There were a few moments of silence. “I had a doll that Gramma said I must have stolen. I didn’t, but I don’t know where I got it,” said Juliet. “Gramma was a strict woman, but she could be fun sometimes, especially when she baked or when we collected seashells on the beach.”
There was a pause, and Diane could hear Juliet breathing.
“I remember being in a dark room with new dolls. I remember a baby doll, and I remember being afraid in the room.” She paused again. “The room had hardwood floors.” Juliet laughed. “I’m not afraid of hardwood floors.”
Diane heard Laura laugh, too.
“I remember running from something,” continued Juliet, “just running. I remember someone saying, ‘She said you took it.’ I don’t know if any of these memories are connected to the same thing, but they all give me the same fear when I think of them. I have very few memories before the age of seven. That’s when it happened, and I don’t really remember getting kidnapped at all. I don’t know if any of these memories are from the kidnapping. I used to have this dream of rows and rows of new dolls. The dreams stopped for a long time, and now they’ve started back. I don’t know why. And I don’t know why I’m afraid of them.”
“What do you mean by new dolls?” asked Laura.
“Dolls still in the box,” said Juliet. “What does it mean?”
“I don’t know, yet,” said Laura. “But we’ll find out. Memory is funny. I have a friend who associates the name
Louise
with
vinegar
.”
Diane smiled. That was her. It was something she told Laura when they were kids. Talk about memory.
“Vinegar?” said Juliet.
“The word
Louise
sounded like
vinegar
to her—that’s the best she could explain it to me. It may be that when she was little she met someone named Louise who spilled vinegar, and the association stuck. But most probably, when she learned the words
Louise
and
vinegar,
they somehow got stored in the same place in the brain. Or there could be some other reason entirely.”
“My memories are so frustrating,” said Juliet. “They don’t make sense to me.”
“Early memories are not always accurate,” said Laura. “There was this book that I liked as a young child—it was one of the Golden books. In the book there was a red ball and red wallpaper. To this day when I see a certain kind of red wallpaper, it reminds me of that book. The same with a certain kind of ball. Not long ago I was sorting some stuff in the attic and came across that book. I looked through it for that ball and wallpaper and, to my surprise, the drawings were much cruder and the colors much less vivid than my memory of them. The drawings were childlike in the book, but in my memory they were more polished—finished.”
“How does that happen?” asked Juliet. “I thought memories were written in stone once they get stored.”
“No. Your memories change over time as the brain develops, or as people and events influence them. Some memories are only memories of something that was told to you, and your brain filled out the image. If all your life your parents and relatives tell you a story of how you fell in the creek and almost drowned, you will likely have a memory of it, especially if you’ve ever seen the creek where you were told the event occurred. That happened to my cousin. Years later, she found out it happened to another cousin, not her at all. Yet, by the time she got to be an adult she remembered the event—and it never even happened to her. Sometimes people confuse dreams with memory. That’s why we are going to talk about your dreams another time.”
“How will we ever figure this out?” said Juliet.
“Wading through early memories is tough,” said Laura. “But we’ll get though it. I have some ideas.”
That was all that was on the tape. Diane was glad it was over. Hearing Juliet talk about her memories was uncomfortable. She could hear the pain in Juliet’s voice. A person’s deepest fears are such a private thing. Diane took off the earphones and sat thinking.
“I don’t know how Laura expects me to solve a twenty-year-old crime with this scant evidence,” she whispered to herself. “I must have been nuts to agree.”
Diane looked at her watch. It was about time to go home. She locked Juliet’s information in her desk and went to tell Andie good-bye.
“We haven’t been getting any more harassing phone calls,” said Andie. “Whatever you did worked.” She smiled brightly.
Diane smiled back ruefully.
Patrice Stanton thinks I’ll kill her,
she thought.
What a reputation I’m getting.
Before she left the building Diane stopped by the crime lab. David, Jin, and Neva were sitting at the large round table looking at reports.
“We don’t have anything, guys,” Jin was saying when Diane walked in.
“I don’t want to hear that,” said Diane. “We have to have something. What are you looking at?”
“We have some of the trace back from the GBI,” Jin answered. “They’ve accounted for all the fibers found on McNair. The only thing interesting is a blond hair about seven inches long. It could be his wife’s; they don’t know yet. So far, we can’t find any link between Joana Cipriano’s scene and the other two. In fact, there’s no common trace evidence between McNair and Stanton.”
“Everything we found in Stanton’s boathouse belonged to the family,” said Neva. “I don’t think the killer ever got inside the boathouse.”
“I agree,” said David. “I think he came by boat, shot him, and left.”
“What about the noise?” asked Diane.
“Electric trolling motor,” said David. “Just a little hum.”
“But aren’t they slow?” asked Diane.
“As fast as walking. Fast enough to get you to one of the little coves where you have a car waiting,” said David.
“That sounds awfully chancy,” said Diane.
“This is a lake where people do night fishing,” said David. “Nothing unusual about a small boat being out on the water.”
“In the middle of winter?” asked Diane. She shrugged. “It’s as good a theory as any we’ve had. But where does it get us?”
“Where you came in,” said Jin. “We don’t have anything.”
“What do the detectives have?” asked Diane.
“Less than we do,” said Jin. “We got hold of the GBI report first.”
“They must have more,” said Diane. “They’ve been investigating McNair’s life, his friends and enemies, his family. Same for Stanton. Surely, they’ve come up with something.”
“They say they have nothing,” said Neva. “It could be that my sources have been told not to talk.”
“I’ll talk to Garnett,” said Diane. “They have to have something.”
“You want my opinion?” said David. “It was the uncle—he’s got enough clout to dry up the investigation. And I’ll bet he’s behind the drug operation.”
“Go home and get some rest. A fresh idea may occur to you in the morning. I’m leaving.”
Diane left through the museum exit of the crime lab, crossed the dinosaur overlook, and took the elevator down to the first floor. She walked to the east-wing exit where yet another museum car was parked for her use. The museum store was closed and dark except for the floor lighting. She looked in at the row of Dora the Explorer dolls lined up on the shelf and was reminded of Juliet’s dream. What was it about dolls? Diane continued past the primate exhibits, feeling guilty for not putting enough time in the department for which she was curator. An idea of an exhibit had been forming in her mind for several days and she had done nothing about it. She walked through to the lobby and out the doors.
She was home in bed when an idea hit her. She looked at the clock.
One o’clock, shit.
She picked up the phone anyway and called Andie.
Andie answered, obviously wide awake.
“I’m sorry to call you so late,” said Diane.
“It’s not late,” said Andie. “What you need?”
“You know that basket you made for Juliet Price?”
“How could I forget it?” answered Andie.
“The mermaid doll, was it in a box? I seem to recall that it wasn’t.”
“No, it wasn’t. Is that why you called?”
“Yes. Thanks for the information.”
“Anytime,” said Andie.
Interesting,
Diane said to herself.
I’ll wait until morning to call Laura.
Chapter 31
It was the first good night’s sleep Diane had since the explosion. She woke up feeling good—no midnight calls, no murders, no bad dreams. She made herself scrambled eggs, the kind of bacon that’s already fried and just needs to be microwaved, the kind of toast made in the broiler and not the toaster, and orange juice. She didn’t know exactly why she felt so good.
Her mind had certainly been working overtime while she slept. Besides an epiphany she was experiencing about Juliet Price, her head was buzzing with questions about the cases that needed to be solved. Uppermost in her thoughts today was the question of how Blake Stanton had gained access to her museum holdings. How did he manage to get into every department in the museum and how did he know so much about what they had and what was valuable?
She enjoyed her breakfast and then dashed outside where she found, to her relief, her car unmarked by the mad graffiti artist, Patrice Stanton. She drove to the museum and parked in her usual place. The weather had been warmer the past few days, but the temperature was dropping again and the wind was strong. She wrapped herself in her coat and hurried up the steps to the warmth of the museum.
She met Juliet in the lobby. Juliet’s platinum hair was pulled back and out of her face. Diane thought that was a good sign—becoming visible.
“Dr. Fallon,” said Juliet, “I want to thank you for everything you’re doing for me. You and Dr. Hillard are really being great.”
“I’m not sure what I can do, but I’ll try.” Diane didn’t mention the idea she was having—she wanted to talk it over with Laura first.
“Whatever you do, I appreciate it.” She looked at her watch. “I’m waiting for visiting hours at the hospital,” she said. “Darcy is in her own room now and can have limited visitation. This is terrible for her.”
“Yes, it is,” said Diane, “but it looks as if she is on the mend.”
“Her parents can’t decide whether they should tell her that her boyfriend was killed,” said Juliet.
“Oh, no,” said Diane. “Was he in the explosion, too?”
“Yes, but he survived that.” Her voice went down to a whisper. “But later he was murdered.”
Diane was so shocked it caught her breath.
“Murdered?”
Some of the museum staff came through the doors, bringing with them a gust of cold wind. Diane shivered.
“Come to my office where we can talk,” she said.
She hadn’t meant it to sound like such a command, but Juliet followed her back to her office. Diane took her into her lounge area and plied her with orange juice.
“What was her boyfriend’s name?” asked Diane. Still trying hard not to sound like she was interrogating her.
“Blake Stanton,” said Juliet.
If Juliet was disturbed by Diane’s questioning, she didn’t show it. Diane hoped she was successful at looking casual. She remembered how Blake had told his parents at the hospital that she was the director of the museum. She just assumed he had seen her in the newspaper or something. But it was clear now, he knew who she was because he had been to the museum, probably on more than one occasion.
“Darcy’s crazy about him,” said Juliet, sipping on her orange juice. “She doesn’t like his parents much. She said his mother’s a real nut job.”
“Was he at the museum often? I don’t recall seeing him here,” said Diane.
“He was here with her a lot. He said he was thinking about going into a career in museum work, so Darcy showed him around all the departments and let him watch her plan some of the exhibits. Some people actually thought he worked here. He was really helpful to everyone.”
I’ll bet he was, thought Diane. A little con artist in training—gain their trust and raid their pantry.
“He was a student.” It was a statement, but Diane made it sound like a question.
“He’s one of those students who never graduates.” Juliet sighed. “Darcy is going to be devastated. She was really in love with him.”
“I get the feeling you didn’t think too much of him.”
“I don’t—didn’t really,” she said. She put her juice on the table. “I got the impression he didn’t really like her as much as she liked him. You know when a guy likes you, he looks at you a lot, even when you aren’t looking at him. He never looked at her. He looked at other women, but rarely at her.”
Interesting observation,
thought Diane. “I appreciate you talking to me about Darcy,” said Diane. “We’re all hoping she recovers quickly. I met her parents. They’re nice people.”
“Darcy’s crazy about her parents. She really cares what they think of her. A lot of people my age don’t. Myself, I have much lower expectations. I only care that they don’t think I’m crazy.” She smiled.
Diane smiled with her. “They can put their minds at ease if they think that. There’s a big difference between coping strategies and crazy.”
Juliet picked up her orange juice and stood up.
“That’s what Dr. Hillard says.”
She smiled again as she headed for the door.
“Maybe she’ll give me a certificate of saneness that I can frame and hang on the wall.”
“Say hello to Darcy for me,” said Diane. “By the way, how is Whitney Lester treating you?”
“She sort of gives me the cold shoulder, which I accept gladly.”
After Juliet left, Diane sat on the couch for several minutes thinking. The problem had been solved of how Blake managed to gain access to the back rooms of the museum, and she didn’t like the answer. It presented a new and more difficult problem. Did Darcy know what he was doing? Was she helping? Diane didn’t want to interrogate Darcy while she was recovering, but she wanted to get the museum’s property back.
Damn.