than their pictures. They must  have both been just out of college.
"I wanted to thank you for the hotel," said Paloma, rising  to shake Diane's hand. "It's so nice, and so convenient to  the hospital."
Paloma looked like an early version of her mother. She  was petite, had an oval face, honey blond hair, large blue  eyes, and full lips.
Her husband, Mark, had short black hair, dark eyes, and  light brown skin. He had a lean face, a slender nose, and  sharp cheekbones. They were an attractive couple. Mark  stood with his wife and shook Diane's hand, reiterating the  thanks his wife had offered for Diane's hospitality. Diane  felt sincerity from both of them. They were grateful for her  kindness and it showed in their eyes and their ?rm, linger- ing handshakes.
"You're welcome. I'm fond of your mother and it's the  least I could do," said Diane. "She has done some wonder- ful work for the museum. We're very excited about the col- lection she is putting together."
Mark offered Diane his chair, but Jonas shoved a stack  of journals off a chair and brought it around for her. Pa-   loma and Mark sat back down. Jonas rolled his desk chair  around so he wouldn't be behind his desk.
"How is Marcella?" asked Diane.
Paloma grasped her husband's hand. "She still has swell- ing in her brain. The doctors are hopeful. I'm not sure what  that means." She looked at Mark and Jonas, and back at 
Diane. "They won't say much."
"They probably don't know much," said Jonas. "We just  have to wait. Marcella's a ?ghter."
Paloma smiled brie?y. "She is that. We have an appoint- ment to speak with the detective this afternoon. I'm wor- ried he's off in the wrong direction," she said. "Jonas told us  how he was questioned."
"It's just the way the detectives do things," said Diane. 
"Don't read too much into it."
"This arguing thing-Mother loves scholarly debates  and her friends love to argue with her. She never bothers  debating people who don't have intelligent ideas. It's just  the way she is. It's obvious to me it was those hooligans  who attacked you and that detective-Hanks-who also  attacked Mother. What's wrong with him that he can't see  that?"
"He's just getting the obvious interviews out of the way 
?rst," said Diane.
It wasn't exactly true, but she could see Paloma getting  herself worked up, and she doubted Hanks would inter- view Jonas again.
"I hope so," said Paloma. "Unless they ?nd out who did  all of it, Mother will never feel safe in that house again,  and she loves her house. She said it needs to be on 
If Walls 
Could Talk , you know, that home-and-garden show about  old houses."
"I'm sure Dr. Fallon is right," said Mark. "The detec- tive has to understand her world before he can understand  what happened to her. When he sees she's not a woman  who brings enemies around her, he'll look outside her cir- cle." His wife smiled at him.
Diane asked Jonas, "Did you ask Paloma what her moth- er's words that night might have meant?"
Jonas looked blankly at Diane for a moment. "Oh, I  clean forgot. There's just so much going on," he said.
Beverly Connor "What?" asked Paloma.
"When I found... While we were waiting for the ambu- lance, Marcella was conscious for a few moments. She said  what sounded like 'tiger after all loose moment.' I don't  know if I heard it right. Her voice was faint," said Jonas. 
"We couldn't make anything out of it."
"She said, 'Tiger after all. Lewis moment,'" said Paloma,  nodding her head. She looked over at her husband, who  agreed. "If she could make sense right after she was hurt,  then there's a chance she'll not be permanently damaged. 
Don't you think?" She gazed at all of them, as if looking  for agreement.
Mark nodded. "I think you're right." He put a hand on  her shoulder and squeezed. "That's hopeful."
Diane and Jonas glanced at each other, shrugged slightly,  and focused back on Paloma.
"That makes sense to you?" asked Jonas.
"Lewis Blaire is one of her colleagues at Arizona. He's a  cognitive archaeologist. His work is about-"
"Perception," said Jonas, nodding.
"He has the idea we perceive things subconsciously  before we do consciously, and that ability gave early man  an edge to deal with fast predators like the saber-toothed tiger," said Paloma.
Diane cocked an eyebrow and looked at Jonas.
"The idea is that you perceive a predator subconsciously  and act instinctively before it has a chance to jump you. 
Kind of an early-warning system." Jonas wiggled his hand. 
"I have my doubts, but the idea is supported by some  brain-function research. I just don't think it could help you  outrun a sabertooth."
"Mother liked the concept because it happened to her,"  said Paloma. "She was surface collecting in an overgrown 
?eld-I was with her-and suddenly out of the blue, she  jumped way to the side and almost knocked me down. She  scared me. I asked her what was wrong, why had she done  that, and she said she didn't know. Well, we looked down  and saw there was a rattlesnake lying in the grass, and if she  had taken another step forward, she would have stepped  on it. If you believe Lewis' concept, her subconscious per- ception had caused an instinctive involuntary physical re-  action that saved her from the snake before she could even  think about it. She calls those kind of phenomena 'Lewis  moments.' "
"Interesting," said Diane. "That means she probably had  one of those moments before she was attacked."
Paloma nodded. "But the sabertooth got her anyway."
"So what does this mean, really?" asked Diane. "Marcella  saw or heard something that didn't register, but caused her  to react in some way and-what?"
They were silent for a minute, looking at each other in  turn. Jonas spoke ?rst.
"I think that's exactly what happened. She subcon- sciously detected some threat and reacted in some way, but  no threat appeared immediately. That's what she meant by 
'tiger after all.' There was a sabertooth in the bushes after  all and it attacked her."
Diane suggested they all go to the museum restaurant for  lunch. As they stepped into the elevator just outside Jonas'  of?ce, Paloma wrapped her sweater tight around her and  gave a little shiver. She looked fragile and frightened and  very young. Mark put an arm around her shoulders.
"I had to buy a sweater when I got here," she told Diane. 
"I'm not used to it being so chilly this time of year."
"It's a little colder than normal here," said Diane. But  what she thought was how vulnerable the young couple  looked. He in his loafers and jeans and blue T-shirt, and  she in her sandals and jeans and peasant blouse, they were  innocents.
"I've been trying not to turn my heat on at night," said 
Jonas, "but in a few days, I'm going to have to give in."
The restaurant had a medieval atmosphere with its  vaulted ceilings and rough-hewn wood tables. It was cozy,  especially in the evenings when each table was lit by can- dlelight. At the time of day they were there, it had sunlight  streaming in from the wall of windows and French doors  leading to the trellis garden. The restaurant was full of din- ers. The waitress showed them to a booth in the corner and  left them with tall menus written in calligraphy.
"Suddenly, I'm hungry," said Paloma, her eyes darting  over the menu.
"If you like steak, I suggest the ?let," said Diane.
She was convinced that high-protein foods and choco- late were medicine, and the two of them looked as if they  needed some strong medicine. The very idea of losing  someone you love is the scariest, most helpless feeling in 
 the world. She hoped Paloma wouldn't have to face the loss  of her mother, especially to such a mean cause.
"I agree," said Jonas, "the steaks here are great." He  closed his menu without looking at it. "You've talked me  into it."
They all ordered steak, salad, and baked potato, with 
Paloma ordering a baked sweet potato with her meal.
While they waited for their food, Diane talked about  the museum and its holdings, inviting them to take a look  around when they had the time. Mark commented that he  wasn't used to so much green and it would be fun to bring  his students there on a ?eld trip if the school ever got a  windfall for traveling.
"We won't hold our breath," said Paloma, smiling.
The waitress brought their food and the four of them  were well into their lunch before anyone brought up Mar- cella. Diane told Paloma about the beautiful work her  mother did and described the reconstructed mask-pitcher in Marcella's workroom.
"That was one of the pieces she dug up in the backyard,"  said Paloma.
"I'm not that well versed on pottery," said Diane, "but to  me it didn't look Native American."
"It isn't," said Paloma. "It's modern, but Mother didn't  know how old. One of the things that excited Mother  about the house is all the stuff she found. One of the previ- ous owners must have been an artist and a potter. Best of  all, whoever it was used a bon?re kiln, like Mother uses. 
Mother found a pit in the backyard where the pots were 
?red. She excavated hundreds of broken sherds from the 
?re pit. For my mother, that was like ?nding a yard full of  gold. Whoever the potter was, he used natural clays and  tempers like she uses."
"I wonder if the artist could have been someone from  the university?" said Diane.
"Mother thought they might have been an archaeolo- gist," said Paloma. "But she knows practically every ar- chaeologist who's ever worked with pottery and she said  there isn't anyone from Bartrum in the literature. Mother  told me a lot more about all the pottery ?nds, but I have  to confess, at a certain point I kind of glaze over." Paloma 
Beverly Connor smiled. "I didn't get bit by the archaeology bug the way  she did."
"The mask she was reconstructing in her workroom is so  beautiful. Did she have any clue who the artist might be?"  said Diane.
Paloma shook her head. "She's been trying to ?nd out. 
The house was empty for several years. You may have no- ticed it got a little run-down. The guy she bought it from had  inherited it from an uncle. He didn't know any owners be- fore that. She talked to some of her neighbors. They didn't  know anything either. Evidently there is a large turnover in  the area because of all the students from Bartrum."
When they had ?nished eating, Diane talked them into  dessert. Paloma and her husband ordered pecan pie. Diane  and Jonas had chocolate cake. Both were specialties of the  restaurant. Mark asked Diane how they pronounced pecan  here. Diane told him it was like  puh-CON
. That a  pee-can is a receptacle. He laughed. It took Jonas and Paloma a  second for the joke to register. It was good to see Paloma  laugh.
"I saw a lot of pieces of broken garden ornaments when 
I was at the house," said Diane.
Paloma and Jonas both nodded.
"Mother found a lot of modern artifacts in the yard,"  said Paloma. "All kinds of pieces of statues, birdbaths, gar- goyles. Someone at some point liked to decorate the gar- den in all manner of statuary. Mother said it was impossible  to tell if they were in the same time frame as the pottery,  but she was having a great time."
Paloma's eyes were suddenly moist. She blinked and  took a drink of water. "Why would anyone hurt her so cru- elly?" she asked.
Diane didn't think she expected an answer. There was  never a good enough answer to satisfy that question.
"She had some paintings on the living room wall that  were stolen the night of the attack," said Diane. "Three  portraits. Do you know anything about them?"
"She didn't have them when I was over at her house a  couple of weeks ago," offered Jonas.
Paloma nodded. "She called me last week, so excited. 
They were hidden inside a wall in one of the upstairs rooms. 
She found them when she tore out the wall for a doorway. 
She thought they might have been done by the same artist  who did the pottery."
"Inside a wall? Interesting. Were the paintings signed?"  asked Diane.
"I don't know," said Paloma. "I couldn't talk to her very  long that evening; I was late to a meeting." She started to  cry and her husband pulled her over to him and hugged  her.
Diane wished she had something comforting to say.
After a minute Paloma straightened up and took an- other drink of water. "Sorry. It's just so unfair."
"Yes, it is," said Diane.
"She told me one of the sheds out back was a potter's  shed," said Paloma. "It was mostly ?lled with a lot of junk,  but she found some pieces of furniture there that she  wanted to re?nish. She was like a kid in a candy store with  all the stuff she was ?nding." Paloma smiled. "Most people  would have thought it all junk and trash. Archaeologists  have a different view about old things."
"Yes, we do," said Jonas.
Diane almost mentioned the odd note on the bottom of  the desk drawer, but decided not to say anything. It seemed,  at this particular moment, a little too disturbing. Instead,  she changed the subject to the mummy the museum inher- ited a year ago and all the surprises that came with it. By  the end of dessert, Paloma seemed to be feeling better.
Mark glanced around the restaurant. "I don't see our  waitress," he said.
"Would you like something else?" asked Diane.
He grinned. "Oh, no, this will last me well into next week. 
I was just looking for the check."
"She won't be coming with a check," said Jonas. "It's a  little-known secret that when Diane brings a guest to the  restaurant, the waitstaff don't bring the check to the table. 
See, in the museum, Diane is queen. Really, it's true." Jonas  chuckled. "We have a herpetologist who is terri?ed of 
Diane and hides when he sees her coming. Afraid he might  be banished or something."
"He lost a snake in the museum," said Diane. "It turns up  at odd times and scares the staff. He can't seem to catch it 
Beverly Connor or tell me why it's still in the building. It should have made  its way outside by now."
Paloma and Mark both laughed. "We appreciate all  this," said Mark. "It's comforting to get to town and not be  strangers."
"I'm just sorry your visit is for this reason," said Diane. 
She paused. "I really think Marcella will come out of it." 
I'm hoping , she thought.
"She has a very hard head," said Jonas.
"She does that," said Paloma.
When they got up to leave, Diane spotted Ross Kingsley  at another table. She took her leave of Jonas, Paloma, and 
Mark and walked over to his table.
"Diane," he said when she sat down, "I'll be ready to go  to Mr. Dance's house when I ?nish. Couldn't resist the cake  here."
"I had a piece too. I'll go up to the crime lab and get a kit. 
You want to pick me up outside the lab?" asked Diane.
"Sure. Look, I really do appreciate your help in this. I  don't know where else I'd get free forensic expertise." He  grinned at her.
Diane laughed. "I don't know where you'd ?nd a sucker  as big as me. I'll see you in about thirty minutes. Enjoy your  cake."
The crime lab, all shiny glass and chrome, was an agency of  the City of Rosewood, which didn't pay the museum any  rent for the space. In exchange for housing the crime lab,  the city forgave the museum all its city taxes-taxes they  had raised in order to entice Diane into housing the lab. De- spite the city's less than scrupulous way of getting the space, 
Diane liked the idea of having the crime lab in the museum,  and so did the museum board. Otherwise, she would have  resisted Rosewood's little blackmail scheme.
The city's great deal was compounded for them when  they discovered that if they dragged their feet on approv- ing the funds for the purchase of new pieces of expensive  forensic equipment requested for the crime lab, Diane  would have the museum purchase the equipment and lease  it back to the lab, thus avoiding the need for large cash out- lays by the city. At least they thought it was a great deal  until they realized Diane could indeed pull the plug on the  arrangement, boot the lab out of the museum, and keep the  sexiest and most expensive pieces of state-of-the-art equip- ment. It was a sometimes-uneasy alliance, but it worked,  and Diane and the city had a great crime lab.
David was in deep conversation with Deven Jin when 
Diane entered the crime lab. Jin came to the Rosewood 
Crime Lab from New York where he was a criminalist. He  had persuaded Diane to establish a DNA lab in the mu- seum and she had put him in charge. Jin was the youngest  member of Diane's forensic team and the most energetic. 
He was half Asian, adventurous, and loved his job. It turned 
Beverly Connor out that the DNA lab was one of the more lucrative depart- ments in the museum.
"How are the investigations coming?" said Diane. She  pulled out a chair at the round debrie?ng table and sat  down with the two of them.
David ran down the current cases, which were fortu- nately few. Fewer cases meant less mayhem and murder  was going on.
"We have a collection of ?bers from Marcella Payden's  place. Mostly collected outside from the second event, the one  you were involved in. The ?bers are dyed black wool, which  we suspect came from the ski masks. There are also several 
Manila hemp ?bers in association with the wool, which may  have come from a rope. That may mean the masks and rope  were stored together, since there was no report of a rope in  connection with the fracas." David smiled at Diane. "We also  have quite a collection of maroon-colored sequins."
"I'll bet you do," said Diane.
"We have several boot prints that are noteworthy," said 
David. "A soft-toe work boot from Cherokee, size eleven- about thirty dollars and available at discount stores; Gar- mont men's hiking boot, size ten-about two hundred  dollars; and an Oliver steel toe safety boot, size ten and a  half-about a hundred and ?fty dollars. All have wear pat- terns that will allow us to identify them if we ?nd the boots  themselves. Notice the differences in price."
"I did," said Diane.
"Ray-Ray Dildy had the cheap boots," said David. "It  looks like his partners had a little more money to spend on  footwear."
"Good evidence," said Diane. "I imagine Hanks was  pleased."
"He was... with the boot prints," said David.
Diane raised her eyebrows. "Oh?" she said.
"The description Daughtry and Hanks gave of the events  doesn't ?t with the ?ndings on the dead guy."
Diane closed her eyes a moment. "I don't like this," she  said. "What doesn't match?"
"Well, ?rst of all, it was Of?cer Daughtry's gun that  killed Ray-Ray Dildy," said David. "I don't know if you  knew that."
"I feared it might be, but-is there a problem?" asked 
Diane.
"Daughtry and Hanks both stated that Daughtry had  just stepped, or rather, limped off the porch when Daugh- try ?red his gun," said David.
"And?" said Diane.
David steepled his hands in front of his face, a gesture he  sometimes made when he was trying to explain a point.
"Dildy was found almost at the edge of the woods, a  good forty feet from the porch, and there was gunpowder  residue around the entry wound on Dildy's clothing," said 
David.
"I see," said Diane.
"There are two explanations at the moment. Dildy  was closer to Of?cer Daughtry when he was shot than 
Daughtry and Hanks remembered. And Dildy survived  long enough to walk or stumble forty feet across the  yard."
"Did Lynn think that was possible?" asked Diane.
Lynn Webber was the medical examiner for Rosewood  and a couple of the surrounding counties. Budget shortfalls  had led to a consolidation of medical examiners' of?ces  in the area. With Diane's recommendation, Lynn Webber  had been brought in from the neighboring county to serve  as the multicounty ME. In the process, she had dislodged 
Rosewood's ME, who had been tainted by association with  the corrupt leadership of the City of Rosewood's previ- ous administration. It was one small win for the good guys. 
Diane and Lynn worked well in collaboration when death  and crime brought them together.
"She said he could have lived long enough to get a few  feet ," said David. "She wasn't sure about forty feet."
"You think Daughtry ran him down and shot him?" said 
Diane. "His leg was injured, but he was pumped full of  adrenaline."
David shook his head. "No blood trail to the body, and 
Daughtry was bleeding freely from his wound. We do have a  trail that more or less matches his and Hanks' tale, but with  a small detour into one of the little rock gardens, or what- ever those rock-bordered spaces are that are all around the  yard," said David. "What I think is, Daughtry lost his gun 
Beverly Connor for a time, most likely when he fell through the ?oor of  the porch. One of the other perps picked it up, shot Dildy,  and threw the gun down. I think Daughtry then retrieved  it, and isn't admitting that he ever lost it. The chief of police  is pretty strict about knowing a gun's whereabouts at all  times. He doesn't like it when an of?cer loses track of his  gun, even for a few minutes."
"What does Daughtry say?" asked Diane.
"Don't know. Don't want to know. I just deliver evi- dence, sometimes along with scenarios when appropriate. I  explained things to Hanks. He tried to argue with me about  what the evidence says and didn't like it when I stuck to my  analysis. But it's his problem now."
"Naturally, he's going to try and protect his own," said 
Diane.
"We're in the same tribe," said David. He rubbed his  balding crown down to the dark fringe around his head  where his hair was making its last stand.
"We are on the same side, but that's a little different from  being family," said Diane. "Your obligation is over now that  you've told Hanks, so don't worry about it. My sense is, he  may not like it, but he won't ignore it. Besides, that's better  than having shot a ?eeing perp in the back at forty feet. So,  anything else I should know about?"
"That covers it as far as the evidence goes. We didn't get  any ?ngerprints other than exemplars, and Jin tells me that  all the blood belongs to Dr. Payden."
"How did you get Marcella's ?ngerprints? Did you take  them at the hospital?" asked Diane.
"Didn't have to," said David. "She's on ?le." He grinned. 
"Dr. Payden has a record."
"What?" said Diane. "For what?"
"Seems that when she was a student many years ago,  she protested a construction project that was about to start  building on top of a Native American prehistoric site. Ar- chaeologists were trying to get an injunction so they could  excavate the site and save the remains from destruction, but  the construction contractor was hell-bent on leveling the  place before the court order could be issued. She sneaked  into the construction site in the dead of night, revved up  one of their heavy front-end loaders, and ran over all their 
 smaller equipment, shed and all," said David, still grinning  from ear to ear. "She got community service and a ?ne."
Diane shook her head and smiled. "Who knew? She  seems so harmless. We all did things in our youth. Where  are Izzy and Neva?" she asked.
"Izzy's out on his own, working a break-in. I'm send- ing him out by himself on some of the smaller things. He's  doing well, by the way," said David. "Neva is in the museum  at Document Analysis. She's curious about the handwriting  on the desk."
Diane looked over at Jin. "What are you doing up here?"  she asked.
"Visiting. You know, you always say that when I visit you  guys up here. Like I'm never supposed to take a break."
Diane looked at Jin a moment. "Touchy today?"
"His two new employees-the ones he went through  such a long process of ?nding-are driving him crazy," said 
David. "They're as obsessive-compulsive as he is."
"Being detail oriented is not OC," said Jin. "It's simply  doing a good job. There's a reason that, as young as we are,  we are one of the most reliable labs in the country. You have  to admit, the DNA lab pays for itself many times over."
"I admit all of that," said Diane. She stood up. "I'm tak- ing a kit out to do some private work. Call if you need any- thing."
"I can go with you," said Jin. "You might need help."
"It's a freebie," said Diane.
"I do pro bono," said Jin.
"Why would you want to go?" asked Diane.
"My new employees are driving me nuts," he said.
They rode toward Gainesville with Ross Kingsley driving, 
Diane in the passenger seat, and Jin in the backseat talking  a blue streak about his new lab technicians.
"I thought you liked Elvis," said Diane.
"I do," said Jin, "but I don't come to work dressed like  him, and I can't recite all of his songs in chronological  order."
"But your technicians are doing a good job?" asked 
Kingsley.
"Oh yes," said Jin, "they are great. I wouldn't trade them  in or anything. I just need a little break from them once in  a while."
"Both are quirky?" asked Kingsley.
"Well, they are twins," said Jin. "And I have to say, they  work well together. Very ef?cient. Very low error rate- amazingly low."
They drove into the working-class neighborhood Stacy 
Dance had lived and died in. Many of the houses were  empty, with foreclosure signs in the yards. It was a neigh- borhood that had seen better days. At the same time, many  of the occupied homes were neatly kept, if a little worn  around the edges. The neighborhood spoke of hard times  and pride.
Harmon Dance's house, the home of Stacy and Ryan,  was backed up against a small copse of trees on a corner  lot. The yard of the empty house next door was overgrown  and the curtainless windows reminded Diane of dead eyes. 
She felt a chill.
Diane saw the second-story garage apartment right 
 away. The garage sat a few feet away from the main house,  with a dogtrot between the structures. A steep stairway on  the side away from the house led up to the apartment. It  was a short distance, maybe thirty feet, from the stairs to  the road.
"He's expecting us," said Ross as he drove up the short  drive and stopped in front of the closed garage.
They got out of the car and looked a moment at the  single-story home. It was a white house in need of paint. 
On one end was a porch with square wooden columns and  a swing. Two mailboxes attached to the side of the house  next to the door were numbered  and  /  one for Mr. 
Dance and one for his daughter.
"I'm going to start a ground survey of the property out- side," said Jin. "I'm wondering. You think we can go into  that empty house?"
"We'll talk about that later," said Diane.
"Sure, Boss," said Jin. With the carrying case contain- ing his evidence bags slung over his shoulder, he left  them on the porch and started a perimeter search of the  area.
Diane missed having Jin along with her doing crime  scene work. Since his focus was now on the DNA lab, it  had been a while.
Kingsley knocked on the front door of the house. After  only a few seconds, the door opened and Harmon Dance  appeared. He stood in the threshold for a moment, nodded  at Kingsley, and looked at Diane.
Harmon Dance had a rugged, deeply lined face. Creases  around his mouth gave him a perpetual frown. Diane won- dered whether he would ever smile again.
"Hello, Mr. Dance," said Kingsley. "This is Dr. Diane Fal- lon, the forensic specialist I told you about."
Dance nodded. "Thanks for coming." He held the door  open for them to enter, stopped, and looked beyond the  two of them. "Not now," he said under his breath.
Diane followed his gaze. A woman was walking with de- termination across the street toward them, her arms swing- ing in her hurry to get across ahead of an approaching car. 
She was middle-aged, portly, and had thinning, frizzy brown  hair. Her jaw was set in a determined clinch.
Beverly Connor "What is it, Mrs. Pate?" Dance said.
Mrs. Pate stopped at the foot of the steps with her  hands on her hips and glared at the three of them. The  skirt of her blue ?owered housedress moved gently in the  light breeze; her square-lens frameless glasses slipped on  her nose.
"You gonna rent your girl's apartment to that China- man?" she said. She nodded her head toward where Jin had  walked into the woods.
"How is that your business?" Dance said, his own face  settling deeper into granite.
"I won't have it. Things are bad enough. Who are these  people?" She looked as if she also disapproved of Diane  and Ross standing on the porch. You real estate people? I  want you to know this is a nice neighborhood, or it used to  be before people started losing their homes. She glanced  over at the empty house.
Diane saw that Kingsley was holding back a laugh. For  herself, Diane felt a little irritated at the woman's racism. 
Diane had to dig deep to ?nd her compassion. The woman  was probably scared. She was getting older and her neigh- borhood was changing... and there had been an untimely  death just across the street. Trying to have some control in  what must have felt like an out-of-control world probably  bedeviled the poor woman and a belligerent demeanor was  her only shield against it. But, then again, Diane was prob- ably overanalyzing.
"These are not real estate people and I'm not renting out 
Stacy's apartment. You can go back home now, Mrs. Pate."
As irritating as Mrs. Pate was, she was a gem for  investigators-a person who was always on the lookout.
"Mrs. Pate," said Diane, "I'm Diane Fallon. May I ask  you a few questions about the day Stacy died?"
The woman suddenly looked startled, as if a loud noise  had gone off beside her. Her paranoia had focused on the  possibility of new neighbors, not an investigation.
"What kind of questions?" she said, her hands suddenly  clasped against her stomach.
"Where I live, in Rosewood, we have a Neighborhood 
Watch. Do you have one here?" asked Diane. She wanted 
 to start out by making sure Mrs. Pate knew she was going  to be judged well on her nosiness.
"Police ain't much good here," she said. "No use get- ting them to put up signs. We have to keep an eye out our- selves."
"Did you see any suspicious people here that day?" said 
Diane.
"You people here to investigate her death?" Mrs. Pate  darted a look at Mr. Dance. "I thought it was something  else that killed her."
"Did you see anything that made you uneasy?" asked 
Diane.
"That was a month ago...."
"Mrs. Pate," said Harmon Dance, his voice raspy, "Stacy  was good to you. She was good to everybody here in the  neighborhood."
"Yes, she was," said Mrs. Pate. "You think somebody kilt  her?"
"We're looking into the possibility," said Kingsley.
The woman was quiet for several moments. Diane  thought she was trying to remember. Mrs. Pate scratched  the back of her hand and put a palm on her cheek.
"Not that day, but one or two days before, there was a  car, an SUV kind of car. I noticed it 'cause it circled the  block a couple of times"-she gestured with her hand,  moving it in a circle-"and slowed down here when it went  by. It stopped for a time-maybe a few minutes-on the  cross street there above your house," she said, nodding to 
Dance. "The windows were dark and I couldn't see inside. 
It was a black car. No good comes from a black car with  dark windows like that."
"Did you see a license plate or a window sticker?"  asked Diane. "Anything that might help to track down the  vehicle?"
"No. I tried to get a ?x on the license, but couldn't. You  think it was them? Somebody in that car did something to  poor Stacy?"
She looked alarmed. Diane guessed that the thought of  perhaps having laid eyes on a murderer-or his vehicle- was frightening to her.
Beverly Connor "Have you seen it since?" asked Diane.
She shook her head. "No, I haven't."
"Why didn't you tell the police?" said Dance.
"They never come talk to me, did they?" she said.
"Thank you, Mrs. Pate," said Kingsley. He handed her a  card. "Please call me if you remember anything more."
She studied the card a moment and looked up at him. 
She put the card in the pocket of her dress and nodded her  head sharply. "Glad you ain't renting to that Chinese guy."
They watched her cross the street and go back into her  house.
Dance invited them inside. His home was sparse, neat,  and smelled like vegetable soup. Diane sat down on a blue  corduroy sofa. Kingsley sat beside her. Harmon Dance  sat in a mission-style rocking chair with matching blue  cushions opposite them. It creaked with his weight as he  rocked.
"So you think my little girl was murdered by some- body?" he asked.
"We don't know," said Kingsley. "But Dr. Fallon has ex- amined the photographs and thinks it may be a possibility."
Dance nodded his head up and down and seemed to  shiver. "I told the detective. He had this idiotic idea that  because Stacy wasn't a beauty queen, nobody would fool  with killing her, or some such notion. I'm not sure what he  thought; he kept changing his mind. He said she did this  shameful thing to herself. Well, Stacy may not have been 
Miss Georgia, but she was a good girl and lots of people  liked her. You could go up and down this street and ?nd  a lot of older folks who liked her. She was good to them. 
Took them shopping if they needed to go. Stacy was a de- cent girl, not what he tried to make her out to be."
"Mr. Dance," said Kingsley, "we would like your permis- sion to have her exhumed. I know that's painful to think  about, but we need to have someone else look at her."
Dance was nodding his head as Ross spoke. "You do that. 
I want everybody to know that Stacy was a good girl."
"Mr. Dance," said Diane, "I would like to take a look at  her room. Dr. Kingsley here said you left it as it was?"
He nodded. "I haven't touched it."
"I need to take a look," Diane said.
Harmon Dance nodded his head. "Do what you have  to do."
"Examining her room can be a little destructive," said 
Diane. "I have ?ngerprint powders and-"
"Do whatever you have to do," he said again. "Whatever  it takes." His chair creaked as he rocked in it.
Diane opened the door to the garage apartment with the  key Mr. Dance had given them. She reached around to the  light switch on the inside wall and turned on the lights with- out stepping inside.
"Wow," said Kingsley softly. "The crime scene photo  doesn't do this room justice."
"No," said Diane, "it doesn't."
Stacy's apartment was charming. There was an ef?ciency  kitchenette in one corner with a small round oak table  and four chairs. The living room held a love seat sofa, two  stuffed chairs, and a coffee table. Her bedroom area was  half hidden by curtains. The small bathroom was across  from the bed. The walls were painted a light dusty rose. 
One wall was covered in matching shades of striped wall- paper. The curtains were a complementary pink, as were  the pillows on the cream-colored sofa and chairs. She had  découpaged her chest of drawers with prints from a book  of rococo art. A vase of ?owers in the middle of the dining  table had dried out, the water evaporated.
Stacy had enjoyed her life. Diane saw it in the room. Every- thing was carefully chosen, pretty, much of it handmade.
Kingsley started to walk in, but Diane stopped him.
"Wait until I examine the ?oor," she said. Diane slipped  covers over her shoes. "I'm closing the door. I'm afraid  you'll have to stand out here until I clear you a place to  stand. It'll take a while."
Kingsley nodded. "As Mr. Dance said, whatever it takes. 
I'll make some phone calls."
Diane left most of the crime scene kit outside and stepped 
 in, closed the door, and turned off the light. The room smelled  like death. She set her crime lamp on the ?oor, turned it on,  and squatted so she could see what it illuminated. She began  systematically looking for shoe prints the low-angle light  would show up. There were many. She began the painstaking  process of lifting the prints from the ?oor with electrostatic 
?lm. Most of the prints would be from the police and the  coroner's people who carried Stacy out, and most would be  overlapping. But she might get lucky.
She cleared the ?oor around the door and let Kingsley  come in out of the chilly air to stand inside in the dark.
"You'll get used to the smell," she said.
He made light conversation as she went from print to  print, placing the Mylar-coated silver foil over each print,  lifting it using static electricity, rolling up the ?lm, and put- ting it in a tube.
Most of the shoe prints were on the hardwood ?oor  around the bed where Stacy was found. But there were a  few in other locations on the ?oor.
"I didn't realize this is such time-consuming work," said 
Kingsley.
"And we're still on the ?oor," said Diane. "We've got the  furniture and ceiling to do."
"Ceiling? You expect to ?nd something on the ceiling?"  asked Kingsley.
"Expect it? No, but it's standard protocol to look. Could 
?nd some kind of spatter, for instance, that might give us  critical information."
When Diane ?nished, she took the tubes of rolled-up ?lm and put them in a carrying case beside the door. There  was a gentle knock from outside.
"It's me, Boss. Can I come in?"
"Come on in, Jin," said Diane. "Carefully."
The door opened slowly and Jin stepped inside. He was  holding his digital SLR camera, his newest toy.
"Hey, Boss, I ?nished outside. How's it going here?" he  said.
"I'm starting with the black light," she told him.
"The ultraviolet light detects organic stains from body 
?uids such as blood, saliva, semen, and urine," Jin said to 
Kingsley.
Beverly Connor They watched as Diane again systematically examined  the ?oor.
"I can do that, Boss, and you can... ," Jin began.
Just as he started to speak Diane stopped. On the ?oor  near the dining table, a large area luminesced.
"What is it?" asked Kingsley.
"Perhaps where she was killed," said Diane.
"What do you mean?" Kingsley said. "How do you  know? She was strangled, wasn't she? Is that blood some- one tried to clean up?"
"More likely urine and maybe feces that someone tried  to clean up," said Diane. "Often during a death like Stacy's,  the bladder and colon relax and evacuate. Murderers usu- ally don't count on that."
"You want me to take the samples?" said Jin.
Diane nodded. "Get some shots of this ?rst, and let me  go over the rest of the room."
Jin took multiple photos of the luminesced image in  rapid succession from several angles.
"Nice camera," said Kingsley.
"Yeah, you bet," said Jin, a big grin on his face. "Don't  know what I ever did without it."
Diane worked her way around the small apartment and 
?nished with the bed.
"There's very little on the bed. You would expect urine  to be here if she died here," said Diane. "Particularly if she  was left in an upright position for an extended period after  death. Jin, go ahead and collect samples, photograph every- thing, and do the bathroom."
"Sure thing, Boss," he said.
Armed with evidence bags, Diane began a search of the  apartment. She used the same systematic procedure she  had used with the ?oor to make sure she covered every  spot. Just under the bed she found the towel that was  around Stacy's neck in the photo, along with the knotted  rope that had been around her neck and anchored her to  the bedpost. Evidently the coroner's people had cut it off  and dropped it on the ?oor and it got kicked under the bed. 
She put the items in evidence bags.
Diane went around the room and searched the tops of  dressers, tables, and door frames for prints. She lifted sev-   eral. She enlisted Kingsley's help in searching all the draw- ers in the apartment for any items that might shed light on 
Stacy's life up until the time she died.
In a small desk Kingsley found a tablet of yellow legal- sized paper. It was about half used up. Perhaps Stacy used  it for notes. Diane bagged it. They could bring out the in- dented impressions in the paper using the electrostatic de- tection apparatus at the lab and see at least what had been  written on the page before it.
Diane and Kingsley searched the pockets of the clothes  hanging in Stacy's closet and came up only with movie  ticket stubs from several months before. They searched all  the trash cans, the clothes hamper, and the kitchen cabinets. 
Diane felt under the drawers and tables for anything that  might be taped under them. She looked behind the pic- tures on the walls. She slid photographs out of their frames  and looked for anything Stacy might have stashed behind  them.
It was almost dark when they ?nished. Kingsley gave the  key back to Mr. Dance and they left for Rosewood.
"So you think she was murdered," said Ross Kingsley.
"A good possibility," said Diane. "I'll analyze the evi- dence when we get back to the lab."
"So, then, to ?nd out who did it, you'll have to ?nd out  who framed the brother," said Jin. "Unless it was her boy- friend, or a girlfriend, or a member of her band, or a neigh- bor, or someone from her job. What was her job?"
"She was a student," said Diane, "and the next big thing  we need to do is get the body exhumed and have a new  autopsy."
"Whom can we get to do it? The autopsy, I mean," said 
Kingsley. "I have some funds I can use."
"Good," said Diane. "There is only so much you're going  to be able to get for free."
"Did you ?nd anything outside?" Diane asked Jin.
"I found a few cigarette butts at the side of the road near- est the steps to her apartment. I don't expect much from  those. Most look too new. Could be from anybody before  or since. I searched the wooded area in back of the house. 
Didn't ?nd anything. Took a lot of pictures. But there is  an empty house just beyond the woods. There are a lot of 
Beverly Connor empty houses in the neighborhood. I kind of wanted to see  if I could get in, but I ?gured you wouldn't want me to."
"I think if we ?nd enough to get the police to reopen the  case, they can call the GBI in to do a search," said Diane.
They stopped at the museum to drop Jin off. Diane had  called ahead and a member of museum security was wait- ing at the door with a cart to transport the crime scene gear  inside.
"I'll start analyzing the evidence for you, Boss," he said,  unloading the crime scene equipment and a duffel bag 
?lled with the bags of evidence they had collected.
"Do you have time?" she asked.
"I'll do it in my free time. We're doing good in the lab. 
Don't worry," he said. "Am I ever not on top of things?"
"I never worry about the DNA lab," said Diane. "Thanks, 
Jin."
"Sure thing, Boss. We'll have to do this again sometime. 
It was fun."
"Where to now?" said Kingsley. "Shall I take you  home?"
Diane shook her head. "Let's arrange for a medical ex- aminer. I have someone in mind." Diane made a call on  her cell to see if it was a convenient time for a visit, and  directed Kingsley to the home of Lynn Webber. She lived  in an apartment complex close to the university.
"Hey," said Lynn when she answered the door. "This is  a surprise. What are you doing in this area?" She looked  at Ross Kingsley as Diane was about to introduce him. "I  know you. You're the FBI pro?ler, aren't you? I worked on  those hanging victims. That was just terrible."
"That's right," said Ross. "I'm not with the FBI anymore. 
I work for a private ?rm."
"Well, come in and tell me about it," she said.
Lynn Webber's home was clean, neat, and modern. 
There were a lot of white- and cream-colored fabrics, shiny  chrome, crystal ?xtures, and modern art.
Lynn was about ?ve feet ?ve, shorter than either Kings- ley or Diane. She had short, shiny black hair that always  looked as if it had been done at an expensive salon. Her  eyes were dark and her smile bright. She wore turquoise  silk slacks and a white silk shirt and silver jewelry. Many 
  men who met her fell in love with her. Diane could see 
Kingsley found her interesting. But she wasn't particularly  worried about him. Kingsley's wife, Lydia, was pretty inter- esting herself and more than a match for Lynn.
"Please sit down. You have me intrigued. Can I get you  something to drink? I always have fresh coffee."
Diane and Kingsley accepted and had several sips of hot  coffee before Diane began her request.
"By intrigued , what Lynn means is, what am I trying to  get her involved in now?" said Diane. "She knows I have a  habit of coming to her with, uh, interesting problems."
"Oh, dear, what are you up to?" said Lynn, smiling over  her cup of coffee.
Diane let Kingsley explain his job at Darley, Dunn, and 
Upshaw. When he got to Stacy's ?le, which he had brought  with him, Diane took over.
"I'd like you to look at the autopsy report and the pho- tograph. It's the only one we have of her. If there were any  autopsy photos of her, we don't have them," said Diane. 
She handed Lynn the photograph and the report.
Lynn examined them carefully for several minutes. "I  see your concern," she said, tapping them with her polished 
?ngernails.
"We have the father's permission to exhume her and  were wondering if you would perform the second autopsy,"  said Diane. "I don't know the ME who did the ?rst one, but 
I don't imagine he will be pleased."
"He won't," said Lynn. "I know Oran Doppelmeyer." 
She looked at Kingsley and then at Diane. "He won't be  pleased at all, which, I'm so ashamed to say, is the main  reason I'd be happy to do it."
Both Ross Kingsley and Diane looked at Lynn Webber  with raised eyebrows. Ross had his coffee cup halfway to  his lips, about to drink the last sip. He held it there.
"There must be a story here," he said.
"There is. It's a two-cups-of-coffee story," said Lynn.
She poured them each another cup.
"About seven years ago, Doppelmeyer was the medi- cal examiner in South Carolina and I was assistant ME to  him. One evening I was called to the apartment of a young  couple after neighbors heard a gunshot and alerted the  police. She was on the couch, gun in hand, with a bullet  entry wound in her right temple and a big exit wound in  the left side of the head. It was messy. She had been dead  only about ?fteen minutes by the time I got there. She held  the gun so tight in her hand, it took me and two paramedics  to pry it loose.
"The neighbors said she and her husband had been argu- ing. The arguing stopped. A few minutes later there was the  gunshot. The husband was an accountant and said he left  the apartment following the argument and went to his of- ?ce to work. That's where the police found him."
She took a sip of coffee and set down her cup, almost  spilling it on the glass coffee table.
"I did the autopsy, determined the manner of death to be  suicide, and released the coroner's report. Well, you would  have thought I had just given national secrets to the Rus- sians. What I didn't know, but wouldn't have changed any- thing if I had been aware, was that her parents were well  connected. They hated the son-in-law and were convinced 
 he shot her and left her there with her brains spattered all  over the white couch they had given the couple. The district  attorney liked that story better than mine and he had the  police arrest the young man."
Diane and Ross were quiet during her story, Diane be- cause she knew Lynn and knew better than to interrupt  her with questions, and Kingsley because he was enjoying  watching her tell it. Lynn also talked with her hands and  was quite animated.
"To make a very long story a little shorter," she said, 
"Doppelmeyer changed my report to say the manner of  death was homicide. It went to trial and the defense called  me. I testi?ed that it was suicide. I explained about cadaver  spasm and how we had to pry, with great dif?culty, the gun  from her hand. The prosecution, the family, and Doppel- meyer all came down hard on me. Doppelmeyer took the  stand and told the jury I was incompetent and he had to  constantly check my work-a blatant lie. He told them  that what I called cadaver spasm was simply early onset of  rigor mortis and the rigor caused her to hold on to the gun  that her husband had placed there. He intimated that I had  been out drinking before I got the call-I had been out to  dinner, but not drinking. It was just awful. I was ?red. Me, 
?red!" She frowned and shook her head.
Diane half expected her to stamp her foot.
"The poor husband was sent to prison. He did get out  three years later because the prosecution had made several  other errors in the trial and the defense attorney gave the  new prosecutor a ton of information about cadaver spasm. 
But you know, there are people in South Carolina today  who think that poor fella killed his wife."
Lynn's cheeks had turned pink during the telling of the  story. Diane could see it still stung.
"I can tell you this," said Lynn. "I'm willing to bet that  when Doppelmeyer saw this photograph, he made up his  mind this girl was trash. Not only is he a pig, he is a self- righteous pig."
"That is a terrible story," said Diane.
"It is, isn't it?" said Lynn. "My parents wanted me to  leave forensics and become a pediatrician. I told them no  one was going to bring their children to me with this cloud 
Beverly Connor over my head. I got a job in Atlanta, where I built my repu- tation back up. Let me tell you, that's why, when I go to  court now, I have every kind of documentation you can  think of."
"So," said Kingsley, "you aren't going to mind the fallout  caused by a redo of his autopsy?"
"Mind?" said Lynn. "Honey, I welcome the fallout. I'm  older now and have had a lot more experience in court."
Diane called Frank to tell him she was on her way home. 
He said he was ordering Chinese and to ask Kingsley to  stay for dinner. The delivery arrived at the same time she  and Ross pulled into the drive. Ross waylaid the delivery  man and paid for the food.
"You didn't have to do that," said Diane.
"Oh, it's one of the perks of your being my consultant,"  he said, and they carried it inside.
"Ah, it's good to eat," said Kingsley, sitting down at the  table. "Sometimes when I'm working, I tend to forget to  eat." After a few bites and a drink of hot tea, he said, "Lynn 
Webber likes to have her ego stroked a bit, doesn't she? I  noticed that you're a little shameless at it." Ross grinned  at Diane as he helped himself to some sweet and sour  chicken.
"She does good work, she's not afraid of politics, and she's  honest," said Diane. "She also is good to her dieners. Yes,  she likes people to notice her work. It's a small price to pay." 
Diane smiled back at him. Lynn was also supersensitive to  even the most gentle slight, but Diane didn't mention that.
"So, is she going to be reliable?" Kingsley asked.
"Yes, she'll be ?ne," said Diane.
"She seemed a little too eager to give Doppelmeyer the  shaft," said Kingsley.
"I'm sure she is very eager, but she won't lie, nor will she  exaggerate. What you will get is more corroborating infor- mation than you will know what to do with-and plenty of  photographs. Of course, you realize her ?ndings could agree  with Doppelmeyer's. In which case, Lynn will be very disap- pointed, but she won't fudge the data," Diane assured him.
"I got the impression she can be vindictive," said Kingsley.
Diane nodded. "Perhaps. But as I said, she won't lie. And 
 she won't get caught putting dead rotting ?sh under his  house or frozen shrimp in his curtain rods."
Kingsley put a hand over his mouth to keep from laugh- ing and spraying his hot tea. "Touché," he said, when he was  able to talk.
Frank rolled his eyes.
"Today was a fruitful day," Kingsley said. "I knew it was  a good idea to ask for your help."
"I'll process the evidence we collected, but you'll have  to interview the army of possible suspects Jin pointed out,"  said Diane.
"Perhaps the evidence will point us in a direction," said 
Kingsley.
"Hopefully, the evidence and the new autopsy will give  you enough ammunition to get the lead detective to reopen  the case," said Frank. "I've heard of the detective you said  handled the case. He's a little lazy and pigheaded, but I  don't think he is dishonest."
"For the father's sake, I'm hoping the solution will clear 
Ryan Dance of the murder that seems to have started this  whole chain of events," said Kingsley.
"Maybe you need to start retracing the steps of the  young woman, Stacy," said Frank. "If she was trying to clear  her brother, she probably talked to the witnesses and to  the family of the victim. They might point you in the right  direction."
"Oh," said Diane, "I just had a terrible thought. From  what you said, Ellie Carruthers' family were certain it was 
Ryan Dance who killed their daughter. What if they were  afraid Stacy might be successful in getting Ryan released  from prison? They still think he's guilty. It would be awful  if it was someone in Ellie's family who killed Stacy to stop  her."
"That's an unpleasant thought," said Kingsley, frowning. 
"I hope it's not that."
"There's going to be some blowback with the new au- topsy," said Diane. "Is that going to be a problem with your  employers?"
"No. The ?rm handles blowback. It's usually good pub- licity. It shows potential clients that when we take a case,  things get done. I think my bosses will like it. The more, the 
Beverly Connor better. Our biggest clientele is defense attorneys." Kingsley  took another helping of sweet and sour chicken and rice. 
"So, what's the thing with Jin's technicians?"
Diane and Frank chuckled.
"As you heard, they're identical twins and a bit eccen- tric," said Diane, "and big Elvis fans. They're also very de- tail oriented. Their reputation for accuracy was the reason 
Jin hired them-and the fact that they work very ef?ciently  together. Jin's extremely picky where the DNA lab is con- cerned."
"Do they really dress like Elvis?" asked Kingsley.
"Not exactly," said Diane. "If you saw them, you wouldn't  say to yourself, 'Those guys are dressed like Elvis.' You  might think they look like they would make good Elvis im- personators. They're more subtle than Jin portrayed them. 
I think the main reason they drive him crazy is they are  constantly telling him how he could improve the ef?ciency  of the DNA lab, and Jin doesn't like anybody trying to step  into his shoes."
"Ah," said Kingsley. "I see."
Kingsley left not long after dinner. Diane promised to  get him a report on the evidence as soon as she could.
"He seemed very pleased," said Frank after they had  cleared the table and put away the food. Diane poured 
Frank and herself each a glass of wine.
"It was very sad, but it went well. We'll see how it goes  from here. How was your day?"
He slipped his arms around her waist and danced her a  few steps around the living room ?oor. "My day was ?ne. 
But why don't we leave the topic of crime aside for the rest  of the evening?"
Diane spent most of the next day working at the museum. 
She heard from Kingsley midday that the exhumation of  the body of Stacy Dance was scheduled for the following  day. Diane was about to go home when Andie forwarded a  phone call to her.
"Hello, this is Archaeo-Labs," said a voice. "We've been  trying to get in touch with Dr. Marcella Payden without  success. Your number is a backup number she has in her 
?le."
"Yes, Dr. Payden works here. I'm Diane Fallon, director  of the RiverTrail Museum. How can I help you?"
"She uses our labs to identify species-speci?c protein an- tigens in bone-tempered pottery sherds."
"Yes," said Diane. "I'm familiar with her work on Texas  pottery."
"Well, she sent us some pieces from Georgia. Actually,  she said it wasn't archaeological, but relatively modern. 
And as in the archaeological samples, she wanted to know  the species of animal used in the pottery. To tell you the  truth, we don't quite know how to proceed."
"How do you mean?" asked Diane. "You don't do analy- sis of modern samples? I'm not sure I understand."
"No, it's not that. We did the identi?cation, but... well...  the protein antigen is human."
Diane was dumbstruck for a moment. The caller must have  thought she would be, because he waited patiently on the  other end.
"Human?" said Diane. "Did she give you any informa- tion about where in Georgia they came from?" But Diane  knew. Marcella dug them up in her yard.
"No," he said. "She just labeled them 
Georgia ."
"I'm sorry, I didn't get your name." said Diane.
"Oh, I'm Justin Ambrogi. I'm the technician who runs the  samples in the lab." He cleared his throat. "What I'm won- dering is, that is, some of my coworkers think the sherds, be- cause of the human bone in them, constitute a body-legally,  that is-and must be reported. I suppose it could be old  bones that were used, but don't the laws about the use of  humans and their body parts apply to ancient ones too?"
"Yes, they do," said Diane. "You couldn't have known,  but in addition to being director of the museum, I'm also  director of the crime lab here in Rosewood, Georgia, and  those items will fall under our jurisdiction, at least until we  sort out exactly where they came from."
"Well, this is convenient, then. I called the right place," 
Justin said.
"Yes, you did. I'll also give you the name of a Rosewood  police detective you can send a copy of the test results to. 
That way, your lab can be assured you followed proper pro- tocol," said Diane.
"Yes. Thank you. To tell you the truth, we ran the tests  several times. The ?rst time we thought it had to be an  error."
"I can see why it would give you pause," said Diane. She 
?shed in her purse and pulled out Detective Hanks' card  and read off his name and address.
Diane gave Justin her fax number so he could send her  the report directly. She thanked him and put the phone  back in its cradle.
"Okay," she whispered, "that was odd."
She picked up the phone and called Detective Hanks.
"I got an interesting call from a lab in Arizona," she  said.
"Oh? What about?" he asked.
She ?rst explained to him about Marcella's expertise in 
North American aboriginal pottery. Then she explained  about the bone-tempered pottery of the late-prehistoric sites in Texas that Marcella had studied. She explained that 
Marcella had used a lab in Arizona to analyze protein an- tigens in the pottery samples to ?nd out what species of  animal contributed their bone to the pottery. She debated  whether to explain why archaeologists wanted that data,  but decided that would be too much information.
"She sent them some pottery sherds she found in Geor- gia. I'm assuming at her place, but the lab didn't know spe- ci?cally where the sherds were found. When they ran their  test, it came up with human antigens," she said.
Just as she had, Hanks remained quiet for a long mo- ment. She assumed he was trying to ?gure how the heck to  process that bit of information.
"She sent them pieces of broken pots that had human  bone crushed up in them? Who would do that?" he asked.
"Pottery made in the late-prehistoric period had a tem- pering substance added to the clay to keep air bubbles out  and keep it from breaking while it was being ?red. The ad- ditive was usually grit, ?ber, shells-stuff like that. Some  peoples in Texas used animal bone. Marcella apparently  found some pottery sherds in her yard and recognized  from their appearance that they were bone tempered. Her  daughter said that whoever the artist was who lived in the  house at one time was a potter, according to Marcella, and  used methods similar to the ones used by prehistoric Indi- ans." Diane was wondering if she was making any sense at  all to Hanks.
Beverly Connor "Okay, this is now of?cially the weirdest case I've ever  worked on. I confess, I don't know what to make of this  new information. Were the pots made by the person who  lived in the house immediately before Dr. Payden?"
"I don't think so. The potter's shed had fallen into dis- use. But I don't know how long the house sat empty, or the  line of ownership of the house, or who lived there before 
Marcella."
"I can get ownership records from the county court- house," he said. "We can probably track down some an- swers about who lived there when. But does this new stuff  help us in any way?"
"I have no idea," said Diane. "It doesn't appear that any  pottery was made there in recent years before Marcella  moved in. It would seem to be too long ago to be involved  in what happened to Marcella, but who knows? At any rate, 
I asked Justin Ambrogi at Archaeo-Labs in Arizona to send  you the report. He also faxed a copy to the museum."
"The museum?" said Hanks.
"Yes, Marcella works for us doing pottery sherd analysis."
"Oh, yeah, that's right. What a twisted case this is. I'm  inclined to think this bone pottery thing, although an odd  thing for sure, is not related to her attack. But like you said,  who knows? We may be looking for a frustrated artist. A  mad potter."
Diane laughed. "Perhaps," she said.
She hung up the phone and stood thinking for a moment. 
It was a bit of information she didn't know where to put. 
After a moment, Andie stuck her head in and said good- bye.
"Bye, Andie. See you tomorrow."
Diane gathered her things together and started for the  crime lab, hoping her crew would be there and not out  somewhere working on a murder. Halfway there, she got  an idea and took the elevator down to the basement where  the DNA lab was located.
Jin was there. So were the twins, Hector and Scott Spear- man. They were dressed in jeans and pin-striped shirts with  pointed collar ?aps open at the neck, revealing gold chains. 
Hector's shirt was yellow and Scott's was green. She knew  it was Hector because Hector was the older twin and he 
   always wore a shirt color with a higher wavelength than 
Scott.
Hector and Scott started talking immediately. They al- ways appeared as if they were never let out of the lab and  had to jump at any opportunity to talk with anyone other  than Jin.
"Hello, Dr. Fallon," said Scott. "We were just discuss- ing..."
"The merits of using junk DNA...," said Hector.
"For ancestry testing," said Scott.
When they were excited they spoke in that alternating  way. She thought she might actually get dizzy listening to  them, moving her head from one to the other. She under- stood how it might drive Jin crazy on occasion. They ex- pounded on the disadvantages of using particular strands  of DNA often referred to as "junk" because they no longer  seemed to serve an active purpose.
"I'm sure Dr. Fallon didn't come down here for that,"  said Jin. "What's up, Boss?"
"I was wondering if you could analyze the DNA in pieces  of pottery," said Diane.
That stopped the three of them. They stood for several mo- ments just staring at her with completely blank expressions.
Finally Hector spoke. "It has to be something that was  alive."
Diane laughed. "I'm sorry, I started in the middle of a  thought." She laughed again. "The pieces of pottery were  tempered with human bone."
"Who would do that?" said Jin.
"And why?" asked Scott.
Diane gave a minilecture on what little she knew of pot- tery making, similar to the spiel she gave Hanks.
"I honestly don't know why the aboriginal inhabitants  in Texas used bone for tempering. Nor do I know why the  person who once inhabited Marcella's house did. But do  you think you could get any usable DNA out of it?" asked 
Diane.
"The ?ring would have destroyed any DNA," said Jin.
"They were ?red in a bon?re kiln, which has a much  lower temperature than a regular kiln," she said. "I know  it's still a high temperature, but I was just wondering."
Beverly Connor "You know," said Scott, "if the bases of the pots were  thick-wouldn't they have to be thicker than the sides?" 
He shrugged. "Anyway, if we could ?nd some very thick  pieces that just happened to be at a place in the ?re where  the temperature was lower... like sitting on the ground... 
I'm just thinking here."
"Yes," said Hector, "perhaps the thick pieces might  contain some strands that survived. Of course we would  have..."
"To use Jin's protocol for shed hair," said Scott.
They looked at Jin.
"What do you think?" Diane asked Jin.
"It never hurts to try, but I don't really hold out any  hope. But we may get a paper out of it." He grinned. So did 
Hector and Scott.
"I'll send you some samples," said Diane. "Thank you."
"By the way," said Jin, "I've done some analysis on our  evidence. That large stain on the ?oor near the table was a  combination of urine and feces, just as you said. Probably  the spot where she died."
Diane nodded. "Thanks, Jin."
She left them and rode the elevator up to the third ?oor  and walked over to the crime lab.
Neva, David, and Izzy were there. They were getting a  lecture on handwriting analysis from a member of the mu- seum archives staff. The sample under discussion was the  writing on the back of Marcella's desk drawer.
"I personally think that you can't tell much about what  slant means in the young," Lawrence Michaels, one of the  museum's archivists and their only handwriting expert, was  saying when Diane walked into the dimly lit lab. "Children,  especially early teenage girls, experiment with different  handwriting on a whim-for fun. However, in the adult... 
Ah, Dr. Fallon. Good to see you. I was just explaining that 
I get a bit of mixed messages from the handwriting on the  desk drawer."
Michaels was a middle-aged man with striking silver  hair. He always dressed in a suit and tie, clothes he appar- ently found comfortable. Occasionally he wore a bow tie,  which Diane thought gave him an entirely different per- sona. Today he had on a dark brown suit, a light pink shirt  with a tie that was a dark shade of pink decorated with  small brown ?eurs de lis. Diane pulled up a chair and sat  down beside David.
"This is a woman's hand," Michaels continued. "She is  intelligent and creative-as suggested by the rounded  w and the one  u . These coiled shapes and counterstrokes that  curve in what we might call the wrong way, suggest a self- centeredness. The closed  a 's and  o 's suggest that she is hid- ing something."
He indicated each of the characteristics with a laser  pointer that jumped quickly from character to character,  making lightning zigzags of neon red on the dry-erase board where he had projected the image of the note.
"The characters are largest in the middle zone-the ascenders and descenders don't go much above or below 
Beverly Connor the baseline. This suggests immaturity-could be young at  heart. Immaturity doesn't always have to be a bad thing. 
The way the letters slant in different directions is a little  disturbing. Bottom line, I'm not really sure what you have  here. Perhaps an intelligent, creative, sel?sh, and childishly  disturbed woman with something to hide. Or maybe not. 
This isn't an exact science. I hope this helps." He grinned  at his audience.
"No offense," said Izzy, "but I could have gotten most of  that from the words she wrote. What adult, but a disturbed  one, writes a message like that on the bottom of a drawer? 
Who did she expect would ?nd it?"
Michaels shrugged. "The handwriting is consistent with  the message. I can say that," he said.
"Thank you, Dr. Michaels," said Diane. "Quite possibly,  it does help. What would really help," Diane said to all of  them, "is if we could get an approximate date for when the  message was written."
"Okay," said Michaels. "There is one other thing. See the  double s  in the word  missing -how the ?rst  s  is like an  f ,  only backward? That's the way kids were taught to write  about a hundred years or so ago. That's called a leading  s because it is the ?rst  s  in the sequence."
"Now, see," said Izzy. "That's helpful. You should have  said that right off."
"Sorry," Michaels said, grinning. He dusted off his hands  as if he had been using chalk instead of a laser pointer.
"Well, I think it's neat," said Neva. "Thanks, Dr. Michaels."
Neva escorted Lawrence Michaels to the door that was  the threshold between the dark side, the crime lab, and the  museum proper.
"I couldn't help but notice," David said to Diane when 
Neva returned, "that you said that quite possibly it does  help. What is it you know?"
The others looked at David in surprise. Apparently they  hadn't taken note of what Diane said.
Diane explained about the phone call from the lab in Ar- izona and what they had discovered about the sherds Mar- cella sent them. "I don't know that those were sherds she  found in her yard, but for now, let's suppose they were."
"Okay," said Izzy. "That's a sign of a disturbed person. 
Crushing up human bones to make pots? It's downright  spooky. Maybe the handwriting guy had something after all."
"Yeah," said Neva. "We have a creatively disturbed, im- mature woman-writing a secret message on the bottom of  drawers doesn't seem to be a sign of maturity. I think we  ought to ?nd out who she is."
"What we need," said Diane, "is a list of all the people  who ever lived in the house. We can start with ownership  records."
"That ought to be easy," said Neva. "I'll go down to the  courthouse and do a search."
"Hanks mentioned that he would do it, but if we do it, it  will save him time. I don't think this is a high priority with  him, and it shouldn't be. It's unlikely to be related to what  happened to Marcella."
"Except," said David, "they did steal objets d'art."
Diane nodded. "The paintings they took were hidden in  the wall for no telling how long. Even though the pottery  they stole was Marcella's own work, the thieves may not  have known that."
Neva rubbed her hands together. "I like this."
David rolled his eyes. "She's become Nancy Drew. You  know we solve crimes all the time, don't you?"
"I like this old stuff," she said. "It's interesting. I can  see the attraction to archaeology-lots of old mysteries  there."
"Okay, then," said David. "Like Diane said, the thing we  need to ?nd out is how old the note is, and how old the  pottery is."
"I'll go down to the courthouse ?rst thing and search the  property records," said Neva.
Izzy stood, hitching up his pants as he stretched and  yawned. "Tell you what, Neva, next time you decide to have  a speaker, let me know so I can maybe sleep in or go wash  my car."
"You didn't ?nd that fascinating?" said Neva.
"I think it's voodoo," said Izzy. "It's like them pro?lers. I  don't buy them either. Have you ever heard them?"
Diane smiled to herself.
"I noticed you didn't give him a sample of your hand- writing," said Neva.
Beverly Connor "Yeah, well, like I was going to let him say a bunch of  gobbledygook about me and have you guys never let me  live it down. I'm smarter than that." Izzy grinned at Neva.
Diane noticed that Izzy smiled and even laughed more  and more since he had started to work with them. His good  friend Frank Duncan had noticed it too. The crime lab had  been good for Izzy-oddly enough-even with all the death  they dealt with. It was catching the evildoers with proof  of their evil deeds that did it for him. Izzy's son had been  killed in a meth lab explosion. Not a meth lab of his mak- ing, but he and thirty fellow students died not knowing that  someone was cooking meth in the basement of the house  they were partying in. It wasn't fair and it hurt Izzy to the  core. Izzy needed to do something that worked, something  that he could see would put bad people in prison. He de- cided that maybe the crime lab would be that place where  he could make a difference. So he eased his way in. So far it  seemed to be working for him and for the crime lab.
"I'm going home, folks. See you tomorrow," Izzy said.
"I'm going home too," said Diane. "You guys do the  same."
It was dark when Diane got in her SUV. She drove home  thinking about Harmon Dance. His daughter was exhumed  today. She wondered whether it was just more pain, or a  relief that he might ?nd out something better than what he  had been trying to live with. Lynn Webber would probably  carry out the autopsy right away. They might know some- thing tomorrow.
Diane drove home to Frank's house. It had taken a while  for her to call it home. In the beginning, it was a temporary  arrangement until she found a house of her own. It turned  out to be more comfortable than she thought it would be,  and a lot easier than her apartment with her bizarre neigh- bors had been. Of course, they all thought she was the bi- zarre one. It was why they asked her to move. She couldn't  blame them. There was an awful lot of havoc surrounding  her when she lived there. Not so much at Frank's. Perhaps  it was because he was there. She was not alone. She was not  as easy a target.
Diane pulled into the drive. The lights were on in the  house, but Frank's car wasn't there. The lights were con-   trolled by a timer so that it always looked like they were  home in the evening. She walked up to the steps just as a  car pulled in behind hers. It startled her for a moment. She  turned the key in the lock, ready to bolt inside if she had to. 
The headlights went out and she heard a car door open.
"Hi, Dr. Fallon. I hope I'm not disturbing you. It's Mark 
Tsosie. Jonas told me how to ?nd your house. I was going  to call when I got close, but with my cell phone I couldn't  get service until I was in your drive. I wanted to talk to  you about the police here, if you think they are doing  everything-"
Diane's phone rang.
"Excuse me a moment," she said. 
She pulled the cell phone out of her pocket and an- swered it, listened a moment, said a few words, and ?ipped  it closed.
"That was Paloma," said Diane. "Marcella is awake. We  can talk on the way there."
Marcella lay so still in bed, it scared Diane. Her skin was  almost as pale as her pillow. Her head had been shaved and  bandaged. There were dark circles under her eyes. Diane  glanced at the monitor beside her bed. It was calming to  see the iconic heart ?ash with the steady beat of Marcella's  pulse.
Paloma said her mother didn't remember anything about  the day of the attack. She didn't even know why she was in  the hospital. She did remember she wanted to speak with 
Diane. The original need to speak with Diane obviously oc- curred a day or more before Marcella was attacked.
Diane pulled up a chair by her bed. The nurse told Diane  she had ?ve minutes for the visit, no more.
"Hello, Marcella. It's good to see you awake," said 
Diane.
Marcella opened her eyes. "Strange," she whispered.
"What is strange?" asked Diane.
Marcella moved her eyes to Diane. "Desk," she whis- pered.
"We've seen the desk. The writing on the back of the  drawer," said Diane.
Marcella nodded. The movement of her head was barely  perceptible. "The pottery. Bone."
"Yes. Is that the pottery that was in your workroom?"  said Diane.
"Yes. Sent samples," she said.
"The lab called," said Diane.
"What?" asked Marcella.
Diane didn't quite know what to do. She knew Marcella 
  was asking what species, but she was afraid the answer  would be too disturbing.
"Species," whispered Marcella. It came out as almost a  command, even in her quiet voice.
"
Homo sapiens ," said Diane. Somehow the genus and  species designation seemed more academic and less dis- turbing than calling it human.
Marcella closed her eyes for several moments.
"Strange. Look in pitcher."
"The ones that were hanging in the living room?" asked 
Diane.
Marcella closed her eyes again and shook her head. "No. 
Pitcher. Water. Face."
"The piece of pottery you were gluing back together?"  said Diane.
"Yes. Examine?" she said.
"Have I examined it?" asked Diane. "No. I packed up  your work and took it to your of?ce in the museum."
"Good. Examine face inside," she said.
"Look at the back of the face?" said Diane.
"Yes. Strange. Sherds too. Look at them," Marcella said.
"You need to leave," said the critical care nurse who had  hovered nearby during what had to be a weird conversation.
Diane smiled at Marcella, squeezed her hand, and stood  up. "I'll come back," she told Marcella. "Get better."
Marcella smiled faintly and nodded.
Diane started out the door and Marcella called behind  her. She barely heard her.
"Artist," she said, and she drifted off.
Diane looked at the monitor of the vital signs. Every- thing was still steady and regular. She left the room.
"She seems to be doing well," Diane said.
Paloma and Mark stood with Jonas, who had come while  she was with Marcella. He looked as anxious as Marcella's  daughter.
"The doctor said he is hopeful," said Paloma.
Diane wondered whether she knew she was wringing  her hands.
"She made a lot of sense when she spoke to me," Paloma  said. She looked at Diane and Diane could see that Paloma  desperately wanted her to agree.
Beverly Connor "She did," said Diane. "She was weak, but we managed  to carry on a conversation. She gave me instructions."
Paloma smiled and looked at Mark. 
"See." He hugged her. "You see. I told you she was going  to be ?ne."
"Jonas. I'd like you to help me look at some of her work  tomorrow," said Diane.
"Be glad to, but surely she doesn't want to work on her  sherds?" he said. His expression said that kind of dedica- tion to work would be going beyond reason.
"No. She wants me to see something she found," said 
Diane. "The desk was one of the things that concerned her,  but the sherds she was gluing together are another."
Diane decided not to mention that the pottery Marcella  was ?nding around her home was bone tempered. She re- membered she hadn't told them about the desk either. She  would put that off. They didn't need to have on their minds  what it all might mean.
"Does this stuff she wants you to look at have anything  to do with what happened to her?" asked Paloma.
"I don't know," said Diane. "I wouldn't think so, but it  was something that seemed to concern her. Most of Mar- cella's side of the conversation was one or two words."
Paloma nodded. "That's the way it was with us. Still, she  made sense."
That was a concern for Paloma, Diane could see-that her mother would still have her brain function and that she  would still be her mother.
"Yes, she did," Diane agreed. "She seems very coherent."
Mark drove Diane home. She hated for him to leave Pa- loma in the hospital, but they both seemed better now that 
Marcella was awake.
Frank's car was in the drive when Diane arrived. She said  good-bye to Mark and went into the house. She was too tired  to eat much. She drank a handheld soup and took a warm  shower. When she came out she lay on the bed and Frank  massaged her back-something he did very well. She was  enjoying his hands on her bare skin when the phone rang.
"Don't answer it," she said.
Frank did anyway. "She's here," he said, and handed the  phone to her.
She turned her head and made a face at him. He grinned  and continued stroking her back.
"Diane, I thought we were beginning to have a good  working relationship."
"Detective Hanks?" she said. "I thought we were too." 
So  why are you calling me this late?
 she thought. "What's up?"
"Why didn't you call me when Marcella Payden woke  up?" he asked.
"I thought you had left word with the hospital to call  you. I assumed you were informed." 
It's not my job to in- form you , she thought.
Her muscles must have tensed, for Frank increased the  pressure on her back, kneading her muscles with his ?n- gers.
"If I had been thinking, I would have called," she said. 
"But I've had a long day and was tired." Making efforts  to soothe over Hanks' hurt feelings was a lot easier when 
Frank was there to rub her back.
"What did she say? The doctor wouldn't let me in until  tomorrow," Hanks said. "Her daughter told me that Dr. 
Payden didn't remember anything about the attack."
"She was concerned about the pieces of pottery she'd  found on her property. As we ?gured, she recognized they  were bone tempered. Marcella was letting me know she  had sent samples off for analysis. She also wanted to tell me  about the desk. I told her I'd seen the message. Marcella  told me to examine the pottery myself, but she didn't say  what I was to be looking for. Her side of the conversation  was mostly just one or two words at a time."
"Do you think this pottery business has anything to do  with her attack?" asked Hanks.
"I don't know," said Diane. "I wanted to ask her how old  she thought the pottery was, but she was very weak and not  up to it. Her nurse ran me out."
"I suppose she has no idea who attacked her, or why?"  said Hanks.
"She didn't even know why she was in the hospital. To- morrow when you speak with her she may be more clear- headed. But she probably will never remember the events  surrounding her attack."
Hanks seemed molli?ed when Diane hung up. She was 
Beverly Connor trying to keep a good working relationship with the police  and detectives, but sometimes they didn't make it easy.
She turned over to face Frank. "No more answering the  phone."
"Absolutely not," he said.
Next morning, Diane met Jonas in his museum of?ce. 
Together they pulled out the boxes from Marcella's that 
Diane had packed. She gently took the ceramic mask out  and set it on the desk facedown, cushioning it with batting. 
She twisted Marcella's work lamp over the piece of pot- tery and began examining the back side with a magnifying  glass. She saw immediately what had disturbed Marcella. 
She turned the mask over and looked at the front.
"What?" said Jonas, who had pulled up a chair beside  her.
Diane turned the mask over and looked again. "Marcella  told me to look at the sherds with it too. We need to pull  out the other boxes. Damn."
"What are you seeing?" said Jonas, bending over and peer- ing at the mask.
"The inside of the mask has the imprint of eyelashes,  eyebrows, blemishes. This was made on a human face," said 
Diane.
"That's not really all that unusual," said Jonas. "Why is  that a big deal?"
Diane turned the face around. "The nose and mouth  area is solid, no breathing holes. I know they could have  been sculpted shut afterward, but Marcella would have re- alized that too. There was some other reason she wanted  me to look at this. She also said to look at pieces she hadn't  put together yet."
"Are you saying this might be a death mask?" said Jonas. 
He put his hands on his hips and looked at her with a great  deal of skepticism. "You know, she may have just been  worried about preserving her work. Marcella is very dedi- cated."
"I know she is, and I'm not saying this is a death mask. I'm  just saying Marcella wanted me to take a look," said Diane. 
"If she were concerned only that her work was being cared  for, she would not have asked me to take a look. I know  nothing about pottery. I do know about other things, and I  believe that's why she wanted me to look at it."
Diane began pulling out all the boxes that held the pieces  she assumed belonged with the mask. Jonas helped her  clear space in the of?ce to work, piling some of Marcella's  books and papers on the ?oor beside her desk.
"I called it a mask," said Diane, "but according to 
Beverly Connor her notes, Marcella thinks the piece might be a stylized  pitcher-the liquid would be poured out of the eyes. Not a  functional use, I imagine."
"But interesting symbolism," commented Jonas. "Espe- cially if..." He let the sentence hang.
Diane carefully lifted out the potsherds still resting on  their backing of paper.
"These single pieces were surrounding the face in the  sandbox on her worktable. Marcella placed them on this  paper and drew an outline around each piece. Presum- ably they are all part of the same set," she said, looking at 
Jonas.
"Okay, let's see what we have here," said Jonas. "She'd  have sorted and examined all of them ?rst. You may ?nd  more information in her computer. She has a pretty sophis- ticated three-dimensional program she uses to assist in re- constructing pots."
"Do you know how to use the program?" asked Diane.
"You want me to take a look?" he said.
"Would you?"
"Sure," he agreed. "I imagine you guys have one similar  to it up there." He looked up with his eyes, indicating the  crime lab on the ?oor above.
"I have one in the osteology lab for skull reconstruc- tion," Diane said.
As she conversed with Jonas about the merits of com- puter programs, Diane examined the sherds. A few had im- prints re?ecting irregularities similar to what might appear  on the back of a shaved human head.
In the second sample she unpacked were three pieces  that immediately caught her eye-broken fragments, each  with a protrusion. She picked them up and examined them  and then ?t them together. Diane had made many casts of  skulls for her forensic cases and she recognized what she  was looking at-the cast of a sharp-force-trauma wound.
"Well, damn. This is what Marcella was concerned about." 
Diane showed it to Jonas and explained what it was.
He examined the piece under the light and with the  microscope, then stood up. "This is terrible, just terrible. 
Couldn't it be something else?" he said.
"I don't know. Maybe," said Diane. She looked at all the 
 broken pieces laid out on the table. "It looks like the potter  sculpted the clay around a head. How did he get it off?"
"Cut it in half," said Jonas. "Artists sculpting in clay will  often create a work, then cut it in half so they can scoop out  the center clay. Thick pieces of clay tend to blow up or crack  in the kiln, so they scoop out the inside to make it hollow  and then they put the pieces back together and sculpt over  the seam. This artist could have sculpted the clay around  the head to get the form he wanted, then cut the clay into  pieces to remove it from the head, and then put the pieces  back together to make the piece whole again."
"I see why this was on her mind," said Diane, almost to  herself. "It may not be involved in what happened to her,  but it still needs to be looked into."
As Diane was leaving the hospital room, Marcella had  said the word  artist . Diane assumed she meant "Find the  artist." She wondered now if Marcella meant she had al- ready found the artist? Could these pieces be younger than  they thought? She would get Hanks to ask Marcella.
"Do you think you could reconstruct the whole pot- pitcher-whatever it is?" she asked.
"Sure," he said.
"First, let me take some photographs," said Diane.
She studied the face again. Even up close and even  speckled with the bone inclusions, it was a beautiful face. 
She traced her ?nger along the curve of the lips and chin. 
The clay represented the elastic skin of youth, nothing sag- ging, nothing lined.
"I asked Jin to try to extract DNA from the bone in  the pottery fragments. Hector and Scott suggested some  strands might have survived in a very thick piece of the  pottery. Could you select a piece that can be destroyed and  is thick?" asked Diane.
"I can, but a bon?re kiln heats up to about thirteen hun- dred degrees Fahrenheit. Can DNA withstand that kind of  heat?" asked Jonas.
"No, it can't. I'd probably just be wasting their time," she  said.
"What exactly did they have in mind, if you don't mind  my asking?" said Jonas.
"They were hoping we might luck up and get a piece that 
Beverly Connor was in a cooler place in the ?re, and look to see if any DNA  strands in the middle of the fragment were protected. They  were going to use a protocol some friends of Jin worked  out for analyzing the DNA of shed hair."
"I didn't think shed hair had DNA," said Jonas.
"It has such a small amount that it gets destroyed using  traditional methods of extracting DNA. There's a method  in which processing takes place on the slide that can save  what little DNA exists. It would be a long shot anyway,  but if bon?res get that hot, there would be no place cool  enough for DNA to survive," said Diane.
"Might be worth a try anyway," said Jonas. "You know, in  case it does work."
"I'll put it to them and let Jin and his crew make the  decision," said Diane.
"How are the Elvi working out?" asked Jonas, grinning  broadly.
"Their work is very good." Diane smiled back.
"I think they are a hoot. I've talked with them. They  aren't nearly as far-out as they put on."
"I sort of suspected that," said Diane. "You know the  thing about the shirts, don't you?"
"Color wavelength," said Jonas. "They're just showing  off-making everything a puzzle. They're kids really. Of  course, most of the people around here are kids to me. 
You're a kid to me."
Diane laughed.
"Tell me, can we ?nd out how old these pottery sherds  are? How did Marcella know they are modern?"
"Context, for one. She found them in a pit mixed with  bottles and cans. The cans were pretty well rusted out. The  bottles were dated to the ?fties," said Jonas.
"Context? Is that it?" asked Diane. "Couldn't this be  much older and have gotten mixed in somehow?"
"No evidence of any mechanism for strata getting mixed. 
Remember, the pottery sherds she found were of pots she  could put back together. All the pieces were there. They  were probably broken in situ. Also, we pretty well know all  the prehistoric ceramics. Even something this unusual in 
Georgia would have been known long before now."
"Really, nothing left to discover?" said Diane.
"I didn't say there is nothing left to discover, but we're  not going to ?nd any lost civilization of bone-tempered  face-pot people. It's like mounds," said Jonas. "People  are always telling me they have an Indian mound in their 
?eld, and I tell them no, they don't. We know where all  of them are. What I'm trying to say is that we know an  awful lot about the prehistory of Georgia. Yes, we still  have questions, but none so profound as lost civilizations  of mad potters."
Diane smiled. "That's what Hanks called this unknown  artist-a mad potter."
"He did, did he? Then I guess he isn't completely off his  rocker," said Jonas.
"So you think these pieces date from the ?fties?" said 
Diane.
"I think so. I didn't help excavate, and she hasn't said a  lot about them. I didn't know they were bone tempered, for  instance. She just mentioned to me the context she found  them in."
Diane used the phone on the desk to call David and  asked him to come down and photograph the sherds and  the face when he had free time. She brie?y explained to  him what she had discovered.
"I need some high-contrast pictures," said Diane. "I need  to see the topography of the sherds."
"Sure thing," he said. "Spooky case."
"No kidding," said Diane. "If you could hook up Marcel- la's computer, that would be helpful too. The one we found  in the house."
She hung up the phone and turned to Jonas. "I appreci- ate your help in this."
"We should all get a chance to work on the dark side. 
Lawrence Michaels is just all tickled to have been asked to  lecture on the other side." Jonas laughed.
"I need to give everyone in the museum a tour of the  crime lab so they won't think it is so mysterious."
"It won't help. What you do there is mysterious by de?- nition," said Jonas.
Diane shook her head and sighed. "I'm going up to call 
Hanks. I need to keep him apprised of the latest develop- ments. He's going to love this one."
Beverly Connor Diane left Jonas working in Marcella's of?ce. She didn't  get up to her own of?ce as quickly as she would have liked. 
Too many people stopped her to ask questions. Docents  stopped her to introduce her to the group they were giv- ing a tour to. She happened across one of the curators,  who wanted to know the status of a requisition. Diane did  eventually make it to her of?ce, but not to her phone. Ross 
Kingsley was waiting for her.
"I thought we could go interview some of the people 
Stacy Dance talked with during her investigation," he said.
"Sure," said Diane. She could call Hanks on the way.
She turned to Andie, who sat behind her desk putting  together budget reports for the upcoming board meeting  in a few days.
"When is Kendel going to Australia?" Diane asked.
"Tomorrow. She got the call from the museum today. She  was very excited. She said they have a collection of really  neat dinosaur species we don't have."
"Tell her I'll call her tonight," said Diane. "I'm going  back to Gainesville. Call my cell if you need anything."
They drove back to Gainesville in Ross' silver Prius. Di- ane's mind was not on Kingsley's case, but Marcella's. She  had tried to call Hanks, but he hadn't answered his cell. She  left a message telling him she would call back.
"I interviewed Stacy's boyfriend and her band mem- bers," said Kingsley, when he got on the interstate.
"What kind of band did she have?"
"Rock... and a little bit of everything. They seemed to  be trying to ?nd themselves."
"How did it go?" she asked.
Kingsley changed lanes a little too abruptly for Diane  and she had to hold on to the handle at the ceiling to keep  from leaning hard against the door.
"There is a problem establishing a solid alibi for any of  them, since the ME gave only a ballpark time of death. 
Doppelmeyer decided Stacy did this to herself, and he just  didn't do a proper autopsy. I don't suppose your friend 
Lynn can determine the time of death," he said.
"No, not now," said Diane.
"Besides Stacy, there were four members of her band,  including the boyfriend. A female drummer, the boyfriend,  who is the keyboardist, and two singers-a female and a  male, who also plays the guitar. Stacy was a third singer. 
All had alibis of sorts. Which means the alibis aren't solid  by any means."
Kingsley had a turnoff coming and he eased over into  the right lane. This time Diane didn't have to hold on to  the handle.
"I couldn't ?nd any motive for any of them. I spoke 
Beverly Connor with the father again and he said they had all been friends  since high school. Two of them were students at the com- munity college with her. If they are involved, we need  something to come out in the evidence, because I couldn't  detect anything."
"Who found her?" asked Diane.
"They were thinking about inviting another member  into the band, a girl who they said is really good on the  guitar. She's the drummer's cousin. The cousin and the  drummer came together to talk to Stacy about it, and found  her. That's another discrepancy. The police report said the  cousin was the one who found her. The father and the oth- ers said it was the two of them," said Kingsley. He shook his  head and took the off-ramp. "Perhaps I should go practice  psychology. I'm not really cut out for investigation."
"What do your psychologist's sensibilities say about  them?" asked Diane.
"That they are telling the truth. I've checked all their  backgrounds. None have any known involvement in drugs. 
But I've been fooled before. They practiced in the garage,  so Stacy's father saw them frequently. He doesn't remem- ber them ever arguing about anything serious. At most, a  disagreement about what songs to sing at an event."
"You think her death has something to do with her  brother's case, don't you?" said Diane.
Diane didn't like being a passenger. She'd rather be  driving. There was a kind of helplessness about being a  passenger.
"Yes. You think I'm making the same mistake as Dop- pelmeyer? I've made up my mind and I'm dismissing all  other possibilities?"
"No, not really," said Diane.
"But just a little?" he asked.
"No, but I do think the temptation to go in that direction  is very strong. We just have to keep an open mind and fol- low the evidence. Were there any jealousies? Sometimes  people don't need a really big motive for murder. Small,  petty ones will do."
"I asked about that. I interviewed each one separately. 
From what I can tell, Stacy and the boyfriend seemed pretty  solid. I didn't see any jealousies about who gets to solo, or 
 who gets top billing. Stacy wasn't even the lead singer; the  other girl was."
"Did they have a lot of gigs? Did they make money?"  asked Diane.
"Not really. They mostly played at school dances, bar  mitzvahs, weddings, county festivals, that sort of thing. 
They've never played a club. The boyfriend said they were  discussing doing a CD. These days you can apparently make  them yourself. Don't know about distribution, though. He  seemed to think they could sell enough from their Web  site to get a following. What struck me about all of them  is that they were having fun. They didn't see themselves as  struggling musicians; they saw themselves as already hav- ing made it and were just looking to make it bigger. Stacy's  death is a blow to them. Their grief seems genuine."
"Have you seen the Web site?" asked Diane.
"Yes. Nothing stands out. It introduces them, has a sam- ple of their music, has a short video. It has a nice memorial  for Stacy. Which, I should add, tells the world that she was  murdered, not that she died by accident."
"Did any of them know anything about the investigation  she was doing?"
"That was an odd thing, at least to me. No, they didn't. 
They said Stacy kept the business about her brother pri- vate. She didn't even con?de to her boyfriend about the  investigation. Her friends thought she needed a place  where concerns about her brother and his problems didn't  exist-and that was with them and the band. I think we're  here," he said, turning onto a road that introduced itself as 
Georgia Heritage Estates.
The neighborhood Ellie Rose Carruthers had lived  in was quite different from the one Stacy Dance and her  brother, Ryan, grew up in. This place was far from the in- dustrial district. It was an upper-middle-class neighborhood  of doctors, lawyers, and upwardly mobile professionals. 
The yards were neatly manicured. There was no house  that needed a coat of paint. One thing for sure, Ryan's car  would have certainly stood out in a neighborhood ?lled  with the higher-end cars she saw parked in the garages and  driveways. Kingsley drove to a large two-story brick house  and parked in the drive.
Beverly Connor "The house across from this one belongs to the family of 
Ellie Rose Carruthers," he said. "This is Kathy Nicholson. 
She was the main witness who put Ryan in this neighbor- hood. Stacy came to see her three days before she died. 
Kathy Nicholson's husband died ?ve years ago. He owned  three hardware stores around Gainesville, and she lives  alone," he said.
"Does she know we are coming?" asked Diane.
"No. This is a surprise," he said.
"Oh," said Diane.
They walked up to the house and knocked on the large,  ornate oak door. Diane could hear footfalls almost immedi- ately. The door was opened by a woman, slightly heavyset,  dressed in brown slacks with a brown and cream striped  blouse with a soft satin sheen to it. Her hair was ash brown  with blond highlights and cut in a short, modern style. 
Kathy Nicholson had smooth skin, pretty features, and  dark brown eyes. Right now she wore a cautiously pleas- ant look on her face. Diane saw her eyes dart to the car,  then to the two of them-Kingsley in his casual sport coat  and slacks, Diane in her Ann Taylor camel-colored jacket  and pants. Kathy Nicholson seemed to relax. Diane knew it  would be only for a moment.
"Can I help you?" she asked.
Kingsley took out his private investigator's license and  gave it to her. None of the ?ash-it-in-front-of-her-in-hopes- she-doesn't-look routine.
"Mrs. Nicholson, I'm Dr. Ross Kingsley and this is my  associate, Dr. Diane Fallon. May we speak with you? We  can talk over at that lovely table you have in your side yard  if you like," he said.
"Doctors. I hadn't realized that private investigators have  such high standards, or are times just hard?" She smiled at  the two of them, but it didn't show in her eyes.
"It's the ?rm I work for," said Kingsley, grinning at her. 
"They like educated investigators. My doctorate is in psy- chology. I was previously a pro?ler for the FBI."
Kingsley was really rubbing the education in a bit,  thought Diane.
"And what about you?" she asked Diane. "What's your  doctorate in?"
"Forensic anthropology," said Diane.
"That's about bones, isn't it?" she said. Diane nodded. 
"What do you want?"
She was suspicious now, Diane could see. Probably think- ing about the visit she had about ?ve weeks ago from Stacy 
Dance. Too many people coming around doing detective  work-about one of the worst things to happen in her nice,  pretty neighborhood.
"It's about Stacy Dance," Kingsley said.
The woman's smile disappeared. "I told that young  woman what I saw. I'm sorry it was her brother. I know she  was just a girl at the time and I understand that she believes  him to be innocent. I told her if it were my brother, I prob- ably would too, but I saw what I saw. I'm not going to help  you get that monster out of jail." She handed Ross back his 
ID and started to close the door.
"Stacy was murdered," said Kingsley before she got the  door completely closed.
The woman stopped and stared at him through the six- inch opening in the door.
"Murdered?" she whispered. "I don't want anything to  do with this."
"We just want a few minutes of your time to ask you  about Stacy," said Kingsley. "Her father is our client. His  daughter is dead; his son is in prison. I would like to ?nd out  what happened so he can have some measure of peace."
She relented. Diane could see it in her eyes ?rst, the soft- ening around the corners. Kathy Nicholson stole a glance  across the street, then opened her door.
"Come inside. It's too cold to be outside," she said.
Kathy Nicholson ushered them into her living room, a  roomy space with a large picture window. It was a formal  living room with traditional furniture-a gold brocade sofa,  matching accent chairs, highly polished coffee table and  end tables. A portrait of her and her husband when they  were young hung over the ?replace. She had a cream carpet  throughout that was spotless.
Mrs. Nicholson was a good housekeeper. There was no  dust, nor any clutter. The room also presented a stark- ness, like a place where no one lived. Perhaps it was be- cause it was a room rarely used. Diane could see through  a doorway into the dining room-a room that also had  everything in its place. Mrs. Nicholson may have had a  den or TV room tucked away that looked more lived  in, but what she showed to the world was neatness and  order.
Diane and Kingsley sat on the sofa, their backs to the  window. Kathy Nicholson sat on one of the chairs. She  didn't look comfortable, but Diane didn't think it had any- thing to do with the chair.
Mrs. Nicholson didn't offer refreshments. Diane and 
Kingsley weren't guests and were not under the protection  of hospitality. They were intruders, people who had come  to tear at the heartstrings and bring back bad memories. 
Perhaps even to affront those memories.
"It's kind of you to speak with us," said Diane.
"Yes," agreed Kingsley. "What we are trying to do is re- trace Stacy's steps before she was killed."
Kathy Nicholson said nothing, offering no information. 
They were going to have to ask for everything.
"Will you tell us what you spoke with her about?" asked 
Kingsley.
She was silent a moment. Then she looked resigned.
"She wanted to know about my testimony. She started  by telling me that she knew her brother, and that he was  kind." She rolled her eyes and looked past them at the  house across the street. "I simply told her what I saw."
"Was she upset?" asked Diane.
"Of course. But I don't know what she expected. That  now I've had nine years to think about it, I made a mis- take? Well, I didn't."
"Tell us what you saw," said Diane.
"I thought you were here about Stacy. I've told you, I'm  not going to help you get that monster out of jail," she said.
"I'm asking questions that I know Stacy probably asked  you," said Diane. "We would like to know her frame of  mind. We would like to see if there was anything she heard  that might have sent her in some direction that we could  follow. This is not about Ryan Dance. It's about Stacy. We  are trying to get into her head-a big part of what was in  her head was her brother."
"We have spent nine years in this community trying to  get over it," she said.
"You never get over something like this," said Diane. 
"You can only try to deal with it in some way that doesn't  drive you crazy. I would like to think that for you that  would mean helping us bring a little peace to another  grieving father."
Kathy Nicholson nodded. "I had no quarrel with Stacy 
Dance. She was a young kid at the time of the trial. I re- member her outside the courtroom. Her father wouldn't  let her come in and she would wait out in the hallway with  a relative. I could see she wanted to put her family back  together. There was nothing I could do about that. The day 
I saw him-the day El went missing-he was driving an old  gold Chevrolet. It was a large gaudy thing with rust spots  all over it. It wasn't a car that we see here. Arlo Murphy's  father down the street had a rusty old Ford ?shing truck, 
Beverly Connor but that's all he used it for-to go ?shing. This car drove  past El's house going too slow, like someone looking for  an address."
"Where were you?" asked Kingsley, turning to look out  the window.
"I know what you're thinking. It's too great a distance  from here to the road. Well, I wasn't in the house looking  out the window. I was in my garden. It's not there now. I  quit gardening when my husband died. My garden was  close to the road. I saw him clearly. His window was rolled  down. His arm was resting on the door, half out the open  window. I saw the snake tattoo he had on his forearm. I  wrote down the license plate number. I was president of 
Neighborhood Watch then and I wrote down suspicious  tags. Are you going to tell me that it wasn't his plate num- ber?"
"No," said Kingsley. "We're just trying to get at what you  told Stacy you saw. Surely she asked you questions, like was  he looking at Ellie Rose Carruthers' house when he drove  past?"
She was silent for several moments, her mouth set in a  frown, her hands clutching the arms of the chair.
"I told her I saw him," she said.
"Did he turn his head in your direction?" Kingsley  pushed her. His voice was calm, but he was pushing. Diane  thought Stacy probably had pushed too. If the person was  looking at the Carruthers' house, his face wasn't turned to- ward Mrs. Nicholson in her garden.
"Which way was he going?" said Diane.
"What do you mean?" Mrs. Nicholson asked.
"Which direction was he driving when you saw him?"  she said.
"I was standing in my garden. Looking across the street  at him. He was going north-to my left." She gestured with  her arm.
"This street isn't a dead end, is it?" asked Diane.
"No," she said.
"Did he come back and look again?" asked Diane.
"I didn't see him if he did," she said.
"How long were you in your garden?" Diane asked.
"From nine in the morning until eleven. That's when I 
 worked in my garden," she said. "And my eyes are good. I  have reading glasses now, but my eyes were twenty-twenty then."
Diane had read Kathy Nicholson's statement to the po- lice, as well as her court testimony. It was in the ?le Kings- ley had. Diane was willing to bet it was in Stacy's ?le too,  the one that was missing. In Nicholson's ?rst statement she  emphasized the car, the plates, the Atlanta Braves cap, and  the tattoo. Not the face. In court she said she recognized  him. She pointed to him sitting beside his counsel. But the  trial was held after Ryan Dance's face had been all over the  news. The documents didn't say anything about a lineup.
Diane was willing to bet the ?rst information Nicholson  gave was the truth. Truths are often put forth ?rst by wit- nesses because they are what is actually in the memory. 
Only afterward, when the pressure is on-from family, vic- tims, police, prosecutors-do witnesses start saying things  that are not exactly the truth, but could be. After all, it was  so clear-the car, the hat, the tag, the tattoo. It was easy for 
Kathy Nicholson to say she saw the face and believe she  had seen it, after she had been questioned by so many peo- ple who wanted her to be a good witness. She lived across  the street from a grieving family who wanted the man put  in jail. Pretty intense pressure.
"Was there a lineup?" asked Diane.
"You sound like you are trying to prove that monster  was innocent," she said.
"Didn't Stacy ask you these questions?" said Diane.
"She asked me some of them. She didn't hammer at me  the way you two are doing." She glared at them. "I told her 
I picked him out of a collection of photographs the police  showed me," she said. "And I did."
"In the photo array, which one was it?" asked Diane.
"I don't remember," she said. "It was nine years ago."
"Yes, nine years ago at one of the worst times in your life  and the lives of everyone around you. Was it the ?rst one or  the last?" said Diane.
"The ?rst one, I think," she said. "I think you'd better go  now. This has not been pleasant."
"I know," said Diane. "And you have been far more co- operative than we had a right to expect. I thank you."
Beverly Connor Kathy Nicholson straightened up a little, then stood up. 
"I'm sorry for Stacy and her father." She paused. "Do you  think her murder had something to do with her brother?"  she asked.
"We don't know," said Kingsley. "That's one theory, but  we have to wait for all the evidence."
"How could it? I saw what I saw. I wasn't mistaken," she  said. "It wasn't someone else."
"We don't know why she was killed. It may have had  nothing to do with what happened here nine years ago,"  said Kingsley. "It may be just a big coincidence."
She showed them out the door, and Diane and Kingsley  walked to his car and got in. He started it up and drove  out of Kathy Nicholson's drive and onto the street and  stopped.
"Chilly," said Kingsley. "I'm glad we didn't have to do  this outside."
"Me too," said Diane, looking out the window at the Car- ruthers' house.
"I would have helped ask questions," said Kingsley, grin- ning, "but it looked like you were on to something. Did you  notice something?"
"Two or three things jumped out," Diane said. "If he  was looking at Ellie Carruthers' house, why would he drive  only in this direction?" Diane pointed in the direction 
Kingsley's car was headed. "He would have to look out the  passenger window to see the house. Much easier to look  out the window on the driver's side. So why didn't he case  the house coming from the other direction? He could have  seen more."
"Perhaps he did, but that was the only time he was seen,"  said Kingsley.
"Could be. I also noted that she did her gardening at the  same time every day. If you needed a witness to be in a  speci?c place in front of the victim's house, she would be  your witness. And everyone in the neighborhood probably  knew her schedule."
Kingsley nodded. "That's true. What else? You said  maybe three things?"
"The tattoo. She saw it because he had his arm hanging  out the window," she said.
"And?" he asked.
"It would be his left arm she saw, the arm that wasn't on  the steering wheel. When you drive with one hand, which  one do you use?"
"I'm left-handed, so I drive with my left hand," he said.
"Ryan Dance is left-handed too," she said.
"We left-handed people are pretty good with our right  hands, living in a right-handed world as we do," said Kings- ley. "Just playing the devil's advocate."
"I know. All of these things I mentioned are tiny and  can't remotely be used to bene?t Ryan or get justice for 
Stacy. They are just interesting, small bits of information. 
They probably mean nothing. But when small pieces start  adding up, sometimes you get a whole pot."
"A whole pot of what?" he said.
"I'm working on something else that has to do with bro- ken pottery," she said. "It's on my mind."
"Her identi?cation of Ryan gave me pause," he said. "I  don't believe she saw his face."
"Neither do I," Diane said.
"So, did she call the Carruthers' house right away?" said 
Kingsley.
"Of course," said Diane.
"Do you think they will see us?" he asked.
"I believe so. There is a neighbor going over to her house  now. I'm willing to bet it's for moral support."
"Why do you think they'll talk to us?" said Kingsley.
"They want to ?nd out what we are up to-if they need  to mount an effort to keep Ryan in prison. They want to  scope us out to see if we are the kind of people who are  up to the task of perhaps getting Ryan out of prison," said 
Diane.
"You don't think Kathy Nicholson believed we are only  interested in Stacy Dance," said Kingsley.
"Nope. They can't afford to believe that," said Diane.
"I agree. You're not a bad pro?ler," he said.
"I thought you didn't believe in pro?ling?" said Diane.
"Slip of the tongue. I meant psychologist," he said, and  put the car in gear to drive across the street to the Car- ruthers' house.
The door was opened as soon as they rang the door- bell by a woman perhaps in her early ?fties, in shape, and  tanned. Her dark brown hair was cut in a sort of a gradu- ated pageboy style with blunt bangs. She wore a white  blouse and dark gray slacks. She wasn't Marsha Carruthers. 
She was the neighbor Diane had seen walking over at a  hurried pace. 
Perhaps I was wrong , thought Diane. 
Perhaps  she was called over to be gatekeeper .
"Can I help you?" the woman asked.
Kingsley gave her his ID and explained what they were  doing there, just as he had with Kathy Nicholson. The  woman glanced at it and gave it back.
"I suppose you know this is a cruel intrusion," she said.
"It's certainly not our intention to be cruel," said Kings- ley. "My client's daughter was murdered in a terrible way. 
We know she came to visit here a few days before her  death. We were hoping Mrs. Carruthers would help. May  we see her?" asked Kingsley.
She opened the door and stepped aside. "I'll be here  with her," she said.
"Of course," said Kingsley. "A good neighbor is a price- less treasure."
The woman looked startled for a fraction of a second. 
She was probably not expecting him to quote Chinese  proverbs. As Diane recalled, that was in his fortune cookie  the other evening.
She led them into yet another formal living room. This  one was not as bright and sunny as the one across the  street. The dark, wine-colored drapes were closed. No out- side light came in. The only illumination was from several  lamps around the room. This living room was furnished  with dark leather furniture, wood and glass tables, and a 
Persian carpet on a hardwood ?oor. The centerpiece of  the room was the portrait over the mantel: a beautiful oil  of Ellie Rose Carruthers-forever young, with long, wavy  blond hair and blue eyes.
Beverly Connor "Mrs. Carruthers." Kingsley held out a hand to a woman  seated in one of the leather chairs. She didn't reach out to  take it and Kingsley let it drop.
She had blond hair-bleached, but bleached well. She  was too thin. Diane thought she probably had been too  thin for several years now. She didn't smile at them. Her  face, strained, lined, looked like carved stone. She sat in the  brown leather chair wearing a brown dress with brass but- tons. She made Diane think of a chameleon, as if she could  easily blend in with the chair and disappear altogether.
"Thank you for seeing us," said Kingsley.
He and Diane stood waiting for an offer to sit, which  never came.
"Why have you come to dig in my wounds?" she said. 
Her voice sounded like pieces of gravel rubbing together. 
The other woman, the neighbor, stood at her chair like a  handmaiden. She put a hand on Marsha Carruthers' shoul- der. Marsha reached up and touched it.
"We haven't come to cause pain," said Kingsley. "We're  investigating the murder of Stacy Dance. We wanted to talk  with you about her visit."
"Why do you say she came here?" said Marsha Car- ruthers.
Diane noted that they weren't surprised at the word  murder .
"We are retracing her steps," said Kingsley. "Can you tell  us what she talked about?"
"Do you think her death had anything to do with her  investigation?" asked Mrs. Carruthers.
They weren't getting anywhere. They were answering  each other's questions with questions. As they sparred, 
Diane had been observing the room. The chair Marsha 
Carruthers sat in seemed out of place in relation to the  rest of the furniture. Then she saw the indentations on the 
Persian rug. The chair usually sat facing the ?replace. They  had swung it around to face outward. It usually sat where  someone could sit and look at the painting of Ellie Rose. 
Was that how Marsha ?lled her days, sitting in front of her  daughter's painting? Or perhaps it was Ellie Rose's father  who sat and looked at his daughter when he came home  from work. Diane wanted to cry.
"That's our best working theory at the moment," said 
Kingsley.
"So you're thinking that wretched excuse for a human  sitting in prison is an innocent victim?" Her mouth curled  into an ugly shape.
"No, I don't think that," said Kingsley. "We are inves- tigating Stacy Dance's death. Will you tell me what you  talked about?"
"You don't know that her death had anything to do  with-with this," she said. "You know where those people  lived. How do you know the sister wasn't like the brother- into God knows what, probably drugs or something just as  vile? That's the life they lived, and I resent your implying  that she died because she discovered that piece of human  garbage is innocent," she said.
"Mrs. Carruthers, Stacy Dance was a very nice girl. She  took care of her neighbors, drove the elderly to their doc- tor's appointments. She was in college-"
"College? The University of Georgia is a college. Bar- trum is a college. That place she went to is just a glori?ed  tech school. She was nothing like my Ellie Rose."
Marsha looked back and forth from Kingsley to Diane as  if daring them to defend Stacy again. The grief had sucked  all kindness and love from her. She was empty of every- thing but hate.
"You're wrong about Stacy," said Diane. "And about 
Gainesville Community College for that matter, but espe- cially about Stacy. She was kind. I understand-"
"Don't!" Marsha Carruthers' face hardened to granite. 
"Don't you say you understand how I feel. You can't pos- sibly imagine!"
"I wasn't going to say that," said Diane, trying to keep  calm in her own voice. "And no, I don't know how  you feel,  but I know how I felt. My daughter was murdered. She was  the best part of me. She was my heart. I know how I felt  when she was murdered, and it is indescribable. I live every  moment with her loss and the knowledge that I failed to  protect her. I also know that if I lose my humanity, I lose  her again, I fail her again, and I couldn't bear that. Ariel  was not yet six years old when she was killed, but she was  a bright shining soul and I cherish every single memory of 
Beverly Connor her. So don't tell me I can't possibly imagine." Diane un- consciously put her hand on her neck where she wore a  locket with Ariel's photograph.
All of them fell into a shocked silence. The neighbor had  a tear running down her cheek. She looked away and wiped  it with her hand. Diane was sure this was more than she  bargained for when she came over to give her friend moral  support.
"I'll give you some unasked-for advice," said Diane. "You  are in danger of losing the love you felt for your daughter. 
You are so overwhelmed with anger and grief that that spe- cial feeling you had for Ellie Rose is going to get lost in the  abyss. Stacy was Harmon Dance's daughter and he loved  her too. We just want to know what she talked about and if  she said where she was going afterward."
Marsha sat very still. Her face hadn't changed, but there  wasn't an angry comeback on her lips and Diane thought  she saw them quiver. The neighbor squeezed Marsha's  shoulder.
"I was here when Miss Dance came by," the neighbor said. 
"My name is Wendy. I live next door. She asked about whom 
Ellie was dating at the time, who her friends were. I told her  we weren't going to tell her people's names so she could  go pester them. I don't know where she went when she left  here. Neither of us does," she said. "Honestly, we didn't tell  her much. Do we look particularly cooperative to you?"
There was a rustling in the entryway and a young woman  bounced in. She looked to be seventeen or eighteen. She was  dressed in pink bell-bottoms with a wide white belt. Her pink 
T-shirt had a picture of an electric guitar outlined in rhine- stones. Her long hair was black with a lock of pink on one  side going from her forehead to her shoulders. Her eyes  were outlined with black liner and she wore false eyelashes  and bright pink lipstick. She had a diamondlike jewel on  the side of her nose.
"Mom. Oh. Sorry," she said.
She stood still and looked into the living room. Diane  and Kingsley turned to look at her. She looked so very  much like Ellie Rose in the face that it startled Diane.
"Samantha, dear, why don't you ?x your mother a glass  of tea?" said Wendy.
Samantha looked at her mother. "Do you want some tea, 
Mom?" she asked.
"That would be nice, hon," she said.
Samantha skipped off to another part of the house.
"You have a very pretty daughter," said Diane.
"At least she likes pink," said her mother.
Diane thought she saw a hint that at one time Marsha 
Carruthers may have had a sense of humor.
"It was not our intention to cause you more pain," said 
Diane, "but it is important to ?nd out what happened to 
Stacy."
She took a card from her pocket. She had brought the  cards that identi?ed her as director of the Aidan Kavanagh 
Forensic Anthropology Lab, the osteology lab she ran at  the museum. It seemed a much better choice of card to give  out with her name on it. Museum director would have been  confusing, and director of the crime lab would be awkward,  since she wasn't representing Rosewood. In her capacity  as forensic anthropologist, she had much more freedom. 
Sometimes she felt like a con artist with all the different  cards she had with different professions.
Kingsley handed her his card along with Diane's. "Please  call if you remember anything that might help," Kingsley  said. He nodded to Wendy. "We can show ourselves out." 
They turned to leave.
"Why haven't the police contacted us?" asked Marsha.
So they ?nally thought to ask, thought Diane.
Kingsley turned back to her. "I'm sure they will. Right  now they may not know where Stacy's investigation led  her," he said.
"I didn't think private investigators could investigate an  open case," said Wendy.
Samantha came in with her mother's tea and gave it to  her. Marsha gave it to Wendy, who took it to the liquor  cabinet and set it on top, turned, and looked at Kingsley  for an answer.
"That's a popular misconception," he said. "We just can't  get in their way." Kingsley looked at each of them and nod- ded. He and Diane left.
"You ?nessed that well," said Diane when they reached  the car.
Beverly Connor "It wouldn't have done to tell them that, at the moment,  the police are calling her death an accident," Kingsley said,  almost absently.
He frowned and looked back at the house. Diane got in  and closed the door.
"There's a note on your seat," she said when he opened  his door to get in.
Kingsley picked it up and read it out loud. "
Lakeshore Mall. Cookie Company. Now. Please. Thanks.
"
"Not signed?" said Diane.
"It's from Samantha," said Kingsley. "Of course, when I  met her, she was the drummer's cousin."
Diane looked at him, perplexed. "She's Stacy's drummer's  cousin?"
"She told the police she was. I think we need to go to the  mall," he said.
He started to pull out of the drive just as a blue Volks- wagen Phaeton pulled up, blocking them. A man jumped  out, slammed his car door, and came marching up to the  driver's side of their car. He looked in his late forties or  early ?fties. A slight bulge hung over his belt. He wore dark  blue suit pants and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up,  and a light blue tie, loosened. He banged on the roof of 
Kingsley's car with his palms.
Diane got out of the car and looked over the roof at  him. Kingsley got out on the other side. They stood face- to-face.
"What the hell do you think you're doing, coming around  here harassing my family?" he said.
"We were not harassing," said Kingsley. "We were ask- ing questions about a young woman who visited here about  four weeks ago."
"You have no business here. I called the police to see  what this was about, and they said the woman's death was  an accident," he said. "So what are you playing at?"
His face was so red Diane was a little concerned. His  comb-over fell into his face and he pushed it back.
"It wasn't an accident," said Kingsley. "But as to your  complaint, we were not harassing your family. We were  speaking with your wife in the presence of your neighbor."
Beverly Connor "You aren't to set foot on my property again. Is that  clear?" he said.
"We won't need to," said Kingsley. "The police will be  handling it from here."
"If it wasn't an accident, the police would have told me. 
You think you know something they don't?" he asked.
"Dad, I need to go to the library." Samantha stood a few  feet from him. A book bag hung on her arm.
A candy-apple red hardtop convertible, not there when 
Diane and Kingsley drove up, was parked in a small park- ing space just off the driveway. Diane assumed it was 
Samantha's.
"I can't get out," she said. "You're blocking the drive."
"Just a minute, Sam, honey." He turned to her. "Did these  people upset your mother?"
"How could I tell?" she said. Her face looked both sad  and a little angry.
"Sam, not now, and not in front of strangers," he said.
Kingsley and Samantha exchanged brief glances.
"Dad, you're always talking about me making good  grades. Well, I need to get to the library," she said.
"All right. Do you have your cell?" he said.
"Always," she said.
"Don't be too late." He turned back to Kingsley and 
Diane. "I don't want you here ever again. I don't want  you harassing my family, or my neighbors. Do you under- stand?"
"As I said, Dr. Carruthers, the police will be taking it  from here. Now, we need to go, unless you intend to keep  us here against our will," Kingsley said.
He backed off and raised his hands, palms outward, then  walked to his car. "Just remember what I said," he yelled,  getting into the driver's seat.
Kingsley and Diane got back in their car and Kingsley  drove off. Diane saw the bright convertible behind them. 
Kingsley headed toward the mall.
"I certainly hope Lynn comes through," said Kingsley, 
"or I've just been bluf?ng."
"I said there's no guarantee she'll come up with mur- der," said Diane.
"But you think she will," he said.
"Yes. And with what we found in the apartment, I think  the police de?nitely need to reopen the case." Diane  glanced over her shoulder at the red convertible following  them. "What is the deal with Samantha?" she said.
"I have no idea," said Kingsley.
"She was there when you spoke with the drummer,  right?" asked Diane. "She looks a lot like her sister. You  didn't recognize her?"
"We were in a dark café, and she has that pink and  black hair and the weird makeup. No, I didn't recognize  her." Kingsley glanced into the rearview mirror. "God. She  found the body. What kind of hell is that?"
To Diane this was the hardest part of dealing with crime:  the aftermath, the effect on the victims. Long after every- one thinks they should just get over it, the crime is always  there inside them. Every day they wake up and it isn't a  dream; it's a living nightmare.
"Are you okay?" he said as he turned on the Dawson- ville Highway.
Diane nodded. "I wasn't very professional, I know. It's  one of those characterizations that is likely to set me off- that I don't know the pain of loss."
Kingsley was acquainted with the tragedy Diane went  through: the loss of her adopted daughter in a massacre in 
South America when Diane was there as a human rights  worker.
"You may have done her some good. You let her know  she isn't alone in her grief," he said.
"Maybe, but sitting in front of that painting day after  day," she said. "If it was her and not the father."
"What? Did I miss something?" he said.
Diane told him about the indentations in the rug.
"I didn't notice. What made you look at the rug?" he  asked.
"It was the arrangement of the furniture," she said.
"Do you have to be female to notice things like that?"  he said.
"No." She smiled. "Just experienced at doing crime  scenes. Little anomalies stand out. I can't imagine what it's  like for Samantha."
He drove onto Pearl Nix Parkway and to the mall. Sa- 
Beverly Connor mantha wasn't far behind. They walked into the mall with  her and sat down in front of the Cookie Company after 
Kingsley got each of them a rather large chocolate chip  cookie and a drink.
"Are you going to tell my parents?" asked Samantha  after she took a bite.
"How old are you?" said Kingsley.
"Eighteen," she said. "I'm an adult."
Diane had to smile. She tried to hide it behind her  cookie.
"I take it you're not Jimmi's cousin," said Kingsley.
"No. We made that up for the police. I was so freaked out  and Jimmi was, well, she was, I mean, Stacy was her friend  since middle school."
"Why didn't you tell the police who you are?" asked 
Kingsley.
"I knew my parents would ?nd out. I couldn't let that hap- pen. They would take my car away. And Mother would have  some kind of screaming ?t if she knew I was hanging with 
Stacy Dance. I showed the police one of my fake IDs."
Kingsley rolled his eyes. "You what?"
Samantha reminded Diane of Star, Frank's daughter,  the girl he adopted at sixteen when her parents, Frank's  best friends, were murdered. Like Samantha, she had mul- ticolored hair, was de?ant, and used kid logic to make deci- sions.
"They didn't care. They hardly questioned me," she said. 
"I told them I lived in Ohio and was going home and that 
Jimmi could get in touch with me if they needed me."
"They bought that?" said Diane.
"I told you, they didn't care. They were like my parents. 
I'm invisible. I think it's my superpower," she said.
"Why were you hanging with Stacy? How did you meet?"  asked Kingsley.
"Both of us were auditing a class at Gainesville State 
College. She wanted to transfer there and was trying it out. 
I'm going there until I can transfer to UGA. I recognized  her last name, but there are lots of Dances, so I didn't think  anything of it. Of course she recognized mine and kind of  avoided me."
"How did you ?nally meet?" asked Kingsley.
"I found out she was in a band. A real successful band. 
They played lots of gigs, and people in class knew them. 
See, I play the guitar and I'm really good. I wanted to be in  the band and they needed another guitar player. I talked to  her and that's when she told me who she was. She was kind  of freaked about it," she said.
"You weren't?" asked Kingsley.
"No. 
She  didn't do anything to my family. And she said  her brother was innocent and she was going to prove it," 
Samantha said.
"Did you believe her?" asked Kingsley.
"Why not? I've been blamed for stuff I didn't do. My par- ents still think I took money out of my aunt's purse when I  was ten. It was my cousin who did it, but he's a really good liar. 
So why couldn't it have happened to her brother?" she said.
"What about all the evidence?" said Kingsley.
"Evidence doesn't mean anything. It can be anything  people want it to be. I mean, look at 
Jurassic Park . The di- nosaurs looked real to me," she said.
"It must be hard, living in a world where everything  could be an illusion," said Diane.
"We all do. It just means we can make the world the way  we want it. That's what Stacy's band did. They wanted to  be successful and they are making it real. Or, they were,"  she said.
"You need to tell your parents you found her body," said 
Kingsley.
"They'll just yell," she said. "They'll tell me I betrayed El. 
You'd think they would want to be really close to me, with 
El gone and all, but they don't. All Mother does is sit in  front of that painting. And Dad... he just pays lip service  to telling me not to be late. He doesn't even know when I  come home. He stays in his games. That's how he's remade  his world," she said.
"Games?" asked Diane.
"
Warcraft  and 
Second Life . He ?ghts demons, rescues  princesses, and builds his own world to live in."
"I'm sorry," said Diane.
Samantha shrugged. "They gave me a cool car, clothes,  telephones, and money. It's not so bad. I don't want that to  stop. It's all I have."
Beverly Connor "You need to talk to someone," said Diane. "The police  are likely to be coming around and they'll recognize you. 
Your parents need to know what happened to you. Maybe  this will jolt them into the real world. At least go to a coun- selor at college."
Diane took one of her cards and wrote her psychiatrist  friend Laura Hillard's name and number.
"Dr. Hillard is a friend. Tell her I sent you. If you don't  want to talk to her, she can send you to someone here who  would be good."
"Shrinks can't take things out of your head," Samantha  said.
"No, but they can teach you how to cope," said Diane.
"I cope," Samantha said in an uncertain voice, her eyes  downcast.
"Are you having nightmares?" said Kingsley.
She nodded. "They've started back again. I had bad  nightmares after El died," she said.
"Take Diane's advice. See someone, just to talk to, at  least," he said.
"Maybe," she said, sticking the card in her purse.
"Have your parents been like this for nine years?" asked 
Kingsley.
"It comes and goes. It gets bad around Christmas and El's  birthday. It's worse when Mother is drinking. Sometimes she  takes a cure for a while, but sooner or later she goes back to  it. She likes vodka in tea. Can you imagine? If she put it in  orange juice, she'd at least get some vitamin C."
"By 'takes a cure,' what do you mean?" asked Kingsley.
"She goes to visit my grandmother for a while. They  don't have any alcohol around and she stays in the house. 
Sometimes she goes to a clinic in Atlanta. She comes back  and starts falling back into bad habits. I told them we  should move, but they won't. They don't want to go to a  house where El has never been. They think it'll make her  disappear, and I'm like, hello, she's gone. She's already dis- appeared."
"You seem to have supportive neighbors," said Diane.
Samantha shrugged. "Kathy Nicholson is pretty nice. 
I go over to her house some. She gets kind of lonely. We  talk about things. But it's not like she can do anything 
 about my parents. Wendy Walters means well, but I think 
Mother wore her down. She used to try to discourage her  from drinking, but now she just helps her. You saw when I  brought the tea."
"Why did Stacy want to speak with your parents?" asked 
Kingsley. "If she knew you, you could give her a lot of the  answers she wanted."
"Not really. I was nine when El died. I didn't know a  whole lot that was going on in El's life. Stacy thought they  could tell her about the day El disappeared. I didn't really  know much about that. Except, I think my parents think it  was my fault."
"How is that?" asked Diane.
"We'd been ?ghting that day and El said she didn't want  to ride all the way to Grandma's house with me and she  was just going to stay here. She wasn't home when we got  back," she said.
"That wasn't your fault," said Diane.
Samantha shrugged again and took a sip of drink. 
"Maybe not, but still, if we hadn't fought..."
"You think she might have wanted to stay home for rea- sons of her own?" said Diane. "And the argument with you  was just her excuse?"
Samantha raised her eyebrows and opened her mouth  slightly. "I hadn't thought of that."
"Did she have a boyfriend?" asked Diane.
"She always had boyfriends. You saw her portrait. That's  pretty much what she looked like. But it would have been  in her diary," said Samantha.
"She kept a diary?" asked Kingsley.
Samantha nodded. "I loaned it to Stacy to copy."
"Your sister kept a diary?" said Kingsley.
"Yes, like forever. I mentioned it to Stacy one time  and she begged me to let her see it. I told her it wouldn't  help. See, El caught Mother reading her diary when she 
?rst started writing one and she was really pissed. That's  when she started writing in this code she made up. El  was really smart. Mother wanted to read her diaries  after she died, to be close, I guess. But she couldn't make  heads or tails of them. Dad packed them in a box when  he packed up El's room. Mom wanted to keep it the way  it was, but it was a little too creepy for Dad. They saved  her things in the basement. I took her last diary so Stacy  could copy it."
"Did she copy it?" asked Kingsley. He leaned forward in  his chair slightly. Diane knew what he was thinking. Diaries  can be loaded with just the best clues.
"Yes," said Samantha.
So, the copies were probably in the ?le that was missing,  thought Diane. "What happened to the diary?" she asked.
Samantha Carruthers hesitated and was quiet a moment. 
Then, quick as a mouse, she slipped her hand into her back- pack, pulled out a book, and handed it to Kingsley.
"Stacy returned it to you?" asked Kingsley.
"No, not exactly. When I found her... like that, it was in  her bookcase. The spine was facing out, but I saw it right  away. So, well, I took it. After all, it was mine. Or, at least,  my family's. I've been carrying it around, hoping maybe I  could ?gure out how to decipher it," she said. "Jimmi said 
Stacy's dad told her Stacy's folder disappeared... the one 
  full of stuff about her investigation. I ?gured something in  the diary might be important."
The front of the journal had been découpaged with mag- azine cutouts from the television series 
Charmed .
Kingsley opened it up and he and Diane looked at the  writing. It was a mixture of letters, numbers, and symbols.
"See," said Samantha. "You can't read it."
"Will you let us copy it?" said Diane.
"Sure. There's a place in the mall where we can go," Sa- mantha said.
They took the last bites of their oversized cookies, washed  them down with their drinks, and threw the trash away. Sa- mantha led them to a Mailboxes Plus store where Diane  copied the entire diary. When she ?nished, she handed it  back to Samantha.
Sam stood for a moment, looking awkward. "You aren't  going to call my parents, are you?" she asked.
"As you said, you are an adult now," said Diane.
"Yeah, but..." She hesitated, looking at her watch. "I  guess I'd better get to the library."
"Thank you, Samantha," said Diane. "Seriously, you  should talk to your parents. They need to know what's  going on in your life."
"I'll think about it, but you don't know them like I do,"  she said.
"You may not know them as well as you think," said 
Diane.
Diane and Kingsley left the mall with Samantha. They  watched her drive off before they got into Kingsley's 
Prius.
"She needs help," he said.
"Yes, she does. And her parents need to wake up and  realize they have another daughter to care for. She's old  enough to be out on her own. If she decides to make the  break, it will be harder on all of them."
Kingsley glanced at the package of copies Diane held in  her hand. "So, how do we go about deciphering that?" he  said as he left the parking area and headed back to Rose- wood.
"I'll ask Frank to do it," said Diane.
She removed the ?rst several pages of the diary from the 
Beverly Connor store bag. The writing looked like gibberish to her-a lot of  stars, squares, wavy lines, letters that didn't make sense, and  numbers scattered throughout.
"He can do stuff like this?" said Kingsley.
"He and Jin too. They love codes, but-and if you repeat  this, I'll have to kill you-Frank is better at it," said Diane.
Kingsley laughed. "He can really decipher that?"
"Sure. I'll have to see if he has time. If not, I'll ask Jin to  do it," she said.
"I think the thing I appreciate most about working with  you-aside from your brilliant mind, of course-is that all  the people around you have such unusual talents that are  terribly useful and interesting."
"That's true. I have a great appreciation of them myself,"  said Diane.
They rode in silence for a while, Diane still trying to  make sense of the writing. She gave up and slipped the  pages back into the bag. Her talents simply didn't run to  encryption.
"You know I have to reinterview all of Stacy's band  members," Kingsley said after a while. "I was completely  fooled by Samantha and Jimmi. I thought they were telling  me the truth."
"They probably saw themselves as telling you the truth. 
You heard her. Samantha makes her own reality. It's appar- ently the way she copes," said Diane. "It's apparently the  way her parents are coping."
"Perhaps, but I'm a pretty bad detective when I can't tell  if kids are telling me lies," said Kingsley.
"They aren't kids. They're nascent adults. They're always  a challenge. But, yes, I agree you will have to talk with them  again."
The rest of the way to Rosewood, they discussed what  they had learned, which, other than the spectacular revela- tion that Samantha Carruthers discovered Stacy Dance's  body, and that Ellie Rose Carruthers kept a diary, wasn't  a lot.
They both believed that Kathy Nicholson, the neigh- bor across the street, did not, in fact, see the face of Ryan 
Dance. But at this point, she believed she did, and probably  could not be shaken from that belief.
"Do you think the father, Dr. Carruthers, could have  killed Stacy?" asked Kingsley.
"I don't know. He has a temper."
"Yes, but it was mostly verbal," said Kingsley.
"Mostly verbal? What about his charging up to the car  and banging on the roof?" said Diane. "That seemed pretty  physical."
"But when I was facing him, he could have been much  more threatening and in my face, but he wasn't. I think he is  basically a timid man. That's why he works out his bravery  in the games. He never has to face anyone."
"What does he do for a living?" asked Diane.
"He's a podiatrist," said Kingsley. "Works mainly in  sports medicine."
"Still," said Diane, "if he thought Stacy might be able to  free her brother, what would he do? I think just the pos- sibility of it might enrage both Samantha's mother and fa- ther."
"I don't know if the mere possibility would make him  go over the edge," said Kingsley. "But I think the police  should look at his alibi-assuming they reopen the case. I  hope Dr. Webber comes through."
"I wonder how it's going. Lynn should have the body by  now.... In fact"-Diane looked at her watch-"she should  have had the body for several hours."
"If she ?nds that it's a homicide, my boss and I-he likes  to be in on these things-will take the evidence you col- lected to the detective in charge and ask him to reopen the  case."
"Then it will be out of your hands?" asked Diane.
"I think so. Stacy's father asked only that we determine  if her death was murder. We'll have done that-provided Webber ?nds what we hope she ?nds."
They pulled up in the driveway and Diane got out. She  bent down to talk to Kingsley before she closed the door.
"It's been another interesting day," she said. "I suppose  we won't ?nd out what Lynn discovered until tomorrow. If 
I hear from her tonight, I'll give you a call."
"Same here," he said. "Otherwise, I'll call you tomor- row."
Diane shut the door and went inside. Frank was already 
Beverly Connor home and had just gotten out of the shower. His salt-and- pepper hair was still wet. Diane gave him a kiss and headed  for the shower herself. When she got out and went to the  kitchen to ?nd him, he had fried bacon and sliced tomatoes  and lettuce to make BLT sandwiches. And he had heated  some tomato soup. Comfort food. It smelled good.
"This is nice," said Diane.
She sat down and they ate sandwiches and drank soup out  of large bowls with handles and talked about music. Frank  told her 
Stomp  was coming to the Fox Theater and that he  would like to take her, Kevin, and Star. Kevin was his son by  his ?rst marriage and Star was his adopted daughter. Kevin  was in high school; Star was a student at Bartrum. Diane  thought they both would enjoy 
Stomp . She would too.
"How are you on free time?" asked Diane.
"What is it you want me to do?" He grinned at her.
Diane got up and retrieved the copied pages of the diary. 
"This is the journal written by the girl who was murdered  nine years ago. Any chance you could decode it?" she  asked. She handed him the pages.
Frank studied them for several minutes, now and again  taking a sip of his soup and a bite of his second sandwich.
"Sure," he said.
"If you don't have time, I can give it to Jin," she said.
"Is that a challenge?" he asked.
Diane grinned. "No. I just don't want to impose."
"It won't be that hard. Didn't you say she was ?fteen?"
"Yes. But I have no idea what could be the key." Diane  had learned from a previous case where decoding was in- volved that you need a key to decipher it.
"I doubt there is one," he said. "This is something she  would have a facility for. She would want to write it as fast  as if she were writing normally. I believe it's a combination  of rebuses and simple substitution."
"Oh," Diane said. "I couldn't make anything of it." She  paused. "Okay, this is embarrassing. What's a rebus? I know  what substitution codes are."
"Words and parts of words are represented as pictures." 
Frank waved a hand. "For example, the phrase 'I cannot'  might be represented by pictures of an eye, a tin can, and a  rope tied into a knot," he said.
"I knew you could do it," she said.
"When I can't break the code of a ?fteen-year-old, I'll  pack it in." He grinned at her.
After dinner Diane called Kendel, the assistant director  of the museum, and they discussed Kendel's upcoming trip  to Australia. Afterward, she and Frank spent the remainder  of the evening watching TV, a luxury for both of them. It  was a nice end to a day ?lled with reliving other people's  tragedies. She wondered what the Carruthers' evenings  would be like from now on.
Diane awoke early, but Frank was already up. She heard  his footfalls on the hardwood ?oor. He came in the door to  their bedroom carrying a tray with orange juice and cereal,  and with the morning paper under his arm.
"Breakfast in bed?" she said, looking quizzically at him  as he put the bed tray over her lap. "Is one of us dying? Is it  an anniversary I forgot about? Were we ?ghting last night  and I didn't realize it? I know you are very low-key some- times." She grinned at him.
"No. I just wanted you to start your day off well," he said,  and gave her a crooked smile, his eyes twinkling.
"Why? I mean, why today especially?" she said.
He laid the newspaper on the tray beside her silverware. 
"Because I think today may be one of those days where the  shit hits the fan."
Diane eyed him and picked up the paper. There on the top  banner, the place on the page giving the reader a teaser  for what is to come inside, was a school picture of Stacy 
Dance and a short paragraph with the caption: how we  treat crime victims who aren't affluent-why do they  fall through the cracks of justice?
Diane looked up at Frank, who pulled up a chair, turned  it around, and rested his arms on the back as he drank his  own glass of orange juice.
"What is this?" she said. "Who?"
"You might want to get some food in you before you  read any further," he said, smiling.
Diane took a drink of orange juice and opened the paper. 
The article started off about Stacy Dance, a college student  who was trying to better herself. The article ?nessed the  circumstances of her death, but said the death was ruled  accidental by the medical examiner, Oran Doppelmeyer. It  went on to say the ME had overlooked obvious signs that 
Stacy Dance was murdered, and suggested it was her so- cioeconomic level that drove the ?ndings and not empiri- cal evidence. The article had several quotes from Stacy's  father, Harmon Dance, and told of his desire to ?nd justice  for his daughter.
Diane stole glances at Frank as she read. He merely  grinned and sipped his orange juice. She recognized the  style as that of Lynn Webber, even though the byline was  of a journalist from the Atlanta newspaper.
"Lynn wrote this," Diane muttered. "She must have  called Mr. Dance. What was she thinking?"
"Keep reading," Frank said.
The style of the article changed. Apparently the journal- ist had added her own observations. She mentioned the  death of Ellie Rose Carruthers and said the deaths were  similar-that Ellie Rose was strangled and her clothes  were in disarray, like Stacy Dance. But the investigations  were treated quite differently, again alluding to the higher  socioeconomic level of Ellie Rose Carruthers. The article  revealed that Stacy Dance had been trying to clear her  brother of the conviction of Ellie Rose's murder, and the 
?le in which Stacy kept all her evidence was missing. And  the ?nal provocative question: Could it be the real killer of 
Ellie Rose Carruthers also killed Stacy Dance in order to  shut her up?
Diane looked up at Frank.
"I hardly know what to say," she said. "I told Ross she  wouldn't go off half-cocked."
"At least she didn't use your name or mention the mu- seum," said Frank.
"There is that. And she only mentions that Dance hired  a private investigation ?rm, but not the name of it. Ross  will be relieved. I think. But what the heck was she think- ing?" Diane threw down the paper.
"Didn't you say she is inclined toward vindictiveness?"  said Frank.
"Yes, but this is just going to alienate the detective in  charge of Stacy's case, not to mention cause a political up- roar. It might even hurt Lynn," said Diane.
"I'm surprised she made a comparison with the two  murders. My impression is they were not alike at all," said 
Frank.
"They aren't, and she didn't. I think Lynn presented an  article to the journalist and asked her to publish it under her  byline. The journalist-what is her name?" Diane looked at  the paper. "Meryl Babbitt. She-as is her right, since it's  under her name-added details of her own. She probably  saw they were both strangled, and ran with it from there."
Diane poured the milk over her cereal and took a bite. 
"At least no one will be calling me at the museum-except maybe Ross Kingsley. His wife will have to scrape him off  the ceiling ?rst. Jeez, I can't believe Lynn did this."
Beverly Connor Diane ?nished her cereal and took the tray back to the  kitchen. Frank was collecting his things and was about to  head out the door.
"I'm going to take the diary pages with me," he said.
"Sure. Thanks for doing this," she said.
"No problem. I'll enjoy it. But I'll have to work at it in  free moments," he said.
Diane kissed him good-bye and changed out of her night- shirt into black slacks, a white shirt, and a dark red jacket. 
She drove to the museum, parked on the crime lab end of  the building, and went up the private elevator to the lab. 
David was there alone. The others hadn't arrived yet. He  was at the round debrie?ng table reading the newspaper.
"Isn't this the case you are working on?" he asked.
"Yes," she said. "And before you ask, I don't know...  well, yes, I do, but I don't know why she chose such a  forum."
"What are you talking about?" asked David.
"Lynn Webber." Diane explained about the history of 
Lynn Webber and Oran Doppelmeyer.
"So, a little public humiliation for Dr. Doppelmeyer,  then," said David.
"It would seem so. At least she didn't mention my name." 
Diane sat down at the table with David. "You know how  you've been wanting to do a study of methods for ?nding  buried human remains?"
"Marcella's yard?" said David. "I've been thinking about  that very thing."
"I'm going over to the hospital to see whether Marcella's  daughter will give us permission," said Diane.
"I'll ask Jin to let me borrow Heckle and Jeckle," said 
David. "He should be glad for the opportunity to work  alone for a while."
"They aren't so bad," said Diane. "They enjoy research,  so I'm sure they will be glad to help with the project." She  stood up. "You clear it with Jin and I'll get Marcella's per- mission."
Diane drove to the hospital. As she parked, she toyed  with the idea of going down to the morgue to speak with 
Lynn Webber, but decided against it. She wasn't sure what  she would say to her. No doubt Lynn was getting quite a 
 few calls anyway. Diane went up to the ICU waiting room. 
She found Paloma and her husband sitting on one of the  small sofas. Both were reading paperbacks.
"Oh, hi," said Paloma.
Diane greeted them, pulled up a chair, and sat down. 
"How is your mother?" she asked.
"Much better. She's speaking more easily. We are wait- ing for the next visiting time," Paloma said.
"No more one-word sentences to decipher," said Mark.
"That's good. Have you spoken with Jonas, by any  chance?" asked Diane.
"Yes, he visited with Mother late yesterday. She thinks  someone may be buried in her yard. Maybe the woman  who lived there-she wasn't real clear," said Paloma. "I  was afraid she may be, well, you know."
"Frankly, we didn't give it much credibility," said Mark, 
"but Jonas seemed to agree with her." He cocked an eye- brow at Diane. "Is it possible?"
"Possible, yes," said Diane. She explained to them about  the research project she would like to do in Marcella's yard.
"Mother would love it," said Paloma. "Look, why don't  you go in at the next visiting time?"
"I don't want to take away from your time," said Diane.
"That's all right. She'll enjoy your visit. Mark and I can  go down for some breakfast," she said.
Diane agreed and went in at the next scheduled visiting  period. Marcella looked considerably better than she had  the last time Diane saw her. She had more color in her face  and her eyes looked brighter. She was sitting up, sipping  broth through a straw. She smiled when Diane entered the  room.
"I want to thank you for your kindness to Paloma and 
Mark," she said. Her voice was weak, but Mark was right;  her sentence structure was much better.
"I'm glad to be able to help," said Diane. "I came to ask  your permission to carry out an experiment in your yard."
Marcella smiled. She clearly liked the idea of experi- ments.
"That sounds delightful," she said. She took a sip of  broth. "Jonas told me you found the sherds I was concerned  about," she said.
Beverly Connor "We did. That is what spurred the desire for the experi- ment," said Diane.
"Do you think someone is buried in my backyard? The  note... I wondered if whoever wrote it was, well, mur- dered. I think there was some deranged artist living in the  house and he may have done away with someone. What do  you think?"
"I think I'd like to take a look in your yard. We are al- ways looking for better ways to detect buried human re- mains. David has wanted for a long time to have a place to  take soil samples to run a chemical analysis to see if he can  pinpoint locations where remains have been buried. He  wants to try other methods too-resistivity, seismic-and make comparisons. I wanted to ask your permission," said 
Diane.
"Yes, I think that is an intriguing idea. We can perhaps  solve my little mystery and get some scienti?c information  to boot. A good plan," she said.
"Tell me," said Diane. "How old do you think the writing  on the desk is?"
"The desk was under a lot of junk that hadn't been  moved in a very long time. I had an antiques dealer look  at it. He thinks it is a handmade desk from the s. If it  helps, it had a buffalo nickel dated in one of the draw- ers. It was worth two dollars." She grinned and took a sip  from a cup of coffee on her tray. "I hadn't ?nished looking  into the pedigree of the house. I went to the historical so- ciety and spoke with a few old-timers who worked there. 
They weren't much help remembering, but they gave me  a computer printout of a picture of the front of the house  from about ?fty years ago. It hasn't changed much. I was  going to the courthouse next."
"I have someone searching the courthouse records,"  said Diane. "Tell me about the three paintings on the living  room wall."
"That was the most fun thing. I was knocking out a wall  upstairs, and there they were. Very nice, I thought. They  seemed like they ?t the house. I hung them in the living  room," she said.
"Were they signed?" Diane asked.
"In a way. There is a picture of a bird in the lower-right  corner of each one. A black-and-white bird. I thought the  artist might have a bird name, like Finch, Crow, Sparrow- there are any number of surnames that are birds. That's a  thought," said Marcella. "Perhaps there is something in the  paintings that we can date."
"The thieves took the paintings," said Diane.
"Why would anyone steal those old paintings?"
"That's one of the things we hope to ?nd out. They also  took your pottery that was in the living room hutch."
"I don't know what the paintings were worth, but they  are going to be sorely disappointed in the pots. They aren't  real artifacts," said Marcella.
Marcella pronounced each word with a short pause. 
Diane noticed her voice was fading quickly.
"What did you make of the subjects in the paintings?"  asked Diane.
"One was a young woman, another was a young man- actually, they looked more like teenagers. The background  of both was woods. Very wistful faces. The third was a  woman, perhaps in her thirties, sitting in a chair."
Marcella stopped talking and her eyes suddenly grew  wide. Diane was alarmed that she might be feeling ill.
"Well, why didn't I notice it before?" Marcella said. "She  was sitting on a chair at a desk-the desk I found in the  potter's shed."
Marcella leaned back and put a hand to her head and took  a deep breath.
"I'm afraid I'm tiring you out," said Diane.
"It's this damn headache that comes and goes that tires  me out," she said. "It's good for me to think. I need to be  able to think."
"Your thinking is just ?ne. Thank you for allowing us to  experiment in your yard."
"My pleasure," whispered Marcella. "Experimenting is  good. I have always liked the University of Georgia motto- do you know what it is?"
"No, I confess I don't." Diane grinned. "I don't even  know the motto of Bartrum University."
"Georgia's is 
Et docere et rerum exquirere causas ," Mar- cella said slowly.
Diane's Latin was terrible, unless it had something to do  with anatomy. She merely raised her eyebrows.
"To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of  things. I love inquiring into the nature of things."
"That is a nice motto," said Diane. She squeezed Marcel- la's hand and started to leave.
"Bartrum's," whispered Marcella, "is 
Quaerite et inveni- etis : Seek and ye shall ?nd."
"I'll remember that," Diane said.
Paloma and Mark were gone when Diane came out of the 
ICU. Diane guessed they were in the cafeteria. She punched  the elevator button and waited. The doors opened and Lynn 
Webber was standing in front of her, managing to look styl- ish in her bright white lab coat. Diane got on the elevator.
"Were you looking for me?" asked Lynn.
"No," said Diane. "I have a friend in ICU."
Lynn looked very uncomfortable and it was all Diane  could do not to smile.
"You do? I'm so sorry. I hope they are doing well," Lynn  said.
"She is improving," said Diane.
"I read an archaeologist was attacked in her home. Is  that your friend?" she asked.
"Yes, it is. Marcella Payden," Diane said.
Lynn was standing in front of the elevator buttons. She  made no move to push them.
"I'm going to the lobby," said Diane. She pointed to the  elevator buttons in front of Lynn.
"Well, hell," said Lynn. "Have you read the newspaper  or not?"
Diane smiled. "Yes, I have."
"I suppose you're mad?" said Lynn.
"No, not particularly. I'm rather concerned about the po- litical fallout for you."
"That reporter went way beyond what I wrote," Lynn  said.
"I thought I recognized a shift in writing style," said 
Diane.
"I called her and asked why in the world she said the  things she did about the two crimes being similar. She said  it's her style to write what seems reasonable and let the  facts shake out. If they are wrong, people will correct her." 
Lynn threw up her hands. "That's how she gets at the truth? 
Can you imagine that logic? What kind of epistemology is  that?"
"Have you had many calls?" asked Diane.
"I probably have. My assistant is answering the phone. 
I've been out of the of?ce," she said.
I don't blame you , thought Diane.
Lynn punched the button for the lobby and the eleva- tor moved with a lurch. "Are you parked in the parking  garage?" asked Lynn.
"Yes," Diane said.
"Me too. Have you heard from Ross?" asked Lynn.
"No. I expect to," said Diane.
Beverly Connor "I hope this won't make his job more dif?cult," Lynn  said.
The elevator doors opened onto the lobby. They stepped  out as several people brushed past them to get in. Diane  and Lynn headed for the exit to the parking garage.
"I take it from the article that Stacy was murdered," said 
Diane.
"Yes. A ?rst-year student could have made the call. Hell,  anyone who watches forensic crime dramas could have  seen it was murder," she said.
A great many people were going to be unhappy with the 
?ndings, especially the way in which they were announced. 
Probably the only satis?ed person at the moment was Har- mon Dance. And quite possibly, the reporter.
The exit to the parking garage was just off a small hall- way. Diane pushed on the large gray door. Just as they  were outside, a man approached. Lynn started to speak,  but stopped.
"You vindictive bitch. You stupid, vindictive bitch." The  man was taller than either of them, but wasn't quite six  feet. He was slim, but pudgy, had a round face and a head  of thick, wavy, reddish brown hair. His eyes were close to- gether and he had a cruel twist to his mouth. He held a  newspaper in his right hand and was hitting the palm of his  left hand with it.
"Oran Doppelmeyer," said Lynn. "I see you hate hav- ing your incompetence revealed. And after you have made  such efforts to hide it."
"You think you can get away with this pathetic stunt? 
It's only going to show you up for the pissy little amateur  you are." He stopped in front of Lynn and reached for her  arm. "Don't think..."
Lynn's jaw clinched. "Get your hand off my arm," she said.
Diane could almost hear Lynn's teeth grinding.
"You need to go somewhere and calm down," Diane said  to him.
He turned toward Diane without letting go of Lynn. 
"Who the hell are-Ow!"
Lynn had karate-chopped the arm that held her. Before  he could react, Diane shoved her Rosewood identi?cation  in his face.
"Stop, or I'll place you under arrest. You think the news- paper makes you look bad now, wait until it gets the story  that you attacked Dr. Webber. You won't be able to spin  yourself out of it. Back off now and calm down." 
Before Lynn beats you up , she felt like adding.
He stared at Diane's identi?cation for a long moment.
"What's this?" he said. "Crime lab?"
"Yes, and I can arrest if the need arises. Lynn, why don't  you go on to your car?"
"And leave you alone with this maniac? No." Lynn was  in a ?ghting mode.
Jeez , thought Diane. 
They're both maniacs .
Diane started to tell Lynn she needed to go ?rst and let  him save some face, but she could see Lynn wasn't in the  mood to allow any face-saving measures for Doppelmeyer. 
The door opened and several men ?led out, heading to  their cars. They eyed the three of them as they passed. The  heavyset men wore beards and overalls and clearly made 
Doppelmeyer uncomfortable.
"You need to go get in your car and go somewhere and  chill," Diane said to Doppelmeyer. "No good can come of  your staying here."
He glared at Lynn and pointed a ?nger. "We aren't ?n- ished."
Lynn pointed a ?nger back, punctuating her words. "Yes,  we are."
He backed away, not breaking eye contact with Lynn. 
Unfortunately, Lynn wouldn't break eye contact either. She  stood with her arms folded, staring. Doppelmeyer was at  his car. He either had to break contact ?rst, or stand there  looking as stupid as Diane felt for standing there with the  two of them.
His solution to his dilemma was to give Lynn the ?nger. 
There were some things Lynn wouldn't do and, happily for 
Diane, returning the gesture was one of them. He got in his  car and left.
"Okay," said Diane. "Just what high school do you two  go to?"
Lynn looked over at her sharply, then shrugged. "Oh, I  suppose you're right. He just brings out the worst in me."
"I can see that," said Diane. "He's acting dangerous. I 
Beverly Connor think you ought to ask security to walk you to and from  your car."
"He's all talk. He doesn't have the guts to do anything,"  she said.
"Grabbing your arm wasn't all talk. I'm serious. He looks  like he's not ?nished. It won't hurt to get security to escort  you to and from your car," she said. "They'll like the idea."
"I suppose you're right," said Lynn. "That lie he told  about me those years ago still follows me. Whenever I go  to a professional conference, invariably, someone brings it  up. I needed something big to ?nally blow the ugly thing  out of the water."
Diane wasn't sure whether the ugly thing Lynn referred  to was Doppelmeyer or the lie. Lynn was still watching  where he had left, as if he might return, backing up, to give  her another piece of his mind.
"Besides," Lynn said, turning back to Diane, "everything 
I said in the article was true and it is a terrible miscarriage  of justice."
"Just be careful," said Diane as she went to her vehicle.
She started up her SUV and waited until Lynn drove out  of the parking garage to be sure she didn't have Doppel- meyer following her.
Diane drove back to the museum. She went to Andie's  of?ce ?rst. Kingsley was there waiting for her. It was get- ting to be a habit of his, dropping by without calling ?rst. 
He probably ?gured it was the most reliable way of getting  to see her. Perhaps it was. She couldn't help but notice he  had a copy of the newspaper with him.
"Hello, Ross," she said, smiling. "Andie, anything urgent?"
"Nothing urgent. Kendel got away okay. I drove her to  the airport this morning early. I asked her to bring me back  an Australian. I love their accents. I put the mail on your  desk. Jin called for an appointment."
"Jin called for an appointment?" said Diane. "Since when  does Jin call for appointments? Did he say what for?"
"No, but I know what it is. You want me to tell you?"  said Andie.
"No, I want to stand here and guess. What does he want?"  said Diane.
"He wants to go to a conference in the Netherlands. 
They're teaching some cool stuff in DNA analysis. But  that's just a guess. I think he's going to present it all formal- like so you'll say yes."
Diane called Jin on her cell. "Jin," she said when he an- swered, "if you are comfortable with leaving Hector and 
Scott in charge, you can go to the conference."
There was silence for a moment before Jin spoke. "How  did you know?" he said.
"It's my job," she said. "How is the analysis coming of  the evidence we collected in Gainesville? I have a feeling  we are going to need it soon."
"I'm working on it. I'll be done today. Thanks, Boss," he  said.
"Sure."
She turned to Ross. "You're here about Lynn Webber,"  she said.
"I thought you said Lynn Webber wasn't a loose cannon,"  said Kingsley as he sat down in the leather chair across  from Diane's desk.
Diane was glad to see him grinning broadly. She realized  just how much she had dreaded trying to explain how a  person whom she vouched for had screwed up his new job.
"Normally, she's not a loose cannon," said Diane. "I  didn't know the impact their history had on Lynn's psyche. 
She's apparently been waiting a long time for a chance to  pay Doppelmeyer back. And I'm afraid she's unrepentant,  especially after the reaction she got from him."
"Reaction?" Kingsley said.
Diane told him about the parking garage encounter with 
Doppelmeyer at the hospital.
"You can arrest people?" he said when she ?nished.
"I have the authority, but I don't have restraints or a gun,  so it would have been hand-to-hand combat. Fortunately, it  didn't come to that," she said.
"Fortunately." He laughed.
"Which reminds me, I need to call Garnett. Excuse me a  moment," she said.
Diane got Chief Garnett on the phone and told him  about the incident at the hospital.
"Oran Doppelmeyer seemed out of control to me," she  told Garnett, "and I had the feeling Dr. Webber didn't take  it seriously enough. Can you have someone keep a lookout  for her, or at least notify hospital security?"
"Sure," Garnett said. "Lynn's an of?cer of the court. 
What Doppelmeyer did was to commit a physical assault 
 on her while she was on duty. And he made verbal threats  against her. I'll make some arrangements. This is about that  article in the paper?"
"Yes." Diane made a face. She hoped he wouldn't ask  too many questions. She didn't particularly relish explain- ing the entire situation to him.
"The chief of police had a phone call from his Gaines- ville counterpart this morning," said Garnett. "The chief  naturally didn't know what to say. He tried to reach Dr. 
Webber, but she's been in meetings all morning. Who ex- actly does she meet with?"
"I don't know," said Diane. "She likes to keep on good  terms with the hospital administration, since her of?ces are  there, so..." She let the sentence hang.
"Is there anything I should know about?" he asked.
Apparently her nonanswer hadn't been as subtle as she'd  hoped. 
Well, damn .
"It depends on how you feel about plausible deniability,"  said Diane.
She heard him sigh. "How deep are we in this thing?"  he asked.
"At the request of a private investigator, and on my own  time, I reworked the Stacy Dance crime scene," said Diane. 
"It had been released by the Gainesville police more than  a month ago and the case closed. Based on what I saw at  the crime scene and in the police report, I suggested that  the private ?rm currently involved in the case arrange for  a new autopsy. At the father's request, the court order was  obtained. The victim's father was very eager that this be  resolved. He never believed it was an accident. Lynn was  brought in to redo the autopsy. Jin helped with collecting  the evidence and he is readying it to give to the Gainesville  police when they call."
"Was Rosewood's crime lab involved in this?" he asked.
"You forget, I have labs and fancy equipment all over  this building," said Diane.
"All right, then. Is this thing going to bite me in the ass?"  he asked.
"I think it will turn out to be a good thing," said Diane. 
Eventually .
Garnett didn't ask any more questions, such as how did 
Beverly Connor the newspaper get hold of the story? He probably thought 
Mr. Dance called them. Diane was happy Garnett didn't  ask. She might fudge a little when telling him certain things,  but she was very careful to protect the honest relationship  they had.
Garnett ended the conversation and Diane hung up the  phone. She frowned at it a moment before she turned back  to Kingsley.
"Is her article a problem for you?" she asked.
"No, not really. But I don't understand why she said  some of the things she did," he said.
"The reporter added a lot of her own thoughts about  comparison of the two murders," said Diane.
"That explains a lot." Kingsley steepled his hands. "Actu- ally, it might shake up things enough to cause the killer to  react," he said.
"Shaking things up is what the reporter said she was try- ing to do. I'm not sure I approve of the shaker method of 
?nding the truth," said Diane.
Kingsley gave a noncommittal shrug of his shoulders. 
"You're probably right. But you never know."
"The article made the Gainesville police look bad. That's  not a good thing," said Diane. "Maybe they did miss the  boat, but they were kind of broadsided on this."
"Not really," said Kingsley. "Dance has been calling them  every other day trying to get the case reopened. They should  have known something might be coming their way."
"I've noticed you have a lot less sympathy with the  authorities now that you've made a career change," she  said.
"I guess I've been seeing a little more of the other side,"  he said. He put the tips of his ?ngers in the fountain on her  desk. "Nice. I like the way you did the rocks." He took his 
?ngers out and patted them on his jacket. "Did Frank say  he could decipher the diary?" he asked.
Diane nodded. "Frank said it should be fairly straight- forward. He may have even used the word  fun ."
"I've never quite understood how deciphering works,"  said Kingsley.
"It helps that there's always a pattern," said Diane. "Se-  riously, what did your employers say when they saw the  newspaper?" she asked.
"They were sorry they weren't mentioned by name,"  he said, and gave her a rather lame smile. "What can I  say? It's about business. However bad the article looked  to the police, to my bosses it showed the effectiveness of  their ?rm-and the speed with which we can determine  the truth."
"Is that what we did, determine the truth?" said Diane.
"Part of it. Didn't we? The rest is up to the Gainesville  police now. They will be wanting the evidence you col- lected. I'm going to suggest they send someone over here  to sign for it. My bosses wanted to personally deliver it to  the Gainesville PD, but I told them we need to have a sim- pler chain of custody from one of?cial agency to another,  and they agreed."
"All right. Jin is working on the analysis. I'll ?nd out  when he expects to ?nish. We'll hand over the evidence  and the analysis. I suppose Mr. Dance is satis?ed. Have you  spoken with him?"
"Yes. He's very pleased that we have cleared his daugh- ter's name. He's not happy that we have to turn the evi- dence over to the Gainesville police. He doesn't trust them. 
I told him the news media will be keeping an eye on them. 
He said it shouldn't have come to that; they should have  done the job right the ?rst time."
"I agree," said Diane. "However, things are how they are." 
She stood up. "I need to give some instructions to David and  meet with a few of my curators, so I'm going to run you off."
Kingsley stood up. "I understand. If I stay much longer, 
I don't think you could get me out of that chair. You have  a very comfortable of?ce. Though I ?nd the photograph of  you hanging over that chasm a little disturbing every time 
I look at it."
Diane smiled. "A lot of people do." She said it as if it  were a strange thought. Diane loved caving and she partic- ularly liked vertical-entry caves. There was something quite  exciting about repelling down an open chasm.
She walked out with him on her way to the crime lab. 
"Are you going to just let the police reinterview Stacy's 
Beverly Connor band members?" asked Diane as they walked down the  hall to the lobby.
"I think they'll do a better job. I'm sure they're scarier  than I am," he said.
Diane started to leave him to go to her appointments,  when she spotted three women at the information booth. 
She knew them. So did Kingsley.
"Well, hell," they both whispered together.
Diane stood looking at Kathy Nicholson, Wendy Walters,  and Marsha Carruthers as they turned in her direction. It  was obvious they were being directed to Diane's of?ce. 
The three of them spotted her and Kingsley. For a moment, 
Diane had the urge to run and hide behind the mammoth  in the Pleistocene room.
Their faces ranged from grim to angry. As the three  women approached, Diane wondered which of?ce would  be better for whatever was about to happen: her osteology  of?ce in her forensic anthropology lab with its cold, spar- tan decor, or her more comfortable museum of?ce with its 
Zen-like qualities. She opted for Zen-like. That of?ce was  closer.
Marsha Carruthers looked much as she had when they  interviewed her. She wore another dark dress. This one was  gray with black buttons and a white collar and cuffs.
"I'm glad both of you are here," Marsha said. "We intend  to speak with you."
Diane supposed it was only fair, since she and Kings- ley went to their homes intending to speak with them,  and did.
"Very well. We can talk in my of?ce," said Diane.
She retraced her steps to her of?ce, opening the doors to  the administrative wing of the museum for her guests. She  led them down the hall into Andie's of?ce, where she found 
Jonas Briggs waiting for her.
"I thought I would escort you to the staff meeting," said 
Jonas. He smiled cheerfully, probably relieved that Marcella  was doing so much better than the doctors had expected.
Beverly Connor As Diane attended to Jonas, the three women waited  impatiently. Kathy Nicholson spent the time scrutinizing 
Andie's seating area, a room Diane thought would be good  for entertaining Peter Rabbit's mother, with its cottage- style overstuffed chairs and sofa. The room's colors of pink,  blue, and green, and the ?oral design, were repeated in a  porcelain grandfather clock. A rag rug in matching colors  sat underneath a dark cherry pie-crust coffee table. Kathy 
Nicholson's gaze shifted from one item to the next, linger- ing on a crackled ?gure of a rabbit sitting on the coffee  table beside magazines about museums.
The other two women simply stood, frowning and waiting. 
Diane didn't introduce anyone. It didn't seem appropriate  and she didn't think the three women would appreciate it.
"Change of plan," said Diane. "Andie, you are taking my  place at the meeting."
Andie's eyes grew wide. "What? Me?"
"You know the curators and the issues. You have the  budgets. And you've been wanting to be more involved at  a higher level," said Diane.
"Yes, but, I mean, they are all college professors, and I'm,  well, me," she said.
"Ah," said Jonas, putting an arm around her shoulder, 
"but you sit on the right hand of the queen herself. Just re- member that. And also that underneath their clothes, those  college professors all wear Underoos." 
Andie laughed.
"You'll do ?ne," said Diane. "They are all excited about  the webcam project. If anyone gives you trouble, you can  send them to me."
"See there?" said Jonas. "That'll put the fear of God into  them."
After Jonas and Andie left, Diane ushered her three visi- tors into her of?ce. Kingsley helped Diane pull up enough  chairs to her desk. Diane thought about taking them into  her sitting room but decided she wanted her desk between  herself and the women. Kingsley was on his own.
"I'm sorry, but I have to make a call ?rst," said Diane be- fore anyone spoke. She walked behind her desk, sat down,  and dialed David's number. "We have permission for the  research project," she told him.
"Great. I thought we would. Marcella loves research. 
How is she?" he asked.
"She seems much better," said Diane.
"Good. Jin loaned me Hector and Scott. So, okay, what's  the deal? Hector's the older twin, right? And there is some- thing about his shirt?" said David.
"The color is a longer wavelength than Scott's," said 
Diane.
"Yeah, that's it. God, I hope this isn't a mistake," he said.
"They'll do ?ne," she said.
"They have improved the research design. We are going  to collect samples using a smaller grid system-collect more samples-to determine the least number of samples  needed for accurate results."
"They enjoy research," said Diane. "You shouldn't have  any problems."
"Oh, and I've lined up some archaeology students to ex- cavate, in case we ?nd anything," said David.
"Just remember, if you locate anything, you have to call  the coroner before you take anything out of the ground,"  said Diane.
"I've informed Whit, so he knows we might call," said 
David.
"Then you are good to go," said Diane. "Keep me in- formed."
She hung up the phone. They were all staring at her, the  three women and Kingsley. She supposed at this end it was  a strange conversation.
"Now," said Diane, "what can I do for you?"
"You can recant what you said to the newspaper," said 
Marsha Carruthers. "You aren't getting that trash out of  jail. He killed my daughter." She leaned forward and re- peated her plea. "He killed my daughter."
Diane guessed that Marsha's other daughter hadn't con- ?ded in her, or she would have mentioned it ?rst thing. She  hoped Samantha didn't wait too long. Diane didn't want  the police to be the ones to tell the Carruthers it was their  daughter who found Stacy's body.
"You told me you were not interested in getting that  monster out of jail," said Kathy Nicholson. "But it's obvi- ous you lied."
Beverly Connor She pulled the newspaper article from her purse and  tossed it on the table. It was the one Diane had already  read.
"Neither I nor Dr. Kingsley had anything to do with the  article in the paper," said Diane. "And we are not trying to  get Ryan Dance out of jail."
"Then where did the newspaper get this information?"  asked Wendy Walters.
"I've not talked with the reporter. I don't know her,"  said Diane.
"You told me you worked for... or are the director  of"-Kathy pulled Diane's card out of her purse and read  from it-"the Aidan Kavanagh Forensic Anthropology 
Lab. But it turns out you're a museum director." She tossed  the card on her desk with the article. "Why would you de- ceive us in this way?"
"How is it you're quali?ed to say anything about how  that woman died?" said Wendy. "People are going to believe  what they read in the newspaper and there is going to be  a call for the Dance boy's release, and the police are going  to be chasing a wild goose, because..." She threw up her  hands. "This is just stupid. Are the two of you scam artists? Is  messing with people's lives how you get your kicks?"
"I am director of this museum. I'm also director of the 
Aidan Kavanagh Forensic Anthropology Lab, which is part  of this museum. And I'm director of the Rosewood Crime 
Lab," said Diane.
They stared at her for a moment. Wendy spoke ?rst. 
"What does Rosewood have to do with any of this? It's 
Gainesville's jurisdiction."
"I wasn't representing Rosewood when I spoke with you  or when I investigated the scene of Stacy Dance's death,"  said Diane.
"Then you were using your employer's time and facili- ties for personal gain," said Wendy.
"No, I was not," said Diane. "First, my work was pro  bono; second, I didn't use Rosewood's facilities or their  time... even though I could have. You see, our crime lab  does forensic analysis for jurisdictions all around the world,  not just Rosewood. I'm still not understanding why you are  here and what you hope to have me do."
"Is it true you said that woman was murdered?" said 
Marsha.
"Stacy Dance," said Diane. "Yes, she was murdered."
"We discovered that our medical examiner said she died  by accident in a rather perverted and disgusting fashion,"  said Marsha. "What we want you to do is to recant what is  in the paper. Our police aren't stupid. Neither is our ME. 
You have no business contradicting them. All it's done is  get people to wondering about Ryan Dance. People have  called me. People are saying we are rich and we have rail- roaded some poor boy." She stopped and her lips quivered. 
"And my baby did not die in the same disgraceful way that  woman did."
"I know the circumstances of your daughter's death  and those of Stacy's death are quite different," said Diane. 
"Neither of us is responsible for the reporter saying they  were similar. But we do know how Stacy died, and she did  not die by her own hand. She was killed somewhere else. 
Her body was staged in that embarrassing way. It was not  her doing."
"It's your word against our law enforcement people,"  said Marsha. "They are good at what they do. They would  not have said it was an accident if there was any evidence  it was murder."
"My husband knows two members of the museum  board," said Wendy. "Thomas Barclay and Madge Stewart. 
He is going to call them and tell them what you've been  doing."
"That's ?ne," said Diane. "Call away. I can't change my 
?ndings. But you need to stop and look at the situation. 
You seem to be under the impression that it's easy to get  someone out of prison. It isn't. Nothing in what we have  discovered can in any way be used to get Ryan Dance's  sentence overturned, or even reviewed, for that matter. 
And, certainly, the inaccurate reporting in a newspaper  can't do anything for him."
"And," added Kingsley, "it is out of our hands. As you  point out, the matter falls under the jurisdiction of the 
Gainesville police. It's their investigation now."
The three of them sat for a moment looking at one an- other, as if groping for something else to say. Finally they 
Beverly Connor stood up. Marsha Carruthers leaned her hand on Diane's  desk.
"I won't forget this. Ever. I won't forget."
Diane wanted to tell her to spend her energies on her  living daughter. She wanted to tell her to do something to  keep the good memories of Ellie Rose. She wanted to tell  her she was so sorry that this terrible thing happened to her  and her family. She didn't say any of those things. Instead  she stood up, and she and Kingsley escorted them out of  her of?ce.
As Diane watched them go down the hallway toward the  lobby, she wondered whether they would have been such  good friends had the tragedy of Ellie Rose not bonded  them together. Diane and Kingsley walked back into her  of?ce to debrief.
"Something was off. Something happened that they  didn't mention," said Diane as she sat back down at her  desk. "Or was this not strange to you?"
"I got the same impression. It was probably the article. 
If the Carruthers family have been getting crank calls, it  would put them on edge. You know how disturbing such  things can be. Especially if you are being called a criminal,  and the man who killed your daughter is characterized as  an innocent victim," said Kingsley. "I think Marsha is afraid  of everything being in the news again, bringing back the  intensity of those raw emotions. She is afraid of reliving the  nightmare of her daughter's death again every day and is 
?ghting those who would revive it."
"It looks to me as if she already relives it every day," said 
Diane.
"Privately," said Kingsley. "Not publicly. That's what she  dreads. Funny, I was watching them. Marsha and Wendy  were inside themselves, completely absorbed. I doubt they  could even give a general description of what your of?ce  looks like. Kathy Nicholson was the only one of them inter- ested in the things around her-your assistant's of?ce, your  of?ce. While we were getting the chairs, she was looking at  your Escher prints, your photographs, the fountain. I got  the impression Kathy hadn't wanted to come. I think she  would like to break her bond with the other two."
"What implications does that have?" said Diane.
"I have no idea. Just throwing stuff out. Like you, some- thing bothered me too. But I can't put my ?nger on what  exactly," he said. "Maybe it's that they seemed like the  three witches from 
Macbeth . Okay, that was unkind, but I 
?nd them just a little spooky."
"Do you think Marsha or her husband could have killed 
Stacy?" said Diane. "You see how angry both of them are  at us. What emotions must Stacy have brought out in them,  poking around in their daughter's death?"
"I think it's a possibility the police should look at, but 
I'm not sure they will," he said.
He didn't say the two of them should look into it, but  she felt that was what he was thinking. Perhaps she should  have asked Marsha what she was doing the day Stacy died. 
Maybe dug a little deeper. But Diane had wanted to get  them out of her of?ce. Marsha Carruthers wouldn't have  answered anyway.
Kingsley left and Diane looked over some budget re- quests before she headed for the crime lab. She thought  about looking in on the meeting of museum curators, but  decided she would let Andie handle it. If she were present,  it would completely change the dynamics of the meeting.
Diane stopped at the information desk to speak with  a docent, when someone touched her arm. She turned to  greet them with a smile.
"Kathy Nicholson," Diane said, trying not to let the  smile freeze on her face. "Did you forget something... or  perhaps remember something?"
Kathy Nicholson, sans Marsha and Wendy, stood beside the  information desk with her purse on her shoulder. She had  on a light wool jacket she hadn't been wearing in the meet- ing.
"No, I didn't forget anything," she said. "I'd like to speak  with you." She looked around as if she were being watched,  or on the lookout, lest she be seen by someone she knew.
"Let's go to my of?ce," said Diane.
She told the docent she would see her the next day and  led Mrs. Nicholson back to her of?ce and closed the door. 
Diane didn't sit behind her desk, but pulled up a chair and  sat across from her.
"May I get you a drink?" asked Diane. "I have a refrig- erator in the next room with cold sodas."
"No, thank you, no," she said. "I have a friend meeting  me in your museum restaurant a little later. She said it's  very good."
"It is," Diane said.
Diane waited for Kathy Nicholson to speak. Kathy  looked at her well-manicured hands a moment and back  up at Diane.
"You must be wondering why I'm here," she said.
"I am," said Diane. "I hope you don't intend to try to  persuade me to recant, as Mrs. Carruthers put it. It's not  just my ?ndings regarding Stacy's death, but those of our  medical examiner as well."
"No, I haven't come for that, but the others think I have,"  she said.
"Oh?" said Diane.
"Do you really have all those jobs?" Kathy asked.
"Yes, I do. The forensic anthropology lab is part of the  museum. The crime lab is housed here and I run it. I used  to be a human rights investigator," Diane said, hoping that  might help Kathy to understand her quali?cations.
"They-we-weren't always like this. We were very  happy people. You wouldn't have known Marsha ten years  ago. Wendy either. Ellie Rose's death changed so much for  us. But nine years is a long time, and I am so tired."
"Of what?" said Diane, gently.
"That's a good question. Marsha's grief, I guess. That's a  terrible thing to say, I know. And I know you don't ever get  over something like her daughter's tragic death. My hus- band died of cancer and I miss him every day. But... but I  don't"-she frowned as if searching for the right word-"I don't cover the world with it. I don't walk through it as if  it were syrup. I don't know." A small sigh escaped her lips,  as if she gave up looking for the right expression. "Wendy  told me what you said yesterday-about Marsha losing  what it felt like to love her daughter, or something like that. 
She has, I think. That desperate anguish she felt when they  found Ellie Rose's body is still fresh in her now, just like it  was then."
Diane wondered why she was telling her all this. But she  didn't say anything. She just listened. Her former boss at 
World Accord International always said the ability to listen  is one of the most powerful tools one can have.
After a moment's silence, Diane spoke. "Why do you  think Marsha has not healed?"
"I don't know. At ?rst, Wendy and I tried to help Marsha  cope. But after a while, Wendy just went along with her,  and I stayed across the street with my husband more and  more. We quit having the neighborhood barbecues we used  to have when the children were small. I have a son, Colton. 
He's in California now at Berkeley studying political sci- ence. He's getting a master's."
"Do you see him much?" asked Diane.
"Not a lot. I go out there some. I'm thinking about mov- ing," she said.
Diane smiled.
"My son doesn't like to come here anymore. I don't 
Beverly Connor blame him. Bad memories. Wendy's son, Tyler, is in law  school at UGA now. He doesn't come home much either. 
So much has changed. I sometimes resent Marsha and her  family. I think Wendy does too. I know that's unfair and  cruel."
"But understandable," said Diane. Kathy obviously  wanted to talk. Diane wondered whether she had been  frank with anyone about this.
"Colton was a year younger than Ellie Rose. He and 
Tyler are the same age. We were so happy then. There were  lots of kids in the neighborhood. Several people moved  away after Ellie Rose's death. Even though Colton was  a boy, I was afraid after El's death. You never know why  someone kills children, or if yours might be next. All of us  parents were afraid. Many distanced themselves from the 
Carruthers. Others, like Wendy and me, tried to help. But as 
I said, there was no helping her. I don't know what it would  have been like if it had been my child. Wendy said your  child was murdered," she said.
"Yes," said Diane. "I don't talk about it much."
Kathy nodded as if she understood. "What did you think  of us?" she asked, suddenly.
"The three of you are very sad, especially Wendy and 
Marsha. They have turned very much inward. The whole  time the three of you were here, you were the only one who  seemed to be aware of your surroundings."
"Yes, we are different," she said. "You noticed that?"
"Yes, I noticed it. What I don't understand is why the  three of you came here today. Did Marsha actually expect  to have me say that what I found really wasn't true? Does  she honestly think there is a chance Ryan Dance could get  out of jail based on my ?ndings about his sister's death?"
"Yes. Both of them think that. Marsha got some pretty  mean calls that upset her after the article came out. And  her daughter Samantha moved out. She is beside herself  about that. But she never paid any attention to the poor  girl. What did she expect? She wanted her family nearby,  but out of her way. She never used to be so self-absorbed. 
Honestly, that's true. She was just the nicest person. Ellie 
Rose was a nice girl too. Always cheerful, always had some-  thing sweet to say. Her death tried my faith. It did. I think it  tried Marsha's and Wendy's too."
"Samantha moved out?" said Diane. "I'm sorry to hear  that."
"She is eighteen. And, frankly, I think it's a good thing. 
She was being smothered in that house. You were there. 
Could you live there?"
No, Diane couldn't have, but she didn't say it. Instead  she gave Kathy a prod. "Is there something you wanted to  say to me?"
"I wanted to ask you: Are you sure, are you really sure,  that Stacy Dance was murdered?"
"The Gainesville police will be receiving all the new evi- dence soon and they will decide how to proceed and what  to divulge. So I can't go into any speci?cs. However, I can  tell you I have no doubts whatsoever, and neither does our  medical examiner, that Stacy was murdered. And we both  have had a lot of experience in what we do."
Kathy Nicholson's eyes teared up. Diane reached for a  tissue and handed it to her.
"Are you afraid Marsha Carruthers or her husband  might have done something to Stacy?" asked Diane.
Kathy was quiet for several moments. "I would never say  that. Never," she said at last.
"But you might worry about it?" said Diane.
Kathy said nothing.
"Is there anything you know that bothers you? Anything  you've seen?" asked Diane.
"It's just the anger. We drove up here together. It was just  terrible. Wendy drove and Marsha sat in the front seat. I sat  in the back. We discussed strategy. It was all so-so frenetic. 
Marsha was so angry. I think it was equating the manner of 
Ellie Rose's death to Stacy's that got to her. Wendy called  the police and they told her what Stacy was supposed to  have died from. For some reason, Marsha was angry with  you in particular. I think it was the things you said to her. I  suppose she saw you as trying to rob her of her grief. It's all  she thinks she has."
"I'm sorry I upset her," said Diane.
"Wendy looked you up on the Web and discovered 
Beverly Connor you are the director of the museum," said Kathy. "We all  thought you had deceived us about who you are."
"She didn't ?nd the other positions I hold?" said Diane.
"No. I think the ?rst item she found was the museum and  she stopped there. It had your picture. That was the only  listing we knew for sure was you. You aren't the only Diane 
Fallon in the world."
"That's true," said Diane, smiling.
"We didn't quite understand why you would have any- thing to do with a crime investigation. Frankly, I thought  you and the gentleman with you were frauds. I thought you  had lied to me."
"Didn't you look up the name of my osteology lab-the one on the card?" said Diane.
"We didn't think of it. When we found you, we thought  that was it; we had found you out. None of us know very  much about computers, really. I know everyone does these  days, but we don't. Wendy used Marsha's husband's com- puter. She knew how to use Google. I always thought it was  simply a very large number," she said.
Diane smiled. "I take it you don't follow the stock mar- ket either," said Diane.
"No," she said, and almost smiled. "I was amazed at all  the information on your Web site. All the things about  the museum. Wendy found the museum board of direc- tors and discovered that both her husband and father-in- law, Everett, were on a couple of charity boards with two  of the members. Wendy will make good on her threat to  have them make calls about you. Her father-in-law is a  type A personality, if you know what I mean. He'll pres- sure the board members to do something about you if 
Wendy asks him."
"Wendy will be sorely disappointed," said Diane. "It isn't  a governing board. It's an advisory board."
"Oh, she will be disappointed," said Kathy.
"Tell me, why is Wendy so involved in Marsha's life?"  asked Diane.
"Same reason I am. We are neighbors and friends. We  go to the same church. We got caught up in trying to help 
Marsha with her grieving process and were kind of pulled  into it. Over the years it became our life. It's not this bad 
 all the time. We go though long periods of normal. Then  something happens and Marsha will start drinking. It's got- ten a lot worse since Stacy Dance spoke to her. And when  you and that man-Kingsley-came into our lives and that  newspaper article came out."
"I'm sorry our visit had that effect," said Diane. "Has 
Marsha been to grief counseling?"
"Yes. It hasn't worked-or it will work for a while until  something happens," said Kathy.
"What triggers her relapses?" asked Diane.
"Lots of things. My husband's cancer and death were one  thing. Wendy's husband is head of the oncology department  at the hospital, so all of them were there for us during the  process. When Samantha reached the same age Ellie Rose  was when she died, it set Marsha off. As I said, Stacy's visit  upset her. Sometimes a report in the news about some teen- age girl who died would be enough to upset her again."
"You said they think you are here to talk me into recant- ing my ?ndings. Why do they think that?" asked Diane.
"When we went outside to get in the car, I commented  that maybe if we had been friendlier we might have gotten  somewhere. Marsha turned on me and started to yell. She's  been doing that more frequently. It made me mad and I  almost told her that maybe I would be the one to recant my  story. I came that close." Kathy stopped and took a deep  breath.
"I wouldn't," she continued. "I saw what I saw. But I was  so angry that she'd turn on me after everything. I made up  my mind I wasn't going to ride back with them. I have a  friend here in Rosewood, and I can spend the night with  her and we can go shopping together tomorrow." Kathy  wrapped her jacket closer to her as if she were cold.
"Wendy said she thought I was right," Kathy continued, 
"and if I came in to speak with you alone, I might get some- where, or at least ?nd out what you were really up to. I  agreed. I just wanted to get away from them. Wendy is real  good with Marsha. I'm not. Marsha agreed that it might be  a good idea too, and she apologized to me for the things  she said. But, you know, I'm tired. I'm tired of living in her  world."
"What will you tell them?" said Diane.
Beverly Connor "I'll tell them about your quali?cations-about the  human rights work," she said. "And that you said again that  you aren't trying to get Ryan Dance out of prison. That's  what Marsha is really concerned about."
"I'll repeat, just for clarity, the ?nding that Stacy Dance  was murdered is not in any way related to Ryan Dance. 
Suspicious circumstances aren't proof of anything. Even if  you were to recant your story about seeing Ryan Dance  that day, it would have no effect on his status. There was too  much physical evidence implicating him."
"But sometimes evidence is thrown out. People get re- leased, even though everyone knows they are guilty," said 
Kathy.
"Very rarely," said Diane. "I haven't read the transcripts  of the trial and I'm not a lawyer, but from what I under- stand, the police had probable cause to search Ryan's car,  even without your testimony, so the incriminating evidence  that convicted him would have been found anyway. The  only way I can see him getting out of prison is if he really  is innocent and the police happen to ?nd indisputable evi- dence that identi?es the real guilty party. I don't see that  happening. If Marsha needs comforting on that point, have  her talk to the district attorney or a defense lawyer. I'll bet  you have one in the neighborhood."
Kathy gave Diane a faint smile and nodded. "That's what 
I'll tell them."
She gathered herself together and stood. Diane stood  with her.
"But you do seem to know about Ryan Dance's case,"  she said.
"A little. But not for any other purpose than to under- stand where Stacy Dance was coming from," said Diane. 
"Much like Marsha's obsession, Stacy had her own obses- sion involving Ellie Rose's death and her brother's convic- tion. Something Stacy did may have gotten her killed, but  it may be coincidental to her investigation. We just don't  know."
Kathy Nicholson nodded and Diane walked her through 
Andie's of?ce to the door and let her out. The woman had  been forthcoming, but Diane was suspicious of her as much  as she was of Diane. What if the three of them had killed 
Stacy? she thought. What if she and Wendy had been so  sucked into Marsha's world that they had formed a kind  of vigilante cabal? The thought made Diane shiver. Other  than the profound sadness, the three of them looked so  normal.
All in all, Diane had a good ending to a not altogether  pleasant workday. After Kathy Nicholson left, Andie came  back from the meeting with the curators and gave Diane  her report. Diane told Andie to write it up and she could  present it to the board.
Frank called and said he would be late coming home,  probably very late. Diane grabbed an apple and cold drink  from her refrigerator and called it dinner. She sat down on  the couch in the sitting room off her of?ce, put on a CD of  classical music, and cleared her mind of anything to do with  murder or death before she left the museum.
Diane drove out to Marcella's house before she went  home. When she arrived there, Marcella's yard was lit up. 
David had brought the lights they used for night work. 
Why, she wondered, were they working at night?
A police car was parked in the drive. A patrolman saun- tered up to her car.
"I hope there's not another problem," said Diane, get- ting out of her SUV.
"No, ma'am. David Goldstein asked a couple of us to  come down and stand guard. He didn't want a repeat of the  other night," he said.
"Good move. How is Patrolman Daughtry doing?" asked 
Diane. "His leg healing up?"
"Leg's doing good. Got in a bit of a dustup over his gun. 
I guess you heard," he said. "I don't think it will amount to  much. He's off work now with his leg up, watching football  reruns, so I guess he's doing great. You really think those  punks will come back here?"
"I don't know. It was pretty stupid of them to come the 
?rst time," said Diane.
"You're right about that. Can't account for stupid. We'll  keep a lookout. We got a little drive we can circle that takes  us around to the back where they came in the ?rst time. 
They try to park there again, we'll get them."
"Thank you, Of?cer," said Diane. She went around back  and spotted David standing at a plane table tripod look- ing at aerial maps. Hector and Scott were making a grid of 
Marcella's yard with string and stakes.
"Are you camping here?" said Diane.
David gave her a look somewhere between a grin and  a frown. "Looks like it. It was Scott's idea. He and Hector  are all over the experiment thing. We'll probably be able  to write a paper entitled 'The Best One Hundred Ways to 
Find a Buried Body in the Woods.' Seriously though, they  did come up with some good ideas."
"Why not start in the morning?" she said, looking out  over the lit yard at the busy Spearman twins.
David followed her gaze. "I see why Jin hired the two of  them. They work very ef?ciently together." He looked back  at Diane. "We started right after I spoke with you. It gets  dark so early these days, Scott thought it would be a good  idea to work after dark setting up grid lines so we can start  taking samples in the morning. So far it seems to be going  well." He grinned. "They haven't started singing 'Kum Ba 
Yah' yet. That's a plus."
"Wait until bedtime," said Diane. She looked around the  yard. "Where are your tents?"
"Marcella's daughter and her husband came by the  house. They told us to just bed down in our sleeping bags  in her mother's living room. They are very nice people," he  said.
"They are. Did she say how Marcella is?" asked Diane.
"Doing better, tires easily. She said she seems to have  clarity of thought. I think Paloma was more worried about  that than anything else," he said. "Neva is coming tomor- row to help. I think she said Mike will come too. That will  be good."
"That's right-Mike is due back from Africa," said 
Diane.
Beverly Connor Mike Seger was the museum's geology curator. He also  worked for a pharmaceutical ?rm, collecting extremophiles  from around the world, a job that allowed him to bring  unique specimens back to the museum's rock collection.
"Due back tonight," said David. "This grid part isn't  going to take as long as I was afraid it would. However,  running the samples will take some time. Do you really ex- pect to ?nd bodies?" he asked.
"I'm not sure. It's a gut feeling. The bone came from  somewhere," said Diane.
"A lot of strange stuff going on around here," said David. 
"Somebody was crazy for yard ornaments. We've found a  ton of them just lying around. Lots of gargoyles. Appar- ently they haven't kept away the evil spirits," he said.
"They aren't on guard," said Diane, smiling and looking  up at the roo?ine of the house.
"I suppose that explains it," said David. He gestured  toward the porch where Daughtry fell through the rotten  boards. "The policeman said Daughtry was suspended  for a couple of days. The chief of police wasn't upset that  he dropped his gun, but that he didn't report it. I per- sonally think they're being a little tough on him. But it  does look like Ray-Ray What's-his-name was shot with 
Daughtry's gun."
"Does Hanks know anything more about that?" asked 
Diane.
"If he does, he's not talking. I think information primar- ily goes one way with him. He's really trying hard to keep  control of the case," said David.
"I'm not taking it away from him," said Diane. David  grinned. "Don't you dare say, 'Not yet.' "
"Hanks did tell me he got a list of places that employ  day laborers, and he's questioning people Ray-Ray worked  with," said David. "I don't know if he's found out anything  of value. What I wonder is why they shot Ray-Ray. Maybe  he was just a day laborer in the burglary. Maybe he wasn't  needed when it was ?nished."
"Could be," said Diane.
"Or maybe they just shot him because his name was Ray- Ray and they got tired of saying it over and over again. 
Who would name their child Ray-Ray?" David threw up  his hands.
"Have you been able to separate any of the footprints  connected with Marcella's attack from the later ones that  were left when we were attacked?"
"I have several prints on top of one another. I think  most of the secondary prints were from the paramedics and 
Jonas Briggs. Izzy collected the shoe prints of the paramed- ics, so we have those, and I got Jonas to give me his. I've  got the computer working on separating the images. I don't  hold out a lot of hope. There's a lot of smearing. So far,  the boot prints I told you about earlier are the only ones  we've found that are clear enough to match with a speci?c  shoe-if we ?nd the shoe."
"Where is Neva on her search of the courthouse rec- ords?" said Diane.
"I don't know. She had to go out on a couple of murders  over in Jackson County. She's working on the courthouse  project between jobs," he said.
"What do you have here?" Diane gestured toward the  map.
"Aerial maps taken in the area over the years. I'm look- ing for some common points we can mark with stakes. 
We're going to do an overlay when we get the data on the  chemical makeup of the soil and see what ground features  correlate with what chemical characteristics. Too bad we  don't have any infrared photos."
"It looks like you have everything under control," she  said.
"It's coming along. Hope we don't have any more sur- prise intruders," he said. "I got backup just in case. A cou- ple of patrolmen wanted to earn overtime for the holidays  coming up. It's all working out for everyone," David said.
"I met one of them coming in. They seem to have a plan  for securing the property," said Diane.
"I walked them over the area when they got here," David  told her.
It seemed to Diane that everything was going well here. 
If she hurried, she could make it home before it got too late  to call Kingsley to ?ll him in on the latest about the three 
Beverly Connor women from Gainesville. It would be interesting to see if  he was as suspicious as she was about them.
"I'll be going," she said. "Call if you need me for any- thing."
"Will do." He grinned. "By the way, one of the things 
Paloma wanted was a copy of our research design for her  mother. Seems Marcella is very excited about it. I never  knew we had so many people around who are data wonks  like I am."
"Yes, it's a scary thought, isn't it?" she said. "Who would  have imagined-"
Diane was cut short by a loud cry coming out of the  darkness.
David and Diane jerked around and stared into the dark in  the direction the cry came from.
"David! Help me! It's Hector, help! Oh jeez, help!"
Scott was perhaps two hundred feet from them. The  lighting hadn't quite illuminated that far and all that was  visible of him was a dim re?ection of light from his lab suit  and his face. He was kneeling on the ground in heavy un- dergrowth.
Diane hadn't heard a gunshot. That's what she'd feared. 
She and David ran toward Scott, jumping and skipping over  piles of rocks and broken concrete, trying not to get tangled  in the string, or trip over the stakes. Out of the corner of her  eye Diane saw the bobbing ?ashlight of one of the police- men running through the woods in their direction.
"He's hurt," said Scott as they drew near.
"How?" asked Diane, breathing hard from the obstacle  course she had just run.
"Hector was standing here. There was a noise, and he  suddenly threw up his hands and just disappeared," he  said.
"Scott, what do you mean?" asked David.
"Hector, can you hear me?" yelled Scott.
Diane heard a groan. She looked down at her feet and  saw that she was standing on the edge of a wide, dark cylin- drical hole in the ground, maybe six feet in diameter. Hec- tor was somewhere below in deep shadow.
She knelt beside Scott, feeling in her pockets for a ?ash- light.
"Anyone have a light?" she asked.
Beverly Connor "No," said David. "Damn. I don't. One of the policemen  is coming. He has one."
"Oh jeez, Hector, say something," said Scott.
Diane put a hand on Scott's arm. "Stay calm. We'll get  him out."
"What is this? Some kind of animal trap?" said Scott. 
"Who would do this?"
"It's an abandoned well," said Diane.
The patrolman had arrived and shined his light down  into the opening.
"Well, hell," he said.
The bad news was Hector was lying at the bottom of  the well. One leg was bent under him. Rotten boards and  dirt half covered him. The good news was he was not far  down-about ten, maybe twelve feet. Not far at all. But 
Diane worried about the walls of the well.
She took the ?ashlight from the policeman and handed  him her keys.
"Go to my SUV. In the back is a bag with a rope in it and  a backpack. Bring them. Hurry. And call the paramedics."
He nodded and headed off immediately through the  dark in the direction of the driveway. Diane shined the  light down the hole at Hector.
"Hector, can you hear me?" she said.
He moved. "Yeah. What the shit is this?" he said. His  voice had a pissed-off, whiney tone, but it sounded strong.
"You fell down an old well," said Diane. "We're going to  get you out. I need to know how you are. Are you hurt?"
He moved and yelped. "I think my leg is broken," he  said.
"Just one?" Diane asked.
"Isn't that enough?" he yelled back.
Diane and David brie?y smiled at each other.
"Are you hurt anywhere else?" she asked.
"It's kind of hard to tell. I'll try to stand," he said.
"Not yet. Stay still," she said, a little too sharply.
"Why? What else is down here-snakes?"
"Hector's afraid of snakes," whispered Scott.
"I heard that," yelled Hector.
"It's a little too late for snakes. It's too cold for them,"  said David. "I think," he added, under his breath.
"Okay," Hector said. Then after a moment he asked, 
"Where do they hibernate?"
"Rock outcrops," said David. "In the cracks. Not here."
Diane suspected David was spinning Hector a yarn. She  didn't think he knew anything about snakes.
As David spoke to Hector, Diane examined the well  with the ?ashlight. The debris piled around and on top of 
Hector indicated the well had been capped with a wooden  platform that was covered in dirt and leaves with grass  and briars growing over it. The rotten wood had collapsed  under Hector's weight when he inadvertently stepped on  top of it, not knowing it was there.
The sides of the well were lined with varied sizes of chis- eled stone blocks held in place with very old mortar. The  mortar had cracks and looked weathered. Sections had  already crumbled and other blocks looked ready to fall. 
There was no way to know what kind of stress might make  the walls collapse. But they had to do something.
Besides Diane, there were David, Scott, and two police- men. Enough to pull Hector out. More than enough. She  guessed it would take only three of them for a vertical  pull-maybe four, depending on Hector's weight.
"How much does Hector weigh?" Diane asked Scott.
"He won't say," said Scott, "but I weigh a hundred and  sixty-four."
She did the math again. Three ought to do it. They only  had to pull him up close enough to grab him once his arms  and shoulders were within reach.
"Hector, you are not that far down," said Diane. "So,  don't worry."
"Okay. I won't worry."
Hector groaned. Diane could see him struggling to  move.
"What are you doing?" she asked, with some alarm.
"I'm trying to get my leg out from under me," he said. "I  need to see how bad it is. And to do that, I need to move  some of these damn rotten boards and crap on top of me."
"Be careful," said Diane.
"I will, but you need to tell me what you are worried  about if it isn't snakes," he said. "So I can be careful with  some effectiveness."
Beverly Connor Diane hadn't wanted to panic him, but she didn't want  him bumping against the precarious wall and causing the  heavy stones and earth to collapse on top of him. If that  happened, he would suffer truly serious injury and could  die from the trauma or suffocation before they could get  him out.
"I don't know how stable the wall is," she said. "It's very  old."
"Oh. Oh jeez."
Diane could hear him breathing harder.
"You need to ?ght the panic," she said. "Don't worry. 
I've pulled people out of holes before. Piece of cake. We  just need to be careful."
"Okay. No worry. Eat cake. Got it," he said.
"Are you all right?" asked Diane.
"He's okay. He thinks he's funny," said Scott. "I've tried  to tell him he's not."
They heard another yelp.
"It's okay," he yelled. "I have my leg uncovered now. I  need to see what kind of-" Hector screamed. "My leg, my  leg! I can see the bone. Oh God. Oh God."
Compound fracture , thought Diane. 
Damn.That means  he's bleeding .
She refocused the light, trying to avoid his eyes. Hector  was sitting with his back to the wall with both legs now  straight out in front of him. A piece of wood fell from above  onto his legs and he yelped again.
"Move the wood out of the way," said Diane, gently. "Let  me see your leg."
"You need to get him out of there," said Scott.
"I need to see how badly he's hurt," said Diane. "It will  affect how we get him out."
"Oh God, my leg bone came out!" he screamed.
David and Diane looked at each other, a mixture of  alarm and bewilderment.
"I've never heard-," began David.
"Wait a minute. False alarm," yelled Hector.
"Hector, this isn't funny," yelled Scott. "You are scar- ing us."
"No. I'm not being funny. I've got good news. I've found  the buried bodies we're looking for."
"What?" said Scott. "There's a body down there with you?"
"Not exactly-well, I guess, yes, exactly. But it's all  bones," Hector said.
Diane heard Hector rustling around at the bottom of the  well.
"Hector," said Diane, "don't move around so much."
Using her ?ashlight she examined the walls of the well  and the area around the surface again. There were several  trees nearby and one fairly close to the well, not a large  tree, its trunk perhaps as big around as her leg. No large  roots had worked their way through the cracks between  the stones forming the wall, but smaller roots had, and the  chances were good that tree root systems were pressing the  wall in the direction of collapse. Where was the policeman  with her rope?
Diane heard the rustling of someone walking through  the leaves and brush and saw the play of a light. She  looked up, expecting the policeman. It was Neva, and she  had Mike Seger with her. Mike had Diane's rope bag and  backpack.
Mike, the museum's geologist, was one of the best caving  partners Diane had ever had. She was glad to see him there  with Neva, another caving partner. Neva wasn't as expe- rienced as Mike, but she was a reliable and skilled caver. 
Mike put the bag and backpack down on the ground.
His short brown hair was longer than when she last saw  him. His lean features had developed a weathered look  since he'd taken on his job visiting the world's most ex- treme environments. He usually had a serious look on his 
Beverly Connor face. Here in the dim light his face looked to be carved out  of stone.
"Hi, Doc. Good to see you." Mike's stern expression  broke into a smile.
Diane grinned back. "Just the right people at the right  time. We need to get Hector out of this well," she said. "I  take it you saw the policeman?" She gestured at her caving  gear.
Neva nodded. "Two of them. They stayed to direct the  paramedics," said Neva.
She and Mike squatted down and looked into the well.
"What do we have here?" said Mike. "Hector, buddy,  what the hell you doing down there?"
"Falling down a well seemed like a good idea at the  time," Hector said.
Mike felt the ground around the top of the well. "Pretty 
?rm," he commented. "But some collapse at the edge."
Diane explained the situation and the dangers and what  she wanted to do.
"Let's get to it, then," said Mike.
David and Scott moved one of the battery-powered lights closer so they could see what they were doing. Diane  and Mike opened the rope bag, basically a large tarp with  grommets. It held Diane's caving rope. Diane took good  care of her rope because it was literally a lifeline. She kept  it clean and always took out any knots she had tied while  caving. It was good rope and a lot of it.
"Do you think we can use that tree over there, the one  closest to the well?" she asked Mike.
"Yeh, it looks good," said Mike. "We only have a what,  ten-foot drop? It'll be over in a few seconds."
Neva took off her suede and faux fur jacket and hung it  over a bush. She began rolling up her designer jeans.
"You warm enough?" asked Diane, looking at the thin  sleeves of Neva's silk blouse.
"I'll be ?ne. You know, I'm like you. I don't know why I  bother to dress up," she said. "Our lives are always on call  for some death-defying adventure or another."
"At least you don't have on sequins," said Diane.
Diane began tying the handholds and a foothold in the  rescue rope. Neva took the tarp and laid it over the edge 
 of the well to reduce the crumbling of the edge when they  pulled Hector out. Mike wrapped and tied off one end of a  length of rope to the nearby tree at a height a couple of feet  off the ground. The other end he tied into a half-hitch knot  at a distance that allowed the rope to reach to the center  of the well opening when the rope was fully extended from  the tree. He took a rescue pulley from Diane's backpack,  laid the long rescue rope in the pulley, and attached the  pulley to the end of the shorter rope by means of a metal  alloy snaplink. This arrangement would suspend the pulley  and rescue rope midair over the center of the well as they  lifted Hector out.
Mike, David, and Scott were going to do the pulling. Mike  gave them instructions as they took up their places six feet  or so back from the well on the side opposite the tree. The  three of them gripped the rope ?rmly. Diane dropped the  other end of the rope down the well to Hector.
"Hector, I want you to listen to me," she said.
"I'm listening."
"Put your good foot in the loop nearest the end of the  rope. Use the other loops as handholds. Don't try to help us  by putting your hands on the wall; it's much too unstable. 
Just hold on to the rope. Your leg is probably going to hurt,  but you have to ignore the pain," said Diane.
"How do I do that?" asked Hector.
"You just do it," she said. "Scream if you have to, but  don't thrash about, just hold on to the rope. Let us know  when you are ready."
"You know," he said, "I've been thinking about the phys- ics of hauling a weight up, and-"
"Hector, we have the math worked out. Just concentrate  on hanging on to the rope," Diane said. "Remember what I  do in my leisure time."
"Fishing?" he said.
Diane smiled. She watched him as he struggled to stand  and she wondered whether she needed to go down into the  well to help.
"You doing all right?" she asked.
"It's not so bad. I can do it," he said.
She winced as he held on to the side of the well to steady  himself.
Beverly Connor Hector got his foot in the loop and held on. He started  to say something when a stone dislodged from near the top  edge and fell with a crash as it hit the rotten wood.
"You all right?" she said. "Were you hurt?"
"No," he said in a voice that could be called squeaky at  this point. He de?nitely sounded scared. "But, I'm ready to  get out of here-now. Just don't drop me, okay?"
"You're going to be ?ne. You're in good hands. Here  we go."
Diane signaled for them to pull. They leaned into the  rope as if they were in a life-and-death tug-of-war, and 
Hector rose toward the surface, screaming at the top of his  lungs. When his shoulders cleared the top, Diane and Neva  pulled him to the edge and dragged him over the tarp and  onto solid ground.
Scott ran over to him. "Hector, are you all right? Are  you in pain?"
Hector lay on the ground breathing hard.
"I'm ?ne. Not much pain, really. It's just that, when Dr. 
Fallon suggested it, screaming seemed like such a good  idea."
Diane opened the blade of her pocketknife and ripped 
Hector's jeans while David held the ?ashlight. His skin was  bruised and swollen, but it wasn't an open fracture. What  was most noticeable, however, was the broken tibia he held  next to his chest.
"You brought a bone up with you?" said Scott.
"Well, hell, yeah. I wasn't going to have all that be a  wasted trip. What is it, Dr. Fallon? Tell me it's not a deer or  a dog," said Hector.
"It's not. It's human," said Diane. "It's relatively small,  but judging from the epiphyseal union, I'd guess it was  from a teenager."
"Dang," said Scott. "Wow." And then the realization: "A  small teenager. Dead. In the well."
They heard the siren come up the driveway and stop in  front of the house. David had cleared a path to the well by  taking down some of his string and stakes. The two police- men led the paramedics around the back of the house to  the abandoned well. The local ?remen arrived with them. 
The paramedics set the stretcher down and began attend- ing to Hector.
"We were thinking," said one of the paramedics as he  began taking vitals, "that maybe we would just drop by  here every morning and evening. Save a lot of time."
They were the paramedics who had taken Marcella to  the hospital, as well as Of?cers Hanks and Daughtry, and  the late Ray-Ray Dildy-and now Hector. They probably  decided the house was cursed.
"His vitals are good," he said.
"My granny always said this old witch house is haunted,"  the young paramedic said.
"You know this house, then?" asked Diane.
"A little. Granny says when she was a young girl, some  crazy rich woman, an artist I think she said, lived here. She  had all these demon creatures all over the roof," he said, as  he immobilized Hector's leg.
"Gargoyles," said Diane.
"Is that what they were?"
"Supposed to ward off evil," said Diane.
"I'll have to tell Granny. From our workload over here  the last few days, they needed to be working overtime. Okay,  we're ready to go. Don't you worry, fella. You're going to be 
?ne. But these old wells are a bitch, aren't they?"
Hector groaned.
"Do you know her name?" asked Diane.
"The crazy lady? No, but I imagine Granny does. I'll ask  her," he said.
Diane reached in her pocket and handed him one of her  cards.
After the paramedics took Hector and Scott to the hos- pital, one of the ?remen, a tall, sturdy guy who looked as  if he could have just reached down and hauled Hector up  with one hand, began lecturing Diane about doing the res- cue herself.
"One of you could have ended up in the well with him,"  he said. "Or made the whole thing fall in."
"I take your point," said Diane. "But Mike Seger and I  are certi?ed in cave rescue and we've had a lot of experi- ence. We were aware of the dangers in this situation, and 
Beverly Connor we took steps to make it as safe as we could. Our biggest  concern was to get Hector out before the walls caved in on  him. After he fell through the top, the sides were unstable  and began to fall in before we started pulling him up."
The ?reman paused a moment and looked into the well  before he spoke. "Okay, then," he said. "I'm glad you've  some experience and that everything worked out. Some  people attempt a rescue and have no idea of the things that  can go wrong."
"Thank you for coming," said Diane. "All of us appreci- ate it."
The ?reman looked at all the string he had to step on and  over to get there. "What you people doing here?" he said.
"This is a crime scene," said Diane. "We're searching for  buried human remains."
"Crime scene? Don't you guys use yellow tape?" he  asked.
"Sometimes. This is... was... a search grid," she said,  indicating the layout of strings and stakes.
He squinted at Diane. "You're the crime lab lady," he  said.
"Yes." But Diane wasn't sure about the lady part.
The ?reman left and Diane went to the front porch to  sit down and rest. David, Neva, and Mike went with her. 
David turned on the porch light and they pulled up chairs. 
Neva sat on the glider with Mike, who put his arms around  her to warm her.
"What are you guys doing here?" Diane asked the two of  them. "Shouldn't you be out to dinner or something?"
"Andie said you and David were here," said Neva. "I  need to tell you some odd stuff about the crime scene I  was just on."
"And the other thing," said Mike.
"Yes. I'm not sure, but I think I'm being followed," Neva  said.
"Followed?" said Diane. "Neva, someone is following you?" 
Diane gripped the arms of her chair and leaned forward.
"I think so," said Neva. "I may be wrong." Neva frowned  in a way that put a crease between her eyes at the bridge  of her nose, a small expression of insecurity that she made  when she was undecided or afraid to commit to her own  analysis.
"But you may be right," said Mike, urging her to talk.
"I noticed it yesterday. I feel really silly. It's just that 
I kept noticing the same vehicle, a black SUV with  tinted windows. I know, that sounds so clichéd. I've tried  to get behind it and check out the license plate, but I  haven't been able to. It looks so easy in the movies." 
Neva brushed a strand of brown hair out of her eyes and  smiled weakly.
"When were you ?rst aware of it?" asked Diane.
"I think it was after I visited the historical society yester- day morning. That's down the street from the courthouse. 
After I looked up some records in the courthouse, I walked  down to talk to them," said Neva. "Nice place. It's run by  volunteers. I'd never been in it in all the years I've lived in 
Rosewood."
The two policemen David had enlisted for security had  been standing by their car, smoking cigarettes. They threw  the butts down and approached the porch.
"Hi," one said. "We were just wondering if you still need  us tonight-since things kind of went in another direction." 
He laughed nervously.
"Now that we've found human bones in the well," said 
Beverly Connor Diane, "we need someone to keep the area secure. Can you  stay?"
The men looked relieved. Diane guessed they were  counting on the extra income.
"Oh yeah, that's ?ne," said the other policeman. "We're  just going to check the back road." He moved his hand in  a circle, indicating the route. "The whole trip won't take 
?ve minutes. We want to make sure nobody's parked back  there like before." They went back to the patrol car and  drove off down the driveway.
Diane looked at Neva. "Did you discover anything at the  historical society?"
"Not really, but this is where it gets... well, it's one of  those coincidences that makes David nervous," said Neva.
David tended to be paranoid and was very proud of  it. He said it kept him prepared. His paranoia had been  proven justi?ed on too many occasions, which made him a  tri?e arrogant, but did keep them all primed for any even- tuality.
"The crime scene I worked after lunch today-Mary Phyllis Lassiter. She was an older woman, about seventy,  who was strangled in her home sometime last night. The  creepy coincidence is... she was a volunteer at the histori- cal society and she was there yesterday when I was there,  though I didn't speak to her directly."
"How do you speak with someone indirectly?" asked 
David.
Neva made a face at him. "The woman I spoke with asked 
Ms. Lassiter whether she knew of an artist who might have  lived years ago in Pigeon Ridge. That's this community. Ap- parently, Ms. Lassiter lived here as a girl," said Neva, "be- fore she moved to Hall County."
"Did she know the artist?" asked Diane.
"She said no. She was knitting and didn't even look up. 
Which was kind of strange, because until then, she watched  and talked like a magpie to everyone who came in," said 
Neva.
"You were followed and she was murdered?" said 
Diane.
"Yes," said Neva.
"You're right," said David. "That's the kind of coinci- dence that makes my scalp tingle."
"You didn't work the crime scene alone, did you?" said 
Diane, frowning.
"No. I know your rules. Izzy was working it with me. One  thing caving taught me is to follow protocol," she said.
"Yes!" shouted Mike. He pulled Neva to him and kissed  the side of her head.
Diane laughed. "It does that."
Diane's phone rang as she was about to ask Neva an- other question. She took the phone from her pocket and  looked at the display. It was Izzy.
"Hello, Izzy. What's up?" she said.
"A little interesting turn of events," he said.
"Are you in the crime lab?" asked Diane.
"Yeh, I'm working on the evidence Neva and I collected  today. The wife has one of her Mothers Against Drugs  meetings. They meet here in the museum and I like to stay  late and work when she's here."
"What's the interesting turn of events?" asked Diane. 
She didn't particularly like the word  interesting  used in that  context. It usually meant something unpleasant.
"The shoe print we collected from the Lassiter murder  today was made by the same hiking boot from the Payden  attack. Think we got some punks targeting little old la- dies?" he said.
"That is a surprise," Diane said. "Have you processed  any of the other evidence?"
"Yes, but the print is the only really valuable thing I've  found. It was a fairly clean crime scene. Like someone  slipped in and out without touching much."
"I need to call Hanks," said Diane. "I'm glad you called  me with this. Oh, before you hang up, Neva might be being  followed by someone in a black SUV with tinted windows." 
She stopped and looked over to Neva. "Did you get the  make?"
"Cadillac Escalade," said Neva.
Diane told Izzy the make. "Have you noticed anyone fol- lowing you?" she asked.
"No, but I'll be on the lookout. Escalade. That's kind of 
Beverly Connor expensive, isn't it?" he said. "I'll watch for a tail. Did she get  the license number?"
"No," said Diane.
"Like I said, I'll keep a lookout."
After she hung up with Izzy, Diane told the others about  the boot print.
"You're kidding," said Neva. "The same person as  here?"
"What do you think?" said David.
"Izzy was wondering if it might be someone targeting el- derly ladies, but I don't think he knows about the historical  society connection. Marcella went to the historical society  too, when she was looking into who owned the house. She  was asking about the artist who lived here, as well. That  seems to be a key-"
Diane's phone rang again. This time it was from an un- known wireless caller. She answered.
"Yes?"
"Is this Dr. Fallon? This is Delbert Grif?n, the paramedic  who keeps showing up." He gave a little laugh. "I asked my  granny about that woman's name, and she doesn't remem- ber. She said she thought it was something like a bird, but  that didn't sound right to her either. She said it's been more  than sixty years. She and her friends just called her the 'rich  witch.' Knowing my granny, she might have had another  word in there too, that rhymed. Granny was somewhat of a  rascal when she was young."
"Did she say how old the woman was?" asked Diane.
"I asked her if the 'witch' was real old. She said at the  time she thought she was, but she was a teenager, and ev- eryone over thirty looked old. Now that she looks back, she  thinks she wasn't all that old. Granny's in her seventies, so 
I don't know what 'not all that old' means to her. I suppose  anybody younger than she is."
"You and your grandmother have been very helpful,"  said Diane. "Thank you for calling. If the name comes to  her, please let me know."
"I will. You know, when somebody is asked to come up  with those old memories, they don't come to the surface  right away. It might be that she'll wake up in the morning  and it'll come to her," he said.
"I hope so. Is Hector doing okay?" asked Diane.
"He's in pretty good shape, really. He and his brother are  a hoot," he said.
Diane agreed, thanked him again, and hung up.
"Marcella told us the signature on the paintings was a  drawing of a bird," said Diane, after she told the others  what the call was about. "It looks like the artist we are look- ing for had somewhat of a reputation at one time." Diane  stopped and stared at Neva.
"What?" asked Neva.
"What you said about the Lassiter woman talking like a  magpie. A magpie is a bird."
The three of them looked at Diane with a great deal of  skepticism.
"That's a stretch," said David. "It doesn't even make  sense."
"No. The word just reminded me of something. Initials. 
The ?rst three letters of magpie are  m-a-g . What if she used  the bird drawing as a kind of symbolic representation of  her initials?"
"Who?" said David. "What are you talking about?"
"The writer of the note on the bottom of the desk  drawer," said Neva. "MAG. Remember? So, she was the  artist?"
"Maybe," said Diane. "It's just a thought."
"A good one," said Neva.
David still looked skeptical, but relented that it was a  possibility.
"I need to give Hanks a call. He needs to know about the  connection between the crimes so he can coordinate with 
Hall County."
Diane started to key in his number when headlights  came up the drive.
"That must be the policemen coming back from their  rounds," she said.
"No," said David, standing up. "Everybody in the house! 
Now!"
They didn't linger. All four of them jumped to their feet and  headed for the door. David was the closest and reached the  door ?rst. He opened it and pulled everyone in, turned out  the lights, and locked the door.
"Everybody stay away from the front windows," he said  in an urgent half whisper.
"Okay," Diane whispered back from the darkness of the  dining room. "Why are we here?"
"Those headlights aren't from the police car," said David. 
"They're set too high."
He stood near the doorway trying to see out the window. 
The lights went dark and they heard a door slam. Diane's  heart beat faster. Neva, next to Diane, had her hand under  her coat, ready to pull out her off-duty weapon. Diane could  see Mike looking around the room, probably searching for  a possible weapon. Knowing him, he probably didn't really  believe anything was wrong, but he wouldn't be taking any  chances.
"You mean like an SUV," said Neva.
"Yes," said David, "just like an SUV."
Diane had to admire David for noticing. She hadn't. 
Well, hell . She was about to assess what weapons they could  lay their hands on, when a loud banging on the front door  interrupted her thoughts. All of them stood stiff, waiting.
"What the hell are you guys doing in there?"
Detective Hanks.
David turned on the light and found all of them staring  at him. He winced and rubbed his hand over his balding  head.
"Well, I'm not right all the time." He shrugged. "I never  said I was. Sometimes paranoia is just that. Besides, had it  been the bad guys, we would be safe."
Mike visibly relaxed his tense body. Neva shook her head  and opened the door. Detective Hanks was standing on the  porch looking puzzled. He wasn't wearing his neck brace,  but his arm was still immobilized in a sling and he favored  his wounded leg.
"What was that all about?" he said. "I drive up and all  of you make a mad dash for the house and turn off the  lights?"
Diane smiled at him. "You have a new haircut," she said,  and invited him into the house.
He stroked his short hair. "When your arm's in a sling  and you're limping from being shot in the leg, you can't af- ford to have your hair standing up on end or blowing in the  wind like a wild man," he said. "Now, what the heck...?
You guys looked like you were running for your lives. Who  were you expecting?" He had the twinkle of amusement  in his eyes.
Diane explained about the possibility of Neva being fol- lowed.
"My SUV's not black," he said.
"It's pitch-dark out. You can't make out colors in the  dark," said Diane. "And your headlights were blinding."
"But that's still quite an overreaction," he said.
"Not considering we were shot at and a man was killed  last time we were here," said Diane. "You aren't going to let  us live this down, are you?"
"Not on your life. You should have seen you guys." He  grinned. "And who are you? Just so I can get the story  right," he asked Mike.
Diane introduced Hanks to her geology curator. They  shook hands and Mike grinned at him. Mike often said it  was entertaining to be with Diane and her team. He looked  very entertained at the moment.
"And what are you doing out here?" asked Diane.
"I was at the hospital with some pictures for Marcella to  look at. I hoped she might recognize some of Dildy's day  laborer friends as people who might have worked on her  house. She didn't. As I was leaving I saw the paramedics 
Beverly Connor who brought me to the hospital the other day. They told me  they had another run here tonight. Said something about  some bones being found? Is that right?" he asked.
"We have several things to tell you," said Diane, "so  you'd better sit down."
"Does Neva being followed have anything to do with  this?" he asked.
From the set of his jaw, Diane could see he had gone  from being amused by them to being suspicious again that 
Diane was leaving him out of the loop. He was probably  wondering why she hadn't called him.
"We believe it might," said Diane. "The case has taken  an unusual turn. And there could be someone after her."
They started to sit down when a pair of headlights sud- denly shined in the window, blinding them for a moment.
"Well, shit," said Hanks. He unholstered his gun and  went to the door and waited.
Diane and the others stood back with their arms folded. 
They heard two car doors slam. In a minute or so, they  heard footfalls on the porch and a knock on the door.
"Everything okay in there?"
Hanks opened the door to the two policemen. Diane  rose to greet them.
"We're ?ne," she said.
"Hi, Detective Hanks. Saw your vehicle. Guess you heard  about all the excitement," said one of the policemen.
Hanks nodded.
The policeman looked at Diane. "All clear around the  road. Nothing going on. We'll be out here making our  rounds around the property," he said.
Diane could see the two of them were trying very hard to  be conscientious. Probably sitting in their car and making  an occasional circuit would be ?ne.
"Thanks," she said. "We'll be here for a little while."
He touched his hand to his hat and the two of them left.
Diane closed the door and grinned at Hanks. "It could  happen to anyone. Want to renegotiate the thing about not  letting us live that little episode down?"
Hanks smiled back. "I'm sure I wasn't as energetic as all  of you were in jumping to conclusions."
"Perhaps not, but we sometimes exaggerate." She smiled  sweetly at him.
He laughed. "That sounds like blackmail."
Thankfully, Hanks did seem to have a sense of humor  and it seemed to have mellowed him again.
"I was just about to call you to tell you about the latest  developments, when you showed up," Diane said. "Have a  seat and I'll go through all of it with you."
"Should we be using this woman's house?" he asked.
"Marcella's daughter gave my team permission to camp  out in her living room while we carry out our experiments,"  said Diane.
"Experiments?" he asked, laughing. "You're conducting  experiments? That sounds ominous."
He chose a large leather chair to sit in. He stretched out  his bad leg and shifted until he found a comfortable posi- tion. Diane was sure it was a relief not to have to wear the  neck brace, but trying to go through a daily routine while  your arm was in a sling and your leg hurt had to be dif- ?cult.
Neva sat leaning against Mike on one end of the sofa. 
David sat cross-legged in his sock feet on the other end. 
Diane chose the other stuffed chair, settled in comfortably,  and started telling about the mask Marcella had been piec- ing together.
"When I saw her in the hospital, she told me to look at  the inside of the pieces. I did and saw they had been molded  over a human face."
"You mean like a death mask?" he said.
"Could have been, but we didn't know that. It could have  been a life mask. But Marcella also told me to look at the  sherds," Diane said.
"You keep using that word,  sherds . You talking about  broken pieces of pottery?" he asked.
"Yes, exactly," said Diane.
"Okay," he said. "Just making sure I understand. Go  ahead."
Diane started to speak when he interrupted again. 
"Should he be here?" Hanks pointed to Mike. "No offense,  buddy, but you're a civilian."
Beverly Connor "Mike does consulting with the crime lab because of  his knowledge of rocks and soils," said Diane. "He helped  rescue Hector from the well. And the experiment we are  working on involves soil samples."
Mike didn't even blink. Diane didn't tell Hanks that she  hadn't actually talked to Mike about the experiment. But  she didn't want to send Mike to wait outside. And it was  true, after all, he did know about soils.
"Okay, go on," said Hanks.
"Marcella told me to look at sherds she had assembled  from the back part of the mask. I did, and found what looks  like a cast of a sharp-force-trauma head wound," she said.
"Now that's interesting," said Hanks. "So, the artist, or  whoever, put the clay on over a head wound?"
"It looks that way. Some of the etching suggests the head  was also shaved before making the mask," said Diane.
"This is getting weird," he said.
"We haven't even gotten to weird yet," said Diane. 
"Marcella, Dr. Payden, is an expert in pottery. She's creat- ing a reference collection of pottery sherds and thin sec- tions for the museum. A thin section is a very thin slice  of, in this case, a pottery sherd, mounted on a microscope  slide to be examined under polarized light so that its vari- ous constituents can be identi?ed. Before she came here,  her work involved prehistoric pottery from Texas that was  tempered with animal bones. She was surprised to ?nd that  the pottery she found buried here in her yard also had been  tempered with bone."
"I don't get it. Are we talking about this being an  archaeology-what do they call it-site, an archaeology  site? A dig? Why are you telling me this?" he asked with- out rancor, but with a lot of curiosity.
"No. There is no bone-tempered pottery in the prehis- tory of Georgia," said Diane.
She explained about what tempering is, how it gives a  distinctive look and characteristics to pottery, and that in 
Georgia, common prehistoric tempers were ?ber, shells,  and grit.
"But this is not prehistoric. We are talking about modern  pottery here. Are you with me?" she said.
"Not yet, but keep going," said Hanks. "This is like 
 watching the Discovery Channel. And I'm anxious to hear  how your guy Hector got in the well. This is where all this  is leading, right?"
Diane smiled. The others had been silent throughout her  narration. It was the ?rst time they had heard all of it. Mike  hadn't heard any of it.
"Marcella used a lab in Arizona to analyze her Texas  pottery sherds to identify the species of animal bone used  for the tempering. It's a thing archaeologists like to know," 
Diane said. "She sent samples of the pottery she found in  her yard here to the lab to ?nd out what species of animal  was used in it. The lab called me at the museum when they  couldn't get in touch with Marcella. She was in the hospital. 
They were quite disturbed to discover that the species was  human. I believe they faxed you a copy of their report."
"Well, yeah, but I couldn't make heads or tails of the  damn thing." Hanks leaned forward, openmouthed. "Are  you telling me those pots she found were made out of  human bone? Now, that is spooky."
Out of the corner of her eye, Diane could see the surprise  on Mike's face. Neva smiled at him and patted his thigh.
"The clay used to make them had human bone mixed  with it for temper. Yes," said Diane.
Hanks put his hands on his face and rubbed his eyes. 
"You people know how to do weird. I'll give you that," he  said.
"After discovering those two things-the sharp-force trauma and the human-bone tempering-it was incumbent  on us to search for human remains on the property. I de- cided we would conduct a study David had been wanting to  do. It involves developing quicker methods for ?nding bur- ied human remains. Starting in the backyard, he and two  technicians from the DNA lab were using stakes and string  to grid the property into squares. They would then take soil  samples at de?ned increments and analyze them for their  chemical constituents. Decomposing remains leave chemi- cal signatures. We don't know the range of the affected area  for soil conditions in this region. The study was designed to  answer some of the questions we don't yet have answers for,  and to locate any remains that are here." Diane stopped to  let it all soak in.
Beverly Connor "Couldn't you use cadaver dogs?" he asked.
"We suspect the remains could be decades old. The con- text in which Marcella found the broken pottery suggested  the s," said Diane.
"Okay, so I take it your... experiment worked," he said.
"In a rather serendipitous way," said Diane. "While they  were putting up stakes and strings for the grid, Hector fell  into an abandoned well. It had been capped with wood that  was covered in dirt and vegetation and had rotted over the  years. The bone he discovered was at the bottom of the  well. We suspect there are more," said Diane.
"Couldn't the bone be from a deer or something?" said 
Hanks. "People do throw dead animals down dry wells to  get rid of the carcasses."
Diane was surprised at how often she was asked that  question. Even Frank had made a similar query at one time. 
She wondered whether they really thought it was hard to  tell the difference between animal and human or if they  thought the skull was required in order to make a positive  species ID.
"No," she said simply.
"Seriously, should we get the medical examiner to take  a look?" he said.
"You can if you want," said Diane. "But it's a right human  tibia of someone in their teens. Possibly female, but that's  not certain. What is certain is that it is human."
"I take it you've done this before," he said.
Diane found it hard to believe that he didn't know. But  he was relatively new to Rosewood and apparently knew  her only as the director of the crime lab and the museum.
"I'm a forensic anthropologist," said Diane.
He winced and saw that David, Neva, and Mike were  grinning at him. "Okay, I wasn't aware. Do you know how  long it was in the well?" he asked.
"Probably more than ?fty years. There is a particular  smell the marrow leaves that lasts for decades in buried  bone. That was gone. The bone had taken on the color of  the surrounding soil, indicating it had been buried for most  of its tenure in the well," she said.
"Where is it now?" he asked.
"In my car, wrapped in newsprint. We'll have to get 
 someone out here to stabilize the sides of the well so we  can get the remaining bones out."
"So, now you don't have to complete your study," he  said.
"Oh yes," said Diane. "Just because we found bones in  the well doesn't mean the yard isn't full of buried bodies."
"Oh, I see," said Hanks. "So we could have lots more bod- ies?" He stared at Diane. "Are you serious? This could be  a... some maniac's burial ground?" He shifted in his chair,  winced suddenly, and rubbed his shoulder. "Damn it," he  said. "Sorry."
David got up and went to a cooler he had tucked in a  corner of the room and brought everyone a cold drink. 
Diane took a long sip. It was a cool evening, but the ice- cold drink still tasted good.
"Any idea who this serial killer is? We are talking about  a serial killer, aren't we?" he said. "And as wildly interest- ing as this is, it looks like it all happened a long time ago. 
Does it have anything to do with the here and now?" He  took a drink and held the cool bottle on his collarbone.
"Some kind of killer," said Diane. "At best, someone  who illegally disposed of a body. I don't know that we  have a whole yard full of bodies. We may have only the  one in the well. As for a player in this, we have a few ideas. 
We think the ceramic artist might be the same one who  wrote the strange message on the bottom of the desk  drawer, and the one who did the paintings that were sto- len." Diane pointed to the wall over the sofa. David, Neva,  and Mike turned to look at the blank wall as if a shadowy  image might remain.
"Why the pictures?" he asked. "They were painted by  this Mad Potter?" Hanks asked.
"I don't know for sure," said Diane. "We do know the  pictures were signed by the artist with a drawing of a bird. 
The paramedic's grandmother-"
"Wait, you lost me. The paramedic's grandmother? What  paramedic? The ones who came here?" said Hanks.
Diane explained that the paramedic who tended to Hec- tor was familiar with the place, and his grandmother had  knowledge of the house from when she was a teenager.
"Humph, small world," Hanks said, and took another  drink.
Diane found that explaining the whole train of thought  out loud, paired with what evidence they had and didn't  have, was helpful to her understanding. She hoped Hanks  found it illuminating, but he seemed more entertained than  anything else.
Diane mentioned her thought that the initials MAG in  the signature on the desk drawer might be symbolized by  the picture of a bird. Hanks wasn't impressed with that. She  didn't blame him. It sounded rather silly when she repeated  it out loud to a skeptical ear.
"I get that, because the thieves stole the old paintings, it  looks like the attack on Dr. Payden and the theft could have  something to do with the old bones-and where the bones  came from. But, frankly, that bird thing is a stretch," he said. 
"The whole past-present thing is a stretch." He brought the  hand holding his drink up to his face and rubbed his eye  with a free ?nger.
"There's also Marcella's pottery that was stolen," said 
Diane. "We speculated the thieves thought they were tak- ing valuable Indian artifacts. But consider that Marcella's  pottery and the pieces found here on the property were  all ?red on a bon?re kiln, which gave all of them the same  distinctive appearance. The thieves might have been after  pottery made by the Mad Potter, as you so colorfully call  him or her, and took Marcella's pieces by mistake."
"Perhaps, but that connection is so tenuous, it really  doesn't bear spending time on, really. No offense. Not that  we don't need to ?nd out who might be buried here, but,  like I said, it looks like it was a long time ago and doesn't  have anything to do with the attack on Dr. Payden. And 
I'm more concerned about that. I'm sorry, but there it is,"  he said.
Diane smiled at him. "So it would seem. But here's the  kicker." Diane leaned forward, resting her forearms on her 
Beverly Connor knees. "Neva has been tracing the ownership and history of  this house-retracing Marcella's steps as she tried to dis- cover the home's pedigree. That search took them both to  the courthouse and the historical society. Yesterday at the  historical society, Neva met a volunteer named Mary Phyl- lis Lassiter," Diane said.
"That name sounds familiar," Hanks said.
"You may have heard it on the news. Neva and Izzy  processed her crime scene today. She was strangled in her  home overnight," said Diane.
He looked startled. "Okay, I'll grant you, that's an inter- esting coincidence," he said.
"More than coincidence. Izzy called just before you  arrived," said Diane. "He's working late at the crime lab  processing the evidence. At the Lassiter crime scene they  found the same expensive hiking boot print that we found  here when Marcella was attacked-not just from the same  kind of boot," said Diane. "The same boot."
Detective Hanks sat in stunned silence for a moment.
"You know, you could have started out with this infor- mation," he said.
"Perhaps," said Diane.
"Did the Lassiter woman live in Rosewood?" he asked.
"Hall County. Just over the line. You'll need to speak  with Sheriff Braden," said Diane.
"You say Izzy Wallace is processing the evidence now? 
Can I see it?" he asked.
Diane shook her head. "Telling you about the boot print  is a courtesy. The sheriff gets to see his evidence ?rst," she  said.
Hanks nodded. "I can respect that." He paused, staring  at the blank wall behind the sofa, looking deep in thought. 
He shifted his position again, and again winced in pain. 
"Then what do we have here?"
"I don't know," said Diane.
Hanks looked at Neva. "What did the Lassiter woman  say to you?" he asked.
"Nothing to me." Neva explained the interchange at the  historical society. "I think you need to speak with Marcella  and ?nd out if she met Ms. Lassiter when she was there."
He nodded. "Are there any other surprises you have to  spring on me?" he asked Diane.
"No. That's about all we know," she said.
He laughed. "I hope we aren't dealing with a league of 
Mad Potters trying to keep their ceremonies and history a  secret."
"That would surprise me," said Diane. "I have no expla- nation. It could be that, unknown to us, the paintings  are valuable, and the attack on Dr. Payden was simply about  money. I have no idea if anything was stolen from Lassiter's  house, but if it happens she had paintings by the mysterious  artist... Well, it would be worth ?nding out. In the museum  we have paintings by an unknown artist and we were un- aware for a long time that they are extremely valuable. So  it's not unheard of.
"Or," suggested Diane, "Marcella's attacker could be  trying to prevent us from uncovering an old crime. The  perpetrator could still be alive, though up in years, I would  imagine. Or it could be a big coincidence, and what we ?rst  thought about Marcella's attack was correct-they just  didn't know she was home, and got caught in the middle  of a robbery."
Hanks ?exed the hand that was in the sling back and  forth, exercising it. "You've given me a lot to work with, I'll  give you that. I haven't made any headway talking to Ray- Ray Dildy's associates. He was just a two-bit petty crook. 
No one I've spoken with knows what he was up to lately. 
But, basically, he was a loser to the end."
Diane saw the subtle frustration in Hanks that he hadn't  been able to solve this crime-the eye tic he had frequently  rubbed, the clinching of his jaw. He needed to prove him- self. She understood that. Rosewood's previous chief of po- lice had been murderously corrupt, and Hanks had been  one of his last hires. Even though Hanks wasn't known to  have done anything wrong, there was the taint of associa- tion. For the chief of police to have hired him, he must have  thought him corruptible. How did anyone ?ght that? Hanks  wanted to solve this, and do it himself. The fact that he had  shared a little of his investigation tonight was a sign that he  might be mellowing a bit where Diane was concerned.
Beverly Connor "Do you know Sheriff Braden in Hall County?" asked 
Diane.
"We haven't met," he said.
"I'll call and tell him you're coming, if you like," said 
Diane. "I can send Izzy over with the evidence at the same  time."
Hanks nodded. "Sometime tomorrow, late morning  would be good."
"I'll give him a call in the morning," said Diane.
"I appreciate that." Hanks rose from his seat. "Well, I'll  say this. This has been interesting." He ?nished the rest of  his drink and looked around for a garbage can. David got  up and took the bottle from him.
Diane left shortly after Hanks. On the way home she  tried to call Frank on the home phone. No one answered. 
His car wasn't in the drive or in the garage when she ar- rived. She opened the front door and went inside. On the  answering machine she found a message saying he wouldn't  be home at all. He and his partner were going to Nashville, 
Tennessee, on a case-but only for a day-he thought.
She felt a little dispirited as she listened to the mes- sage. She had looked forward to seeing him. She wondered  whether he had found time to look at Ellie Rose Car- ruthers' diary pages. Probably not.
She took a shower and got into bed. Tomorrow was going  to be a big day. She had to excavate a well.
The well was simply too unstable and dangerous for Diane  to work in without structural reinforcements to hold back  the crumbling walls. Mike called in an engineering consul- tant from Bartrum University who designed a liner for the  well consisting of ten-foot steel chain-link fencing rein- forced by steel posts, straps, and bars. It took two days for 
Mike to locate a contractor, collect the materials, and get  the job done.
Thick cotton batting and wire mesh were laid over the  debris in the bottom of the well and a temporary wooden  platform was built over that to protect the remains lying  beneath the rubble. The entire steel structure was assem- bled aboveground and lowered with extreme caution into  the well by use of a construction crane. Inside the well, the  liner was expanded outward against the stone wall and  locked in place with reinforcing steel braces. All this was  done without ever touching the bottom of the well or the  delicate matter that lay there.
Mike attached a ladder to the side of the reinforced  well. He and Scott strung the wiring for the work lights and  removed the temporary platform, the wire mesh, and cot- ton batting from the bottom of the well. On the surface,  the crew used wooden posts and beams to build a hand- operated winch above the well. They wrapped Diane's res- cue rope around the hoist and attached a ?ve-gallon bucket  to the end of the rope for lifting debris out of the well.
Paloma said her mother was greatly frustrated not to  be there. An excavation in her own backyard and she, an  archaeologist, was stuck in the hospital. Andie came up 
Beverly Connor with the idea of using a webcam down in the well. Marcella  could watch the excavation, the crew at the top of the well  could keep track of what was going on down below, and 
Andie herself could watch from her of?ce. Andie saw it as  an opportunity to conduct research for the webcam project  she was working on with the curators. Diane thought it was  a great idea. She got permission from Chief Garnett. David  helped with the technical part. The webcams were attached  to the wire liner near the work lights that illuminated the  bottom of the pit.
"I love it," Mike said with obvious pride, looking down  into the well at the ?nished construction. "I would trust my  life with that, Boss." He grinned at Diane.
"Well, that's certainly reassuring," she said. She looked  into the lighted well. "I'll have to give you credit. It does  look safe and functional." But what she was thinking was  how foreboding it was. She had the feeling she was looking  into the mouth of something very dark and evil. She put on  her caving hard hat with a light on it and lowered herself  down the ladder.
Before she started excavating the bones, Diane had to  clean out a lot of debris-pieces of the rotted wooden well  cap, rocks, leaves, and surface vegetation that had fallen in  with Hector. She ?lled the bucket time and again and the  top crew hoisted the bucket loads out of the well using the  winch. It didn't take as long as she feared to clear the bot- tom of the well. But it was tiring.
So now Diane was at the bottom of the well, kneeling  over her real work. Marcella, Andie, Garnett back in his of- ?ce, and her crime scene support up top were watching via 
Web video as Diane's hands brushed debris off the dome  of a skull.
The rule of excavating is to work from the known to  the unknown-start with bone you can see and follow it  into the debris, inch by inch. Diane's tools were a trowel, a  brush, and wooden tongue depressors so as not to harm the  bone. It was slow work, but the ground was relatively soft  clay, silt, and sandy soil. Fortunately, it was a dry well and  had been for many years. Otherwise, they would be dealing  with a whole other problem-a body that had decomposed  in waterlogged soil. If she were dealing with a body that 
  had become adipocere rather than skeletonized, it would  be another whole level of unpleasantness.
The bones were a gray-brown color-the same as the  surrounding soil. They stood out in relief like a piece of  artwork. She brushed off a last clump of dirt and took a  photograph. Diane moved to the edge of the well where  she knelt and took several more photographs of the bones.
She asked for the basket, which David immediately low- ered down to her on the end of the rope. She removed the  skull ?rst. She turned it over and brushed the dirt off it. 
What caught her eye at once was the cut in the back of the  skull. There was little doubt in her mind that it would ?t the  pottery cast. Diane set the skull on batting in the basket  and signaled for David to pull it up.
The vertebrae snaked from where the skull had been  lying on its side, curving before terminating at the sacrum. 
When they winched the basket back down, she picked up  the vertebrae one at a time and put them in the basket in  order, along with the pelvis. It was a female pelvis, from a  teen. She signaled David to hoist them up. Next she sent  the ribs.
The rest of the bones were in disarray. Diane stopped  and sat back on her haunches. The angular rocks behind  the wire bit into her back. She folded her arms and sat for  several moments, glad the webcams weren't aimed at her  face. She took several deep breaths.
When she worked as a human rights investigator in 
South America, there was a nun in the mission where they  were housed who was forever giving them advice that  sounded like Zen koans. Once when Diane and her crew  became disturbed over a mass grave, she said, "In order to  get close to them, you must get far away from them." It was  a concept they all knew and relied upon, but when Sister 
Margaret said it, it took on a more spiritual essence. Diane  often had to stop and ?nd that faraway place to put her  emotions.
The remains had been butchered. Of course, she knew  they would have been, if, indeed, these were the bones that  were ground up for temper. But being confronted with the  jumbled, cut bones was far more disconcerting than the in- tellectual knowledge of what had theoretically happened.
Beverly Connor The arm bones were behind the body, upside down, as  if someone threw them down the well after the torso was  thrown in. They were broken-some from the falling rock,  or the falling Hector, and some from the butchering. The  shoulder blades were nothing more than spines of bone. 
The bodies of the scapulae were gone; only jagged edges  remained. Scapulae were relatively thin. Probably they  were easier to grind down than the heavier bones. She took  several more photographs.
She picked up one of the long bones of the arm to place  it in the basket. Under it lay another. That made three hu- meri. The minimum number of individuals in the well went  from one to two. The bones represented at least two bodies. 
She placed the bones in the basket and watched as they  were raised to the top.
"You want to take a break?" David called down.
"Not yet," she said. "Send down some small boxes."
She collected the hand bones, tiny pieces that belonged  to the wrist and hand. Again there were bones that rep- resented at least two people. She rough-sorted them into  left and right and size. One of the individuals was larger  than the other. Most of the hand bones were missing. 
There were not four complete sets. Maybe they were yet  to be uncovered. Maybe they too had been ground into  temper.
A piece of something caught her eye. It had been under  the arm bones, and like the bones, was similar in color to  the earth. But this object was not bone. She began gently  teasing and sweeping the dirt away. She found the edges. It  was something rolled up. She believed it was leather. Once  she had outlined it in the soil and excavated a few inches  under it, she carefully picked it up. It was surprisingly heavy. 
Something was wrapped inside it.
As she put it in the basket, the object came apart and  two hammers fell out: a large iron mallet and a smaller  hammer with a broad face. She paused again and wiped  her forehead with the back of her hand. 
Damn it . She  knew what it was. The bone hadn't been ground; it had  been pulverized. Bones had been put in the leather and  pounded with the hammers. First the large hammer to 
  break it up, then the smaller one for ?ner work. She sent  it up and then she climbed the ladder to the surface. She  needed a break.
Up top, Detective Hanks had been watching the com- puter screen with Mike. It looked as though Mike had been  giving him a lecture-probably on soils, or Blue Ridge ge- ology. Neva was wrapping the bones and packing them in  boxes. Scott was helping. Topside around the well looked  like a scene from 
Road Warriors -all scaffolding and cables  that had a jury-rigged quality to it. Sparks popped from the 
?ames of a wood ?re that was burning for warmth.
When David helped her off the ladder, he stared at her  face. She knew what he noticed. He'd seen it in her many  times, as she in him when they were working on mass  graves. That forlorn, hopeless look. The knowing that even  if you brought the perpetrators to justice, it wouldn't bal- ance the scales, because you hadn't prevented those victims  from suffering; you hadn't stopped the killing. David put  his arms around her and hugged her. The others looked up,  a little alarmed, as if she might be hurt.
"Are you all right?" said Neva.
"Sure," said Diane. "I'm just taking a break." She tried  a weak smile.
She greeted Detective Hanks as David put a cold bottle  of water in her hand.
"Have you been here very long?" she said.
"Not too long. I've been working with Sheriff Braden. 
Thanks for the introduction. He's been easy to work with,"  he said.
"That's good. The county sheriffs don't always welcome 
Rosewood detectives," she said, grinning at him. "I assume  my crew has been bringing you up to speed on what we're  doing?"
"I've been watching you on the laptop. I'm not sure it's  helped very much. Kind of like watching paint dry, if you  know what I mean. No offense. Mike's been telling me  about..." He looked at Mike. "What was that word?"
"Inceptisol," said Mike.
Mike grinned and winked at Diane after Hanks turned  back around to her. He had probably been purposely 
Beverly Connor pedantic-something Mike enjoyed doing to unsuspecting  people.
"Yeah, which, as I understand it, is dirt-that, soil ho- rizons, and nice rocks. Like I said, it's like the Discovery 
Channel around you guys." He took Diane's arm. "I thought 
I'd ?ll you in on what Braden told me."
They sat on Marcella's front porch. Diane took her helmet  off and set it down by her feet. She hugged her brown nylon  jacket around her against the cool breeze. Hanks gestured  toward the helmet.
"Neva and Mike tell me that all of you explore caves  together," he said.
Diane nodded. "We do, as often as we can. I particularly  enjoy mapping unexplored caves," she said.
"Is that dangerous?" he asked, staring at her hard hat.
"It can be," she said, "but we practice safety."
Hanks nodded, looking back at Diane. "Mike talks a lot  about rocks," he said. "Tell me, do women really dig that?"
"They do, but I think it's the whole package they like,"  said Diane, smiling. "Mike is one of our more popular con- tinuing education instructors."
He shook his head and Diane waited for him to get  around to what he wanted to talk about. A lot of Detective 
Hanks' small talk revolved around trying to understand  the people around him. It was as if he found Diane and her  crew a complete mystery. Of course, nearly everyone she  knew, including Frank, found her love of caving a mystery.
"Sheriff Braden is a stand-up guy," Hanks said. "He was  surprised about the overlap in our cases. Wasn't sure what  to make of it either. He spoke with Lassiter's friends, but  didn't discover much. She lived alone and had no family. 
Never married, as far as they knew. She worked as a sec- retary all her life in a family-owned of?ce supply company. 
She retired eleven years ago and has done volunteer work  since. The woman lived a very quiet life. She was known as 
Beverly Connor an expert knitter and taught a few classes at a local knitting  shop. This is not the resume of a woman who would have  enemies. It looks like a burglary-homicide."
"What was taken?" asked Diane.
"Her purse and jewelry box for sure. Not valuable items. 
Braden thinks she may have been killed because she  wouldn't reveal the whereabouts of valuables they may  have thought she had. I asked him about artwork. He said  he didn't know of anything missing. We went to her apart- ment together. There was nothing that we could see miss- ing from the walls or from display cabinets. Her neighbors  said she didn't have anything like pottery in her house. 
She liked porcelain ?gurines of fancy-dressed ladies that  she bought from TV shopping networks, but all of them  seemed to be there and, frankly, I can't see anyone steal- ing them. The boot print is all we have that connects these  two crimes, and neither of us have any answers. The sheriff  hasn't found any witnesses in her neighborhood who might  have seen anyone near her home."
"What about the people at the Rosewood historical so- ciety?" asked Diane.
"Miss Lassiter did secretarial work for them three days  a week. She would also come in just to visit on days she  wasn't working," he said. "They knew who her friends and  neighbors were and a little bit about all of them. She was  a woman who offended no one and enjoyed her retire- ment."
"Had Marcella spoken with her?" asked Diane.
"Yes. I talked with Dr. Payden before I came here. She  asked the people at the historical society, Miss Lassiter  included, about the owners of this house here in Pigeon 
Ridge. She particularly wanted to know whether there was  an owner who was an artist. Dr. Payden had a list with her  of previous owners that she had gotten from the courthouse  records. She said Miss Lassiter had a vague recollection of  the house, but couldn't tell her anything."
"Maybe the attack on Marcella and Miss Lassiter's mur- der had nothing to do with what happened here years ago. 
Maybe someone who visited the historical society targeted  both of them for some other reason. Perhaps their attack- ers thought they had money," said Diane.
"Maybe. But as you pointed out, stealing pottery and old  paintings wouldn't seem to be a fast track to riches. Miss 
Lassiter's friends said she didn't have any valuable jewelry. 
They seem to be the most stupid thieves I've run across. It  doesn't look like they are getting anything of real value."
"Did Neva or Marcella give you the list of previous own- ers of the house?" asked Diane.
"Neva did." Hanks took out his notebook and ?ipped  through the pages. "Original owner was Edith Farragut,  then Maude Saxon, Kenneth Northcutt, Jonathan Ellison,  and Marcella Payden. From the dates we estimate for the  artist, Edith Farragut would have owned the house at that  time. The only speci?cs I have about her are that she built  the house at the turn of the last century and maintained  ownership until   when it was sold to Maude Saxon. 
I've got someone looking for a death certi?cate for Ms. Far- ragut, and census records to see who might have lived here  with her. I think she would have been too old in the s  to be the Mad Potter. This would have been a younger per- son's occupation. At any rate, she certainly would be dead  now if she was an adult buying property at the turn of the  century," he said. "She'd be well over a hundred and... 
What?" he said, staring at Diane.
"How absentminded of me," Diane said. "I have a friend  who might have known the family. The paramedic said his  grandmother referred to the woman who owned the house  as being rich. Wealthy people in a small town like this would  know one another," said Diane.
"Who are you talking about?" asked Hanks.
"Do you know Vanessa Van Ross?" she said.
"The mayor's mother?" he said. "You know her?"
"She's the real power behind the museum," said Diane.
"And here I was given to understand that you are the  queen of the museum," he said.
"Not at all. I'm just the viceroy," she said, smiling. "What  made me think of Vanessa was your mentioning age. You  know Vanessa's family is ?lled with centenarians and su- percentenarians, don't you?" she said.
"Actually, no I didn't," he said. "What's a supercentenar- ian?"
"Someone more than a hundred and ten. Vanessa's 
Beverly Connor grandmother died not long ago at the age of a hundred and  fourteen," said Diane. "Her mother lives with her and is  approaching a hundred. Vanessa is around the age of the  paramedic's grandmother. Between her and her mother,  she might know something."
"Is her mother, ah, clearheaded?" he asked.
"Sharp as a tack," said Diane. "So was her grandmother  up until the time of her death."
Diane ?shed her phone out of her jacket pocket and  selected Vanessa's number. The call was answered by the  housekeeper.
"Mrs. Hartefeld, this is Diane Fallon. May I speak with 
Vanessa?" she asked.
"Of course, Dr. Fallon. Anything to get her out of my  hair this afternoon," she said.
Diane heard Vanessa in the background. "Oh, for heaven's  sake, Harte, give me the phone. And you are going to help me  with these photographs? Hello, Diane, dear. How are you?"
"I'm well," said Diane.
"From what I hear, you are in a well. Is that where you  are calling from?"
"Almost. I'm topside now. How do you get your informa- tion?" she said, smiling into the phone.
"I visited Marcella and she was having the most wonderful  time watching you excavate her well on a computer," she said. 
"I do hope that young man who fell in is doing all right."
"Hector Spearman is doing ?ne," said Diane. "Recover- ing from his injuries, and irritated at having to be off work,  but other than that, he's good. What I was calling about is  this house." Diane explained about the paramedic's grand- mother knowing the place from when she was a girl. "The  courthouse records show the owner at the time was Edith 
Farragut. Did you know her?"
"Edith Farragut. That name does sound familiar. Edith 
Farragut," she said again. "I didn't go to high school in 
Rosewood. Most of my teenage and young-adult years were  spent in Switzerland and other parts of Europe. However, 
Mother might remember the woman," said Vanessa.
"She or someone in the house was an artist," said Diane. 
"Did pottery and painting, I believe. This would be before 
 ."
"You say the people who lived in that house were  wealthy? That wasn't a particularly wealthy section of 
Rosewood. It may have been a rental and someone else  entirely lived there," she said.
Diane hadn't thought of that.
"I'll ask Mother and get back to you. She's napping now,  so it will be later on this evening. I'll speak with her when  we are having our cocoa."
"Thank you," Diane said.
"You're welcome. I quite like the webcam proposal," she  said. "I should very much like to have a setup in my house. 
I can be, what do they call it, one of your beta testers," she  said. "Too bad we didn't think of this when we were putting  the dinosaurs together. What fun the schools would have  had with that."
"I'll set you up ?rst thing," said Diane. She ?ipped her  cell closed. "Vanessa's going to speak with her mother this  evening," Diane said to Hanks, then relayed to him the rest  of the conversation.
"That might be the break we need. I didn't think about it  being a rental," he said.
"Neither did I. I think it's because stuff belonging to the  occupant is still here-the desk, the paintings," said Diane.
"I suppose," he said. "What have you found in the well,  speaking of stuff they left behind?"
"I've found the bones of at least two individuals, so far. 
One is a teenage female who was killed with a sharp blow  to the head. She had been butchered and some of her bones  crushed, perhaps for pottery temper. I found a large piece  of leather and iron hammers that may have been used for  crushing the bone, but I won't know for sure until we ex- amine it."
Hanks let out a long breath. "Man, that's cold-blooded and gruesome."
"It is," said Diane.
"If you will, keep me informed. Garnett gave me the  old case too, even if it's not related to the attack on Dr. 
Payden," he said.
"I will," she said.
Diane stood up. Rest over. It was time to go back in the  well.
Diane worked in the well past dark. The temperature  dropped and her hands got stiff and cold. Her support crew  up top were no doubt getting uncomfortable too, so she  quit for the night. She had revealed most of a second skele- ton. It was in a similar condition to the ?rst-sharp trauma  to the head, butchered. The bones belonged to a male in his  teens. He was a little larger than the female but not much  older. Diane covered over the remaining bones with black  plastic and climbed out of the well.
Neva and Scott had taken the excavated bones and other  evidence to the lab earlier. Diane asked Neva to use the  skull to start a facial reconstruction with the -D laser scan- ner and software. Neva was an artist and Diane taught her  how to read a skull to visualize what the face would have  looked like. This enabled her to enhance the computer  drawing to give her pictures a more realistic quality. She  also taught Neva how to make a cast of the skull and do a  sculpted representation of the victim. Neva turned out to  be very skilled at artistic reconstruction.
David decided to camp out at the well. Marcella again  volunteered her living room and the policemen were  again on guard, happy for the overtime. Diane fervently  hoped there were no more surprises awaiting on Marcel- la's property.
"Why don't you let me ?nish the excavation?" said 
David as Diane was climbing into her SUV. "I'm perfectly  capable."
"Of course you are, but I want to ?nish it," she said. "It's  almost done. Tomorrow morning ought to ?nish it."
"If you change your mind, call," he said, patting her  shoulder and closing the driver's-side door for her.
He motioned to her and Diane rolled down the window. 
"Is Frank home yet?" he asked.
"Sometime tonight," she said. "Call if anything happens."
David laughed. "What's left to happen?"
"Who knows?" she said. "Alien abduction?"
"I'll be sure to call if it happens. You'd like that."
Diane smiled, waved good-bye, and drove home. Frank's  fraud case in Nashville had taken longer than he expected,  but he assured her when she spoke with him earlier that he  would be home late this evening and if he could leave early,  he would. He also told her he was working on Ellie Rose's  diary and that he was sorry he wasn't there to see her down  in the well.
Diane parked in the drive and went into the house. It  was quiet. Frank had a quiet house. She liked that. Quiet  was soothing. She locked the door and walked up the stairs  to the bedroom, undressed, and ran a hot bubble bath. She  reluctantly took her cell phone with her and laid it on the 
?oor next to the tub. She showered ?rst, scrubbing the dirt  off her body, and washed her hair. Then she got into the  warm, scented bubble bath, leaned her head against the back  of the tub, and closed her eyes. Quiet and peaceful, that's  what she liked. She could just sleep here for the night and  let all the strain and soreness soak out of her tired muscles.
The sound of the doorbell brought her out of her com- fortable stupor, but she didn't move. It rang again. Anyone  who would come to her for an emergency would call her  cell. So it was probably not any of her crew or anyone at  the museum. It wouldn't be Garnett, Hanks, or Kingsley. 
They had her number. So did Star, Frank's daughter. Frank  wouldn't knock; he had her cell number and a key. They all  had her number. It probably wasn't a neighbor with some  emergency. There were closer houses than Frank's to run  to. Same for a road emergency. There were closer houses to  go to for help. Frank's house was in the middle of a double  lot with lots of trees.
It wasn't anything she needed to attend to. They would  just have to return during civilized hours to ring the door- bell. Diane closed her eyes again.
Beverly Connor The doorbell rang again. This time they leaned on it. 
They banged the door with their ?st.
"Okay, this is obnoxious," said Diane. She submerged a  moment, then came up and rubbed her hands over her hair,  squeezing the water out of it.
It must be a drunk , she thought. Or someone who had the  wrong address. Or maybe it was a process server for some  unknown thing someone was suing her for. Whatever it was,  she decided not to face it naked. She got out of the tub, dried  off, and slipped on underwear and sweats. She dried her hair  with a towel. All the while, whoever it was banged on the  door and rang the bell. 
Damn it. What the hell?
She slipped her feet into her ?eece-lined house shoes  and walked into the bedroom. The ringing stopped. Great,  she should have waited longer. She started for a front win- dow to see if she could get a glimpse of a car. The outside  security lights came on in the yard on the bedroom side of  the house.
The pissant was coming around the house. She turned out  the light in the bedroom, walked to the stairs, and peered  down to the foyer. She heard someone rattle the back door. 
Time to call the police and ask them to send a car.
She nearly fell down the stairs when the gunshots were 
?red. Someone was breaking into the house with a very  large gun. Diane didn't hesitate. She ran to the chest of  drawers in the closet and got her gun and ammunition clips. 
She carried them and her cell up to the attic. She closed the  door at the top of the attic stairs and pulled a large chest  in front of it. Light from the security lamps shined through  one of the dormer windows, giving the attic a spooky glow. 
She called  and explained to them what was happening. 
She held the phone to her ear with her shoulder, shoved a  clip into the butt of the gun, loaded a round into the cham- ber, and clicked on the safety.
"Stay on the line, ma'am," the operator said.
"Can't. I think he is in the house. I'll call back when I can."
"Ma'am, stay..."
Diane hung up and called Chief Garnett for good  measure.
"I'll make sure they are on their way," he said. "You have  a gun?"
"Yes. I'm holed up in the attic. This is some bold home  invader. He must know the police are about to come," she  said.
She listened for footfalls. Frank's house didn't have car- pet. He had polished wood ?oors and sound reverberated  off them. She heard the footsteps downstairs. Diane took  up a position behind a large trunk near the wall. She knew  it was ?lled with Frank's old 
National Geographic  maga- zines. They ought to be a fairly decent bullet stopper. This  vantage had a view of the door but was not in front of it. If  he came up the stairs and began blasting through the lock  and moved the chest of drawers, she would have time to  shoot before he got to her. It seemed like a good plan.
Only now did Diane notice that her heart was racing and  she was sick to her stomach. She heard footsteps on the  main stairs. Maybe he wouldn't ?nd the attic stairs. They  were hidden in the bedroom closet.
Her cell rang. Damn, she forgot to put it on vibrate. She  answered with a whisper.
"Diane, are you all right? You sound hoarse. This is Van- essa. Mother remembered-"
"Can't talk now, Vanessa. I'll call back."
A booming gunshot slammed against the attic door.
"Is that gun?re?" said Vanessa.
"Yes. Got to go."
Diane dropped the cell, rested her shaking arms on the  trunk, and aimed the gun at the doorway. If he came straight  through the doorway, he might not think to turn to the right  until it was too late. He would have to lean into the door  to move the chest. He would be off balance. That would  give her time-if she was lucky. He hit the door with an- other earsplitting shot. What if there were more than one  of them? Damn, she hadn't thought of that. Why hadn't she  thought of that?
The chest jumped as another bullet slammed through  the back. It sounded like an elephant gun, it was so loud. 
Diane checked to see if the safety on her gun was off. It  wasn't. 
Shit . She would get killed if she didn't start thinking. 
She moved the switch with her thumb.
Sirens whined in the distance. 
Hurry . 
Please, hurry .
The intruder shot the door twice more. The sound was  so loud the entire neighborhood should have heard it. She  thought she could hear him reloading- clink, clink .
The chest began to inch forward. He was pushing on it  now. Diane steadied her gun. He apparently put his shoul- der into it, for the chest moved forward at least three feet  and he stumbled into the room-facing Diane. He raised  his shotgun toward her as she ?red three times and ducked  behind the trunk. She felt the ?oor shake when he fell. 
At the same instant, a blast from his shotgun shook her  eardrums and the wall behind her exploded, debris falling  over her. Diane lay still a moment, stunned. When her head  cleared, she wanted to peek over the trunk, but she was  afraid it was a trap. What if he was playing dead? What if he 
 had backup? She was stuck. She crouched behind the trunk  and listened to his breathing. It came in gasps, sounding  real enough, but she didn't believe it.
"Help me," he whispered.
She was too scared to move, too wary to trust. She tried  to think what to do, but her brain was too panicked.
Damn , she thought.
 I've been in bad situations before. 
Why am I suddenly such a coward?
She stayed low and moved slowly to look around the side  of the trunk next to the wall. There was a six-inch open- ing between the wall and the trunk she could have seen  through, if it weren't so dark. The only signi?cant light re- ?ected through the windows from the security lamps. They  had suddenly gone dark. The motion detector outside had  timed out. Only dim light from the ?oor below seeped up  the stairs and through the open doorway. It did little to il- luminate.
The sirens were louder. Help was coming. But the sirens  were too loud. She wouldn't hear him if he moved. Diane  stayed still and listened hard through the noise. She stared  through the space beside the trunk until her eyes became  adjusted to the darkness. She saw a booted foot moving,  trying to get up. She shot at it and he yelped.
She heard him whimper and mutter something she  couldn't make out. He seemed to be down, but Diane didn't  trust him. She waited, tempted to shoot him again.
Get some backbone , she told herself.
She heard banging on the door downstairs. The police. 
But what if it was Frank? He wouldn't know what he was  walking into. She rose slowly, keeping her back ?at against  the wall, and surveyed the darkened attic. She saw the dark  form of the intruder squirming on the ?oor. The shotgun  was within his reach. She aimed her gun at him and made  her way slowly to the downed form and kicked the shot- gun aside. She stepped over to the door, keeping him in  sight, keeping her gun trained on him, and ?ipped the light  switch.
The sight startled her. The man on the ?oor looked like 
Ray-Ray Dildy. No, it looked like a slightly younger and  different version of Ray-Ray Dildy.
What is this, some kind of maniac crime family?
Beverly Connor "Police!" Muf?ed voices came from downstairs.
Diane walked around and picked up his gun. She looked  down at his face. He was scared and suffering. She could  see he was wearing a bulletproof vest, but one of her bul- lets had managed to hit him through the arm opening and  another in his leg.
"Help will be here soon," she said, and walked out of the  room, down the attic steps, and out to the stairs. She stood  his shotgun in the corner of the stairwell.
"I'm up here," she called.
She heard running through the house from the rear. 
They had found the broken back door. She walked down  the stairs, her hands held high where they were clearly vis- ible to the police. The ?rst person she saw was Douglas 
Garnett. He met her at the base of the stairs.
"The intruder is wounded on the attic ?oor," she told  him.
Diane sat on the living room couch, leaning forward with  her head in her hands while the police secured the house. 
The intruder had wanted her to answer the door. He was  going to shoot her and walk away. Frank would have come  home and found the door open and her lying on the ?oor,  dead. She took a deep breath and stood up when she heard  the paramedics coming down the stairs with a stretcher. 
They were the same ones who had been making the runs to 
Marcella's house.
"Didn't we just take this guy last week... and wasn't he  dead?" one of the paramedics asked Diane as he and his  partner passed with the stretcher.
"Must be the same family," she muttered.
As they went out the front door, she thought she heard  one of them mumble that he was going to write a book.
Frank came in a moment later, alarm and bewilderment  on his face. Diane looked at him with tears in her eyes. He  had gotten away early. What if he had arrived when the  intruder came blasting through the door? She put a hand  over her mouth, trying to gulp back the fear.
"Sweetheart, are you all right?" He ran over to her and  she hugged him hard.
"There are a couple of doors you're going to have to ?x,"  she said.
"What happened?" he asked.
Garnett came down the stairs with the police of?cers. 
He stayed inside and sent the other of?cers to search the  grounds. Garnett, Diane, and Frank sat down in the living  room.
Diane sat trembling on the sofa. "Jeez," she said, "I can't  seem to stop shaking."
Frank put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her  to him.
"Can't say as I blame you," said Garnett. He was wearing  a suit. She wondered what he was doing in a suit this late. 
He should be in pajamas. He handed her her cell phone. "It  was on the ?oor."
"Oh God, Vanessa," she said. "She must be worried sick. 
She called just before..."
She dialed Vanessa's number. It was picked up at half a  ring.
"Diane, are you all right? We could hear the gun?re. 
Harte is here with me," she said.
Diane remembered now. She had dropped her phone as  the intruder came into the room. Vanessa must have heard  most of it. 
Damn .
"I'm ?ne. I had an intruder, but he's gone now," said 
Diane. "The paramedics took him away."
"You had an intruder? Dear, it sounded like a ?re- ?ght."
"There was an exchange of gun?re, but I'm okay. I'm  sorry to have hung up on you," she said.
"I think you need a good stiff drink, girl. You are sound- ing way too calm, and that's not good," said Vanessa. 
"What? Just a minute. Harte is mumbling something." She  paused. "Harte says she will bring you one of her special  tonics if you need it. I can recommend them."
Diane smiled. "Thank her for me. I'm ?ne. Just rattled. 
Did you say your mother remembered something?" Diane  asked.
"Yes, but I can talk to you later about it. I'm sure the  police are there," said Vanessa.
"They are, but I'd like to give them the information," she  said.
"Okay. Mother remembered Edith Farragut. Farragut 
Beverly Connor was the woman's maiden name. Mother didn't know her  well. My grandmother said the family were merchants, and  she didn't associate much with them. Grandmother could  be a bit of a snob. Anyway, she also said Edith's husband  gave her the creeps when she saw them in church-just something about him. She didn't say what. She also said  he had a lot of pride. The whole family did. I'm not sure  what she meant by that either. They divorced, but the two  of them lived near each other for a long time. They didn't  live in Pigeon Ridge, but in Rosemont, near here. They pur- chased the old Gutemeyer estate. Mother said they had a  daughter named Maybelle Agnes Gauthier."
"Maybelle Agnes Gauthier," repeated Diane. MAG.
"Mother said the daughter was an artist," continued 
Vanessa. "She may have lived in Pigeon Ridge-in a sort  of artist's cottage. Mother didn't know Maybelle very well,  even though they were contemporaries. She said she was a  strange girl, but painted very well indeed. Mother thought  that at one time she may have had a painting of hers. A  landscape, she thought. She said if you go to the court- house, in the corridor where all the portraits of Rosewood  politicians are hanging, you can see one of her paintings. 
She signed with the picture of a little bird. Mother has no  idea why."
"Do you know what happened to her?" asked Diane.
"Mother didn't know. We lived in Europe for a while,  so we didn't know about a lot that went on in Rosewood. 
When we came back in   Mother said that Edith Far- ragut had died and the Gauthiers were gone."
Diane hung up with Vanessa, but not before Vanessa again  told her to get herself a good stiff drink. From the way 
Diane felt at the moment, anything in her stomach wouldn't  stay down. She sat quietly, collecting her senses before she  spoke. Garnett didn't push.
"I guess you need my gun," she said, gesturing to the  weapon lying on the coffee table. "I shot four times."
Garnett nodded. "Just procedure," he muttered, and  took possession of the gun.
There was a jumble of things going through her mind,  but what rose to the surface at the moment was the thought  that if she had waited any longer to get out of the bath- tub, she would have gone though all this naked. "Hell," she  muttered.
"Can I get you something?" said Frank.
"Vanessa recommends Irish whiskey or Kentucky bour- bon. I think I'll pass for now," she said. 
You never know  when I may need a steady hand and good aim .
Garnett asked her what happened and she gave him a  description of the evening's events.
"Why did he target me?" she asked.
"That's the question, isn't it?" said Garnett. "If he had  been successful, the investigation into the attack on Dr. 
Payden would have gone on. The well would have still been  excavated. I don't know what was supposed to be accom- plished."
"From his looks, he might be related to Dildy," said 
Diane.
"He won't be talking for a while and I can't make a posi- 
Beverly Connor tive ID until we check his ?ngerprints, but I'm pretty sure  he's Ray-Ray's cousin, Emory," said Garnett. "We don't  know of any criminal activities connecting them. The two  sides of the family don't get along and haven't since Ray- mond and Emory were kids. If it is Emory, he's been a petty  crook all his life, just like his cousin. They just ran in differ- ent circles," said Garnett.
"How could they run in different circles?" said Diane. 
"Rosewood isn't that big."
"Emory is from Atlanta," said Garnett.
"Ray-Ray's name was really Raymond?" said Diane. 
"I'm glad to know his mother didn't name him Ray-Ray."
"Just as bad, if you ask me. His legal name was Raymond 
Raynard Dildy," said Garnett. "Kind of runs in the fam- ily. His cousin Emory's ?rst and middle names are Emory 
Emanuel. I'm at a loss to explain how Emory escaped the  moniker M&M."
Garnett's phone rang. He hadn't chosen a piece of music  for his ringtone, but had just an old-fashioned ringing  sound. He ?ipped it open.
"Garnett."
From his conversation, Diane guessed it was the police- men who had gone out to check the grounds, and they had  found something.
"They found what they think is his vehicle parked be- yond the trees in back of the house," he said. "It's a beat-up green Toyota registered to a Rick Gomez. It was reported  stolen yesterday. We'll leave it where it is until your people  go over it. I'll have my people watch it and your house."
When Garnett left, she called David and asked him to 
?nish the well excavation.
"I'm going to sleep in," she said. "I'll be out late morn- ing."
"What's happened?" he said.
Diane hadn't wanted to tell him, but he needed to be  alert in case some maniac came to Marcella's place. She  gave him a brief description of the evening's events. She  tried to play it down, but the facts of the incident being  what they were, it was hard to put a no-big-deal face on it.
"Diane, my God, why in the... ," he said. "Are you all 
 right? What the hell was that about? You say he's related  to the guy who was killed here?"
"I don't know what it's about, and yes, they're appar- ently related. I'll talk to you about it tomorrow. Right now, 
I'm going to bed to get a good night's sleep. Tell the police- men there to keep a lookout. And David, be careful. Be  extra paranoid."
"Sure thing," he said. "You know how I am."
"This is just crazy," said Diane when she hung up. "I don't  know why I was a target. It solves nothing for anyone, un- less it's some kind of revenge thing."
"Revenge? Who?" Frank asked. "And for what?"
"Maybe it was just a coincidence Emory turned out to  be related to Ray-Ray. Emory is from Atlanta, which is a  straight shot down the interstate from Gainesville. Perhaps 
Marsha Carruthers and her husband are behind it. Perhaps  it's some kind of revenge for stirring up the tragedy in their  lives."
As she said it, it didn't seem right. The kinship thing be- tween the two men was just too much of a coincidence. She  was getting a major headache.
"Why don't I heat up the leftover pizza?" said Frank. 
"We'll have pizza and red wine. You know how you love  leftover pizza."
"Sounds good," she said.
While they waited for the pizza to warm in the oven, 
Frank boarded up the back door so it wouldn't open at all.
"I'll have it ?xed tomorrow," he said. "I'll call my partner  and tell him I'm taking the day off."
"I'm sorry you have to do that." Diane felt guilty on  top of everything else. She had brought this to his house. 
Maybe it wasn't her fault, but it was about her.
"They could have been after me," said Frank. "After all,  had I been here, I probably would have been the one to  answer the door. I do have Atlanta connections who might  want some revenge."
Frank had a strange habit of reading her mind some- times. But she probably wore her feelings on her face. She  was a terrible poker player.
"Ray-Ray after Marcella; his cousin after you?" She 
Beverly Connor shook her head. "That would be too much of a coinci- dence."
They ate and drank and Diane began to feel better.
"I ?nished the diary," he said.
"Oh? Was it hard?" asked Diane.
"Very easy really, once I got to know how Ellie Rose's  mind worked. She must have been a neat kid. Very clever  code for a kid."
"How did it work?" asked Diane.
"She had symbols for diphthongs and consonant  blends-letter combinations like  oo ,  ou ,  th ,  st ,  ious -that kind of thing. For other letter combinations she drew doo- dles that represented the sound-like in a rebus puzzle. For  example, for  air  she drew three curled wisps."
Frank got a piece of paper and drew the doodle for her.
"The symbol for the consonant blend of  st  is a star. So if  she wrote the word  stair , it would be a star and these little  wisps." He drew it for Diane.
"If she had to use a letter, she would go two up in the al- phabet," he continued. "So  a  would be  c  and  z  would be  b . The  consonant blend  th  is the numeral three. The word  the  would  be written as the numeral three with the letter  g  immediately  following it." He grinned. "She was a good little doodler."
He took several bites of pizza and a sip of wine.
"There was a little complication, in that sometimes she  would change how she wrote a word. For example, the  symbol for the suf?x  er  was a drawing of an ear. 
Mother was sometimes  oq , with the numeral three immediately fol- lowing, and then the drawing of an ear. And sometimes it  would be a drawing of a moth and an ear."
"That seems like it would take a long time to write," said 
Diane.
"Not really. The drawings were doodles, stylized versions  of what they represented. If you're going up the alphabet  only two letters, you can work that out pretty fast," he  said.
"I'll call Ross Kingsley tomorrow. He'll be happy you  were able to decode it," said Diane. "I got the impression  he thought it would be impossible."
"You know, I kind of got to know her. Not just reading 
 her diary, but seeing the way her mind worked, examining  her whimsical creativity."
He stopped for a moment and took a drink of wine. 
Diane thought for a second he was going to tear up. She  put a hand on his and he smiled at her.
"As I said, she was a neat kid," he said.
"Anything in her diary that would shed light on any- thing?" said Diane.
"Most of it was normal kid stuff. Talk about school,  friends, boys she liked, teachers. There are a couple of draw- ings that occurred several times that I can't decipher."
He drew one for her. It was a triangle over an elongated  diamond shape with slightly curving sides and what looked  like horns.
"It looks kind of like a snake with scales and horns," said 
Diane.
"That's what I thought," he said. "I can't come up with a  rebus or anything else that makes sense. I think it's a per- son, but that's as far as I got, except that it's clear she didn't  like him. If I had a list of names of people in her circle, I  might be able to decipher it."
"What was the context?" asked Diane.
"Dread seeing 'blank.' 'Blank' has changed since 'blank.' 
The second blank is the other doodle I can't ?gure out." He  drew it for her.
"These are almost like Rorschach tests. The identi?ca- tion is in the eye of the beholder," said Diane. She exam- ined the last drawing. "It looks like a ruin or a broken brick  wall. What do you think?"
"I thought it looked kind of like a broken igloo," he said. 
"These look like blocks. Notice that the scales in the snake- like ?gure are similar to the bricks or ice blocks in the other 
?gure."
"Something to sleep on," said Diane. She ?nished her  pizza and upended her wineglass. "Vanessa will be disap- pointed we didn't have Irish whiskey," she said.
Diane got ready for bed as Frank went around and  checked all the doors and windows in the house. If they  were willing to shoot off the locks with a big gun, doors  were useless, she thought.
Beverly Connor She was sitting on the bed in her nightshirt when he  came into the room.
"You know, I was really terri?ed," she said.
Frank sat down beside her and took her hand. "It's com- pletely normal that you were."
"No, I mean I was really terri?ed," she repeated.
"And it's really normal," he said, grinning at her.
"You know I've been in a lot of dangerous situations. I  was never this scared," she said.
Frank was silent for several moments. "Over the past few  years you have been getting happier," he said. "It's taken a  while since Ariel's death, but gradually your grief has made  room for other emotions-like love and friendship. You've  built a lot of that here in Rosewood. I'm not saying your  life now means more to you, but you feel like you have a  lot to lose, and it scares you. I believe that's part of it. And  there was also the overly violent nature of the attack. It was  designed for terror. But you did well. You won."
Diane leaned against him. "I'm going to ?nd out who did  this to your house," she said. "And to me."
Diane had hoped to get out to Marcella's house by late  morning, but she had to go to the police station ?rst to make  a formal statement. She wrote out an account and signed it  before she went to Garnett's of?ce, hoping it would save  time. It didn't. She had to speak with Internal Affairs. It  wasn't pleasant, mainly because the incident wasn't pleas- ant. But it wasn't that bad either. They weren't hostile,  really. Stern, but not particularly aggressive. The prevailing  culture in Rosewood was, if a man shot his way into your  house, you had the right to shoot back. After she spoke  with IA, she went to Garnett's of?ce.
"Sorry about all this," said Garnett. "You know. Proce- dure. Hanks will join us shortly. We had a discussion with 
Emory in the hospital and we thought you would be inter- ested in hearing about it."
Diane was relieved that he was still alive. She didn't want  to have killed someone. "How is he?" she asked.
"Critical but in stable condition," said Garnett. "Only  two of your bullets did any damage. The other two were  stopped by his Kevlar vest. One bullet went in the arm  opening of the vest and found the radial nerve but man- aged to miss the artery. Doctor said his right arm's going to  be paralyzed. His right little toe was mangled by the bullet  to his foot. They amputated the toe. Still, he's a lucky guy. 
Don't go wasting your time feeling bad for him. You know  what he had planned for you. If he had got you to open the  front door, he was going to blow your head off."
Diane shivered. She did know that.
Detective Hanks came in and pulled up a chair. He 
Beverly Connor stared at her as if looking for signs of the previous evening,  or maybe signs of a nervous breakdown.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
"I'm ?ne," said Diane. "Just bewildered. Did he say what  this was about?" she asked.
Garnett snorted and nodded to Hanks, who gave her a  grim smile.
"He was talkative," said Hanks. "Said he had a contract  to kill you."
"A contract?" said Diane. "Someone put a contract out  on me? Why?"
"We don't know. He said he doesn't know who or why." 
Hanks smirked and looked at Garnett. Diane had the feel- ing he was trying not to laugh. "Emory said he received an  envelope in the mail with two thousand dollars and your  picture and address in it. He thought it was some kind of  mistake until he got a call that evening. A man claiming to  know his cousin, Ray-Ray, told him he'd sent it as a good  faith payment. That he was looking for a good man to do  some wet work for him."
"Wet work? He actually said that?" said Diane.
"Yeah," said Hanks, grinning. "He actually said those  words."
"The man asked him if he was up to it. If he was, he  would get another ?fty grand. The man said that he'd tried  to use Emory's cousin, but he was a disappointment, and  he wanted to know if Emory was going to be a disappoint- ment too."
"Emory asked what would keep him from just holding  on to the two grand and doing nothing," said Garnett. "The  man told him nothing was to stop him, but if this went well,  he would use him again. That is, if he didn't mind doing a  little traveling, like to Las Vegas and places." Garnett gave  a derisive chuckle. "Las Vegas." He shook his head.
"Emory said the caller told him that from time to time  he would receive an envelope, just like the one he'd re- ceived about you, with information and money in it," said 
Hanks. "If he did well-get this-the man would open him  an offshore account for the money to be deposited directly. 
Emory thought he'd made the big time."
"Are you saying that some kind of organized crime peo-  ple have put a contract out on me?" said Diane. "Are you  serious?"
"Believe me," said Hanks, "no serious crime organiza- tion would hire this guy for anything. He was being played,  big-time. No ?fty grand would be sent to him after-the deed."
"But we don't know who hired him," said Garnett. "His  phone records show the call came from a throwaway cell. 
We are going to assign a couple of men to you until this is  over. We do take this seriously, no matter what kind of buf- foon this Emory is. Someone out there knew he would be a  good fall guy. He told Emory to make it quick and violent. 
If you wouldn't let him in the door, he was to, quote, 'blow  the door off its hinges."'
"Emory may be a moron," said Hanks, "but the man  who hired him isn't. He knew how to con Emory into doing  what he wanted him to do."
"How do we ?nd this guy?" asked Diane.
"We don't know that yet," said Garnett. "We're going  to start with Emory's family. There's a chance he made all  this up and it's actually the family taking revenge because  of what happened to Ray-Ray. Maybe they weren't as es- tranged as they led us to believe. But if that's the case, we  still have the question, why you? Why not Hanks here, or 
Daughtry? They were the two of?cers most closely con- nected to Ray-Ray's death."
"I have to call my security," said Diane. "The way things  are, I can't use my museum of?ce. I won't bring a maniac into  the museum after me. Until we catch this guy, I'll use my of- ?ce in the crime lab. Analyzing the evidence from Marcella's  may be the best way to ?nd the answer to all this."
Garnett nodded in agreement. "It's a reasonable course  of action," he said. "That's all we have at the moment. We  keep running into dead ends. Whoever the mastermind is  behind this, the guy is good at covering his tracks."
"Please keep me informed on what you discover," said 
Diane to the two of them. "Knowledge is what will keep  me safe."
"We will," said Garnett.
Diane nodded. "Did you tell Hanks about my talk with 
Vanessa?" she asked Garnett.
Beverly Connor "We talked about it this morning," Garnett said.
"You think this woman, this Maybelle Agnes Gauthier,  is our Mad Potter?" asked Hanks.
"Mad Potter?" said Garnett.
"What else would you call someone who made pots out  of human bones?" said Hanks.
"I guess that's what I would call them," Garnett said with  a laugh. "Just don't let the press get hold of that."
"She may have been," said Diane. "But, so far, we only  know that she was a painter."
"At least we have a name," said Hanks. "Easier to ask  around about a person if you have a name. I was thinking I  might send someone over, one of the girls, uh, women, over  to the retirement homes to ask around. Some of those old- timers might remember her."
"Good idea," said Diane, rising from her chair. "If I'm 
?nished here, I am going to the lab. I'll be either there or  at the house."
She left the building, followed by her two bodyguards,  and drove to the crime lab.
When Diane put the crime lab in the west wing of the  museum, she added an outside elevator that went only  from ground level to the crime lab on the third ?oor. She  also added a small room, a lobby and guard post, at the  ground-level entrance to the elevator. It was comfort- able and had its own facilities. There was a receptionist  and a permanent guard on duty. Diane invited the police- men to stay there. The crime lab was secure, she assured  them.
"What about the entrance to the crime lab through the  museum?" one of them asked.
"There's a guard on duty there as well. It also has rein- forced doors and locks."
Diane left them in the elevator lobby and rode up to the  crime lab. Izzy was there, holding down the fort while David  and Neva were at the crime scene at Marcella's house.
Izzy looked at her wide-eyed when she entered the lab. 
"Are you all right?" he asked when she walked in. "Jeez,  what the hell happened? I've been hearing some strange  stuff. The news and some of my buddies said someone shot  his way into your house."
Diane explained the events of the previous evening and  her visit to the police station.
"Those IA inquiries," he said, "don't worry about them. 
They have to do that. Nobody's going to fault you for shoot- ing some son of a bitch in your house. Jeez, he shot through  the back door."
"It was very violent," said Diane. "I intend to ?nd out  who sent him and why."
"This case has been strange from the beginning," said 
Izzy. "Attacking Dr. Payden and making off with only a few  paintings and a little pottery-what is that about? And that  crazy writing on the bottom of the drawer. You know, at 
?rst it sounded like the writer was the victim, but now it  looks like she might have been the perp. I don't know what  to make of it. And what about that poor Lassiter woman? 
None of it makes a bit of sense."
"No," said Diane. "But it will soon. I won't have people  coming after me and messing up Frank's house like that,"  she said. "I'll be in my of?ce in the osteology lab. There are  two policemen downstairs assigned to watch over me."
Diane went to her of?ce and called her chief of security  and told her what was going on. Diane told her she wanted  to make the of?ce wing off-limits to all but museum per- sonnel until this was solved. She then called Andie, her as- sistant.
"Dr. Fallon, I heard on the news. Was it true? Are you all  right?" she asked.
"I'm ?ne," said Diane. "I'm working from my osteology  of?ce, for the time being. I want you to work from the of?ce  up in archives."
"Why?" asked Andie.
"Because you are in my of?ce and I don't want anyone in  there. I've instructed security. And please, don't talk about  this. Just have your workstation routed up there," she said.
"Sure. You think someone will come here?" she asked.
"I don't think so. The guy who broke into Frank's house  is in custody. But someone sent him and we don't know  who yet. I just want to be extra cautious and make sure  everyone is safe," she said.
"Sure, I'll do that. I'm really sorry this is happening," she  said. "You know, people are just crazy."
Beverly Connor "That seems to be the general consensus," said Diane.
After her talk with Andie, Diane donned her lab coat  and walked into her osteology lab. The lab was a large  room with bright white walls, white cabinets, and plenty of  overhead lighting. It was a bright room and cheery in its  own way, with its shiny tables, sinks, and microscopes.
Neva had been working on laser mapping the skull. Her  computer drawings were spread out on the counter. They  showed a pretty girl. She looked so young. Too young to  be dead.
The ceramic mask and sherds had been brought up from  the archaeology lab and were lying on another table. The  bones excavated from Marcella's well were in plastic con- tainers sitting on one of the metal tables. Diane started lay- ing them out in anatomical order on two tables-one for  each skeleton. They were broken skeletons with missing  parts. It was a sad group of bones.
She examined the skull of the female. It was small with  nice, even teeth, but they were starting to decay. Without  intervention they wouldn't have stayed nice for very much  longer. Was she homeless? Poor?
Diane ?t the mandible, the lower jaw, to the maxilla,  the upper jaw, and held them together with one hand. She  placed the reconstructed ceramic mask over the face.
It was a perfect ?t.
Diane set the mask aside, a mask she strongly suspected  was made of clay tempered with the crushed bones of its  subject. When she had ?rst seen it sitting in Marcella's  workroom, she was struck by its beauty. She saw now that  the beauty was in the young girl. The mask was simply the  product of a cruel and arrogant mind.
As she was about to lay the mandible aside, Diane's eye  stopped on a dis?guration showing through the dirt stains. 
It was a healed fracture-a disturbing sign, evidence of an  older severe injury. She laid the young girl's mandible on  the table and turned the skull over in her hands and looked  at the back of it. The cut extended vertically across the pari- etal and occipital of the skull. It looked to have been made  by a heavy bladed weapon, most likely an axe or a hatchet. 
From the size and depth of the cut, it was clear the sharp  edge of the weapon would have gone into the brain. There  was no doubt this wound would have killed her.
Diane picked up the broken pieces of pottery contain- ing what appeared to be an impression of the head wound. 
Accounting for the thickness of the skin and tissue on the  skull at the time the clay was applied to the head, the mold  looked to be a ?t. At this point she could not say with cer- tainty that the pottery sherds were or were not impressions  of this skull wound. A microscopic examination of the pat- tern of the mold and the wound would be more de?nitive.
She photographed the skull and the mask to show the  direct comparison. Next, she photographed the healed  fracture on the mandible. After that, she did the measure- ments of the skull at all the craniometric points, recording 
Beverly Connor each. Doing the measurements provided some momentary  relief to Diane. The math helped her keep the objectivity  and emotional distance she needed in the face of the ter- rible cruelty she saw in the bones.
When she ?nished examining the skull, she placed it on  the table with the rest of the brown-gray stained skeleton. 
These bones had a sad story to tell, aside from the terri- ble trauma of the fatal head injury and the severed limbs. 
There was the healed fracture of the mandible. Three ribs  had been broken and healed. Both the left and right radii  of the arms contained healed fractures caused by the young  girl's arms being twisted. The femur had been broken and  healed in her lifetime. The femur was a big strong bone,  not easy to break. If it was broken, it was because it met  with a sizeable force. The young teen had been abused for  years before she was murdered. Diane wondered whether  she ever had any joy in her life.
As Diane ?nished and packed up the ?rst set of bones, 
David, Neva, and Scott came in with the remaining con- tents of the well.
"You doing okay?" David said.
The three of them gathered around her as if there were  something they could discern in her appearance if they  looked closely enough.
"I'm ?ne," said Diane.
"I heard the other guy's not doing as well," said David.
Diane frowned.
"I see Garnett sent guards," said Neva. "They're down- stairs in the lobby."
Diane nodded. "Until they ?nd out who sent him-and why-I'm using the of?ce here," she said.
"Good idea," said David. "It's more defensible."
"David said the guy last night is related to what's his  name-that Dildy guy," said Neva. "Why are you being  targeted?"
"I don't know," said Diane. "It makes no sense. But I in- tend to ?nd out. I just don't know how, right now."
"If the answer lies in Marcella's well," said David, "I  think we may be able to crack it."
"Oh?" Diane pulled off her gloves and washed her hands. 
"Come into the of?ce and tell me what you found."
Diane's osteology of?ce was more spartan than her mu- seum of?ce and it was a good deal smaller. The walls were  painted an off-white cream color that she had hoped would  give the room a warm glow. It hadn't. The ?oor was green  slate. She hadn't wanted the static electricity or ?bers that  a carpet would generate. The desk and ?ling cabinets were  a dark walnut. The comforts in the room were a long bur- gundy leather couch that sat against one wall, a matching  chair, and a small refrigerator in the corner. A watercolor  of a lone wolf hunting was the only decoration.
Scott looked around the room. "This is nice," he said, sit- ting down on one end of the sofa. David sat on the other  end and Neva took the chair.
Diane got everyone a drink from the fridge before she  sat behind her desk.
"How's Hector doing?" she asked Scott.
He bobbed his head up and down. "He's doing okay. 
He's learning to maneuver on crutches and thinks he can  now come back to work. I think he needs a few more days'  healing. They had to put a pin in his leg." Scott screwed his  face into a painful-looking grimace.
"The tibia is a long, thin bone," said Diane. "It needs the  support. Tell him we are all thinking about him."
"He sure hates to miss all the work," he said.
Diane could see he meant it. Hector and Scott appar- ently loved work.
"So," she asked David, "what have you found? Smoking  gun? Fingerprints?"
"Funny you should mention that," he said. "Under the  remaining bones we found several items of interest. You  know how there were two hammers-a large one and a  smaller one? There were two axes, actually an axe and a  hatchet."
"Possibly the murder and dismembering weapons," said 
Diane.
"That's what we think," said Neva.
"They are rusted, and the wooden handles are mostly rot- ted away, but we may be able to do something with them,"  said David. "But what was under the axes is really great,"  he said. "We found a zippered case with sculpting tools in  it. Because they were closed up, the wooden handles are 
Beverly Connor in better condition. They have dark stains that I think are  blood and-drum roll, please-there are ?ngerprints in the  blood."
Diane opened her mouth in surprise. "Fifty-year-old ?n- gerprints? Are you serious?"
"It gets better," said David. "They also threw unused clay  down the well. You know how clay is. Think about those  little bull ?gures from Çatal Höyük in the Old World ar- chaeology section of the museum. They have those ancient 
?ngerprints all over them. Clay is really good for that."
"That's a gold mine," said Diane. "That's amazing."
"We think so," said Neva. "They just threw all the incrim- inating evidence down the well and covered it over. We can  do a lot with it."
"Well-done," said Diane.
"The credit goes to those who tried to get rid of the evi- dence," said David. "I wish all our perpetrators were so ac- commodating."
"It's almost as if they put the evidence in a time capsule,"  said Scott. "We're going to try to get DNA from the blood. 
No guarantees, but if we do, it will be a good paper. Speak- ing of which, there is just no DNA in the pottery sherds. 
Even in a bon?re kiln, it's just too hot," he said.
"I didn't think it would work, but I appreciate your try- ing," said Diane. "You never know until you try."
Just as she was about to heap more praise on them, the  phone on her desk rang.
"Yes," she said.
"Diane, this is Ross. I know this is short notice, but De- tective Fisher from Gainesville, who was the detective in  charge of the Stacy Dance case, wants to come over and  have a look at the evidence. He wants to bring the medical  examiner, Doppelmeyer, and he wants Dr. Webber to be  there."
"Is that all?" said Diane. "Does he want dinner?"
"Just about. He's bringing his supervisor and he wants  your supervisor to be there too. I tried to explain that  this doesn't have anything to do with Rosewood, but he  wouldn't listen."
"I see. I wonder if Vanessa's free. She would ?nd it inter- esting," said Diane.
"Funny. I'm sure he meant Garnett," said Ross. "Is that  a problem?"
"No problem. He'll just have to be disappointed. Garnett  has nothing to do with it. I won't have the mayor or the parks  director here either, because they didn't have anything to do  with the Stacy Dance case either," she said. "I will ask Jin to  join us. He's analyzed all the trace evidence."
Kingsley laughed. "Okay. I can handle that. I hope De- tective Fisher can."
"He'll have to," said Diane. "Have you called Lynn?"
"Yes, she's willing. A little too willing if you ask me," he  said.
"When do they want this to take place?" said Diane.
"This evening, they said. After work."
"Good, I'll be able to get some more work done before  then."
She had already hung up before she remembered that  she didn't tell him that Frank had translated the diary  pages. She could tell him later when she saw him.
She called the restaurant and ordered steak dinners to be  delivered to the lobby of the crime lab for her two security  guards. Then she dialed the DNA lab and asked for Jin.
"Yo," he said.
"What is the status of the Stacy Dance evidence?" she  said.
"Done. I put it in the evidence vault in the crime lab. We  ready for a transfer?" he asked.
Diane explained about the meeting. "Can you attend?"  she asked "Sure, Boss. Glad to," he said.
She looked at her watch. She'd have time to get started  on the other set of bones before the meeting.
The teenage male skeleton looked similar to the female  skeleton as it lay on the paper atop the metal table. It was  stained the same earth-toned colors. It had similar wounds  in the skull-sharp-force trauma to the back of the head. 
His limbs had been removed from his body, not with any  surgical precision, but with an axe, and evidenced all the  clumsy damage that came with a coarse instrument.
Looking at the arms that had been severed, the sliced  head and trochlea of the humeri, Diane wondered whether  the woman, MAG, could have been the artist who cre- ated the bone-tempered pottery. Could she have dis- membered these bodies by herself? No, she would have  needed help. Lynn Webber needed a diener to grapple with  the cadavers, put them on the table for autopsy, arrange  them for photographs. Most medical examiners did. The  deadweight of a human body would have been extremely  hard to move around. There had to be at least two perps- or one burley man. It would have been next to impossible  for one woman to do this. Especially at a time when women  were not as buff as they are now.
Perhaps it was a true artist colony and several people  lived in the house. Maybe the message on the desk drawer  meant MAG knew what was going on and she was afraid  for her life. She or her mother was the landlord. Why didn't  she move in with her parents? Or get them to throw the  others out? But sometimes it isn't that easy. Bullies can  intimidate some people into emotional paralysis. And the  writing on the drawer came from an emotionally distraught  person.
Diane had ?nished with the measurements of the skull  when she heard raised voices coming from the crime lab. 
She took off her gloves, washed her hands, and went out to  see what was happening now.
David, Neva, and Izzy were at the round debrie?ng table  with Jin. David was pointing to evidence envelopes laid out  in front of them. He was arguing with Jin, gesturing to a  report he had in his hand. Neva stood by with a frown on  her face. Izzy just looked puzzled.
"What's going on?" Diane asked. Her people rarely ar- gued.
"Jin has mixed up the evidence," said David. "It's all  compromised. Marcella's and the Dance case from Gaines- ville you are working on."
"What?" said Diane. She did not want to hear that, not  with a crowd of law enforcement and forensic people on  the way to examine the Stacy Dance evidence. "Jin?"
"I didn't, Boss. I don't know what he's talking about. You  know I don't mess up," he said.
Diane turned to David. He looked tired.
"What's this about, David?"
"This evidence he's about to give away to Gainesville. 
Some of it is the evidence we collected at Marcella's. I  don't know how, but somehow when he was working on  the Gainesville stuff, it got mixed up. I don't see how we  can use any of it now."
"No, Boss, I've been trying to tell him," said Jin. "I don't  know what he's talking about. I worked on the Dance evi- dence in my lab. You know that."
Jin stood with his arms crossed, glaring at David, who  glared back.
"Let me see," said Diane.
She read the Stacy Dance evidence report, ?ipping  through the pages, looking at the photographs Jin had  taken of the evidence.
"What's the problem?" said Diane.
David tapped the paper in her hand. "The evidence Neva  and Izzy collected from Marcella's is mixed in with the 
Dance evidence. Jin must have been working here when  we were, and he grabbed the wrong evidence."
Diane had collected much of the evidence from the 
Beverly Connor Stacy Dance crime scene, and she recognized it in Jin's re- port and photos.
"Are you saying this is the evidence collected at Mar- cella's? Have you looked in Marcella's container?" said 
Diane.
"I was about to get it to see what kind of damage has  been done," said David.
Diane looked at the jumble of shoe prints Jin had sepa- rated out using the computer software. "The shoe prints  too?"
"Yes," said David, "especially the shoe prints."
"You're saying this is the boot print collected at Marcel- la's?" Diane asked David again, pointing to a photo.
"I had to work on it to get it clear," offered Jin. "There  was a jumble of shoes on the electrostatic lifting ?lm. I had  the software separate out some of the prints from one an- other."
David pointed at the photograph. "This is the hiking  boot print from Marcella's. Yes."
"In that one, the heel was showing good," said Jin. "I  tried to ?lter out the other overlapping shoes from the rest  of the print, but the heel is really clear."
"The heel is all you need for an identi?cation," said 
David. "That's how I know it's the same. See these two  chips in the heel?... Wait. Are you saying this isn't a mis- take?"
"I don't see how it could be," said Diane. "You think Jin  took the evidence out of the bags and relabeled them?"
"No," said David, "but I thought he was here when we  were processing Marcella's, and-"
"You had already processed Marcella's evidence before  we collected the Stacy Dance evidence," said Diane. "I col- lected these shoe prints at the Stacy Dance scene. David,  you owe Jin an apology. It's the same print as the one from 
Marcella's because the same boot was at both places."
"What?" at least three of them said in unison.
All four of them looked at Diane as if she had said Ken- del had just returned from her trip and had brought them  a unicorn skeleton.
"What are you saying?" said David.
"She's saying you need to apologize," said Jin. "Hey, 
 you mean it's the same guy, don't you? Jeez, Boss, that's  weird."
It had taken a few seconds for it to dawn on all of them.
"But this would connect with the Lassiter crime scene  too," said David. "The same boot print was there. I don't  understand it. The MO is too different. They don't look  anything like crimes done by the same perp. Wasn't there a  lot of postmortem staging and cleanup in the Dance mur- der? Didn't it have a de?nite sexual aspect to it?"
"Yes," said Diane. "So it appeared. That's what drew the 
Gainesville detective to the wrong conclusion."
"Well, the attack on Marcella and the murder of the 
Lassiter woman had no sexual component. And not much  evidence of planning at all. They look like crimes by an  amateur looking for loot."
"They would appear that way," said Diane.
"Do you think the Gainesville guy may have thrown  away the boots by the side of the road or something and  the Rosewood guy found them?" said Jin.
"This makes no sense," said David.
"I agree," said Diane. "It doesn't seem to. We also col- lected evidence of rope and other ?bers in the Stacy Dance  murder. The rope is the same too?"
"According to Jin's report, it's made of the same mate- rial," said David.
Diane again read through portions of Jin's evidence re- port on the Stacy Dance crime scene.
"I've read Marcella's evidence report," said Diane. 
"I've seen the blowup photographs of the ?bers and read  the chemical analysis of them. These ?bers from the Stacy 
Dance scene are the same-the same dyed black wool and 
Manila hemp ?bers. Granted, there are lots of ski masks  like that and lots of rope. But you said, David, it was as  if the masks and the rope were stored together. Could it  be that..." She threw up her hands. "I can't explain it. 
But this evidence described in Jin's report is the evidence 
I collected at the Stacy Dance crime scene. He did not  make a mistake."
"You going to apologize?" said Jin.
"Sure," said David. "Jin, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have  jumped all over you like that."
Beverly Connor "I understand. I would have thought the same thing,"  said Jin.
Neva rolled her eyes.
"I'm not sure I'm getting this," said Izzy. "Did the same  guy do all three crimes? Or are we looking for somebody  who ?shed clothes out of the trash in Gainesville and used  them in two more crimes down here? Or are we looking at  some bang-up-big coincidence?"
"I don't know," said Diane. "But if we can ?nd Marcella's  attacker, or the Lassiter murderer, we can ask them where  they shop. In the meantime, I guess I need to ask Hanks to  come to the meeting too."
Diane set up the meeting in the basement conference  room near the DNA lab. She was holding it away from the  crime lab to distance her involvement in Kingsley's case as  far as possible from the jurisdiction of Rosewood. The con- ference room had a large round table with a white quartz top  and comfortable chairs. Jin had picked out the furniture for  the room. She wasn't sure why he wanted white, but it was a  pretty table-one that King Arthur would have liked.
Diane asked her policemen bodyguards to be present. 
She didn't quite trust Oran Doppelmeyer to remain civi- lized. There must be more to their history than Lynn Web- ber had told her. The policemen seemed pleased to actually  be involved in what was going on, rather than just sitting on  the sidelines in case something should happen. They were  also pleased with the food Diane had sent them. The way  to a policeman's heart.
She called Hanks and told him about the boot print. He  was as mysti?ed as she and her crew were. He seemed to  like the scenario that the boots were thrown away and re- trieved by someone else-the ski masks too. That was how  the rope ?ber got on them. The masks were near the rope,  picked up the transfer, and when Marcella's attacker used  them, the ?ber was transferred again. It was the only sce- nario that made sense.
Diane put the Stacy Dance evidence in the DNA lab. 
Her bodyguards were in comfortable chairs near the door,  and now she waited for the others to arrive. She was not  looking forward to this evening. She'd rather be at home  with Frank.
Diane asked museum security to post someone at the in- formation desk to greet her guests and bring them down- stairs to the DNA lab. Ross Kingsley arrived ?rst, looking,  as usual, professorial. Lynn Webber came shortly after,  looking rather stunning in a black gabardine suit with an  olive silk taffeta blouse. She was dressed to be a presence  in the room. Her black hair had a lustrous sheen and her  makeup was perfectly applied.
Diane wondered whether she had remembered to run a  comb though her own hair.
Sheriff Braden, who was in charge of the Mary Phyllis 
Lassiter investigation in the neighboring county, arrived  shortly after Webber. He hadn't changed from his sheriff's  uniform. Jin was already there, working in the DNA lab. 
Detective Hanks arrived after Braden. Now it was only the 
Gainesville contingent who had yet to arrive-Detective Ralph Fisher, Chief of Detectives Nancy Stark, and Medi- cal Examiner Oran Doppelmeyer.
When Diane called Sheriff Braden, she had asked him to  sit on one side of Lynn Webber. Diane was going to put De- tective Hanks on the other side. Diane told Braden about  her encounter with Doppelmeyer in the parking garage at  the hospital and that she didn't want him to get aggressive. 
Sheriff Braden, of course, was outraged. He was known to  be fond of Dr. Webber ever since she arrived in the Rose- wood area. Putting her between Hanks and Braden was  to protect Webber from herself as much as from Doppel- meyer. Diane had a gut feeling that Lynn wasn't ready to  turn loose of him yet.
Beverly Connor Diane mentally went over her ducks and calculated  whether or not they were in a row. Close enough. The only  problem she had with the meeting was any fallout for the 
Rosewood PD. Gainesville PD assumed that Rosewood  had butted into their jurisdiction. She could see how that  would piss them off. She hoped refusing to have Garnett  there would reinforce her message that Rosewood wasn't  involved.
Diane served coffee, and as they waited she told Kings- ley about the diary.
"He translated it?" Kingsley seemed surprised.
"He said it was pretty easy," said Diane. "I don't have it  with me, but you could come over tomorrow, or this eve- ning, and Frank can go over it with you."
"Anything of interest?" asked Kingsley.
"There were a few entries about people she described as  creepy. It's hard to say who they were because proper names  were harder to decipher. Frank can tell you about it."
The people from Gainesville arrived. They didn't look  happy. Chief of Detectives Nancy Stark wore a plain brown  suit and white blouse. It was wrinkled, as if she'd had it on  all day and then had to drive here in it. Stark's short dark  brown hair was just beginning to gray. Her dark blue eyes  looked suspicious as Diane made introductions. The detec- tive, the one who closed Stacy Dance's case as an accident,  was in his mid-?fties. He had a thick shock of white hair  and black eyebrows. He frowned at all of them. From the  way Doppelmeyer glowered at Lynn, he was as angry now  as during their run-in at the hospital. This was going to be a  fun meeting. Diane ran her ?ngers through her hair.
They all did shake hands. That was a start. She and Lynn  managed to avoid Doppelmeyer's handshake. Not hard,  since there were so many people. Diane directed them to  the table and offered coffee. They declined. Perhaps later,  she thought. Right now they probably felt that Rosewood  was telling them they did a piss-poor job of investigating  one of their own crimes. Diane understood their anger.
Chief Stark turned to Hanks. "You are Ms. Fallon's su- pervisor?" she asked.
"No, ma'am. I don't think she has one." He laughed.
If he was hoping to relieve the tension, he hadn't. Rose-  wood's inside jokes didn't play to a Gainesville audience. 
However, Kingsley smiled, as did Lynn.
"Your counterpart, Chief Garnett, is my supervisor when 
I work for the City of Rosewood," said Diane. "In the Stacy 
Dance death, I am not working for Rosewood. I am a con- sultant to the private ?rm of Darley, Dunn, and Upshaw,  represented here by Ross Kingsley."
"What are they doing here, then?" Stark asked of Detec- tive Hanks and Sheriff Braden.
"They are working on cases that have a certain overlap  of evidence. I thought it would bene?t everyone for them  to be here," said Diane.
"You shared our evidence with them?" Fisher said. It  was more of an accusation than a question.
"It's my understanding that the Stacy Dance case is  closed. This is evidence we collected at the behest of her  father. As yet, it isn't your evidence," said Diane.
"What are the patrolmen doing here?" said Chief Stark. 
"Why are we in Rosewood's lab?"
"This is the museum's DNA lab," said Diane. "As for the  patrolmen, they are bodyguards assigned to me by Chief 
Garnett."
"That's an insult," said Fisher, in a voice louder than  he meant. The acoustics of the room were quite good. His  white hair highlighted his reddened ears and face. "I know  there've been some accusations thrown around. I believe 
Dr. Doppelmeyer here, that he's behaved with the utmost  propriety. However, if you need calming down, you have  my guarantee you are safe from him."
"Detective Fisher," said Diane. She kept her voice calm  and even and maintained eye contact with him. "Here in the  museum, the DNA lab, and crime lab, we place a particular  importance on the difference between what we believe and  what we know. I know that Dr. Doppelmeyer accosted Dr. 
Webber in the parking garage. I know, because I was there. 
I understand that you believe he did not. I hope you under- stand that, logically, I can't accept your guarantee."
"Jesus save us," he mumbled, turning his face away.
"I understand that sometimes in a darkened garage, per- ceptions might not be as accurate as we like," said Chief 
Stark. "I agree with Detective Fisher. Bodyguards are an 
Beverly Connor overreaction to the situation, one that insults us and our  integrity."
"They were assigned to me because last night a man  was sent to my home to kill me. He shot his way into the  house. I ?ed to the attic where he followed and shot his  way through that door also. He was about a second away  from shooting me, point-blank, with a shotgun blast. Fortu- nately, I shot him ?rst. We don't know who sent him. The  guards will be with me until we ?nd out and the situation  is resolved."
Kingsley looked at her openmouthed. "Are you all right? 
How's Frank?"
"He wasn't home. I was alone," Diane said, still looking  at Stark.
"I heard something about a home invasion in Rose- wood," said Stark. "That was you?"
"Yes," said Diane. "You will forgive me if, today, I am a  little cranky."
"You think it was me?" said Doppelmeyer. "I had noth- ing to do with it."
"I don't think you did. I really don't. I think it had some- thing to do with another case I'm working on. But that's  what I believe. I don't know." She turned back to Chief 
Stark. "I understand that some people are panicked when  confronted, even in a mild way, in the dark con?nes of a  parking garage. That's not true of me or Dr. Webber," said 
Diane. "We viewed the situation accurately."
"So did the security cameras," said Lynn Webber. "Hos- pital security can make them available if you want to see  them."
Doppelmeyer looked at Lynn and snarled. "You vindic- tive freaking bitch."
Both Fisher and Stark jerked their attention to him. She  could see they were surprised by his vehemence-and his  inability to keep his temper in check.
Sheriff Braden stood up and faced him. "I don't know  where you were raised, but here we don't talk to a lady  that way."
Diane was suspecting that there was something more  to Doppelmeyer and Lynn's enmity than what Lynn had  described. She was willing to bet that Lynn had rebuffed 
 his attentions and that was a large part of what led to him  getting her ?red.
"You know," said Ross Kingsley, "normally in these  kinds of meetings, we try to break the ice with small talk  and jokes. And I'm ashamed to say that I ?nd this more  entertaining, but we have some evidence we would like to  show you."
"That's why we're here," said Stark.
Jin had been standing by a credenza with the box of evi- dence on top of it. He came over with the box and set it  between Diane and Ross.
"This is Deven Jin," said Diane. "He's the director of the 
DNA lab. He was formerly on my crime scene team. He  helped gather the evidence and he processed it."
"Hi." Jin grinned, as if they were all good friends.
"Dr. Webber has her autopsy report that she will go over  with you," said Diane.
"Let's get it over with, then," said Detective Fisher.
Diane put a diagram of Stacy Dance's room on the table. 
She had marked where all the evidence was found. She  turned the map to face toward Fisher, Stark, and Doppel- meyer. She also placed their own photograph of Stacy next  to the map.
Kingsley explained his ?rm's involvement ?rst. Diane  noticed he tried to keep all words out of his narration that  might in any way suggest that their guests had bungled the  case. He used a lot of passive voice and weasel words. He  was far more tactful than Diane would have been.
"Her father, Harmon Dance, left her room intact," Kings- ley said. "That's why I was able to have Diane examine it." 
He nodded to Diane and they gave her their strained at- tention.
"When someone is strangled, they often evacuate their  bladder and bowels," began Diane.
"Oh, here we go, Pathology  " said Doppelmeyer.
"Oran, let's listen," said Chief Stark. Her voice was quiet,  but it held her authority.
Doppelmeyer sat back in his chair, his ears turning red. 
"We know this," he said.
"I was just introducing the evidence," said Diane. "I  meant no disrespect." She pointed to a marked place on the  diagram that was in the living room area of Stacy Dance's  apartment.
"This is where she was strangled. We found her urine and  feces here and it covered a wide area. It had been cleaned  up, but there was enough left for Jin to positively identify it  as belonging to Stacy Dance," said Diane.
"What about the bed?" said Fisher. "Did you check it?"
"Yes. It was negligible. The amount was what you might  get from transfer," she said.
Diane put a photograph of the rope in front of them.
"This was around her neck. Notice that it is tied with a  granny knot. If you are involved in cutting off the blood  supply to your brain for fun, it's important for the knot  to be easily released when you want it to be, or you lose  consciousness. You use a knot that lets the rope slip, or  you use a knot that can be released by a pull on the end of  the rope. You don't use a granny knot. Granny knots are  incorrectly tied square knots that are notoriously hard to  untie, and they don't slip. Look at the picture. There is no  way she could have gotten out of this. She would have lost  consciousness in as little as four seconds after the knot  was pulled tight, and death would have followed within  minutes."
"It could have been suicide," Fisher shot back.
"Have you ever in your experience seen a suicide like  this?" said Kingsley. "Has anyone committing suicide ever  attached clothespins to their nipples?" Fisher didn't say  anything. "This was staged to humiliate as well as to de?ect  the manner of death."
"You know about knots?" Stark asked Diane.
"Diane is an expert in knots," said Kingsley.
"She is," said Lynn Webber. "I hadn't heard of a forensic  knot expert until I met her. Let me tell you, when we had  those hanging victims, she made sure my diener and I were  really careful with the knots. She read those knots like a  book."
"How do you get to be a forensic knot expert?" asked 
Fisher.
Diane could see the skepticism in his face. But she saw  interest too.
"Study and experience. My interest began when I be- came a caver. In caving, your life often depends on your  knowledge of rope and knots. Then I had my ?rst case in- volving ropes, and it grew from there," said Diane. "Knots  carry unique information. They tell you things about the  person who tied them. It's often not a great deal, but it  can be a critical piece of information. I can look at a set of 
Beverly Connor knots and tell you if the person is a caver or a rock climber,  a boater, or a hauler. I can also tell you by looking at their  rope if they are careful or reckless."
"Huh, interesting," said Stark. "So this is not a knot  someone would use in this situation?"
"Not like this. In this situation, if a granny knot is used  at all, it would be to tie a small loop to stick the end of the  rope through to make a loop around the neck that would  release."
Diane watched their faces to see if she was winning them  over. She couldn't tell. They had far better poker faces than  she did. Except Doppelmeyer. And he was not ever going  to be won over. But he didn't need to be. Nancy Stark was  their audience. She was the one who needed to be con- vinced.
Diane showed them another photograph of the rope. 
"This part of the rope-the opposite end from the noose- has Stacy Dance's epithelials and blood on it for a length of  a little more than eighteen inches. She was strangled with  this end." Diane looked to Kingsley.
"We also found other evidence, which we will discuss in a  moment," said Kingsley. He nodded to Lynn Webber.
Lynn placed her autopsy photographs of Stacy's neck  on the table beside the photograph they took of Stacy as  she was found. She handed them her report. With her well- manicured ?ngers, Lynn pointed to Stacy's neck in their  photo. Lynn didn't use nail polish. She buffed her nails to  a shine and kept them short. Her nail beds were long and  made her nails look longer than they were. She had pretty  hands that were a contrast to the dif?cult photographs she  was showing.
"This ligature here," she said, pointing to a reddened line  across the neck, "it's the same line here on your photo. This  is the mark left when she was strangled, as evidenced by  the deep-cutting indentation of the rope and the character- istic perimortem color and pattern of the tissue damage."
Stark nodded. "Go on."
"This ligature"-she pointed to a second indentation  around the neck-"is where the rope was later tied around  her neck-the way she was found. If you look at your pho-  tograph, you can see some of it where the towel sort of lifts  the rope a little."
She handed them a magnifying glass. Stark and Fisher  picked up the photographs and examined each.
"Notice the different color," Webber said. "See that the  bruising did not spread through the tissues from the site of  the rope. She was already dead when this was tied around  her neck."
Chief Stark had a copy of Doppelmeyer's autopsy re- port. She read it over several times.
"Oran, you don't mention two strangulation ligatures,"  said Stark.
Detective Fisher took the report from her and read it.
"It means nothing," Doppelmeyer said. "I told you she's  incompetent. This is not an original photograph. She prob- ably Photoshopped this."
"This is a copy of the photograph from your ?le," said 
Kingsley. "If you compare it with the original in your ?le,  you'll see that it hasn't been changed in any way. If you  don't believe the photographic evidence, Stacy Dance  hasn't been reburied yet. You can have a third ME look  at her."
They were silent for several long moments. Diane could  now see the doubt in both Stark and Fisher. Doppelmeyer  saw it too.
"You're not buying this crap, are you?" he said.
Neither answered him.
"What is the other evidence you mentioned?" asked 
Detective Fisher. "The evidence that involves their cases." 
He wagged his hand between Detective Hanks and Sheriff 
Braden.
"The hell with this," said Doppelmeyer. "If this is all you  have, I have important work to do. What a waste of time. 
I'm glad I drove." He got up to leave.
Diane asked one of the policemen to show him how to  get to the ?rst ?oor. She then turned to Hanks and nod- ded. He and Braden told them about Marcella Payden and 
Mary Phyllis Lassiter. Hanks told them about the ?ber evi- dence and he told them about the boot print.
"The same boot print showed up at the Stacy Dance 
Beverly Connor scene," said Hanks. "We don't know why. The crimes were  completely different. Not just the age of the victim, but"- he threw up his hands-"all of it. With Payden and Las- siter, it was like a smash and grab. Very quick and violent. 
With Miss Dance, it was staged and slow. It's possible the  same person was involved in both. Or it's possible your guy  threw away the clothes he used and our guys found them."
"When Diane told us about the evidence connection,"  said Sheriff Braden, "we looked for some connection be- tween our victims and yours. Couldn't ?nd any. Not that  we had a lot of time to look-this evidence just came to  light-but still, nothing so far."
"If you get a suspect, we'd like you to allow us to watch  the interrogation. We'll do the same," said Hanks.
Both Braden and Hanks had been very matter-of-fact,  assuming that Gainesville PD would reopen the Dance  case. They didn't know anything about the politics or the  biases that closed it in the ?rst place. They were just look- ing at the evidence. Diane suspected Stark and perhaps 
Fisher noticed that about them, the lack of guile.
"All right," said Chief Nancy Stark. "We'll take another  look. I'm not making any promises."
"There's something else," said Kingsley.
"What's that?" asked Stark, frowning.
"I almost hate to say, because it's going to turn some- one's world upside down," said Kingsley. "But she knows  it's coming. You know the young woman who discovered  the body of Stacy Dance?"
"The gal from Ohio, cousin to the drummer?" said Fisher. 
"I suppose I need to get her back here."
"She's not the drummer's cousin," said Kingsley. "Her  name is Samantha Carruthers. She's the sister of Ellie 
Carruthers-the teenager Stacy Dance's brother was con- victed of killing."
"What?" said Fisher. "The hell you say. You are not seri- ous?"
"Unfortunately, yes," said Kingsley.
"What the hell was she doing hanging out with the Dance  girl?" Fisher said.
"Several reasons," said Kingsley. "Among them, I suspect 
Samantha Carruthers had doubts about the identity of her 
  sister's murderer. I think it was something subconscious,  but I believe it was there."
"How did they get together?" asked Fisher.
"They were in the same college class," said Kingsley. 
"Stacy had a band. Samantha played the guitar and wanted  to join the band."
"How did you ?nd out?" he said.
"I was retracing Stacy Dance's last days. I spoke with her  band members. Samantha Carruthers was there, but she  was introduced to me only as the drummer's cousin, visit- ing from out of town. I went to meet with the Carruthers  family, as Stacy had, and Samantha showed up at home- literally walked in through the front door-while I was in- terviewing Mrs. Carruthers. 'Hi, Mom. Hi, dear.' Imagine  my surprise."
"Damn, imagine  my  surprise," said Fisher. "Why didn't  she tell me when I interviewed her? Why the fake name?"
"She said she didn't want her parents to know. You can  imagine what their reaction would be. I didn't give her  away. I knew something must be up. She met with Diane  and me later and spilled the beans. Samantha's moved out  now. I'm not sure where, but the drummer probably knows. 
I told her you would be ?nding out. Your showing up won't  be a surprise to her, but it will be to her parents. Like I  said, I hadn't wanted to turn her world upside down. I still  don't."
Kingsley didn't mention the diary. It had more to do  with the Carruthers murder, and the Gainesville visitors  wouldn't have wanted to revisit that. If the diary came up  later, he told Diane, he would give it to them. Diane thought  they were about ready to go. Then Stark spoke up.
"What about that newspaper article?" said Stark. "That  has been very uncomfortable for us, and unfair."
Diane was hoping they wouldn't mention it.
"I sympathize," Diane said. "As I am director of the mu- seum, newspaper articles have been the bane of my existence  lately. We didn't have anything to do with the article."
By we , Diane meant Kingsley and herself. They would  assume, however, she also meant Webber. If Lynn wanted  to come clean, ?ne, but Diane doubted she would. Too  much to lose.
Beverly Connor Stark nodded. "It had a lot of inaccuracies," she said.
"I agree," said Diane.
The meeting broke up and Diane called Frank and asked  if he felt like having a guest. She knew he had been busy  all day repairing the house. She wished she had been there  with him.
"Sure. I'll order Mexican," he said. "And I have an idea  about the names I couldn't decipher."
Diane cleared the table after the dinner of enchiladas, Span- ish rice, and chiles rellenos Frank had ordered, and brought  out fresh brewed raspberry-chocolate coffee. Frank was lay- ing out the decoded diary pages on the table and explaining  to Kingsley what they meant.
"You've impressed me," said Kingsley. "You talk like this  was easy."
"It was fairly easy," said Frank. "Just a little time- consuming. Fortunately, there's not much to do in a motel  room."
"That's right, you just got back from, where was it, Nash- ville? I'd think there would be a lot to do in Nashville," said 
Kingsley.
"I'm not much into nightlife," said Frank. "Ben, my part- ner, and I are pretty boring."
Frank gave Kingsley a code sheet with all of Ellie Rose's  little doodles and what they represented. He had another  sheet with symbols for proper names that he couldn't trans- late.
"Most of the names were friends from school, judging  from the context," he said. "If I had a list of her friends, I  could ?gure out who she was talking about in each instance. 
Most of what she wrote about was related to the normal con- cerns a girl her age would have. Lots of drama, but nothing  serious. It's these two names that are the ones of interest." 
Frank pointed to two doodled symbols in the list. "They are  the only ones she seemed to be truly wary of."
Frank showed Kingsley larger drawings of the two doo- dles. "Diane and I thought this one looked like a stylized 
Beverly Connor snake with scales and horns. And the other one looked  like some kind of a masonry ruin-bricks or something. I  thought maybe it looked kind of like an igloo-at least, the  blocks reminded me of ice blocks. At any rate, the jagged  outline looks like something broken," said Frank. "Note  that the snake scales in the ?rst symbol are small versions  of the larger blocks in the other symbol."
"You said you had a ?ash of what they might mean?"  said Diane.
"If they are names, what if the outline represents the ?rst  name and the inside pattern represents a last name? That  would make these two symbols represent two people who  share the same last name. For example, Ellie Rose might  have represented my name by using a hot dog with small  doughnuts inside it, and my daughter's name would be a  star with doughnuts inside."
"Doughnuts?" said Diane and Kingsley together.
"I don't get it," said Kingsley.
"You know, Dunkin' Donuts. That's one type of coding 
Ellie used-a kind of rebus soundalike: Duncan-Dunkin'."
Diane laughed.
"Like the Brick twins, Snake and Jagged," said Kingsley,  grinning.
"Sort of," said Frank.
The phone rang. Diane rose from the table, carrying her  coffee with her, and answered the phone.
"Diane, uh, Thomas Barclay here. How are you? Read in  the paper you had some kind of dustup at your home."
Dustup? Yes, that's what it was, a dustup . Diane frowned  and sat down in the living room and took a sip of hot cof- fee. Thomas Barclay was one of the museum board mem- bers, one whom she struggled to get along with. He was a  bank president with a forceful personality.
"Yes, there was an incident here. A man shot the lock off  the door and forced his way in with a gun and tried to kill  me. I'm ?ne. I was able to shoot him before he shot me,"  she said. She realized she sounded sharp, but calling what  happened to her a  dustup  pissed her off.
There were several moments of silence.
"My God, a home invasion-here in Rosewood. What  were they after?"
"Me, apparently," said Diane.
Barclay seemed to be at a loss for words. "Do the police  have someone watching your house?" he said.
"Yes, they've had someone with me all day."
"Good, good," he said. "The reason I called is-well, I  got a curious call from a friend. A man I serve with on a  board of directors in Atlanta. Name's Everett Walters."
"The name sounds familiar," said Diane. She waited for  him to get to the point.
"He's a good man. Usually very sensible. He said his son  over in Gainesville has a very good friend and neighbor  that you've been harassing. Of course, I told him that was  unlikely. But the thing is, the thing that makes it dif?cult is,  he insists that the board, the museum board, get rid of you. 
Says your behavior is casting a bad light on the museum. I  told him we don't have the power to ?re you. He said we  need to do something, that his son's friends suffered a ter- rible tragedy and now you are causing them immeasurable  suffering on top of it, and you have to be stopped. What's  this about?"
"It's not about museum business and I'm sorry that a  member of the board was dragged into it. You need not  worry about museum involvement. You can tell your friend, 
Mr. Walters, that the Gainesville police will be handling  things from here on out," she said. "We've turned every- thing over to them."
He was quiet again. Apparently Barclay had never been  on an advisory board before. He much preferred making  policy, rather than merely expressing his opinion. He would  have liked very much to be able to ?re Diane, or at least to  curtail her powers. Not being able to do either, he made an  effort to be polite.
"All right. I'll tell him the police will be handling it. I'm  sure that will be a comfort," he said.
"I'm sure it will. You said he is usually very sensible,"  said Diane. "How well do you know him?" Diane thought  it very odd that he would call with such a vehement request. 
She could see him asking Barclay to look into it, or to ?nd  out what was going on. But to request that she be ?red? 
That was a little over-the-top. Had Wendy leaned hard on  him for Marsha Carruthers' sake?
Beverly Connor "Oh, we go back," said Barclay in his best bank pres- ident's voice. "He owns several businesses in Gainesville  and Atlanta." He said it as if that were Everett Walters'  measure of worth. She supposed that for Barclay it was.
"Everett Business Supplies, Walter Ace Parcel Delivery, 
Night Couriers. His son is chief of oncology at the big hos- pital in Gainesville and is being looked at to run for a con- gressional seat. Has a grandson in law school. Good solid  family. His father was the one who started the family busi- ness. Good tradition. Everett's not given to histrionics-I wouldn't have thought."
Apparently Walters' call sounded a little over-the-top to 
Barclay too. That was interesting.
"It's unfortunate he bothered you with this," said Diane. 
"I assure you, he has exaggerated to the point of absurdity. 
There is no reason to worry. I hope the rest of your evening  is uneventful."
"Yes, ah, yours too. Terrible about the home invasion. 
Just terrible. Here in Rosewood you don't expect that kind  of thing. Well, good-bye, Diane."
Diane bid him good-bye and hung up the phone. She  took the phone to its station and went back to the table.
"What was that?" asked Frank.
"Thomas Barclay, from the bank-a member of the mu- seum board. Wendy Walters' father-in-law is calling mu- seum board members. Or rather, he called Thomas Barclay,  at any rate, and asked him to ?re me for harassing Marsha 
Carruthers and her family."
Kingsley looked at her with an expression of puzzle- ment. "You're serious? He did that?"
"That's what he said."
"It sounds like the Carruthers are using their neigh- bors to put pressure on you to stop the investigation," said 
Frank. "A little late for that."
Diane didn't say anything. She was staring at the draw- ings.
"Diane? Are you there?"
It was Kingsley's voice. But Diane didn't say anything. 
She barely heard him, she was so interested in Ellie Rose's  doodles.
"Diane," said Frank, "you thought of something. I can tell  by the trance you're in."
Diane didn't answer. She walked over to one of the  bookcases in the living room and pulled out a desk ency- clopedia and ?ipped through the pages. She was coming  to understand how Ellie Rose's mind worked too. Diane  put the encyclopedia back and pulled down a travel book,  thumbed through it, and replaced it. She pulled out a geog- raphy book and looked through it. It had the picture she  wanted. She grabbed a bookmark from the basketful Frank  kept on the shelf and marked the page. She took the book  to the table, sat down, and pulled the drawings over to her  and studied them.
"Did Ellie Rose ever truncate a name in her representa- tion of it?" Diane asked Frank.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"For example, if she were writing about me, might she  use a drawing of dice, or rather one die, to represent the syl- lable Di , rather than symbolizing the whole word 
Diane ?"
"Sure. The symbol she used for 
Atlanta  was a sun with  squiggly rays," Frank said.
"I don't get it," said Kingsley.
"Hotlanta," both Diane and Frank said together.
"Oh, of course." Kingsley grinned.
"Okay," said Diane, pointing to the drawing of the snake. 
She paused, trying to organize her thoughts. "We called this  a snake because this top triangle looks kind of like the head  of a snake, and the elongated, curved diamond shape below  it looks like the body of a snake-and maybe she did that 
Beverly Connor on purpose-making a symbol with a double meaning. But  this drawing could also represent a tie," said Diane.
"A tie?" said Kingsley. "Like neck ornamentation?" he  said, pulling at his own brown and tan striped tie.
"It could," said Frank.
His eyes twinkled. Diane could see he loved decoding  things. Actually, it was kind of fun.
"Okay, now look at this other one-the jagged outline  that we interpreted to mean something broken or in ruins. 
But look at this." Diane turned to the page she had marked  in the book and pointed at the photograph. Look at just the  outline of this face of Mount Everest. The shape is the same  as her symbol. Notice that her drawing of the jagged shape  is always the same. It wasn't a generic jagged-shape thing  she was representing. It was this particular thing: Mount 
Everest."
"You're right," said Frank. "It's the same outline. Okay,  we have Tie and Everest. You are suggesting that those are  the ?rst names, right?"
"Sort of," said Diane. "You said you think the pattern  inside the symbol is the last name. The crosshatches look  like scales on the ?rst symbol because we identi?ed it as a  snake. On the second symbol, I called them bricks in a bro- ken wall. I think I was right, at least about the wall part.
"When we think about drawing something that repre- sents a generic wall, we don't draw something made out of  stucco or drywall-we think of bricks in a wall. The bricks  mean wall . So, what we have is Tie Wall and Everest Wall,  or rather, Tyler Walters and Everett Walters. Those are the  names of Ellie Rose's neighbor and his grandfather-the man who is trying to keep me busy with something other  than investigating this case."
Kingsley and Frank both sat back, silently looking at the  drawings.
Kingsley nodded and stroked his short beard. "I'll buy  it," he said.
Frank looked up from the drawings to Diane. "Is that  what the call was about just now? This Everett Walters?"
"Yes," said Diane. "He called Thomas Barclay. They  serve together on some board in Atlanta. He wanted Bar-  clay to ?re me. Maybe he thought I'd be too busy trying to  save my job to pursue this case."
"Thomas Barclay. Isn't that the banker who gave you  a hard time about the Egyptian artifact scandal?" asked 
Kingsley.
"The very one," said Diane. "Even Barclay thought Ev- erett Walters was a little too dramatic in his demand. Wal- ters must have been very insistent."
"Well, that's interesting," said Kingsley. "Very sugges- tive. What was it again that Ellie Rose said about them in  her diary?"
He rustled through the papers on the table until he came  up with the diary translation Frank wrote.
"If we put the names in place of the symbols, it reads: 
Dread seeing Tyler Walters. Tyler Walters has gotten mean  since Everett Walters came into his life. Tyler Walters is just  too creepy. Everett Walters scares me." Kingsley put the list  down. "Tyler lived next door to Ellie Rose Carruthers. You  don't think..."
"You know," said Frank, "just because Ellie Rose was  put off by them doesn't mean they killed her. I know that's  what's running through your minds right now. And not to  put a damper on things, but we don't know if Diane's deci- pher of these symbols is correct. I think it is, but we don't  know for sure."
"I know," said Diane, "but here's the clincher. Bar- clay just told me that one of Everett Walters' businesses  is Walter Ace Parcel Delivery. If I'm not mistaken, that's  the company Ryan Dance worked for, and it was in their  secured parking lot that he parked his car-the car with  all the evidence in the trunk that he claims someone must  have planted. You have to admit, it's worth looking into."
"You're right," said Kingsley. "My God, you're right  about that."
"So now you do intend to look into the Ellie Rose mur- der case? The one you assured those women in Gainesville  that you weren't investigating?" said Frank.
"Yes," said Diane. "This may turn out to mean nothing,  but it's really making the hair stand up on the back of my  neck."
Beverly Connor "Just checking," said Frank. "I ?nd it a little chilling my- self." He smiled. "I know I would follow up on it."
"It makes sense about Wendy Walters," said Kingsley. "It  was obvious she and Marsha Carruthers are codependent. 
I could see what Marsha was getting out of the dependent  relationship, but I couldn't understand what Wendy was  getting. If she was trying to assuage her guilt, it would lead  her to go way above and beyond the behavior of a good  neighbor."
"Her guilt about what exactly?" said Frank.
"That's the question," said Kingsley, absently pulling at  his tie. "Did someone in her family kill Ellie Rose, and did  she know about it?"
"Jeez, it's beginning to sound like a Shakespearean trag- edy," said Diane. She started to offer more coffee when the  phone rang again. She left them at the table wondering if 
Wendy was some variation of Lady Macbeth and went to  answer it.
"Diane, it's Vanessa. How are you?" she asked.
"I'm doing well. No real lasting effects. Frank replaced  the doors today. You'd never know they had been shot up,"  said Diane.
"That makes me shiver every time I think about it. I don't  know how you remained so calm during all that," she said.
"I wasn't really all that calm," said Diane.
"You did well. I'm very impressed. God forbid, if I'm  ever in that situation, you are the one I want by my side  to protect me. But the reason I called, Mother said she re- membered getting letters about the Gauthier family when  we were in Europe. She said the letters were from Laura 
Hillard's great-grandmother, Ernestina. She kept mother  up-to-date on all the Rosewood gossip in those days," said 
Vanessa.
Laura Hillard, Diane's psychiatrist friend, and her family  went several generations back as residents of Rosewood.
"Does she remember what they said?" asked Diane.
"No. She got so many letters during that time," Vanessa  said. "When Daddy was ambassador, our life was a whirl- wind."
"I don't suppose she saved the letters," said Diane.
"Well, that's the thing. She's insisting that Harte and I 
 go up in the attic and look for them. She can't remember  exactly where they are stored, and you know how big our  attic is. It's going to be like ?nding the lost Ark in the gov- ernment's warehouse," said Vanessa. "Harte told me to use  that analogy. She said, since you love science ?ction, that  you would understand it."
Diane laughed. "I do, and it's a good analogy."
"Oh, I'm glad. I know how you hate bad analogies. Poor 
Thomas Barclay still hasn't recovered from your scolding  of him over the 'Where there's smoke there's ?re' refer- ence."
Diane smiled to herself. "Thomas called this evening. A  man named Everett Walters is wanting him to dismiss me  from the museum. Do you know an Everett Walters? He  owns some businesses in Atlanta and Gainesville."
"Dismiss you? This person thinks he has a say in who is  director of my museum? For what reason did he think you  should be ?red?"
Diane could almost see the look of indignation on 
Vanessa's face. She related the conversation she had with 
Thomas Barclay.
"I think Walters wants me away from that case in Gaines- ville. I won't get into that. It's a really long story," Diane  said.
"I'll call Thomas," Vanessa said.
Nothing infuriated her more than people messing with  the museum.
"Everett Walters? The name sounds familiar. Yes, the 
Everett Walters I know has a son, Gordon Walters, who, I  believe, is a doctor. I've heard talk of him running for Con- gress. I don't know why he thinks that makes him quali?ed. 
Doctors can be so arrogant. Is that the same Everett Wal- ters who called Thomas?"
"That's him," said Diane.
"I hope Thomas gave him an earful, but I doubt it. I'll let  you know if we ?nd anything in the attic," she said.
Diane looked at the clock sitting on the ?replace mantel. 
It was too late to call Detective Hanks. Besides, it would be  better to wait and see if Vanessa found anything. She went  back to Frank and Kingsley. They were still discussing pos- sible scenarios for who killed Ellie Rose.
Beverly Connor "Vanessa thinks she might ?nd some more information  about the previous owners of Marcella's house," said Diane  as she sat down. "That's Detective Hanks' case-the one  with the strange boot print connection to Stacy Dance's  crime scene," she reminded Kingsley. "It was Vanessa's  mother who remembered the name of the family who  owned Marcella's house years ago. Vanessa said her mother  just remembered that Laura's great-grandmother wrote  letters to them while they were in Europe about the lat- est gossip involving the Gauthier family. Apparently they  were..."
Diane stopped. Frank and Kingsley were staring at her,  both with surprised looks.
"What?" she said.
"You don't speak French," said Kingsley.
"No. I'm not good with languages. I barely spoke enough 
Spanish and Portuguese to pass for the village idiot when I  was in South America."
"The Anglicized name for Gauthier," said Frank, "is 
Walters."
"Gauthier and Walters are the same name?" said Diane.
"Yes," said Kingsley. "That is, sort of. One is French and  the other is English." He grinned.
"Can that be only a coincidence?" said Diane.
Frank didn't say anything for several moments. He stud- ied the list of things Ellie Rose wrote in her diary about  the two people she feared. But he didn't seem really to be  looking at it.
"You know," he said at last, "this might explain the at- tack on you."
"How?" asked Diane.
"You are the only person investigating all three crime  scenes-Marcella Payden, Mary Lassiter, and Stacy Dance. 
The perp might think that, if you were out of the way, then  no one would make the connection between the Rose- wood, Hall County, and Gainesville crimes."
It made chilling sense. But who was the  enginer  who  threw a  petar  at her gate and blew it up? Did Everett Wal- ters send the thug who shot his way into Frank's house? 
Did his son? His grandson? His daughter-in-law? Everett 
Walters called Thomas Barclay to have her ?red. Did he  think that would get her off the case? Did he perhaps take  a less violent route, while some other member of the family  took the more violent approach?
But that was not the ?rst question she needed to answer. 
The ?rst question was, were the Walters of Gainesville re- lated to Maybelle Agnes Gauthier of Rosewood?
The ringing phone brought her out of her thoughts.
"Diane, this is Vanessa. I'm sorry for calling so late. I 
Beverly Connor just had a thought. It's silly really, but you know, it's one of  those strange coincidences. Did you know that Gauthier in 
English is Walter? Isn't that interesting?" she said.
Of course, Vanessa spoke ?uent French. It appeared that  everyone except Diane was multilingual.
"Frank and Ross Kingsley just this minute pointed that  out to me. We were marveling at the strangeness of the co- incidence."
"I've found a trunk full of letters," said Vanessa. "There  are probably more trunksful stuck in hidden places in the  attic. Tomorrow we'll help Mother go through these. With  a target date of or thereabouts, it'll be easier. Except  that Mother will probably want to read them all."
"Thank you, Vanessa," she said. "You've been a really  big help in this."
"Oh, good. I can get one of those patches, can't I?" she  said.
"What patches?" said Diane.
"Oh, don't you know, dear? The museum staff designed  a small patch to give to whoever does consulting with the  dark side. They sew it on their caps or their jackets or  whatever. Lawrence Michaels just got his for some kind of  handwriting thing-he didn't reveal any details, so don't  worry-and he's so proud."
"I was unaware of the patch," said Diane. She rubbed  her forehead and pinched the bridge of her nose. The mu- seum staff were always up to something, it seemed.
"They found letters," Diane told Frank and Kingsley  when she hung up. "But I think it's going to be a while  before they ?nd the ones they are looking for. From what 
Vanessa says, Lillian Chapman, Vanessa's mother, never  threw any of her letters away, and she's nearly a hundred."
"You know, that might be just what we need," said Kings- ley. He gathered up the papers and put them in his folder.
"A lot of it will be gossip," said Diane.
"Maybe. But it may also contain leads." He put the ?le  under his arm and rose. "I thank you for dinner and the  illumination."
After he left, Diane pushed crime and murder out of  her mind and practiced the piano. Frank had found her an  intermediate-level version of Pachelbel's Canon in D that 
 she was learning how to play. It was a nice way to end the day  before going to bed. Frank always played the piano before  he went to bed. He chose Diane's favorite Chopin nocturne.
Diane lay awake thinking about the Walters family. It  would be more than a coincidence if they were related to  the artist who disappeared more than ?fty years ago. She  kept going over scenarios for all that had happened. What  if someone in the Walters' household killed Ellie Rose? 
Who would it be? Did Wendy know who it was? There  was a good possibility that she would. Whom would she  protect? Her son? Certainly. Her husband? Probably, but  maybe not. Then again, many women would protect the fa- ther of their children in order to keep the stigma away from  them. Her father-in-law? Less likely, but most people hate  scandal. The son was the most logical. Mothers are driven  to protect their children.
Diane had another thought. Kathy Nicholson, the neigh- bor across the street from the Walters, had a son the same  age as Wendy's son. Did he know what happened? Was he  involved? He did move far away from Georgia-as far as  he could get without going into the ocean. He rarely came  home. Curious.
"I know you have lots of questions." Frank's husky voice  came out of the dark. "But you need to get some sleep."
Diane smiled to herself. "Was I thinking too loud?"
Frank gave a deep-throated chuckle. "I just know you." 
He leaned over and kissed her.
"What you need to be thinking about is how to get a judge  to issue a search warrant for their cars and houses," he said. 
"Word games aren't going to convince any judge, and most  aren't impressed with coincidences either. I don't know all  the evidence you've collected, but I don't think any of it ac- tually connects directly to anyone in the Walters family."
"It doesn't, and you're right. But I have some ideas," 
Diane said. She moved over to the crook of Frank's arm,  snuggled against him, and went to sleep.
Diane's bodyguards followed her to work and took up  their positions in the lobby of the crime lab. It was probably  one of their easier assignments, thought Diane. At least it  would be until something happened.
Beverly Connor The crime lab was empty when she arrived. She went  straight to her lab and began working on the remaining  bones David had excavated from the well. She measured  and examined each one, adding the new information to  what she already had. She stood back and looked at the  young male skeleton with its missing bones.
It would have been necessary to remove all ?esh, blood,  marrow, and sinew from the bones before they could be  crushed to make the temper. Almost certainly, they were  skinned and boiled. Not a pleasant task. Something you  wouldn't want to do in your kitchen. In a shed, perhaps.
Diane cast her mind back to Marcella's place. There were  two outbuildings-three, if the carport was counted. One  of them, Marcella identi?ed as a potter's shed. The other  one, her daughter, Paloma, told Diane, was ?lled with junk  from previous owners and should be torn down. Did it have  a vent in its roof? A chimney? She didn't remember.
She did have a clear image of the yard ?lled with various  items of decor. She wondered which owner had put them  there. Did they have meaning? Were there any clues to be  had from the concrete statuary?
But not everything was concrete. Diane remembered  seeing a large cast-iron pot planted with ?owers. It would  have been perfect for boiling body parts. She would ask 
Marcella where she found it. Probably not in the yard, if it  was old. She didn't think cast iron would last long out in the  weather. Or would it? Perhaps it was in one of the sheds.
Diane repacked the bones, washed her hands, and put  the paperwork on her desk. She called down to museum  security to see if everything was calm. It was. No incidents  whatsoever. That was a relief. Her team should be in the  crime lab by now. She went to speak with them.
Neva, Izzy, and David were there working when she en- tered. Diane called them over to the round table and asked  them for updates on the crime scenes they were working  on.
"We almost don't have time for any more crime," said 
David. "We need to open a branch of?ce. Not that I'm com- plaining. It's good for business. Never a dull moment." He  gave a rundown on the various evidence they had in pro- cess, then turned to Marcella Payden.
"We've started the backyard research project again at 
Marcella's. Scott's been a big help. He's a little too careful  where he steps-jumpy about the prospect of more aban- doned wells-so he's slow, but I can't say I blame him. And  the paramedics haven't made a run out to the house in sev- eral days. So things are good."
Diane smiled. "David, you speak French. Why didn't you  tell me that Gauthier is the French word for Walters?"
David looked at her for a moment. "Why would I?" he  asked.
"Oh," she said.
She realized they knew next to nothing about the Car- ruthers, Walters, and Nicholson families. They knew only  about Stacy Dance and her crime scene. She gave them a  brief description that turned to a long description when  they started asking questions.
"Talk about your weird coincidence," said Izzy. "Jeez,  this case is full of them. You think it's the same family- Gauthier and Walters?"
"I don't know," said Diane.
"You know," said Neva, "sometimes people change their  names if they don't want to be associated with an infamous  relative. Imagine how Jeffrey Dahmer's extended family  must feel."
"Sometimes they do it because the old name is just too  hard to pronounce," said David. "Or they don't want to  sound foreign."
"It's probably just a weird coincidence," said Diane, "but 
I'd like to investigate the possibility."
"What you're thinking is that the Walters family doesn't  want the connection made between them and their Mad 
Potter relative," said David. "Assuming the Mad Potter was  a Gauthier, and the Walters are really the Gauthiers."
"I think it may be a possibility," said Diane. "The Walters  are a prominent family. Gordon Walters, the oncologist in 
Gainesville, is testing the waters for a run for Congress. He,  or his father, Everett Walters, might want to keep the skel- etons in the closet."
"Who wouldn't want to keep these skeletons hidden?"  said Neva. She shivered and pushed her hair back behind  her ears. "I gave the facial reconstruction drawings to 
Beverly Connor Hanks. He's going to show them around some of the area  retirement homes. He doesn't hold out much hope that  anyone will remember them after so long, but there's al- ways a chance."
"You did a good job on the drawings. I hope we get some  hits," said Diane.
"You know," said Izzy, "I think we need to have our own 
Web site where we can post Neva's reconstructions. A lot of  people have computers these days. Who knows? We might  get some hits there."
Izzy wore jeans and a T-shirt like the rest of her team usu- ally wore. He started out with slacks and button-up shirts. 
Diane was glad to see that he had adapted well to her team. 
Not that he should dress like them, but she wanted him to  feel a part of the team, to identify with them. Not everyone  could.
"Good idea," said Diane. "Would you like to do it?"
Izzy raised a hand as if shoving the idea away from him- self. "I'm just learning about computers. But good ol' David  here..."
"I think it's a good idea too," said David. "It wouldn't be  hard. The hard part is to make it so people can ?nd it. Your  average person doesn't go sur?ng for missing persons. But  we can give it a try."
"Okay, in your spare time, then, go ahead," said Diane. 
"Neva, I want you to remember everything you can about  the black Escalade you saw. Did it have any stickers on  it? Did it have a front plate that identi?ed the dealership? 
Anything?"
"I've gone over it in my head," said Neva. "I believe it  had a UGA parking sticker on the front window, but I'm  not sure. It didn't have a dealer plate, or any front plate."
"Find out if anyone among the Gainesville families we  discussed has a car like that," said Diane.
"Will do," said Neva. "I can probably get a list of Cadillac 
Escalades registered on the UGA campus. You want me to  do a little investigating and see if the Tyler guy might be a  hiker?"
"Yes," said Diane. "But would he wear his good hiking  boots except when he was hiking? Jin doesn't."
Neva grinned broadly. "We start judging what perps 
 might do based on Jin's behavior and no telling what we  might come up with," she said, and they all laughed. "If  they're really comfortable, and I'm guessing they would be,  then he might like them in a high-risk situation."
Diane nodded and turned to David. "Have you been  able to identify any of the ?ngerprints you found on the  objects in the well?"
"I haven't run them yet," he said. "That's on my schedule  for this morning."
"Be sure to include the database of people who've been  bonded," said Diane.
David put a hand over his heart. "Have you ever known  me not to be thorough?" he said.
"Never," said Diane. "I'm just looking for reasons for a  judge to grant a warrant."
"I hear you," said David. "We will scour the evidence."
Diane's cell vibrated in her suit pocket. She pulled it out  and looked at the display. Detective Hanks.
"Hi," said Diane. "What's up?"
"You know I told you I was sending someone to retire- ment homes looking for people who remembered May- belle Gauthier?"
"Don't tell me you found someone who knew her. That's  great," said Diane.
"Nope," said Hanks. "We found  her ."
Diane sat frozen for a moment. Speechless.
"I thought that would surprise you," said Hanks.
"Are you saying you've found Maybelle Agnes Gauth- ier? She's alive?" said Diane.
Diane wondered whether her face looked like David's, 
Izzy's, and Neva's did-wide-eyed, drop jawed. She didn't  know why she was so stunned. Vanessa's mother was alive  and she was about the same age as Gauthier.
"I'm going out to interview her late this afternoon," said 
Hanks. "I thought you would like to come along."
"Yes," said Diane, "de?nitely."
"She's alive?" David said when Diane hung up. "The  woman who wrote on the desk drawer? Actually, do we  really know that was her? What do we know about her? Do  we really know she even lived in the house?"
"We are fairly sure she was an artist who did oil paint- ings," said Neva. "Vanessa's mother remembered her- right? We don't know if she was into ceramics or if she  was a murderer. David's right, we really don't know much  about her. We just suspect a lot. Do you think she's as clear- headed as Vanessa's mother?"
"No idea," said Diane.
"I really doubt it," said Izzy. "I've been thinking about  that writing on the desk. You know, it's kind of crazy."
"You think?" said Neva.
"Okay, smarty, hear me out," said Izzy. "What if her fam- ily knew she was crazy and was going to come take her to  the funny farm, and she got wind of it? Maybe she left the  message so that, I don't know, her imaginary friends would 
?nd it and save her. I mean, who else did she expect would 
?nd it? I'm betting she's loony tunes."
"She might have been taking drugs when she wrote that,"  said David. "She was an artsy type. Maybe a member of the  beat generation. Were they only writers, or could other art- ists claim membership?"
"Beat generation?" said Neva.
David shook his head. "I forget how many babies we  have here. This was before you were born. Google it."
"David," said Diane, "it was before you were born."
"Yeah, maybe, but I have an old soul," he said.
A call came in about a crime scene and Diane sent Neva  and Izzy out on the call. It was the kind of scene Diane  hated-someone killed in a bar. It meant dealing with peo- ple who were intoxicated, belligerent, and evasive.
"Take backup," said Diane. "Call and ask that my body- guards be assigned to you. I'm going out later with Hanks  to the retirement home."
"Sure," said Neva. "Tell us all about it when you get back."
Neva and Izzy retrieved their crime scene kits from the  locker and headed out. Diane asked David to look for a  match for the ?ngerprints on the items retrieved for the  well and to call UGA to get a list of Escalades with parking  permits.
"I want to know as soon as you can ?nd out. Neva may  be busy for a while," said Diane.
She went back to her of?ce to ?nish up her paperwork. 
Before she began, she called Vanessa.
"Diane, we must be psychic," said Vanessa. "I was about  to call you to report our progress. We found a stack of let- ters from the dates you and I were talking about. We are  just sitting down to begin reading them."
"That's good news, Vanessa. I called with some inter- esting news of my own. Detective Hanks found Maybelle 
Gauthier in a retirement home. We are going to see her late  this afternoon."
There was a pause. "Did he, now? How clever of De- tective Hanks. She's alive. I've been thinking that she was  probably buried near that house. But she's alive-and re- tired? You say she is in a retirement home? I wonder what  she retired from?" said Vanessa.
Beverly Connor Diane could hear her speaking with her mother and she  heard Lillian's clear voice say she wanted to go see her.
"I guess you heard that," said Vanessa.
"Yes, I did," said Diane.
She was about to say that it wouldn't be a good idea  today; then she thought that perhaps it might. Lillian Chap- man was a contemporary of Maybelle. There was a chance 
Lillian could get through to her whereas they might not. 
Diane had no idea what condition Maybelle Gauthier was  in. Like Lillian, she was getting close to a hundred.
"Let me make a call," said Diane.
At four o'clock they were in Vanessa's limousine-Diane, 
Vanessa, Lillian, Detective Hanks, and Mrs. Hartefeld, who, 
Vanessa said, "insisted on coming to look after Mother." 
Diane knew better. Like the rest of them, Mrs. Hartefeld  was overcome with curiosity.
She and Hanks sat on one seat, facing to the rear, Va- nessa and the others facing forward. It reminded Diane of  a stagecoach, only the ride was smoother. Vanessa served  them orange juice from a small refrigerator. Diane had ex- pected Hanks to say no when she called, but he too thought  they might get more information if Lillian were there. 
Hanks seemed surprised that Lillian Chapman wasn't frail. 
Diane thought he expected her to be in a wheelchair. She  was slim, had strength in her arms and legs, and had a sharp  mind and a clear voice. She did not look like a woman in  her mid-nineties.
Vanessa and her mother wore pantsuits. Vanessa's was  a navy raw silk suit with a blue shirt. Her mother wore a  turquoise linen suit with a peach blouse. Both had plati- num white hair. Vanessa's was pulled back in a twist. Her  mother's was short with a slight wave that reminded Diane  of the twenties, but with a little more lift. Harte had on a  black skirt and a pink sweater set with pearls. They looked  like very unlikely sleuths.
Lillian was telling Diane and Hanks about one of the  letters. Diane was particularly thrilled to hear what they  had discovered among one stack of letters tied with a pink  ribbon. It contained a piece of information she needed to 
  go along with other evidence to present to a judge for a  warrant.
"I knew Ernestina Hillard from childhood," said Lillian. 
"Poor soul died young. She wasn't yet eighty."
Hanks suppressed a smile.
"She wrote me while we were in Europe. My hus- band, Vanessa's father, was in the diplomatic corps and  we traveled a lot in those days. Vanessa was schooled in 
Switzerland. I don't know whether that was a good idea  or not."
Vanessa rolled her eyes. "
Mother ," she said.
"Be that as it may, there we were, and the only news we  got from home was bits in foreign newspapers and letters  from friends. Dear Ernestina was the most reliable. She  wrote me about the scandals, in particular. I'm ashamed to  say, I rather enjoyed them."
"Was there a scandal concerning the Gauthiers?" asked 
Hanks.
Diane thought Detective Hanks would be impatient to  get to the point, but he seemed to be somewhat in awe. She  got the sense that he enjoyed meeting Vanessa and riding  in her limousine.
They passed through an area of road construction where  the pavement was uneven and their orange juice almost  sloshed out.
"Oh dear," said Lillian. "I didn't get anything on me, did 
I?" She looked down at her blouse. "You know, the older  you get, the less you can afford to have food stains on your  clothes."
Hanks laughed.
"You're ?ne, Mrs. Chapman," said Harte.
"Diane told you about the letters, didn't she?" asked 
Lillian.
"Yes," said Hanks. "People don't write letters much any- more, do they?"
"No, they don't, and that's a shame. But I have to tell  you, I rather enjoy my e-mail," she said.
Hanks raised his eyebrows. He wasn't expecting that.
"Vanessa and Harte found so many of my old letters. Ap- parently, I had just dumped bundles of them in a trunk. But 
Beverly Connor the one thing they found was just a wonderful surprise,"  she said.
"What was that?" asked Hanks. He knew, because Diane  told him when they picked him up at the station. It was  kind of him to let Lillian tell it.
"An unopened letter from . I can't imagine a greater  treat. Judging from the date on it, it must have arrived  about the time we were packing to come home from Eu- rope. We ?ew home, of course, but our trunks and the furni- ture were sent by ship. I guess I just stuck the letter in one  of the steamer trunks with my other letters. I always kept  my letters together with a pretty ribbon tied around them  so they wouldn't get lost. In all the rush and confusion of  packing and unpacking, I must have forgotten it was there. 
Travel in those days was quite a bit more involved than it is  today, you know, particularly with a retinue as large as ours,  and if you had an unmarried teenage girl under your arm. 
You would not believe those European men, their audac- ity." Lillian waved her hand as if to dismiss the thought. 
"But in any event, that which was lost is found again. And  what a surprise when we found it. Vanessa, Harte, and I had  a wonderful time reading it."
She took it out of her purse and handed the translucent  blue pages to Hanks. He and Diane had to strain to read  the spidery handwriting.
Dear Lillian, Do you remember the Gauthier-Farragut divorce? 
Certainly you do, beautiful Edith Farragut in that big 
Parisian hat coming out of the courthouse dressed just  like she did when she was a young girl. Here in North 
Georgia! She was a sight. Remember us laughing. We  were awful.
Well, I have more news. You remember my telling  you that three years ago her daughter, Maybelle Gauth- ier, just dropped off the face of the earth? Neither Edith  nor Jonathan would talk about her. You wouldn't be- lieve the rumors that were ?ying. Her father married  her off to a prince. No one believed that one. For having  such a beautiful mother, Maybelle was quite a gawky  girl. The Barbers down the street said she committed 
 suicide. She was over forty and never married, Mr. Bar- ber said, so what else could she do? He always was a  harsh judge of character. Some of the kinder folk said  she went to Paris to study art. I think I believed that. She  was such a wonderful artist. You remember the por- traits she did-and the landscape your mother bought  that time. It was beautiful. But I digress.
Here's the juicy bit of news I promised. May- belle's father, Jonathan, took Everett (you remember 
Everett-Jonathan Gauthier's son by that new young  wife he married seventeen years ago. Everett is about 
Vanessa's age, I think, maybe a bit younger) and his  wife, and moved to Atlanta-and changed their name  to Walters! Can you believe that? He changed his name! 
He didn't tell anyone. Virgil found out quite by acci- dent when he was getting some legal work done. (They  share the same lawyer. Virgil had no idea.) We still don't  know what happened to Maybelle. Her mother lives in 
Marietta. As far as I know, she is still keeping with her  maiden name, Farragut. Sarah tried to ask her one time  about Maybelle, but Edith ignored her. I wonder what  happened to that girl. And why do you think Jonathan  changed his name? Strange, isn't it?
I'll be happy to see you safe at home. I just can't  imagine living in strange countries all these years. Has 
Vanessa forgotten her native tongue? You're lucky she  didn't marry a foreigner while you were there. I'll bet  you'll be glad to get back to civilization.
Safe journey, Ernestina They arrived at the retirement home. The chauffeur  pulled into a parking place near the door and stopped.
"Oh my. This is a dreary place," said Lillian Chapman as  she stepped out of the car and put a hand on Detective 
Hanks' arm.
"I would hate to live here," muttered Vanessa. "It looks  so sad."
Diane retrieved a box and a ?le folder from the car,  then turned and looked at the building. It was a one-story sprawling structure of concrete blocks painted a pale yel- low. The grass in the surrounding yard had turned brown  and dry with the coming of fall. The few scraggly trees had  already lost their leaves.
"I appreciate your allowing us to come, Detective," said 
Lillian. "This is going to be interesting."
"I'm hoping she will respond to someone who once knew  her," he said.
They entered the building and went into an of?ce just  to the right of the front door. A young woman with multi- colored hair got up from her desk and came to the coun- ter. She wore jeans and a sweatshirt that said i'll try to be  nicer if you try to be smarter .
"Can I help you?" she asked with a bright smile. She  quickly scanned the ?ve of them and gathered up several  forms. "You'll have to ?ll these out," she said before Hanks  could give her an answer. The woman smiled at Lillian. 
"This is a real nice place."
"I'm sure," said Lillian. "Very nice hair extensions you  have, my dear. I particularly like the purple and green to- gether."
The young woman patted her hair. "Oh, thanks."
Hanks showed her his badge. Diane noticed he had taken  off his arm sling and left it in the car. His movements were  a little stiff, but he wasn't wincing in pain.
"We have an appointment to see Miss Gauthier," he said.
"The police to see Miss Agnes? Well, I hope she hasn't  done anything wrong. It wasn't a bank job or anything, was  it?" The young woman giggled at her joke.
"Please send them in here, Miss Jolley."
Jolley , thought Diane. 
Her name isJolley . They went into  the of?ce of Ms. Christina Wanamaker, according to the  name on the door.
"Please, sit down," she said. She was a woman in her  early forties. She had dyed black hair pulled back in a se- vere French twist. Thick eyebrows and turned-down lips. 
She looked around for a moment, seeing that there were  more people than chairs.
"Miss Jolley," she called, "could you bring two more  chairs?"
The screeching sound of chairs being pulled across the  tile ?oor split the air. Harte was nearest the door. She ran  out to help carry them in. They sat down and Hanks made  introductions as Ms. Wanamaker pulled a ?le out of her  drawer and opened it on her desk.
"I'm hoping you know of family for Miss Gauthier," said 
Ms. Wanamaker. "We, of course, have a mandate to take  care of the indigent, but the economy being what it is, we  would welcome it if relatives could help with the expense  of her care."
"We hope this leads to her relatives," said Hanks. "We  have reason to believe it will."
"Do you have someone in mind?" she asked.
"We have some de?nite leads we are following," said 
Hanks.
Ms. Wanamaker's face brightened. "Are they in a posi- tion to help, do you think?"
"It's possible," said Hanks.
Diane could see he was walking a ?ne line between try- ing to keep to the truth and trying to keep Ms. Wanamaker  cooperative. She referred to Maybelle as indigent. If Ever- ett Walters was indeed her brother, he certainly could and  should have been helping all these years.
Beverly Connor "Can you tell us something about her?" asked Hanks.
"I don't know a lot," said Ms. Wanamaker. "As best I  can determine, she's been in the system for more than ?fty  years. Over that long period of time there have been many  changes in care, and most of her original records were  lost. What I do have has been pieced together and is very  sketchy. Miss Gauthier was ?rst institutionalized in a clinic  in the early or mid-?fties. I don't have an exact date. That  facility was called the Riverside Clinic, in Rosewood. I be- lieve there is now a museum where the clinic used to be.
Diane and Vanessa couldn't have been more startled if  someone had thrown ice water on them.
"Is that your museum?" asked Hanks.
"Yes," said Diane. "What is currently the RiverTrail Mu- seum building was the location of a clinic in the forties and 
?fties."
So, Maybelle Agnes Gauthier had been a resident of  the psychiatric clinic that used to be in the building. When  renovations of the building were under way in prepara- tion for the opening of the museum, boxes of old records  were discovered in the basement and subbasement. Diane  wondered whether Gauthier's name was listed somewhere  among them. She would ask her archivist to ?nd out.
"Oh," said Ms. Wanamaker, "you know it, then."
Diane nodded. "Yes, we do."
"It closed down sometime in the ?fties, as I understand,"  the retirement home director said.
"In " said Diane.
"Miss Gauthier was moved to a retirement home in 
Clarksville after that. It burned, and that's where a lot of  the ?les were lost. After the ?re, she was in the hospital for  a time, due to burns on her arm. She was not severely in- jured, but she was hurt badly enough that she needed care  for a time. After that, she was in three other nursing and  retirement homes before she came here. As I said, she has  been in the system a long time."
"When she was ?rst institutionalized, she would have  been in her early forties," said Diane. "Do you know what  she was diagnosed with?"
"We don't have the original diagnosis, but over the years  she has been diagnosed with a list of things," said Ms. Wa-  namaker, picking up a piece of paper. "Everything from  schizophrenia, delusional disorder, dissociative identity  disorder, paranoid personality disorder, bipolar disorder,  to Ganser syndrome. Personally, I don't think anyone knew. 
I don't know what symptoms she had when she was ?rst  institutionalized. Seriously, if she kept being shuf?ed from  nursing homes to retirement homes, it couldn't have been  that severe. She has always been coherent while she has  been here. In fact, she is an artist. Did you know that?"
"Yes," said Hanks. "Painter, right?"
"She's done some wall murals for us, even at her age. 
They are quite good. She's also a very good potter." Ms. Wa- namaker pointed to a shelf behind them. "She did that."
They all turned and looked at a ceramic pitcher formed  in the shape of a beautiful girl with long curling hair. One  lock of hair looped and curled, making the handle for the  pitcher. The eyes were empty.
"Would you like to see her now?" she asked.
"Yes," said Hanks, "that would be good."
The retirement home smelled like a prison to Diane. She  didn't like it. She walked beside Hanks as Christina Wana- maker led them down a long hallway. Several wheelchairs  were in the hall with elderly men and women asleep in  them. No one was attending to them. Diane noticed a few  visitors, but most of the residents were alone.
The walls of the facility were painted the same pale  yellow as the outside of the building. The ?oors were a  green tile. Bad elevator music was piped in from some- where. The place was clean, but Lillian was right; it was  dreary. It made Diane realize that the hardest thing in the  world to be is old, poor, and alone. Time to ?nd her inner  objectivity. It wouldn't do to break down and cry here in  the hallway.
Ms. Wanamaker led them to a large sunroom. One wall  was painted with tropical plants, ?owers, and birds. It was  the cheeriest thing Diane had seen in the place. Gauthier's  work, thought Diane, was still very good. At the far end of  the room a woman, dark against the waning light, sat near  a large picture window.
"Miss Gauthier," said the retirement home director, 
"you have visitors."
"Visitors," came a rough, halting voice. "I? Visitors? I  don't believe I've ever had visitors before."
They approached the woman, their shoes clicking and  echoing on the tile ?oor. Diane set her box and folder  down on a nearby table and grabbed a couple of chairs. 
Harte helped her. They placed them near the woman. The  director adjusted the window blinds to reduce the sunlight 
 coming through. Now there was just the ambient light from  the ?xtures in the room, a harsher light. Diane, Vanessa, 
Lillian, and Hanks sat down in a semicircle in front of the  woman. Harte sat back a little behind Lillian.
Maybelle Agnes Gauthier was a lanky woman. Even  at her advanced age she did not look shrunken, but large  boned and tall. Her hair, ?ne white wisps over the crown  of her head, was thin and showing a pinkish scalp. Her face  was crisscrossed with lines. Her lips had all but disappeared,  they were so thin and lined. She wore a pink housedress, a  gray bulky sweater, leggings, and house slippers. But most  noticeable about her were her eyes. Diane had never seen  eyes their color. They were a dark bluish color with ?ecks  of yellow and light blue, almost like copper ore. The eyes  followed each one of them as they arranged their chairs. 
They had a sheen to them as they moved, as if she had had  cataract surgery.
"Maybelle," said Lillian, "it's been a very long time. The  last time I saw you was at one of Rosewood's cotillions  and we were young women dressed in white gowns and  gloves."
"Cotillion. I haven't heard that word in a long time. Who  are you? I don't recognize you."
"I'm Lillian Chapman. I used to be Lillian Egan."
"Lillian Egan? I don't remember. You say we knew each  other? I didn't know many people."
"We did not know each other well," said Lillian, "but our  paths crossed on occasion. My father owned the railroad  that ran through Rosewood."
"I remember the railroad. I think my father probably  hated your father." She gave a throaty chuckle. "He hated  a lot of people."
"We would like to know about your life," said Detective 
Hanks.
"My life? You would like to know about my life? Why?"  she said.
"We think it would be interesting," he said.
"Do you?" she said. "All of you people have come here  thinking my life is interesting? Why is that?"
"You are a famous artist, for starters," said Hanks.
Gauthier was far more clearheaded than Diane thought 
Beverly Connor she would be. It frankly surprised her. She knew Lillian had  a keen mind, but she came from a long line of people who  aged slowly.
"And we have been digging in your backyard," said 
Hanks slowly.
She looked startled, almost confused. Then she said, 
"Young man, I don't have a backyard."
"You did a long time ago," he said. "Didn't you?"
"A long time ago, yes. That was so very long ago. Be- fore... before..."
She let the sentence fade away without ?nishing it. She  seemed to have withdrawn into herself.
"May we record our conversation?" said Hanks.
Silence.
He turned on the recorder anyway.
"You know, Maybelle, at our age," said Lillian, "there  isn't much that can hurt us anymore. Sometimes it's good  to tell people about our lives before everything is gone. I  remember your mother and her large hats."
Maybelle smiled. "Those hats. As a little girl, I used  to traipse around the house in those hats." She frowned. 
"Until Father came home. He was opposed to traipsing. My  mother is dead. So is my father."
"We are very old," said Lillian.
"Yes. Very old," she repeated. "Why have you come?"  she asked again.
"You asked us to," said Diane. "You said if you ever dis- appeared, come ?nd you. You wrote it on the bottom of a  desk drawer. It took a long time, but we are here."
She didn't say anything for a long time, just stared at 
Diane.
"I did, didn't I? I had forgotten. It was so long ago."
"Why did you leave your note on the bottom of a  drawer?" asked Hanks.
"I didn't want my father to ?nd it. He wouldn't know to  look there. I thought Mother would."
"How did you come to be here?" asked Diane. "Why  aren't you living in Pigeon Ridge? You did live there, didn't  you?"
"Yes. My mother gave the house in Pigeon Ridge to me. 
It was hers to give. I came to be here because my father  put me away. Mother came to see me, but she couldn't res- cue me like I thought she would. I have a brother some- where. I don't think he knows where I am. He was a good  brother. He must be dead too. Maybe I shouldn't tell you  my story after all." She turned her head away, dismissing  them.
"We know your brother," said Diane.
Gauthier jerked her head back around and looked at 
Diane.
"Your younger brother, Everett. Isn't that his name?"  said Diane.
"You know him?" she said. "Does he know where I  am?"
"We found you," said Diane. "He could have too. You  would be proud of him. He has several businesses. He mar- ried and has a son. He has a grandson. His son is a doc- tor and is going to run for Congress. His grandson is a law  student at the University of Georgia. He's going to be a  lawyer."
Diane stopped and let it sink in. It didn't take long. She  saw the change come over her eyes. Gauthier had been in- digent, living in dingy retirement homes for almost sixty  years, and her brother had prospered. The whole family  had prospered.
"Is that the truth?" Gauthier said.
Diane had found a photo on the Internet for the occa- sion. It was an award banquet for Everett's son, Gordon 
Walters. The whole family was there, sitting around the  table. Thank God for the Internet. She went over to Gau- thier and handed her the photo.
"This is your brother here. Beside him is your nephew, 
Gordon Walters, his wife, Wendy, and your grandnephew, 
Tyler Walters," said Diane.
"Walters?" said Maybelle Gauthier. "Why is his name 
Walters?"
"Your father left Rosewood and changed his name," 
Diane said.
"Everett looks like Father," she said. "He looks like 
Father."
Beverly Connor "Does he?" said Diane.
"He left me here and never looked for me." She looked  up at Diane and her eyes were hard, like jet coal. "You  came here for my story. Okay, I'll tell it. I'll tell you my  story, all of it. There's not much they can do to me now."
"Father was a hard man with no use for art, or daughters. 
But Mother was rich and she was strong willed. She pro- tected me. I didn't have any pets growing up. I knew better. 
Father couldn't be trusted. He was mean and vindictive." 
Maybelle Gauthier looked at Lillian. "If your father was  alive, he would tell you. My father ruined many men with  lies. Lies were sharper than swords."
"I seem to remember Papa saying something about Jon- athan Gauthier," said Lillian.
"Mother divorced him and lived on her own. She owned  property in Pigeon Ridge and told me I could live there. Fa- ther tried to marry me off to one of his friends. I wouldn't  have it. I was in love with someone else, an artist."
She shook her head and her eyes suddenly softened. She  was quiet for a moment. When she spoke again, Diane al- most jumped, her voice was so ?lled with venom.
"Father ruined him, ruined his family, and told me it was  my fault. I heard he died not long after. I think he killed  himself. He was sensitive. Not like me. I was as strong as  my mother. Like her, I lived by myself. I lived on the money  from my trust fund and my portraits."
The light ?ltering through the windows was fading and a  kind of darkness settled over the room, even with the over- head lights.
"I didn't make any more friends. It was dangerous, be- cause of Father. And after a while I grew too old to marry  off. Father found himself a new wife, and they had a son. 
That was Everett. After that, Father left me alone. He had 
Beverly Connor what he wanted. Then I got two ideas." Gauthier's eyes glit- tered with excitement at the memory.
"I had grown tired with painting and I wasn't selling as  much as I used to. I always thought Father had something  to do with that. It was like him. I still had Mother and my  trust fund. I became interested in pottery. I'd see it in art  shows in Atlanta and liked the idea of the clay ?owing  though my ?ngers. And I quite liked the symbolism of ves- sels. I didn't like the shiny stuff the other artists produced. 
I wanted something more earthy. I discovered how the In- dians made pottery, and I liked that. There was a creek not  far from my house that had an ample supply of clay. But I  wanted to do something different."
She paused for a moment and licked her thin lips.
"And I wanted to ruin my father's favorite thing-his son. Everett was old enough to go about by himself. Chil- dren did in those days, especially boys. I invited him to  come visit me. I showed him my art. I got to know him. 
He was a lot like Father-mean. But he seemed to like me  well enough. I think because I was strong. Not many people  stood up against Jonathan Gauthier.
"I had an idea for making my pottery come alive, in a  manner of speaking. Making each piece have meaning  greater than a mere pot. Make it a true vessel. I got Everett  to bring me young people his age to model for live masks. 
I tempered my pottery with grit then and sold the pieces in 
Atlanta. Mine were unique and they sold well."
Diane hadn't seen Harte leave and didn't know she was  gone until she came back with bottled water for everyone. 
Apparently she'd noticed Maybelle was getting hoarse.
Maybelle took a long drink before she continued. Diane  was afraid she might change her mind and stop. Hanks  thought the same thing, she guessed, for he frowned when  he was handed his drink. But she didn't stop. She merely  quenched her thirst.
"I took Everett to movies in Atlanta-violent mov- ies. I could see by the look in his eyes he liked them. I'd  drop little hints about Father-about people who crossed  him, how some disappeared. Then I'd say it wasn't true. It  wasn't, but I knew that denying it would make him believe 
  it. He was so much like Father. I told him so, and he liked  the idea. He wanted to be like Father.
"I'd been toying with the idea for a long time of trying  out a new temper that would add more meaning to my  work. I needed Everett to do it. I told him about bone  temper, how wonderful it was, and how we needed bones  to do it. Not just any bones, but human bones, the way  the Indians did it, I told him. I gradually raised the idea  in his mind of killing one of the people he brought home. 
Someone no one would miss. I could see the idea excited  him. I coaxed him, we talked about it, and I asked him his  ideas, until, after a while, he thought it was all his idea. But 
I told him how to do it, to use the small hatchet and do it  quick and ef?cient. He did and he was good at it. The ?rst  one was a tramp."
Out of the corner of her eye, Diane could see that Harte  was shivering. She pulled her sweater tighter around her  and nervously ?ngered her pearls. Vanessa and Lillian were  quiet and still, their faces blank masks.
"I sold a great many pottery vessels, each one with its own  unique face-young, old, beautiful, harsh. Did you see the  pitcher in Miss Wanamaker's of?ce? That one wasn't special  and is made with ordinary clay, but you can get the idea of  what the others must have been like. Isn't it beautiful? All  the pottery vessels I made after that had a special look about  them. People in Atlanta told me they looked as if they could  come alive. They were right. But they didn't know it."
She took another long drink and stared off into the dis- tance. Diane thought they might be losing her. She got up  and opened the box. In it lay the partial mask that Marcella  had put together.
"We have one of your pieces," said Diane, handing it  to her.
"Oh, it's the most beautiful one of all. And Father crushed  it. You know, I like it like this. I like the lines formed where  the pieces are ?tted together. I hadn't thought of breaking  it and putting it back together. That adds another symbolic  dimension."
"Please go on," said Diane. "We want to hear about  your art."
Beverly Connor Maybelle Gauthier didn't take her eyes off the mask in  the box as she spoke.
"I bought a cauldron and put it in the shed, and I boiled  the bones down after Everett cut up the pieces that I  needed. When the bones were perfectly white, I dried them  and crushed them. They made the perfect temper for my  clay. I used the face of each person as the form to sculpt  the piece. When I ?nished and it was ?red, it was the most  beautiful work of art you have ever seen. There was noth- ing like it in the galleries. It had the rough look of Indian  pottery but the delicate sculpting of modern work. Each  piece had a spirit in it. People saw it, even if they couldn't  put a name to it. I made a fountain for a man in Atlanta  who loved the idea of water coming out of the eyes.
"Then Father found out. I don't know how. I suspect that  he came to visit when I wasn't there and saw something  he shouldn't. Everett told me they were coming after me. 
That's when I wrote the note. I was afraid. Everett helped  me throw everything we could down the well. I hid all my  work I had there. But when Father came, he found my pot- tery and crushed the beautiful pieces in front of my eyes  and threw them in the ?re pit. I hated him for that. He  didn't ?nd the portraits I did of them. I hid them in the  wall, along with a portrait of my mother."
"What about the young victims?" said Lillian. "Didn't  you feel bad for them?"
Diane thought Lillian probably couldn't hold it in any  longer.
"Oh, they were far better off. The people Everett brought  home had terrible lives. At least they could now live forever  in art," she said. "And their suffering was over."
"So your father took you to a clinic," prompted Diane.
"Yes. What was the name? Something about a river. It  was a huge Gothic building. Mother would come to visit me  and she would cry. She told me if I got out, Father would  see that I went to jail. This way, no one would ever know  what I did, and one day I'd get out and could start over. 
Everett begged me not to tell on him and I didn't. I didn't  even tell Mother about his part in it.
"The clinic was a terrible place. At night you could hear  people screaming. I never knew what was happening to 
 them. I was smart enough to stay quiet and be easy to get  along with. That way they wouldn't increase my medication  or do whatever it was they were doing to the other poor  patients."
Diane shivered. She and Vanessa exchanged horri?ed  glances. Diane didn't know very much about the clinic  that once had been housed in the museum building. The  docents made up ghost stories about the old clinic, but she  never considered that strange and terrifying things really  may have gone on there.
"They closed the place down in just a year," continued 
Gauthier. "Good riddance. I was taken to another place. I  forget the name. I was there for, I don't know, but it seemed  like several years. Mother would come see me, but then she  died. She was my last hope. The doctors had to sedate me  when I heard. I was still smart enough to be very good and  they let me work in the of?ce sometimes. It was there that 
I saw the surgery orders that my father had signed. He told  them to give me a lobotomy. Do you know what that is?"
Diane nodded. "Yes," she said.
"They wanted to cut part of my brain out. I had been  around patients who had lobotomies. I would lose every- thing. I would lose my art. My father would win. I had to do  something. He came to visit one evening before they were to  do the surgery. I'd planned it all. It was so easy, much easier  than making my beautiful pottery. I got some chemicals from  the janitor's closet ahead of time and stole an extra key they  kept in the desk drawer of the receptionist's of?ce. As I said, 
I had been on good behavior and they gave me pretty much  free run of the place. It was as if I were invisible. My father  and the doctor were in the doctor's of?ce with the door shut. 
Before they knew anything was going on, I set ?re to the  outside of?ce and locked the door. I left the key in the lock  so the doctor couldn't unlock it from the inside. The of?ce  was away from the dormitories in a separate building. There  was no one to know or to hear. I stayed there looking at my  father and the doctor as they tried to escape. They couldn't  get out the windows because they were barred. There was a  glass window in the door, but it was double paned and had  wire in between. And I watched them. I watched my father  screaming at me. And I did this."
Beverly Connor She pointed her middle and index ?ngers at her eyes,  then pointed them at Diane. She did it over and over in a  sharp, jerking motion, her brows knitted together, her eyes  dark.
"He did that to me as a child when he wanted me to pay  attention to him, to look him in the eyes, to let me know he  saw me. I called it his devil look, and I did that to him. That  was his last vision-me giving him the devil look. And I'm  not sorry I did that to him."
It was quiet in the room. The light from the windows  was almost gone and only the harsh halogen light from  the overhead ?xtures was left. Diane didn't know what  she thought she was going to hear from Maybelle Agnes 
Gauthier, but she was oddly stunned and af?rmed by what  she heard.
She picked up the folder again and took out the like- nesses that Neva had created of the two skeletons from the  well and handed them to Gauthier.
"Who are they?" Diane asked.
She ran her wrinkled hands over the drawings. "Lovely,"  she whispered. "Who did these?" She looked up at Diane.
"A woman who works for me," Diane said.
"I didn't name them. A name would have only dimin- ished what I was trying to say," she said.
Diane took a breath. "What were their names before  you met them?"
"Dust to dust," Gauthier whispered. "I was taking them  back from whence they came. I crushed them to dust and  re-created them into something more beautiful. Something  their fathers couldn't hurt. See"-she looked at the mask  still in the box in her lap-"even though my father crushed  her, she's still beautiful."
"Who were they?" said Hanks. "We need to know who  they were."
"It was a long time ago. I don't remember."
"Of course you do," said Lillian, her voice harsher than 
Diane had ever heard it. "You painted her; you talked with  her as you were doing her portrait. What did you call her? 
Beverly Connor She told you about herself. You knew her father hurt her. 
What was her name?"
Gauthier didn't say anything. She stared at Lillian, but  without anger. She gazed at the mask again, brushing it  with her ?ngers, and ?nally spoke.
"Patsy. It seems as though I called her Patsy. The boy-I  called him Steven because he reminded me of my Steven. He  was quiet and sensitive. He sat so still as I painted him. He  seemed to take joy in just sitting still. He liked Steven better  than his name. I don't remember what it was," she said.
"Do you remember their last names?" asked Diane.
"No. I didn't care what their last names were. Those were  their fathers' names," she said.
"Why didn't you change your name to Farragut?" asked 
Diane. "Why did you keep your father's name?"
Diane had caught Gauthier by surprise. She looked wide- eyed for a moment, as if trying to understand the question.
"I don't know," she said ?nally. "I don't know."
"Why did you use a drawing of a bird for your signa- ture?" asked Hanks.
She smiled. "Mother used to call me her little magpie,"  she said, "and I lived in Pigeon Ridge. I liked the idea of  being something that could ?y away whenever I wanted."
Hanks looked at Diane and his lips twitched into a whis- per of a smile.
"How many were there?" said Diane. "How many did  you turn into art?"
"Not many. Not many. Ten, maybe. Perhaps fewer," she  said.
"Where are they buried?" asked Diane.
"I don't know exactly. Everett handled that. Somewhere  nearby."
Hanks rose to his feet. "Thank you for speaking with  us."
He said it as if it were all he could do to say the words. 
Diane understood.
Hanks reached to take the box containing the mask from 
Gauthier. She snatched it away.
"Can't I keep it? It's mine."
"It's evidence, ma'am," he said, and took the box and put  the lid back on it.
They left her there, sitting in the empty sunroom with the  harsh light shining on her. No one spoke until they were al- most to Rosewood. Lillian broke the silence.
"All that going on in Rosewood, and no one knew? 
Weren't those poor people reported missing?"
"They must have been," said Diane.
"The little boy she said liked to sit still. Poor little thing,"  said Harte.
"He was worked hard," said Diane. "The muscle attach- ments on his little bones were too developed. He'd led a  hard life. He was undersized for his age. He wouldn't have  looked like the teenager he was."
They were silent again until they were pulling up to the  crime lab parking lot where Vanessa had picked up Diane  and Detective Hanks.
"Is that what you have to deal with every day?" asked 
Vanessa before they got out.
"It's usually not this crazy," said Hanks. "No, I take that  back. When someone gets stabbed for his shoes, or his  lunch money, that's pretty crazy. But I don't usually deal  with insanity on quite this scale."
He put his sling back on his arm. Diane saw that he was  still in pain.
"I want to thank you for the ride," he told Vanessa. "I've  never ridden in a limousine before."
"Everyone should have a limousine ride at least once," 
Vanessa said, smiling at him. "Thank you for putting up  with us."
"You were very helpful," he said. "Mrs. Chapman, you  made the woman connect with her past. I'm not sure I  could have done that."
"I'm glad we could be of service," Lillian said. "It cer- tainly gives one something to think about, doesn't it?"
Diane and Hanks got out and watched the limousine  leave the parking lot.
"I'm sure there's fresh coffee in the crime lab if you'd  like some," said Diane.
"Fresh coffee sounds good. Will your personnel be up  there this late?" he asked.
"Are you kidding? They're waiting on pins and needles  to hear the story," she said.
Beverly Connor "That's the ?rst time I've met Vanessa Van Ross," said 
Hanks. "You say she's the real power behind the mu- seum?"
"Yes, she is," Diane said.
"An interesting family. I have a ninety-year-old great- grandfather and he has to have twenty-four-hour care. Mrs. 
Chapman is heading to a hundred, you say? I could invite  her out for racquetball."
Hanks shook his head as he entered the lobby for the  crime lab and nodded at Diane's bodyguards, who were  playing cards with the crime lab guard.
"Interesting family," Hanks said again.
"The Gauthiers were an interesting family," said Diane.
They got on the elevator and rode to the crime lab.
"Interesting isn't how I would describe them," said 
Hanks.
Diane was right; her team were all there, including Jin- plus Frank. Diane grinned and introduced Frank to Detec- tive Hanks.
"I thought you would be here soon, so I thought I'd take  you to dinner in the restaurant," Frank said.
"Why don't we all order dinner?" Diane said. "We can  eat it in my of?ce and Detective Hanks and I can debrief  with you."
"Let's," said Neva. "We are dying to hear about Gau- thier. Could you get any sense from her?"
"That depends on your de?nition of sense," said Hanks.
"How was the bar ?ght crime scene?" Diane asked.
"Uneventful," said Neva.
"Yeah, the guy lying on the ?oor with a knife stuck in his  gut kind of sobered them up," said Izzy. "We didn't have  any trouble."
They ordered dinner. While waiting for it to arrive, 
Frank, Izzy, and David moved the round table from the  crime lab to Diane's of?ce. She, Neva, and Jin carried the  chairs. Neva batted Hanks away when he tried to take one  of the chairs.
"You have to be really sore," she said.
"It's not so bad."
"I don't believe that," Neva said. "We've all been hurt  and it, well, it hurts."
"That's one of the things I miss around here," said Jin, 
"your way with words."
Neva hit him in the shoulder of his Hawaiian shirt. Even  with the weather cooling down, Jin still wore Hawaiian  shirts and Bermuda shorts when he was off duty. Diane  thought it was funny that he was critical of what Scott and 
Hector wore.
They put the chairs around the table and Neva sat down. 
"Okay," she said. "Tell us all about it."
Alternately, Diane and Hanks told Maybelle Agnes 
Gauthier's story to an astonished audience.
"And I thought she was probably the victim," said Jin, 
"living with some guy she couldn't get away from who  made crazy pots."
"Wait a minute," said Neva. "You mean she was here,  when this was a clinic? She was an inmate?" Neva sat with  one foot resting on the chair seat, hugging her knee to her.
"Yes," said Diane. "How's that for a really disturbing co- incidence?"
"I don't think they called them inmates," said David.
"I'd say it's a good word," said Izzy. "I've lived in Rose- wood all my life and I've never heard of these people."
"This whole thing goes way off the dial on my freak  meter," said Neva.
"You should have been there with her," said Hanks. 
"She's got the strangest color eyes. Didn't you think so?"
Diane agreed.
"She had praise for your drawings," Diane told Neva.
"Oh, well, I'll just quit my job and take her letter of ref- erence with me to New York," said Neva.
The buzzer rang on the museum side of the crime lab.
"Food's here," said Izzy.
He and Frank went to get it. They came back pushing the  cart with their food. Frank handed it out and they settled  in to dinner.
"David," said Diane, "you were quiet during the narra- tion. What have you got up your sleeve that you haven't  told us yet?"
"What makes you think I have something up my  sleeve?"
"I know you," said Diane. "What is it?"
Beverly Connor "Two things," said David. He turned silent as he slowly  savored a bite of his salad with his favorite dressing.
"David," said Jin, "you don't have to make an entrance. 
What is it?"
He put his fork down. "UGA issued a parking sticker to 
Tyler Walters for a black Cadillac Escalade."
"Okay," said Hanks. "That's what I want to hear. You  said two things?"
"I got a hit on the ?ngerprints from the potting clay we  found in the well. First, let me say that the thumbprint in the  dried blood on the sculpting tool matches the thumbprint  in the clay. Second, when I ran the database for people who  are bonded, the print came up a match for Everett Wal- ters. Detective Hanks, I think you can get a warrant now to  search the cars and residences of both of them."
Diane and her crew, Frank, and Detective Hanks dis- cussed every permutation of possible solutions to the  crimes, and she was sure one of them was probably correct. 
But sorting out which individual actually attacked Mar- cella, which one killed the Lassiter woman, and who killed 
Stacy Dance was impossible-or at least, beyond them for  the moment.
"We'll probably wake up with a brilliant idea in the  morning," said Neva.
"I'm sure," said Jin as the two of them helped Diane put  the dishes back on the cart.
Frank and Izzy put the table and chairs back in their  places and Diane told them all to go home. She knew David  would probably go down to the basement where he had his  own private of?ce and work into the night on some project  that involved some algorithm or database or other.
Diane followed Frank's car home and pulled up behind  him in the drive. There was already a car parked over to the  side of the driveway. Diane recognized it as Lynn Webber's  black Mercedes SUV. Lynn was sitting on their doorstep  looking up at the stars through the tall trees.
"Lynn?" said Diane, as she and Frank approached the steps. 
"Have you been waiting long?"
Lynn stood up with a Coke in one hand and an envelope  in the other. She was dressed for colder weather than the  current temperature warranted-jeans, suede jacket, and  boots. She looked stylish, as always, but she also looked to 
Diane like a kid about to run away to a colder clime.
"No, not long. I would have called, but sometimes it's  better to just show up," she said.
"Hello, Dr. Webber. How are you this evening?" Frank  took out his keys, opened the door, and stepped aside to let 
Lynn and Diane enter.
"I'm ?ne, and please call me Lynn, because I'm going to  call you Frank," she said.
"Okay, Lynn," he said. "Would you like some coffee?"
She held up her plastic bottle of soda. "No thanks. Got  caffeine here." She looked around at the decor. "This is a  beautiful house," she said as she shrugged out of her coat.
"Thanks," said Frank. He led the way into the living  room and offered Lynn a seat. Diane and Frank sat op- posite her.
"I'm sorry it's so late. You must be wondering what I'm  doing here."
Diane started to speak, but Lynn barely paused.
"I need to apologize. I'm aware of the care you used in  selecting your words when you responded to Chief Stark's  concerns about the newspaper article. I very much appre- ciate your discretion. I like my job here and I know what  would happen if they knew it was I who initiated the article. 
Beverly Connor I wish I could say I'm sorry I did it. But I'm not. However, I  am sorry I misused your trust in me to settle my grievance  with Doppelmeyer."
Diane didn't quite know what to say, at least to someone  who was currently a guest in her home. But it didn't matter,  because Lynn wasn't slowing down.
"One reason I'm not repentant is because Doppel- meyer is a sorry excuse for a medical examiner. I know that  sounds like I'm being tacky, but it's true, and he needs to  be outed. If he doesn't do his job right, justice is not served. 
Innocent people can go to jail and the guilty are left to kill  again. I know I can't travel across the United States and  root out every bad ME. But I can this one." She took a  deep breath.
"Well, in for a penny, in for a pound." She took the en- velope and handed it to Diane. "I did some research. This  is my way of making up to you and Ross Kingsley-and to, well, you'll see." She stood up. "I explained everything." 
She put her jacket over her arm. "I thought it would be  colder out this evening. Can't count on weather forecasts  worth a darn."
Frank and Diane saw her out to her car and watched her  drive off.
"What the hell was that?" said Diane on the way back  into the house.
"She certainly can talk when she gets going," said Frank. 
"Needs to work on her apologies, however."
Inside, Diane sat down on the couch, opened the enve- lope, and took out several typed pages. It was an analysis  of an autopsy. Diane read the pages several times and put  them back in the envelope. She felt strangely unsurprised,  though she wouldn't have guessed. She could call Ross  in the morning. Right now, she was tired and wanted to  go to bed.
The phone awakened Diane out of a pleasant dream of  swimming in an underground lake ?anked with giant crys- tal formations. She looked at the clock. It was just past four  in the morning. She reached for the phone but Frank got to  it ?rst. She held her breath. Early calls were never good.
"Hello," he said, and paused. "It's for you." He handed 
Diane the phone.
"I know it's very early," said the female voice, "and I'm  so sorry to call you this early, but I need you to come to my  house, please. I'm not sure what else to do."
"Who is this?" said Diane.
"I'm sorry. This is Kathy Nicholson. Could you and Mr. 
Kingsley come? My son is here. He needs to talk with you. 
Please come. We'll tell you about it when you get here."
"All right," said Diane. She replaced the phone, sat up in  bed, and swung her feet around.
"Who was that?" said Frank.
Diane told him. "You think it's a trap?" she said.
"Don't know," he said. "I'm not sure what would be  gained by trapping you at this point. The horse is out of the  barn. Are you going?"
"I'm going to call Ross," she said. "If he can go, I will. If  not, I don't know. Kathy Nicholson sounded frantic, and  desperate."
Diane dialed Ross Kingsley's number. Lydia answered  in a sleepy voice.
"Lydia, this is Diane Fallon. I'm very sorry to wake you  up. I just got a call from someone Ross and I have been  interviewing-may I speak with him?"
"Yes, just a moment."
Diane assumed they were replaying the same scene  that she and Frank just went through. But she heard Lydia  mumble.
"You know, if you and she would have an affair like nor- mal people, I could get some sleep."
"Hey, Diane," Kingsley said. "What's going on?"
Diane apologized again for waking him and Lydia. Then  she told him about the phone call from Kathy Nicholson.
"I can meet you there," he said.
There was no, "What do you think this is about?" Just, 
"Let's go," as if she had called him and said, "'Come, Wat- son, the game is afoot. Not a word! Into your clothes and  come!'"
Diane got into her clothes. Frank came in with an instant  breakfast and told her to drink it.
Beverly Connor "Take your gun," he said.
Diane looked at him and sighed. He was right; she  needed to take a gun. The gun issued to her by Rosewood  hadn't yet been returned to her, but she had her backup  gun. She slipped on the shoulder holster. It felt strange. She  didn't think it would ever feel familiar. She put on a dark  zip-up jacket and ?nished her breakfast, drinking the last  of it down.
There wasn't much traf?c in Rosewood that early in the  morning, but by the time she got on the interstate, it had  picked up considerably. At the turnoff to Gainesville, dawn  had begun to crack enough that she could just see a line of  light outlining the horizon. Kingsley had timed it just right. 
He pulled in behind Diane as she parked on the street in  front of Kathy Nicholson's house.
It was still dark and the streetlights were on. Diane  looked across the street at the homes belonging to Marsha 
Carruthers and Wendy Walters. All the windows were dark. 
Only the porch lights were lit.
"What do you think this is about?" asked Kingsley.
"Something to do with that house over there," said Diane,  gesturing with her head toward the Carruthers' house.
The lights were burning inside the Nicholson residence. 
They walked up to the door and rang the bell. Kathy must  have been waiting at the door, for it opened immediately.
"Oh, thank you for coming. I just don't know what to do  and, and, well, you seemed so nice." She paused. "I hope  it was the right thing, calling you, but..." Her sentence  trailed off.
Diane could see Kathy had been crying. Her nose and  eyes were red and puffy. She sniffed and put a tissue to  her nose and led them to the living room, where a young  man was standing near the couch that sat under the front  window. He had been looking out. Even though the drapes  were drawn, there was a slight part where he had held them  open. He had been crying too. His tanned face was puffy  like his mother's. Diane tried to remember his name- Colton.
Colton was a tall, lanky young man. Diane did the math. 
He would be twenty-three. He looked both younger and  older. In his face and manner he could still be a teenager. 
But not in his eyes. They were older. He had dark hair cut  short, and light brown eyes. He wore jeans and a navy blue  sweatshirt with california berkeley printed across the  front.
"Please, sit down. Can I get you something to drink? 
Coffee?" said Kathy.
Both Diane and Kingsley declined. They sat beside each  other on the couch by the front window. Diane felt the  pressure of her gun under her jacket.
"My son came in late last night. I didn't know he was  coming until he called me to pick him up at the airport." 
Kathy Nicholson sat down in a chair with a sigh. Her son  stood beside her and put a hand on her shoulder. "This is  just the most, the most terrible thing. I don't know what to  do."
"I do," Colton said. "I need to go over and talk to Mar- sha and her family. I have to do this, Mom."
"Why don't you tell us ?rst," suggested Diane.
Colton nodded. "Okay." He pulled the other stuffed  chair closer to his mother and sat down. "It's about El Car- ruthers. That guy in prison? He didn't kill her."
Tears spilled onto Colton's cheeks. "I was only fourteen. 
Do you know how young that is?"
"He had just turned fourteen," said Kathy.
"Mother, please. This is hard enough," he said. "Tyler 
Walters was my best friend."
He stood up and walked around and rested his forearms  on the back of the chair, as if he couldn't sit down, but  needed to be propped up.
"Mother told me what happened with that girl, Stacy 
Dance, Ryan Dance's little sister. She told me how Marsha 
Carruthers has been acting-the anger and the drinking. 
I got afraid for Mother. She didn't know what really hap- pened, and it's gotten so mixed up."
"Why don't you start from the beginning," suggested 
Diane.
He nodded. "I'm not sure what the beginning is any- more," he said.
His mother sobbed into her handkerchief.
"Just start from the ?rst thing you remember," said 
Kingsley.
"I was in my room listening to NSYNC, and Tyler came  to my window and knocked. I let him climb in. He was  really upset. He kept pacing and saying, 'Oh, man, oh, man. 
I really did it this time.'"
Colton paused and looked away from Diane and Kings- ley, his face screwed up into a grief-stricken mask.
"He was only a kid like me. He told me he had just  killed El-Ellie Rose. I thought he was kidding. I mean,  who comes in and says they just killed someone?  He said 
 he'd been wanting her for a long time but he couldn't get  her alone. She kept avoiding him. He had told me already  that one day he was going to jump her and I told him he  couldn't do that. He didn't listen to me."
Colton Nicholson sat back down in the chair. His mother  reached over and touched his hand.
"I'm sorry, Mother," he whispered. "Tyler said she  started screaming and he put a hand over her mouth. Tyler  was really strong. His grandfather made him work out all  the time."
Diane thought that was a strange way of putting it, but  she didn't want to interrupt him.
"Everett Walters, Tyler's grandfather, took him to some  hookers as a birthday present when he turned thirteen,"  continued Colton. "Tyler said his grandfather told them to  make a man out of him. After that, he was kind of crazy, if  you know what I mean. At the time, I was really interested  in hearing about his experience with the hookers, but it  kind of scared me too. His grandfather scared me. He en- couraged Tyler to be a bully at school. He got into trouble  more than once for it. He kept telling Tyler he had to be a  man. That's hard when you are just thirteen."
Colton paused again and put his head in his hands. He  straightened up after a moment and continued. "He said  he did it to her. He said his grandfather was right-she was  better than a hooker. But she bit him and started screaming,  and he choked her. He said she was in the woods in back  of his house, that he had covered her body with branches. 
I told him he had to go tell his father. He shook his head  and said he was going to tell his grandfather, that he would  know what to do."
"Did he?" asked Kingsley.
Colton nodded. "Yes. When it was all done, Tyler was  calm about it all. He said his grandfather ?xed everything. 
He told me never to tell anyone. If I did, his grandfather  would kill me. He wasn't threatening me or anything. It was  just a fact. He said he didn't tell his grandfather I knew  because he would have killed me. I believed him. I was  scared."
Colton waited a moment. His eyes were glossy with  tears. He had been living with this for nine years, dreading 
Beverly Connor every time he came home. Diane couldn't blame him, even  though he should have come forward much earlier.
"That man Dance is innocent. Tyler's grandfather, Ev- erett Walters, framed him. Tyler said Dance was some  no-account and it didn't matter. But Mother tells me that  someone killed his sister, that she was trying to free her  brother. I know it was Everett Walters who did it."
"What about Tyler?" said Diane. "You don't think he  could have killed Stacy Dance?"
"El was an accident. He wouldn't kill somebody on  purpose."
"He raped Ellie Rose on purpose," said Kingsley.
"Don't you think I know that? El was my friend too. I  told Tyler he needed to talk to a counselor or something,  but-he was all different after he met his grandfather. 
Tyler's grandfather wasn't always in the picture. He and 
Tyler's grandmother divorced when Tyler's father, Gor- don Walters, was a kid, and she got custody and raised him  in another state without Everett. Everett had businesses  here in Georgia and didn't travel, I guess. Anyway, Tyler  said Everett didn't try to see his son, Gordon, growing up  and regretted it. Everett Walters sought his son out when 
Tyler was a kid-it was several years after Gordon Walters  moved back to Georgia."
"Why did he wait?" asked Kingsley.
Colton shrugged. "I think Everett read something about 
Gordon in the newspaper-when he became head of on- cology or something-realized that that was his son." 
He shrugged again. "Wendy hated Everett, but Gordon, 
Dr. Walters, was happy to have his father back in his life. 
Wendy said Gordon had blinders on when it came to his fa- ther. But she did too. She had no idea about the things that 
Everett was teaching Tyler. She sure didn't know about the  hookers. She'd have had a ?t. Tyler said that his mother and  father argued about Everett a lot. Everett had no respect  for women and that included Wendy. Gordon was so clue- less about his father. But, to be fair, he did work all the  time."
Colton talked to them for an hour. It was sometimes dis- jointed and Diane had to make the connections in the right  sequence. She imagined he was about talked out. He and 
  his mother had apparently talked all night. He stood and  looked at his mother.
"I have to tell Dr. and Mrs. Carruthers what really hap- pened. They deserve to know. Then I'm going to get you  to move out to California with me. You don't need to live  here any longer. Not across the street from the Walters. Not  after today."
Mrs. Nicholson looked at Diane and Kingsley. "What  will happen to Colton? What will the police do?"
"He will have to answer questions," said Diane. "Get a  good lawyer to go with him to the police station. He was  a minor and he was scared. He didn't have anything to do  with what happened to Ellie Rose until after the fact. But  he still needs to have a lawyer with him."
"Oh God," she wimpered.
"Mother, this has de?ned my life for nine years. My  childhood ended that day. I can't have a relationship with  anyone until I resolve this. Tyler won't like it, but he was a  minor too. It's his grandfather they need to put in jail."
Light was starting to ?lter through the crack between the  drapes. Daylight was ?nally here. Diane imagined that it  was a long time coming for Colton and his mother.
He headed for the door.
"Colton, you need to call ?rst," said his mother.
"No. I need to go over and do it. I need to get this done,"  he said.
"I'll go with you," she said. "Please let us go with you."
Kathy Nicholson had said  us . She apparently wanted 
Diane and Kingsley to go along too. 
Well , thought Diane,  this ought to be fun . She looked at Kingsley, who was get- ting to his feet.
"Son," said Kingsley, "you need to wait and do this another  way. You don't know what Mrs. Carruthers' reaction will be. 
She probably won't believe you at ?rst. She may blame you. 
She needs people around her when you tell her."
"I've thought it through. Marsha knows me. When I  come home I always go see her. Samuel will be there. He  doesn't go into his of?ce this early. I know them. They need  to hear this and I need to tell them, and I'm going to."
Ross sighed. "Very well," he said. "Then all of us will go  with you."
Beverly Connor The four of them walked over to the Carruthers' house. 
Colton Nicholson rang the doorbell. It took a couple of  minutes before anyone answered it. Diane and Kingsley  stood back so that whoever answered the door, or looked  out the peephole, would see the Nicholsons ?rst. Diane  didn't think Marsha Carruthers or her husband would let  them in otherwise.
It was Marsha who opened the door. She was in a robe. 
She didn't have on any makeup and her hair was up in a  ponytail.
"Kathy? Colton?" she said. "I didn't know you were  home. Is anything wrong?" Then she saw Diane and Kings- ley. "You! What are you doing here?"
"I asked them, Marsha," said Kathy Nicholson. "Colton  needs to tell you and Samuel something."
"This early? Can't it wait?" she said.
"No, Marsha, it can't," said Colton. "I should have come  a long time ago."
"Honey, who is it?" Samuel Carruthers came to the door  in a bathrobe. "Colton. It's been a while." He looked at 
Diane and Kingsley and pointed a ?nger at them. "I told  you never to come onto my property again."
"Please, Samuel," said Kathy. "Please, let us come in."
Dr. and Mrs. Carruthers looked confused. They stood  there making no decision for several moments. Then Mar- sha stepped back and let them come in. They all went into  the living room, where Ellie Rose's portrait hung over the  mantel. The stuffed chair was sitting facing it. An empty  drink glass was on the side table where Marsha had left it  the evening before. Diane wanted to go home and get into  bed.
Marsha and Samuel sat in the leather chairs. Kathy and 
Colton sat on the sofa. Diane and Kingsley stood off to the  side, near the wall. Diane hoped she blended into the wall- paper.
"What's this about?" asked Marsha.
Colton took a deep breath. For all his insistence on com- ing over right at this moment, he was losing his nerve. He  blurted it out. No preamble or explanation, just, "Tyler 
Walters killed El. His grandfather framed that Dance guy. 
Tyler told me it was an accident."
Marsha and Samuel sat there as if they hadn't heard. 
They stared at Colton, then at Kathy, then at Diane and 
Kingsley.
"They told you to say this," said Marsha. "You sons of  bitches."
"Marsha, I called them early this morning after Colton  and I talked all night. I'd told Colton about the murder of 
Stacy Dance, and he got on a plane and ?ew here. These  people had nothing to do with it. I called them, well, be- cause they were nice to me and aren't the police-though I  know we'll need to talk to the police after we talk to you."
"I don't understand," said Samuel. "Are you saying that 
Tyler Walters killed my baby girl? That he raped her? He  was just a kid then."
Colton laid out the whole story just as he had for Diane  and Kingsley.
There were times when Diane didn't know if Marsha and 
Samuel Carruthers were actually hearing what Colton was  telling them. Their eyes seemed out of focus. They looked  dazed and confused.
"Did Wendy know?" asked Marsha.
Colton nodded. "She came home as they were moving  the... as they were putting El into Everett's SUV."
Colton had sneaked glances at the portrait as he told his  story. He looked at it now as if it were Ellie Rose herself  looking down on him.
"Tyler said Wendy got hysterical there in the garage. His  grandfather slapped her and she hit him back with a mop  handle. Tyler said he had to get between them. He said his  grandfather convinced Wendy that what they were doing  was for the best."
"Best?" whispered Marsha. "Best?"
"Look, Mrs. Carruthers, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I should  have told you the truth years ago. But I was afraid. And  then later, well, I couldn't bring myself to relive the whole  thing. I just tried to pretend it didn't happen, until I had  to come home. I only came forward now because of Stacy 
Dance. I'm really afraid that Tyler or his grandfather..."
Colton stopped talking because Marsha was up and going  to the phone. They all watched as she dialed and waited.
"Wendy, I need you to come over." She replaced the  receiver.
Diane didn't imagine, given their relationship, that 
Wendy thought the request was strange, or, in fact, much 
  different from other summons she probably received over  the years of Marsha's growing dependence on her.
Marsha sat down again. No one said anything. The quiet  made Diane uneasy. She was sure they all felt uneasy, but  emotions were too quiet, too under the surface. It reminded 
Diane of a volcano waiting for just the right pressure to  build up before it erupted.
"Did you have anything to do with her death?" Marsha  asked Colton after a moment. Her gaze bored into him with  an intensity that seemed to literally nail him to his seat.
"No ma'am, as God is my witness, on my father's grave, I  swear to you that I only found out after it happened, when 
Tyler came to my window and told me," Colton said.
While all their attention was on Colton and Marsha, 
Diane snaked her hand inside her jacket, took her gun  from its shoulder holster, and put it in her jacket pocket. 
She wasn't sure why she felt she needed to do this, other  than she had experience with the inconvenience of having  a gun zipped up inside a jacket when she needed it-or rather, Frank had.
Her movement didn't go unnoticed. Ross looked over  at her and gave her a quick smile with a twitch of his lips. 
He had felt it too. It was as if emotions were becoming  a miasma settling in the room that could be seen and  breathed in. Diane shivered. It was cold. If she believed in  ghosts, she would have been convinced that Ellie Rose's  spirit was in the room. She was glad she had worn the  jacket.
Diane heard the door open and close. Wendy had arrived. 
Diane unconsciously slid closer to the tall parlor palm.
"Marsha, are you in the living room? Is something  wrong? I saw those dreadful people's cars parked across  the street.... Oh, Colton, dear. I didn't know you were  home. How nice to see you."
Wendy had started talking before she entered the room  and hadn't stopped once she was there. She looked much  as she had when Diane had last seen her. Nice hairstyle,  but sans makeup. She didn't come in her robe, but had  slipped on emerald green slacks and a dark pumpkin  sweater.
Beverly Connor "I thought those awful people were back-" She stopped  talking when she spotted the awful, dreadful people stand- ing next to the wall. "What are you doing here? Marsha, we  can get a restraining order."
Marsha stood facing her. "It was Tyler all along, Wendy. 
It was Tyler, and you knew." Marsha's voice was quiet and  came out in a rasp.
"What? Marsha, are you all right?" said Wendy.
"Tyler killed my baby girl and you knew, damn you. 
Damn you to hell." Marsha's voice was loud now and shak- ing with anger.
Wendy looked as though Marsha had hit her in the stom- ach with a baseball bat. There it was, the knowledge she  dreaded anyone ever knowing.
"I don't know what these people have been telling you,"  began Wendy.
"I told her," said Colton. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Walters, but 
Tyler told me when it happened and I've been carrying it  with me all these years. With what's been happening, it has  to come out. You know that."
"Why? Why did you cover it up?" said Samuel. "I thought  we were friends."
"How can you ask that?" said Wendy. "It was an acci- dent. Ellie was dead and nothing could bring her back. I  didn't want Tyler's life to be ruined too."
"What? You didn't want your son's life to be ruined? 
What kind of self-centered," began Marsha. "I see it all  now. You here all the time keeping me drunk so I would  never suspect."
"Now, wait a minute. I did everything in my power to  help you get over it," said Wendy. "I didn't mean-"
"Get over it? Get over it? You thought this was some- thing we could just get over? You insufferable bitch!" Mar- sha stepped toward her. "You even have the gall to call it  an accident? He raped her. Your son raped my daughter  and choked her to death."
"He was just fourteen. She was ?fteen," said Wendy.
Samuel Carruthers stood up and faced Wendy, balling  his ?sts. "Are you saying this was our daughter's fault?"
Wendy backed up several steps. "No, really, I just, it's 
  just that Tyler was so young. He didn't know what he was  doing," she said.
"Didn't know what he was doing? God, apparently you  are as clueless as I've been these past years," said Marsha. 
"You didn't know that your father-in-law took Tyler to a  brothel for his thirteenth birthday? He knew what he was  doing, all right. He knew plenty what he was doing."
"What? What?" said Wendy.
"It's true, Mrs. Walters," said Colton. "Tyler told me  about it."
Wendy put her hands to her face and screamed. For a  moment Diane thought she was going to claw her own eyes  out, the way she dragged her hands down her face, but she  bent over and heaved.
Diane stepped forward. "There's something...."
She didn't get to ?nish. She looked up and saw Tyler 
Walters standing in the doorway.
"Colton, I protected you from Everett all these years,"  said Tyler.
Tyler wasn't tall, but he did look in shape. Diane thought  of the way Colton said that Tyler's grandfather made him  work out. He had black hair like his mother and the strange  dark blue-?ecked eyes like his great-aunt. He could have  been handsome, were it not for the curl of his full lips, and  eyes that were a little too far apart. But perhaps he was  considered handsome to young women nowadays. Diane  didn't know. She found him creepy.
"I know, buddy, and that's why I texted you what I was  doing. I thought you deserved a heads-up on what was  coming down," said Colton.
Colton told Tyler what he was doing. Diane wanted to  smack him. Colton was still fourteen where his friend was  concerned. He still thought it was some kind of mistake. 
Well, hell .
"I left Athens as soon as I got your text message. I guess  you've already told them everything," said Tyler.
"Look, Tyler, you'll have to admit, a lot of shit's been  going down. This Stacy Dance thing, and Mrs. Carruthers  has been treating my mother pretty bad. I had to do some- thing."
Beverly Connor Marsha cast a glance at Kathy Nicholson. Diane thought  she saw a little regret.
"Tyler, I'm calling the police," Marsha said.
"No, Marsha, you're not." Tyler pulled a gun from be- hind him and pointed it at her. "I want everybody just to sit  down and think things through."
"Tyler," said Wendy, "what are you doing? Where did you  get that?"
"Mother, will you stop talking to me like I'm twelve?" he  said. "Now, everybody just sit down."
He looked over at Diane and Kingsley where they stood  leaning against the wall. He stared at them like nemeses  he'd longed to see in person.
"You, come over here and sit down on the couch with 
Colton and Kathy."
"Tyler, there's something you need to know," said Diane.
"Shut up. That's the last time I'm going to tell you. Talk  again and I'll shoot you." He waved the gun at her.
Diane and Kingsley walked to the couch and sat down, 
Kingsley by Colton, Diane between Kingsley and the arm  of the sofa. Diane tracked Tyler as he walked back and  forth between her and Samuel Carruthers. Were it not for 
Samuel in the line of ?re, Diane would shoot him, or at least  shoot his leg. It was against what she had been taught-go for the midsection. Psychologically, Diane had a hard time  with killing someone. But she could. She had.
"Marsha, sit down," he said, pointing the gun at Mrs. 
Carruthers, who shot daggers at him with her gaze as she  took a seat.
"Mother, get that chair over there and sit in it. I'll just  stand over here. Now, I need to ?gure this out." He wiped  his hand over his forehead.
"Damn it, Colton, this would have been a lot easier if  you had kept our bargain," he said, turning the gun on his  friend.
Beverly Connor Colton held his hands in front of him. "Look, man, this is  wrong. This isn't you, Tyler."
"It's me, Colton. It's me." Tyler beat his chest with his  free hand. "Get that through your thick head. This is me."
"Tyler, honey," said his mother, "stop this. You were so  young at the time it all happened. This isn't you."
"Mother, will you please? What is it I have to say to get  you to shut the fuck up, huh?"
His mother whimpered and covered her face with her  hands. Diane wondered what the hell he was so intent on  thinking through. Just how had he planned to get out of this?
Diane's cell phone binged the tones telling her she had a  text message. Tyler looked over at her.
"Gimme that," he said.
As Diane removed the cell from her pocket she ?ipped  it open and glanced at the message:  ug srchd bts Cqns shrd  n clst.
Tyler looked at the message. "What's this?" he said. 
"What does this say?"
"Gotcha," said Diane.
Diane saw it in his eyes before he raised his hand, the 
?are of anger, the emotional call to violent action. Her  hand was still in her other pocket, on her gun. She aimed as  accurately as she could under the circumstances, and shot  through the jacket, hitting Tyler in the shin, shattering his  tibia. Lucky shot. But then again, he was close. She was up  and grabbed his gun as the others were still gasping. Tyler  fell to the ?oor and held on to his leg, moaning.
"Tyler!" screamed his mother. "What did you do to  him?"
"She shot him, you stupid bitch," said Samuel Carruthers,  jumping from his chair. He grabbed Tyler by his shirt and  hit him across the face. "You piece of crap. You piece of  waste."
"Stop," cried Wendy. She jumped up and grabbed Sam- uel around the waist. "Stop it. You're a doctor; help him."
Diane gave Tyler's gun to Kingsley, took her phone, and  started to dial the police.
"Stop right there. Just stop right there and put down that  phone and those guns."
They all jerked their heads up at the sound of the differ-  ent voice. A man in his seventies stood in the doorway to  the living room, well dressed in brown slacks and matching  sport coat, and holding a Glock mm. Diane guessed this  was Everett Walters. 
Well, great .
Everett Walters may have been in his seventies, but he  apparently took his own advice about keeping in shape. He  was well built and tanned. He appeared strong and his gun  hand never wavered.
"You, Samuel, get off my boy and wrap up his leg. Ty,  wipe the blood and snot off your face and stop whining."
He looked at Diane. She expected his eyes to be the  color of his sister's, but they weren't. They were a lighter  blue, piercing, cold. She didn't look away.
"You," he said, gesturing his gun at Diane, "put your gun  down on the table over there. You do the same," he told 
Kingsley.
The two of them laid down their weapons beside Diane's  phone.
"Boy, didn't you check them for guns?" he said.
Tyler said something that Diane didn't understand. He  was the kind of guy who was all bluster when he had the  gun, but reverted back to being a child when someone took  it away from him.
"Everett," said Wendy, "they know."
"Shut up, girl. They know nothing. It looks to me like  the two of you came in and shot my boy here. That's what 
I see. What this Nicholson boy said means nothing. Hell,  he might have been in on it with Ryan Dance. They can't  prove anything. Everybody just keep your mouths shut and  we'll all get out of this. These two are a couple of thugs. 
That's what we'll tell the police. Who's to say different?"
"Me," said Marsha. "Your boy, as you call him, raped and  killed my daughter."
"Stupid woman, you're not going to believe what Nichol- son said? Sit down and listen. I'll tell you how this is going  to go down."
Apparently he had been listening at the door, thought 
Diane. Tyler must have called him.
"Now, listen here," said Samuel Carruthers. "Who the  hell do you think you are, coming in here like this after  what you've done?"
Beverly Connor "I'm the guy with the gun. And I'll always be the guy  with the gun. Listen here. What they've said is a lie."
"He admitted it," said Samuel.
"Did not," said Tyler.
"If you've ?nished tying up his leg, sit down," said Ev- erett Walters. "Everybody sit down or I start shooting, and  fuck the consequences."
Samuel had torn a piece off Tyler's shirt and tied it around  his leg. He tightened it so that Tyler yelped and he sat back  down in the chair beside his wife. Diane didn't think he  really did much in the way of tending to the wound.
"We might just have a home invasion. Those are going  around." Everett grinned at Diane with nicotine-stained teeth.
"Apparently," Diane said. "Sometimes, though, it doesn't  play out the way you expect. You've made some assump- tions that aren't supported by the facts. Now, you can tell  me to shut up, like Tyler did. But I'm the one with the  knowledge of all the crimes and what the police actually  have. That's why you sent the assassin to my house, isn't it? 
To kill the person who could make the connection."
Diane heard someone suck in a breath.
"Everett," said Wendy, "this has gone too far. Look what  you've done to my son. Don't you have any conscience?"
"Shut up, woman." He didn't even look at her when he  spoke, but stared at Diane.
"She got a text message on her phone," said Tyler. His  face was streaked with blood and tears, even though he  made an effort to wipe it with his sleeve.
"Text message? Is that something we should be con- cerned about?" said Everett.
"There is so much you don't know," said Diane. "Yes, it  is something you should be concerned about. But ?rst, you  need to tell Tyler how you played him. Tell him the truth...  that he didn't kill Ellie Rose."
Diane attracted all their attention, including Kingsley's. It  was Marsha who recovered ?rst.
"What? You mean Ryan Dance is guilty after all? After  all this! Just what are you playing at?"
"Ryan is not guilty," said Diane. "What Colton said is  true, to a point. I tried to explain, but Tyler threatened to  shoot me if I spoke. Mr. Walters, you need to tell Tyler the  truth."
Diane had a plan in mind. It wasn't a particularly good  one, but it seemed like very few of her plans were, in this  kind of situation. Rushing either one of them was out of  the question, so she would try the old  divide et impera  ap- proach. It had worked for the Romans.
"What?" said Tyler. He rocked back and forth, still hold- ing his leg, trying not to cry.
"Tyler raped Ellie Rose," continued Diane. "He choked  her to unconsciousness and she was badly hurt. She hit her  head in a fall, I suspect, while Tyler was ?ghting with her. 
But then Tyler called his grandfather for help, and Everett 
Walters came, prepared with a hatchet, just in case he got  the chance. And he did. When Ellie was trying to get up, he  struck her down."
"Oh," whimpered Marsha. "Oh God." She put a hand  over her mouth and rocked forward. Her husband reached  out to her.
"When he got rid of her body," said Diane, "he struck her  head against a rock to dis?gure the wound-using blunt- force trauma in an attempt to hide the evidence of the  sharp weapon that killed her."
Beverly Connor Diane stared Everett in the eyes. "You tried to make it  look as if her head were injured when Dance threw her  body down the embankment. And fortunately for you, 
Gainesville had a brand-new medical examiner with a  track record of making wrong calls. But another medical  examiner recently analyzed the photos of the autopsy and  saw the sharp cuts in the skull that you tried to obscure."
"You bastard," said Wendy. "You freaking bastard-all this time..."
"Just your ME's word against ours, seems like to me," 
Everett said. "Don't listen to her."
"Tyler needs to listen. He can redeem himself," said 
Diane. "It's not too late."
"You got nothing," Everett said. He pulled a straight- back chair from its place near the wall beside the ?replace,  sat down, crossed his legs, and looked very smug.
"You saying I didn't kill El?" groaned Tyler.
"That's what I'm saying," said Diane.
"Don't listen to her, boy. She'd say anything," said Ever- ett. "She's desperate." He grinned at Diane.
She could see her plan had little chance. Tyler was in too  much pain, he was only half listening, and his grandfather  had a big hold over him.
"What was the text message?" said Tyler. "What does it  mean? Someone please get me some painkillers?"
"Please," said Wendy. "Samuel, you must have some- thing. Give him something."
"He can take the pain for a little while," said Everett. 
"Just until we ?gure this thing out. Everybody stays in the  room so I can see them."
"Pour him a drink," said Kingsley. He nodded toward the  bar in the corner where Wendy poured Marsha's drinks.
Everett nodded and Wendy got her son a bottle of vodka  and poured him a drink, which he downed in one gulp.
"Now, what's this about the text message?" said Walters. 
"The boy seems to think it's important."
"The Athens police department executed a search war- rant on Tyler's residence. In the closet they found incrimi- nating evidence."
"Of what?" said Everett. "They found nothing."
"A sequin that matched my dress," said Diane. "You 
 stepped on it when you attacked me at Marcella Payden's  house and carried it back on the bottom of your boot."
"That's nothing," said Everett. "Just as I thought, you got  nothing."
"Granted, the sequin alone, it could be argued, is just a  coincidence. Even the matching ?bers could be considered  a coincidence. They're common. However, they also found  a broken piece of pottery," said Diane.
Everett laughed. "You got nothing."
"On the contrary," said Diane. "You broke a pot on the  way to your vehicle."
"A broken piece could have come from anywhere," said 
Everett.
"You stole pottery that Dr. Marcella Payden made. She  does archaeological research. Do you know what a histo- logical examination is? It's a microscopic inspection of stuff,  like tissue, broken pottery kind of stuff. The point is, we can  match that piece with the broken pieces of her property. 
We can place Tyler at Marcella's house at the time of the  second attack." Diane stopped a moment to let it sink in.
"Tyler. Not me," said Everett.
Good , thought Diane,  be the self-centered bastard you  are .
"I don't have the results of the search of your premises  yet," said Diane.
His eyes narrowed and his gun wavered in her direction. 
"You won't ?nd anything," he said.
"That remains to be seen. You seem to be ignorant of  how trace evidence works. Which brings me to boots."
Everett winced at her words. Diane could see he didn't  like being called ignorant.
"Boots?" whispered Tyler. He moved toward the table.
"What you doing, boy?" said Everett.
"Getting their guns," he said, "so they don't make a grab  for them. You said they're desperate. I see that guy, Kings- ley, eyeing them."
"Good thinking, boy. We can ?gure this out. You just  hang in there. Feeling that vodka yet?" said Everett.
"A little," he said. He groaned as he reached for the guns. 
He got hold of them, put them in his lap, and scuttled back,  leaning against a wall. "Mom, throw me a pillow."
Beverly Connor Wendy took a decorator pillow from the couch and  tossed it to her son, who put it under his leg with a yelp. He  took another swig of vodka.
"What about the boots?" said Tyler.
He looked pale and his leg was still seeping blood. She  had better hurry.
"Your Garmont hiking boot," said Diane.
Wendy sucked in her breath. "I gave you some-"
"Shut up, you damn fool," said Everett.
Tyler set the bottle down and looked at Diane. "What  about them?"
"We identi?ed the make of shoe by the tread pattern  that we collected from the ?oor at Marcella's house. We  can match the boot prints to individual boots because of  the nicks and wear patterns. We already have."
"Again, Tyler," said Everett.
"We have a warrant to look for your size ten and a half 
Oliver steel toe safety boots," said Diane, locking her gaze  with his.
She had surprised him. He was startled, but recovered  quickly and started to speak, but Tyler beat him to it.
"Put down your gun, Granddad, or I'll shoot."
"What the hell you talking about, boy?" said Everett.
Tyler held the gun straight out in front of him, pointing  it at his grandfather.
"I don't like the way you been saying that all the evi- dence is on me. Put it down or I'll shoot. You been telling  me I need to be strong. This is me being strong. Put down  the gun."
"I could shoot you before you could shoot me," said 
Everett.
"Go ahead, risk it." Tyler sniffed.
"That's liquor courage, boy. It ain't real," said Everett.
"It's real enough. Now put it down," he said.
"Better think about what you're doing, boy," Everett  said. "We'll get out of this."
"I am thinking. I want to hear more about how I didn't  kill Ellie Rose. All these years you been holding it up to  me," said Tyler.
"Can't you see what she's doing? She's lying," said Ev- erett.
"This is the last time. Put it down on the ?oor," said Tyler. 
"If she's lying and I sense it, you can have it back."
Everyone looked back and forth between them as if  they were watching a tennis match. Tyler's hand wavered  and Diane thought his grandfather was going to shoot him. 
Tyler steadied his hand.
"I could shoot you, boy," said Everett.
"I could shoot you, old man," said Tyler.
"It looks like we got ourselves a Mexican standoff," said 
Everett.
Beverly Connor Wendy jumped suddenly with astonishing speed and  tackled Everett, knocking him over in the chair.
Diane heard the gun fall but didn't see where it went. 
She started to rise.
"If anybody moves, I'll shoot," said Tyler. "You people  better start taking me seriously."
Diane relaxed back in her seat.
Tyler's voice was high-pitched and strained, but his  words weren't slurred. And although his skin was pale, his  eyes were bright. For the short term, he was okay. For the  long term, if they couldn't end this soon, he would pass out,  which would be ?ne if Everett was disarmed.
Diane knew Everett had planned to kill them all and  blame it on Tyler. She heard it in his talk, saw it in his eyes. 
He was thinking that all the evidence pointed to Tyler. He  didn't quite believe the boot prints implicated him-or he  thought he could get around it-perhaps by saying he gave  them to one of Tyler's friends, some guy he didn't know- maybe Ray-Ray or his cousin. Diane needed Everett to see  that his plan wouldn't get him off the hook. She needed  to tell him how deep in alligators he really was. She didn't  think Everett knew about the discoveries in the well. She  doubted seriously he knew about their visit to his sister. It  was time he knew.
The scuf?e hadn't lasted long. From the look on Everett's  face, it surprised him that a mere woman could overpower  him. But he hadn't counted on the anger that the much- younger Wendy had toward him. Diane saw the gun. She  saw Everett start to reach for it right before Wendy kicked  it under the couch.
Now, instead of being in the clutches of both a madman  and a wounded, intoxicated kid with no moral center, they  were in the clutches of only the kid. Diane thought that was  better. She thought Tyler could be reached.
"Now, Granddad, pick up the chair and sit down. I can  shoot you before you make it to the door, and I will. Mother,  thanks. You sit down too," said Tyler. "I want to hear more  about my innocence. So that means I want all of you to put  your hands in your lap and keep them there. If you so much  as scratch, I'll shoot. I don't have a lot of options anymore  and damn little patience."
"You do have options," said Diane. "We know that you  were present at all the crime scenes, but not that you killed 
Stacy Dance or Mary Lassiter, or that you attacked Mar- cella Payden."
"What?" said Wendy. "Tyler, who are these people? I've  never heard of them."
"Shut up, Mother." Tyler rubbed his eyes. "God, there's  so much you don't know," he mumbled. "You and Dad are  so clueless."
His grandfather was watching him, waiting for a chance. 
Diane stared at him a moment. He moved his right leg for- ward a fraction.
"Your grandfather has a gun strapped around his ankle,"  said Diane.
"I know," said Tyler, "but if he keeps his hands in his  lap, it won't be a problem." He held out his gun toward his  grandfather and took another drink of vodka.
"Very well, then, Tyler," said Diane. "Please, let me tell  you what we have. You have a way out of this."
"That little creep doesn't deserve a way out," spat Mar- sha.
Diane locked gazes with her. "If he isn't at fault, he does  deserve a way out," said Diane.
She hoped she could telegraph to Marsha to keep her  mouth shut and not infuriate the little creep holding the  gun on all of them. Her husband seemed to get the mes- sage. He reached over to her.
"I said not to move," said Tyler.
"I'm just holding my wife's hand," said Samuel evenly.
Diane saw him squeeze it and put his own back in his lap. 
Kathy Nicholson glared at her. She and Colton kept quiet.
"You see what they're doing, don't you, boy?" said Ev- erett.
"Would you stop calling me  boy ? I've always hated  that. Yes. They all want to live, with the possible exception  of Marsha." He took another drink of vodka. "But that  doesn't mean Fallon doesn't have interesting things to say. 
I'm a lawyer, almost, and I can evaluate it. You've never  given me any credit. Now shut up." He coughed.
"Why would Granddad have killed El?" said Tyler, not  taking his eyes off Everett. "Not to save me."
Beverly Connor "Did your grandfather tell you why he wanted to kill 
Marcella Payden or Mary Lassiter? I'm sure you thought  his killing Stacy was to hide what the two of you did to  frame her brother. Stacy had Ellie Rose's diary pages and  she was beginning to decipher them. But the other two  must have mysti?ed you."
Diane was careful to accuse Everett Walters of the kill- ings, although she thought that it was Tyler who choked 
Stacy to death. That conclusion was based, weakly perhaps,  on the fact that he had done it before, and that his overlap- ping boot prints were lifted from the spot where Stacy actu- ally died. But right now, she wanted Tyler to believe that he  could clear himself.
"Ellie's diary?" said Marsha. "She had Ellie's diary?"
"Yes. She was a musician and good at math," said Diane. 
Like Frank, she thought. "Stacy was probably translating  the parts that told her how Ellie was afraid of Tyler and his  grandfather. Did Stacy call you, threaten you?"
"She called Granddad," said Tyler. "Stupid thing to do."
"What about Lassiter and Payden?" asked Diane. 
"Weren't you curious why they had to die?"
"He said it needed to be done," said Tyler. "You haven't  answered my question. Why would he kill Ellie Rose?"
Diane eyed Everett. He looked smug. He didn't know  she knew about his sister. Showtime.
"Some killers get off on the terror of their victims," said 
Diane, not taking her eyes off Everett. "Sometimes it's a  sexual-control thing. Is that right, Ross?"
"Often," he said.
"But not you," said Diane. "It was a god-control thing  with you. I imagine as a boy staying over at your big sister's,  playing among all the statues of fauns, gargoyles, and drag- ons, it was like a little kingdom, a little Olympus. And what  you really liked to do, what really made you feel powerful  and in control, was to sneak up behind the unsuspecting  prey and strike them dead, like a god in his dark realm. 
They never knew it was coming. You had the power to snuff  out their life, and just like that, they were no more."
Everett's face slowly dropped its smug expression. He  looked worried. Finally.
"What?" said Tyler. "What the hell are you talking  about?"
"Didn't he tell you?" said Diane. "Your grandfather is a  serial killer from way back. Not the ordinary kind, I don't  think. He had more control than others of his kind. He  prided himself in that."
"Not all serial killers lack control or feel a compulsion  to constantly seek out victims," said Kingsley. "Some are  opportunistic killers. I suspect your grandfather is one of  those." Kingsley looked Everett in the eyes. "You can go  for years without killing, can't you? You're like the smoker  who can just stop and not look back and not obsess about  having another cigarette."
"But I'll bet Everett couldn't resist the possibility of  killing Ellie Rose," said Diane. "It was an opportunity pre- sented to him, so he brought the hatchet. It's not that easy  for a fourteen-year-old, like you were, to strangle someone. 
He knew there was a possibility she was still alive. And the  pull of nostalgia was just too great, even for a man of his  control."
"Are you serious?" said Tyler. He brie?y took his eyes off  his grandfather, and Everett started to reach for his ankle  gun. "Watch it, old man. Is this true?" he asked him.
Everett straightened up. "Rubbish. Fantasy."
"Not according to your sister, Maybelle," said Diane.
Everett looked sharply at Diane, his eyes wide with sur- prise. He paused for many long moments, staring at Diane.
"Mags has to be a hundred and ten by now," he whis- pered.
"Not quite a hundred. Ninety-seven, I believe," said 
Diane.
"Senile," said Everett. Some of his smugness came back  into his face.
"Actually, quite lucid," said Diane. "Creepy as hell, but  her story is consistent with what we found in the well."
The smug look was short-lived. His mouth turned down  into a frown.
"You know," said Diane, "I'll bet when you had your ?n- gerprints taken at the time you were bonded for your busi- ness, you worried. You worried if they were on the items you 
Beverly Connor dropped in the well when your father was coming to take  your sister away. It was a long shot that they would ever  be found, but it had to give you pause. And then came Dr. 
Marcella Payden, archaeologist and curious homeowner. 
She was looking for the artist who had created the broken  pottery that she discovered in the ?re pit in her yard and  painted the portraits she found hidden in the walls. What  if Marcella found your sister, Maybelle, and she told about  the well? There goes your reputation. And here your son  is about to run for U.S. congressman. You couldn't do any- thing when your father sold the property-you couldn't  tell him it should stay in the family because of what was in  the well, but you could do something now to keep the cur- rent owner quiet. Had you planned to try and buy it back? 
Maybe clean out the well?"
Everett said nothing. He stared at Diane so hard, she  thought he was trying to will her to shut up.
"What well? What's this about?" said Tyler.
"It's about why you are innocent," said Diane.
That kept his attention on her story. Tyler was looking  for a way out. When he ?rst came into the room, he didn't  think there was a way out without more murder, and his  having to leave behind everything he knew. He had hope  now, and Diane was counting on his hope to get them out  of this alive.
"At ?rst I wondered about Mary Lassiter," said Diane. 
"How did she ?gure in this? Of course, when we found  out that she worked at the historical society where Mar- cella Payden was asking questions about who lived in the  house in Pigeon Ridge, I realized that Mary Lassiter was  your age. You both were contemporaries in Rosewood. 
Marcella sparked a memory in Mary Lassiter. She knew  something about an artist who disappeared when she was  a girl. The artist had a brother, Everett. She remembered  you. She probably looked you up on the Internet. People  do that a lot these days, trying to get in touch with people  they used to know. For her it was probably a lark, maybe  a chance for a little romance late in life. She didn't know  you would consider her to be a loose end to be tied up,  along with Marcella Payden. That's why Mary Lassiter's  purse was stolen when she was killed. You wanted her cell 
 phone, but didn't want the police to focus on the phone. 
You didn't want them looking at her call records. But 
Sheriff Braden is very thorough, and he'll check the call  records as well as the Internet history records where she  worked at the historical society." Diane paused a moment,  letting it sink in.
"You see, Everett Gauthier," Diane continued, "we've  been really busy at the crime lab."
"Gauthier?" said Wendy and Tyler together.
"That was Everett's family name before they moved  from Rosewood, before it was changed to Walters-the Anglicized version of Gauthier. Everett's father's attempt  to hide the family skeletons, as it were, by changing his  family's last name. Everett's sister, Maybelle, did to him  what he did to your son. She hated her father and his new  wife, and she decided to ruin her half brother, Everett. She  turned him into a killer."
"No," whispered Everett. "No. My sister loved me. She  wouldn't have said those things."
"Well, when she discovered that you lived in luxury  while she lived as an indigent in insane asylums and nurs- ing homes for almost sixty years, what did you expect?"
Diane looked at the others, then at Tyler.
"Everett's sister, Maybelle Agnes Gauthier, your great- aunt, had a unique way of making her pottery. She used  human bone from people she enticed Everett to kill. The  sixteen-year-old Everett chopped them up and boiled the  parts so she could render the bones into dust to temper  the clay for her pottery. Nice little family, huh?" said Diane. 
"We found some of the bodies in the well, along with Ever- ett's bloody ?ngerprints on the tools and in the clay."
Everett Walters was shaking now. Diane couldn't tell if  it was from anger or from the fear that came with revela- tion.
"That's what you brought into your house, Wendy," said 
Diane, "a monster who had access to your son. And he  brought him to this. This is why I have sympathy with Tyler, 
Marsha. He didn't have a chance, under the in?uence of  someone like Everett."
"Shut up. Shut your damn hole, you bitch. Shut your  damn mouth." Everett was shaking his ?st at Diane.
Beverly Connor "You," said Wendy, "have the nerve to tell her to shut up,  you monster. Look what you've done."
Everett ignored Wendy, but continued to stare at Diane. 
"I'll kill you, if it's the last thing I do. I'll kill you and you'll  know it's coming. I'll chop you up while you are still alive. 
You'll feel everything. You bitch. You bitch. You'll feel  every cut."
"See, Tyler, this isn't you," said Diane.
But Tyler had passed out.
When Diane looked back at Everett Walters, he was point- ing a gun at her.
Well, hell .
"Now it's time to pay the piper," he said.
"Oh God, Tyler," yelled Wendy.
She stood up and started toward her unconscious son. 
As she crossed in front of Everett, she didn't see the blow  from the pistol butt coming to the back of her head. Wendy  reeled forward and fell, crashing into the table, rolling off  it onto the ?oor at Marsha's feet. For a moment, Diane  thought Marsha was going to kick her. Wendy struggled to  get to her feet. She looked seriously hurt.
"Just lie there," said Diane. "Until you get your breath."
Ross Kingsley stood and faced Everett. "This may seem  like a good idea to you now, but you're very angry. I un- derstand that. Take a moment and think about this. It will  do you no good to cut off your nose to spite your face," he  said.
"It won't be  my  nose I'll be cutting off," he said. "You  and the woman are do-gooders. I know your type. You take  care of people too yellow to take care of themselves. So  this is why I'm going to tell you, I'll be shooting these other  folks ?rst. I'll shoot my worthless daughter-in-law right  now unless you sit down. Do you understand what I'm say- ing to you?"
Kingsley hesitated a moment, then sat down. Diane  guessed he was trying to think of something else to say. 
Right now, Everett wasn't in the mood to listen.
All the guns were across the room with Tyler, except the 
Beverly Connor one in Everett's hand and the one under the sofa. Diane  tried to think of a plan to get her hands on one of them. She  didn't see how she could do it fast enough.
But maybe Wendy could. She was still on the ?oor and 
Diane could see her looking under the couch. She saw the  gun; Diane was sure. But the coffee table was between  her and the sofa. Everett would cut her down if she tried. 
Maybe if there was a diversion.
"Apparently, it's me you want to, how did you put it,  chop up in little pieces? Why don't you leave these people  alone?" Diane said, standing up and facing him.
"All full of piss and vinegar, aren't you? Think you can  make your move once we get away from these people here? 
I know how your mind's working." He tapped his ?nger on  his temple. "It's not going to go like that. No, I'm not going  to drop my guard. You aren't going to get off, not after what  you've done."
"Don't like being outed as a serial killer?" said Diane. 
She stepped toward him.
"Shut up. When I tell you to shut that damn hole of yours, 
I mean it," he said.
He started backing slowly toward the entrance to the liv- ing room, pointing his gun at Diane's head.
"Any one of you so much as looks like you're going to  stand up is going to get it. I can shoot her and any one of  you before you dive for the guns. Now, we are going out. 
You try and follow, she's dead and I'll take my chances. Are  we all on the same page?"
He looked back at Diane, who stood a few feet away  from him.
"Still got that mind working, don't you, girlie? Thinking  about doing a dive like Wendy?" he said.
Diane was thinking of something like that. Diving at him  quickly, knocking him off his feet before he could shoot. 
But he was too alert to a move like that now. If he was  taking her to another location, he had to get her out of the  house, across the yard, and into a vehicle. He would have to  let his guard down at some point.
"Don't do it," said Everett. "It won't work. Now, very  slowly, I want you to step-"
Crash!
Everett fell to the ?oor, a pink guitar careening away  from the spot where his head had been a moment before.
"That's for my sister," said Samantha.
She hit him again on the head with the solid hardwood  guitar.
"That's for making me ruin my Fender Stratocaster gui- tar. I'll send you the bill."
She kicked him in the back.
"That's for ruining my family."
Diane grabbed the gun that had fallen from his hand.
"Play much baseball?" Diane asked Samantha.
"No, but I have a mean golf swing," she said, and hugged 
Diane.
Diane turned in time to see Kingsley on his feet, hit- ting Samuel Carruthers in the jaw with his ?st. Kingsley  knocked him against a hutch ?lled with china that crashed  on the shelves. He picked up the guns and turned to face 
Carruthers, who was struggling to his feet.
"What happened?" asked Diane, keeping an eye on Ev- erett Walters as she spoke.
"He was going after the gun," said Kingsley. "He was plan- ning on shooting one of them. I've been watching him."
"You're crazy. I'm going to sue," Carruthers said. He  stood, scowling at Kingsley, his bathrobe askew, showing  his gray boxer shorts and T-shirt. He rubbed his jaw and  ran a hand through his uncombed hair.
"I saw it," said Kingsley. "You telegraphed your inten- tions. You've been sitting there stewing over your helpless- ness. And now that everything's over, you were going to  get a gun and shoot one of the people responsible for your  daughter's death. Now that they were helpless and you  could do it in safety."
"How dare you," began Marsha, retying her own robe. 
"You come in here and disrupt our lives."
Kingsley ignored her.
"If you want to be a man, take care of your family. The  two of you have been self-indulgent so long, you've forgot- ten that you have another daughter. Get out of the com- puter games and quit sitting staring at your dead daughter's  painting and drinking yourself into oblivion. Look at the  two of you. Your daughter just came in and saved your 
Beverly Connor sorry ass and all you can think of is how to make yourself  feel like a man. Did either of you go to her just now? And  while I'm at it, do you know she found Stacy Dance's body? 
Do you know what that kind of thing does to a person?"  said Kingsley.
Marsha whimpered and looked at her daughter. "Sa- mantha? How could she have found her? That doesn't  make sense."
"There's going to be a lot in your world that doesn't  make sense for a while," said Kingsley. "Start by getting  sober and talking to your daughter like an adult. And thank  her for saving us all."
"Well said," whispered Diane.
She started to say something, when she heard Kathy 
Nicholson yell at Wendy. Diane turned to ?nd Wendy with  a gun on them.
"This is just too much," said Diane. "Put down the gun."
Wendy had tears running down her cheeks and was rub- bing the back of her neck with her free hand. She looked  strange to Diane, uneasy on her feet. She tried to speak but  collapsed on the ?oor.
Diane ran to her and felt her neck. Nothing.
"No pulse," said Diane.
"What?" said Kathy. "How?"
Samuel Carruthers came over to her and felt for a pulse  himself. Then he felt the back of her neck. "She's gone," he  said.
"The hit by Everett?" asked Diane.
Samuel nodded. "I think it broke her cervical vertebrae. 
When she started moving, the bones cut through her spinal  cord."
Diane put a hand over her eyes. "God, this is just an  awful day," she said.
"What was she trying to do?" asked Marsha.
"I think, save her son from us," said Diane. "I don't  know."
"That man drove her crazy," said Kathy.
"Did anyone call the police?" said Diane.
"I did," said Samantha. "Before my big entrance."
Diane went back over to where Everett was stirring. 
"Just stay on the ?oor," she said.
"What are you doing here?" Marsha asked her daughter.
"I came in through the window upstairs to get some of  my things. I was trying to do it without your knowing. Then 
I heard some crazy stuff down here, so I crept down with  my guitar. Good thing."
Diane heard the police sirens. It was a happy song. She  and Kingsley gladly gave long statements to the police that  went well into the afternoon. It was dinnertime before she  and Kingsley went to their vehicles.
"We've got to quit meeting like this," said Kingsley.
Diane put a hand on the handle of her car door. "I'm  giving up private work. Don't call unless you want a tour of  the museum. By the way, that was quite a lecture you gave  the Carruthers."
"They needed it. It really pissed me off when he decided  to do some man stuff after his daughter did all the rescue  work," said Kingsley.
"Are they going to be all right?" asked Diane.
Kingsley shrugged. "Samantha will be. I don't know  about her parents. Who knows? Sometimes near-death ex- periences can change people. Want to meet at the Olive 
Garden on the way out of town? I'm famished."
Diane wrote up the ?nal report on all the crime scenes  her crime lab team was involved in relating to Everett and 
Tyler Walters. The police turned up more evidence than  they needed executing the search warrants. Everett Walters  thought he was being so clever not leaving any evidence. 
He never checked his feet. They found two more pottery  pieces and two burgundy sequins under the ?oor mat of his  truck. Part of the rope he used to truss up Stacy Dance was  in the pickup toolbox. His boots were in his of?ce closet at  one of his places of business.
Marcella Payden recovered and went back to Arizona  for an extended visit with her daughter and son-in-law. She  and Jonas Briggs were writing a paper on serendipitous  archaeology. Marcella kept her house, even though David, 
Scott, and Hector turned up remains of nine more bodies. 
Marcella wasn't scared away. It was a home with history  and she was an archaeologist. As far as she was concerned,  it was the house and property that outed the villains.
Jin had gotten DNA samples from all the skeletons  recovered-mostly from the roots of teeth, but some from  inside the bones. Neva reconstructed all their faces. So far,  they hadn't gotten any hits on who the victims might be. 
They had been dead well over sixty years. Diane didn't  hold out much hope they would be identi?ed.
Kingsley and his bosses went with Harmon Dance to  take his son home from prison-and had a press confer- ence there in the parking lot. Kingsley told Diane that Dar- ley, Dunn, and Upshaw wanted to hire her. She said no.
Maybelle Agnes Gauthier celebrated her ninety-eighth  birthday at her retirement home. The authorities were still  trying to ?gure out what to do with her. They no longer  considered her a threat, but Diane told Hanks she was not  so sure. He agreed.
Kathy Nicholson moved with her son to California. She  wrote Diane that Colton was considering transferring to  the University of Hawaii and they might move there. Diane  guessed that the coast wasn't far enough away from their  bad memories in Georgia. Kathy Nicholson had to come  to terms with the fact that she had not seen Ryan Dance  drive by, but her own neighbor, Tyler Walters. Tyler told the  police in his statement that he and his grandfather knew 
Kathy would be working in her garden and all Tyler had to  do was be in Ryan's car, wearing Ryan's hat, and hanging  his arm out the window for her to see the fake tattoo-and never turn his face to her.
Tyler Walters recovered and was tried and convicted  for raping Ellie Rose Carruthers, murdering Stacy Dance,  which he ?nally admitted to, kidnapping Diane and the  others, and conspiring with his grandfather to kill Mary 
Lassiter and Marcella Payden, and framing Ryan Dance. 
He received life in prison, and was given the possibility of  parole after twenty-?ve years because he testi?ed against  his grandfather. Tyler's father decided not to run for of?ce. 
Jonas Briggs said it was a good thing. With the potential  candidate's father, son, and late wife-not to mention his  aunt-in his bio, no one but Jeffrey Dahmer would vote for  him, and he was dead.
Everett Walters went to prison for life without possibil- ity of parole for killing Ellie Rose Carruthers, Mary Phyllis 
Lassiter, Ray-Ray Dildy, Stacy Dance, and Wendy Walters,  and for framing Ryan Dance, and kidnapping Diane and  the others, and trying to assassinate Diane. He confessed  to none of it. Tyler said his grandfather shot Ray-Ray to  tie up a loose end and liked the idea of using a policeman's  gun to do it. Ray-Ray was a day worker at one of Ever- ett Walters' businesses. Everett learned about his cousin, 
Emory, from him. Tyler said that Ray-Ray and Emory were  the only two people his grandfather had hired to help with  the dirty work and that he had planned to kill Emory after  he'd killed Diane in the home invasion.
Beverly Connor The authorities were still uncertain whom to charge with  killing the eleven people from sixty years ago. The resolu- tion was still undergoing legal wrangling. Everett Walters'  lawyers were saying that because his ?ngerprints were only  on sculpting tools and clay, the state had no basis on which  to charge him. His lawyers also claimed that his sister's tes- timony was unreliable, since she had been diagnosed on  several occasions as being of unsound mind.
Oran Doppelmeyer, Gainesville's medical examiner, was  let go by the city, much to Lynn Webber's delight. Diane  suspected that if Lynn had the opportunity in the future,  she would mess with his life again.
Diane didn't know what Samuel and Marsha Carruthers  were up to or how they were coping. But she and Frank went  to hear Samantha and the band one evening. They weren't  too bad and Samantha seemed to be doing well. She was  still in school and she had dyed all of her hair pink. Kingsley  had bought her a new guitar. Frank told Diane it was a very  expensive guitar.
Diane sat in her of?ce going over the budget reports  when the phone rang.
"Diane Fallon," she said.
"Dr. Fallon. My name is Clara Chandler. I hope I have  the right place. I copied the number off the TV screen and,  well, my eyesight's not too good anymore."
"What can I do for you?" said Diane.
"My sister, Patsy Chandler, went missing ?fty-six years  ago and she looked just like the picture I saw on the news  of a girl you found down in a well. You said her name  might be Patsy. I hope it's her. I'd like to take her home. We  thought our daddy kilt her and buried her somewheres. He  was mean like that."
"Would you come in and give us a DNA sample?" asked 
Diane.
"What do I have to do?" she asked.
"Let us take a cotton swab and rub inside your cheek,"  she said.
"Oh, like they do on those crime shows?" she said.
"Yes," said Diane.
"I can do that. My son can bring me down there right 
 now. That would be wonderful if it's my Patsy. We were  twins and I have missed her all these years."
"I hope she is your sister too," said Diane. "I would like  to see her claimed by her family."
Diane hung up the phone and looked at the mask of 
Patsy Doe, as they had called her, that Marcella had com- pleted. It sat on a shelf and stared into in?nity with empty  eyes. Diane was uncertain what to do with it. Marcella said  to have it buried with Patsy's remains-after all, it was  made with dust of her bones. Maybe Marcella was right:  remains resting, reunited, in peace. Dust to dust.

