“I asked Jin to try to extract DNA from the bone in the pottery fragments. Hector and Scott suggested some strands might have survived in a very thick piece of the pottery. Could you select a piece that can be destroyed and is thick?” asked Diane.
“I can, but a bonfire kiln heats up to about thirteen hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Can DNA withstand that kind of heat?” asked Jonas.
“No, it can’t. I’d probably just be wasting their time,” she said.
“What exactly did they have in mind, if you don’t mind my asking?” said Jonas.
“They were hoping we might luck up and get a piece that was in a cooler place in the fire, and look to see if any DNA strands in the middle of the fragment were protected. They were going to use a protocol some friends of Jin worked out for analyzing the DNA of shed hair.”
“I didn’t think shed hair had DNA,” said Jonas.
“It has such a small amount that it gets destroyed using traditional methods of extracting DNA. There’s a method in which processing takes place on the slide that can save what little DNA exists. It would be a long shot anyway, but if bonfires get that hot, there would be no place cool enough for DNA to survive,” said Diane.
“Might be worth a try anyway,” said Jonas. “You know, in case it does work.”
“I’ll put it to them and let Jin and his crew make the decision,” said Diane.
“How are the Elvi working out?” asked Jonas, grinning broadly.
“Their work is very good.” Diane smiled back.
“I think they are a hoot. I’ve talked with them. They aren’t nearly as far-out as they put on.”
“I sort of suspected that,” said Diane. “You know the thing about the shirts, don’t you?”
“Color wavelength,” said Jonas. “They’re just showing off-making everything a puzzle. They’re kids really. Of course, most of the people around here are kids to me. You’re a kid to me.”
Diane laughed.
“Tell me, can we find out how old these pottery sherds are? How did Marcella know they are modern?”
“Context, for one. She found them in a pit mixed with bottles and cans. The cans were pretty well rusted out. The bottles were dated to the fifties,” said Jonas.
“Context? Is that it?” asked Diane. “Couldn’t this be much older and have gotten mixed in somehow?”
“No evidence of any mechanism for strata getting mixed. Remember, the pottery sherds she found were of pots she could put back together. All the pieces were there. They were probably broken in situ. Also, we pretty well know all the prehistoric ceramics. Even something this unusual in Georgia would have been known long before now.”
“Really, nothing left to discover?” said Diane.
“I didn’t say there is nothing left to discover, but we’re not going to find any lost civilization of bone-tempered face-pot people. It’s like mounds,” said Jonas. “People are always telling me they have an Indian mound in their field, and I tell them no, they don’t. We know where all of them are. What I’m trying to say is that we know an awful lot about the prehistory of Georgia. Yes, we still have questions, but none so profound as lost civilizations of mad potters.”
Diane smiled. “That’s what Hanks called this unknown artist-a mad potter.”
“He did, did he? Then I guess he isn’t completely off his rocker,” said Jonas.
“So you think these pieces date from the fifties?” said Diane.
“I think so. I didn’t help excavate, and she hasn’t said a lot about them. I didn’t know they were bone tempered, for instance. She just mentioned to me the context she found them in.”
Diane used the phone on the desk to call David and asked him to come down and photograph the sherds and the face when he had free time. She briefly explained to him what she had discovered.
“I need some high-contrast pictures,” said Diane. “I need to see the topography of the sherds.”
“Sure thing,” he said. “Spooky case.”
“No kidding,” said Diane. “If you could hook up Marcella’s computer, that would be helpful too. The one we found in the house.”
She hung up the phone and turned to Jonas. “I appreciate your help in this.”
“We should all get a chance to work on the dark side. Lawrence Michaels is just all tickled to have been asked to lecture on the other side.” Jonas laughed.
“I need to give everyone in the museum a tour of the crime lab so they won’t think it is so mysterious.”
“It won’t help. What you do there is mysterious by definition,” said Jonas.
Diane shook her head and sighed. “I’m going up to call Hanks. I need to keep him apprised of the latest developments. He’s going to love this one.”
Diane left Jonas working in Marcella’s office. She didn’t get up to her own office as quickly as she would have liked. Too many people stopped her to ask questions. Docents stopped her to introduce her to the group they were giving a tour to. She happened across one of the curators, who wanted to know the status of a requisition. Diane did eventually make it to her office, but not to her phone. Ross Kingsley was waiting for her.
“I thought we could go interview some of the people Stacy Dance talked with during her investigation,” he said.
“Sure,” said Diane. She could call Hanks on the way.
She turned to Andie, who sat behind her desk putting together budget reports for the upcoming board meeting in a few days.
“When is Kendel going to Australia?” Diane asked.
“Tomorrow. She got the call from the museum today. She was very excited. She said they have a collection of really neat dinosaur species we don’t have.”
“Tell her I’ll call her tonight,” said Diane. “I’m going back to Gainesville. Call my cell if you need anything.”
Chapter 22
They drove back to Gainesville in Ross’ silver Prius. Diane’s mind was not on Kingsley’s case, but Marcella’s. She had tried to call Hanks, but he hadn’t answered his cell. She left a message telling him she would call back.
“I interviewed Stacy’s boyfriend and her band members,” said Kingsley, when he got on the interstate.
“What kind of band did she have?”
“Rock… and a little bit of everything. They seemed to be trying to find themselves.”
“How did it go?” she asked.
Kingsley changed lanes a little too abruptly for Diane and she had to hold on to the handle at the ceiling to keep from leaning hard against the door.
“There is a problem establishing a solid alibi for any of them, since the ME gave only a ballpark time of death. Doppelmeyer decided Stacy did this to herself, and he just didn’t do a proper autopsy. I don’t suppose your friend Lynn can determine the time of death,” he said.
“No, not now,” said Diane.
“Besides Stacy, there were four members of her band, including the boyfriend. A female drummer, the boyfriend, who is the keyboardist, and two singers-a female and a male, who also plays the guitar. Stacy was a third singer. All had alibis of sorts. Which means the alibis aren’t solid by any means.”
Kingsley had a turnoff coming and he eased over into the right lane. This time Diane didn’t have to hold on to the handle.
“I couldn’t find any motive for any of them. I spoke with the father again and he said they had all been friends since high school. Two of them were students at the community college with her. If they are involved, we need something to come out in the evidence, because I couldn’t detect anything.”
“Who found her?” asked Diane.
“They were thinking about inviting another member into the band, a girl who they said is really good on the guitar. She’s the drummer’s cousin. The cousin and the drummer came together to talk to Stacy about it, and found her. That’s another discrepancy. The police report said the cousin was the one who found her. The father and the others said it was the two of them,” said Kingsley. He shook his head and took the off-ramp. “Perhaps I should go practice psychology. I’m not really cut out for investigation.”