Mesozoic Murder Page 8

  Evelyn blinked, though her eyes never wavered. “Nick? Has something happened with the society?”

  “No. This is about Nick and you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You have a key to Nick’s apartment.”

  “No, I don’t. Whatever gave you that idea?”

  “I saw you there, Evelyn.”

  Evelyn laughed. “Ansel, you’re mistaken.”

  “I was in the apartment this morning. So were you.”

  Evelyn’s airy facade turned to stone. “I would never do such a thing.”

  “I even smelled your Giorgio perfume. Karen Capos wears it. I bet it was Nick’s favorite.”

  “Just a coincidence.” Evelyn dropped her gaze toward her lap.

  “I also know you took a paperweight from Nick’s curio, one with red hearts inside. A lover’s memento? You had an affair with Nick.”

  Evelyn glanced up and swallowed. “All right, what if I did have a key and took the paperweight? It doesn’t mean I slept with Nick. By your reasoning, the fact that you have a key means that you and Nick were...” She hesitated, distressed by the implication.

  “No. Karen gave me the key. She wants me to inventory Nick’s fossil collection for resale.”

  Evelyn’s cheeks flared pink. “That bitch. She made Nick’s life miserable, and now she’s going to steal his fossils.” She pitched the photo onto the table.

  “There’s no use denying your involvement with Nick. It’s written all over your face. Did Karen know you were sleeping with him?”

  Evelyn’s rage dissipated. Her shoulders sagged a mile as resignation settled over her. “No,” she murmured, “and she wouldn’t have cared. She was seeing that creep from the pet shop.” A tear slid down her cheek. “I can’t believe Nick’s dead. It’s like a nightmare.” She covered her beautiful face with her hands and sobbed openly.

  The situation disconcerted Ansel. She was amazed that Evelyn considered Nick a potential suitor. Almost twice as old, Evelyn’s tastes ran toward single lawyers and physicians with bulging financial portfolios. Nick had been handsome and charismatic, but nonetheless a married, middle-income technician with a state pension.

  Not to mention that she’d never seen calm and controlled Evelyn exhibiting such mercurial displays of emotion. The no-nonsense preparator had always been the perennial Rock of Gibraltar. Ansel’s discomfort gave way to disgust. Had Nick been bedding Evelyn while making a play for her?

  “When did your affair start?”

  “A year ago,” Evelyn whispered, swiping her puffy red eyes and smearing the backs of her hands with mascara. “We started talking after a society meeting, and things just progressed. I know you think I’m crazy, but Nick made me feel needed. He’d already left Karen so he wasn’t really cheating.”

  “That’s six months after he quit his job.”

  Evelyn’s head snapped up. “Nick quit his job?”

  “January of last year. Karen supported them until they separated last June. You didn’t know?”

  “No.” Evelyn stopped crying. A cold, steely look crept into her eyes. “We broke up last December. Six months together. Nick never told me he left his job.”

  Ansel felt a tad better. Nick had slept with her long after he’d left Evelyn. “Why did you break up?”

  “Nick ended it. He never said why, but...” She stopped.

  “But what?”

  “Sometimes I thought he loved the museum computers more than me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he spent hours using them. The bastard told me he was doing research for the Cooperative. It’s against Roosevelt policies to let non-museum employees use them unless they have permission from Director Irving. I’d pretend to work late, and Nick would sneak in. Why the hell would he lie to me about having a job? What if I got fired?”

  Ansel couldn’t answer, but it was obvious that Nick hadn’t cared about the risks Evelyn took. “Where are the computers?”

  Evelyn turned and pointed to a closed door on the right. Ansel walked over and opened it. The rectangular room was small and cold beneath the overhead flourescent. Three computer workstations sat along one long wall. Two eight-foot-long folding tables flanked another.

  “I didn’t know the museum had a morphometrics lab.”

  “It’s new. We’re using it to study rare museum specimens. We can scan items up to three meters in length and digitally reconstruct them for study.”

  Ansel inspected the hardware. One workstation comprised a computer with a twenty-inch-long laser scanning wand. Another desk contained a TDZ station utilizing reverse engineering software. The third station contained a Silicon Graphics Infinite Reality system. She had used similar systems in computational paleontology courses and when she studied digital graphics as a paleoartist.

  The laser wand scanned fossil bones and exoskeletons and converted surface dimensions into mathematical points of reference. These dimensions were analyzed by the computer and reassembled as lifelike, 3D models, which could be rotated and viewed at any angle. In this way, ancient life forms and ecosystems could come alive. Even badly damaged or incomplete specimens could be digitally reconstructed.

  “What was Nick scanning?”

  Evelyn shrugged. “I don’t know. I did my own projects.”

  “You never asked?”

  “No. Once I opened the door while Nick was online. He turned off the monitor, but I saw a page of his notebook before he could close it. It said ‘HMN-1880.’ He told me never to barge in on him again, and I made it a point not to disturb him.”

  Ansel searched her mind for a meaning behind the cryptic series of letters and numbers, drawing a blank. “Does HMN-1880 mean anything to you?”

  “Nothing.” Evelyn’s red eyes widened with apprehension. “You don’t think it has to do with Nick’s murder, do you?”

  “Maybe. Nick had some reason for using these machines. Did he ever mention Baltic amber?”

  “No. Why?”

  “He was collecting amber specimens. They were in his apartment office.”

  “I never saw it.”

  “Did you know about Nick borrowing money from Leslie before Cam told us on Sunday?”

  Evelyn pursed her lips. “Afraid not, but it’s funny you should mention Leslie and amber at the same time.”

  “Why?”

  “I just remembered something. Inside Nick’s apartment last year I noticed a journal paper Leslie had written. It was published in the Journal of Metamorphic Geology while he was at Yale. The topic concerned mineral caustobioliths. Isn’t amber a caustobiolith?”

  Ansel felt her pulse quicken. Caustobioliths included minerals of biogenic origin, which resembled stone and combusted. “Yes. What was Leslie’s paper about?”

  “Something to do with developing methods for manufacturing caustobioliths by using heat. I wondered why Nick had the article.”

  “Do you know a person named Griffin?”

  “No. I don’t like all these questions, Ansel.”

  “I’m not the only one who’s going to ask. Detective Dorbandt will.”

  Evelyn’s face blanched. “The police? You’re not going to tell them about Nick and me?”

  “Why would you want me to withhold information?”

  “Because Karen might find out,” Evelyn sputtered.

  “A moment ago you doubted Karen would care what Nick had done.”

  “What about my career? How will it look, me sleeping with a married man who’s been murdered?”

  “Evelyn, this isn’t about you. Nick is dead. Dorbandt should know he was working on some mysterious project before he died.”

  “I don’t see why I should be pulled into it,” Evelyn protested.

  “You made the decision to have an affair with Nick. You helped him get unauthorized access to these computers. I don’t see how you can stay out of it.”

  Evelyn scowled. “I’d let you use the computers. Just ask.”

  Evelyn’s offer sou
nded like a bribe. “I’d never ask to do that. I have the Pangaea Society to worry about. We can’t risk losing the Opel monies because executive members are committing adultery and conspiring to hide critical information during a homicide investigation. Our actions reflect on the society, too. I know you had your reasons, but you have to face the consequences. It’s the right thing to do, and I’ll help you in any way I can.”

  “You have a pretty high opinion of yourself,” Evelyn spat. “I don’t need some puffed-up drum beater in designer jeans to boss me around. It will still damage the society’s precious image if you tell Dorbandt about Nick and me.”

  The unexpected bigotry and the venom behind its delivery shocked Ansel. She took a step backward, staring at Evelyn’s vicious face in stunned silence. Her Amerind blood began to boil.

  Ansel forced herself to smile. “I’ll come forward and make a public statement discrediting your affiliation with the organization before I go to Dorbandt.”

  Evelyn frowned. “Involvement with the police could destroy me.”

  “Scandal could destroy the society.”

  “Screw the society,” Evelyn shrieked. “People will think I killed Nick. My reputation will be destroyed.”

  Ansel surveyed the desperate woman closely. Now she knew why Evelyn had been so discomposed on Sunday. She’d been worried over what would happen if the police knew about her romance with Nick. Having slept with Nick, she could empathize with Evelyn’s plight, but she couldn’t forget the woman’s nasty personal attack.

  “Did you kill him because he left you?”

  “Of course not. If you want to know who killed Nick ask Cameron. He threatened Nick. Said he’d kill him if he didn’t finish the museum displays. I think he did it. Where will your precious society be if I’m right?”

  Without answering, Ansel whirled and headed for the exit.

  Evelyn followed her. “Where are you going? I want to know what you’re going to do.” She grabbed Ansel’s arm in a vise-like grip.

  Ansel reached the doorway, turned swiftly, and yanked her arm free. Evelyn stopped in her tracks, paralyzed by the undisguised loathing in Ansel’s obsidian eyes.

  “I won’t tell Dorbandt about you and Nick,” she said, thinking of her own entanglement with the botanist, “but I have two conditions.”

  Evelyn gave a small gasp of relief, then nodded. “What are they?”

  “I want you to return the paperweight to the apartment. You stole it. I’ll make sure it’s been returned, so don’t disappoint me.”

  “All right. What else?”

  “I want your email letter of resignation as society secretary on my home computer by the time I reach Big Toe. I want all of the society records returned to me within the week, too. If you don’t comply, I’ll tell Cameron and Leslie what you said about us and the society. You’ll be voted off the board.”

  Evelyn’s grin of relief faltered. She opened her mouth to protest, but said nothing.

  “Good-bye, Evelyn.”

  Ansel left the museum as fast as her legs would carry her. She made it to the truck before her hot temper cooled. Then the treachery of Evelyn’s false friendship chilled her to the core. Salty teardrops streaked her face, more bitter medicine to swallow. All because she was Indian.

  Chapter 10

  “The coyotes go about at night to rob and kill. I cannot see them. I am not God.”

  Cochise, Apache

  Ansel hated coming back to a dark house. The drive from Fort Peck had taken longer than she’d expected. Rush hour traffic had been terrible, an ordeal she didn’t often experience with a work-at-home business. She unlocked the trailer door and stepped inside. The porch halogens cast brilliant white beams across the front yard after she flipped a wall switch.

  She tossed her fanny pack onto the couch. When she turned on the Tiffany lamp beside the sofa, a multicolored glow spotlighted the answering machine. The red message light winked so fast that it amazed her. Deciding not to fight the inevitable, Ansel pushed the PLAY button.

  Beep… “Ansel, this is Andrew Henderson from the Montana Museum Association. What’s going on down there? The board has just heard about the murder of Nicholas Capos. Give me a call as soon as you get in. Thanks.”

  Beep… “Hello, Ansel. Phil Rodgers at Science Quest. Doctor Andreasson approved your artwork. Once I get it, we’re set to make the proofs. Your check is going off. Are you interested in doing some more projects? Call me, and we’ll discuss it. Bye-bye.”

  Beep… “Leslie Maze. Please phone me when you get a chance, Ansel.”

  Beep… “Hau, Sarcee. When you want the crow gut delivered to the ranch. Lucy needs to know when to start cooking. Jessie. Over and out.”

  Beep… “Miss Phoenix. Lieutenant Dorbandt. I need to talk to you again. Call me.”

  Beep… “This is Karen. Nicky’s memorial service is scheduled for Thursday morning, eleven o’clock at the Omega Fellowship in Glasgow. Have you looked over the collection? I’d like to get that stuff sold.”

  Beep… “Sarcee, Pearl and I are worried. The newspaper has us spooked. You call us, hear? Love you, sweetie.”

  Beep… “This is Cameron. Did you see the article in the Sky Sentinel about Nick? He was poisoned with strychnine. We need to do more damage control. Call me immediately.”

  Beep… “Ansel, I sent my email resignation to you, but can’t we talk about this? I’m sorry for what I said to you. I mean it. Please call me when you get in.”

  Overwhelmed by the messages, Ansel stared at the black device as if it had turned into a crouching beast. Nick had been killed with strychnine? His funeral was on Thursday? Henderson from the museum association sounded upset. Evelyn wanted to rehash everything? And, Dorbandt was trying to track her down for another little interrogation.

  “Shit,” Ansel cursed, slapping her thigh in frustration.

  Could the day get any worse? She’d learned useful information about Nick, but she was emotionally drained and very hungry. All she wanted to do was shut out the world and lick her wounds for the rest of the evening. The one bright spot on the horizon was the money she’d get from Rodgers. Small consolation. As much as she loathed the idea, she needed to get back into the truck and find a copy of the newspaper.

  Goosebumps suddenly skittered up Ansel’s arms as a primal awareness alerted her to danger. Her back was toward the bedroom hallway, but she had the distinct feeling she wasn’t alone.

  Ansel froze, listening to sounds inside the trailer. The front door had been locked. People pick locks, an inner voice whispered back. The hairs on her neck rose to perilous heights when a noise broke the silence. There was no mistaking the leather-flexing squeak of boots shifting position on the carpet.

  Ansel half-turned. An immense man wearing sunglasses, cowboy hat, black leather jacket, and gloves came toward her. A gun glinted in his right hand. Seconds later he grabbed her ponytail and used it as leverage to spin her back around. He quickly forced her toward the breakfast counter.

  “Let go,” Ansel yelled to the man behind her, pushing, punching, kicking, and bucking despite the painful pull against her scalp.

  The cowboy propelled her chest down on the counter top. The Formica edge slammed into Ansel’s stomach like a power punch. Tim’s bag of oranges flew off the edge and thumped to the carpet. A white ceramic bowl containing delicate fossils percolating in lemon juice exploded into pieces on the kitchen linoleum.

  The wind fled from her lungs. With lightning speed, the man released her hair, yanked hard on her right arm, and pulled it behind her back. Her feet lifted completely off the ground. The twisted limb shot bolts of electric fire up Ansel’s shoulder, stunning her nearly senseless. A gun barrel, cold and deadly, rested against her right temple.

  “Listen, and I won’t hurt you,” a raspy voice ordered.

  Ansel’s fragmented thoughts flashed on the night stand in her bedroom. What she wouldn’t give for the loaded Colt revolver stashed there. She gasped for breath and fought back the
pain. “What do you want?”

  “You know what I want. And I want it now.”

  Ansel groaned. He applied more pressure to the gun. The barrel bored into her flesh while his weight pressed down on her spine. His jacket smelled of sour sweat and old leather. Her feet kicked air while the counter dug into her stomach. Her twisted arm had gone numb. Ansel swallowed down her fear. She had to think.

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

  “Listen, bitch. If you don’t want your red ass blown against the walls, you’d better tell me where the money is.”

  Left cheek squashed against the counter, Ansel saw a plastic bowl next to her head that hadn’t been thrown off the counter. A surge of hope calmed her when she looked past the dish toward a white gallon jug next to it.

  “There is no money. You robbed the wrong house. Leave, and I’ll forget you were here.”

  The pressure against her temple eased, and she felt the man’s body relax. Still her eyes never strayed from the jug.

  “You really don’t have it?” the man asked with genuine surprise. “You don’t have a fucking clue, do you?” A derisive chuckle escaped his lips. “Looks like Capos screwed you more ways than one.”

  “Nick Capos? What are you talking about?”

  Minor relief flooded through her when the cowboy allowed her legs to touch the floor. The hope that he’d let her go evaporated when he pressed harder on her back. More alarming was the way his knee moved slowly between her pant legs and began traveling up her inner calves, slowly separating her thighs.

  The brute leaned down and pressed his rough lips to her right ear. “If you can’t help me with the money, maybe there’s something else you can do, squaw.”

  Ansel smelled alcohol on his breath. The sweet, fruity pungency of wine. A rapist with epicurean tastes, she thought angrily. Suddenly the fear of death held no power over her. She’d died once. There were things far worse. She had to loosen his hold.

  “You killed Nick,” she accused, going for shock value.

  The cowboy’s head pulled away. “Hell, no.”

  “Let me guess. You’re Griffin. No. Maybe you’re just the scumbag who poisoned Nick for Griffin.”