Last Breath

by Mariah Stewart

  The mosquitoes were the next to arrive, and to Daria’s mind, they were the last straw.

  She’d made several phone calls to Louise and they brought each other up to date. She’d called her sister, Iona, and her brother, Sam, and was greatly disappointed at having to leave messages for both.

  The next time Connor came out of the house, she waved him over.

  “I’m really sorry that we’ve been held up here for so long,” he apologized as he approached her, “but I think we should be able to leave very soon.”

  “I never knew a crime scene was so complicated, so many people coming and going.”

  “I suspect what they’re doing here isn’t so very different from what you do.” He pulled out the chair next to hers and sat. “What do you do when you find a tomb to excavate, for example?”

  “We go layer by layer, photographing, drawing diagrams. We number whatever we find, note the layers of soil or rock. If we find remains, we note their condition and study them thoroughly before they’re moved. We make sketches, we photograph everything in context.”

  “Same here. The entire scene is photographed, evidence is numbered and photographed in situ, marked and tagged and placed in evidence bags. The body is carefully examined before it’s moved. Not much difference, really.”

  “The difference is that the remains I deal with are often thousands of years old, not newly dead.” She felt uncomfortable with the admission. “Actually, I’ve never seen a newly dead body. My experiences with death have all been secondhand, in that I study the context of the remains, I study what’s been left behind. But I don’t have to study a flesh and blood body. For me, the experiences have been more intellectual than emotional.”

  “Ahhh,” he said softly. “I understand. I can see why this must be very upsetting for you. I’ll check inside, see if anyone needs anything else from me.”

  When Connor was halfway to the door, she called to him. “Do you think we could take Sweet Thing with us?”

  “What?”

  “Sweet Thing. That’s her name.” Daria pointed to the dog’s collar. “It’s on her tag.”

  “I’ll ask.”

  “What would they normally do?”

  “Probably take her to a shelter.”

  “I’d hate to think of her being in one of those places. She’s probably confused enough. I’d like to take her back to Howe.”

  “Let me see what Vince Coliani, the lead detective, thinks about that.”

  He disappeared into the house. When he returned ten minutes later, he had a leash in one hand and the bag of dog food in the other.

  “He said it was okay?” Daria’s eyes lit up when she saw what he carried.

  “He said just take her and go quietly. If any next of kin show up and want the dog, he’ll give me a call. Frankly, I think he was glad I offered. His life just got very complicated, so it’s one less detail for him to handle. So we’ll just take Sweetie Pie-”

  “Sweet Thing,” she said.

  “Right. Let’s just get in the car and go on back to Howe.”

  He opened the passenger-side door for her, and she got in.

  “You’re going to have to make room for her somehow. She’s probably going to have to sit on your lap,” Connor told her. “Are you going to be all right with that?”

  “Sure.” Daria somehow managed to get the seat belt on and the dog situated on her lap.

  She heard the trunk slam and a moment later Connor slid in behind the wheel.

  “I put the rest of her things in the trunk,” he said, handing her the dog’s leash. “I hope Louise is all right with you bringing her back.”

  “I already asked. She doesn’t mind.”

  “You spoke with her?” Connor started the car and backed out between two police cruisers.

  “Several times. My dance card wasn’t exactly full tonight.”

  “Sorry. Crime scenes take a while to process.”

  “I know. I don’t mean to complain. And I realize that poor Mr. Cross-they’re still assuming it was him, right?”

  “Yes. His wallet was in the pants pocket.”

  “It was the same, wasn’t it? The same as Elena Sevrenson?”

  Connor nodded and turned onto the road.

  “This is really frightening. Two people-”

  “Actually, four. I got a call back from Will Fletcher, our computer geek. It appears the Blumes died the same way.”

  “Dear God.” Daria leaned back against the headrest. “You told the detective back there about the others?”

  “Of course. I had to.”

  “I guess he’ll contact the Philadelphia police and the police out where the Blumes lived.”

  “He already has. Which is what I meant when I said his life just got complicated. And the press hasn’t even gotten hold of the story yet. I expect we’ll be hearing from them very soon.”

  “Good Lord, I hadn’t thought about that.” She frowned. “Do you think it will all come out, even about the thefts?”

  “I’d bet my life on it.”

  “Do you think it will hurt the school?”

  “Are you kidding? This story is going to guarantee that once the museum is opened, Howe won’t be able to handle the crowds. The public eats up this sort of thing. They’re going to want to know more about Shandihar, about Alistair, about you.”

  “Ugh.” Daria grimaced. “Next thing you know, someone’s going to be talking about a curse.”

  “If there isn’t one, someone will invent it.”

  The dog tried to get off her lap and onto the floor, so Daria moved the seat back as far as it would go.

  “I can pretty much shoot that down. I certainly read no such thing in Alistair’s journals, and I never heard about anything like that from my father.”

  “Your father read the journals?”

  “Years ago. He lectured at Howe as an adult and he had an opportunity to read them, but most of what he knows he learned from talking to his father.”

  “His father being one of Alistair McGowan’s sons?”

  “Yes.”

  “We need to find out who else could have known about the artifacts in the museum basement. And who knew enough about Shandihar to know about the wicked punishments the priestesses meted out when they were pissed off.”

  “I asked Louise who else might have read the journals.”

  “And?”

  “The journals have been kept in the president’s office in a glass case all these years, for at least as long as Louise has been at Howe. She said they were in the case when she took the job, and thinks they might have been there all along. She noted that the condition of the bindings and the paper is exceptional for books that old, which they would be if they’d been kept behind glass and out of the sunlight all these years.”

  “Which doesn’t mean they hadn’t been removed, read, and returned over the years.”

  “Well, they have been, several times that she knows of. Members of the archaeology department have borrowed them, but never for any length of time.”

  “I’m assuming she knows who those department members were?”

  “Only the ones during her tenure. Not before that.”

  “She can’t be certain that they’ve always been kept in her office. There’s always the chance that someone else had them. Maybe they were even in the library.”

  “That’s highly unlikely.” Daria shook her head. “I’ve seen these books, and I’ve seen books of that same age that have been circulated even in a very limited way. I agree with Louise.”

  “By the way, I spoke with John this afternoon. He agrees with me that it’s time to turn the entire theft issue over to the NSAF.”

  “He’s probably right.” She looked out the window. “I thought it would be better to do this quietly, but with all these people dying…” She shook her head. “I think it’s best if someone who knows what they’re doing takes over from here.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  They
drove several miles in silence.

  “So, I guess you’ll be going on to another case.”

  “As soon as John has something for me. Right now, I’m sort of between jobs.”

  “What exactly do you do?” she asked.

  “A little of this, a little of that.” His eyes never left the road.

  “You’re very evasive, you know that?”

  He smiled as he pulled up to the stoplight, but he didn’t respond.

  “Louise said Dr. Bokhari will be back tomorrow night. Maybe she’ll have some insights.” Connor hadn’t talked about his job so far, and probably wasn’t going to now. And it really wasn’t any of her business, so she let it go.

  “Dr. Bokhari, the archaeology professor at Howe?”

  “Yes. I’m looking forward to meeting her, plus it will be interesting to see what she thinks about all this.”

  “What do you suppose will happen with the plans to reopen the museum? Do you think they’ll go ahead with it?”

  “That’s one of the things I spoke to Louise about. They’re definitely moving forward. They have armed guards at the museum now, and the meeting with the insurance people is scheduled for tomorrow. You were right. They are sending someone out to assess the building. Along with the risk manager, they’re sending a mechanical engineer to look over the systems, as well as a structural engineer. At the same time, a contractor hired by Howe is going to go through and see what renovations will be required.”

  “Sounds like a full house.”

  “I guess for me, the next logical step is to start planning the exhibits. What to put with what, how best to tell the story. Alistair’s as well as Shandihar’s. Their destinies were so closely tied together.” She smiled in the darkness. “And it’s such a romantic story, you know? Him getting sucked in by the ancient epics, struggling for so many years to find someone who believed in him, being turned down repeatedly.”

  “Until he met Benjamin Howe. How did they meet, by the way?”

  “Howe attended a lecture Alistair gave at the Wilmington Society for the Preservation of Antiquities. He’d always been interested in the past, and was looking for something that would give his college instant cachet. He spoke with Alistair after the lecture, and offered him a position, right there on the spot.”

  “Lucky break for Alistair.”

  “In every way. He found the funding he wanted and he found Shandihar. And he found the love of his life in Iliana. In one of his journals, he wrote about the first time he saw her. ‘My heart leapt within me at the very sight of her. It always would, ever thereafter.’ Isn’t that the most romantic thing you’ve ever heard?”

  “Romantic, yes, but Alistair died young; didn’t he? Before he got to see his find placed on exhibit to the public?”

  “He wasn’t so young; I think he was close to sixty when he died. Iliana was quite a bit younger than he was. And while he never did see his precious artifacts on display, he must have died knowing that he’d realized every dream he’d had. He left quite a legacy, in his work and in his family. I think he would have been very proud to know that his only grandson followed in his footsteps.”

  “Not to mention his great-granddaughter.”

  “Yes.” She turned her face to the window. “I like to think he’d have been proud of that. I’d like to think he’d have been proud of all of us. Dad, Sam, Iona, Jack. Me.”

  “That reminds me. We need to talk about your brother Jack.”

  “My mother is sending me copies of all the reports. Maybe the package will be here tomorrow.”

  “In that case, maybe you can steal a little time away tomorrow to look it over with me. Just to see if there’s anything else I need to know that’s not reflected in the PI’s reports.”

  “Are you sure you don’t mind? It could get complicated.”

  “Complications don’t scare me. Besides, I’ve been thinking about taking a few weeks off. Now’s just as good a time as any.”

  “I’ll bet you could think of better places to spend your vacation than Howeville, Pennsylvania.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so.” He glanced at her across the front seat. “I think I’m exactly where I want to be…”

  10

  I t was close to midnight when the Porsche parked in the visitor’s lot. The lights were still on in the president’s house and the museum, but Daria was too tired to care too much about what might be going on in either. With the exception of those two buildings, the campus was totally dark.

  Before she opened the car door, Daria snapped the leather leash onto Sweet Thing’s collar. The dog hopped out eagerly and immediately began to sniff the ground. Connor went to the trunk and retrieved the bag of dog food he’d taken from Damien Cross’s home.

  “I’ll walk you down to the house,” he told Daria as he took her arm.

  “I’m not afraid to walk back alone,” she replied. “After all, I have a ‘pit bull’ here to protect me.”

  “I think you were right about her personality. She really is more of a lamb than a lion.”

  “It will be nice to have her in the house. We always had dogs when we were growing up.”

  “What did you do with them while you were all globe-trotting?”

  “My mom’s sister kept whatever menagerie we had at any given time. She never had kids of her own, and was a really good sport about stuff like that.”

  “I guess it’s hard for you to have a pet these days.”

  “Actually, I have a parrot. I had him when I was in grad school. He got passed around from my brother to my sister and back again when I started spending more time out of the country than in it. These days, H.D. spends most of his time with my parents.”

  “H.D.?”

  “Hound Dog.” She grinned. “I was a big Elvis fan when I was younger.”

  “These days?”

  “Not so much.”

  They reached the end of the path leading to her door. Set between two enormous evergreens, the house appeared forbidding in the dark.

  “Let’s get you and the dog inside and get some lights on.” Connor stared up at the big house.

  “I’m fine, really, Connor. I’m not afraid of the dark. But I could use a hand getting the door open,” she said, as the dog strained at the leash.

  “Give me the key, and I’ll unlock the door.”

  It took him a minute to find the lock and then the keyhole in the dark, but he managed to turn the key and open the door. Once inside, she snapped on the overhead light in the hall.

  “Want the dog food in the kitchen?” he asked.

  “Yes, but you don’t have to-”

  “Sure I do.” He smiled and walked ahead of her toward the back of the house.

  Daria unhooked the dog’s leash and let her roam free to investigate her new home.

  “Do you have anything to use for dog dishes?” Connor asked when she came into the kitchen.

  “I think there are some glass bowls in this cabinet,” she told him. She found two-one for water, one for food-and turned to place them on the floor. She hesitated for a moment, a curious look on her face.

  “What?” He followed her gaze to the back window where Sweet Thing was sniffing with great purpose.

  “Nothing.” She shook her head. “I just thought…”

  She waved a hand dismissively.

  “What?” he asked again.

  “I thought I closed that window when I went to bed last night. I don’t remember opening it this morning. Of course, after the day we’ve had, I guess I’m lucky to remember my name.”

  He went to the window and peered out.

  “The screen’s gone,” he told Daria. “It was definitely on the window when I opened it last night.”

  Connor unlocked the back door and went outside, the dog trotting at his heels. When Daria started to lean out the window, he looked up and said, “Try not to touch anything around the window. We’re going to want to dust it for fingerprints.”

  He pointed to the ground. “Here�
�s your screen. It didn’t jump out of the window by itself.”

  “You think someone broke in?” She frowned.

  “Looks that way to me. Sweet Thing, too, judging from her reaction.”

  The dog was scratching and clawing at the screen. When Connor lifted it by a corner to keep her from shredding it completely, the dog leaped into the air to get to it. Connor had to hold it above his head to keep her from grabbing it.

  Connor came back into the kitchen holding Sweet Thing’s collar with one hand and the screen with the other. When he put the screen in the butler’s pantry and closed the door, the dog became agitated.

  “Why is she acting like that?” Daria frowned.

  “I think she smelled something she didn’t like,” Connor told her as he locked the back door. “Like maybe whoever handled that window.”

  “You think he’s gone? Whoever was in here?”

  “Yes, but I think he’s only recently gone. Like maybe he went out the back when he heard us coming in the front.”

  “That’s a pretty creepy thought. Not as creepy as thinking he might still be here, though.”

  He closed and locked the window carefully. “We’ll take a look through the house and double check just to make sure, and we can check to see if anything is missing.”

  It took them a half an hour to go from room to room, but they found nothing disturbed. No one in the closets, no one under the beds, no one in the attic.

  “Strange that someone would go to the trouble to break in to a house but not take anything,” Daria noted. “I wonder what he was looking for.”

  Maybe not what, but who, Connor couldn’t help but think.

  Connor went back into the kitchen where Daria’s laptop sat on the table.

  “Daria, do you remember what file you were working on today before we left for Centerville?”

  “Was that really only this morning?” She blew out a long breath. “It seems like days ago now.”

  “It sure does. But do you remember?” he persisted.

  “Sure. I’d made a list of the artifacts that we thought we might have located, and where they might be.”