The Book of the Dead

by Richard Preston

  “But surely they couldn’t lose an entire Egyptian tomb!” said Wicherly.

  McCorkle laughed. “That would be difficult, even for this museum. It’s finding the entrance that might be tricky. It was bricked up in 1935 when they built the connecting tunnel from the 81st Street subway station.” He tucked the blueprints under his arm and picked up an old leather bag that lay on his desk. “Shall we?”

  “Lead the way,” said Menzies.

  They set off along a puke-green corridor, past maintenance rooms and storage areas, through a heavily trafficked section of the basement. As they went along, McCorkle gave a running account. “This is the metal shop. This is the old physical plant, once home to the ancient boilers, now used to store the collection of whale skeletons. Jurassic dinosaur storage . . . Cretaceous . . . Oligocene mammals . . . Pleistocene mammals . . . dugongs and manatees . . .”

  The storage areas gave way to laboratories, their shiny, stainless-steel doors in contrast to the dingy corridors, lit with caged lightbulbs and lined with rumbling steam pipes.

  They passed through so many locked doors Nora lost count. Some were old and required keys, which McCorkle selected from a large ring. Other doors, part of the museum’s new security system, he opened by swiping a magnetic card. As they moved deeper into the fabric of the building, the corridors became progressively empty and silent.

  “I daresay this place is as vast as the British Museum,” said Wicherly.

  McCorkle snorted in contempt. “Bigger. Much bigger.”

  They came to an ancient set of riveted metal doors, which McCorkle opened with a large iron key. Darkness yawned beyond. He hit a switch and illuminated a long, once-elegant corridor lined with dingy frescoes. Nora squinted: they were paintings of a New Mexico landscape, with mountains, deserts, and a multistoried Indian ruin she recognized as Taos Pueblo.

  “Fremont Ellis,” said Menzies. “This was once the Hall of the Southwest. Shut down since the forties.”

  “These are extraordinary,” said Nora.

  “Indeed. And very valuable.”

  “They’re rather in need of curation,” said Wicherly. “That’s a rather nasty stain, there.”

  “It’s a question of money,” Menzies said. “If our count hadn’t stepped forward with the necessary grant, the Tomb of Senef would probably have been left to sleep for another seventy years.”

  McCorkle opened another door, revealing another dim hall turned into storage, full of shelves covered with beautifully painted pots. Old oaken cabinets stood against the walls, fronted with rippled glass, revealing a profusion of dim artifacts.

  “The Southwest collections,” McCorkle said.

  “I had no idea,” said Nora, amazed. “These should be available for study.”

  “As Adrian pointed out, they need to be curated first,” Menzies said. “Once again, a question of money.”

  “It’s not only money,” McCorkle added, with a strange, pinched expression on his face.

  Nora exchanged glances with Wicherly. “I’m sorry?” she asked.

  Menzies cleared his throat. “I think what Seamus means is that the, ah, first Museum Beast killings happened in the vicinity of the Hall of the Southwest.”

  In the silence that followed, Nora made a mental note to have a look at these collections later—preferably, in the company of a large group. Maybe she could write a grant to see them moved to updated storage.

  Another door gave way to a smaller room, lined floor-to-ceiling with black metal drawers. Half hidden behind the drawers were ancient posters and announcements from the twenties and thirties, with art deco lettering and images of Gibson Girls. In an earlier era, it must have been an antechamber of sorts. The room smelled of paradichlorobenzene and something bad—like old beef jerky, Nora decided.

  At the far end, a great dim hall opened up. In the reflected light, she could see that its walls were covered with frescoes of the pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx as they had appeared when first built.

  “Now we’re approaching the old Egyptian galleries,” McCorkle said.

  They entered the vast hall. It had been turned into storage space: shelving was covered in transparent plastic sheets, which were in turn overlaid with dust.

  McCorkle unrolled the blueprints, squinted at them in the dim light. “If my estimations are correct, the entrance to the tomb was in what is now the annex, at the far end.”

  Wicherly went to one shelf, lifted the plastic. Beneath, Nora could make out metal shelves crowded with pottery vessels, gilded chairs and beds, headrests, canopic jars, and smaller figurines in alabaster, faience, and ceramic.

  “Good Lord, this is one of the finest collections of ushabtis I’ve ever seen.” Wicherly turned excitedly to Nora. “Why, there’s enough material here alone to fill up the tomb twice over.” He picked up an ushabti and turned it over with reverence. “Old Kingdom, II Dynasty, reign of the pharaoh Hetepsekhemwy.”

  “Dr. Wicherly, the rules about handling objects . . . ,” said McCorkle, a warning note in his voice.

  “It’s quite all right,” said Menzies. “Dr. Wicherly is an Egyptologist. I’ll take responsibility.”

  “Of course,” said McCorkle, a little put out. Nora had the feeling that McCorkle took a kind of proprietary interest in these old collections. They were his, in a way, as he was one of the few people ever to see them.

  Wicherly went from one shelf to the next, his mouth practically watering. “Why, they even have a Neolithic collection from the Upper Nile! Good Lord, take a look at this ceremonial thatof!” He held up a foot-long stone knife, flaked from gray flint.

  McCorkle cast an annoyed glance at Wicherly. The archaeologist laid the knife back in its place with the utmost care, then reshrouded it in plastic.

  They came to another iron-bound door, which McCorkle had some difficulty opening, trying several keys before finding the correct one. The door groaned open at last, the hinges shedding clouds of rust.

  Beyond lay a small room filled with sarcophagi made of painted wood and cartonnage. Some were without lids, and inside, Nora could make out the individual mummies—some wrapped, some unwrapped.

  “The mummy room,” said McCorkle.

  Wicherly rushed in ahead of the rest. “Good heavens, there must be a hundred in here!” He swept a plastic sheet aside, exposing a large wooden sarcophagus. “Look at this!”

  Nora went over and peered at the mummy. The linen bandages had been ripped from its face and chest, the mouth was open, the black lips shriveled and drawn back as if crying out in protest at the violation. In its chest stood a gaping hole, the sternum and ribs torn out.

  Wicherly turned toward Nora, eyes bright. “Do you see?” he said in an almost reverential whisper. “This mummy was robbed. They tore off the linen to get at precious amulets hidden in the wrappings. And there—where that hole is—was where a jade and gold scarab beetle had been placed on the chest. The symbol of rebirth. Gold was considered the flesh of the gods, because it never tarnished. They ripped it open to take it.”

  “This can be the mummy we put in the tomb,” Menzies said. “The idea—Nora’s idea—was that we show the tomb as it appeared while being robbed.”

  “How perfect,” said Wicherly, turning a brilliant smile to Nora.

  “I believe,” McCorkle interrupted, “that the tomb entrance was against that wall.” Dropping his bag on the floor, he pulled the plastic sheeting away from the shelves covering the far wall, exposing pots, bowls, and baskets, all filled with black shriveled objects.

  “What’s that inside?” Nora asked.

  Wicherly went over to examine the objects. After a silence, he straightened up. “Preserved food. For the afterlife. Bread, antelope joints, fruits and vegetables, dates—preserved for the pharaoh’s journey to the afterworld.”

  They heard a growing rumble coming through the walls, followed by a muffled squeal of metal, then silence.

  “The Central Park West subway,” McCorkle explained. “The 81st Stree
t station is very close.”

  “We’ll have to find some way to dampen that sound,” Menzies said. “It destroys the mood.”

  McCorkle grunted. Then he removed an electronic device from the bag and aimed it at the newly exposed wall, turned, aimed again. Then he pulled out a piece of chalk, made a mark on the wall. Taking a second device from his shirt pocket, he laid it against the wall and slid it across slowly, taking readings as he went.

  Then he stepped back. “Bingo. Help me move these shelves.”

  They began shifting the objects to shelves on the other walls. When the wall was at last bare, McCorkle pulled the shelf supports from the crumbling plaster with a set of pliers and put them to one side.

  “Ready for the moment of truth?” McCorkle asked, a gleam in his eye, good humor returning.

  “Absolutely,” said Wicherly.

  McCorkle removed a long spike and hammer from his bag, positioned the spike on the wall, gave it a sharp blow, then another. The sounds echoed in the confined space and plaster began falling in sheets, exposing courses of brick. He continued to drive the spike in, dust rising . . . and then suddenly the spike slid in to the hilt. McCorkle rotated it, giving it a few side blows with the hammer, loosening the brick. A few more deft blows knocked free a large chunk of brickwork, leaving a black rectangle. He stepped back.

  As he did so, Wicherly darted forward. “Forgive me if I claim explorer’s privilege.” He turned back with his most charming smile. “Any objections?”

  “Be our guest,” said Menzies. McCorkle frowned but said nothing.

  Wicherly took his flashlight and shined it into the hole, pressing his face to the gap. A long silence ensued, interrupted by the rumble of another subway train.

  “What do you see?” asked Menzies at last.

  “Strange animals, statues, and gold—everywhere the glint of gold.”

  “What in heck?” said McCorkle.

  Wicherly glanced back at him. “I was being facetious—quoting what Howard Carter said when he first peered into King Tut’s tomb.”

  McCorkle’s lips tightened. “If you’ll step aside, please, I’ll have this open in a moment.”

  McCorkle stepped back up to the gap, and with a series of expertly aimed blows of the spike, loosened several rows of bricks. In less than ten minutes, he had opened a hole big enough to step through. He disappeared inside, came back out a moment later.

  “The electricity isn’t working, as I suspected. We’ll have to use our flashlights. I’m required to lead the way,” he said with a glance at Wicherly. “Museum regulations. Might be hazards in there.”

  “The mummy from the Black Lagoon, perhaps,” said Wicherly with a laugh and a glance at Nora.

  They stepped carefully inside, then stopped to reconnoiter. In the glow of their flashlight beams, a great stone threshold was visible, and beyond, a descending staircase carved out of rough limestone blocks.

  McCorkle moved toward the first step, hesitated, then gave a slightly nervous chuckle. “Ready, ladies and gents?”

  9

  Captain of Homicide Laura Hayward stood silently in her office, looking at the untidy forest that seemed to sprout from her desk, from every chair, and to spill over to the floor—chaotic heaps of papers, photographs, tangles of colored string, CDs, yellowing telex sheets, labels, envelopes. The outward disarray, she mused, was a perfect mirror of her inner state of mind.

  Her beautiful layout of evidence against Special Agent Pendergast, with all its accusatory paraphernalia of colored strings, photos, and labels, was no more. It had fit together so well. The evidence had been subtle but clean, convincing, utterly consistent. An out-of-the-way spot of blood, some microscopic fibers, a few strands of hair, a knot tied in a certain way, the chain of ownership of a murder weapon. The DNA tests didn’t lie, the forensics didn’t lie, the autopsies didn’t lie. They all pointed to Pendergast. The case against him was that good.

  Maybe too good. And that, in a nutshell, was the problem.

  A tentative knock came at the door and she turned to see the figure of Glen Singleton, local precinct captain, hovering outside. He was in his late forties; tall, with the sleek, efficient movements of a swimmer, a long face, and an aquiline profile. He wore a charcoal suit that was far too expensive and well cut for an NYPD captain, and every other week he dropped $120 at the barbershop in the lobby of the Carlyle to have his salt-and-pepper hair trimmed to perfection. But these were signs of personal fastidiousness, not a cop on the take. And despite the sartorial affectations, he was a damned good cop, one of the most decorated on active duty in the force.

  “Laura, may I?” He smiled, displaying an expensive row of perfect teeth.

  “Sure, why not?”

  “We missed you at the departmental dinner last night. Did you have a conflict?”

  “A conflict? No, nothing like that.”

  “Really? Then I can’t understand why you’d pass up a chance to eat, drink, and be merry.”

  “I don’t know. I guess I wasn’t really in the mood to be merry.”

  There was an awkward silence while Singleton looked around for an empty chair.

  “Sorry about the mess. I was just doing . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “What?”

  Hayward shrugged.

  “That’s what I was afraid of.” Singleton hesitated briefly, seemed to come to some decision, then shut the door behind him and stepped forward.

  “This isn’t like you, Laura,” he said in a low voice.

  So it’s going to be like that, thought Hayward.

  “I’m your friend, and I’m not going to beat around the bush,” he went on. “I have a pretty good idea what you were ‘just doing,’ and you’re asking for trouble by doing it.”

  Hayward waited.

  “You developed the case in textbook fashion. You handled it perfectly. So why are you beating yourself up about it now?”

  She gazed steadily at Singleton for a moment, trying to control the surge of anger that she knew was directed more at herself than him.

  “Why? Because the wrong man’s in jail. Agent Pendergast didn’t murder Torrance Hamilton, he didn’t murder Charles Duchamp, and he didn’t murder Michael Decker. His brother, Diogenes, is the real murderer.”

  Singleton sighed. “Look. It’s clear that Diogenes stole the museum’s diamonds and kidnapped Viola Maskelene. There are statements from Lieutenant D’Agosta, that gemologist, Kaplan, and Maskelene herself to that effect. But that doesn’t make him a murderer. You have absolutely no proof of that. On the other hand, you’ve done a great job proving Agent Pendergast did commit those murders. Let it go.”

  “I did the job I was supposed to do, and that’s the problem. I was set up. Pendergast was framed.”

  Singleton frowned. “I’ve seen plenty of frame jobs in my career, but for this to work, it would have to have been impossibly sophisticated.”

  “D’Agosta told me all along that Diogenes Pendergast was framing his brother. Diogenes collected all the physical evidence he needed during Pendergast’s convalescence in Italy—blood, hair, fibers, everything. D’Agosta insisted Diogenes was alive; that he was the kidnapper of Viola Maskelene; that he was behind the diamond theft. He was right about those things, and it makes me think he might be right about everything else.”

  “D’Agosta messed up big-time!” Singleton snapped. “He betrayed my trust, and yours. I’ve no doubt that the disciplinary trial will confirm his dismissal from the force. You really want to tie your wagon to that star?”

  “I want to tie my wagon to the truth. I’m responsible for putting Pendergast on trial for his life, and I’m the only one who can undo it.”

  “The only way to do that is to prove somebody else is the murderer. Do you have a single shred of evidence against Diogenes?”

  Hayward frowned. “Margo Green described her assailant as—”

  “Margo Green was attacked in a darkened room. Her testimony would never hold up.” Singleton hesit
ated. “Look, Laura,” he said in a gentler voice. “Let’s not bullshit each other here. I know what you’re going through. Hooking up with someone on the force is never easy. Breaking up with them is even harder. And with Vincent D’Agosta in the middle of this case, I don’t wonder you feel a touch of—”

  “D’Agosta and I are ancient history,” Laura interrupted. “I don’t appreciate that insinuation. And for that matter, I don’t appreciate this visit of yours.”