Frank had been curating, from what it sounded like, a very impressive exhibit about the history of the Bone Wars and its two leading men: Marsh and Cope. Thyne hadn’t been impressed. Gould described him as being upset the focus was on humans, instead of the creatures they had unearthed.
The aggressive hostility Thyne had toward the exhibit didn’t paint him in a pretty light.
Angela had recently been fired—possibly for stealing, although I suspected if that were gospel, she’d be in prison. But still. Couple that with the addition of her boyfriend cheating on her with an intern, and that made her one salty individual.
Motive could be professional and personal.
Which brought me to Daniel, the unextraordinary intern. Accepted to work a semester at one of the most prestigious museums in the country, most likely as a favor owed to the renowned Dr. Hart—a modern-day dinosaur hunter who sounded as if he would more often be found in the hills of sedimentary rock than behind a desk. Daniel hadn’t been seen or heard from in days, yet no one seemed terribly concerned.
Just a college kid. Probably on vacation.
And then there was theskull.
The skull of Edward Drinker Cope himself.
Apparently Frank had wanted to highlight this particular item in his visiting exhibit, which had pissed Thyne off to no end. But Gould hadn’t been able to provide me with further details and returned to the museum before Thyne had an opportunity to notice her absence.
This had to be the skull the Collector was alluding to. With the handwritten messages to both me and Frank implying the Bone Wars, and then adding that famous Cope quote, it was a conclusion I felt pretty comfortable making. Although why Cope’s skull was, in fact, a museum piece at all, and not attached to the rest of his body, seemed an overlooked detail that needed to be addressed. That, and why did the Collector want the skull in the first place? What about a century-old cranium and mandible was important enough to murder innocent people over?
Was it nothing more than a morbid fascination?
The Collector had already proven to have an affinity forfreshbody parts…. God… I’d bet antiquated ones totally got their rocks off.
A ripple of discomfort went up my spine and made the hair on my neck stand on end. I tossed the notebook back onto the table as Max returned with two cups.
He sat down and offered one. “House brew,” he clarified.
“Thanks.”
Max took a sip of his own coffee. “So I found Frank Newell on Twitter. It’s not a very active account. Once a month retweet kind of thing, mostly museum stuff. Anyway. His girlfriend is—”
“Angela London.”
“Why am I digging into people’s social media dirt if you already knew the answer?”
I made a vague motion with one hand. “I found out by chance. One of his coworkers mentioned her.”
“Did they mention she’s about as toxic as they come?”
“Is she?”
“Oh yeah. From what I gathered of her totally unhinged ranting on Twitter, she’s recently been fired, has no money, hates Frank—”
“Frank’s been sleeping with an intern,” I interjected.
“Well, thirty seconds after tweeting about how much she despises him, she follows it up with how much she loves Frank,” Max continued. “Really unhealthy personality. She seems like the internet troll who would take it a step too far. Like doxx or stalk kind of too far. I had to scrub myself after going through her timeline.” Max inclined his head at my notebook. “What did you find out?”
“Enough to not have an answer.”
Max grunted and sipped his coffee.
“Frank had enemies. His girlfriend for sure. And his boss was really against an exhibit he was planning about the Bone Wars.”
“The Bone Wars? Did Frank work in the paleontology department?”
“Remind me to double your Christmas bonus.”
Max smirked. “Hey, man. Who didn’t love dinosaurs growing up?” He leaned forward across the too-small table. “So two people don’t like Frank.”
