moment. “You what? Jin, that doesn’t make a bit of sense. Why would you do that? Why not the number of words that start with f ?”
“Because you use p more often,” said Jin. “Statistically, you use it more frequently than the occurrence of p words in everyday language.”
David looked at Jin, amazed. “To know that, you would have to count all the first letters of all the words I use when I talk. Why do you have so much time? And why in the hell would you care?”
“That’s just something I notice,” said Jin.
“He’s right,” said Neva. “And they tend to cluster. That’s called something.”
“Alliteration,” said Jin. Then he grinned. “Or is it onomato-pee.” Both he and Neva lauged at what Diane thought was a rather lame joke. Diane rolled her eyes and shook her head.
David looked from one to the other, then at Diane. “See what I have to put up with? They have far too much time on their hands.”
Diane laughed, too. She had a slight feeling of d’jà vu, but couldn’t put her finger on the source. It was odd that she would, because this was such an unusual conversation. She shook her head as if she could shake out the feeling.
“As much as I’d like to continue this conversation,” said Diane, “I’ve got work to do. I’m going to my museum office. Remember, Jin, you have a DNA lab riding on your work.”
“Gee, no pressure, Boss.”
David went back to his computer, still shaking his head and casting glances of consternation at Jin and Neva.
“Now you’ve made him paranoid,” said Diane. “He’ll never again use another word that starts with the letter p.”
Chapter 30
Laura Hillard’s package had been delivered by the time Diane got back to her museum office. Andie had put it on her desk. Diane opened the envelope and spilled the contents out on her desktop. There were copies of police reports, newspaper clippings, and a tape. She picked up the yellowed pages of the newspaper clippings. They were arranged in chronological order and held together with a paper clip. The first thing that occurred to Diane was that they needed to be treated with a deacidifier. She smiled to herself. First thoughts are of preserving the paper—a consequence of working in a museum.
The lead article, dated September 29, 1987, was the first news account of Juliet’s disappearance. It contained a school photograph of a young Juliet. A smiling little girl, she looked happy. Diane wondered if that picture was the last time Juliet looked happy. She read the article over a couple of times. Not much information in it other than Juliet’s description, that she had been missing since the day before, and was last seen playing in her backyard. Diane wondered if it was fenced in or not. How much trouble had the kidnapper gone to to take her?
The second clipping, dated October 2, 1987, described Juliet being found. A group of kids discovered her when their basketball rolled down an embankment and into a concrete culvert. She was stuffed in the culvert with mud and rocks as if she’d washed in. The preteen boys pulled her out. One ran for the police. There was a picture of a row of smiling boys, one holding a basketball. There was a picture of the empty culvert.
The article said she had been drugged and strangled. When she passed out, the kidnapper apparently thought she was dead. He’d put her in the cement pipe and left her. A light autumn rain had washed mud, rocks, and leaves around her body. She was lucky she hadn’t drowned.
What a terrible story, thought Diane. She wondered how Juliet had felt reading it. No wonder she was having post-traumatic stress issues. Anyone would, having gone though such an ordeal.
The third clipping, dated November 7, 1987, was a follow-up. It simply said that after a month, the police had no leads as to who had kidnapped Juliet and left her for dead, and no information as to the motive.
Diane looked at a copy of the police report. It was sketchy. It included the missing person’s report, the school picture of Juliet, a doctor’s report, which said that she wasn’t molested but had a bruised trachea, arms, and ribs.
The police had interviewed the parents, grandparents, teachers, neighbors, and friends. They found nothing. The interviews were included in the report and Diane read through them. Only a couple of items jumped out at her. One was a report of a woman who