“It’s not meant as a replacement,” said Diane. “Interviewing and sizing up bring to bear your knowledge, your years of experience, and your judgment toward the solution of a crime. Data from analysis of physical evidence provides the hard proof that the law requires. It’s our job here to extract all the information that evidence can give us.”
She saw David working in one of the cubicles on the other side of the room. He glanced at her and looked back down at whatever he was working on.
Diane led the sheriff to the forensic anthropology lab, a large white-walled room with shiny tables, sinks, microscopes, measuring devices, and Fred and Ethel, the male and female lab skeletons standing in the corner. Whereas the crime lab was affiliated with the city of Rosewood, the osteology lab belonged to the museum. It was completely her domain.
“What do you do here?” he asked, looking at the metal table. He touched it on the edge and gave it a slight shake, then took his hand away.
“I’m a forensic anthropologist. I analyze skeletal remains in this room,” she said.
He raised his eyebrows. “How many jobs you got?” he asked.
“Three, you could say. I’m director of the museum, director of the crime lab, and I’m a forensic anthropologist. I’m sent skeletal remains from all over the world and I try to get as much information as I can about the people they were,” she said.
“How’s that work out, having so many jobs?” he asked, looking around the room, his gaze resting on Fred and Ethel.
“I work a lot. But I also have a lot of people working for me,” she said.
“You do a good job at all of them?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
For the first time he almost smiled.
Diane led him to her office, a room in the corner of the lab. This office was smaller than the one in the museum-and more stark. The walls were painted a pale off-white color. The floor was made of green slate. The furniture was spare and unimaginative-a dark walnut desk, matching filing cabinets, a burgundy leather couch and matching chair, and a watercolor of a wolf on the wall. That was it. As Diane sat behind her desk, she directed him to the stuffed chair nearby.
“You know bones?” he said, sitting down in the stuffed chair and crossing his legs so that his left ankle was on his right knee.
“Yes,” she said.
“You sure those were bones at Slick Massey’s place?” he said.
“I have no doubt,” said Diane.
“Slick and Tammy say it’s a plastic Halloween skeleton you saw,” he said.
“It wasn’t,” said Diane. “I’m quite sure of what I saw.”
“Slick’s no-account. His daddy wasn’t much better. This Tammy’s about the kind of woman his father usually took up with. Still, I need to see bones before I can do anything,” he said. “Got no missing persons.”
“I understand,” said Diane.
“Travis said you took some wood with you from that tree that fell on you,” he said.
“I did. I wanted to see if a body had decomposed inside the hollow tree,” she said.
He shrugged his shoulders. “Slick might say it was a deer,” he said. “Not that it would make a bit of sense. But you can’t know if it’s human, is what his lawyer would say.”
“His lawyer would be wrong,” said Diane. “We can identify human antigens if they are there.” Diane didn’t explain immunochemistry to Sheriff Conrad. She would let him ask if he wanted a lengthier explanation.
“You can tell if it’s human. . even without the body?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
Diane was a little surprised. She had worked with most of the surrounding county sheriffs, and they were amazingly up-to-date on forensics. Sheriff Conrad seemed like a throwback to another era.
“Did you kill the Barres?” he asked.
If he thought he was going to surprise her, he would be disappointed. Diane expected his question, expected it to be out of the blue, expected him to drill her with his small, dark eyes the way he was doing now.
“No, of course not,” she said, meeting his eyes.
“Travis told me about your trek through the woods. I’d like to hear it from you,” he said. “It’s a wild tale Travis told me. I’d be interested to know if he got it wrong, or you really did what he said.”
Diane put her hands in front of her on the desk and began her narrative. She started with her visit to the Barres, about the good meal that Ozella Barre had on the table when she arrived, about all the stories that Roy Barre told of his grandfather over dinner. Diane told him how she said good-bye to the Barres and tried to find her way back to the main road in the downpour.
Sheriff Conrad was a patient listener: He never interrupted; he just watched her as she spoke. Diane told him about finding her way to the Massey house, only to have a tree fall on the hood of her SUV and break apart.
She was about to talk about the skeleton when she was interrupted by a knock on the door. David poked his head in.
“I have some results for you,” he said. “All of the analysis that you asked for.”
The sheriff seemed not to like the interruption. He frowned slightly, first at Diane, then at David.
Diane was surprised. “You guys must have worked all night.”
“We did,” he said.
“Come in,” Diane told him.
David entered with Detective Hanks close behind.
“Hello, Diane,” said Hanks. “I’ve had quite a time here. You guys do some detailed work.”
Diane stood up and introduced them. “Sheriff Conrad, this is David Goldstein, he’s my assistant director of the crime lab,” she said. “Detective Hanks is with the Rosewood Police Department.” She gestured to each of them.
“Hanks has been observing,” said David.
Not rising, the sheriff nodded to the two of them. David nodded back and put a box on Diane’s desk and began to unload several boxes and envelopes out of it.
The sheriff looked more annoyed, but Diane could see he was trying to hide it. She didn’t explain that the boxes had to do with his case. That explanation was going to be tricky, and she didn’t look forward to it.
David picked up a small box, like the kind she used in the osteology lab. He looked at her and winked.
“We found a little surprise under the hood of your SUV,” he said, giving Diane a whisper of a smile.
Diane opened the box. It was indeed a little surprise.
Chapter 15
In the box on cotton batting lay the distal and medial phalanges of a right hand.
As Diane looked at the bones, David and Hanks slipped out the door, leaving her alone in her office with Sheriff Conrad.
“I have your body,” Diane said to the sheriff.
Leland Conrad jumped as if his chair had shocked him.
“What?”
He leaned forward with his hand outstretched.
Diane rose from her desk, walked around to his chair, and handed him the box with the two small bones.
“They are finger bones from the right hand,” she said.
He peered into the box and looked up at her. “You sure they’re human?” he said. “Mighty small.”
“Quite sure,” said Diane. “They’re human. When the skeletal hand hit my windshield and broke apart, these
