Findings Read Online Free PDF Page A

Faye?”
    Faye cracked a smile, the first one since her last conversation with Douglass. “I didn’t lose a second of work, because I always do everything Magda tells me to do. In a file box in my bedroom, I have photocopies of every last page of those notebooks. I used to be sloppy about that kind of thing, until one day when she hid my field notes. I thought I’d lost a whole semester’s work. A shock like that leaves a mark on a girl.”
    ***
    It hadn’t taken Joe long to pilot Faye’s boat out to Joyeuse Island and retrieve her notes. Faye had wanted to go herself, just because she thought the salt spray would clear her head, but the sheriff had made an excellent argument for her to stay right where she was.
    First, he’d said, “Stand here and look at the dirt and junk thrown all over that floor.” After she’d done that, he’d said, “Now come upstairs for a minute. I want a word with you in private.” Once out of earshot of the technicians, he asked, “Could that emerald have been part of a bigger piece of jewelry? A necklace or a bracelet or something?”
    “Absolutely. There’s really no way to know.”
    “And you say that it looked like just a clod of dirt before you cleaned it?”
    Light had dawned. “You need me to sit on those stairs and help you watch your staff, just in case one of them uncovers a priceless emerald.”
    “Yep. I’ve gotta be in and out of the room, talking on the radio to the folks I’ve got out on the water, looking for the killers and their boat. And I need to be in and out of the house, overseeing the technicians who are looking for evidence inside and outside. I’ve got Joe busy upstairs, pretending to keep Emma company while he watches out the windows for bad guys. There’s nobody else to sit here and watch for emeralds. Besides, you know your lab. It needs to be you keeping an eye on things.”
    “Do you have doubts about any personnel in particular?”
    “Heck, no. But I’d hate to see a bunch of jewels get swept into a dustpan and thrown out the back door. Besides—my techs are real young. They’ve got bills, and they’ve got student loans to pay off. A pocket-sized fortune would be a powerful temptation.”
    “I’d better get back down there.”
    “Good idea.”
    So she’d spent hours watching the technicians work, and she was still sitting there when the sheriff told his staff to knock off work before they went to sleep on their feet.
    After they were gone, he settled himself heavily on the steps beside her, and Faye remembered that he was almost as old as Douglass had been. Time was wreaking havoc on her friends.
    “No emeralds, huh?”
    She shook her head. “Anybody find anything upstairs?”
    “Emma took me on a tour of their art collection. Nice stuff, too. It’s all where it should be. And her jewelry’s in the bedroom, right where she left it.”
    “What can I do to help you find the people who did this to Douglass? And to Emma. Every time they hit Douglass, they were battering Emma, too.”
    “Well, for starters, you can try not to get your own self killed. Stick close to Joe and don’t give any bad guys a chance to get close to you. That means you can’t go out looking for bad guys.”
    Faye rolled her eyes. “I’m not in the habit of doing that.”
    “But you could keep looking into the information that was published in that newspaper article. Especially that silver hip flask. You know—see if there’s anything else that would have attracted thieves or a killer. The emerald’s a long shot, since nobody knew about it but you and Douglass, but it wouldn’t hurt to keep checking that out. You’re gonna do it anyway.”
    She snorted, but couldn’t keep the smile back.
    Emma’s voice wafted down the stairs. “Faye. The morning’s gone and you still haven’t slept. I’ve made up a bed in the room next to mine. It’s time for you to take a nap.”
    Faye wanted to be in her own bed, so she began assembling an excuse, “Oh, Joe