Bound For Eternity Read online

  "I've had a couple courses. Davidson's 'Egg and Mess' was the best one." Victor knew this was shorthand for "Egypt and Mesopotamia" at the University of Pennsylvania.

  He grunted into his coffee mug. "Davidson's a good teacher." He pulled out another paper and handed it to me. "Here is the program outline Carl did last spring. Get to work. I'll tell Dean Saltonstall things are moving along." The audience was over. I closed the creaky door on my way out. My mind was spinning like a clothes dryer. This was a new state of affairs. I would be essentially in charge of every aspect of the "Crypts and Queens" exhibit. Victor liked to keep very close tabs on exhibits, but he wouldn't have much time for this one since he had a heavy travel schedule right up until the December opening. Did I know enough? My course background wasn't extensive, but I'd acquired several tomes on Egyptology in grad school-I'd be able to delve into those in the evenings while faking it during the day. Graduate school had taught me how to project just enough knowledge on the surface while cramming madly on the sly.

  I began to plan on the way back to my office. This could be fun. The mummy research would enhance the exhibit, and if Victor would let me put up the X-rays and CT scans as well as the art historical stuff, the exhibit would appeal to a much broader audience.

  The little mummy intrigued me. The fact that it was a child gave me chills- an Egyptian child like Emma? Or the offspring of a Roman official? So far all I could surmise is that he or she had lived in Roman Egypt, in a cosmopolitan area inhabited by Roman, Greek descendants of mercenary soldiers, and native Egyptians.

  My Roman-period mummy would be the star of the show. That was appropriate since my theme was burial customs and concepts of the afterlife, but I needed more artifacts. There was already one early mummy on display, and didn't we have a sarcophagus from the Ptolemaic period? I'd have to check. Then there were numerous tomb artifacts-shabtis (servant figurines), Canopic jars, footstools, statuettes of gods and goddesses. Could we do a mock tomb entrance? I made a note to ask Ginny. And it would be great to have a Howard Carter quote on the wall: "What do you see? Wonderful things..." Kids would like it even better if they could each pretend to be the first archaeologist to see the contents of king Tutankhamun's tomb.

  I wanted to read my e-mail, so I hit the "enter" on my keyboard. Eudora was already open. That was strange-I usually closed it at night before I left the museum. Then I noticed my file drawer wasn't closed all the way. I pulled it open.

  Papers spilled out on the floor. Several of my folders were out of order, as if they'd been jammed back in quickly.

  Someone had been going through my desk.

  CHAPTER 8

  INTO THE VAULT

  Brain cells shifting into overdrive, I took the stairs down to Exhibit Preparation on the third floor. Was trashing my desk and snooping in my e-mail files connected with the attack on Marion, or was someone just trying to unnerve me? Or, since we traded desks all the time, someone's sheer nosiness about my business? I'd better tell McEwan and let him decide.

  Exhibit Prep was a big room crammed with long wooden tables. Marion had obviously been setting up for the Museum's two fall exhibits. I passed an early gilded mummy whose thickly fringed eyes seemed to follow me. The mummy lay next to a spectacular pectoral gaudily decorated with lapis lazuli. On the adjacent table were rows of blue faience shabtis waiting for my inspection, along with three tall red vases with shiny black rims (weren't those the pots fired so only the rims had contact with soot-bearing fuel?). On the far table was an array of shiny red and white pots, richly covered with southwestern designs, standing ready for Carl's exhibit. I noticed how Marion had lined up each object with its label so she wouldn't lose track of a single artifact.

  I found Ginny Maxwell crouched over a desk in the corner, making lists on a long yellow pad.

  "Hi. Victor sent me to you to try and jump-start the Egyptian exhibit."

  Ginny rubbed her neck with both hands and stood up. Ginny was forty-two, a tough cookie and difficult for newcomers to know. An employee at the museum longer than anyone else, she had survived two previous directors. Ginny had the huge, unenviable task of redoing all the ancient registration records and entering the revised data into the File Maker Pro system. In addition, she was in charge of beginning the packing process for the move to the new building; everything that wasn't on display or scheduled to be in an exhibit was going into a box and into remote storage.

  Ginny fixed her inscrutable brown eyes on me. "I'll do my best, but he's given me two jobs to do for the price of one. Marion and I had totally different tracking systems-it's going to take some time to sort things out." Ginny stretched her long body, sleek in a black silk turtleneck and matching wool pants. She wore a rather unusual crystal-and-wire pendant hung on a gold chain around her neck.

  I was still cautious around Ginny, sensing her rigid control and dislike of anything approaching interference. "Shall I just give you Victor's list? We have a few days since he's going to be out of town. You can take your time, and I can do some preliminary research. Maybe if we get together the beginning of next week?

  "That'll work," she answered briskly. "I'll write down locations as I find things-then you can pull them and get Betsy to help you move them to Exhibit Prep." Ginny tucked the list into her "to do" pile and resumed her writing.

  "Thanks. Oh, Ginny-do you know anything about the acquisition of our Roman Period mummy?"

  To my surprise, she grinned. "Yes. We got it because of a little known law that says that dead bodies can't cross state lines without a death certificate."

  "What?"

  "The Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore wanted it, but they couldn't get a doctor to guess at the cause of death for an ancient body he couldn't examine- because it was precious artifact and the wrappings couldn't be disturbed-so the Boston dealer sold it to our museum."

  "Incredible! That's a great story."

  "That's what I love about museum work," Ginny said. "All the strange ways artifacts are acquired and collections are built."

  "Yeah. My museum in Philadelphia had large Greek vase that traveled as a first class passenger on an airplane."

  "How did that happen?"

  "My boss, Valerie, bought it at an auction in Austria and insisted it was too precious to travel in the hold. So she bought two seats for 'Mr. and Mrs. Vase.'"

  Ginny snorted with laughter and turned back to her lists.

  I headed for the hallway, thinking I had rarely heard Ginny laugh. I should spend more time trying to draw her out-but did I really want to be friends with everybody at work? I'd noticed that women seemed to have this problem more than men. Men were hard headed; they knew how to be civil-mostly-without being chummy. Women like Susie wanted to know all about each other, frequently crossing the line between work and friendship. Friends shared emotions, secrets, and dreams. That was okay with Ellen-I knew I could trust her not to gossip about things we discussed together. But the others? No. Having friends at work could backfire.

  ? ? ? ?

  I decided to go back to the Egyptian gallery. If the police would let me, I wanted to eyeball the space and start thinking about how many larger objects I could have in the burial customs exhibit.

  I took the long way, through the Greek gallery. I was trying to get in the habit of carving out little blocks of time to become more familiar with the exhibits. Stopping in front of a different case every day, I would pretend I had never seen it before. Just soak up images and information.

  Now I stopped to gaze at a Hellenistic burial. The Greek warrior lay on his back, his oval shield looped around his bony wrist and his spears laid parallel to his right arm. His pointed helmet was pierced with holes from which his eyes once gazed on the hills of Southern Italy. Around him were gaudily painted vases, shaped like craters used to mix water and wine. These craters had never been used; they were specially commissioned for a rich man's tomb.

  I wondered how long we could keep such a grouping with so many ethnic groups being concerned ab
out display of the dead in museums. Would we have to re-bury the warrior's body, the way Illinois' Dickson Mounds Museum had to do with all their skeletal material? What about the Egyptian mummy? The Egyptian government had sent an official letter to Victor asking how our mummy was displayed. Apparently an educational display was okay, but no bones could show, meaning no unwrapping and certainly no autopsy.

  The ancient Egyptians believed in an afterlife, one in which you required food, drink, weapons, jewelry, and servants-everything you had needed during life on earth. You had to nourish the ka, the life energy, and the ba, the mobile aspect of the spirit that could fly between tomb and the outside world. What would I take in my tomb, given a choice? Oreo (well, maybe not the real cat but a statue of him), my pictures of Emma and my parents, a few good books, a bottle of good wine...

  I approached the yellow tape stretched across the entrance to the Egyptian gallery. It looked like the crime unit was packing up; presumably they were finished with the first phase of their investigation. Sergeant McEwan was discussing something with the little blond guy, Clyde. McEwan spotted me standing there, and motioned for me to come over.

  I stepped over the tape and approached cautiously. Quickly, I told him about my desk being trashed. He grunted as he made some notes, leaving me wondering if he found my information relevant or not.

  "Ms. Donahue, we still haven't found the murder weapon. Can you help us look at the artifacts here and tell us what fits this description: small enough to lift, and hard enough to dent a human skull?"

  I looked around me. The plaster bust of Nefertiti was about the right size. I walked over to it and lifted it out of its plinth.

  "Whoa! I didn't mean go pick it up. But I didn't realize your small statues lifted out like that. That one looks like it's attached to the base. Hold it up so I can see the bottom."

  I complied, and the detective squinted at the smooth plaster. "Is plaster strong enough to do that much damage?"

  "You mean, smash a human skull? I don't think so, but I'll have someone check it just to be sure." He looked at me with his penetrating dark eyes. "How many other things lift out of their stands like that?"

  "Not many." I scanned the gallery. "There."

  I walked over to a foot-high black granite statue of Thoth, the god of wisdom shown as a baboon.

  This time, I let McEwan lift it. Together we gazed at the base, which had sharp corners. I gasped as I noticed a dark stain and a little chestnut hair clinging to one edge.

  We had found the weapon used to bludgeon Marion.

  CHAPTER 9

  "BEHOLD I HAVE COME TO YOU, I HAVE BROUGHT YOU TRUTH" (BOOK OF THE DEAD)

  The envelope was huge and awkward. "Tut's" X-rays were balanced under my left arm. I juggled briefcase, purse, and car keys in the other. I yanked the car door open with one finger, only to have the wind slam it shut. Instantly I recalled the last time this had happened, when the keys had ended up locked in the Rabbit. I'd had to call the University Police lockout service. This time, I was lucky- the door was still unlocked. I dumped my stuff on the floor and collapsed into the low driver's seat. It would sure be nice to have a bigger car, one in which I didn't feel like a midget compared to all the trucks on the highway. I nudged aside the McDonald's coffee cup rolling by my right foot, and promised myself that this weekend, I'd clean out the inside of the car.

  I looked at my watch: four-thirty p.m. Rush hour in Boston-what fun. At least I didn't have to get on the Southeast expressway, my least favorite road. My mood lifting, I pulled out neatly and headed for Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital. Was I looking forward a little too much to seeing Ellen's radiologist again?

  Don't even think about swiping your best friend's guy.

  The hospital garage loomed on my right. It was a gloomy multi-story structure, with narrow ramps and tight corners. No spaces were available on the lower level, so I snaked around corner after corner. Not a place for after dark. Creepy, just like that Watergate movie with "Deep Throat" lurking somewhere in the shadows. I parked as close to an exit door as I could get and hustled out to the stairway, which smelled of old urine and cigarettes.

  ? ? ? ?

  Dr. James Barber was a tall man with broad shoulders and bushy brown hair. On top he wore a white coat, the physician's traditional uniform, but underneath was another story. His blue Oxford shirt with rolled up sleeves was tucked into comfortable-looking khaki pants. His tie was stuffed in his pocket, and he whistled cheerfully while shuffling through a stack of X-rays on the desk.

  He glanced up with a welcoming smile as I appeared in his doorway.

  "Hang on. Gotta finish this." James moved two X-rays to a smaller stack near the phone.

  "Take your time."

  I looked around, noticing the Dilbert cartoons tacked to the bulletin board near snapshots of a small, red-haired boy in various active poses. The phone rang, and James had a quick conversation about some skull abnormality. He hung up and enveloped both my hands in his huge paws. "How are you?"

  I felt absurdly shy and my pulse was racing. "I'm okay. Not sleeping well, but that's normal for me." I wanted to drown in his sympathetic green eyes. Or maybe forget the world in another bear hug.

  I pulled myself together and withdrew my hands. "I'd appreciate it, Dr. Barber, if you'd look at these X-rays and tell me if you see any internal organs. It would help answer our questions about mummification practices in the Roman period."

  James grinned at my sudden switch to formality and pulled the films out of their huge manila envelope He slapped the first one up on his light box.

  "I didn't get a close look at these at the clinic. That was a real zoo, with the reporter and all those students." He studied the X-ray, and then gestured with a long finger. His nails were neatly clipped; that was unusual for a guy. "See how that's distorted? I think you have a fracture here." He indicated the right side of the jaw.

  "Do you think it was broken by trauma, or could it be a fracture from over-tight wrapping?"

  "Could be either. Or maybe it's the position of the jaw."

  "What do you mean?" I asked.

  "Well...say the head is tilted to one side. And the chin is pointed down towards one shoulder. See?" James demonstrated, looking like a large, bearded stork.

  I struggled not to laugh. "So...because the X-ray is taken from the top down, it appears distorted?"

  "Exactly."

  "What about this one? Why are these teeth so jumbled?" I pointed to the lower jaw, where layers of teeth were superimposed on each other in an indecipherable mass.

  "Hmm. Maybe it's because you have both baby and adult teeth present. Hang on a sec." He leaned out the door-only a step or two away in the tiny office.

  "Hey, Larry! Is that dentist still around?"

  "Yup. You want him?"

  "Send him down!" cried James.

  A rotund man with large glasses and a balding pate came in and shook hands with me. "I'm Steve Taylor. I can only stay a few minutes, I'm afraid. But how can I help you?" He looked at James.

  "James Barber." The two men shook hands. "And this is Miss Donahue from the B.U. museum."

  "Museum of Fine Arts?" asked the dentist.

  "No, Archaeology and History, the one at Boston University. And call me Lisa."

  The three of us huddled over the X-ray. "This is an Egyptian mummy we're working on. What can you tell us about the teeth?" James asked.

  Taylor rubbed his hands in glee. "A mummy!" He peered at the light box. "See, here are the baby teeth, still in place, with a couple of adult molars coming in. Just like some of my live patients!"

  I smiled at Taylor's obvious enthusiasm. "Does that mean you can pinpoint the age? We were told already at the Vet. School that this is no adult."

  "I'd agree with that. This is a child, maybe seven or eight years old. Just at the stage were he starts losing all those deciduous teeth and grows out his adult teeth." He looked at the X-ray again. "The chewing surfaces look especially worn. Didn't Egyptians eat a lo
t of sand with their bread?"

  "Yes," I replied. "They incorporated sand in their flour when they ground the grain using stone mortars." And probably picked up a little more from blowing desert winds.

  The dentist checked his watch. "I wish I could stay, but I have a long drive home." His eyes twinkled at me. I thanked him, and he left.

  James got up from his perch on the edge of the desk. "Let's see the chest cavity." He slapped up the next X-ray. "Hmm. Doesn't look at all like my usual patients."

  "You mean, live ones?"

  He laughed, a deep rumble that warmed me. "Yeah. Live ones. Here, everything is dried-up and moved around. But I think the lungs are still in place, and look here-that has to be the heart."

  "Interesting! This means the embalmers didn't bother taking out the major organs to preserve them as they did in earlier periods. They just wanted to make the mummy pretty for his relatives."