Bound For Eternity Page 11

  A reporter leaned over me and asked the same old question: "Is it a boy or a girl?"

  I turned to the second radiologist, a Dr. Beasley. "Can you tell? Our X-ray team couldn't agree. They said the child is too young to tell."

  Dr. Beasley looked at the current scan of the pelvis. "I don't see anything definitive. If you couldn't see it in the X-ray, we won't get anything here-not unless we can see the genitals at just the right angle." He peered at the next slice. "No, I'd say this is one question we can't answer."

  "You can write that the external face portrait looks male, but that doesn't always match with what's inside the wrappings," I told the reporter. "Some Egyptian mummies with male portraits turn out to be female." I remembered reading about one mummy that turned out to be a baboon, wrapped up like a human.

  "Hey, look at that!" exclaimed James pointing to a film showing a dark line through the collarbone. "It's another fracture." He looked at me somberly.

  I stared at him. Now we were both thinking about blunt instruments and murder, past and present.

  We finished up after about an hour, and Dr. Beasley assured me that the hospital would keep the tape of the CT scan for future reference. I thanked everyone, and James and I headed out together.

  "Today was fun-your mummy is really interesting. Maybe we should write a paper on the investigation." His bushy eyebrows shot up expectantly.

  "You mean, for a medical journal?" I was excited.

  "Sure. And another version for a museum journal...

  "Maximum coverage for one little old mummy..."

  "That's called maximizing the number of MPU's-Minimum Publishable Units," he teased.

  We both laughed.

  "I'm headed for the library right now to hunt down any parallels for that board."

  "How about I do a search in the Med. School library for other medical articles on mummies? I'm sure the Indianapolis team published something."

  "That would be great." I smiled at him.

  James leaned against the garage wall as I unlocked my car. "How are you feeling now about your museum?"

  I tossed my bag onto the passenger side. "Better. But I still can't figure out a motive for Marion's murder."

  James looked distinctly grim. "Don't lose sight of the fact that if one person was attacked, the rest of you may be targets as well." "I'll keep it in mind."

  CHAPTER 15

  ETERNAL SUPPORT

  Dust motes swirled down from the high window. The room was cool and dim, the lighting ancient, and the wooden chairs wide and shaped to fit most human buttocks.

  I was hard at work in Cabot's, the university library. I had checked out David's Manchester Mummy Project and Wente's X-ray Atlas of Egyptian Mummies, and was searching for X-rays belonging to mummies of the Roman period. How many had boards?

  I turned the pages of the atlas. One entry mentioned a "stiffening board."

  Stiffening board? Huh?

  I read on, and found a passage that mentioned "considerable decomposition." I stared over the heads of busy scholars at the next table. Maybe the body was in such bad condition that the embalmers couldn't move it without a support. That fit with what I had read earlier, about outbreaks of disease or famine causing a backup in the funeral business. I pictured stacks of mummies waiting for treatment, decaying in the hot climate. Stinking piles of bodies...

  Gross. Stiffening boards for badly decomposed stiffs.

  When I consulted the index for "stiffening board," I found several more mummies with boards. A loud rumble from my stomach reminded me that it was way past time for lunch. Living with a doctor had raised my gross-out threshold; reading about decomposition hadn't affected my appetite. Besides, dead bodies could wait. I closed my books, stacked my papers neatly, and headed across the street to the nearest grease-and-salt eatery, a Wendy's.

  I took my burger and fries to a window table. All this new information on the mummy meant that the exhibit really ought to have a new focus-and a new name. "Crypts and Queens" was tacky and definitely didn't cut it. How about "Eternal Rest: the Egyptian Way of Death?" No. "Death on the Nile," as in Agatha Christie? Maybe. I'd have to get the team to play the Naming Game with me. I scribbled the possible titles on my napkin, fries forgotten.

  ? ? ? ?

  Back in the library, I took notes on the colorful history of mummies to work into my exhibit labels.

  The word "mummy," derived from either Persian or Arabic meaning "bitumenous thing," once referred to a medicinal substance, used to treat stomach ailments and other disorders. When the manufacturers ran out of real mummies, they ground up dead bodies of criminals and peasants and sold the powder as "mummy." How bizarre. How truly unappetizing. I couldn't imagine either producing or consuming the stuff. Tom would have loved this sideline on the history of medicine.

  In the eighteenth century mummies were ground up, sold as a special pigment ("mummy brown"), and, according to Mark Twain, used as locomotive fuel. Twain said the mummies of kings burned better and brighter than those of peasants (snap, crackle, pop? Nope-couldn't use that in a public exhibit). It all sounded a bit unlikely-probably more of Twain's tall tales. But the reference to burning hundreds of cat mummies as fuel for Bedouin fires was plausible.

  I read on. People were so crazy about mummies that they exported them to Europe to serve as entertainment at social gatherings during the 1800s. I chuckled when I found an invitation to Lord Londesborough's exclusive tea party: "A Mummy to be Unrolled at Half-past Two." Perfect-I could use that as an introduction leading up to the 1908 scientific study of an Egyptian mummy by Margaret Murray at the University of Manchester.

  When I returned my books to the library shelves, I picked up an older book entitled simply The Mummy, and opened it at random. The text jumped out at me: "...And the mummy was carefully wrapped in yards and yards of bandages, bound for all eternity..."

  Bound for all eternity. "Bound for Eternity!"

  I was elated. There was my new exhibit title, with a nice double meaning. Victor might even like it.

  ? ? ? ?

  I nudged my purse under my desk with one foot and hurried downstairs to Registration to check the Talbot files. Maybe I could find another mummy of a different period-besides the one already on display-that would help flesh out the section on Egyptian burial customs.

  I opened the Donors file drawer and hunted through the files. Smythe...Stephens...Tabor...Talbot.

  I pulled out the Talbot file. George Naylor Talbot was a wealthy New Englander who gave pots of money to the Egyptian Exploration Fund. He had amassed a huge collection of Egyptian and Classical antiquities by the late the 1920s. A hand-scrawled note informed me that only a third of the collection was in Boston. The rest had been sold to museums in Cleveland and Baltimore in the 1930s.

  The artifact list was mind-boggling. Vases, terracotta figurines, antefixes, coins, marble heads, mosaics-and five mummies! I zeroed in on a Ptolemaic mummy and a second sarcophagus-perfect. Must ask Marion where the mummy was, since it was not on display. Then I remembered-Marion was gone. How could we manage without her? My shoulders sagged. What about Ginny?

  But Ginny was off visiting her mother today, so there was no help there. I'd have to go to Egyptian storage and locate the mummy on my own.

  The storeroom was dusty and dim. Very dim, since the overhead lights were almost as old as the artifacts. I sneezed, wondering if my allergies were starting up again. I'd had a break from antihistamines since Philadelphia. Why couldn't I be allergic to ragweed-something that I'd never encounter at work? Testing had confirmed that I was allergic to housework (dust mites), mildew, and all kinds of molds-everything, in fact, I would find in the museum and at home.

  Row after row of gunmetal gray shelves and storage drawers marched down the room. It looked like a government warehouse straight out of "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

  I had trouble finding the light switches, which were inconveniently located on central pillars rather than close to the door. The mummy I wa
s looking for was supposed to be in rank 48, section B, shelf 3. Section B had several long, dusty bundles resting on acid-free paper. Tags protruded from one end of each, rather like the ones on corpses in the morgue.

  I found 1924.03.17, but no number 18, which was the one belonging with the sarcophagus.

  Where was it?

  Okay, it might be with the other sarcophagus-the one not in the gallery where Marion had been attacked. It had to be in storage somewhere. Was there an oversize section, like the library, that I didn't know about? Or were both objects in Ginny's processing area?

  I was just about to head over to Ginny's domain when I heard the whoosh of the door and footsteps approaching. Ellen's neat blond head appeared suddenly in one of the gaps between the shelving.

  "There you are! I've been looking for you."

  "I'm on a mummy hunt. What's up?"

  "I'm not sure." Ellen sounded a bit surly and wouldn't meet my eyes. "I wanted to tell you that there's something fishy about that cartonnage mask Marion brought me."

  "Oh? What makes you say that?"

  "Some more of the red color came right off, and I wasn't even using acetone. It should be much more stable than that. I'm not happy about it."

  "So it might be a fake?"

  "Maybe. Or it's legit, but it's been touched up by an early restorer."

  I could tell Ellen was upset and tried to change the subject. "Want to hear about the CT scans?"

  This time, Ellen looked right at me, a dangerous glint in her blue eyes. "Did James show up?"

  Uh-oh. Here it comes.

  Out loud, I said, "Yes, but he was late. He had some sort of emergency-with a live patient, not a dried-up old mummy."

  "I called him. He told me you are his new lady. That the two of you are in love, that you've been dating for two whole weeks! Why couldn't you have told me yourself?" she asked, her expression bleak.

  I took a deep breath. "I wanted to, I've been meaning to, but you didn't seem that upset when he stopped seeing you, and..."

  "I was upset! The talking about other guys was just smoke." Ellen's eyes glistened with angry tears. "You just didn't want to know how much I liked him because you wanted him for yourself!"

  Bingo.

  "I didn't understand," I stammered. "You didn't make him sound that special, that different from the other guys. If I had known you loved him-if you guys had both been serious-I would have considered him definitely out of bounds. I mean..."

  "James is the most attractive guy I've laid eyes on in years," Ellen raged at me. "We'd only had a few dates, but I was so hopeful that it was turning into something really good."

  "I'm really sorry, Ellen. I didn't plan this. I wasn't looking for anyone..."

  "Weren't you?"

  "You know I haven't been dating much. Not like you. James is-James is the first one since Tom who might really matter." My chin trembled.

  Ellen stared at me. "Well," she finally said with a flicker of humor. "I guess James has some say in this-he's certainly taken with you."

  I tried to smile. "I hope you won't hate me for this, but I really do like him. And I know I've been a dope; I should have talked to you sooner."

  "Yes," said Ellen, nodding sharply. "Yes, you should have. Somehow, I don't think I'll be referring any more doctors to you." She threw me a mocking smile and walked rapidly towards the exit.

  The door clicked shut.

  I sighed. Why had I been so stupid and insensitive? I had gotten so used to Ellen's flippant attitude about her failed romances that I had really thought James was just another three-week infatuation. I'd missed the signs that Ellen was seriously involved.

  If you really thought that, said a nasty little voice in my head, then why were you so scared of talking with her?

  Now it would be hard, if not impossible, to recover the easy trust we'd had ever since Philadelphia.

  Thoroughly depressed, I returned to my lonely survey of the artifacts.

  CHAPTER 16

  THE MUMMY'S CURSE

  The wind off the desert was chilly but I wasn't cold. Instead, I was exhilarated. I was up on the tell-the high place-in my flannel nightgown, near the Roman fort. Alone in the middle of the night in a place reeking of history. I raised my arms and whirled around, my white cotton nightgown flapping like a tent.

  Then the edges of the tell dropped away, and I found myself on top of Masada, the spectacular fortified city near the Dead Sea where the Jews had made their last stand against the Romans. I walked and walked until I found the remains of Herod's palace, and padded inside on my bare feet to look at the frescoes.

  Without any warning, I was facing an open grave. There was a menacing roar of wind, and I was on my knees, digging, and digging, with a trowel that was Barbie doll-sized and slithery sand that kept sliding back into the hole. I felt a horrible sense of urgency that I had to find something, but I had no idea what it was. The hot sand was endless, and the trowel twisted in my hand.

  Suddenly the mummy-my mummy with its Roman face portrait hanging by a thread-rose out of the grave. I drew back in horror at its ravaged appearance. The mummy wavered on what was left of its feet; most of the foot bones were missing and the wrappings were tattered.

  I fell over on top of the mummy, and it reached out with yellowed, bony arms and clasped me to its leathery chest. The sand slid away faster and faster until I dropped feet first into the Egyptian storeroom, back in Boston. The mummy slid neatly into a sarcophagus nearby. It stopped moving, and the face portrait snapped back into place.

  Marion was there, rushing about and muttering like the White Rabbit, "I shall be late. I am late. Now where did I put those beads?" She tore at her chestnut hair and opened and closed drawers in a frenzy.

  Susie appeared, grabbed Marion's shoulders, and shook her hard. "Stay away from Victor!" she shouted. Marion cowered against the shelves, and Susie beat her with a mummified hawk until she fell down unconscious.

  Ellen and James came in from North American storage, holding hands, and looking at me accusingly. I was about to ask them what I had done wrong when I heard the clacking of high heels coming closer, closer. I was filled with apprehension. My pulse raced, my hands went cold, and my mind just stopped running.

  A tall woman dressed all in black velvet with matching spike heels stalked into the room. It was Valerie Albrecht, my former boss. Her hook-nosed face was contorted with fury and her normally coiled black hair stood on end like Medusa's snakes. "Lisa! I told you I wanted that exhibit done yesterday! You're hopelessly incompetent. I have a mind to terminate you." She wrapped her strong fingers round my neck and began to squeeze hard, harder...I saw red spots...I couldn't breathe.

  ? ? ? ?

  I woke up sweating and disoriented. An indignant "meow!" as I kicked at the twisted covers brought me into full consciousness.

  It was only a dream.

  But what a dream! My first dig in Israel-that was a good memory, because I had loved the desert, with its stark landscape and eerie silences. But an ancient, peeling, amorous mummy? Dreams could play tricks on you, but surely I wasn't that hard up. I shuddered as I remembered the bony arms of the mummy embracing me.

  And my former boss actually strangling me! It was easy to see where that came from, I thought, swinging my legs out of bed. The Philadelphia job had been my first, when I'd been fresh out of graduate school. I had been raw, new, and ridiculously fearful of making a bad impression or offending anyone. Valerie Albrecht had preferred younger women as employees, especially ones who were timid and easy to manipulate. Aspiring young scholars who were unsure of their professional identities were just perfect material.

  Valerie was always charming in the first employee interview, using all her German sophistication to lure you into thinking that she would surely be a great mentor and an inspirational boss. "Ja, ja," she'd say, "You'll be so comfortable here. We're just one big happy family." Right-as comfortable as a baby rabbit straying into a fox's den. Once you were stuck in the job, she'd chew
you up, extract your ideas and vital juices, and spit out your pitiful remains. Employees were discarded like bones-no one lasted longer than a year or so. People couldn't stand her frequent, irrational outbursts and public scenes. For me, Valerie's effect was visceral, like too much bad coffee sloshing around in my stomach. I couldn't hear her voice, or be in the same room with her, without jangled nerves and a falling sensation in my gut.