“I think the perp was convinced also.”
David nodded and yawned.
“Why don’t you go home and get some sleep?” said Diane.
“You didn’t get any sleep. I saw the reconstruction you were doing in your lab last night.”
“Actually, I did get a few hours. I stayed the night in my museum office. Nice and comfy. Why don’t I take you down to the restaurant for breakfast and send you home?”
“That sounds great. Yeah, I can get behind that idea. By the way, I put some more bones in your lab. We concentrated on retrieving bones last night because we thought that would yield the best results,” said David. “Early this morning Garnett told us that the GBI will be handling the evidence from here on out. So, our plan worked out well. I’m glad to hand it over to them. I wasn’t looking forward to going through all the junk.”
“I’m glad they are involved, too,” she agreed. “I’ll work on the skull today. I have a feeling that Jin is going to get his DNA lab.”
“There’s something he wants to know but is afraid to ask,” said David.
“What’s that?” asked Diane.
“Does he still get the lab if the police are the ones to break the case?”
“They’ll probably break it on our evidence, so yes,” said Diane.
“You’ve already decided on a lab haven’t you?” said David.
“If you tell Jin, I’ll transfer you to taking care of the dermestid beetle colony for the rest of your life.”
“He won’t hear anything from me,” said David.
Diane treated herself and David to a big breakfast in the restaurant. She wished her personal choices weren’t always centered between either food or sleep lately. And she hadn’t even had a run in the past week and a half. Maybe this evening.
After breakfast she sent David home, and she went back to the museum office to call Juliet’s grandmother.
Chapter 37
Diane dialed the number that Laura had given her. After seven rings, an older woman answered.
“Who is this? I don’t know anyone at a museum.”
Mrs. Torkel obviously had caller ID. Diane started to speak, but Ruby Torkel started again before she could get a word out.
“Unless it’s Juliet. Is that you, Juliet? What are you doing calling me from work? Does your boss know you’re calling me from there?”
Diane smiled. “Mrs. Torkel, I’m Diane Fallon, the director of the RiverTrail Museum of Natural History.”
“Well, what are you doing calling me?”
Good question, thought Diane. How am I going to approach this?
“I’m also the director of the crime lab in Rosewood… ”
“Crime lab? Juliet’s not in trouble is she? She’s not a bad girl,” Mrs. Torkel said, concern evident in her voice.
“No, Mrs. Torkel, Juliet is not in trouble,” said Diane. “I’m helping to find out what happened to her in 1987.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone for a long moment.
“She got snatched, that’s what happened.”
“She was a child and it was a great trauma for her. She is very frightened by what little she remembers.”
“It’s best not to remember,” said Mrs. Torkel.
“Her fears are very real. She wants to know what happened so she can get rid of those fears once and for all. What she does remember is blurred and fragmented.”
“She never remembered anything before. Lord knows the police tried to get something out of her.”
“Juliet is a lovely young woman now, but she’s haunted by this incident from her past. I’d like to help her; she is a good employee.”
“What does she do there exactly?” asked Mrs. Torkel.
“She takes care of our seashell collection and she makes kits to teach schoolkids about seashells,” said Diane.
“She always did like to collect seashells with me. She calls them mollusks now. I don’t know what that is. What do you want to know?”
“She told me about a doll that you said she stole,” said Diane.
“You thinking that had something to do with her kidnapping?”
“Maybe,” said Diane.
“I don’t see how. She was kidnapped in Arizona. She got that doll here in Florida.”
“I thought it might help her remember that time in her life,” said Diane. “Didn’t she get that doll just before she was kidnapped?” It was a guess on Diane’s part, but she had a feeling she was right.
“Why, yes, she did. She was visiting me just a month before she got kidnapped. She came home with that doll. She was playing with some child she met on the beach. That’s where I live, here on the beach, here in Glendale-Marsh. It was a nice doll and people don’t just give away nice things.”
“Do you know where the doll is now?” asked Diane.
“Sure. I got it. I took it away from her. I told her she couldn’t play with something she stole. I was going to give it back to the child she took it from, but I never was able to find out who she was playing with. I asked some of the little girls on the beach, but they didn’t know Juliet. The child might have belonged to a tourist family. We get a lot of them here. They come and rent cottages on the beach. Lots of people come and go here. Will it help Juliet if I send you the doll?”
“Yes, I think it will help,” said Diane.
“I want to help Juliet. I don’t see her often enough. She thinks I blame her for her mother’s death. Maybe I did at one time, I don’t know. Anna Marie was my only child, and it’s awfully hard to lose a child. No matter how old they are, they never quit being your child. When Juliet was kidnapped, it just killed Anna Marie-the worry. She never got over it. She wasn’t a strong girl.”
Mrs. Torkel was silent for a long while. Diane waited.
“I’ll send you that doll. Let me get a pen and take your address.”
Diane heard rattling noises as though she was searching in a drawer.
“Here… no, the ink’s dried up. Just a minute.”
Diane heard her lay the phone down. The television was playing in the background. It sounded like a soap opera. After a minute she was back.
“Here, this one writes. Go ahead.”
Diane gave her the museum address.
“Mrs. Torkel,” Diane asked when she had written down the address, “this question may sound strange, but around the time Juliet was there, did any murders take place?”
“Here in Glendale-Marsh? Why, no. I don’t know that we ever had a murder. We’re just a small tourist town. People come here with their families. The folks who live here year-round all know each other. No, we never had any murders. Did Juliet say we did?”
“No, she didn’t. It was just an idea. Thank you for talking with me,” said Diane.
“Tell Juliet to call me sometime. Georgia’s not that far from Florida. Maybe she can come down to visit me and we can go collecting shells on the beach like we used to.”
“I’ll tell her,” said Diane. “Thanks again.”
She hung up the phone and sat in her office thinking. She was expecting to hear that there had been a murder in the Glendale-Marsh area just prior to the time Juliet was kidnapped. She had it so neat in her mind what had happened. She was disappointed that she was wrong. But she would double-check with the Florida crime records.
Diane went back to her lab to continue her work piecing together bone fragments. The bones were as she had left them-laid out and waiting. The sandbox she used to keep the pieces upright sat on a nearby table holding what she had pieced together so far. Another sandbox holding the first partially reconstructed skull sat next to it.
David had set the box he brought from the warehouse on the counter. She opened it and laid all the bones out on the table, filling in many of the missing parts of the strange double skeleton. The warehouse evidence contained many of the bones and fragments that were missing.