The Bastard Mummy (river city crime)

by Frank Zafiro

  “Completely taped over,” Moore finished. “That’s right.”

  Elias’ surprised silence was short-lived. “Why in the hell did he do that?”

  Moore looked away, squirming in his seat. “I don’t know exactly. You’ll have to ask him.”

  “We will.” Elias leaned forward in his chair. “But tell me something, Tony.”

  Moore eyed him warily. “What?”

  “Did you come back to the museum at all last night?”

  “No. Not until Director Leavitt called me this morning.”

  “When?”

  “About six-twenty.”

  “Where’d you go after work?”

  Moore bit his lip slightly. “I drove around for a while. Then I went home.”

  “Drove where?”

  “Just around. It helps me unwind.”

  “What time did you get home?”

  His face flushed. He gave Elias a hard stare. “I don’t know. Maybe midnight. What’s this have to do with what happened at the museum?”

  “Just covering all our bases,” Finch told him.

  Moore glanced over at Finch, then back at Elias. Then he shrugged. “It was around midnight. Like I said.”

  “Can anyone verify that?” Elias asked.

  “My wife was asleep. She might’ve woken up enough to tell what time it was.” His voice remained sullen. “I don’t know for sure.”

  Elias watched Moore for a minute, then turned to Finch. “Eric? Or the janitor?”

  “The janitor,” Finch said.

  Elias looked back at Moore and raised his eyebrows expectantly. The security head rose from his desk and led the detectives out of the room.

  “He’s hiding something,” Elias whispered to Finch as he passed.

  “Now who’s being obvious?”

  Elias scowled but without much energy behind it. The two detectives followed Moore to a utility room. A man sat at the utility desk reading a car magazine. His overweight frame reminded Finch of a man who might have once been a body builder but then let things slip.

  “Mike?” Moore said.

  The man looked up with bleary eyes. When he saw the three men, he set the magazine on the desk and stood, offering his hand to Finch, who was nearest.

  “Michael Booth,” he said, squeezing Finch’s hand. Finch struggled not to wince. The man’s strength radiated from the handshake. Finch murmured his own name and introduced Elias. Booth gave Elias the same firm shake.

  Finch leaned toward Moore and whispered, “We’d like to interview him alone, if that’s all right with you.”

  Moore gave him a dubious look. “I don’t know. I’m supposed to stay with you guys.”

  “We’ll come straight back to your office,” Finch assured him.

  Moore considered, then left reluctantly. Finch closed the door behind him. He noticed that Booth shifted uncomfortably once the door was shut. He caught sight of faded blue tattoo lines on Booth’s forearm.

  “How long have you worked here, Mr. Booth?” he asked.

  Booth shrugged. “Almost two years.”

  “The museum hired you?”

  “No. I work for a janitorial service. This is one of our contract sites.”

  “Are you the only one who cleans here?”

  He nodded. “’Cept for special events, yeah.”

  “And you worked last night?”

  “Yeah. Gotta work tonight, too.”

  “What time did you finish your work in the museum?”

  Booth paused, thinking. His eyes drifted up and to the left. “I was probably done by midnight. I usually am.”

  “Did Eric see you leave? Or log you out?”

  “Nope.”

  “Is he supposed to?”

  Booth shrugged. “Supposed to? I don’t know. I just know he didn’t.”

  “So no one can say when you left for sure?”

  “No person. But I set the alarm when I left, just like I’m supposed to. You could probably get the time off of that.”

  “Where’d you go when you left the museum?”

  “Home.”

  “Do you live alone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Anyone see you?”

  “No,” Booth said. “I ain’t got no alibi, so you can stop poking around for one.”

  Finch regarded him for a moment, then asked, “Where’d you do your time?”

  Booth’s eyes narrowed. “What do you care?”

  “Just asking.”

  “Well, don’t worry about it. I did my time and left that place behind. I’ve got a new life now.”

  “I’m glad rehabilitation works,” Elias said lightly.

  Booth cursed and looked away. “I can see where this is going. Pin it on the ex-con, especially if he don’t have no alibi.”

  “We’re not looking to pin it on anyone,” Finch said. “We just want to find the mummy.”

  “Well, I didn’t take it,” Booth snapped. “I finished up here and I went home. That’s where I was when Tony called me and told me to come down here if I wanted to keep my job. So I’m here.”

  “Any ideas who might have taken it?”

  Booth smiled coldly. “I’ll tell you one thing. I did three years. And in that three years, the one thing I learned was to keep my mouth shut.”

  They left Booth to his magazine. On the way back to Moore’s office, Elias asked, “Think he’s involved?”

  “He’s got the right history.”

  “And he’s not exactly helpful, either.”

  “Of course, that is exactly what he would’ve learned in prison.” Finch shrugged. “And he looked up and to the left when he answered his questions.”

  “And that’s supposed to convince me he’s telling the truth?” Elias rolled his eyes. “You put too much stock in that new-wave lingo stuff.”

  “It’s neurolinguistics,” Finch corrected him. “And you should educate yourself on the subject.”

  “I’ll just wait for the TV documentary.” Elias grinned. “Speaking of which, do you think they get the History Channel in the slammer?”

  Moore had Eric waiting for them in his office upon their return. He stepped outside and left the two detectives alone with the night watchman.

  Eric Giles was a tall and lanky twenty-three-year-old. His uniform hung off of him loosely and needed ironing. He reminded Finch of a puppy that hadn’t yet grown into its own paws.

  Eric swallowed once, the sharp point of his Adam’s apple raking up and down his narrow throat. “Am I in trouble?” he croaked.

  Finch pulled a chair up close to Eric. Elias sat on the edge of Moore’s desk and crossed his arms.

  “Why would you be in trouble, Eric?” Finch asked.

  Eric licked his lips and let out a squeaky, nervous laugh. “Duh. I was on duty when the kid mummy was stolen.”

  “Did you see anything?”

  Eric looked away, shaking his head. “No.” Then he glanced back at Finch. “They’re going to fire me for this, aren’t they?”

  “I don’t know. Should they?”

  “Probably,” Eric whispered.

  “What are your duties here, Eric?”

  Eric ran his hands through his hair and sighed. “I’m supposed to monitor the cameras from the security station. And do a perimeter check every two hours.”

  “How does that work with the alarm?”

  “There’s two different settings,” Eric answered. “A system setting and a zone setting. While I’m in the security station, the whole place is on the system setting. If anyone enters through any door, it trips the alarm. When I go out to make rounds, I switch it to zone setting.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  Eric shrugged. “I don’t know exactly. All I know is that when I switch it to zone, I can walk into each area and it gives me about a minute to get to the keypad. I enter the code and it shuts off that zone for five minutes or until I enter the code in another zone. Then it resets. That way, I can make my rounds without completely s
hutting down the security system.”

  “So theoretically, someone could time their entry to coincide with your rounds?”

  “Huh?”

  Finch repeated the question.

  Eric gave him a quizzical look. “You mean come in through the door in a zone right after I walked past?”

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  Eric shook his head. “The zone setting doesn’t affect the doors like the system setting does. They’re still alarmed. All it does is shut off the motion sensors inside the building.”

  “So someone breaking in would still set off the alarm?”

  “Yeah. Unless they had the code.”

  Finch nodded while Elias made notes. “Is there video surveillance of the museum, Eric?”

  Eric’s face fell. His eyes dropped and his bony shoulders slumped. “Yeah,” he whispered. “There’s cameras on the doors and the exhibits.”

  “And they’re taped?”

  “Yeah. It switches from camera to camera every two seconds.”

  “So we can just pull the tape and see what happened?”

  Eric’s lip quivered. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I…I screwed up.” Tears sprang to his eyes. He brushed them away briskly, not making eye contact with either detective.

  Finch leaned forward, closing body space. He sensed a confession coming. “What happened?” he asked. He kept his tone soft, not wanting to scare the kid into clamming up.

  Eric swallowed. “I fell asleep.”

  Finch cocked his head, mildly surprised. “Fell asleep?”

  Eric nodded glumly.

  “When?”

  “I don’t know exactly. Sometime after eleven, I guess.”

  “Was Michael Booth still in the museum?”

  “No. It was after he left.” Eric buried his face in his hands and sobbed. “I’m overloaded on credits at school. I get a ton of reading and other homework, so I don’t get much sleep.”

  Finch and Elias exchanged looks while Eric wept. Finch read the suspicion that still resided in his partner’s eyes. He reached out and patted Eric on the shoulder. “When did you wake up?” he asked softly.

  Eric pulled his face away from his hands, wiping away tears and sniffling. “At five-eleven.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. I looked right at the clock and realized I’d screwed up. I knew the timing on the tapes would be off and if anyone checked the alarm logs, they’d see that I didn’t do my rounds.”

  “Do they check often?”

  “Never,” Eric replied. “At least, not that I know of.”

  “Have you fallen asleep before?”

  Eric’s hesitation gave Finch the answer.

  “How many times?” the detective asked.

  Eric sighed. “A couple times. But never for this long. Just…catnaps, really.” He looked frantically from detective to detective. “I didn’t mean to. Honestly, I didn’t. I was just so tired and comfortable and I knew that the alarm would go off if-”

  Finch held up his hand, stopping him. “I understand. What did you do once you woke up?”

  “I figured I better go do my rounds, so I headed out.”

  “Did you see anything?”

  “No. All the doors were secure. All the alarms were set.”

  “But the little mummy was missing?” Elias asked.

  Eric shifted his gaze to Elias and nodded. “Yeah. When I saw he was gone, I called Dr. Leavitt right away.”

  “Why didn’t you call Tony Moore?” Finch asked. “He’s the head of security.”

  Eric eyed both of them, his face difficult to read. “That’s not how it works here,” he said. Then he asked Finch, “Am I going to jail?”

  “Did you steal the mummy?” Elias asked, cutting in.

  Alarm shot through Eric’s eyes. “No!”

  “Know who did?”

  “No, sir!”

  “Then I guess we’ll see,” Elias told him, clapping him on the shoulder. “In the meantime, don’t leave town.”

  After Eric closed the door behind him, Finch shook his head at Elias. “That was mean.”

  “And you’re never mean?”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  “What do you call sending Tower and Browning on a wild goose chase investigating that contractor when we worked the two-fer on Palmer Court?”

  “That’s between professionals,” Finch argued. “This is different. You’re making a college kid sweat. That’s mean.”

  “Let him sweat. He fell asleep. Maybe he’ll learn a lesson from it.”

  “Detective Elias, teacher to the world,” Finch said expansively.

  “And what if he’s lying?” Elias asked, ignoring Finch’s sarcasm.

  Finch considered for a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t think he’s lying.”

  “Neither do I,” Elias admitted, “but we don’t know for sure. And objectively speaking, he’s our most likely suspect so far. He had the means and the opportunity.”

  “What about our ex-con? Or Moore?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.” Elias rubbed his eyes while he spoke. “You call for Adam. Get him down here to do some computer work for us on that alarm system. I’ll get Renee to run our principals through the computer for background. Then we’ll meet the department head.”

  Twenty minutes later, the two detectives sat in the museum foyer and exchanged notes.

  “Adam should be here in half an hour,” Finch said. “What did Renee tell you?”

  Elias shrugged. “Not much. No one has a criminal record except for Booth. He did three years for possessing stolen property with a misdemeanor marijuana possession kicker.”

  “Which tells us what?”

  “That he’s a thief and a doper.” Elias grinned. “Or that he was. He’s rehabilitated now.”

  “Renee had nothing else?”

  Elias shook his head. “Except for the addresses on all five, nada.”

  Finch frowned.

  “What’re you thinking, Finchie?”

  “I don’t know for sure yet,” Finch said. “Too many unknowns. Let’s go talk to the department head.”

  Dr. Ruth Ingram surprised Finch twice.

  The first surprise came when he first saw her. Instead of a matronly woman in black-rimmed glasses and a scowl, she turned out to be in her early thirties with dark hair in a long braid. Her trim, curvy figure filled out a pair of khakis and a white business-casual blouse. The only expectation that remotely panned out was the eyeglasses-a stylish pair with a petite frame and thin gray rims.

  Finch flashed his badge. Elias did the same.

  Dr. Ingram was not impressed. “Have you found the relic yet?”

  “Not yet,” Finch admitted.

  “I figured as much. The insurance company will send special investigators.”

  Elias raised an eyebrow. “Special ones, huh?”

  Dr. Ingram eyed him coolly. “Artifact theft can be complex, detective.”

  “Burglary is burglary, theft is theft.”

  “Hardly.” She adjusted her glasses. “Now what can I do for you? I assume you’re here to question me.”

  “We’re hoping you can help us with the case, yes,” Finch said. “When was the last time you saw the mummy?”

  “When I left last night.”

  “Which was?”

  “Six o’clock or so.”

  “And where did you go?”

  “I went straight home.”

  “Did you return to the museum?”

  “Not until this morning. I assume by that question that you consider me a suspect?”

  “Everyone is a suspect,” Elias said with a tight grin.

  “Preposterous,” she snapped. “There was no forced entry into the museum, which means that whoever took Babafemi had the alarm code and a key. And since you haven’t simply reviewed the video surveillance tapes, I gather that something went awry with that syst
em, which doesn’t surprise me at all.”

  Finch and Elias exchanged a glance.

  “Why doesn’t that surprise you?” Finch asked.

  “Because this museum is run by absolute morons from top to bottom.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because it is true.” Her tone became matter-of-fact, with a tinge of iciness to it. “Director Leavitt couldn’t manage a lemonade stand and yet he’s in charge of the fourth-largest museum in the state. Why? Because his uncle left an endowment when he died, contingent upon his imbecile nephew getting the position. All he’s done since he took over is run the place into the ground. We have a third fewer visitors than last year. Our drawing power was never that good to begin with, not with Seattle and Portland being so nearby. Now, with our attendance down, we’re in danger of being relegated to a strictly regional museum because we can’t get any major exhibits.”

  “You got the mummy,” Finch reminded her.

  “And his bastard,” added Elias.

  “No thanks to Leavitt,” Dr. Ingram said. “I was the one who made the pitch for River City to be part of the Pedubastis the First tour. It was my work, and frankly, my reputation that brought the exhibit here.”

  “You have a good reputation in the academic community?” Finch asked.

  “Obviously.”

  “You ever been on the Discovery Channel?” Elias asked.

  Ingram turned an eye toward Elias as if to determine if he were serious or not. Finch maintained a straight face, hoping his partner did the same. He wished Elias would stop with the comments, but he knew it wasn’t likely.

  “I was interviewed for a documentary once,” she told Elias. “Though I’m not sure on which channel it aired. I don’t generally watch television.”

  Elias nodded and scratched something on his notepad.

  “I’ve never heard of a child mummy before,” Finch said. “Can you tell me about this one?”

  Ingram remained tight-lipped while she spoke. “It wasn’t common. But Pedubastis the First had a consort that he cared for deeply. When she had a son by him, he named it Babafemi. It means ‘loved by his father.’”

  “Isn’t that sort of a given?” Finch asked. “That a father would love his son?”

  “Not always, detective. Particularly not in ancient times. And especially when the child is illegitimate.”

  “But the Pharaoh claimed him, right?”