us turn off our cell phones inside the hospital, so we
didn’t get your call. You know who the victims were?’’ ‘‘Maybe. I told you about the discussion boards and
lists Neva was checking on the Internet. She got a hit
from a plastic surgeon in upstate New York. He sent
photos of two of his patients, and I have to tell you,
they look a lot like our victims.’’
‘‘She get names?’’
‘‘Yes.’’ Diane related the entire story she got from
Neva. ‘‘When I couldn’t get you on the phone, I called
the numbers the doctor gave her for them. Justin
Hooten’s family wasn’t home. Ashlyn Hooten’s father
brushed me off. I think that they’ve had some dealings
with the law before.’’
If Braden or Garnett were angry at her initiative,
neither showed it, so she pressed on. ‘‘I’d like to try
again.’’
‘‘Be my guest,’’ said the sheriff. ‘‘The sooner this is
out of my hair, the better.’’ He rose and stalked off
toward the restrooms.
‘‘What’s that about?’’ asked Diane.
‘‘I was pretty hard on Lynn Webber. I was thinking
that maybe the diamonds were on Chris Edwards’
person—hiding in his underwear, some place an in
truder might not look. And then I thought, if not Ed
wards’ clothes, why not the hanging victims’? She
seemed to take offense at my tone of voice. She told
him about it. I tell you, the guy’s hopeless.’’ Diane was only half listening to what Garnett was saying. What had caught her eye was a poster for
colon cancer screening.
‘‘She was saying,’’ continued Garnett, ‘‘that you
were there when they removed Blue and Green’s
clothes and you took them with you, and Red’s clothes
were bagged immediately. It seemed to me like a way
to connect up Braden’s murders with mine.’’ ‘‘And it was,’’ said Diane, staring at the poster.
‘‘There was something Raymond did by himself that
wasn’t in sight of either me or Lynn Webber.’’ ‘‘What was that?’’
‘‘He cleaned the bones.’’
‘‘What?’’
‘‘Before I do a thorough analysis of bones, they are
cleaned by a process that dissolves all the flesh and
cartilage. Raymond is the one who cleaned them.
When he strained the solution to capture any of the
small bones that might be trapped in it, that’s where
he found the diamonds. I’ll bet one of the victims had
swallowed the diamonds, maybe to smuggle them, like
they do cocaine.’’
‘‘You know, that makes sense. Raymond had never
been in trouble, even as a teenager. It bothered me
that he would suddenly turn to something this big. But
if he found them, he probably counted himself lucky—
