He was knee-deep in the mystery novel when the front door knocker sounded.
Curious, he went to open the door.
Tabby stood there, unsmiling, her hair in a neat bun, her glasses low on her nose, her expression one of strain and worry. She was wearing a neat suit with a white blouse, and she obviously had worn it all day. It was nine in the evening and she hadn't changed into casual clothes.
"Hello," he said. His heart felt lighter and he smiled.
Tabby didn't return the smile. Her hands were folded very tightly at her waist. "I wouldn't have bothered you," she said stiffly, "but I don't really know any other detectives. It seemed almost providential that you came home today."
"Did it? Why?" he asked.
She swallowed. "I'm under suspicion of theft," she said. Her lower lip trembled, but only for an instant until she got it under control. Her head lifted even higher with stung pride. "I haven't taken anything, and I haven't been formally charged, but only I had access to the artifact that's disappeared. It's a small vase with cuneiform writing that dates to the Sumerian empire, and they think I stole it."
Chapter Two
Nick's dark blond eyebrows rose curiously. "You, a thief? My God, you walked two blocks to return a dollar old man Forbes lost when you were just sixteen. People don't change that much in nine years."
She seemed to relax. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I need proof that I didn't do it. If you're going to be in town for a few days, I want to employ you to clear me."
"Employ for pete's sake!" he growled. "Honest to God, Tabby, you don't have to hire me to do you a favor!"
"It's business," she said firmly. "And I'm not a pauper. I don't need to impose on our old friendship."
"You can't imagine how prissy you sound," he mused, his dark eyes twinkling as they searched hers. "Come in here and talk to me about it."
"I, uh, I can't do that," she said, glancing uneasily around her as if there were eyes behind every curtain.
"Why not?"
"It's quite late, and you're alone in the house," she reminded him.
He gaped at her. "Are you for real?" He scowled and leaned closer, making a sniffing sound. "Tipsy, are we?" he asked with a wicked gleam in his eyes.
"I am not!" she said stiffly, flushing. "And I wish you'd forget that. I was drunk!"
"Absolutely," he agreed. "I've never seen you with a snootful. Your mask slipped."
"It won't ever slip again like that," she told him. "I hope I didn't embarrass you."
"Not really. Why can't you come inside? I almost never have sex with women in suits."
The color in her cheeks got worse. "Now cut that out!"
He shrugged. "If you say so." He folded his arms across his broad chest. His shirt was unfastened at the collar, where a thick golden thatch was just visible. It seemed to disturb Tabby, because her eyes quickly averted from it.
"I thought, if you had time, we might meet for lunch tomorrow and I'll fill you in."
He sighed with mock resignation. "There's not really any need for that." He reached beside him and turned the porch light on. Then he escorted her down the steps and neatly seated her on the middle step, lowering himself beside her. "Here we are, in the light, so that everyone in the neighborhood can see that we aren't naked. Is that better?"
“Nick!'' she raged.
"Don't be so stuffy," he murmured. "You're living in the dark ages."
“A few of us need to or civilization as we know it may cease to exist," she returned hotly. "Haven't you noticed how things are going in our social structure?"
"Who hasn't?"
"Drugs, killer sexual diseases, streets full of homeless people, serial killers." She shook her head. "Anything goes may sound great, but it brings down civilizations."
"Most people don't know about ancient Rome," he reminded her. "You might start wearing a toga to get their attention."
She glowered at him. "You never change."
"Sure I do. I'd smell terrible wearing the same clothes over and over again."
She threw up her hands. It was just like old times, with Nick cracking jokes while her heart broke in two. Except that now it wasn't just her heart, it was her integrity and perhaps her professional future.
He touched her chin and turned her to face his eyes. The mockery was gone out of them as he asked, "Tell me about it, Tabby."
She drew back from the touch of his hands, so disturbing to her peace of mind. “There was an old piece of Sumerian pottery that I was using to show my students while I lectured on the Sumerian Empire. It was a very unique piece with cuneiform writing on it."
"You've lost me. It's been years since I took Western Civilization in college."
"Cuneiform was an improvement in the Sumerian culture, one step above pictographic writing," she explained. "In cuneiform, each wedge-shaped sign stands for a syllable. There are thousands of pieces of Sumerian writings contained on baked clay tablets. But this writing," she continued, "wasn't on a tablet, it was on a small vase, perfectly preserved and over five thousand years old." She leaned forward. "Nick, the college paid a small fortune for it. It was the most perfect little find I've ever seen, rare and utterly irreplaceable. I was allowed to use it for a visual aid in that one class. None of us dreamed that it would be lost. It cost thousands of dollars...!"
"Only the one artifact?"
"Yes," she agreed. "It was on my desk. I had to tutor a student in the classroom and I was going to put it back under lock and key afterward. I wasn't gone more than five minutes, but when I came back, it was missing. There was no one around, and I can't prove that I didn't take it."
"Can't the student vouch for you?"
"Of course, but not about the artifact. She never saw it."
He whistled. "No witnesses?"
She shook her head. "Not a one."
"Anyone with a motive for stealing it?"
"A find like that would be worth a fortune, but only to a collector," she admitted. "Most students simply see it as a minor curiosity. Only a few members of the faculty knew its actual value. Daniel, for one."
"Daniel?"
"He's a colleague of mine. Daniel Myers. We...go out together. He's honest," she added quickly. "He has too much integrity to steal anything."
"Most people who steal have integrity," he said cynically, "but their greed overrides it."
"That's not fair, Nick," she protested. "You don't even know Daniel."
"I guess not," he said, angered by her defense of the man. Who was this colleague, anyway? His dark eyes whipped down to catch hers. "Tell me about Daniel."
"He's very nice. Divorced, one son who's almost in his teens. He lives downtown in Washington and he's on staff at the college where I work."
"I didn't ask for his history. I said tell me about him."
"He's tall and slender and very intelligent."
"Does he love you?"
She shifted uncomfortably. "I don't think you need to know anything about my personal life. Only my professional one."
He sighed. "Well, you don't have anyone to look out for you," he reminded her. "I always used to when you were in your teens."
"That was then. I'm twenty-five now. I don't need looking after. Besides, you're only five years older than I am."
"Six, almost."
"Daniel wants to marry me."
"What do you get out of it if Daniel doesn't love you?"
"Will you take the case?" she asked, changing the subject abruptly.
"Of course. But Daniel had better not get in the way."
"Oh, he won't," she said, but with unvoiced reservations. Daniel tended to be just the least bit superior. He wouldn't like Nick, she decided. Worse, Nick already didn't like him. It was going to be a touchy situation, but she was sick with worry. She had to have someone in her corner, and who better than Nick, who was one of the best detectives in the world according to his sister Helen.
"I'd like to come around to the college tomorrow and get a look at
where you work."
"Tomorrow is Saturday," she stammered.
"Classes won't be in session," he reminded her.
"Daniel was going to take me shopping..."
"Daniel can buy his clothes some other time."
"Not for clothes, for an engagement ring!"
His eyes narrowed. He hated that idea. Hated it, for reasons he couldn't put a finger on. "That will have to wait. I'm only going to be in town until next Friday."
"I'll phone him tonight."
"Good."
She got up, smoothing her skirt, and Nick rose with her, his face solemn, concerned. "Don't they know you at all, these colleagues?"
"Of course. But it does look bad. My office was locked at the time. Nobody else has a key."
Nails in her coffin, he was thinking, but he didn't say it. "Try not to worry. We'll muddle through."
"Okay. Thanks, Nick," she said without looking at him.
"No need for that. I'll call for you about eight in the morning. That too early?"
She shook her head. "I'm always up at dawn."
"Just like old times," he recalled. "I hope you don't have plans to climb the drain pipe, just like old times, and climb in a bedroom window."
She caught her breath. "It was only once or twice, and it was Helen's room I climbed into!"
"You were such a tomboy," he mused. "Hell with a bat in sand-lot baseball, the most formidable tackle we had in football, and not a bad tree climber. You don't look much different today."
She grimaced. "Don't I know it." She sighed. "No matter what I eat, I can't put on a pound."
"Wait until you hit middle age."
"That's a few years away," she said with a faint smile.
"Yes. Quite a few. Get some sleep."
"You, too. Goodnight."
He returned the sentiment and watched her walk to her front door. Old times. He thought back to warm summer evenings when he'd bring his dates home and they'd all sit on chairs on the lawn and watch Helen and Tabby, who were a few years younger, chase fireflies on the lush lawn. He supposed Tabby would watch her own children do that very thing one day.
He didn't want to think about that. He went back inside and tried to pick up his mystery novel again, but he'd lost his taste for it. He put it down and went to bed, hours and hours before usual.
Tabby was dressed in a floral skirt and white knit blouse when he called for her the next morning just at eight. He wasn't much more dressed up than she was, comfortable in slacks and a red knit shirt. He scowled down at her.
"Must you always screw your hair up like that? I haven't seen it long in quite a while."
"It's hot around my neck," she said evasively. "I only let it down at night."
"For Daniel?" he asked sarcastically.
"Do we go in your car or mine?" she asked, ignoring the question.
"Mine, definitely," he said with a disparaging glance at hers. "I like having room for my head."
"The seat lets down."
"I can't drive lying on my back."
"Nick!"
"Come on." He led her to the big sedan he'd rented and helped her inside. "Direct me. It's been a long time since I've driven here."
"Not so long," she replied. "You didn't leave until you quit the FBI. That's only been about four years ago."
"It seems like forever sometimes."
"I guess Houston is a lot different."
"Only when it floods. Otherwise, it's a lot of concrete and steel and pavement. Just like every other city. It's Washington with a drawl."
She laughed softly. "I suppose most cities are alike. I haven't traveled much. And when I do, it's to places that seem pretty primitive by modern standards."
"To digs, I gather?"
"That's right. I went out to the Custer battlefield in Montana a few years ago to help archaeologists and other anthropologists identify some remains. Then I had a stint in Arizona with some Hoho-kam ruins and once I flew down to Georgia where they were excavating an eighteenth-century cabin."
"How exciting."
"Not to you," she conceded. "But it's life and breath to me. I want to investigate aboriginal sites in Australia and explore some of the Greek and Roman ruins they're just beginning to excavate. I want to go to Machu Pichu in Peru and to the Maya and Toltec and Olmec ruins in Mexico and Central America." Her eyes sparkled with excitement. "I want to go to Africa and to China... Oh, Nick, there's a world of mysteries out there just waiting to be solved!"
He glanced at her. "You sound like a detective."
"I am, sort of," she argued. "I look for clues in the past, and you look for them in the present. It's still all investigation, you know."
He turned his attention back to the road. "I suppose. It depends on your point of view."
She studied him briefly. "You aren't smoking. Helen said you'd quit."
"Five weeks, now," he replied. "I only had the jitters once Las-siter asked us all to give it up, to help him. Tess made him quit," he said with a grin. "Imagine, old Nail Eater being led around by a woman."
"I doubt she's leading him around. He probably loves her and wants to make her happy. He'll live longer if he doesn't smoke."
"We're all going to die eventually," he reminded her. "Some of us might do it a little quicker, but we don't have much choice."
"The law of entropy."
He cocked an eyebrow. "I beg your pardon?"
"That's what scientists call it—the law of entropy. It means that everything grows old and dies."
"As long as we're scientific about it," he said mockingly.
She adjusted her glasses, pushing them back up on her nose. "No need to be sarcastic. Turn here." She pointed.
He drove into the parking lot and pulled into a space marked Visitors. "Why here?"
"You don't have a sticker that permits you to park here," she reminded him. "If you park in a student's spot, you'll be towed. I know you wouldn't like that."
"It's not my car," he reminded her.
"You rented it. You'd have to liberate it."
"I love the way you use words," he chuckled as he got out of the car and helped her out.
"Nice manners," she said, tongue-in-cheek.
"You opened the door for me back when I broke my leg in your senior year of school. Drove me back and forth to work every day, too, on your way."
"Wasn't I sweet?" she asked wistfully. "Ah, those good old days."
"You were less irritating then."
"So were you," she tossed back. She cocked her head and studied him. "Footloose Nick," she murmured. "I suppose you'll end up in a shoot-out with spies somewhere and they'll mount you on a wall or something."
He grinned. "Lovely thought. How kind of you."
She gave up. "My office is on the second floor."
She led him into the big brick building, past the admissions office and up the staircase that led to the history and sociology departments.
"I'm down the hall. The historians have this wing. The sociology department here is rather small, although we offer some interesting courses."
"Anthropology is sociology," he remarked. "I took one course of it in college myself. Sociology and law go hand in hand, did you know?"
"Sure!" she said, unlocking her office. "That's the biology lab down the hall. They're only up here temporarily while their facilities are being remodeled. They have snakes in there," she said with a shiver.
A primal scream echoed down the hall with its high ceilings. "Is that one of them?" he asked.
"Snakes don't scream," she muttered. "No, that's Pal."
"Who? Or should I say what?"
"Pal's a what, all right. He's the missing link. That's what we call him up here. Australopithecus insidious."
"Greek."
"Latin," she corrected. "Pidgin Latin. What I mean, is that Pal is too smart to be a monkey. We have to lock him up. He likes to rip up textbooks. And if you ever leave your keys lying around when he's on the loose, you'll never see them again."
"Isn't he caged?"
"Usually. He picks the lock." She laughed. "The last time he got out, the administrator and several members of the board of trustees were having a catered meeting in the conference room. Pal got in there and started pelting everybody with melon balls and rolls."
"I'll bet that went over well with the guests."
"Guest," she corrected. "It was a senator from Maryland. We never did get that funding we needed for a new research project."
"Why doesn't that surprise me? Out of idle curiosity, what were you going to research?"
Her eyes brightened. "Primate social behavior."
He burst out laughing. "It seems to me that you're doing enough of that without funding."
"That's exactly what our president said. Here." She opened the door to a Spartan office with a desk, a chair, and a bookcase jammed full of reference books. On her desk were stacks of paper and a college handbook. "Like most everyone else here, I'm a faculty advisor. In my spare time, I teach anthropology."
He stood looking down at her with open curiosity. "You were always a brain. I used to feel threatened by you sometimes. No matter what I knew, you seemed to know more."
"Brains can be a curse when you're a young girl," she replied with faint bitterness. "But they last a lot longer than a voluptuous figure and a pretty face," she added.
"There's nothing wrong with you," he mused. "Except that you need feeding up."
"Oh, I'll spread out one day. This is where the artifact was lying when it vanished."
She pointed to a central spot on the desk.
"How long ago did it walk off?"
"Yesterday afternoon."
He nodded and pulled a small leather-bound kit out of his pocket. "Go and read a book or make a telephone call for a few minutes while I do a little investigating."
"What are you going to do?"
"Dust your desk for fingerprints and look for clues, of course. Has anyone been at this desk except you since the artifact was taken?"
She shook her head.
"Good. That narrows it down a bit."
She started to ask him more questions, but he was knee-deep in thought and investigation. She shrugged and left him there.
Books By Diana Palmer Page 113
