Mesozoic Murder Read online

  “The bastard’s using a dart gun?” Wherle asked.

  Avery nodded. “Possibly.”

  “That’s great for us. The sale of cartridge-fired dart rifles is regulated by federal law. Interstate shipment is restricted to government agencies or holders with a state or federal firearms license.” Wherle’s eyes gleamed over his mask.

  Carter nodded. “We can check with local gun dealers and see who’s been buying cartridge rifles and darts.”

  “It could be a compressed air pistol,” Dorbandt added. “Easier to handle and with an accuracy up to thirty yards. That’s better for close hits within small areas. No matter whether the perp used a rifle or a pistol, you need an explosive charge to fire darts. We should track down sales of CO2 gas cartridges and powder blanks, too.”

  Avery snipped away a three-inch swatch of Benchley’s blouse and transferred it into an evidence bag with forceps. “If it’s a dart gun, tissue and fabric analysis will reveal the presence of CO2 or gunpowder.”

  For two more hours, Dorbandt watched as the body was stripped, X-rayed, inspected, photographed, and washed. Finally, a nude, pale husk of the living Evelyn Benchley lay face up on the autopsy table, her head centered on a black rubber block.

  Dorbandt glanced at his watch. He had to be at the Phoenix trailer by seven and it was already six. The final exam on Benchley hadn’t even started yet.

  Finally Avery said, “Turn the air on, Dan.”

  The diener followed Avery’s command, then returned to the autopsy platform and opened a water spigot. A trickling fountain of clear liquid ran down the perforated tier and dripped through holes onto a flat stainless steel catch basin below.

  Dorbandt shot a glance at Carter. “How’re you holding up?”

  The young cop’s eyes were as big as casino tokens. “Shut up, Dorbandt,” he grumbled.

  Dorbandt chuckled. “Listen, I’m history. Thanks for letting me stand in, Dr. Avery.”

  “Leaving so soon?” asked the coroner. His gaze raked over a dissection tray containing a generous supply of gleaming steel instruments which included a bread knife, pruning clippers, and a vibrating bone saw.

  “I have another appointment.”

  “Too bad. I guess it’s just us chickens.” Avery picked up a shiny scalpel and grinned eagerly at Wherle and Carter. “Let’s dig in.”

  Dorbandt reached the exit and pulled off his mask. Once through the swinging double doors, he stripped off his latex gloves and smock as well. The last thing he heard as the doors flapped closed was the thud of Detective Kevin Carter hitting the floor.

  Chapter 16

  “All birds, even those of the same species, are not alike, and it is the same with human beings.”

  Shooter, Teton Sioux

  Ansel yanked the steering wheel to the right, guiding the truck safely onto the two-lane road five miles east of Big Toe. She’d taken the corner too fast. A cell phone at her ear didn’t help.

  “Daddy, I’m running late. Has Dorbandt arrived?”

  “No. I’m the only steer at the trough,” Chase drawled. “I’m airing out the trailer. Place smells like a Fourth of July sparkler. Where are you?”

  “I’m on Barnum Brown Road. I’ve got to talk to Bieselmore for a few minutes.”

  Chase sighed. “I’ll be here, Sarcee.”

  “Thanks, Daddy. See you soon.” She tossed the phone on the passenger seat, her eyes focused on the asphalt roadway slowly disappearing behind a curtain of darkness as a magnificent orange sun set, dragging an artist’s palette of pastel colors with it.

  Barnum Brown Road, named for the early twentieth-century bone digger who unearthed dinosaur fossils near Fort Peck, was a bumpy turnoff snaking through rolling pasture beside the Redwater River. Part of the lower Missouri River watershed, the narrow, serpentine tributary ran southwest and petered into hundreds of streams and seasonal creeks.

  Ansel remembered when the surrounding three thousand acres had been a working Hereford ranch. Two hundred cow-calf pairs had wandered these live-water birthing grounds from March to October. The previous owner, Chester Dover, had been a friend of her father’s since high school. When Chester died of a heart attack in the late nineties, she and her parents had attended his funeral.

  Soon after the federal government moved in, claiming that Chester had leased Conservation Reserve Program acres from the Bureau of Land Management and failed to make annual lease payments for several years. Since Chester’s relatives hadn’t wanted to pay the fees, the warranty deed had been signed over to the BLM as payment for the unpaid balance and back taxes.

  Luckily the Big Toe town council had recognized a commercial opportunity when it banged on the courthouse door. As part of a city rejuvenation project, they had made a proposal to the BLM to lease a portion of the forfeited property, including the fifties-era Dover house.

  The business-savvy councilmen had no interest in the ranch land. What they wanted was access to the quarter mile of riverbank around Chester’s house. Two years before his demise, a violent flash flood had exposed fossilized dinosaur tracks.

  Slowly their municipal dream of a commercially viable tourist attraction had been transformed into a sign-on-the-dotted-line reality. The deal permitted the city to manage the dinosaur park and tourist revenues, and gain limited public access to the entombed national fossil treasures. In exchange, the council was responsible for securing the area against trespassers or vandals and paying a portion of the commercial income, plus lease monies, to the BLM. It was a bureaucratic match made in heaven, Ansel reflected.

  The front gate was open and the parking lot empty except for Bieselmore’s spit-and-polished black Explorer. Ansel parked close to the entrance where a lighted sign proclaimed she’d arrived at the Big Toe Natural History Museum.

  A twenty-one-foot-long fiberglass sculpture of a rare Montana Torosaurus stood adjacent to the concrete walkway. The triceratops-like beast had a head as long as a compact car, an enormous neck frill, two three-foot-long brow horns, a small nose-horn, and a narrow, parrot-like beak. Ansel rubbed the dinosaur’s nose-horn for good luck as she walked by.

  Surprised to find the door unlocked after hours, she entered. A laser sensor gave a tonal beep. The blast of cool air felt invigorating. Even more enjoyable was the elemental smell of dirt, rock, and bone.

  Ansel adored the new building. Thanks to funds anted up by the council and volunteer labor supplied by local citizens, the old two-story, wood-frame farm house had been gutted and modernized. The second floor had been removed, the interior walls knocked down, and the original foundation and roof trusses expanded outward on all sides.

  She closed the door and scanned the main entry room. The museum walls were a pleasant, pale beige color and lined with huge display cases and prehistoric murals. The middle of the room had been tastefully crammed with small dinosaur skeletons and spectacular indigenous rock and mineral samples. Any remaining space was filled with books, dinosaurian models, museum souvenirs, and educational toys for children. Behind this room was a larger display hall with fossil replicas and dioramas.

  Motion from above caught Ansel’s attention. A huge, winged Quetzalcoatlus model hovered over her as if gliding on Cretaceous air currents. Thirty-nine feet across from wingtip to wingtip, the long-necked, toothless flying Pterosaur swayed on its cable supports during the summer months when the ceiling fans twirled at top speed.

  “Ansel.” Cameron Bieselmore stood in an open doorway to her right, his bald head gleaming beneath the fluorescents. “I’ve tried to reach you for two days. You never returned my calls.”

  “Hello to you, too, Cam. I can’t stay long.” She quickly circumnavigated a short counter advertising five-dollar-a-head tours of the tracks located on the fossilized mud flats out back.

  “Let’s talk in my office.” He scooted through the door.

  Ansel followed, dreading Bieselmore’s tiny, ten by ten inner sanctum. The room overflowed with shabby-chic, maritime decor reminiscent of a wharf-side s
eafood restaurant. For a man who lived and breathed to study the recycling of land masses and their associated life forms, she could only rationalize Bieselmore’s split personality as a result of being born and raised in Boston.

  Nothing had changed. The walls swelled with prints: floundering galleons, intrepid whalers, and swift clippers. Nautical lamps made from old sea lanterns and miniature Fresnel lighthouse lenses filled the room. Ancient-looking glass barometers, storm scopes, and tide clocks covered any extra space. Against one wall, a fifty-gallon saltwater aquarium belched bubbles above a coral seascape complete with neon-colored fish, creeping mollusks, sea anemones, and aquatic plants.

  Ansel got down to business. “I need to borrow Leslie’s membership file.”

  Bieselmore stared. “May I ask why?”

  “I’m going to write an article about his career and his new book for my Pangaean column. Is there a problem?”

  “Don’t tell me you liked his book?”

  “I think it’s very clever.” Ansel forced a happy face. What a pretentious bore Cameron could be.

  The director tapped a right index finger against his lip. “I can tell you what you want to know about Leslie. I’ve known the crotchety old goat for ten years.”

  “I’d rather read the facts for myself, Cam. Can you get the file, please?”

  “Of course. You’re the president.”

  Cameron walked to a battered four-drawer file cabinet in a rear corner, dug into his pants pocket, and pulled out a tiny brass key. He inserted it into the button-lock on the top drawer. When the key hole popped out, he opened the third drawer down, flipping through a jam-packed row of manila folders. He removed a slightly soiled, inch-thick file. He also slammed the drawer and quickly locked it.

  “This is it. Bring it back as soon as you can. We don’t want membership files floating around. Not professional.”

  You mean that you want private information at your disposal, Ansel ruminated. How much dirt could Bieselmore extrapolate from public information that fell into his beefy paws? What did he know about Nick, Evelyn, and Leslie? And what had he gleaned from her file?

  Ansel stepped forward and plucked the folder from his hand. “I’ll return it in a couple days.”

  “Now can we get on to important issues?”

  “I can’t stay, Cam.”

  “This can’t wait. Have a seat.”

  He directed her to an empty chair as if she were a recalcitrant child, then sat in his executive chair behind a faux-wood desk. Cameron stared officiously past the mounted, two-foot-long specimen of a herring gull. The bird’s slightly crossed, yellow glass eyes watched her with disdain. Ansel gritted her teeth as she dropped into a plastic, sea-green chair.

  “What are you going to do, Ansel? Nick was killed with strychnine, for God’s sake. You must publicly disassociate the society and us from Nick immediately.”

  Despite her annoyance at Cameron’s attempt to place all the repercussions from murder and mayhem upon her shoulders, Ansel kept her feelings hidden. She imagined him dressed in a frigate Admiral’s uniform, holding his nose with one hand and jumping ship with a piggy squeal and a splash.

  Cameron’s glower etched deeper. “You’re in charge. Do something or we’re going to lose the money to build the paleohistorical center. When the museum association finds out that Nick was poisoned, they’re going to blow us out of the water.”

  Ansel’s mood darkened. What she was about to say was truly painful for her. “I have more horrible news. Evelyn Benchley is dead.” She watched his reaction carefully. She was beginning to suspect everybody.

  The man’s disapproving frown changed into mortified disbelief. “What?”

  “The police discovered her body a few hours ago.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Detective Dorbandt was talking to me when the call came from the sheriff’s office.”

  “My God. This is shocking. How did she die?”

  “She was murdered.”

  “Was she killed with strychnine?”

  “I don’t know the specifics, Cam.” She noted that, despite his obvious shock, not one tear spilled from his squinty eyes.

  Cameron bolted upright, his gaze fierce with revelation. “You know what this means, don’t you? Somebody’s killing off Pangaea officers.”

  “Nonsense.”

  Though the idea of a murder plot targeting the society had never occurred to her, Ansel believed that Nick and Evelyn’s deaths had more to do with dirty linens or dirty monies rather than dirty bones. Trust Biesel the Weasel to turn the tragic deaths of two people into a devious conspiracy.

  “Ansel, it’s so obvious. Someone’s killing us off.” He shivered.

  “Why would anyone do that?”

  “I don’t know, but there’s only three of us left. You, me, and Leslie. Who have you pissed off while you’ve been president?”

  “I don’t go around pissing people off.”

  “Somebody’s gone berserk,” Cameron insisted.

  Ansel scowled. If he shared this epiphany with anyone, the society would be torn apart by false rumor and suspicion. And God forbid the press got wind of his crazy idea.

  “Cameron, stop it. Don’t mention this theory to anyone. You voted me the society’s mouthpiece during this catastrophe, and I’ll handle it.”

  “You’d better speak to Henderson of the association board, Ansel. Especially if Evelyn’s murder is going to become public any time now.”

  “I already have. Andrew assured me that the board fully intends to support us. They want this deal to go through just as much as we do. According to him, the only problem may be Preston’s sister. She’s been looking into the terms of Preston’s will filed at the county courthouse. I’m worried that the money wouldn’t be transferred from Opel’s lawyer if a relative steps forward to contest the memorial gift.”

  Cameron snorted through his nose. “Well, Evelyn’s murder certainly isn’t going to fill this woman with more confidence about the Pangaea Society’s respectability. And we still must face the press.”

  “Tomorrow I’m sending out email statements or snail mail letters to members as well as associate societies. I’ve already made statements to the newspapers. The TV stations are next.” She fixed Cameron with a severe stare. “Besides, you should stay away from any discussion connecting you to strychnine.”

  Cameron blinked beady eyes. “Why?”

  “The extinction diorama you worked on with Nick contained Tertiary, alkaloid plant models in the display. He wanted them. You didn’t. Those botanical models were based on strychnine-like, poisonous flora. Somebody might think you used the idea to kill him.”

  “Why would I want to kill him?”

  “You fired him, then had to find a paleobotany expert to replace him. It cost a bundle to re-contract. The museum incurred financial hardship when it was closed so the diorama could be rebuilt.”

  Cameron leaned back and laughed. “You sound like Leslie. He tried to prick me with that murder scenario on Sunday. It’s rubbish.”

  “Is it? The town council called you on the mat about it. Bad blood between a municipal employee and a professional consultant. It caused ripples in society circles, too. It gouged your pride when your reputation was sullied by Nick.”

  The director sat forward, his mirth dissipated and fists clenched on the desk blotter. “All that happened over a year ago. It’s old news, Ansel. You think I sat around plotting retribution and deciding to lash out at Nick just when everything in my life is going nicely? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “I don’t think you did, but what will the police think?”

  “Are you trying to intimidate me?”

  “Absolutely not, Cam. I’m making a point. Don’t spread conjecture about these murders. It will backfire on you, and that would hurt the society even more.”

  Cameron gave her a pained look, then relaxed. “Point taken, but you’d better tell Leslie about Evelyn before he hears it somewhere else. Otherw
ise, he’ll have a coronary occlusion.”

  Ansel rose. “Leslie’s a big boy, and I’m not scaring him with the notion that somebody’s out to kill him because he’s our newsletter editor.”

  “Wait. Did you talk to Karen Capos about Nick’s fossil collection?”

  She stopped to face him. “There is no collection. It’s gone.”

  “Gone? What do you mean?”

  “Karen gave me permission to appraise it, but when I went to Nick’s apartment to start cataloguing there wasn’t a fossil to be found.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “I don’t know. Did you know Nick was interested in Baltic amber?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Ansel believed him. Cameron looked truly appalled that Nick’s collection of fossil flora had slipped through his fingers into unknown hands. Even the heartless director knew how woeful it was that a lifetime of collecting rare paleobotanical specimens had ended, leaving nothing to show for it. Nick had cherished his collection more than his marriage or his wife.

  “I’ve got to run.” Ansel took a last glance at the dead sea gull and walked out, Cameron on her heels.

  “Call me. We must monitor this situation,” he commanded.

  “Uh huh.”

  Ansel swung open the entrance portal and a brilliant light cascaded inward. She was blinded. The sound of whirring machinery accompanied the white-hot glare. She raised Leslie’s file in front of her eyes and peered around its edges.

  A woman stood in front of her. A man with a high-intensity lamp and a minicam perched on his left shoulder dogged her side. Grinning triumphantly, the media huntress shoved a bulbous, foam-covered microphone directly into Ansel’s face.

  “Nancy Kilpatrick. Channel Three News. Are you aware, Miss Phoenix, that your Pangaea secretary, Evelyn Benchley, was found murdered this morning at the Roosevelt Museum?”