made her a gift basket, as she does for all new employees. Because seashells were a speciality of Juliet’s, Andie used that as a basis for the theme of the basket. The centerpiece was a doll—Ariel, the mermaid from Walt Disney.”
Diane saw the frown that briefly creased Laura’s forehead. Ariel was the name of Diane’s adopted daughter, who was killed. Ariel had named herself after the Disney character because she wanted to start a new life with a new name—Ariel Fallon. Diane continued.
“When Juliet saw the basket on her desk, she freaked. I mean really freaked. It was much worse than when Kendel found the museum snake coiled up in her desk drawer—and that was an event we will all remember for some time to come. Juliet was very embarrassed at her reaction and muttered something about being afraid of new dolls. Andie had taken the doll out of the packaging when she made the basket. It wasn’t in a box.”
Diane stopped to let it sink in.
“I’m sorry,” said Laura. “I don’t see the significance of that, and I can see by your face that it is significant, but I need a little more.”
“Juliet said, ‘I remember being in a dark room with new dolls.’ You asked what she meant by new dolls, and she said, ‘Dolls still in the box.’ But we know from her reaction to the welcome basket that she was scared witless by a doll that was not in a box.”
“OK,” said Laura, still sounding unsure. “So what did she mean?”
“There is something else common to new dolls besides the cardboard box they often come in. I saw it last night when I passed the museum store and saw all the Dora the Explorer dolls lined up together on the shelf. It was really very eerie. In the low nighttime lighting of the gift shop, each of the little dolls was peering out at me from behind the cellophane window in its box. Andie’s basket didn’t have the doll in a box, but there was cellophane around the whole basket—and Ariel the mermaid was peering out from inside the plastic.”
Diane could see from the puzzled look on Laura’s face that this really cleared it up for her.
“Are you saying Juliet would be afraid of an old doll if it was wrapped in cellophane?”
“Yes.”
“And this means?”
“The room of dolls she saw in her memory weren’t dolls; they were murdered people wrapped in plastic, and this was the first psychological trauma for her and may have led to Event Two—her kidnapping.”
Chapter 33
If Laura was shocked before, she was stunned into silence now. She sat back in her chair, staring in disbelief at Diane.
Diane pulled out the tape that Laura had sent her.
“Here, play the part where she is telling you what her memories are. Instead of it being a room full of dolls, think mass murder scene and listen to how the rest of her memories sound.”
Laura put the tape in her recorder, found the right place, and played it. At the end of the sequence she stopped the tape.
“It is scarier, hearing it from the perspective you describe, I’ll grant you that,” said Laura.
“The sequence also makes more sense,” said Diane. “The fear she has of the room makes more sense and the running makes more sense.”
“Yes, it does,” agreed Laura. “But . . .”
“I know. I said it’s tenuous. But I think it is worth investigating.”
“What in the world made you think of murder victims?” asked Laura.
“A couple of things. In the morgue tent, we were short on body bags and had to cover the victims with plastic until bags arrived. Looking at the burned bodies through the plastic was eerie, to say the least. It reminded me of a murder in Atlanta recently where the killer used plastic to wrap the victim and hid him in a wall. Plastic is popular with killers because if you wrap the victim up just right, the blood doesn’t leak out.”
“My God.” Laura shook her head as if shaking the image out. “Can you investigate this?” asked Laura. “Would you even know where to begin? I really don’t want to hit Juliet with this, especially since at the moment it’s no more than speculation.”
“I agree. And, yes, I can investigate it. First, there are some things I’d like to know. We know she was kidnapped from her home in Arizona, but what was she doing in the weeks before the kidnapping? Was she at home in Arizona or was