Darcy looked at both her parents. They smiled at her.
“Thank you,” she said to Diane. “I appreciate a second chance, I really do. Why are you giving me one?”
“There has been enough tragedy in the last couple of weeks. It needs to stop.”
Diane bid Darcy good-bye and left her room. Her parents followed her out.
Her father hitched up his pants by the belt and put his hands on his hips. Her mother laced her arm through his.
“You’ve been more than fair with Darcy,” said her father. “Her mother and I thank you for that. She really is a good girl-I don’t understand how she could fall for that guy.” He shook his head.
“Guys like Blake Stanton are good at conning people,” said Diane.
“He certainly did a number on my little girl,” he said.
“I hope Darcy continues to recover,” said Diane.
“The doctors said she’s doing well. We’re real grateful for that. We’d like to take her home to convalesce when she’s released. Will that affect her job?” he asked.
“No. She doesn’t have to come back until she’s well.”
Diane left the hospital and drove to the museum. It was a relief to have the talk with Darcy over with. She had been dreading it ever since she found out that Darcy was Blake’s girlfriend. It had been a welcome surprise that she wanted to confess and showed true remorse. That made Diane’s job easier-and made it easier to give her a break. Now, if the other stolen items could just be recovered.
The museum was opening for the day when she arrived. There were two big tour buses sitting in the parking lot. Diane liked seeing that, especially in this weather. Inside there was a long line at the ticket counter. Chaperoning a line of schoolchildren were several teachers and parents whom she recognized as having visited many times. And there were others who were vaguely familiar. She was glad to see so many repeat visitors.
She crossed the lobby and headed for Aquatics. She wanted to tell Juliet that she had spoken with her grandmother.
Chapter 39
“Dr. Fallon.”
The voice was one of the chaperones standing in line with a group of children. Damn. She didn’t want to be delayed right now. She smiled and walked over to him.
“Dr. Thormond.”
Diane held out her hand to the man standing with twenty or so third graders. Martin Thormond was a history professor she’d met on campus at one of her presentations for the museum. She knew he was angling to be one of the curators she recruited from the university, but his area of expertise wasn’t represented in the museum. The closest museum area to his expertise would be archaeology, and she already had an archaeology curator in Jonas Briggs.
It was odd. When she first presented the idea of university professors serving as curators in exchange for providing them office and research space, it was met with a great deal of skepticism and downright snobbery in some cases. Now, apparently, curator at the RiverTrail museum had become a plum assignment.
“It’s good to see you again,” said Diane. “I see you’ve been tagged for chaperone duty. One of these yours?”
“Michael over there.”
He pointed to a blond-headed kid making faces at two little girls, apparently seeing how wide he could stretch his mouth with his fingers.
“Yep, that’s my pride and joy,” he said.
He laughed and, at the same time trying to keep the rest of his wards in a straight line, caught a dark-headed boy about to make a break for it.
“I tell you, I now have much more respect for a mother duck.”
Diane laughed and muttered some comment about their energy. The level of noise was getting louder as more children arrived. Diane wondered where the docents were.
Some girls in another line were saying tongue twisters to each other.
“Say this,” one said. “She sells seashells at the seashore.”
It was answered by another little girl with perfect pronunciation.
“Now say it real fast.”
That was harder and ended in a fit of laughter.
“Try this real fast. Black bugs blood, black bugs blood.”
That twister erupted in a tangle of words and laughter. The teachers joined in-“Around the rugged rock the ragged rascal ran.”
It sounds as if they have a tongue twister for every department in the museum, thought Diane.
Someone started the old favorite, “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.”
An alliteration of p’s again, thought Diane. Why did that tug at her brain?
“… totally unexpected and just so much more work.”
Dr. Thormond was talking the whole time, and Diane didn’t have any idea what he was saying. She nodded, hoping a nod made sense.
“None of us had a clue Dr. Keith was leaving,” he continued.
Dr. Keith… history.
“Are you talking about Shawn Keith?” asked Diane.
“Yes. He’s left us in just the worst time. I’m having to take his classes,” said Dr. Thormond.
“He lives in the basement of my apartment building,” said Diane. “I didn’t know he was moving.”
“He caught everyone by surprise. I can’t believe he was job hunting all this time and none of us knew,” he said.
While Dr. Thormond expressed annoyance at Dr. Shawn Keith’s abrupt departure, Diane was thinking about when she first saw Blake Stanton aiming his gun at Professor Keith’s car. All along she’d thought it was just an opportunistic encounter. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe Blake had run to someone he knew and they got into some kind of argument and Blake pulled a gun on Keith. Someone at the university end had to help grease the way for Blake to steal things there. What if it was Keith?
The docents in charge of the groups of children came and they started on their tour. Diane waved at Thormond as he left with his baby ducks, and she detoured up to her crime lab.
Her crew was there. David was at the computer-Diane didn’t know if he was working on a case, one of his databases, or algorithms for working with databases. Neva was at a microscope and Jin was sitting by himself looking glum.
“Those cigarette butts. I could’ve had my DNA lab,” he moaned.
“Jin,” said Diane sharply, “Stop feeling sorry for yourself and get to work. Not everything is high-tech.”
Jin jumped at the sound of her voice. “What do you mean, Boss?” he said.
“You photographed the cigarette butts before you picked them up, didn’t you?” she asked.
“Of course, I did,” he said, a trifle indignant.
“Look at the photographs and find out what kind of cigarettes they are.” Diane stood over him, folding her arms over her chest.
“How will that help us? You can’t nail down a single person with a brand. Hundreds… thousands, maybe millions of people will smoke the same brand.”
“Jin, with those thinking skills, I’m not sure you deserve a DNA lab.”
“Boss!” he cried.
“Right now we don’t even have a list of suspects-forget about a perfect match. Get us a pool of possibles to work with.”
“OK, I find out what kind of butts they are and then I get a list of everyone in Rosewood who smokes that brand?”
“Jin, I’ve never seen you feeling this sorry for yourself,” said Diane.
“I let someone sneak up on me,” he lamented.
“You weren’t meant to hear, that’s why they were sneaking. Find a suspect population and then narrow it down. For example, we’re thinking the motive for McNair’s murder might be revenge for the deaths of the students. Who felt the deaths the most?”
“The parents,” he said.
“Who else?”
Jin thought a minute. “The people who had to deal with it. Us.”
“And I’m sure there are more. Where would members of those pools of suspects have been found lately… for long periods of time… smoking cigarettes?”