Dead Past

“She’s stalling and evading, Commissioner,” McNair snapped. “Giving us a lecture.”

“Are you refusing to cooperate, Diane?” asked the commissioner. “If so…”

“No, of course I’m not. I’m simply pointing out that if Mr. McNair’s men enter that van and take the evidence without following the required protocol, they will render the items unusable as evidence in any legal proceeding or criminal prosecution.”

“I see what you’re saying,” replied the commissioner, then reconsidered. “Exactly what is it you’re saying?”

“Simply that protocol requires that my crew retrieve each bag containing nonhuman materials from its storage box, enter a record of its transfer into the evidence log, and hand it over to Mr. McNair’s custody as it is signed for by Mr. McNair or a legally authorized member of his staff,” said Diane. “What happens to it after that point is Mr. McNair’s responsibility.”

“That sounds proper,” the commissioner said.

McNair’s men looked at him and he nodded for them to stand down. This is ridiculous, thought Diane. They are acting like thugs.

“I’ll have to look inside all the other bags to make sure I get everything I need for my investigation,” said McNair.

“Very well,” said Diane. “The commissioner and Chief Garnett are here to sign as witnesses that the seals were broken on site when the evidence is challenged in court.” Diane took a pen from her pocket and handed it to the commissioner.

“Sign?” he said. “Challenged in court, you say?”

“Yes, we all remember the O.J. trial and what happens when evidence is not handled according to strict protocol. We will need official witnesses as to who did what and when, and who authorized it, especially if the seals are to be broken for no legitimate forensic purpose in field conditions where evidence can be lost or contaminated.”

Damn it, thought Diane, if the commissioner is going to cave in, he is going to accept responsibility for the consequences. Her statement had the desired effect. The commissioner didn’t want his name on anything, and there was no graceful way to say he wasn’t going to authorize the diversion from proper protocol.

“I think we can trust that Diane’s crew know the difference between bone and other material,” he told McNair. “It’s what they do.”

McNair scowled. It was a small thing, but from the look on his face, McNair wanted to win even the small battles.

Diane told Neva and David to bring out the bags of evidence containing nonhuman materials.

“I want to look at the labels on all the bags you don’t hand over,” McNair said.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Garnett. “The way you’re acting, you’d think we aren’t all on the same side. What possible reason could they have for withholding evidence? We have an agreement. My people will abide by it.”

“I agree,” said the commissioner.

David shot Diane a look that said, “Don’t you think this is damn peculiar?”

Yes, she thought, very peculiar.

It took David and Neva more than half an hour to retrieve and log out all the bags they had so carefully packed in the van. Diane hated to see the carefully collected and recorded evidence go to McNair’s custody. On the other hand, all he wanted was the glory, and he had many good people working for him. The evidence should be safe in their hands. He wouldn’t be getting his hands dirty analyzing any of it. He didn’t really know how.

“We’ll be finishing up the fire scene, too,” said McNair. “We’ll box any bones we find and send them to you.”

He turned, got in his truck with his friends, and sped away, throwing up slush on all of them, even on the commissioner’s nice black topcoat.

“This is for the best,” said the commissioner, brushing off his coat with a gloved hand. “He’s rough around the edges and not very tactful, but the job will get done.”

“That is our hope,” said Garnett. “This is a high-profile event, and it will come back to bite all of us in the ass if McNair screws it up.”

“He won’t. I assure you, he won’t.” The commissioner sounded more hopeful than certain.

The commissioner got in his car with one quick look over his shoulder and drove away. At least he didn’t splatter us, thought Diane.

“What just happened?” she asked.

“McNair’s uncle got to the commissioner,” said Garnett.

“Did you explain that it was McNair who was mishandling the evidence?”

“Yes, and the commissioner believed me. This is really not about logic or who’s right; it’s about politics,” said Garnett. “We are just going to have to make the best of it. Do you have pictures?”

“Yes,” said Diane.

“If McNair screws up and it becomes a public issue, we’ll use them. If any perp gets off because of McNair, we’ll certainly use them.”

Diane was thoroughly pissed when she arrived at her apartment. She had made the short walk through the woods, trudging through snow over a foot deep in hopes that the walk would cool her down. It didn’t. She took a shower, dressed in something decidedly nonforensic, and drove to the museum.

It was closed, but in times like these when she’d been ankle-deep in bodies and politicians, or just generally having a bad day, she drew peace from visiting and contemplating the exhibits in the museum. Sometimes it was the Egyptian room and the amulets that had been folded inside the mummy’s wrappings; sometimes it was the rocks and gemstones; sometimes she walked among the giant dinosaur skeletons or sat and looked at the wall murals of dinosaurs with tiny fanciful unicorns the artist hid in all the paintings.

Her former boss, Gregory Lincoln, liked to look at Vermeer paintings when he was out in the field. Gregory carried postcard-sized representations of his favorites. He would look at the everyday scenes painted by Vermeer for hours-the love letter, woman with a water pitcher, the guitar player, the geographer. They seemed to put him in a meditative trance. Diane once asked what he was thinking when he looked at his pictures.

“I’m trying to figure out what’s going on in them. What’s the woman thinking about as she’s handed the letter? What map is the geographer drawing, how many places has he been?”

Diane had adopted Gregory’s habit of looking at beautiful art when she needed a break from a particularly grim assignment and had kept it up even after she gave up human rights investigations. Tonight the soothing shapes of the seashells held a particular appeal.

It would be a couple of hours before the low-level night lighting came on. Museum lighting is a science all its own. Because light is both destructive and necessary, she had staff whose only job was to tend to the peculiar needs of museum lighting. At night there’s the bare minimum of lights, and most of them are low to the floor so no one trips over anything. It’s good for the exhibits, but not good for viewing. She could of course override the day- to-night lighting change, but she would not do that simply for her own personal viewing.

The RiverTrail Museum of Natural History resided in a nineteenth-century three-story granite building. The interior decor contained ornate moldings, polished granite floors, wood paneling, brass fixtures, wall-sized murals of dinosaurs, and very large rooms.

Using her master key, she entered through the west-wing entrance where the Aquatic Animal section was located. The guard on duty at the information desk nodded a hello. Diane smiled at him. She cast a glance at a brachiosaurus in the dinosaur room in front of her before she turned left and walked straight to the seashell section.

Seashells are the houses and bones of mollusks-soft-bodied creatures that mostly inhabit aquatic environments. The museum had a fairly decent collection from among the more than fifty thousand possible varieties.

As in bones, if you know the code contained in seashells, you can read the history of the animal. The distinctive pattern of pigments laid down on a shell is governed mostly by DNA but is shaped by the experiences of the animal. Even among the members of the same variety, no two individuals have exactly the same pattern. A mollusk enlarges its shell along the edge, just like human bone growth at the epiphysis. On these growth edges the