the shower and turned it on cooler than her usual setting.
“Shit!” she screamed when the cold water hit her.
Diane finished her shower and dried off, shivering the entire time. It would be warmer to lie naked in the snow, she thought as she slipped on her clothes. Well, at least she was wide-awake.
She forced herself to eat a bowl of cereal before she dashed out the door to the museum. When she got to the curb where the museum loaner was parked she stopped cold. Someone had spray-painted in bright red letters the words MURDERER, KILLER, BITCH, and assorted obscenities all over the white Crown Victoria. Diane could guess who it was. The car was left driveable, she noticed. Diane took out her cell and dialed Andie.
“Andie,” she said to the perky voice that answered. Andie was always perky in the morning. Diane bet she didn’t have to take a cold shower to get that way. “Are you at the museum or are you en route?”
“En route. What’s up?”
“Can you swing around by my place and give me a lift?”
“Sure, something happen to the museum car?”
“Patrice Stanton, trying to work through her grief,” said Diane, before flipping her phone shut.
Diane stamped her feet trying to keep warm as she waited for Andie. She called Neva to come and photograph and print her car ASAP. Then she called a mechanic she often used and asked him to pick it up after Neva finished and take it to his brother’s shop for a paint job.
“Sure thing,” he said. “You want flames?”
Diane could see him grinning into the phone. “No, it got those last night. I want it like it was. Can he resist making it a canvas?”
“Sure thing. Somebody vandalize your car?”
“Indeed they did. They weren’t very poetic about it, either.”
“I’ll get it right away,” he said.
“It’s in front of my apartment building. You can’t miss it,” she said.
Andie pulled in front of the museum car, stopped and got out, and looked at it.
“Who is Patrice Stanton and why did she do this?” said Andie, her Orphan Annie curls bouncing as she shook her head.
“I’ll tell you on the way.” Diane got in Andie’s Honda and closed the door.
“OK, what happened? Why does this woman think you are a murderer?” said Andie.
Diane explained about Blake Stanton.
“The kid with one hand who held a gun on you and tried to take your car?”
“Yes, the same,” answered Diane.
“And this chick thinks you did him in and is harassing you about it?”
“Yes.”
“Bummer.”
When they were almost to the museum, Diane asked Andie to take the gravel access road that led around to the loading dock.
“You think she is waiting on you out front?” asked Andie.
“I wouldn’t be surprised. She’s a woman with a mission.”
Her son was dead. Diane tried to remember that. Grief takes many forms. Mrs. Stanton’s form was certainly destructive.
Andie turned in the gravel access road, drove to the back of the museum, and stopped.
“Thanks, Andie.”
Diane hopped out of the car and entered the museum by the back way, which was actually a quicker way to her office. She let herself in by her private entrance, locked the door behind her, set her coffeemaker to chugging, sat down, and began sorting through paperwork on her desk. The phone rang and she picked it up.
“RiverTrail Museum of Natural History,” she said automatically.
“I want to speak with that killer, Diane Fallon.”
Diane recognized Patrice Stanton’s voice. It crackled with hatred.
“May I take a message?”
“Yes, you can take a message. Before I’m through, everyone is going to know what a cold-blooded killer they have working for them at the museum.”
“May I say who’s calling?”
Patrice Stanton was quiet a moment.
“Tell her it’s the mother of the son she murdered,” Patrice said. “Murdered in cold blood.”
“In cold blood, got it.” Diane replaced the receiver.
In a few minutes she heard Andie come into her office. Diane rose and opened the adjoining door.
“Andie, we’re going to be getting some harassing phone calls today from Patrice Stanton.”
“Can’t the woman be stopped? Isn’t there anything we can do?” asked Andie.
“Yes, there is. I know she is suffering and is trying to vent her anger, but we have to exercise caution and protect the museum from whatever imprudent thing she might do.”
“So, what should I do?”
“I’ll have Chanell make necessary security arrangements. If you receive any calls from her, field them as best you can. Keep a log and a brief summary of them and notify Chanell. Check discreetly with the heads of the museum departments; instruct them to let me know immediately if any of them receive abusive calls from her, and I’ll have our attorneys get a restraining order against her.”
“OK, will do.”
Diane walked to the office of Chanell Napier, her chief of museum Security. She brought Chanell up to date on the situation, including calls at Diane’s home and the vandalizing of the museum car.
“I feel sorry for the woman,” said Chanell, “but she better get a grip on herself. I can record all the calls coming into the Director’s Office in the event that we take legal action. My people will have that set up within the hour. If she’s already been arrested once, I can get a mug shot of her and provide all of my security people with her picture. I think we better keep her off museum property until this whole thing is cleared up, don’t you?”
“All those sound like sensible precautions, Chanell. Thank you.”
“You don’t need to thank me, Dr. Fallon. You know I take the protection of you and this museum seriously. We’re not going to have any more of the kind of thing that’s happened around here in the past. We’re going to stop trouble at the door.”
Diane informed Andy of the security precautions being put into place, then returned to her office, her paperwork, and her e-mail-thankfully, Patrice hadn’t thought of e-mail yet. With any luck, perhaps she would be computer illiterate. Diane called the hospital and asked about Darcy Kincaid. The nurses station asked her for the family code word that would allow them to give out the information.
“Golden,” said Diane, looking at the note on her desk from the Kincaids.
“She’s out of her coma and drifting in and out of consciousness. Her condition has been upgraded from critical to serious.”
“Thank you,” said Diane. She went to the door between their offices and told Andie.
“That’s good, isn’t it?” said Andie “Yes, it is. I’m going to my other office,” she said. “If there are any problems, give me a call.”
Andy, clearly unnerved by the situation, asked, “Is there anything else we can do about Patrice Stanton?”
“I can find out who killed her son,” replied Diane.
Diane left her east-wing office and took the less visible route across the Pleistocene room, through the mammal room, and to the bank of elevators near the restaurant. Fortunately, she didn’t meet Patrice. She felt silly when she got on the elevator and just a little paranoid. She got off in front of the exhibit preparation room-where Darcy worked. She went in and updated Darcy’s coworkers on her condition.
From there she went to the crime lab. She hoped that Neva and Jin had found something that would lead them to Blake’s killer. Patrice’s harassment had just started, but Diane was already sick of it. As she passed the
