‘‘What happened?’’
Diane was in the sitting room off of her office with a docent, Andie, the night security supervisor, two par ents, and a seven-year-old boy with tears in his eyes. The father was pacing up and down, uncertain whom to be angry with. The furniture in Diane’s office suite was very comfortable—plush sofa, stuffed chairs—but everyone in the room looked as if they might be sitting on nails. It didn’t help that Diane’s face looked like the loser’s in a heavyweight boxing bout. The child kept glancing at her as if she were an ogre who might grab him and eat him at any moment.
‘‘Emily, what happened?’’ Diane asked the docent again.
Emily was a tall athletic girl whom Diane under stood was quite successful in track at Bartram Univer sity. She said her athletic training served her well running after kids. Emily opened her mouth to speak, but the father beat her to it.
‘‘You were supposed to be watching him,’’ he said to his wife.
Emily looked away as if wanting to give them pri vacy, or not wanting to be witness to anything unpleas ant or embarrassing. Andie slumped down in her chair. Diane said nothing, preferring to let them get out their frustrations for the moment.
The wife glared at him. ‘‘You were supposed to babysit. You knew I had a class tonight. You just had to go out with your buddies when they called.’’
They were both young, not yet out of their twenties, Diane guessed. The wife looked tired around the eyes; her dishwater blond hair was limp. The father kept running his fingers through his red-brown hair in what appeared to be a nervous habit. Both looked as if they were fighting feelings of guilt.
‘‘Well, you shouldn’t have brought him here,’’ said the father.
‘‘This is supposed to be a safe place,’’ she said. ‘‘The guards aren’t supposed to pull guns on you.’’
Diane’s jaw dropped. She looked at the security su pervisor, Blake Cassey. He was shaking his head even before she spoke. He held out his hands, palms facing Diane as if that would ward off the accusation.
‘‘One of the guards drew a gun?’’ Diane said.
‘‘We’re going to sue,’’ said the father.
‘‘Museum security wasn’t involved in this,’’ Blake said quickly. ‘‘It was the dar...It was the west wing guard at the crime lab, and he didn’t actually pull a gun.’’
Blake had almost said
Diane turned to Emily, who, as nearly as she could figure at this point, had the most information. ‘‘Per haps you had better start from the beginning.’’
Emily tucked a loose tendril of her dark hair back in its clasp and took a breath.
‘‘Mrs. McConnel was in the gemology class,’’ she began. ‘‘Ethan was coloring at a desk and decided to walk about. When they discovered he was missing, Andie—she was in the class too—called upstairs to us. Two of us docents were still in the office. We always have someone there when classes are being taught, for times like this.’’ She smiled, showing a row of perfect white teeth.
‘‘There are typical places kids like to go, and we know where they are. The dinosaurs are the most pop ular. I started with the third-floor overlook. Kids see it when they are on the first floor and want to go up there to look down. Sure enough, I saw him walking past the snack room onto the overlook. And I ran after him.’’
‘‘In the meantime,’’ said Andie. Her auburn curly hair was like a cloud around her face. Andie looked like Little Orphan Annie a lot of the time, a persona she often played up. ‘‘Mrs. McConnel called her hus band and I called museum security—and you.’’
Diane noticed that both the docent and Andie were using what Andie called their happy-talk voices, obvi ously trying to play down the frightening aspect of the event, making like it was really a grand adventure that Ethan McConnel would remember fondly when he grew up. It seemed to Diane that the most likely thing Ethan would remember was her bruised and swollen face.
‘‘I had his hand,’’ continued Emily, ‘‘and we were looking at the pterodactyl when this guy, the night guard for the crime lab, came out of the hallway, the one leading to the... to the crime lab. He started telling us that we were trespassing and to get out. He patted his gun and told us if he caught us there again we’d be in serious trouble with him, and with Mr. Smith and Wesson. I would have argued with him about just who was trespassing, but Ethan was getting upset and I wanted to get him out of there.’’
‘‘You did right.’’ Diane turned to the McConnels. ‘‘I’m sorry this happened. Someone in the crime lab overstepped their authority and used bad judgment. I will make sure nothing like this happens again.’’
‘‘Isn’t the crime lab part of the museum?’’ said Mr. McConnel.
‘‘No,’’ said Diane. ‘‘They rent space. The crime lab belongs to the city of Rosewood.’’
‘‘But don’t you run it?’’ he persisted.
‘‘No,’’ said Diane.
‘‘It’s that change in administration you and your buddies voted in,’’ said Mrs. McConnel.
The husband let out an exasperated breath. Diane was glad she wasn’t riding home in their car tonight.
‘‘Say what you want, but the burglary rate is way down under the new get-tough policy,’’ he retorted.
‘‘Now, how would you know? Are any of your bud dies on the police force?’’ she said.
Ethan put his hands over his ears. Diane guessed he did that a lot.
The husband nodded his head up and down. ‘‘Barrel knows a cop or two,’’ he said.
The wife turned to Diane. ‘‘Would you trust anyone whose mother named him Barrel?’’
The father stood up. ‘‘Let’s go, Barb. I’m sure these folks don’t want to listen to us bicker.’’ He turned to Diane. ‘‘I expect you to do something about that guy. He can’t go around threatening little kids with guns. Come on,
