your supervisor to be there too. I tried to explain that this doesn’t have anything to do with Rosewood, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“I see. I wonder if Vanessa’s free. She would find it interesting,” said Diane.
“Funny. I’m sure he meant Garnett,” said Ross. “Is that a problem?”
“No problem. He’ll just have to be disappointed. Garnett has nothing to do with it. I won’t have the mayor or the parks director here either, because they didn’t have anything to do with the Stacy Dance case either,” she said. “I will ask Jin to join us. He’s analyzed all the trace evidence.”
Kingsley laughed. “Okay. I can handle that. I hope Detective Fisher can.”
“He’ll have to,” said Diane. “Have you called Lynn?”
“Yes, she’s willing. A little too willing if you ask me,” he said.
“When do they want this to take place?” said Diane.
“This evening, they said. After work.”
“Good, I’ll be able to get some more work done before then.”
She had already hung up before she remembered that she didn’t tell him that Frank had translated the diary pages. She could tell him later when she saw him.
She called the restaurant and ordered steak dinners to be delivered to the lobby of the crime lab for her two security guards. Then she dialed the DNA lab and asked for Jin.
“Yo,” he said.
“What is the status of the Stacy Dance evidence?” she said.
“Done. I put it in the evidence vault in the crime lab. We ready for a transfer?” he asked.
Diane explained about the meeting. “Can you attend?” she asked
“Sure, Boss. Glad to,” he said.
She looked at her watch. She’d have time to get started on the other set of bones before the meeting.
Chapter 45
The teenage male skeleton looked similar to the female skeleton as it lay on the paper atop the metal table. It was stained the same earth-toned colors. It had similar wounds in the skull—sharp-force trauma to the back of the head. His limbs had been removed from his body, not with any surgical precision, but with an axe, and evidenced all the clumsy damage that came with a coarse instrument.
Looking at the arms that had been severed, the sliced head and trochlea of the humeri, Diane wondered whether the woman, MAG, could have been the artist who created the bone-tempered pottery. Could she have dismembered these bodies by herself? No, she would have needed help. Lynn Webber needed a diener to grapple with the cadavers, put them on the table for autopsy, arrange them for photographs. Most medical examiners did. The deadweight of a human body would have been extremely hard to move around. There had to be at least two perps—or one burley man. It would have been next to impossible for one woman to do this. Especially at a time when women were not as buff as they are now.
Perhaps it was a true artist colony and several people lived in the house. Maybe the message on the desk drawer meant MAG knew what was going on and she was afraid for her life. She or her mother was the landlord. Why didn’t she move in with her parents? Or get them to throw the others out? But sometimes it isn’t that easy. Bullies can intimidate some people into emotional paralysis. And the writing on the drawer came from an emotionally distraught person.
Diane had finished with the measurements of the skull when she heard raised voices coming from the crime lab. She took off her gloves, washed her hands, and went out to see what was happening now.
David, Neva, and Izzy were at the round debriefing table with Jin. David was pointing to evidence envelopes laid out in front of them. He was arguing with Jin, gesturing to a report he had in his hand. Neva stood by with a frown on her face. Izzy just looked puzzled.
“What’s going on?” Diane asked. Her people rarely argued.
“Jin has mixed up the evidence,” said David. “It’s all compromised. Marcella’s and the Dance case from Gainesville you are working on.”
“What?” said Diane. She did not want to hear that, not with a crowd of law enforcement and forensic people on the way to examine the Stacy Dance evidence. “Jin?”
“I didn’t, Boss. I don’t know what he’s talking about. You know I don’t mess up,” he said.
Diane turned to David. He looked tired.
“What’s this about, David?”
“This evidence he’s about to give away to Gainesville. Some of it is the evidence we collected at Marcella’s. I don’t know how, but somehow when he was