“No, I’m good, thanks. So I just got a call from the detective assigned to Davina’s case. Thought you might like to know Verna’s been charged with Davina’s murder.”
Marvin glanced away from the road. “For real?”
“For real.”
“Hmph.”
Bodhi agreed wholeheartedly.
They lapsed into a contemplative silence. After a moment, Marvin asked the question Bodhi knew was coming.
“So, do you still need to get into Mrs. Sullivan’s office? Now that Verna’s being charged and all?”
“I really do.”
“And I still don’t want to know why?”
“You really don’t.”
Marvin pursed his lips and lifted one hand from the wheel to scratch his neck. “Okay, then.”
Bodhi exhaled quietly.
The station wagon rolled up to the preserve’s entrance gate. Marvin dragged a hand across his face. He stared at the open gate.
“Something wrong?”
“This gate’s supposed to be locked when the preserve and museum are closed. I locked it myself last night.”
“So, someone else is here?”
“Evidently.”
“That changes things.”
“Unless they’ve come and gone already. Could’ve been one of the Sullivans.”
“It’s seven in the morning.”
Marvin shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”
He piloted the car through the open gate and followed the winding road through the preserve. The road wound around to the back of the museum building. There were no cars in the lot. He parked in a spot near the employee door.
They exited the Volvo, and he used his key fob to lock it remotely. Then he fished out the heavy ring of keys he’d used to unlock the lab yesterday and flipped through them until he found the one he wanted.
They walked into the cold, dark building, and Marvin turned on the main level lights. Their footsteps echoed sharply in the silence. Bodhi stooped and squinted at a small red splotch just inside the door.
“What is it?”
He looked up at Marvin. “It’s blood.” He reached into his jacket pocket and removed a sterile package of blue forensic gloves, ripped it open, and snapped them on.
He touched one fingertip to the spot. When he removed it, it was coated with red.
“And it’s fresh.”
Marvin reflexively reached toward his hip.
“You carrying?”
He nodded. “Sure am. You?”
“No,” Bodhi said. “What’s the play? Call the police?”
He hoped Marvin said no. He didn’t want to have to explain his presence to Dexter or any of his officers.
Marvin thought for a moment, tilting his head from one direction to the other, and then said, “No. Let’s sweep the building. Assuming we don’t find anything concerning, you take care of whatever it is you need to do in Mrs. Sullivan’s office. I’ll take you back to the lodge and then call the police. There’s no reason for you to be involved in this, whatever it is. And for all we know, it’s a big fat heap of nothing.”
It was the outcome he wanted. But he searched Marvin’s face for signs of ambivalence. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. Come on.”
They fell into a rhythm of quick steps as they walked in a circuit on each floor, checking each door that should have been locked to confirm that it was. They all were. And checking each door that should have been unlocked confirmed that it was. They all were, too. No lights were on that shouldn’t have been. No materials were out of place. There was no sign of anything out of the ordinary, save the open front gate and a droplet of blood inside the door.
When they reached the top floor, they continued to clear each room with the same result and ended up in front of Margot Rutherford Sullivan’s personal office.
Marvin eased the key into the lock, but before he turned it, he turned to Bodhi. “I’m going to go down the hallway and unlock the boardroom. I’m going take a peek in there. I’ll be right back, okay?”
He walked off without waiting for Bodhi to answer. After he unlocked the boardroom doors and stepped inside—giving him plausible deniability, maybe—Bodhi twisted the knob and let himself into the inner sanctum.
He kept the forensic gloves on and the lights off. He walked directly to the photograph of Margot and Sully with the police chief and lifted it from the shelf. He held it one-handed and snapped a picture with his cell phone. Then he returned the framed photo to its spot and moved around to Margot’s writing desk.
The small desk had a single drawer centered on the underside of the writing service. The drawer did not lock, which was not a surprise. A person in Margot Sullivan’s position likely operated with complete conviction that her confidences would be kept, her privacy maintained. He eased open the drawer.
He found what he was looking for immediately and removed it. He dropped the familiar ornate ring into his pocket and closed the drawer. He strode back out into the hallway to wait for Marvin.
32
Bodhi’s phone rang before Marvin returned from the boardroom.
“Bette? Did you catch up with Eliza?”
“No.” Her voice was strained.
“What happened?”
“We’re at Davina’s apartment waiting for Lew Dexter.”
He stifled a groan. “You called Dexter? Why?”
“Because Eliza’s not here, but Fred and I think she was.” She dropped her voice. “There was nobody here when we got here. The crime scene technician and a uniformed officer had gone on a coffee run. They just got back. We ran into them in the lobby. The door was ajar, and there’s blood on the floor outside Davina’s bedroom.”
“It was an exsanguination. She hemorrhaged and bled out. There was blood everywhere, Bette.”
“It’s not Davina’s. We confirmed against the photographs Clive took yesterday that it’s new. And—”
“—And it’s fresh?” His legs threatened to give out, so he leaned against the wall for support.
“Yes. How did you guess?”
“As soon as Chief Dexter gets there, come over here.”
“To the lodge?”
“What? No. The Rutherford Museum. In fact, maybe tell Dexter to meet you here and get one of the uniforms to drive you over. It’ll be faster.”
“What are you doing at the museum?”
“Long story. I’m here with the chief security officer. The gate was open when we arrived, and there was blood on the floor just inside the door. Not much, but enough that I noticed it. And it was—”
“Fresh,” she finished in a voice laden with dread.
“Yeah.”
“Well, the doer isn’t Verna. Officer Kincaid just told us she’s in custody.”
“I heard. No, I think it’s someone else connected to the museum, though.”
“Okay. I’ll bring Fred up to speed. We’ll be there as fast as we can. And Bodhi—”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t be a hero, please.”
“Don’t worry. Marvin, the security chief, is former military, and he’s armed. I intend to do exactly what he says and nothing else.”
“Excellent plan. Stay in one piece until I get there.”
“Yes, Chief.”
He ended the call just before the boardroom door opened and Marvin clomped out into the hall, whistling loudly. While Marvin locked up the boardroom, Bodhi hurried down the hall toward him.
“Find what you need?”
“Yes. Listen, that blood on the floor?”
“Yeah.”
“It might be Eliza’s. She was abducted from Davina’s apartment this morning. I think they—whoever they are—brought her here.”
Marvin’s face went ashen. “We checked everywhere.”
“We checked that all the doors were locked, or unlocked, as the case may be. We didn’t check inside each room. But I don’t think we have to. Let’s start with the lab.”
They raced
to the stairwell.
33
Eliza’s forehead throbbed. She tried to shift onto her side. If she could prop herself on her hip and elevate her head, it would help to alleviate some of the pressure. But she was much taller than Cassie had been in life, and the coffin was too cramped to allow for maneuvering. She made it about a quarter turn, then conceded defeat and returned to her back.
She stared up at the dim square of gray light afforded by the window, wondering how much time had passed. Her eyes burned from straining in the darkness. Her chest and lungs ached from the lack of fresh air. And she was getting sleepy. She was certain falling asleep in the coffin meant dying in the coffin.
This thought kicked off a new wave of panic, which she had to beat back, leaving her more drained, more exhausted. Tears would have filled her eyes if she hadn’t been so dehydrated.
Make a decision, she told herself. Fight or submit. But whatever you’re gonna do, commit to it and do it already.
She was awfully tired.
But Fred would be destroyed if she died, especially like this. It really was a horrible way to die, and she’d seen all kinds of gruesome, heartbreaking, and tragic deaths, so she felt qualified to judge it. She really didn’t want to die.
But, wow, was she tired.
Could she possibly hold on until someone found her?
Another question crowded in on her, threatening to overwhelm her and suffocate her, but she pushed it away. She couldn’t give in to that fear. Still, the question was there, looming in the gathering tenebrosity:
What if her attacker returned to finish her off?
Bodhi had never understood the phrase ‘my heart was in my throat.’ From a purely anatomical standpoint, it was, of course, impossible. And even as a descriptor of terror or dread, it had always struck him as melodramatic, verging on histrionic.
But, as he waited for Marvin to unlock the door to Davina’s laboratory, he felt as if his heart were in his throat. The tightness of his throat and his thudding pulse tricked his brain into believing that he could not breathe, so now his breaths came fast, frantic.
He keyed into his heartbeat and tied his inhalations and exhalations to its wild, choppy rhythm in the hopes of slowing it and calming himself. Marvin turned the key in the lock, and Bodhi prepared himself to accept whatever they might find inside.
Marvin pushed the door open. It creaked, and the sound was straight out of a horror film. They walked into the cold room, and Marvin turned on the lights.
Marvin scanned the room. “I don’t see anything out of place.”
Bodhi nodded. At first glance, neither did he. He scanned the floor first. No visible blood. No signs of a struggle in the tidy work area. Cassie still rested on the table where he and Eliza had left her. “Wait.”
“What is it?”
“Yesterday, the three of us removed the lid from the coffin and set it aside.”
Marvin followed his gaze. The lid covered the coffin.
“You and Dr. Rollins didn’t put that back on before you left?”
“No. It was heavy, and we figured we’d be returning Cassie, er, the body, to the coffin sooner rather than later, so we left it as it was.”
“But the body’s not in the coffin.”
“Nope, it’s not.”
He approached the table warily. The lid was lined up perfectly with no gaps between the coffin and the cover. He peered down into the window. Eliza stared back up at him. Her eyes were enormous, and dried blood covered most of the top of her forehead and parts of her face.
For one endless heartbeat, he was sure she was dead. Then her mouth opened in an almost-silent scream. “Get me out of here,” she croaked softly.
“Marvin!” Bodhi shouted, but the security officer was already at his side.
They each gripped an end of the coffin lid and heaved. Preservation of a historically significant object was the furthest thing from their minds. The lid clattered to the floor with a tremendous crash that echoed off the tile walls.
Eliza pushed herself up to her elbows, panting and shaking.
“Stay still. We’ve got you.”
He and Marvin lifted her from the coffin, supporting her on either side. There were no chairs in the room, so they lowered her to a seated position on the metal table with her legs dangling over its edge. She wrapped her fingers around the table’s lip with a white-knuckled grip and swallowed down the fresh air in greedy gulps.
“May I have a look?” Bodhi gestured toward her forehead.
She turned her face up to the ceiling so he’d have a better angle from which to assess her wound. “It probably looks worse than it is.”
“Lucky that it caught you on the forehead rather than the temple. That may have saved your life.”
She showed no signs of having heard him.
“When I came to, I was in the coffin. I thought I was going to die in there.”
She shivered, whether from the cold or the memory, Bodhi couldn’t tell. He took off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders.
Marvin crouched in front of her. “Can I get you something, Doc? Maybe a glass of water?”
She nodded her head. “Please.”
“I’ll be right back with it.”
“Chief Dexter ought to be here any minute. Will you keep an eye out for him?” Bodhi asked.
“Sure thing.”
As soon as Marvin closed the door behind him, Eliza reached behind her neck with both hands.
She fumbled for a second, then said, “My hands are too shaky. Help me with this.”
She bent her head down to expose the silver clasp at the back of her neck.
He unhooked it. “Is this—?”
“Yes. I went to Davina’s this morning and found her jewelry box.”
He lifted the necklace out from under her shirt and studied the filigree pattern and the brilliant-cut stone. “They’re all the same.”
“Both the same, you mean.”
He shook his head. “The reason Marvin and I are here is that I was looking for something in Margot Sullivan’s office.”
“What?”
He reached into his pants pocket and removed the ring he’d taken from Margot’s desk drawer. “This.”
She stared at the ring in his right hand, and then at the necklace in his left. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I, really. But they’re all the same pattern, the same stone. They’re connected.”
“How did you know to look for that?” She gestured at the ring.
“Yesterday, when I was looking at her photographs, it caught my eye. She’s wearing it in all of them. But the picture of her getting that award from the chief really shows the details. I thought it was similar to the brooch Davina photographed. But I wasn’t positive it was the same. Then I remembered her fingers.”
“Whose fingers?”
“Margot’s. When we were introduced, she shook my hand . . . Sort of. She extended the fingers of her right hand, holding it out, palm-down, parallel to the floor. So I shook them as best I could. She was wearing a large, heavy ring on her right index finger, and two rings on her left hand, but nothing on her right ring finger.”
“Okay, so?”
“So that’s the one the ring was on in all the pictures. And the finger itself is noticeably thinner at the bottom. Likely worn down from wearing that ring for decades. Why take it off now?”
“To hide the connection.”
“Bingo.”
“So you broke into the museum to look for it.”
“Once we realized you went to Davina’s, I figured you’d gone to find her necklace. So, yeah, why not go for the trifecta?”
The color had been returning to Eliza’s face, but now she blanched. “You just said ‘we.’ Fred knows?”
“He woke up, and you were gone. Long story short, he and Bette headed to Davina’s to find you. They told me to wait at the lodge. Oops.” He shrugged.
A faint smile bloomed on her lips. “Maybe we’re b
oth the bad influence.”
“It’s possible. But, on a serious note, he walked into a bad scene. Your blood was all over the floor, along with the weapon. And you were nowhere to be found. They’re on their way here, too. He’s out of his mind with worry.”
She nodded. “How did you and Marvin know to look for me in here?”
“The gates were open when we got here, and they shouldn’t have been. Nothing else was out of place except for a small amount of fresh blood just inside the door. We didn’t think that much of it at first. Then Bette called and told me what had happened at Davina’s apartment and that you were missing.”
“I can’t stop thinking about what would have happened if you hadn’t been here.”
He rubbed her shoulder. “You’re okay. You should get your forehead looked at to be sure, but you’re okay.”
“Thanks for saving my life . . . for the second time.”
“You’re welcome. But I’m not keeping count.”
She smiled, and the smile reached her eyes. “Well, I am. So, what do we do now?”
“I guess we wait and see what Chief Dexter wants to do.”
“Yippee.”
He knew the feeling.
34
Marvin returned with Eliza’s water—and Margot Rutherford Sullivan, who instantly took charge of the room.
“What on earth is going on here? Mr. Washington tells me that Dr. Rollins was assaulted. Do we need to call for an ambulance?” She frowned at Eliza’s bloodied face. “Oh dear.”
Eliza shook her head, winced, then groaned. After she caught her breath, she said, “I’ll get checked out later.”
She took several greedy gulps of the water Marvin provided.
“Hey, slow down. You were in there for several hours. Don’t overwhelm your system,” Bodhi warned her.
“In where?” Margot said to Bodhi in an undertone.
“The iron coffin. She’s lucky she survived.”
Margot blanched but recovered quickly. “And how did you happen to be here? The museum is closed. I was just coming in to do some administrative work when I ran into Mr. Washington.”
He studied her face. “I think it’s time to give up the ghost, don’t you?”
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