Death Night

“Now this is interesting,” she said, turning the bone over in her hands. “All of these were found in a trunk, right?”

“Technically, they were in a burlap sack inside the trunk.”

“And there was no fire damage to either of them?”

“None,” Kat said. “Why?”

Lucy lowered the femur so Kat could get a good look at it, pointing out charcoal-colored splotches on various parts of the bone.

“See those black areas? Those are burn marks.”

“But that’s impossible. The fire was clear on the other side of the room.”

“I believe you,” Lucy said. “Which means this wasn’t the first time these bones have been in a fire. In fact, it’s looking more likely that a fire is how this woman died.”

Contrary to what Kat was expecting, every bit of information Lucy revealed only created new questions instead of answering old ones. The bones of someone’s mother—an apparent fire victim dead for an unknown amount of time—had just been unearthed. They didn’t know where the bones came from, nor did they know who they had once belonged to. And not even Lucy Meade would be able to tell Kat why on earth they had been hidden inside the museum.

Once Lucy and the femur had departed for Harrisburg, Kat went looking for Wallace Noble. Now that she knew a little about one person found in the museum, she wanted to get the scoop on the other, more recent set of remains. She found Wallace outside, smoking a cigarette in the morgue’s parking lot.

“Postautopsy smoke?”

“It clears my head,” Wallace said. “I try to think about anything other than what I was just looking at. Today, it’s a young Sophia Loren.”

“Nice. Unfortunately, I need to break your reverie.”

Wallace dropped his cigarette and ground it out with his shoe. “Killjoy.”

Instead of going back inside, he ambled to a nearby bench. One of those curved metal contraptions so popular in the eighties, it was both uncomfortable and unsightly—a fitting combination for a sitting area located next to the front door of a morgue. It was also freezing cold. Kat felt the chill through her uniform as soon as she sat down.

“The blow was on the right side of Constance’s head,” Wallace said. “From the location and the angle of the wound, I can tell she was hit by a right-handed male. A woman of average strength wouldn’t be able to strike that hard. No offense.”

Even though he was most likely right, Kat appreciated the coda. “None taken.”

“Has a potential weapon been found?” Wallace asked.

“Not yet. You said yourself it could have been any number of items in the museum.”

“Well, I can help you narrow it down. She was hit with the edge of something flat and heavy. It left a line of damage to the skull instead of a circle. So if you were thinking someone bashed her head in with a cannonball, you need to guess again.”

A cannonball was exactly what Kat had been thinking. There were several in the museum—small ones the size of a grapefruit that someone strong enough could easily lift with one hand.

“There was no trace evidence found in the wound,” Wallace continued. “No paint chips or fiber. Whatever she was hit with, it was undecorated metal. Judging from the impact, it was something heavier than your average stainless steel. I’m thinking lead. Or cast iron.”

“Can you pinpoint the time of death?” Kat asked.

“When did the fire start?”

“Neighbors across the street reported it at 12:52.”

“Then she died sometime between then and the time it was put out.”

Kat’s eyes widened. “Are you sure? The cause of death is blunt force trauma, right?”

“Actually, it isn’t,” Wallace said. “Turns out Constance died of smoke inhalation.”

The only way Kat could have been more surprised would have been if Wallace had said drowning. She had seen the wound on Constance’s head, complete with flecks of brain or bone or something that had come out of it. Constance Bishop must have been one tough woman to survive a blow like that. Adding to the shock was the fact that she might have still been alive as the firefighters were trying to put out the blaze.

“They could have saved her,” she murmured. “If her body hadn’t been dumped in that crawl space, then Dutch Jansen’s boys would have seen her when they entered the museum.”

“Technically, it wasn’t murder,” Wallace said.

“Close enough. Whoever set that fire killed her, so it’s murder in my book. Especially after she was tossed into that hole in the floor.”

“That’s another thing. It’s looking less likely that she was dumped there. I found fresh scrapes on both of her knees. There were similar ones on the inside of her forearms, not to mention a splinter near her elbow.”

Another shock that Kat didn’t see coming. “You’re saying she crawled there by herself?”

Wallace nodded gravely. “If she had been dragged, the scrapes would have been slightly above her knees. The ones I found were below the knees, suggesting that her legs had been bent.”

Kat processed the information, unsure what to make of it. If Constance had crawled across the floor at some point during the night, it could have been before the blow to the head—while trying to fight off her attacker, for instance. But the scrapes on her forearms made that seem less likely. A woman scurrying away from an attack would be on her hands and knees. The wounds on her arms suggested she pulled herself across the floor.

Kat tried to form a timeline of events, based on what little she knew. According to Emma Pulsifer, Constance was in the museum a little before eight. She might have left at some point during the night, but was back there after midnight. Maybe she had arranged to meet the person who struck her over the head. Or maybe the person’s presence came as a complete surprise. Either way, Constance was left for dead on the floor as her attacker started the fire on the other side of the gallery.

Once the fire was burning and the assailant was gone, Constance headed to the crawl space. When Kat had entered the museum, the trapdoor in the floor had been closed. If Constance did climb into the crawl space herself, then she also closed the door after her. A tough task for an elderly woman with a devastating head wound. But it was possible. Anything was possible when you were fighting for your life. Still, that theory created one big question.

“Why would she go down there?”

“Maybe she thought it could be a refuge from the fire,” Wallace said.

Again, it was possible but unlikely. “Why not just keep going down the hall? There’s a back door there. That would have taken just as long as entering a hole in the floor.”

“She probably wasn’t thinking straight,” Wallace said. “Remember, she was struck in the head very hard. It likely would have killed her if the smoke hadn’t gotten to her first.”

Kat thought back to the way she had found Constance slumped over the trunk with the bones in it. She had managed to get most of her body over it, almost as if she was trying to protect it.

“Maybe she knew exactly what she was doing,” Kat said, thinking aloud. “She was hurt real bad. Probably in a lot of pain, not to mention surrounded by fire. Maybe she knew she was going to die and went into that crawl space for a reason.”

“Which would be?”

“Trying to save the trunk that was down there. Or if she died, then making sure whoever found her body knew it existed.”

“But why would she spend the final moments of her life doing that?” Wallace asked.

“Because Constance knew what was inside it,” Kat said. “Other than the scrapes and the splinter, did you find anything else on her hands or arms? Any residue or dirt?”

Wallace dipped his fingers into the pocket of his pants and pulled out a cigarette. “I think I’m going to need a smoke for this.”

“Why?”