It gives them a lot of ammunition,” he said.
“I can see their point, but . . .” She let the thought trail off.
Frank pulled her back to him. “I’ll give you a call when I can get away,” he said.
“Me too,” Diane said.
Diane went to her museum office. First thing she wanted to do was call Lynn Webber. Diane had just sent her two bodies without asking her or giving her a heads-up.
Andie was in her office sporting Diane’s Vitruvian Man T-shirt. The tee was parchment color with a dark brown image of the page out of Leonardo da Vinci’s journal and highlighted with a special pale burnt-orange glitter.
“How does it look?” said Andie.
“Great,” said Diane. “I really like it.”
“I put one in your office. I think these T-shirts are going to be popular. I hope so, anyway. I like them a lot,” said Andie. “How are you doing?”
“I’m fine,” said Diane. “I’ll be in my office. I have to make a few calls.”
Diane went to her office and sat down behind her desk and dialed Lynn Webber’s number.
Chapter 50
Hector answered the phone at the Rosewood morgue. That was a relief to Diane. She had asked the GBI agent taking the bodies to the morgue to request that Lynn Webber call Hector and Scott and have them come and take tissue samples. That meant the agent had remembered, Lynn had made the call, Hector and Scott were there, and the autopsies were probably in progress.
“This is Diane Fallon, Hector. Is Dr. Webber available?”
“Oh, hi, Dr. Fallon. She’s kind of in the middle, literally. I’ll ask,” he said.
While Diane waited on the line she checked her e-mail. There was a mountain of it she needed to deal with personally and she began sorting through it until Lynn came on the phone.
“Diane, so sweet of you to call,” Lynn said.
“Lynn, I’m sorry about the surprise. I was in the woods with no cell service and, of course, when we found the condition of the bodies, well, I told the agent in charge he needed to give them to you. This is a big case and there is no one I trust like I trust you with it. I’m also grateful for your getting in touch with Scott and Hector.”
“I’m happy to help out,” said Lynn. “Actually, I think I can get a paper out of this. Interesting series of bodies—all killed the same way. I’m not finished yet, but I’d be willing to bet my job that we’re going to find these two were killed with the same weapon as the others. Really interesting.”
“Puzzling would be my choice of words,” said Diane.
“That too,” Lynn said.
“Thanks for doing this,” said Diane. “We owe you a big one.”
Neva often complained that Diane had to stroke Lynn Webber’s ego a little too much, which might be true. But Diane also used Lynn. Lynn Webber was in a traditionally men’s field and had to work doubly hard to make sure she stood out. Diane knew that Lynn would be willing to do anything that was intriguing and would give her an edge in her field.
“Like I said, it will make a good paper. I’m going to make casts of the vertebrae as I did with the others. I’m getting quite a collection. Interesting that this was a couple too—but a young couple. And they were killed in a cave, the agent said?”
“They were killed outside nearby and dumped in the cave,” said Diane.
“And they were killed before the Barres. I wonder what a profiler would make of that,” she said.
“I don’t know,” said Diane. “Raises lots of questions.”
“I’ll send you my report,” Lynn said. “Hector and Scott are quite excited that their samples will be used to pinpoint time of death in these two—unlike their samples in the other cases.”
Diane thanked her again and hung up the phone. Before tackling the e-mails, she called Beth in Archives to see how the speed-readers were progressing. Beth put Fisher on the line.
“Hi, Dr. Fallon,” he said. “We’re making good progress. The gold mine you wanted to know about is mentioned in the second diary. Only he identified it as a cave. The author of the diary and a friend were exploring a cave when they found a cavern with deposits of gold—a vein about three to six inches thick and bits of sparkling pieces in the wall. The two were very excited and made a pact to keep it a secret between them and to come back and