poor fellow.’’
‘‘That would also explain why he was targeted.
Someone out there knew where the diamonds were
hidden, and with a little asking around about what
happens to bodies, could have figured out Raymond
was the one who had them.’’
Diane felt more comfortable with this explanation
of how Raymond Waller got the diamonds than she
did with the idea of his being in league with Edwards and Mayberry. She turned it over in her mind as she
drove back to the museum.
If Raymond happened upon diamonds, why not
Chris Edwards and Steven Mayberry? They were out
doing their timber cruises all over the woods for days.
From their explanation of what a timber cruise is, they
walked over every inch of ground. What if they also
had the misfortune of stumbling across more of the
diamonds? But if she were right and Blue, Green and
Red Doe had swallowed theirs, then where would the
ones have come from that Edwards and Mayberry
might have found?
Her head was beginning to ache. When she got back
to the museum, she changed into the running clothes
she kept in her museum office. If she was going caving
on the weekend, she needed to start exercising again.
She hadn’t done anything in a week.
‘‘Andie, I’m going for a run on the nature trail. Go
ahead and lock the offices when you leave. I have
a key.’’
‘‘Sure. See you tomorrow.’’
The nature trail made a tangled loop a little over
half a mile long around the back of the museum. It
was an exhibit in itself and Diane considered it an
important part of a museum of natural history. It was
a wooded trail, full of more species of trees than
Diane could name. When the leaves turned in the fall,
it was dazzling. In the spring and summer, it was the
flowers and shrubs that shined: rhododendrons, aza
leas, bluet, violets, trilliums. She tried to remember
the names as she passed the plants. Late summer, the
museum staff liked to pick blackberries that grew
along the trail, and Diane was thinking about having
a staff blackberry picnic in July. The crowning jewel
of the nature trail was the swan pond in the center— a small, quiet lake that could have come from a
fairy tale.
She never tired of running the nature trail and she
always saw something she hadn’t seen before. Nor
mally, there were many people running in the evening,
but it had been so hot that a lot of people headed for
the treadmills in an air-conditioned gym. She was
