“It wasn’t?”
“No, I don’t believe it was. It was a sleight-of-hand kind of thing-you watch one thing while something else is really going on. John Rose sent a decoy box of bones because he expected that an attempt would be made to steal the Moonhater witch bones somewhere in transit or after they arrived here.”
She explained to Frank about the controversy over the Moonhater Cave witch bones and about the Wiccans and Druids.
“He expected the bones to be stolen by the Druids or by someone they hired to do it. The bones were stolen, and that’s what fooled me. It was a natural conclusion that his expectation had come true. The thieves also took a couple of microscopes, but I thought that was a distraction meant to hide their real intent. They stole a box of Caver Doe evidence too, and I thought maybe that was also for show.”
Diane punctuated her sentences with her fork. “The real Moonhater witch bones arrived today. They’re in a box packed and labeled identically to the box of bones that was stolen. It was a plain box cushioned with bubble wrap inside the shipping box. On the box containing the bones, John Rose wrote the words ‘Moonhater Cave Bones’-didn’t say ‘Moonhater Witch Bones,’ which is the way we’ve been thinking about them. It said ‘Moonhater
Frank squinted at her. “Spell it out.”
“The thieves came looking for the bones we found in a cave. They saw a box lying in plain sight that said ‘cave bones’ and probably thought, ‘How many could there be?’ They were after Caver Doe. They thought they got him. And that’s why they also took the box of evidence labeled Caver Doe.”
“It makes sense,” said Frank. “But why? Caver Doe’s bones are, what. . about fifty, sixty years old?”
“I don’t know yet.” She reached for her cell. “I need to call David.” She dialed his number and he answered on the first ring.
“Hey, Diane, what’s up?” David sounded hopeful.
“Something just occurred to me.” She told him about her theory.
David was silent a moment. “That makes more sense to me than that the Druids did it.”
“You know what that means, don’t you? It means the Caver Doe death, the crime lab break-in and the quarry murders are linked. If Caver Doe is linked to the quarry by the buttons, and the break-in was about Caver Doe, then the break-in and the quarry murders are linked.”
“Interesting,” said David. “Of course, it depends on your scenario being right.”
“It is right,” she said emphatically and laughed. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow. I just wanted you to be thinking about it.”
“That sounded interesting,” said Frank.
“No more crime. Let’s talk about dessert. Let’s order something really rich.”
Diane was in early the next morning. After a workout at home, she jogged the museum nature trail and took a shower in her office suite. She felt invigorated. Her arm was healing nicely. She did some museum business and had put all the finished papers on Andie’s desk by the time her assistant arrived. They spent a few minutes discussing museum business; then Diane went upstairs to the crime lab.
David was in the lab. So was Jin.
“I thought I was early,” said Diane.
“You are,” said David. “We’re just earlier. I told Jin about your revelation.”
“I think you’re right, Boss.”
Jin and David were writing on two whiteboards. On one board, Jin was listing each crime and the evidence they had so far. On the other board, David was making a matrix. The top of the matrix he labeled
When he finished he stood back and looked at his work. An X at one intersection in the matrix indicated that identical buttons were found at the Caver Doe and the Plymouth Doe crime scenes; another showed that both deaths occurred during the same decade. Another X in the matrix confirmed that the picture of the submerged car found near the bodies of Scuba Doe and Quarry Doe linked their deaths with the car containing Plymouth Doe found at the bottom of the quarry. The crime lab break-in and the Caver Doe death were connected by the box of Caver Doe evidence stolen from the lab. Most of the connections were tenuous, but all were suggestive.
Jin looked at the matrix David had constructed. “It’s like a logic problem,” Jin said. “If A is connected to B, and B is connected to C, then C is connected to A. All the crime scenes could be connected in some way. Isn’t that a surprise?”
“Okay, but how?” said Diane. “What motive or driving force connects a sixty-year-old body in a cave and a sixty-year-old body in the bottom of the lake with the recent quarry murders and the crime lab break-in?”
“My first thought would be money or something valuable,” said David.
“If their deaths weren’t so long ago,” said Jin, “I’d say the murderer was trying to protect himself by keeping Plymouth Doe from being found and by stopping us from analyzing the Caver Doe evidence. But that seems unlikely, because. . well, everyone who was involved in the original murders, including the perp, is probably dead now.”
“Not necessarily,” said David. “Diane, didn’t you say Caver Doe was in his late teens or early twenties, and that Plymouth Doe was about the same age?”
“Yes,” said Diane.
“So they would be in their eighties or nineties now,” said David.
“What?” Jin laughed. “You thinking somebody in a nursing home is orchestrating all of this? I know the statute of limitations doesn’t run out on murder, but I really can’t see them doing hard time now, even if they’re caught.”
“And we don’t know that Caver Doe was murdered,” said Diane. “We only know he wasn’t rescued.”
The elevator opened and Neva rushed in, out of breath. “Sorry I’m late. I had a terrible time talking Mike out of taking a run. God, he’s going to be the death of me. Between him and that stupid caller.”
“What caller?” asked Diane. They all looked over at her with identical expressions of concern.
“This guy-I think he’s a guy; his voice is kind of high-pitched-he’s been calling Mike the past couple of weeks and saying he’s the top of the food chain.”
Jin and David grinned. “What does that mean? Who’s the top of the food chain?”
“The caller. It’s really weird. That’s almost all he says. Once he told Mike he wasn’t getting his rabbits. I think the guy’s on drugs. I wish he’d lose Mike’s number.”
“What does the caller ID say?” asked Diane. She didn’t find it as humorous as Jin and David.
“Mike doesn’t have it. Can you believe it? He doesn’t even have a cell phone.”
“Could it be the person who stabbed him?” asked David.
“That’s what I thought,” Neva replied. “But Mike doesn’t think so. He said it’s just somebody on drugs or somebody who hates vegetarians.”
“Tell the police anyway,” said Diane. “Get them to put a tap on the phone.”
“I’ll try to talk him into it. We first thought it was my uncle Brad-the family clown. Uncle Brad’s a stonemason and he has these really strong hands, and he likes to intimidate people with his strength. When he shakes hands, especially with my and my cousin’s boyfriends, he likes to squeeze real hard until it hurts.”
Diane could see where this was going.
“Mom and Dad invited Mike over for a family barbecue. When Uncle Brad heard Mike was a vegetarian. . well, you should have heard him making fun.”
“Ah,” said David, “Real-men-don’t-eat-quiche kind of thing.”
Neva nodded. “I introduced Mike, and Uncle Brad shook his hand and started his squeeze routine. But Mike’s a rock climber. I didn’t tell Uncle Brad that Mike often has to lift his body weight up by his fingers. Well, Mike could squeeze harder than Uncle Brad.” Neva grinned. “They stood there holding hands, Uncle Brad’s face getting redder by the second. Finally, Mike said that if they didn’t quit holding hands, people were going to start talking. Ever since then, Uncle Brad keeps talking about how he’d hurt his hand at work and it wasn’t as strong as it usually was. He’s the kind who can dish things out but can’t take them.” Neva shrugged. “But the phone calls are weird even for him.” As she spoke, Neva looked at the board with David’s crime scene and evidence chart. “What’s this?”
Jin explained to her about the possibility that Caver Doe was the real focus of the lab theft and the witch
