“Exactly. Detective Carson suspects an inside job, but her department is stretched thin, and I’m losing patience. Every daythat passes lowers the odds of recovery. Once those fossils hit the black market, they’ll disappear forever.”
“Do you have a list of everyone who was on site that day?” I ask. “Staff, contractors, deliveries. Anyone with access.”
Without hesitation, Jill pulls a slim folder from her satchel and slides it across my desk. “I brought everything I could think of. Employee names, security logs, estimated values, the incident report. I highlighted the periods when the system was down.”
I open the folder and scan the neat printouts and notes. She’s thorough. Probably runs an impeccable museum.
I glance up. “And the detective’s name was Carson, you say?”
Jill nods. “Miss Carson. Her number’s in the report. I’ve called her twice this week and left messages, but she hasn’t returned them.”
I close the folder and tap it lightly with my fingernail. “You want me to recover the bones.”
“Yes, if you think this is something you want to take on.”
“I think it is,” I say, and finally dip into her thoughts, reading her mind regarding this case. By doing it now, all her memories and thoughts on the matter are at the forefront. I don’t have to go rooting around. That tends to get messy. Even still, there’s a lot to sift through, lots of names, employees, alarm codes, frustration, and confusion. I decide to take the easy way out and command her to tell me if she was involved in the theft.
“I was not,” she says dutifully.
“Do you know who might be?”
“I do not.”
“Do you have any suspicions?”
“I don’t. I’m sorry. This comes as a complete shock to me.”
“Under threat of a noogie, could you give me one name of someone who might have something to do with this?”
“I can’t. And what’s a noogie?”
I tell, and she shakes her head distastefully. “Even under a threat of a noogie, I do not have a clue who might want to steal the bones.”
“That is all for now,” I say. “I want you to forget we had this conversation.”
She nods, blinking, then shakes her head. “Oh, hi,” she says, as if she had just woken up.
“Hi.”
“What were we talking about? I apologize. I think I zoned out.”
“We were discussing the fact that I agreed to take your case.”
“Oh, fantastic. When can you start?”
“Immediately. In fact, I already did.”
“Oh, really?”
“Really.”
“Well, that’s more than the detective in Buena Park has done.”
“I suspect she might have worked more on the case than you might think.”
“Well, I doubt it. Will you be needing a retainer?”
“I will be, yes.”
