Bound For Eternity Page 12

  After such a life-like dream, I didn't dare try to go back to sleep right away. Nightmares could recur, and did. Vividly, I remembered how my younger brother David had had a repeating nightmare about the witch in Hansel and Gre-tel stuffing him in the oven. Our parents had to rouse him three times in one night before he finally dreamed about something less scary.

  I pulled on my green chenille bathrobe and tied the sash. I'd walk around a bit, have some cocoa, maybe with a shot of Kahlua. Warm milk and a little alcohol would make me go back to sleep. Oreo looked up hopefully and padded down the hall after me. "Mrrr...ow!" he said, waiting for the handout he knew he would get.

  Sucker. Me, not the cat. I put milk in a small saucepan and poured a little in a saucer for Oreo. I added cocoa and sugar to the pan, and sat huddled close to the radiator while I waited for the cocoa to heat. Microwaving would be quicker, but I wanted to stay out of bed long enough to shake off the dream.

  Well, it wasn't too surprising that I was having nightmares-a murder, a new lover, a friendship teetering on the edge of extinction, and the usual stresses of being a single mom. But most people didn't dream about mummies with their faces becoming detached, I thought, or digging in graves. Occupational hazard?

  I got up and poured my cocoa and stood stirring it. I drank some and then added more Kahlua.

  I could feel a memory close to the surface of my brain. Something about Marion? Or just about the museum? But the harder I tried to grasp it, the more it slid away like the sand of my dream. Try to go back to sleep, I told myself, and maybe some brilliant insight will arrive with the morning.

  I turned off the light and started back down the hall. Oreo followed me. Purring, he jumped up on the bed and waited until I was settled again. He kneaded the pillow, the sheet, and my arm. Finally, he curled up in a neat, black-and-white ball right next to my shoulder, and I stroked him until my arm ached.

  A purring cat is better than any sleeping pill, I thought. My hand was still.

  Purr. Purr.

  I slept.

  ? ? ? ?

  A jarring sound woke me from a blissfully dreamless sleep. The phone was ringing, right next to my clock that said four in the morning. I picked up the phone and tried to sound awake.

  "Hello?"

  "Miz Donahue?" The voice sounded official.

  "Yes?"

  "This is Sergeant Baxtah from the Bawhston University Police. There's been a disturbance at the Museum, and you're third on the call list. We can't reach eithah Dr. Fitzgerald or Miss Blake."

  "I am? I mean..." It would have been nice if someone had told me I'd been added to the emergency call list! "Yes, what's the problem?"

  "We found a small fire in the east corridah, near the public entrance. The fire's out, but we need you to come ovah and check that things are secure, and fill out an incident report."

  I groaned inwardly. I was going to feel like dog meat tomorrow!

  "It will take me about fifteen minutes to drive there, after I get to my car. About twenty minutes altogether. Where should I meet you?"

  The officer told me, and I replaced the phone and groped for clothes. Just before I left, after checking that Emma was still sound asleep, I called Magdalena. Angel that she was, Magda appeared at the door with quilt and pillow and curled up on the couch for what was left of the night. I pulled out my cell phone as I hustled out to my car and dialed Susie's home number. As predicted, I got the answering machine and left a terse and provocative message: "This is Lisa, and it's four a.m. There's a fire in the museum building and I'm going over now. Where are you?"

  ? ? ? ?

  When I arrived at the main staircase of the building, Sergeant Baxter led me to a metal trashcan on the fourth floor around the corner from a soda machine.

  We looked at the contents together. Blackened pop cans, campus newspapers, and smoldering cigarettes, now doused with water, spilled over the top and into an untidy heap on the floor.

  Knowing that the building was too old to have sprinklers, I asked, "How on earth did you put it out in time?"

  "An officer patrols the larger buildings where computer labs stay open late. Sociology has one, and students frequently stay after midnight when the doors are locked. They can leave, but no one can get in unless they have keys."

  "So was the fire just an accident, from someone tossing a lighted cigarette in there?"

  "Maybe. Now, can you verify that the Museum security system is still on and that nothing has been touched?"

  Or maybe the fire was deliberately set. You wouldn't need gasoline; you could just wait long enough for the cigarette or match to take hold.

  I opened the front door, and the high whine of the alarm started up. We went to the alarm box near the front desk and I disarmed the system. I took a quick look around and found nothing out of the ordinary (except a little more pigeon shit, this time on some European armor).

  I rearmed the system and closed and locked the doors. While I was filling out the incident form, Victor and Susie arrived together (how interesting!) and I had to tell the story all over again. Susie said very little, but managed to look un-rumpled and awake; she had put on eye make-up, even at quarter to five in the morning. Victor's comment, on hearing that the whole collection could have been lost in one night, was characteristically terse. "The sooner we get a new building with proper fire protection, the better."

  I left Victor and Susie to walk the two floors with the officer and make sure nothing else had been disturbed. As I drove out of the parking lot, I noticed a gray Toyota following me. Uneasily, I adjusted my rearview mirror.

  The driver was wearing a floppy hat. I couldn't be sure, but it looked like the same guy who had been watching my apartment. Really nervous now, I thought about taking a different route home, but realized it wouldn't help-the man already knew where I lived. I groped for my cell phone with one hand. Before I could call the police, the Toyota turned onto a side street and sped away.

  I hadn't been able to see the license plate number, so no point in calling now.

  No chance of sleeping again, either. When I got home, I curled up in the armchair with a blanket and waited for full morning.

  CHAPTER 17

  PAINTED AND GILDED

  Susie was admiring her reflection in the bathroom mirror. It was Saturday, and Susie and I had just come back from shopping at Filene's, laden with shiny bags and gold-corded boxes. Susie had invited me in for a cup of coffee, and now she was getting ready for a date.

  Susie's red-gold curls looked springy but touchable, and her eye make-up was perfect. I was a bit jealous of Susie's spectacular looks, but we'd become better friends since my falling out with Ellen. Not best friends, I reminded myself, but friends enough that I could ask nosy questions and try to get to the bottom of Marion's murder.

  Who was I kidding? I missed Ellen dreadfully, but it was clear that Ellen wasn't ready to forgive me.

  "What do you think of my new underwear?" Susie asked, as she reached for her newest Clinique lipstick, a frosted red with a hint of mauve.

  "Delectable," I replied, eyeing her statuesque figure in its black high-cut underwear and plunging, lacy bra.

  Susie missed the slight sarcasm in my voice. She was much too preoccupied making herself beautiful for her date. Susie's bathroom was a designer's dream, all glass and pink ceramic tile, complete with fluffy rugs and toilet covers in a tasteful shade of cream. Delicate soaps in shades of pink, buff, and crimson in a crystal dish complemented her oversized bath towels. Susie never did anything halfway.

  "Lisa, take a look in my closet. I can't decide what to wear; you know how it is. Help me."

  I put down my coffee cup and opened the louvered doors. Good grief, I thought, as I saw the size of the walk-in closet with its double rows of outfits in every shade of the rainbow. This lady must own a fortune in clothes! It wasn't surprising, really. Susie wasn't shy about discussing her early inheritance, which she had no intention of saving for her old age. And she just was born to sh
op.

  I pulled out a green-and-gold jacket with matching pants. "Who's your date?" I asked, as I laid my first choice on the bed. Did I have clothes envy, or closet envy?

  Susie poked her head out of the bathroom. "Carl," she said triumphantly.

  "Carl!" I cried, staring at her in consternation. "I thought you were dating Victor!"

  "Yes," replied Susie. "But Victor is being awfully slow, and I want to make him a little jealous." She disappeared again.

  I asked, with genuine curiosity, "Don't you have any hesitation about dating men you work with?" I remembered the last time I had tried that, with disastrous results. I added a couple more outfits to the pile on the bed, a cute little black dress and a cream silk pant suit.

  "No," said Susie. "Besides, where else am I going to meet men? I'm not a bar fly, I hate folk-dancing, and I don't go to baseball games." She glided into the bedroom, ignored the garments I had put out, and started rummaging in her closet. "The whole point is to make Victor see that he might lose me, and that he can't afford to let that happen."

  I hated her smug self-assessment, but had to admit she was at least partly right. Susie was rapidly becoming indispensable at the museum and Victor had just discovered what at asset she was at fundraising dinners. Major donors were taken in by Susie's glamorous exterior (the well-dressed bubblehead), and were disconcerted when they discovered how knowledgeable Susie was about the museum business.

  "What's Carl like as a date?"

  "Crude." Susie pulled out a deep azure-colored tunic and white silk pants. "The last time I went out with him, he wanted me to share the costs of dinner and he groped me at the door of my apartment!"

  I sat on the large bed. "Victor has much nicer manners."

  "Oh! He's so old-fashioned, the way he holds open doors and pulls out my chair in restaurants, you know?" Susie gushed. "He makes me feel so feminine and taken care of!" She pulled on the silk pants and slid her feet into matching Italian leather flats.

  I regarded Susie with a hint of contempt. "He might be so old-fashioned that he won't approve of you dating other men, especially one of his subordinates."

  "Oh, I'm not worried," said Susie, as she fastened on gold-and-turquoise earrings and checked her hair again. "Besides, Victor knew Carl before, in Ann Arbor..."

  "Really? That's news to me!" I exclaimed. "How did they know each other?"

  "Victor was a scholar-in-residence for a few weeks at the University of Michigan. That's where Brenda, his former wife, was an art student, and where Carl did his museum internship."

  "That explains a few things," I said, thinking how interested Ellen would be in this early connection between the two men. But it didn't look like Ellen and I would be having a gossip fest anytime soon.

  Susie interrupted my thoughts.

  "I should get moving, Lisa. Want me to drop you off?"

  "Sure. That'll save me a subway ride."

  We clattered down the stairs.

  CHAPTER 18

  "O FLESH OF THE KING, DO NOT DECAY, DO NOT ROT...YOU SHALL REACH THE SKY AS ORION..." (SPELL 42)

  The traffic was horrendous and it was raining buckets. It was a dreary Tuesday in November, just a few days after my shopping trip with Susie.

  We were driving down to Brown University in James' car. His car was just as crowded as mine inside. Sam's backpack was the only item actually on a seat; everywhere else was clutter belonging to both parent and child-plastic action figures, hamburger wrappers, soft drink cans, magic markers, and two parking tickets. James and Sam clearly favored Wendy's over MacDonald's, and they drank more Coke than Emma and I did.

  Something was hanging over the back of the driver's seat. I twisted around to look at it, and found a cleverly designed bag with compartments, stuffed with kiddie snacks, coloring books, and a couple of small cars. "Where did you get that?" I marveled. "I need one of these for Emma!"

  James grinned at me. "AutoMart. It has every car gadget known to man, and then some. I bought this to keep me sane on long car trips."

  "Amen," I sighed, thinking of some disastrous rides when Emma was a little younger, before the age of reason. "I heard of one soccer-mom who installed a VCR in back of her Minivan."

  "Was she one of those sports-crazy parents who signed up for out-of-town games every weekend?"

  "Yes. That's only for families who like living in their cars!"

  It was such a relief to talk about something besides murder and mayhem at my place of work. I relaxed into my seat and pretended we were going away for the weekend, just the two of us, to a cottage on the beach...

  "Bet you're daydreaming again," said James, smiling.

  "Yes. I was imagining going away for a romantic weekend with you, sans kids."

  "What a good idea!" He gave me a lascivious grin. "Maybe after your exhibit opens, we could do that. Know any good babysitters?"

  "No, but I'll work on it," I said.

  ? ? ? ?

  The glowing computer screen was enormous-it filled half the wall of the laboratory. James and I had arrived at Brown in good time despite the weather, and found our way to the Biomedical Visualization department.

  Joe Parsons was a string bean of a man with an engaging grin and a passion for his work. He was hunched over the keyboard, lovingly tapping the keys.

  "What you're going to see is like doing an autopsy by computer-we'll look at your little mummy layer by layer. The CT scans were digitized before you got here, and we're using a volumetric rendering program we developed called 'MorphIt' to convert the two-dimensional slices to a 3-D model."

  "What do you mean, volumetric rendering?" I asked.

  Joe thought a moment. "We're extrapolating between the CT slices. What you'll see are units of data, like cubes of Jell-O buried in a big bowl. You string the cubes together, and voilà, you have a sculpture." His long fingers jitterbugged over the keys as we stared at the screen. He hit the "enter" key and sat back. "Okay, now we wait awhile."

  James said, "You want as much resolution as possible on the skull, right, Lisa?"

  "Yes," I replied. "We did smaller intervals-I think it was one millimeter-on the head hoping we'd get more information at this stage."

  A new message showed up on the screen. "Here we go," said Joe.

  A ghostly image of the mummy's skull came up, festooned with shadowy wrappings in blues and greens. It rotated majestically in front of our eyes.

  "Wow!" said James. "Looks to me like there's still flesh on the bones."

  "You mean the slightly thicker areas?" I asked, pointing.

  "Yeah. And there's the growth suture," he said, as the skull tumbled end over end. "Can you freeze that, Joe?"

  Joe obligingly pushed a couple of keys and the skull hung motionless.

  James leaned forward, studying it. "Yes, that's it," he exclaimed. "And there's the occipital fracture, much clearer than we saw before."

  "The growth suture is one more bit of information supporting the age of the child, right?" I asked.

  "Yup. That's the skull of a pre-adolescent." James ran his hands through his hair, achieving a bird's nest effect.

  "What about the extra tooth?"

  "Where is it?" asked Joe.

  "On the left side. Mummy's left, I mean," I replied.

  Joe used the mouse to turn the skull sideways and slightly at an angle. An extra tooth in the lower jaw was clearly visible.

  I hitched my chair forward. "Wait until Emma's orthodontist sees this!" I was as keen as a ten year-old with an ice cream cone.

  "Do you want something three-dimensional for the exhibit?" asked James. "I know a guy who does forensic sculpture-he'd probably love to do one for a mummy exhibit."

  "That would be fantastic! How do I contact him?" I was already rearranging the exhibit plan in my head to make room for a tall pedestal with a spotlight over it.

  "His name is Bob Campbell. He works at M.I.T. I'll call him and tell him to get in touch with you."

  Joe saved the files and turned to th
e two of us. "Wanna have some fun?" he asked with a twinkle.

  "What do you have in mind?" James asked.

  "I've just sent the files for the mummy's head to our CAVE, a three-dimensional projection room. You can walk around the room and see the kid's skull from the inside out."

  "Sure," I said, intrigued at the idea.

  Joe led us to an adjoining room, handing each of us special goggles. He handed me a controlling wand. "Now, what you'll see is a kind of optical illusion. The digital files will be projected all around you, and you can rotate the skull any way you want by using the wand." He showed me the buttons to push on the wand.