[Lady Justice 17] - Lady Justice and the Pharaoh's Curse

by Robert Thornhill

  “It had been stuffed into a canvass mail bag. I remembered Dr. Grimm saying that threads from some type of heavy canvass were found on Maloof’s body. Maybe that’s how he got the Anubis out of Union Station. There’s a post office on the first floor. Did your guys look at any footage from security cameras from that night?”

  Blaylock nodded. “We looked, but we didn’t see anything suspicious. Maybe we should look again.”

  He went to the captain’s computer and punched some keys. “Here we go.”

  Like he had said, there was nothing on the film but regular folks roaming the halls of the massive station. As the hours ticked away on the footage, the traffic became sparse. Finally, the image of a postal worker pushing a floor truck with a large mail bag came into view. The postal clerk was accompanied by one of the volunteers in their King Tut uniform.

  “There!” I said. “That’s Maloof and I’ll bet the other guy is the stiff in the bag.”

  “Son-of-a-bitch!” Blaylock muttered. “We missed it. We thought it was just a clerk doing what clerks do --- moving mail, but this has to be it. I’d bet anything that the Anubis is in that bag.”

  “Then we’d better make a call to Dr. Grimm and have him check the inside of the bag,” I suggested. “I’d be willing to bet that there are traces of black and gold paint.”

  “Do that,” Blaylock replied. “Then go to the Post Office at Union Station and find out who hasn’t shown up for work. Let’s get a name for our vic.”

  We checked with the supervisor at the Union Station Post Office and sure enough, one of the clerks, a Martin Ringer, hadn’t shown up for work. The supervisor said that Ringer had been assigned to the station for just over a year. He also confirmed that he was often seen with Bernie Maloof, one of the volunteers.

  Fingerprints confirmed the identity of the body in the bag as Martin Ringer. As we suspected, Dr. Grimm found traces of black and gold paint inside the bag. At that point, we knew who had stolen the Anubis and how they got it out of the building, but another thing the doctor found inside the bag was even more puzzling --- scales from the skin of the cobra.

  We still had no clue what had happened to the Anubis and no idea how the snake had wound up in the bag with the jackal.

  We had confirmed that Maloof had died from the bite of the cobra, but Dr. Grimm was at a loss as to the cause of death of Martin Ringer. He had determined that the victim had suffered from asphyxia, but couldn’t determine what had caused it. There were no wounds on the body and the toxicology report came back negative. He had sent tissue samples to the regional lab for further study, but unless they found something, Ringer’s cause of death would remain a mystery.

  Much to Detective Blaylock’s chagrin, another article in the Star read, Body In Union Station Parking Lot Linked To King Tut Robbery.

  The article described the relationship between Ringer and Maloof and named them as co-conspirators in the theft of the Anubis. It went on to say that authorities were unable to determine the cause of Ringer’s death and quoted an inscription found in the tomb of an Egyptian king. “Cursed be those that disturb the rest of a Pharaoh. They that shall break the seal of this tomb shall meet death by a disease that no doctor can diagnose.”

  I remembered the Professor uttering those very words. It sent a chill down my spine. I had barely survived the last time I had been entangled in a curse from an ancient God. I was not looking forward to another one. I might not be as fortunate the second time around.

  CHAPTER 5

  Lester Figg was smiling as he read the article in the Kansas City Star linking Maloof and Ringer to the theft of the Anubis. His anonymous tips to the Star reporter had certainly paid dividends. He was even more pleased when the article alluded to the possibility that their deaths were somehow related to an ancient Egyptian curse.

  His plan was proceeding right on schedule.

  He would wait another day and let the news of the latest body percolate through the city before announcing the release of his latest book, The Curse of the Pharaohs.

  Being a self-published author, his first two novels had been largely ignored. Each had sold a few hundred copies, but had quickly faded into literary oblivion.

  He remembered reading about E.L. James. Her racy Fifty Shades of Grey netted her over fifty million. She had pocketed a nifty five million for the film rights to the trilogy. He knew that if he was ever to enjoy that level of success, he would have to do something radically different. That’s when the plan began to form in his mind.

  Months ago, he came upon an article announcing that the King Tut exhibit would be featured in Kansas City. A story began to take shape in his mind and he worked diligently to have the novel ready for print by the time the exhibit opened in Union Station. He had planned to coordinate the release of the book with the opening of the exhibit, hoping that piggy-backing on the popular attraction would boost book sales.

  It was a good plan, but all along he felt that it still lacked the ‘wow’ factor that would put him over the top.

  Then one day, purely by chance, Lady Luck had guided him to a table in the coffee shop at Union Station that was close enough to overhear bits and pieces of a conversation from a nearby table.

  From what he could piece together, two young men were plotting to steal an artifact from the King Tut exhibit. It appeared that one of the men was enlisting the aid of the other and Lester had distinctly overheard the sum of five-hundred dollars being offered for his services.

  Upon closer observation of their uniforms, he discovered that the mastermind of the plot was a volunteer at the exhibit and that his accomplice worked at the Union Station Post Office.

  That evening, as Lester mulled over what he had heard, it occurred to him that if he played his cards right, this serendipitous event might just be the ‘wow’ he was looking for.

  He realized though, that if his plan was to succeed, the young accomplice from the post office would have to be motivated more by greed than allegiance to his friend.

  He decided that the reward was worth the risk and approached the young man the next day.

  Lester had put aside a thousand dollars to promote the release of his book, but he realized that if his plan worked, the publicity generated would be worth far more than the ads he could buy.

  At first, the postal worker was wary, fearing that the plan to steal the artifact had somehow been exposed, but Lester had quickly allayed his fears. He had offered the young man, Marty Ringer, the thousand dollars he had saved to go through with the theft, then become HIS accomplice in the execution of HIS plan. Ringer would have the five-hundred from his friend plus the thousand.

  Lester had held his breath as Ringer considered his offer. In the end, the young postal worker couldn’t turn down the money.

  The theft of the artifact was no problem, but Ringer balked when Lester told him the rest of the plan, saying he hadn’t signed up to commit murder.

  It took some veiled threats from Lester to convince Ringer that he was only placing the cobra in the mail bag and that it was the snake that was actually committing the murder.

  Everything had gone according to plan. The two had arrived at Maloof’s apartment with the Anubis. While Maloof was upstairs unlocking the door, Ringer had taken the cobra from his car and placed it in the bag with the jackel.

  Once the bag was in the apartment and he had been paid, Ringer returned to his car and called Lester. The two of them waited until they were sure that the snake had done its job. Then Lester picked the lock on Maloof’s door and they carried the bagged Anubis to Lester’s SUV.

  When the artifact was safely stowed at Lester’s apartment, he gave Ringer half of the thousand, and ask him to go with him the next evening to move the Anubis to a storage space that Lester would rent the next day. When the Anubis was tucked away in the storage shed, Ringer would get the rest of his payment.

  The next evening, Lester picked Ringer up at his apartment. Once the transfer had been made, Lester handed Ringer the env
elope with his money. Then he produced two plastic cups and a bottle of champagne, insisting they drink a toast to a job well done.

  The wolf’s bane that Lester had rubbed into Ringer’s cup worked quickly. The young man was dead in fifteen minutes.

  Then came the most difficult part of the plan. Lester had to wrestle Ringer’s dead body into the mail bag that had once held the Anubis and the cobra.

  Once that had been accomplished, Lester returned to Ringer’s apartment and thoroughly inspected the place, making sure there was nothing left behind that would link the two. He found and pocketed the envelope with his five hundred dollars and conveniently left the envelope from Maloof for the police to find.

  His final task was to dump the bag containing the body at the foot of the giant Anubis in the Union Station parking lot without being seen.

  The stage had been set. A rare artifact had been stolen invoking the wrath of ancient Egyptian gods. The perpetrators had been found dead, one from the bite of a King Cobra, the symbol of the Egyptian Monarchy, and the other by a disease that doctors could not diagnose. The police had found themselves faced with a mystery they couldn’t solve, and all the world loves a good mystery.

  Intrigued by the unexplained events, attendance at the King Tut exhibit would be at an all-time high --- the perfect moment to announce the debut of his novel, The Curse of the Pharaohs.

  The timing of the release would, of course, make him a person of interest to the police. He had not only anticipated that happening, he had counted on it. No amount of money could buy the publicity that would be generated when he was brought in for questioning about the theft and the mysterious deaths.

  He had taken every precaution to erase any connection between himself and the two victims. He had even prepared alibis for the evenings of the murders. Let the police come. He was ready.

  To say that Detective Blaylock was pissed would be an understatement.

  When we entered the captain’s office he slammed the morning paper onto the desk sloshing coffee onto a stack of papers.

  “Calm down, Derek,” the captain said, grabbing a paper towel. “It’s not the end of the world.”

  “Well somebody around here is leaking our case to the press and I want to know who it is!”

  “Maybe not,” Dr. Grimm replied. “Did it ever occur to you that it might just be the guy that’s responsible for this whole mess? Whoever it is seems to have a lot of details we haven’t discussed outside of this room.”

  I could tell by the look on his face that Derek hadn’t considered that possibility.

  “So some skel masterminds a heist, offs two people then brags about it to the press? What possible reason would someone have to draw attention to their crimes?”

  Grimm shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. Publicity maybe. Just a thought.”

  “So Doc, did you come up with anything on the cause of death for our second vic?”

  Grimm nodded. “Aconitum, a poison from a flowering plant from the family Ranunculaceae.”

  Blaylock rolled his eyes. “Doc! English, please!”

  Grimm smiled. “You may know it as wolf’s bane. The roots yield one of the most deadly poisons known to man. Primitive tribes coat the tips of their spears with the substance when hunting bear and other big game. The Aleuts in Alaska use it for hunting whales. One man in a kayak with a lance covered with the stuff can paralyze the beast so it will drown.”

  “Holy crap!” Blaylock muttered. “Seems like overkill.”

  “Well, death certainly came quick,” Grimm said, “but I don’t think that was the main reason this poison was chosen.”

  “So what then?”

  “The only post-mortem signs of the poison are asphyxia, which could have resulted from any number of causes. Until we sent the tissue to the crime lab, we had no clue as to cause of death.”

  Grimm pointed to the newspaper. “That gave the killer an opportunity to introduce the curse quoted in the Star, ‘They that shall break the seal of this tomb shall meet death by a disease that no doctor can diagnose.’ Whoever is behind all of this is very clever and has certainly done his homework. Oh yes, one more thing. Wolf’s bane is also known as the Queen of Poisons. Another allusion to royalty, as in pharaohs.”

  “What about you, Derek?” the captain asked. “Did your guys come up with anything new?”

  “We found Martin Ringer’s apartment. His car was parked on the street out front. We went through the place with a fine tooth comb. All we came up with was an envelope with five hundred bucks inside. Bernard Maloof’s prints were all over the thing. That was probably Ringer’s payoff for helping Maloof swipe the Anubis. Other than that, we got zip.”

  “There’s one positive in all of this,” I said. “So far, there’s been no mention of the journal or the treasure. Maybe the guy that has the Anubis doesn’t know. Maybe it was a secret that died with Bernard Maloof.”

  “Good!” Blaylock replied. “Let’s keep it that way.”

  Just then there was a knock on the door.

  “Come,” the captain said.

  It was one of the detectives from Blaylock’s team. He was carrying a laptop.

  “Derek, you’re gonna want to see this.”

  Blaylock waved him in and the detective set the laptop on the captain’s desk.

  “This thing hit Facebook and Twitter this morning and our phones haven’t stopped ringing.”

  “So what is it?”

  “Figg. Lester Figg. He’s an author and he’s just published a novel titled The Curse of the Pharaohs. He claims that the recent deaths are without a doubt related to the curses of the ancient Egyptians. He says that his book, while fiction, tells the story of the dire consequences that await those who desecrate the sacred tombs.”

  I saw Dr. Grimm crack a smile. “Hmmm, publicity. Motive anyone?”

  Blaylock grinned. “Looks like we have a suspect after all.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Somehow, probably through the social media, the press got wind that Lester Figg was being picked up for questioning.

  When Detective Blaylock’s team arrived at Figg’s house, the lawn and street were filled with reporters and looky-lou’s.

  Figg offered no resistance. He paused briefly, hoping to address the questions that were being hurled in his direction by the members of the press, but Blaylock was having none of it. He hurried Figg into the waiting sedan and slammed the door with a resounding, “No comment!”

  Ox and I were sent ahead to make sure the path into the precinct was clear. A dozen officers were already lining the sidewalk when we pulled up.

  TV crews had set up their cameras and satellite links and eager reporters were standing behind the yellow tape, microphones in hand.

  As before, Blaylock hustled Figg into the building ignoring the outstretched arms of the media.

  As soon as Figg was safely inside, the captain called. “Walt, you and Ox have been up to your armpits in this case from the very beginning. I’d like you to watch Figg’s interview to see if you can spot any inconsistencies between his story and what you found at the crime scenes.”

  By the time we arrived, Figg was already in the interview room. The captain escorted us into the room next to it where we could watch through a one-way mirror.

  Blaylock was a no nonsense kind of guy and didn’t waste time with pleasantries.

  “Mr. Figg, I imagine you have an idea why we asked you to come in this morning.”

  Figg was ready with a comeback. “Detective, it’s not exactly rocket science. Yesterday, you had two very puzzling homicides on your hands and no suspects. Today, I launched my new novel and the story line fits perfectly with both the theft of the King Tut artifact and your murders. I imagine I’m here because I just became your prime suspect.”

  “Mr. Figg, the timing of this whole scenario does seem pretty convenient. Are you telling me that the confluence of all these things is pure coincidence?”

  “Oh my goodness no! I have been plan
ning the timing of this release for months. I learned that the King Tut exhibit would be in Kansas City throughout the summer. I wrote like crazy so that my novel would be ready by the opening day. That, Sir, is called good marketing. The fact that an artifact was stolen and two men connected to the exhibit have perished is serendipity. While I regret that these tragedies have occurred, I certainly plan to use those unfortunate events to my advantage. That may seem cold hearted, but it’s just good business.”

  Figg had taken Blaylock by surprise and I could see that he was struggling. “So you’re telling me that you are in no way connected to the deaths of these two young men.”

  Figg smiled. “Look, Detective, I’ve watched enough crime dramas on TV to know how this works. You bring me in for questioning, hoping that I will say something incriminating to give you probable cause to go to a judge for a search warrant.”

  Figg reached into his pocket, pulled out a key ring and tossed it on the table.

  “Let me save both of us some time. Here are the keys to my house and my car. It’s parked in the garage. Search to your heart’s content. I have nothing to hide.”

  Blaylock handed the keys to one of his associates and returned to the interview room.

  “I must say, you seem to have thought all this through pretty well --- maybe too well.”

  “When I read about the murders, I came very close to postponing the launch of my novel, realizing that it would cast suspicion in my direction. After further thought, I realized that opportunities like this only come along once in a lifetime. I decided that the benefits outweighed the risks --- especially since I was innocent. You must understand, Detective, that this is my third novel. The first two were pretty much ignored by everyone. I don’t think that will happen this time.”

  Derek was getting nowhere with this guy and I could see his frustration building.

  “One more question, Mr. Figg.”

  “Let me guess, Detective,” Figg interrupted. “Where was I on the nights of the murders?”