Dead Guilty Part 26

"Practice, apparently." Diane shrugged. "Fear's just an emotion. You deal with it."

"I did pretty well in my police training. I do pretty well confronting suspects. It's authority figures I can't handle. Garnett terrifies me."

"I know."

"I know you know, and I appreciate your helping me out with him."

"You can help yourself out by dealing with him in a straightforward way."

"How?"

"Just pretend you aren't afraid of him. What can he do to you anyway?"

"He can fire me, for one thing."

"So. Is that the worst?"

"Well, yes."

"You could walk out of here today and find another job. Perhaps a better one."

Neva shook her head as though she didn't believe her. "It isn't that easy-to pretend you aren't afraid."

"Yes, it is. You haven't tried it. It's harder to think about than it is to do. It starts by building confidence in yourself."

Neva smiled. "Some of the guys at the station say you're arrogant."

"Perhaps they're right, or perhaps I'm just pre tending."

"I don't see how you do it."

"Do what?"

"I mean, you have two really big jobs-two major careers going at once."

"I couldn't if that was the American Museum of Natural History out there," Diane said as she gestured in the direction west of her office, toward the museum, "and if this was a New York City crime lab. But RiverTrail is a small museum-large building, but small as holdings go. And Rosewood doesn't have a high crime rate. As it is, I'm pretty much at the limit of what I can do."

"Still . . ." Neva was interrupted by a knock on Diane's office door.

Chief Garnett entered the room with a man who looked like a college professor. He wore a brown tweed sports coat and slacks, had a respectable head of brown hair and a short well-trimmed beard to match. He was slightly built and moved with an air of confidence.

"This is Ross Kingsley," Chief Garnett said. "He's going to be doing some profiling for us."

"I'd like to interview you, if you don't mind." He held out a hand to Diane, and she shook it.

"Certainly. Before we start, Chief, Neva has finished her drawings of the Cobber's Wood victims."

She handed a set to him and watched as he and Kingsley studied them.

"This looks good," Garnett said, casting an approv ing glance at Neva.

"They are," agreed Diane. "The sheriff ought to be able to find someone who knew them."

Neva stood and eased herself out the door, clearly not picking this day to confront her fear of Garnett.

"We found what we think was the Crown Vic. Sto len, of course. That Asian guy-Jin-I've asked him to process it too."

"I figured it was stolen," said Diane. "Maybe Jin will be able to find something."

"I'll leave you two here," said Garnett. "I'll be in the lab if you need me."

Diane motioned for Kingsley to sit down. She felt oddly uneasy about being interviewed by him. So much for the myth of her fearlessness.

Chapter 30.

Ross Kingsley let his gaze wander around her office before bringing his attention back to Diane. Diane's eyes never left Kingsley.

"Your office is very Spartan," he said.

Interesting choice of words, she thought. she thought. Spa.r.s.e, bare, cold, Spa.r.s.e, bare, cold, perhaps, but not perhaps, but not Spartan Spartan-the places to sit were far too comfortable.

"It's relatively new," she said.

"Garnett told me you suffered a great tragedy doing human rights investigations in South America."

"Yes."

"And you don't want to revisit it. I can understand. What do you do for fun?"

"Why are you profiling me?"

Kingsley s.h.i.+fted in his chair. "Because this man who may be the killer has focused his attention on you. I want to know why, so I can understand him."

"I enjoy caving."

"Exploring caves?"

"Yes."

"You like dark places, then."

"I always carry at least three sources of light."

He laughed. "But caving is dangerous."

"It can be."

"What is it that you like about it?"

"I enjoy cave mapping. I like exploring a new world. I also like dangling on the end of a rope."

He laughed again. "Why do you think your office is so devoid of personal items?"

"Because I haven't put any in yet. I spend more time in the labs here or in my other office."

"Other office? At the station house?"

"How much about me did Garnett reveal to you?"

"Not a lot. That you are a forensic anthropologist who used to do human rights investigations. We lis tened to the tapes of you and the caller. Most of my time so far has been spent looking at the reports of the crime scenes."

"I have an office in the museum. That's where you'll find personal items, including a rather nice photograph of me dangling on the end of a rope."

"In the museum? This one connected to the crime lab?"

"Yes. I'm the director."

That caught him by surprise. Diane wondered why they hadn't told him. Perhaps Garnett just hadn't con sidered it pertinent. She could almost see Kingsley revising his profile of her.

"I see. Well, that's certainly interesting. You must be a busy woman."

"I am."

"You don't have any cognitive"-he waved a hand in the air-"dissonance switching from one job to the other?"

"No. Actually, they go together better than you might expect. I have within a couple of floors experts in a great many fields-geologists, biologists, entomol ogists, archaeologists. Sometimes my duties overlap. For instance, we just inherited a mummy. He's getting the same a.n.a.lysis that a modern body would. For me and my forensic staff, being next to the museum has very definite benefits. After working a gruesome crime scene, it's amazingly calming to go look at the collec tion of seash.e.l.ls, or at the giant dinosaurs."

"I'll bet it is. This is interesting. Very unexpected. So, why do you think this guy is calling you?"

Diane wasn't fazed by his abrupt change of subject. She suspected that was why he did it-to see if she really could switch attention on a dime.

"I don't know. He says he wants me to understand his position. It sounds like he wants my approval. I don't know why."

"Do you think it was he who attacked you last night?"

"In the last conversation with him, I had a sense he was frustrated that I wouldn't tell him he was right. I a.s.sumed it was him, but I don't know. Nor do I know who else might have done it."

"That's a good question. Did you get a sense of how old the caller is?"

"Twenties was my impression. I'd say not much into his thirties, if that old. But that is just an impression."

Kingsley looked at his notes. "You say that the per son who tied the ropes that hung the people in the forest wasn't the same person who tied the ropes that hung the guy in the house. Is that something you're sure of?"

"Yes."

"Would you explain that to me?"

Diane went through the same explanation that she gave Chief Garnett and Sheriff Braden about how the knots were tied.

"So the person who tied"-he looked down at his notes-"Chris Edwards' knots did not know how to tie a proper knot?"

"No. He tied a granny knot."

Kingsley referred to his notes again. "You mention that all the knots tied by the person who tied the hanging victims in the forest had... what did you call it?...a stopper knot on the tail end of each?"

"Yes."

"Would you call this compulsive behavior? I mean, why did he do this with all the knots he tied?"

"No, I wouldn't call it compulsive. One thing you have to make sure of is that the end of the rope doesn't slip through the knot you just tied when weight is put on the knot. That's what a stopper knot is for. This guy used a stevedore's knot. I use a figure eight when I need a stopper knot. A stevedore is like a figure eight, just with an extra turn. It might say something about where he learned to tie his knots."

Kingsley nodded. "And this length of rope you found. You actually re-created the knot that was once tied in it?"

"I found a knot that I could make correspond to the kinks left by previous knots and that also corres ponds to a specific spiral wear pattern on the rope. That's not to say I am right."

He smiled. "I appreciate your careful use of words. Say you were right. You mention that it is a knot used by truckers."

"I don't know how commonly it is used by them, but it is a knot used by that group. It's a knot for tying up and securing a load. When the tension is released, the knot is easy to untie. In knots, being able to untie them is almost as important as being able to tie them."

"I find this interesting. This is the kind of thing I don't usually get from evidence. Tell me this. Suppose for a moment that the person who is calling you is the one who killed the victims in the forest. Is he smart enough to try to fool you?"

"Dr. Kingsley, anyone is smart enough to try to fool me."

"I guess you're right. Let me rephrase. What I'm getting at is, would this person tie the wrong kind of knot on purpose at a second crime scene just to throw you off track?"

"He could, but how would he know that we would even look at the knots?"

"Perhaps in the TV interview..."

Diane shook her head. "I never mentioned the knots-just bones. Most people don't even know there is such a thing as forensic knot a.n.a.lysis."

"Good point." He rose. "According to the report I read, you haven't found any physical evidence that links any of the crimes together."

"That's true-none."

"You have been very helpful. I a.s.sume I can call on you if I need any more information?"

"Of course."

Diane opened a drawer and handed him a card. On it she wrote her cell phone number.

"Another thing. I don't think this was in any of the reports exactly, but it just occurred to me. He seems to know how to avoid having his calls traced to him-that is, he uses calling cards, or someone else's E-mail ac count. That took some cheek-one of the E-mail mes sages came from inside the museum in the Internet cafe downstairs from here. He apparently waited for some one to leave their computer a moment and just slipped in and sent his own E-mail. I understand he knew enough to erase it from the person's sent file."