“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.”
“I’ve seen the news and read a few of the papers. Yeah, what a great story. But there was no mummy walking around. That was Vivian. And speaking of her, how’s she doing? Have you heard anything?” Harley asked.
“Doing well, I understand. Awake and aware and lording it over the hospital staff. She’s going to be fine.”
“Thank God. But what’s she said?”
“Nothing. She remembers nothing. Who knows what’ll happen eventually? They’ll have shrinks in there and everything. At the moment, though...nothing.”
“But she’ll be okay. That’s the most important thing.”
“Of course,” Jensen agreed. Then he said, “So, what are you doing tonight?”
“What am I doing?” Harley repeated. She felt a strange tension. She’d almost dated Jensen when they were on the expedition. Almost. There was nothing to dislike. He was good-looking, he was smart, he was alpha-fun and...
She did like him.
But she suddenly dreaded the fact that he might be asking her out. There wouldn’t have been anything wrong with dating Jensen. They’d teased and they’d flirted and come close. But now she wanted to retreat; she wasn’t sure why. It must be everything that had happened, that was happening...
She didn’t want to turn him down. She wanted to be friends. Maybe she even wanted the relationship option left open.
“I’m, um... I’m not sure,” she said. “I came here this morning because you said you needed me, and I want to help.”
“This is social.”
“Oh. Well, um—”
He laughed softly. “Don’t worry. I’m not putting you on the spot. Not tonight. We wanted the whole group to get together. Those of us who were the last people with Henry,” he added.
“Oh. Okay. Well, you know that my cousin’s girlfriend owns a place and—”
“Yes! That’s right. What a great idea! Finnegan’s on Broadway. We were planning on meeting somewhere midtown, but once you’re on the subway, who cares? We talked, Belinda and Joe and Roger and I. And we thought we owed it to ourselves and to Henry to have our own private little event. Can you get us a corner at Finnegan’s? A reserved corner?”
“Anyone can make reservations. But—”
“But you’ll be someone they care about when you make the reservation.”
??
?It’s a pub. That means hospitality. They care about everyone.”
“But more about you.”
She gave up. “No problem. I’ll make the reservation.”
“Cool. So you’ll join us all?” Jensen asked her.
“Sure. It’ll be great.”
Would it be great? she wondered. What was going on with Vivian now? The woman hadn’t died; she was doing well. If that had changed, surely they’d all know.
And the majority of the museum was open, although there was a little time left for the cops to come back and look over the new stuff for the Henry Tomlinson section. Still...
“Love ya!” Jensen said, grabbing her by the shoulders and planting a quick kiss on her lips. “I’m so glad you’re in for tonight! I was afraid that you wouldn’t be.”
“Nope, I’m in,” Harley assured him. “Anyway, I thought there was work you needed me to do?”
“Yeah, look around the exhibit. Some of the work here is yours, like the prep stuff you were writing up before we even found the tomb. For someone who was going into criminology, you were quite the Egyptologist.”
“Hey, lots of people do more than one thing in life. I love Egyptology. It was my minor, just not my major.”
“That’s my point here. Thing is, check it all out. Make sure there are no imbecilic mistakes.”
“Okay. But I’m not the most qualified person to be doing this.”
“Oh, come on! You should’ve been an Egyptologist. You were so good at all the stuff we delved into. You knew who thought what, all about the argument over the gods, everything. And you cared about what we were doing. You just wanted to do more with fingerprints and DNA and the detecting part of it. But this exhibition is your baby, too. Check it out for me. You’re going to love it!”
He waved and started walking in the direction of the temple, then apparently decided he should go the other way. The temple was a dead end, except, of course, for museum employees. There was a back hall that led to the stairway and a number of museum offices.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“To clean up—after the cops!” he told her.
“Clean up what?”
He didn’t hear her or pretended not to. But he wasn’t heading to his office. She had no idea what he was up to.
She glanced at her watch.
That was all he wanted? For her to verify exhibits? He’d said he’d needed help because Vivian wasn’t there. And yet he didn’t really need much.
Did it matter? She’d never get a chance like this again.
She wasn’t even part of it all anymore; she was Jensen’s guest and she was a guest because once, she had been a part of it all. She didn’t embrace Egyptology with the same wonder that drove some of the others, but she did love ancient Egyptian history.
Nope, she probably wouldn’t have another opportunity to wander the exhibit entirely alone.
For a moment, she stood still, and then she smiled. She hurried to the right, slipping into one of the rooms where the social and political climate of Amenmose’s life and times were explained. She’d done a great deal of the research work and prepared a number of the papers from which the story in the exhibit had been taken.
Entering the first room, she looked around. Display cases held many items of day-to-day life; sure, there were fantastic necklaces and beautiful jewelry, but Harley had always been most fascinated by the storage jars, the pans and other cooking implements that told more about a basic everyday lifestyle.
The center in this exhibit was an exceptionally fine statue of the god Ra, depicted with the head of a falcon, the sun disc above him.
She read softly aloud. “‘Ra—ancient Egyptian sun god. By the fifth dynasty, in the 25th to 24th centuries BC, he had risen to prominence, and would be joined by others at various times. Tutankhamen’s great changes after his father’s reign and his own ascension to the throne involved bringing back the old religion. Under Akhenaten’s rule, the old gods had been disrespected; many statues and other honorary sites were destroyed. His dedication to his religion—he wanted to see the deity Aten, the disc of Ra, the sun god, worshipped above all else—caused a weakness in the Egyptian military and a lack of action that was seen as a betrayal by a number of the kingdom’s allies. Tutankhamen meant to undo the harm, as he saw it, his father had done. He wanted to bring back all the old gods, including Amun and Mut and others who made up the hierarchy of ancient Egyptian power. Amun-Ra, as Ra was often called, and the others would return. Tutankhamen felt his father’s legacy was one of destruction, and under his rule, the world would improve. To that end, he looked to the priest Amenmose, despite the fact that the priest Ay was in power as the boy king’s regent.’”
She let her words settle in the empty room. “Pretty good,” she said with satisfaction.
There was an inner sarcophagus of a handmaiden, buried with Amenmose, in the last of the horseshoe-shaped displays. The woman, at least judging by the artist who had painted her face for the sarcophagus, had been beautiful.
“What do you think?” she asked the image of the long-dead woman. “The New Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, Old Kingdom—it can all be so confusing. Not to mention the dynasties! Anyway, I think the display works, and I had a lot to do with that. It’s simple enough to be understood, without leaving out any important facts. Of course, in my view, young King Tut was probably murdered, too. But we’ll never find out now, since Howard Carter found that tomb so long ago!”
She read the little note beneath the sarcophagus. The young woman’s name had been Ser. She’d served Amenmose in his household. She hadn’t been killed for the purpose of being placed in his tomb. She’d succumbed to a fever before his death, and had been moved here to lie with the man she had served so loyally.
Next to her was a servant, Namhi. Like Amenmose, Namhi had been strangled. There was no explanation anywhere on his wrappings or in the tomb. From all that she had read, Harley suspected that either Namhi had been used as an instrument of murder, or he had belonged to the cult of Aten-Aten, a secret society pretending to agree with Tutankhamen’s return to the old religion while trying to undermine it at the same time. It had been suspected during Amenmose’s lifetime that Namhi was a leader of the cult. That alone would make Ay want to murder him, as well as Amenmose. But Amenmose might also have been murdered by Tutankhamen’s half sister or brother-in-law.
Ay had actually been the grand vizier. And, upon Tutankhamen’s death, he would become pharaoh.
“You all had motive,” Harley murmured.
Yes, just as it seemed everyone did today in the murder of Henry Tomlinson and the attempted murder of Vivian Richter. No one had a solid motive—or, rather, they all had the same motives! Fame, position in life, in society. But...was that enough to make someone kill?
Harley turned to look at the case where mummified animals were displayed. She was staring at a mummified cat when she heard the bone-chilling sound of a cat screeching as if all four paws and its tail had been caught in a car door.
She froze; she felt goose bumps forming all over her body.
There were no cats in the museum. Not living cats, anyway!
A complete silence followed the sound. And then Harley became certain that she heard movement in one of the side rooms off the Amenmose exhibit main hall.
She remained still, listening.
She’d spent her life priding herself on her logic. Obviously, a mummified cat had not let out a yowl. It was more than possible that someone else was in the exhibit. And possible that a cat had somehow found its way in. There might well be police in the prep areas and in the offices behind the public areas of the museum.
Despite her logical reasoning, there was no way to explain the sensations she was feeling. They were different from anything she’d ever known.
She quickly slipped from t
he side room where she’d been, the first one next to the temple. She thought she saw movement at the end of the hall.
A person, wearing something dark.
That hall was a dead end for visitors. There was a magnificent podium that held the giant-size lion sculptures that had guarded the inner door to the Amenmose tomb. You walked around it and saw the second side of the exhibit before exiting to the rest of the museum.
She told herself she had no reason to be afraid that someone was there. People worked here, for heaven’s sake! The cops and crime scene techs were probably still trying to figure out how Vivian Richter had been assaulted with nicotine poison.
But...
There’d been something furtive about the dark figure.
Well, at least it hadn’t been a mummy walking around. The person had definitely not been in decaying and frayed linen wrappings.
Whoever it was wore black. Head-to-toe black. Slinking around.
Crazy!
The room she was in displayed different stages of mummification. There was a life-size display in which a mannequin was being dried with natron on a prep table, while priests said their prayers and sprinkled him with some kind of herb water or oil. In the next window, the wrapping process itself was displayed.
The next room was filled with sarcophagi and mummies, wrapped, half-wrapped and unwrapped. And among them...
She paused again, gazing at Unknown Mummy #1. She suddenly, vividly, remembered the night Henry had died. She could see the interior of the prep tent, could see Henry, his face reflecting his enthusiasm.
Somebody brushed by something out in the hallway.
Anyone might have been there! Working, investigating, exploring.
No. The person was moving...