“They look like those shells that you see in African motifs,” said Neva. “That’s what I thought they were.
“Cowrie shells,” said Diane. “Golden cowries-they are worth about three hundred dollars apiece.”
“Three hundred dollars for one of those?” said Neva, pointing to the eight shells, each the color of a deep yellow sunset.
Jin whistled. “Wow, Boss, you sure know your seashells.”
“I know these because they belong to the museum,” said Diane. “You found these in my car, Neva?”
“In the backseat. They were in that Ziploc bag with the blood on it. The blood is his. We sent it off to be tested. The shells have his fingerprints-from the hand that was cut off. He had a scar on his thumb that shows up in his prints. So he had them before he got in your car.”
“I’m not following this,” said David, standing with his hands in his pockets, staring at the cowrie shells. “These are your shells?”
“Not mine personally. The museum’s. We’ve had a series of thefts. Among them, six thousand dollars worth of rare seashells. So far we’ve discovered the loss of rare items valued at a total of over thirty thousand dollars missing from various departments in the museum-including Vanessa Van Ross’s ten-thousand-dollar diamond that she gave to the museum’s gem reference collection.”
David, Neva, and Jin glanced at each other, eyebrows raised. David shrugged.
“Why weren’t we called?” asked Jin.
“Museum Security is tallying the loss. We just discovered the items were missing. The thief substituted imitations or cheaper items in place of the missing ones, so it’s taken a while for all the thefts to be discovered.”
David pulled up a chair from one of the tables in the room and sat down. He stroked the fringe of hair that still grew around the back and sides of his head.
“What does this mean for all the theories of the crime that we’ve been positing?” he said.
“I don’t know,” said Diane. “This adds a new wrinkle, doesn’t it?” She sat down, too, and the others followed.
“Does this mean Blake Stanton’s extra money was coming from thievery and not drugs?” asked David.
“Or both,” said Jin. He leaned forward with his forearms propped on his thighs and hands clasped between his knees. “I don’t think we have to throw away all the theories of the crime just yet.”
“Campus police will probably cooperate with museum security better than they will with us. I’ll have Chanell call them and find out if the university’s been having similar thefts.”
“You think maybe that’s what he’s been getting out of his perpetual student status-plenty of places to pilfer?” said David.
“Maybe,” said Diane. “Just look at the hunting grounds-all the departments, the library, the campus art museum.”
“Not to mention money,” said Jin. “If you’re any kind of good thief, there’s lots of opportunities around university departments to swipe money.”
“It might be a good racket,” said David. “If you don’t steal too much from any one source, it may take a while before they even notice anything’s missing, or that there’s a larger pattern.”
“But you have to have a place to sell it,” said Diane.
“He has to be selling to collectors for most of it,” said David. “That’s where you’ll get a premium price for those kinds of items. And collectors often don’t ask probing questions.”
“How did he get access to so many departments in the museum?” said Neva. “I mean, the Van Ross diamond isn’t even on display. It’s in the reference collection.”
Jin and David looked at her with the same question on their faces.
“I know because Mike showed me the diamond, OK?”
“How is Mike?” said Jin. “We haven’t seen very much of him lately.”
“He’s away searching for those strange organisms,” said Neva. “All our dates lately have been over a webcam. Right now he’s caving in South America.”
“Webcam dating,” said David. “That sounds like me. Only, I usually don’t know the girl at the other end.”
Jin laughed; Diane rolled her eyes.
“Just kidding,” he said. “Although I understand you can have some pretty good remote kinky sex with a webcam. Joana Cipriano’s ex-husband apparently gets lots of cartoon action.”
“I’m not even going to ask,” said Neva.
“I wouldn’t.” Diane shook her head.
“You can tell me later,” said Jin.
Diane replaced the seashells in the evidence bag, resealed it, and had Neva, Jin, and David sign as witnesses. Just as she put it in the locker, her cell phone rang. She looked at the display. It was Laura Hillard, psychiatrist friend and museum board member.
“Hi,” said Diane. “You call to tell me I’m a murder suspect?”
“I guess you know that some crazy woman’s been calling all of us,” said Laura. “I tried to set her straight, but it’s awfully hard to set someone straight who’s nuts-I know. Actually that’s not why I called. It’s about your employee, Juliet Price.”
“Juliet? Is she all right?” Diane walked back to her office as she listened to Laura.
“Nothing’s happened. Don’t worry. She’s been coming to see me. You know how I like to work-I have my patients come every day for a couple of weeks before I go to a weekly appointment schedule. I think the initial intensity gives them a lot of security up front and lets me get to know them better. Of course, I’ve had a few who think it’s just a money-making scheme.” She laughed. “Anyway, she gave me permission to speak with you. I thought you could help.”
“Me? How?” asked Diane.
“Her problems stem from that one tragic event in her life. She remembers only snatches of it. I’m working with her on that, but I have to be careful of creating false memories, so it’s going to be a slow process. But I think something happened recently that’s triggered post-traumatic stress reactions. She doesn’t know what it could be.”
“And you want me to find out? I don’t think…”
“No, no. I want you to take a look at her kidnapping. She has all the files in her possession. If you could solve it…”
“Solve it? Laura, what makes you think I can solve a-what is it-twenty-year-old case?”
“Isn’t that what you do?” asked Laura sweetly.
“Not exactly. Any bones involved?” said Diane.
Laura laughed. “None that I know of. How about it? I think it would help her to know what happened. All her life her parents shielded her from the information. Her stepmother meant well, but she wasn’t any help, either. Her father and maternal grandmother blamed her for her mother’s death. It wasn’t until she was an adult that she was able to find out much at all. Until then she only had strange memory fragments that frightened her. You might be the only one who can shed light on what happened to her.”
“OK, I’ll have a look at her files,” said Diane.
“Good. I’d like you to listen to the tape I made of her talking about her memories. She thinks it’s a good idea, but didn’t want to ask you herself.”
“All right,” said Diane.
“I knew I could count on you. Isn’t this more fun than going on a killing spree?” said Laura.
“That’s not funny, Laura. I suppose you heard about the McNair murder.”
“Of course. That’s the advantage of being ‘old Rosewood.’ We get to hear everything. I understand that addlebrained Councilman Adler is trying to take political advantage of these tragedies. Did you see him on the news, weeping over his nephew? He didn’t care a flip for his nephew. You can’t when you’re a sociopath, and Adler’s one if I’ve ever seen one.”
“No, I didn’t see him. For some reason he wants me to be the killer. I’m not sure I understand that.”
“Because you are part of the Rosewood police department, and he’s been gunning for them. He’ll stop that in a hurry. He’s made Vanessa mad and you know what she’s like when she’s mad. Attacking you is like attacking the museum, and that’s like attacking Milo, and she won’t have that.”
“Send me the files and tape,” said Diane.
“They should be on your desk. I sent them by courier. I knew you’d say yes.”
“You are awful, Laura,” said Diane.
“I know. But I get things done. I’ll talk to you later. I’m eager to see what you make of it all. Juliet’s having a hard time right now. Thank you for helping.”
“Sure, as you say, it beats going on a killing spree.” Diane looked accusingly at her phone after Laura hung up. “I can’t believe I said yes. As if I don’t have enough to do.”
Diane closed her office and went back to the crime lab where Jin, Neva, and David were bouncing ideas off each other.
“Any new theories on the crimes?” asked Diane.
“Nothing that makes any sense,” said David. “I think the kid just had his hand-pardon the pun-in too many pots.”
“You know, David,” said Jin, “I’ve been counting the number of times you’ve used a word that starts with p, and it’s a lot.”
David glared at Jin for a long moment. “You what? Jin, that doesn’t make a bit of sense. Why would you do that? Why not the number of words that start with f?”
“Because you use p more often,” said Jin. “Statistically, you use it more frequently than the occurrence of p words in everyday language.”
David looked at Jin, amazed. “To know that, you would have to count all the first letters of all the words I use when I talk. Why do you have so much time? And why in the hell would you care?”
“That’s just something I notice,” said Jin.
“He’s right,” said Neva. “And they tend to cluster. That’s called something.”
“Alliteration,” said Jin. Then he grinned. “Or is it onomato-pee.” Both he and Neva lauged at what Diane thought was a rather lame joke. Diane rolled her eyes and shook her head.
David looked from one to the other, then at Diane. “See what I have to put up with? They have far too much time on their hands.”
Diane laughed, too. She had a slight feeling of d’jà vu, but couldn’t put her finger on the source. It was odd that she would, because this was such an unusual conversation. She shook her head as if she could shake out the feeling.
“As much as I’d like to continue this conversation,” said Diane, “I’ve got work to do. I’m going to my museum office. Remember, Jin, you have a DNA lab riding on your work.”
“Gee, no pressure, Boss.”
David went back to his computer, still shaking his head and casting glances of consternation at Jin and Neva.
“Now you’ve made him paranoid,” said Diane. “He’ll never again use another word that starts with the letter p.”