Bound For Eternity Page 14

  What was I doing here? I told myself I should just get the hell out of here and call the police, but my stubborn body wouldn't move. It was dark except for the dim glow of streetlights seeping through the high attic windows. Everything at my level was formless and menacing.

  To my left were the shrouded shapes of suits of armor, some with outstretched arms and weapons at the ready. Just ahead was the replica of the entrance to the Strasbourg Cathedral, with plaster saints on bases perfectly positioned to trip an unwary curator. I discovered a reservoir of fear I'd been ignoring, coiled like Medusa's snakes in the back of my mind. Common sense slithered away, and I was compelled to investigate the sound.

  I used the mini-flashlight attached to my key chain to turn the alarm off. Holding my breath and clutching my heavy purse like a shield, I crept back into the Classical gallery and crouched next to the still pigeon shit-covered Augustus.

  Rustle.

  Suddenly something swooped down and passed near my face. I stepped backwards involuntarily and crashed into the guard's chair.

  Pigeon or bat? Could be either coming into that broken window. I told myself it was only a bird. We can have another chase with butterfly nets in the morning, I thought, trying to reassure myself. The last time the entire senior staff had raced around the gallery to Victor's directions until the bird finally sailed out the front door.

  It wasn't working. My stomach had gone queasy and clammy beads of sweat trickled down my back. Maybe it was an owl, and I was the prey.

  Bang!

  The sound came from the far end of the Egyptian gallery

  What was that?

  I became a statue, as cold and still as a plaster cast. My body was quiet, but my thoughts galloped noisily around inside my head. Was someone in here with me? Maybe the bang was just a ladder falling over-the one used by the student helpers for mounting the exhibit.

  The closest lights were in the European gallery. Stealthily, I crept over and flicked them on. The suits of armor, now recognizable, cast long shadows behind me. I listened hard. Silence. Losing my nerve, I dashed for the back door, slammed it behind me, and turned the key in the lock.

  Chest heaving, I sagged against the wall outside the museum. When my legs stopped feeling like limp coleslaw, I ran clumsily down the back stairs. I leapt over the final two stairs and collided with the cop on duty.

  "Whoa, Ms. Donahue." He steadied me with a large hand on my shoulder. "What seems to be the problem?"

  I told him I hadn't finished closing the museum because I thought someone was in there with me. He promised to check it out and urged me to go home and get some rest.

  I made it to my car, but my breathing was still gasping and uneven. Maybe this is what a panic attack feels like, I thought. Maybe I really did need a shrink- or a prescription antidepressant.

  Great.

  Then I'd be just like everyone else in the museum profession.

  CHAPTER 20

  SECOND INTERMEDIATE PERIOD

  Emma and I spent the next weekend on Cape Cod with my father, who lived in Chatham. Visiting Dad was always a treat; it was an escape from the city and from work, even if it brought back sad memories.

  Raymond Donahue had kept the beautiful gray-shingled house perched over a salt-water marsh after my mother's sudden death. Although I had tried to convince him he might find life easier in a smaller, more convenient place, Dad insisted he could not give up his view.

  Looking through enormous picture windows out over the tidal swamp, with its spectacular tall grasses and resident blue heron, I had to agree he had been right. The colors and textures changed almost every hour, and the shoreline crept up and down with the tide and season. My dad kept binoculars handy, for bird and neighbor watching, and the vivid scene gave him much pleasure and amusement. Upstairs, it was even better: my mom's addition to the house was a huge room with a woodstove and windows on three sides. During a storm, it was like being on the bridge of a ship, where the sound of the wind was like a million banshees.

  "That's a rook, Emma. It doesn't move diagonally, only horizontally and vertically. Here, let me show you." Dad was trying to teach his granddaughter the rudiments of chess, but Emma definitely had a mind of her own.

  "I want him to go this way, and get your Queen!" she exclaimed, looking at her grandfather gleefully.

  "Oh ho!" he chuckled. "So that's what you're up to. Well, you can take my queen very soon if you move here..."

  I looked fondly at the two blond heads bent over the chessboard. My father's hair was graying at seventy-one, but it had a long way to go. Emma had inherited his aristocratic nose and long legs. I looked more like my mother: slender enough in youth but thickening around the middle as I got older. An apple shape instead of a pear-not good.

  My mother's death three years before had been a terrible shock. A heart attack, too severe to treat, and only a week to say goodbye. My dad had retreated into a hermit's shell, working crosswords and re-reading mysteries. I worried that he wasn't getting out enough, and that his social life was too sparse. Wasn't there an easy way for an aging male, handsome and dependable, to meet older women? I wondered how he would respond to the idea of attending a church (he was an ex-Episcopalian and my mother had been a militant Unitarian).

  After the chess game, we went for a beach walk. It was a perfect fall day, with a deep blue sky and just enough wind to turn the backs of the tall grass silver. The Cape was best off-season, when the tourists were gone and the sand wasn't littered with baking bodies. Except for a couple walking their dog and a stranded horseshoe crab, we had the beach to ourselves.

  Emma chased some sandpipers ahead of us on the wavy ripples of sand left by the tide, and I slowed down to walk with my father. I glanced at him, trying not to show how concerned I was. He was probably drinking too much when he was alone. I remembered when he and Mom had consumed Scotch and soda steadily all evening, keeping pace with each other. While my dad got quiet, my mother grew argumentative, then depressed. How much had the alcohol been a factor in her untimely death? I didn't want to explore that one too closely.

  "Dad-I haven't told you what's been happening at the museum."

  "You told me about the murder of your preparator. It doesn't sound like you have a very safe place of work." Dad pulled his collar up against the wind.

  "We have a police officer there now, at least some of the time."

  "Yes, but has any one figured out yet why Marion was attacked?"

  "No, they haven't. But how about some good news, for a change?" I told him about the mummy research. "And there's a really nice radiologist who's helping me. His name is James Barber, and he has a son Emma's age. Actually, I'm seeing quite a bit of him."

  My father turned his kind, humorous face to me. " 'Bout time you started dating again. A good woman like you shouldn't be on your own." A blond-gray lock blew over his forehead.

  I laughed. "I'm not too lonely, with a kid and a cat! But James is special, and so much fun to be with."

  I described the last couple of weeks.

  He smiled. "James sounds like a nice guy. Bring him down some weekend."

  I said I would. Then I told him about James and Ellen.

  "Hmm," said my dad, stopping to consider this new angle. I wondered how he would respond.

  He turned to me with a rueful grin. "Remember Dick Rinehart?" he said. "We were both dating your mother, and after a time she picked me."

  "Did your friendship with Dick remain the same?" I asked, beginning to walk again along a spit of sand covered with seaweed and scallop shells.

  "Almost," replied my father. "He was angry for awhile, and then he met Amanda. He admitted later that Shirley wouldn't have made a good wife for him." He paced slowly on, and I sensed that he was remembering my mother as a lively young secretary.

  I didn't need to look at my watch to know it was time to leave. My shadow was longer and bluer against the seaweed, and the wind was freshening. I hated to leave the beach at my favorite time of day. B
ut I had a briefcase full of work at home, and Emma had school the next day.

  "Emma!" I called. "Time to turn around!"

  Dad and I turned together, and hunching our shoulders against the wind, we headed down the beach in the fading light. Emma dashed around us with her arms outstretched, swooping like a gull across the sand.

  CHAPTER 21

  OFFERING TO THE GODS

  It was the night before the Pueblo pottery exhibit opening. As I had predicted, Carl had indeed left everything to the last minute: we were still installing pottery and the labels were not yet printed. The staff was crabby and the hour was late.

  Even Susie looked frazzled and a little unkempt in blue jeans and an old blue work shirt she'd borrowed from the staff closet. "Where's your artifact list?" she asked Carl.

  "It's around," Carl said shortly. "Ask Betsy." He and I were struggling to fit a glass vetrine over a Lucy Lewis Acoma bowl, one of our best pieces.

  "Bets!" yelled Susie. "Have you got Carl's list? I need to..."

  "Jeez!" erupted Carl. "Do ya have to yell like that when we're doing something delicate? I almost dropped this thing."

  Susie turned on him, red curls bouncing. She was furious, but she kept her voice sweet. "Carl, if you weren't such a lazy butthead, we wouldn't be here tonight doing your work!"

  "Well of all the...!" started Carl.

  "Calm down, guys," Ellen said.

  Just in time, I thought. Carl's ready to punch Susie's eyes out.

  "I called in a pizza order. We could all use a break," Ellen said.

  I noticed with a pang that Ellen wasn't looking at me. That meant she was still upset about James.

  Several students heard the word "pizza" and began to finish up what they were doing. Susie went off to the staff room to collect some plates, and Carl and I were left alone in the gallery.

  Carl sat on the bottom step of a ladder. He looked tired, and there were extra lines of strain around his eyes. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one, pulling an empty paint can over with his toe to use as an ashtray.

  "I didn't know you smoked," I said mildly. He knew perfectly well that smoking in the museum was not allowed.

  "I started as an undergrad. I've been trying to quit for about ten years now."

  Too bad we weren't buddies any more. The tension between us was a direct result of competing for the same position.

  It had been so much better when I'd first come to work at the museum in April. We'd had some good laughs over that dig in Nevada, where Carl had worked and I had visited.

  I remembered the head of the excavation, a gregarious man who always wore black jeans and black T-shirts (not uncommon for aging male anthropologists). "What's Dr. Lamberg doing nowadays?"

  Carl's face brightened. "He's running a new dig in Nevada-Paleo-Indian cave sites."

  When we were there, Lamberg's team had been a startling mismatch of personalities and relationships. There were two male conservators (gay, both in love with other people); a feisty, middle-aged physical anthropologist who had her eye on the director (who was attracted to his graduate assistant); and a neurotic photographer (female) who hated one of the conservators because he'd called her "an African-American bimbo."

  We had agreed it was a perfect set-up for a murder mystery. I smiled at the memory, and looked at Carl with more tolerance than usual.

  He was coming out of his sulk. "How's the Egyptian exhibit coming?"

  "Slowly. I'm having trouble finding some of the artifacts I need. It makes me miss Marion even more."

  "I know what you mean. She was a walking encyclopedia."

  We sat in amicable silence. I was relieved that Carl was making an effort be friendly. With such a small staff, no one could afford to make enemies.

  "How are the wedding plans going?"

  Carl groaned. "It's awful. My mother is on the phone every night, begging me to talk to my sister. Sarah can marry Edward, sure, even if he's a filthy Episcopalian, but we must have the big Jewish wedding! The band, the dancing, the traditional food, the one hundred and fifty relatives from Brooklyn, the whole deal. I'm thinking of moving to Israel just before the event."

  "And what do the bride and groom want?"

  "To elope! Or at least to get as far away from my mother as possible! Edward's threatening to boycott his own wedding. Actually, his parents are being just as stubborn. Their darling son has to say his vows in a proper church wedding, with the music they're used to, et cetera, et cetera."

  "What if-no, that's a crazy idea," I began.

  "What?"

  "I know it would be more expensive-and complicated-but what about two separate ceremonies? Maybe the big Jewish shindig in the evening, and the Episcopal church service the next morning?" I held my breath.

  Carl stared at me. "That's so crazy, it just might work! I bet I can persuade my mother..." Carl leaped up, his exhaustion forgotten, and raised his arms in an imaginary hora line. "Ha-va-na-gila, ha-va-na-gila..."

  When the others came back, bearing pizza and plates, I was sitting on the floor, giggling helplessly, and Carl was whirling around like a dervish.

  Ellen raised her eyebrows, and Susie said, "Hey, what's going on?"

  "Carl is dancing at his sister's wedding."

  "Both weddings!" Carl said, with a bow to me, and explained.

  I realized I had enjoyed the interlude with Carl. Maybe someday, when this was all over, we could be friends again. Except that one of us would get the curator job, and the other wouldn't.

  I picked myself up, groaning as my sore back sent dire signals to my brain. And my eyes felt like they were propped open with toothpicks after two nights of little sleep.

  The savory smells of sausage and pepperoni drifted into my smoke-filled nostrils. Pizza, food of the gods. Well maybe not, but as close to dinner as I was going to get.

  ? ? ? ?

  Three hours later, we were putting the finishing touches on the labels as a couple of students swept the gallery with large push brooms. Ellen and Ginny had gone home, and I was sitting on a closed paint bucket, too tired to move. Susie was standing near me, looking uncharacteristically subdued. I noticed her eyes were red, as if she'd been crying recently.

  "Susie, is something wrong?" I asked.

  "You mean besides Carl being a jerk, Marion being killed, and Victor being mad at me?" Susie sounded distinctly bitter.

  Instantly, I knew which part was really bothering Susie.

  "Victor's mad at you?"

  "You and Ellen were right. He really disapproves of my seeing anything of Carl. He said..." She bit her lip, unable to continue.

  "What did he say?" I asked, keeping the "I told you so" to myself.

  "He said he didn't want to have a serious relationship with someone who would play games to get attention. He told me he's looking for a more mature woman." Susie was oozing tears now.

  "Well then, you have to show him you can be mature. Don't give him any more cause to doubt you, or your commitment to him. He'll come around." Privately, I wondered if Victor was really shopping for a second wife so soon after separation from the first one. He probably just wanted intelligent and sexy companionship, no strings attached. But Susie didn't want to hear that.

  "I guess I can do that," Susie sighed. "He can be so nice when he wants to be, and so coldly furious when he's angry."

  "If he's what you want, hang in there," I replied. Victor was attractive, in a remote sort of way, but I couldn't imagine living with him. What would conversation over breakfast be like? Was he any good in bed?

  I envied Susie for being so sure that marriage was the answer to all her problems. My first marriage had been blissful, but how many people could achieve that the second time around? James and I were starting our relationship with a ready-made family, one you couldn't send back. Plus one medium-sized, furry tyrant. Some people would say Oreo was definitely a handicap. What if James told me to choose between him and the cat? Would I sacrifice my fur fix for a man?

 
It was too soon to tell.

  CHAPTER 22

  THE MUMMY'S MASK

  The sinuous water-serpent wound its way around the shining bowl, black on black, carved surfaces against the smooth. Next to it was a glistening vase, also black, indented with the track of the bear that had saved the Santa Clara people by leading them to water.

  In a special case in the center of the gallery was a gorgeous piece of pottery, the work of Maria Martinez. The polished black background contrasted with the painted designs in matte black slip, producing a pleasing pattern on the huge vase.