Carl and I were superfluous, just cinnamon sugar on the toast. We knew the collections we were researching inside out, but the museum could run just fine without us.
Victor? Could we do without darling Victor? Sure. We could run the museum without him for a week or two. But then one of the more difficult donors would call, or the architect for the new building, or Dean Saltonstall. No one could butter up the Dean like Victor.
Clearly, we couldn't spare any more chess pieces.
CHAPTER 35
PURGED
I came in early Monday morning feeling like crap. Sleep had eluded me for days and my psyche was as rumpled as a heap of tangled sheets and blankets. To shore up my mood, I had dressed in a smart red tunic with matching pants (Land's End, on sale). Now all I needed was caffeine-preferably intravenously.
Extracting my exhibit list from my briefcase, I descended the stairs to the third floor. My new black leather Rockports made hardly any sound as I approached the Registration suite. Registration shared space with Exhibit Preparation and Conservation in a series of interconnected rooms. We had a common open area for extra storage and the crucial coffeemaker.
The rooms were deserted. Ginny wasn't in yet-good. I could have my first cup of coffee in peace while I figured out which of the many backed-up projects I should tackle first. I picked up my favorite mug that resembled a Greek vase, with red athletes on a black ground, and then noticed that the coffee pot wasn't even plugged in. Damn. Now I'd have to wait for my fix.
As I waited for the fresh coffee to drip, I glanced around at the controlled chaos of Ginny's re-cataloguing operation. Extra desks and wildly mismatched furniture had been dragged in to make extra workstations for our students, and the electrical system was on the verge of overload with the number of computers plugged into it. I wondered if the Fire Department had seen this recently. We were probably breaking code.
I filled my mug only half-full (I was trying not to become addicted to caffeine, and one way to cut down was less coffee in the same number of cups). Adding Equal and fake creamer, I noticed that a stack of folders had tipped onto the floor. Strange-Ginny was so compulsive about neatness. Surely this had happened after she departed.
Now caffeinated and more or less awake, I crossed to my prep table and was checking off items already in the gallery when my ballpoint pen went dry. I scanned the room for other writing implements, but they had all walked.
Pulling out my key ring, I crossed to the supply closet and then stopped. That was odd-the door wasn't locked; it wasn't even closed. I opened it and flicked on the light switch.
Betsy's congested face loomed in front of me. A piece of packing cord was twisted around her arms, and her plump body was lying awkwardly against the shelves that held extra office supplies.
Then I saw her eyes, bulging and motionless, and I gagged. Betsy's lifeless mouth was covered with a piece of duct tape.
Another murder. My squishy brain jiggled in its cranium and my stomach surged upwards.
I retreated hastily, holding my hands uselessly over my own mouth. Too late-I threw up my breakfast in the sink.
After the trembling had eased and I could move again, I rinsed out my mouth and reached for the wall phone.
"Hello," Susie's sultry voice sounded.
"Susie, it's Lisa. I think you'd better call an ambulance." My voice wavered. "And the police. I just found Betsy dead in the Registration storage closet."
"Oh, no! Oh not again!" Susie's voice rose several notches. I heard a choking sound and then the phone fell to the floor with a clatter.
I hung on grimly, wondering how long it would take Susie to recover.
"Lisa, are you all right?" Ellen had picked up the phone.
"No. I mean, yes, I'm okay. Betsy's not." I told her what had happened.
"How awful. I'll be right there, after I make those phone calls." Ellen hung up.
I slumped into the chair next to the phone and tried not to recall what I had just seen.
Ellen arrived a few minutes later at a run. "Where is she?"
My arm was suddenly heavy, so heavy I could barely lift it. I pointed to the closet.
Ellen looked, her back rigid and her hands clenched. Then she whirled around to face the wall.
Suppressing another surge of nausea that rose to my throat, I forced myself to look again and remember the details. Then, I focused on Ellen. My dear friend's forehead was shiny with sweat and she looked like she was going to keel over. I led Ellen to another chair and made her sit down, thinking furiously.
Had the murderer meant to kill Betsy? Or just to silence her?
? ? ? ?
The Crime Scene Unit returned, with both Clyde and McEwan this time. They processed the entire third floor working area and sealed off the door leading into Registration. Although the public galleries were all on the fourth floor, Victor closed the museum for the remainder of the day so the police could interview the staff and volunteers.
I didn't have a chance for a private chat with McEwan until a couple of hours later, after the formal interviews had been completed. He stopped me in the hall.
"Hey, Ms. Donahue! We need to talk again."
I turned around reluctantly. "Okay."
"Not here, young lady. Let's go across the street for some coffee."
Just what I needed-more coffee to add to the churning sea of acid in my stomach. I told Susie I was stepping out for a few minutes, and followed McEwan's loping gallop down the stairs. I admired his energy but couldn't copy it; I felt a hundred years old after what I'd seen.
The little diner was almost empty at this hour, so we could have some privacy. McEwan chose a corner table and soon we were equipped with steaming mugs of straight-out-of-the-can dark stuff-no lattes or espresso here. My companion hitched the empty chair closer for a footrest and gave a cursory swipe to his graying hair. He looked tired. I wondered how many dead bodies McEwan had seen in his career, and whether he had gotten used to the sight. I decided not to ask.
McEwan wanted to know where I had been the previous day. I explained that I had driven back from my father's house on the Cape after dinner and had gone straight to my apartment.
He wrote this down in his notebook, apparently satisfied with my answer. Then he said he needed my version of finding Betsy.
"What did you notice this time?"
"Well, it's murder-again. I think she suffocated. That tape covered both her nose and mouth and didn't leave her any room to breathe."
"You're right. Anything else?"
"Well, it's odd that Betsy was found in Registration. She was supposed to be guarding a gallery yesterday afternoon. Why would she go downstairs?"
"Didn't she work on the third floor during the week? She might have forgotten something she needed."
"I suppose so." I knew Betsy was lazy enough that she wouldn't leave her chair unless hunger-or boredom-drove her.
McEwan wrapped up his questioning and seemed ready to go, but I had another question. "Am I still a suspect myself? For the first attack?"
McEwan's obsidian eyes locked onto mine. After a moment of deliberation, he said, "We have a witness that saw someone running out the back entrance the night Marion was attacked. But you are not supposed to know this."
"Male or female?" I asked.
"Nondescript. Tall, wearing something dark."
I thought about it. "Could be a number of people from our building. And there are all those folks in Sociology. As far as I know, we all have keys and come and go as we please."
"And, as you pointed out, the building has no less than three entrances. It could also be a stray visitor, or someone who got in before the doors were locked."
"But you don't think so." I made it a statement.
"Correct. It is much more likely to be someone who knows a lot about-and has access to-your museum. That means you need to be more careful; you're going to get in someone's way and get yourself hurt if you keep going into storerooms and using other people's compute
rs."
"But we all do that!" I protested. "We're a small staff with only a few undergraduate assistants and limited equipment. We all move around the building a lot. I don't think I've done anything to make whoever it is suspicious."
McEwan honored me with a reluctant grin. "Okay, okay. We're short-staffed too. But it will be my neck in the guillotine if you get attacked because you were snooping for me."
I noticed that the crinkles around his eyes gave him a kind expression when he smiled. "I haven't talked to anyone except my boyfriend-and he's not on the staff."
"Good," he responded. "But tell me, too-the very hour it happens, not days or weeks later. Okay, Ms. Donahue?" He got up and scooped up both coffee mugs in one smooth gesture and put them in the bin.
CHAPTER 36
WEIGHING OF THE HEART
"Second Murder in the Museum!" screamed the Boston Globe's headlines the next morning. We figured by that by the evening edition, we'd be all over the other papers as well.
The Globe had a particularly juicy account of my discovery of Betsy, with sidebars on the first murder. I groaned into my cappuccino and plotted how to evade the ravenous reporters.
I arrived early, but they were camped out in front of the building, jabbering on their cell phones and lurking with camcorders and notebooks at the ready. No doubt they were also hiding spies in the back parking lot. As I locked my car, I was mobbed. A dozen microphones were thrust into my face.
"Are you the curator who found the body?"
"No comment." I was determined not to say anything; Victor would have my head. If he wore a velvet glove for good publicity, then he wielded an iron fist for negative publicity: "Thou shalt not talk to reporters without my permission!"
"Ms. Donahue, how did you feel when you saw the body of your colleague?"
Wonderful, naturally.
"Aren't you the one who found the first body?"
Ghouls, the lot of them. I made it to the door by using my elbows and briefcase as battering rams and turned around to face the throng. "You're wasting your time with me. Our director, Dr. Fitzgerald, is the only one who can talk to the press."
"When will he give us a statement?" called out one reporter.
"I don't know, but I'm sure it will be soon." I escaped into the building and hurried to my office.
I was desperate to reach James-he had never called back, and I'd decided that sacrificing my miserable pride was better than the rising tide of guilt and loneliness. I dialed his number. He still wasn't there. Crossing my fingers, I left another abject apology on his machine. After hanging up, I sat dejected, trying to remember when James had said he was going out of town to the Radiology conference. It could be this week, which would explain why he hadn't gotten the message. Feeling a little less depressed, I headed to the lounge for our emergency staff meeting.
Everyone was there, looking scared and frazzled to various degrees. Only Susie managed to look cool and kempt like a freshly licked cat. Carl sported a surly expression and a day's growth of beard, and Ellen's eyes were shadowed with anxiety.
Victor started with a brief update on Betsy's murder. "The room where she was found is closed to us until the police complete their investigation. Don't worry, Lisa," he added, nodding at me, "We'll let you back in as soon as possible. Now pay attention, all of you: you can't work evenings unless there is a policeman on duty. Since we have another opening coming up, I have asked Sergeant McEwan if we can have an officer stationed in the galleries the two nights before 'Bound for Eternity' opens. And no one works weekends except the hours when the museum is open to the public. Understood?"
We all nodded. Then he said, "I'm sure you all had to run the gauntlet this morning with the reporters. If you are approached again, tell them I'll be making a statement this afternoon at three. And I am sure I don't need to add that it's even more important than before to cooperate fully with the police." He kept his chilly gaze on our faces until he got a couple more nods.
Victor turned to Ellen. "Now for regular business. Do you have the conservation report?"
"Yes," said Ellen importantly. "And it's not good. The terracotta antefix is a fake."
Several people gasped, and Victor made a moue of disgust. "Give us the details, Ellen," he said.
"Well, we did XRD and SEM..."
"What?" said Carl.
"Sorry. X-ray diffraction, which gives the mineral composition of the ceramic, and scanning electron microscopy, or SEM. SEM has a nifty attachment that identifies specific elements-either an energy dispersive or wavelength dispersive spectrometer with..." She realized her audience was nodding off. "Well, never mind about that. The important thing is, the clay and the glaze don't match ancient Greek examples that have been tested by same techniques. So we have yet another forgery in our collection."
I looked at Victor. "Seems like we should uncover this sort of thing sooner. Isn't there a way we could prevent this from happening again?"
"Certainly," replied Victor frostily. "The new policy Ellen and I developed is that anything we are thinking of acquiring will be tested-before the purchase, not after. All the artifacts that have turned out to be problems were acquired before I got here." So Ellen had talked to him after all. His gaze swept around the room and included everyone. "I am confident that we have no more fakes in our collections than any other major museum. Remember, all this scientific testing is relatively new."
I wasn't so sure that our museum wasn't ahead of the curve. "Ellen, what was the number of the antefix?"
"1987.01.0012. Why?" Ellen was watching me intently.
"Just curious." I realized it was the same year and lot number as the fake car-tonnage. And then I wished I hadn't mentioned it in a staff meeting. Remember, McEwan said I should be more careful...
The voices faded as I retreated to the musty chambers of my head. Maybe Marion had caught onto some of this forgery business and weird numbering and that's why she was murdered.
If that was true, it meant someone currently on the staff was dealing in fake antiquities and altering artifact numbers.
And it was someone who was extremely familiar with the ins and outs of the database. That meant Carl, Ginny, or Ellen.
Carl was the most likely, given his odd behavior, his locked files, and his appearance at the museum at strange hours. But how was I going to prove it?
? ? ? ?
My distraction lasted until after lunch, when I decided to catch up on my e-mail.
The first message jerked me into total awareness.
"You may think it's fun to be a police spy. Do you want your daughter to get hurt? Stop snooping, or she'll pay the consequences."
I was glued to my chair while my brain raced like an overloaded blow dryer. Emma! How could I protect her when I was at work all day? Sure, I took her back and forth to school and after-school daycare, but the teachers took the kids on outings. Then there was the playground. Instantly I pictured a sinister figure in a long raincoat, lurking by the fence to lure my daughter out onto the street, stuff her into a waiting car...
No, he-they-would be cleverer than that. A woman, non-threatening, looking like someone's mom, would persuade Emma to leave with her...
Fear roared over me in a tidal wave. I was tumbling in the icy surf, mashed into the hard sandy bottom, struggling for air.
Get a grip, Lisa.
I forced myself to breathe deeply and count to one hundred. When my panic had slowed to a salty trickle, my brain started to work again. I checked Eudora for message headers. The long string of letters and numbers indicated the message had come through the University e-mail system, but what about before that? I tried clicking on the "source" heading. The address looked foreign.
I dialed McEwan's cell phone.
"McEwan here," said his gruff voice.
"It's Lisa. I've just had an anonymous e-mail threatening my daughter if I don't stop snooping."
I described what I had found. He told me how to forward the message with all its headers
to his Computer Crimes Unit. "Probably we won't get anything," he warned me. "Too many people know how to re-route e-mails, either within the U.S. or overseas servers so they can't be traced."
"That figures," I said gloomily. "I don't suppose you have enough officers that you could put someone at my daughter's playground?"
"Sorry, no," was the predicable reply. "You know we're short-staffed."
"Besides making sure Emma is with someone all the time, what can I do?"
"Absolutely nothing. Stick to your job-and quit snooping. Leave the detecting to us. You've been a big help, Ms. Donahue, but it's time to protect yourself and your family. Stay out of it-but stay in touch."
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