Conspiracy to Murder

by Heather Graham

  “The incidents might not be related,” Kieran said.

  “Oh, please! Don’t tell me Henry wasn’t murdered! Don’t tell me I want that to be the case because I don’t want to believe he went crazy and committed suicide.”

  “I’m not saying that at all. Here’s the thing. You were in the desert, so it had to be someone there. Henry’s dead and maybe this would-be killer is playing on that. Or maybe the two are related. The problem is, I don’t know anyone involved. It’s hard enough to make judgment calls when you’ve had a chance to speak with people and question them.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m sorry.”

  “That said…”

  “Yes?”

  Kieran smiled and shrugged. “You’ve had as much education as me, if not more.”

  “Ah, but in different courses! I need more in psychology.”

  “Specifically in human emotions. Like jealousy.”

  “Jealousy? As in…someone who wanted to be a famed Egyptologist?”

  “Possibly. Some people kill because they’re deranged. They’re psychotic, or they’re sociopaths. Then, of course, you have the usual motives. Love, greed, hatred…jealousy. Think about everyone involved if you’re convinced that the two situations are related. The rest of us weren’t there. Only you know the dynamics among all the people who were on that expedition.”

  “I can’t imagine anyone who would’ve wanted Henry dead. I just can’t.”

  “It’s not that you can’t. It’s that you don’t want to,” Kieran told her.

  They’d reached Rector Street and the old warehouse apartment that legally belonged to Harley’s uncle, who was mostly out of state now and had generously given the large, rent-controlled space to Harley while she finished her degree and decided on her permanent vocation.

  The driver hopped out of the car, opening the door for Harley. Kieran leaned out to say goodbye and thank the man.

  “Get on home, get into bed, go to sleep,” Kieran said. “Much better to start fresh in the morning.”

  Harley gave her a quick hug and a peck on the cheek. “Thanks. Thanks for getting me here. But… I’ll be back on it in the morning.”

  Kieran grinned. “We’d expect no less.” She leaned back in the car and the driver shut the door. He offered Harley a grave nod, and waited until she was safely at the door to her building.

  Harley keyed open the lock and waved to the night clerk on duty at the refurbished twenty-floor building. Then she took the ancient elevator to the tenth floor. It wheezed and moaned, and she wondered if Mr. Otis himself had seen it installed in the building. However, it worked smoothly, and she was soon on her floor and in the spacious area she knew she was incredibly lucky to have in New York City. The building had once housed textile machinery and storage. She had over a thousand square feet with massive wall-length windows that looked out on the city with a special view of Grace Church. Harley knew she was blessed to have this space, and reminded herself to send Uncle Theo another thank-you. A counter separated the kitchen from the dining area and living room, while wrought iron winding stairs led up to the open loft space that was her bedroom. Her mom had told her that the apartment had once been Uncle Theo’s bachelor pad, but at the ripe old age of sixty-five, he’d met Helen, the love of his life, and they were happily enjoying the pleasures of Naples, Florida, year round. Helen, a spring chicken of fifty-five, was delighted that Harley was watching over the place, just so they’d have a place to crash when they came up to see friends.

  Harley found herself staring out at her view of Grace Church.

  Home, bed, sleep.

  Impossible.

  Henry Tomlinson, an Egyptologist by trade, had loved Grace Church. The church itself dated back over two hundred years, although the current building went back to the 1840s, with new sections added along with the decades. Gothic and beautiful, it was the kind of living history that Henry loved.

  She wondered if Vivian Richter was still hanging on. She thought about calling the hospital, but they probably wouldn’t give her any information.

  Home, bed, sleep.

  She could try.

  Climbing up the stairs to her bedroom, she quickly changed into a cotton nightshirt and crawled beneath the covers. She realized she hadn’t closed the drapes.

  She stared out at the facade of Grace Church.

  Yes, Henry would have loved a view like this.

  What was Henry’s niece, Simone, thinking tonight?

  And Micah Fox? How had he arranged time off? How had he managed to be there? Would he figure something out?

  She prayed for sleep, but her mind kept returning to that time in the Sahara. Being part of the expedition had been such a privilege. She remembered the way they’d all felt when they’d broken through to the tomb. Satima Mahmoud—the pretty Egyptian interpreter who had so enchanted Joe Rosello—had been the first to scream when the workers found the entry.

  Of course, Henry Tomlinson was called then. He’d been there to break the seal. They’d all laughed and joked about the curses that came with such finds, about the stupid movies that had been made.

  Yes, people had died during other expeditions—as if they had been cursed. The Tut story was one example—and yet, by all accounts, there had been scientific explanations for everything that’d happened.

  Almost everything, anyway.

  And their find…

  There hadn’t been any curses. Not written curses, at any rate.

  But Henry had died. And Henry had broken the seal…

  No mummy curse had gotten to them; someone had killed Henry. And that someone had gotten away with it because neither the American Department of State nor the Egyptian government had wanted the expedition caught in the crosshairs of an insurgency. Reasonably enough!

  But now…

  For some reason, the uneasy dreams that came with her restless sleep weren’t filled with mummies, tombs, sarcophagi or canopic jars. No funerary objects whatsoever, no golden scepters, no jewelry, no treasures.

  Instead, she saw the sand. The endless sand of the Sahara. And the sand was teeming, rising up from the ground, swirling in the air.

  Someone was coming…

  She braced, because there were rumors swirling, along with the sand. Their group could fall under attack—there was unrest in the area. Good Lord, they were in the Middle East!

  But she found herself walking through the sand, toward whomever or whatever was coming.

  She saw someone.

  The killer?

  She kept walking toward him. There was more upheaval behind the man, sand billowing dark and heavy like a twister of deadly granules.

  Then she saw him.

  And it was Micah Fox.

  She woke with a start.

  And she wondered if he was going to be her salvation…

  Or a greater danger to her heart, a danger she hadn’t yet seen.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Micah did his best to remain calm and completely in control. That was definitely a hard-won skill from the academy.

  It was the crack of dawn, the morning after the event, and he’d been called in to see Director Richard Egan. Alone.

  Egan was Craig’s immediate boss. The man was Hard-ass, Craig had told him, but in a good way. He had the ability to choose the right agent for the right case in the criminal division.

  He’d also fight tooth and nail when he thought the agency should be involved. He’d take a giant step back, too, when he thought he’d be interfering with the local authorities.

  They were often part of a task force, but it didn’t seem there was going to be one in this situation. Hell, there might not even be any official FBI involvement. At the moment, they were looking at what might have been a murder thousands of miles away, and what might ha
ve been an attempted murder at a museum opening. It might also have been some kind of bizarre ritual or prank.

  Several morning newspapers—among the few still available in print—were on Egan’s desk. The front pages all held stories with headlines similar to the first one he read: Mummies Walk in New York City!

  Egan glanced at the papers and shook his head, dismayed, Micah thought, more by people’s readiness to believe such nonsense than he was by the disturbing headlines.

  “You see? Everyone will be going crazy. Thank God that woman didn’t die—thank God she didn’t die, no matter what—but with this mummy craze…there’ll be pressure. The press will not give it up. So. Let me get this straight,” Egan said. “You have lots of leave time?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m on leave now.”

  “But you started off taking some of that leave and traveling to Egypt.”

  “Yes, sir.” He hesitated. “That was a year ago. I took several weeks then, and I’m taking several more now. I’m never sick. I’ve accrued other time as well and work with a great group. So, last year…”

  Egan was waiting.

  “I came back. I’d heard that Henry Tomlinson, an old friend, had died under unusual circumstances. I tried to reach the site, but when I got there, it had been cleared out. I tried to track down his body, but I was behind by several steps. But you know all this.” He hesitated. “I’m a bit of a workaholic, sir. Like I said. I put in a lot of time, and wind up owed a fair amount of time off.”

  “And you use your leave working, I see.”

  “I flew all over last year, being given the runaround. Our people in Cairo helped, but they were stonewalled, too. And a lot of the time, certain Egyptian officials acted as if I was an idiot and an annoyance. According to them, they were trying to keep people alive and I was making waves about a dead man. It was too late for them to do anything, of course. I pursued it as far as I could, but Henry’s niece had been told that her beloved uncle had died in a horrible accident and, abiding by his wishes, had him cremated. Can’t autopsy a pile of ashes.”

  “Our people in the Middle East would’ve done exactly what you did,” Egan assured him.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But?”

  “But I knew Henry Tomlinson,” he said. “He was a friend. He was also a good man. His death deserved a decent investigation, which—due to the circumstances, I know—he did not get.”

  Egan was quiet for a minute.

  Then he said, “And you just happened to be at the museum tonight when a woman, wrapped in would-be old linen tainted with nicotine poison, came crashing into the ceremony.”

  “So that was it, nicotine poisoning. Hmm. But I didn’t just happen to be at the event, sir. I was there purposely. As I said, I knew Henry Tomlinson. I loved the guy. I was there to honor him.”

  “But Craig Frasier has an involvement because his cousin Harley was on the expedition.”

  Micah shrugged, but kept his eyes steady on Egan’s.

  “You’re a good agent, Micah,” Egan said after a moment. “I’ve seen your service record. I know your supervisor.”

  Micah lifted his hands. “Sir—”

  “Yeah, whatever, forget about it,” Egan said flatly.

  “Begging your pardon, sir, but—”

  “I heard the cop on the case is a dick.” He grinned. “In more ways than one.”

  Startled, Micah raised his brows.

  Egan laughed. “The guy’s partner, Rydell, actually called me. He wanted to apologize for McGrady’s behavior. I guess the guy was hoping it would turn into a murder case and that it would be his—and he wanted the FBI out of it.”

  “I see.”

  “Don’t worry. The FBI is in. Taking lead.”

  “Really?” He’d decided to stay calm, so made a point of not betraying his surprise and delight.

  Egan leaned back, studying him. “The case began in the Middle East. It entails far more than the City of New York.”

  Micah felt his pulse soar, but he still maintained his composure.

  “That’s excellent, sir. And…”

  “Yes, I’ve spoken with your office. You and Craig can take lead on the case. Mike—you know, Craig’s partner, Mike?—he needs some vacation time, and if you’re here and we’re taking this on, I’m going to go ahead and give it to him. So it’ll be the two of you. Work with the cops, though, and any other agencies that may become entangled in this. We’ll have State Department and embassies involved, too, I imagine. Anyway, our victim from last night regained consciousness thirty minutes ago. I’ve asked that they let you and Craig do the talking. You are no longer on leave. I suggest you get moving.”

  “Yes, sir, absolutely. Thank you.”

  “Just get the son of a bitch,” Egan said.

  Micah nodded and started out.

  “Hey!” Egan called, stopping him.

  “Sir?” Micah walked back.

  “I didn’t hear much about that whole mess in Egypt. What ever happened with the insurrection?”

  “Over before it began, from what I understand,” Micah told him. “By the time I landed in Cairo, the expedition people were on planes headed out. And the military had routed the coup—it was more of a student protest than anything else. Sadly, it’s a fact that there’s a lot of unrest in the Middle East, for various reasons. Anyway, it was over, but the expedition was gone. I went out to the site, but…by then, there was nothing to find. Everything had been cleaned out.”

  “And the insurgents?”

  “A few arrests. Most of them dispersed when the military came on the scene.”

  “In retrospect it might look like overkill, but better safe than sorry,” Egan said.

  “Of course, always,” Micah agreed.

  But as he left Egan’s office, he found himself wondering, for the first time, whether the insurgent event had been planned to ensure that Henry Tomlinson’s death wasn’t investigated.

  Maybe he was pushing it, getting paranoid.

  Maybe he was taking a conspiracy theory too far.

  And yet…

  Had there been some kind of conspiracy?

  * * *

  “WHAT DO YOU THINK?” Jensen asked Harley.

  She was back at the museum, in the Amenmose exhibit; she hadn’t been able to resist. Jensen had called her, saying that with Vivian in the hospital, he could use some extra help, so she’d come.

  “They’ve delayed the opening by a day,” he’d told her over the phone early that morning. “But with Vivian out of the picture—temporarily, of course!—and especially since you were there and have a memory like a camera, you can help me with loose ends, tying things up, paperwork.”

  She’d assured him that she’d be there.

  Jensen had told her he’d never left the museum the night before. He didn’t look tired, but he was one of those people who could work for days, then sleep twenty-four hours, party a night away, and work a full load again. Jensen could be absolutely tireless.

  “I think the exhibit is so special. Just like Henry,” she said quietly.

  They were standing in the temple area, right where she’d stood the night before when Micah Fox had come upon her. But she wasn’t staring at the exhibit, which was surrounded by the glass-and-concrete walk and the “river”; rather, she was looking back at the hall that led to the temple.

  One broad corridor led here, with six smaller chambers off the main hall. The temple faced east, in the direction of the sunrise, since it was dedicated to the sun god, Ra. It wasn’t filled with statues. Instead, it was open to the glass that revealed the sun.

  “The earliest known temple to Ra,” Harley said, smiling.

  Jensen nodded. “Info on Ra, on Tutankhamen, Ay and Amenmose are on the side there. Near Amenmose’s mummy.”
That was on display in a small room, which it had all to itself. “The hallways feature a lot of the fabulous funerary art we found,” Jensen continued.

  “Which is surprising, don’t you think?” Harley asked.

  “How do you mean? That we have anything left—after running out with our tails between our legs?”

  “Running out with our tails between our legs was the only thing to do,” Harley replied. “No, of course, the historical assumption is that Amenmose was murdered. By someone under Ay, who knew that Amenmose wanted to usurp his power with the boy king, Tutankhamen. Our discovery proved that he was murdered, once we were back in the States and the body was properly identified through the DNA testing.”

  “He’d been strangled!” Jensen said.

  “Like Henry,” Harley murmured.

  “Well, we don’t really know about Henry.”

  “I do.”

  Jensen shrugged. “In this case,” he said, “when it comes to Amenmose, X-rays that show fractured hyoid bones don’t lie.”

  “But we have no clue who did it.”

  “I’m willing to bet Ay did it himself.”

  “Oh, today, in one of our courts, Ay would be guilty. He’d be guilty of conspiracy to commit murder. It was his idea, I’m sure. But that’s just it. Somehow, Amenmose still ended up being properly mummified and placed in an inner coffin and several sarcophagi and laid to rest in his tomb. So who killed him? And who got the body and managed to bury it with such honor?”

  “Hey, I’m the Egyptologist here!” Jensen reminded her.

  “Yes, and I’m the criminologist. We’ve got to know who did it and why,” Harley said lightly.

  “I think we can rest assured that the murderer has long since gone to his own reward,” Jensen said, grinning.

  “Amenmose’s murderer.”

  “Ah! But not whoever murdered Henry, right? Is that what you mean?”

  She nodded.

  “Your cousin’s FBI and that other guy, Micah, he is, too. They’ll get to the truth. And now, because of what happened to Vivian, they’ll keep going,” he said with confidence. “And guess what? We sold out. We didn’t open today as planned, obviously, but we will tomorrow…and it’s a total sellout. Not that sales weren’t good before, but now that we have mummies walking around, we’re a real hit.”