“Maud and Earl? From the church? I didn’t see that coming,” said Izzy.
They all stared at Diane. Frank and Izzy because they had met Maud and Earl. David and Liam because the others were.
“I’m thinking secondary transfer,” said Diane. “We need to find out who Maud came in contact with yesterday. She won’t respond to me. Any of you charming enough to get the information?”
“What is it you’re saying?” said Liam. “That glitter is from Andie’s shirt?”
“The Vitruvian Man T-shirts have a pale burnt-orange glitter that is meant to mimic the color of aged parchment-like Leonardo da Vinci’s journal,” said Diane. “And as everyone in the museum knows by now, the glitter we got for the T-shirts transfers quite readily. Maud grasped my arm when she came by-”
“Why did she come by?” asked Izzy.
“I’m not completely sure. They wanted me to confess to lying about Leland Conrad-that he hadn’t put me in a jail cell with a bunch of drunks-because he was too good a man to do something like that.”
Diane heard Liam snort.
“I think they were feeling a little guilty,” she continued, “because they had told Conrad I was at their church, and they wanted me to alleviate that guilt for them. Anyway, I noticed that her makeup had a golden reddish sheen to it, as did her blouse. And frankly, she isn’t the type to be wearing that look. Andie’s abductor will have burnt-orange glitter all over him. And it will transfer readily. If it isn’t Maud, she came in contact with whoever it is.”
“There’s a lot of glitter around,” said Liam. “I mean a lot. Young people wear it on their clothing, on their faces, their purses. You’re likely to find any number of people with glitter on them or their clothing.”
“We can tell if it’s our glitter,” said David.
“I take it all glitter is not created equal,” said Liam.
“Indeed not,” said David. “Glitter is actually small to almost microscopic pieces of either plastic with an aluminum layer, or just plain old aluminum foil. It varies in size, shape, thickness, color, specific gravity, chemistry-to name a few of its characteristics. Every company has its own way of making it, uses its own shapes-like carpet manufacturers do-and each company’s cutting machines have their own specific tool markings left on the tiny pieces. Different companies have their own distinctive color varieties. And different companies make glitter for different products-like clothing, makeup, crafts, confetti, and on and on. I can tell you right away if this is our glitter. And the best part-you can never get rid of all of it. There are always little bits of it stuck somewhere.”
David took a piece of tape and pressed it against the glitter on the arm of Diane’s sweater. He lifted the tape and put the sample under the microscope.
“He has a database of glitter, doesn’t he?” said Izzy.
“Of course,” said Diane. “Have you ever known David without a database? He’s even working on a database of acoustic sound qualities in different environments-caves, houses, warehouses, outdoors in summer and winter, types of vehicles, and whatever else he has thought of recently.”
Izzy shook his head. Liam smiled. The first time all day she’d seen him smile.
“It’s ours. I can tell you that,” said David, looking up from the microscope. “I can put it under the mass spec and have a detailed description, but it’s ours.”
“So,” said Liam, “we are making progress. We have a lead.”
“We do,” said David.
“Don’t Maud and Earl have a no-account son who’s been in jail?” said Izzy. “Isn’t that what the Watson daughters said? I believe Keith is his name.” Izzy rubbed his hands together. “Progress.”
“Do you think the no-account son could be the grandson of Cora Nell Dickson?” asked Diane. “Liam, what did you find out last night about Cora?”
“Nothing. She never applied for a Social Security number. It’s automatic now when children are born, but back then you applied for it when you went to work. Not everyone worked. Not everyone applied for a card. Her income is her husband’s retirement income. I might as well not have gone, and if I’d stayed here, Andie wouldn’t have gotten in harm’s way,” he said.
“Whoever it was, was stalking Andie,” said Diane. “You couldn’t be with her all the time.”
“How are we going to approach this?” said Diane. “Maud and Earl won’t talk with me. If their son is involved, I don’t want to alert them. I thought one of you could do it, and complain about me-get them talking.”
“I can do that,” said Izzy.
Diane smiled. “Good,” she said.
“No, really. I have an idea. Evie and I spoke with them at the church and we got along okay. I think I can approach it right.” Izzy headed for one of the private workstations.
Frank turned back to the video made by Andie’s kidnapper. Diane saw him go to the beginning and watch it again. He’d done it several times. Stopping, looking, examining, writing down. At one point he measured something on the screen. She watched him for several moments. He could focus so well and with such intensity. She wanted to ask him what he was doing, but she didn’t want to break his focus. She knew he would know every pixel, or whatever unit the image was in, in the video of Andie.
Diane went to another computer and called up the security video and looked at it several more times-sometimes watching for vehicles, sometimes people, sometimes both. Writing them down, looking for a pattern. Useless, probably. She was willing to bet he never ventured into the museum parking lot, but stayed out of sight. She looked at all the people again, looking for someone who didn’t belong, or someone who looked like a gardener, someone wearing a hoodie or some other clothing that might conceal his identity.
She looked again at the video with Andie in it. She looked to see if anyone was watching Andie as she said good-bye to Liam. She watched her turn and run after the puppy. Diane searched the woods. The resolution wasn’t clear enough to see deep into the woods, but she thought. . if she could just catch a glimpse of someone. She took a breath, rubbed her eyes, and started all over again. She noticed that David was doing the same thing at another computer.
Jin came back with more stuff than Diane thought he would. Her groundskeepers were pretty good about keeping the museum woods cleaned out and free of litter, but Jin managed to find quite a bit. He went into one of the workrooms with a long table and put the bags down. Diane followed him in. Jin’s short black hair was in disarray, probably from going through the woods, but the spiky, messy style looked trendy on him. Jin was usually the happiest of her crew, always a bundle of barely contained enthusiasm. But he was subdued now. They all were.
“Hey, boss,” said Jin, “I don’t think any of this will be any good. Mostly picnic junk from museum visitors. I took pictures of the tire tracks and did the measurements of a vehicle on the dirt road. It was an SUV. I’ll look up the make and model before I start on this stuff, but. .”
“But what?” asked Diane, though she knew what he was going to say. They usually did all this for a dead body-and they did a good job-but the detailed work normally was to catch the perps and convict them in court. That wasn’t the goal this time. This time the goal was to get Andie back.
“Nothing, boss.” Jin grinned. “We’re getting a lot of evidence here. We’ll find Andie.”
Jin went to the computer to fit the tires and wheelbase measurements to the vehicles in the database. It didn’t take him long. “It’s a 1997 Chevrolet Blazer, dark green metallic.”
“You got the color from the wheelbase?” said Diane.
Jin grinned. “There weren’t any other tracks. There was only one vehicle. You closed off the road and nobody uses it. He took it off-road to get around the barrier. I checked the trees. I knew he sideswiped at least one. I’ll have to put it in the machine to be sure, but that’s what it looks like.”
“It sounds like the same vehicle that sideswiped me on the highway. Verify the color and the make and model. That’s critical information,” said Diane.
“Will do, boss.”
“That’s good, Jin. Really good,” said Diane.
“Thanks, boss,” he said.
Diane left and told Izzy, Frank, and Liam the suspected model and color of the vehicle. Frank didn’t seem to hear. He was still focused on the screen.
“Izzy, see what kind of vehicles are registered to all the people who might remotely be involved. Don’t forget the guy who’s keeping Slick’s dogs. Mathews said the guy’s name is Hennessey.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Izzy, “I forgot about the guy keeping the dogs. That’s something I will definitely look into. Ol’ Slick may be involved after all-or maybe the guy, or one of the puppies, you know?”
“Start with Keith … What is their last name?” said Diane.
“Parham,” said Izzy. “Maud, Earl, and Keith Parham. Keith is on work release from a drug conviction. Most of the violence in his background is barroom stuff. I called and spoke with Earl. I told him someone keyed your car and did other acts of vandalism yesterday, and you were fit to be tied. I told him I didn’t believe for a minute that they did it, but you’re kind of cranky and think it’s them, and I needed to know who they saw yesterday all day. You know, just so I could put you on another scent.”
“Very good,” said Diane. Diane remembered she was standing by one of the museum vehicles with RiverTrail written on it. It probably looked like what it was-she was using a loaner. Good for Izzy. Make the story fit what they saw. “What did you find out?”
“Not good, but good at the same time. Maud and Earl were everywhere yesterday. It’s one of their shopping days in Renfrew and they met a lot of people in stores. He gave me some names. They met with the Watson sisters and the Barres at the church to try to make up. No dice, apparently. And they went to the other church, the one Conrad belongs to, and spoke with the minister. They went to the sheriff’s office to ask about what happened to you. They spoke with Travis, Bob with the tore-up insides, and Jason. Travis is acting sheriff, and the other two are still deputies. Travis and the deputies said they couldn’t comment. Apparently, Maud and Earl didn’t know about Leland Conrad’s arrest and the strange not-really-a-confession statement he made. I’m going to find out what all of them drive. And finally-this is the good part-I asked about their son. He’s been living with them. I’m going to find out what he drives too. I’ll find out what all of them drive.”
“You got a lot of information,” said Diane. “Someone they came in contact with is the killer. That narrows the field, even if it still looks like a big field.”
“I’m leaning toward the son,” Izzy said. “I didn’t want to spook them, so I didn’t ask much, but. . right now, my money’s on him.”
“Good work,” said David. Liam nodded.
Neva, Mike, and Korey came bustling in. Neva was grinning. She had a book in her hand. Mike and Korey were carrying two large tubs of rocks. They put them down on the round conference table with two loud thumps.
“Got you some gold, Doc,” said Mike.
“Look at this,” said Neva, holding the book in front of her. “Korey did a terrific job.”
“Neva did the drawings,” said Korey.
“I supplied the gold,” said Mike, grinning.
Neva handed Diane the yellowed, battered diary. Diane flipped through the pages. The page she was looking for was in the middle. She recognized it only because it had a sliver of gold under a piece of yellowed tape that looked like it was about to peel off. The page itself had the drawing of a cave and the mention of several landmarks showing how to find it. There was a sketch of the cavern where the pyrite would be spread on the floor. It looked real. Diane couldn’t have identified it as fake.
“He did what you suggested and took a blank page out of one of the other old diaries, and after I did the drawings, he re-bound the book. We used an old fountain pen and old ink, which he just happens to have around in several colors, by the way. This will pass,” said Neva.
“It will,” said Diane. “Thanks, Korey. You’ve done a good thing. Now I’m going to ask you to leave. I’ll explain everything when it’s resolved.”
Korey nodded. “Sure, Dr. F. Good luck.” Korey left by the museum entrance where he had entered.
“You have well-disciplined staff,” said Liam.
“You haven’t been with us long,” said Neva, grinning.
“This diary looks completely authentic,” said David. “Korey could be great in the forgery business.”
“It looks like we’re good to go,” said Liam.
Diane had a thought that hit her like dry ice in her stomach.
“You all right?” said David, reaching his hand out.
“I don’t know why I didn’t think of this. He’s not going to contact me by phone, or some way we can talk. How stupid of me. It will be the same way as before. He’ll have Andie read instructions. I won’t have a chance to talk to him, to tell him I need to make sure Andie is alive.” Diane put her hands to her eyes and pressed. “Oh, shit, I’ve calculated this all wrong. Oh, damn. We need to have his name or we’re lost.” She looked at each of them as it dawned on them. Liam looked defeated. They all did.
“You’re right. If we don’t know who it is, we have no chance,” said Liam.
“Then we’ll find out,” said David.
Diane heard her e-mail ding. David had filtered her e-mail so that only the messages from the killer came to this computer. There it was. Maybe it was another stall.
Diane went to the computer and opened the e-mail. Another video. It was Andie, still bound to the chair. This time dressed in the bloodstained Vitruvian Man T-shirt. She read a statement.
“ ‘Time’s up. See, I’m taking good care of her. But I’m tired of playing with her little ol’ thing. If you want her back, do exactly what I say. If I see the police or anyone but you, Diane Fallon, I’ll kill the little bitch. You know I will.’ ”
The words were strange coming out of Andie’s mouth. She looked defeated, like the rest of them, as she gave Diane instructions to a location deep in the woods.
“Damn it,” said Diane. “Time’s up and we don’t know who has Andie.”