Stolen Souls

by Sackett, Jeffrey

  "I know, Gus," she replied, "but I didn't want to walk in here all alone, not with all the other things that have been happening."

  "All alone!" Sawhill said. "Hey, thanks a lot."

  "Shut up, Tommy," she said, not unkindly. To Gus, "I'm not trying to take you away from your guard duty. I just wanted you here until we got the lights on."

  "So I can go back now?"

  "Sure. And thanks again."

  "Oh, that's okay." As he turned to go back to the grounds building Gus said, "I'd be happy to stay with you, but I got my orders and—well, you understand."

  "Of course I do."

  "Okay. 'Night now."

  "Goodbye, Gus."

  "Be sure to lock up," was his parting official reminder. Harriet smiled at Sawhill. "As if I'd forget to lock up my museum."

  "He means well, honey. His brain just has a little synapse trouble." Sawhill walked into the center of the room and looked down at the mummy. "I have decided to disagree with you."

  "Huh? Disagree with me about what? I haven't said anything."

  "This thing isn't beautiful. It's hideous."

  "Oh," she laughed as she took the golden medallion from her purse and then placed the purse upon a nearby table. "I see. Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as they say"

  "Yeah, but look at this thing! A dried up old corpse!"

  "No, a perfectly preserved mummy."

  "I know how much you love Egyptian history and all that, but I can't help but think that it takes a pretty fucked up culture to have a preoccupation with death so obsessive that they would go to all this trouble to preserve the bodies of the dead."

  "You don't understand," she said as she placed the medallion carefully onto the floor of the coffin. "They were preoccupied with life, not death. This is a denial of death, an affirmation of life."

  Sawhill shook his head. "It still seems unhealthy to me."

  "Such ethnocentricity! Look at how screwy our funerary customs are."

  "Oh, come on! There's no comparison!"

  "No? Isn't the United States the culture which invented the steel-lined, concrete-encased coffin, guaranteed worm-proof for centuries?"

  "Well, sure, but—"

  "Don't we have cemeteries for pets? And what about cryogenics!"

  "Yeah, but that's a California thing. What do you expect?"

  "Do you know the average American family spends more on a funeral than on a wedding?" She laughed grimly. "Talk about inverted priorities!"

  "It still doesn't compare."

  "Wasn't it our culture which came up with places like the Playboy Club?"

  He was momentarily nonplussed. "What's that got to do with death?"

  "Nothing. But it doesn't have anything to do with emotional health, either. I mean, think about it."

  "Come on, Harriet. It was just an innocent night club."

  "It was a place where men went to ingest intoxicating substances served to them by half-naked women dressed like animals." She grinned. "You see? All a matter of perspective."

  "Well—"

  "And he isn't hideous. He's beautiful." She knelt down beside the coffin and smiled into the ancient face. "Look at the condition he's in, Tommy. He's a perfect specimen. Absolutely flawless."

  "I suppose," he conceded. "Still, I'm glad I don't look like that."

  Harriet laughed. "Hey, three thousand years from now you won't look this good. You won't look like anything."

  "Yeah," he said distractedly. "Look, you want to go home now?"

  "In a minute. I just want to look at him for a little while."

  Get out of here, Ahmed Hadji thought. Go home! He was pressing his ear up to the crack between the door and the frame. He could hear them clearly in the stillness of the dark night.

  "Honey, you wanted to come by and check on things, to make sure nothing had been taken. Okay, we're here, and nothing has been taken, okay? So let's get going. It's been a long day."

  "Okay, okay." She rose to her feet. Then she paused, frowning. "That's funny."

  "What's funny?"

  "It just occurred to me. I could have sworn that I closed the sarcophagus this morning."

  "Well, you probably forgot. You were pretty upset, remember."

  "Yeah," she agreed. "I probably forgot to close it up. Give me a hand with the lid, will you?"

  Ahmed Hadji heard the sounds of the lid being replaced. He listened to the footsteps as they moved toward the entrance of the museum. When the light flicked off and the door shut and he heard the locking of the door, he sighed and wiped his brow.

  Hadji opened the storage room door slowly and carefully. Satisfied that he was alone, he went back into the large central room and once again removed the lid of the sarcophagus. He reached into his deep pocket and took out a pair of rubber gloves. He would not place his bare hand upon the body of Sekhemib. To do so would be to profane the Lord High Priest as well as to endanger his own life.

  Hadji put on the gloves, picked up the medallion and put it in his pocket, and then slid his hands beneath the shoulders and thighs of the mummy. It was lighter than a living man would have been, lighter even than a conventional corpse, but it was still heavy enough to cause him some discomfort as he lifted it from the sarcophagus. He carried the mummy into the storage room and placed it upright against the wall. Hadji removed his coat and draped it over the window sill to serve as a buffer and then moved the mummy to the side of the window. He climbed out of the room through the open window and then reached in, grabbing the mummy by the shoulders. After pulling it toward the opening, he pressed his hands together against the mummy's arms and lifted. It moved upward a few feet. With a quick motion, Hadji moved his grip down to the waist. He pulled down and the mummy's torso came level to the ground upon the fulcrum of the window sill. Hadji pulled the stiff form out through the window and leaned it against the outside wall of the museum. He crept stealthily to the edge of the building and peered around the corner. The policeman was nowhere in sight.

  Ahmed Hadji smiled. He lifted the mummy in his arms once again and walked quickly, though a bit awkwardly, away from the small museum. He ran over to the automobile he had rented early that day, under a false name, of course, and placed the mummy upon the hood of the trunk. He unlocked the car and opened the rear door. Hadji was looking around nervously all the while, for this was the most dangerous part of his evening's enterprise, when he was most visible, most exposed. But he saw no one. He slid the mummy into the back seat, finding to his chagrin that it was too long to rest flat upon the seat. He had no choice but to leave the stiff, linen-enshrouded corpse propped up on an angle against the opposite door.

  He shut the rear door and climbed into the driver's seat. He did not depress the accelerator pedal as he turned the key in the ignition because he was afraid that the sudden racing of the engine might attract attention. There was fortunately enough gasoline in the fuel line to enable the car to start without difficulty, and he drove off, not turning on the headlights until he reached the main road just beyond the college entrance.

  "Ha!" he laughed aloud. I've done it! I've done it! I've done it!

  His timing had been better than he knew, for he had not been gone more than ten minutes when Harriet Langly and Thomas Sawhill returned to the museum. "If it isn't here, then I don't know where it could be," Harriet was saying as she opened the door.

  "You could have left your purse at the police station," Sawhill said.

  Harriet nodded as she switched on the light. "Yeah, that's possible. I know that I had it when we left Bottadio's." She looked to her left and saw her purse lying on the brochure table. "Oh, thank God, there it is! I remember now I put it down there when we were here earlier."

  "Good," Sawhill said wearily. "Now let's go home and go to sleep."

  "Okay. Sorry, Tommy. I just—" Her eyes went wide with shock. "Tommy! Oh my God!"

  "What? What's the matter?"

  "Look!" She pointed at the sarcophagus and Sawhill saw the lid, whi
ch he knew he had helped her place back on top of the coffin shortly before, lying on the floor. Harriet ran over to the sarcophagus and gasped. "Goddamn it! Goddamn it!"

  Sawhill was a step behind her. "Gone," he said angrily. "It must have been that goddamn Arab."

  Harriet ran to the door and started screaming, "GUS! GUS! Come here quick!"

  Gus Rudd's head appeared in the distance from within the doorway of the grounds building. "You say something, Miss Langly?" he called.

  "There's been a robbery! Come here, please!" Gus slammed and locked the grounds building door and came running over to her. "Somebody stole the mummy."

  "Shit," Gus muttered. "Did you see anything? Hear anything?"

  "No, of course not," Harriet screamed. "He didn't just walk by us carrying it!"

  "Harriet, calm down," Sawhill said.

  "Don't tell me to calm down! Goddamn it!" She pounded her fist against her thigh in frustration.

  "Gus," Sawhill said, "you'd better go call Jasper."

  "Yeah, yeah, right." Gus nodded. "Miss Langly, I'm gonna go call Jasper now. You try to stay calm." He opened the museum door and began to leave.

  "Where the hell are you going?" she asked.

  Gus stopped short. "To call Jasper, Miss Langly."

  "There's a phone right next to you on the table, Gus!"

  "Oh. Sorry." Gus picked up the receiver and began to dial.

  Tears began to well up in Harriet's eyes and then burst forth, cascading down her face carrying with them most of her mascara. "That son of a bitch!"

  "Take it easy, honey," Sawhill said. "This must have just happened. He can't have gotten far. Jasper'll get him."

  "Miss Langly?" Gus said. "Jasper wants to talk to you."

  Harriet took the receiver from his hand. "Hello, Jasper? You have to catch him. He stole the mummy we left in the museum."

  "Now listen carefully, Miss Langly. I'm gonna call the state police and have some roadblocks set up. Problem is, we don't know what kind of car he's driving or where he's going. We don't even know where he's staying."

  "What about hotels, motels?"

  "No," Jasper's voice said firmly. "He ain't gonna waltz into a hotel lobby carrying a mummy. I think he's probably staying here in town somewhere. We'll start searching in the morning."

  "In the morning! Listen, Chief. Tommy and I were here not fifteen minutes ago, and the mummy was still here. He must have just stolen it, and he must be around here somewhere, somewhere in town. You can't wait until tomorrow."

  "Ma'am, I'm investigating a murder right now. In fact, I think the crimes are related."

  This statement startled Harriet. "You mean you think Hadji killed Mr. Lewis?"

  "Yup. Look at the facts here, Miss Langly. This Hadji says he's been talking to the Earl's lawyer, and the lawyer ends up dead with knife wounds. Then he shows up here, making all sorts of threats, demanding that we give him those exhibits. Then he disappears, and the one man in town who might have rented or sold him a place to live winds up dead, also with a knife wound." He laughed grimly, without humor. "One hell of a knife wound. Now I'm gonna call all the hotels and motels within a thirty mile radius, but I'll bet by my next month's salary that I won't find anything. He's here in town with your exhibit, or else he's on the road in a rented or stolen car. Either way, we'll find him. But not tonight. You got me right in the middle of questioning Marjorie Granitto, Lewis's secretary."

  "But can't Gus look for him?"

  "Sure, if you want to leave the other six boxes unguarded." He paused, awaiting her reply. There was none. "I didn't think so. Now take my advice. You lock up that museum and go home. Call up your insurance lady friend and Sam Goldhaber, let 'em know what's happened. But don't go looking for this guy yourself."

  "The hell we won't! I'm—"

  "Miss Langly, if I'm right in my suspicions, this man has killed two people. It won't bother him to kill two more. Do you understand me? Now, go home and try to get some sleep." He hung up without saying goodbye.

  Sawhill stood beside her, waiting to be informed as to the substance of the conversation. When she did not speak, he said, "Well? What did he say?"

  She sighed. "He said we should go home and go to sleep."

  "What?!"

  "Yeah, it makes sense, what he said. He's got a murder on his hands and he can't come over here now." She turned to Gus. "I think you're supposed to keep watch on the other exhibits for the night."

  "Sure thing. I'll be back over there if you need me for anything." He turned and left the room.

  Sawhill shook his head angrily. "Well, we can't just go home and go to sleep. We have to do something."

  "I know, I know, but what? Jasper said he thinks Hadji killed Mr. Lewis. If that's true, we can't do anything even if we find him."

  "We could tell Jasper where he is," Sawhill suggested. "If we see him with the college's property, we can have him arrested."

  "Who knows where he is?" she asked rhetorically. "This guy may be a murderer, Tommy. Are you and I going to make a citizen's arrest of a man like that?"

  "Well . . ." The idea did not appeal to him.

  "Oh, Tommy, this is horrible," she wept.

  He took her in his arms, but she resisted his embrace. He was confused by her reaction, but tried to hide the fact. "Well, what should we do?"

  Harriet shook her head. "I don't know I just don't—" She drew her breath in suddenly. "Jesus! You don't think he took the others also?" They stood staring at each other for a few moments and then without another word they bolted from the room and ran madly toward the grounds building. When they reached the door Harriet began to pound on the door frantically, screaming, "Gus! Open up! Gus!"

  "What's wrong, ma'am?" Gus asked from behind her. Harriet and Sawhill spun around. "Good grief!" Sawhill exclaimed. "What the hell—"

  "Why aren't you inside with the rest of the shipment?" she demanded.

  Gus laughed. "Shit, Miss Langly, you didn't even give me chance to get back here. You two ran right past me."

  "That's impossible!" she yelled. "I didn't see you!"

  "Harriet," Sawhill said soothingly but a bit condescendingly, "it's dark out here. And we were running and very apprehensive."

  "So what?" she snapped. "I didn't see him. I'm not blind, dammit!"

  "I was right over there, ma'am," Gus said, pointing to the trees between the grounds building and the museum. "I was taking a leak."

  Harriet looked at him for a moment and then laughed despite her emotional upset. "I'm sorry, Gus, I really am. I'm just so—I don't know—angry, annoyed, frantic. I'm really sorry."

  "Hey, no problem," Gus said, all smiles. "But what's wrong? Why'd you come running over here?"

  "We want to check the other crates. Just to be sure that nothing else was stolen."

  Gus seemed hurt by the implication. "Gee, Miss Langly, I been here all night. I been watching 'em."

  "I know you have, Gus. Nobody's doubting you. But we don't know what might have happened before you got here. We just want to check. Okay?"

  He shrugged. "Yeah, sure. Don't matter to me." He was clearly not placated by her explanation. Gus unlocked the padlock and led them into the pitch blackness inside. Harriet saw four crates stacked against the wall with two uncrated coffins, identical to the one in which Sekhemib had lain, resting beside them, as soon as Gus had switched on the lights.

  "Would you guys please lift the lid on one of them?" she asked.

  "Sure," Gus said, waving Sawhill back. "I don't need no help. These lids are real light." Harriet followed him over to the wall and watched nervously as he easily lifted the wooden lid and placed it with exaggerated caution on the floor. She took Sawhill's hand nervously and looked inside.

  "Thank God," she muttered, grateful for two things. There was indeed a mummy in the sarcophagus, and it was, like Sekhemib, in absolutely perfect condition. "Thank God," she repeated.

  "You want to open the others too?" Gus asked.

  "Just the other un
crated one, please." Gus lifted that lid as well, and Harriet heaved a sigh of relief. A third occupied sarcophagus, a third perfect mummy. "Tom, when photographs of these mummies hit the papers, museums all over the world are going to be kicking themselves for not beating us to this purchase."

  "Are they really that good?"

  "They're unbelievable! I haven't seen mummies this well preserved anywhere, ever. Not even in Cairo."

  "I'll have to take your word for it," Sawhill muttered. He squinted at the body in the sarcophagus. "Is that a woman?"

  "Uh-huh," she said, kneeling down to look at the lid. "This lid has pretty much the same inscriptions as the other one, except for the name. This is—" she paused as she studied the hieroglyphs inscribed on the top line, "Meret, priestess of Isis." She shifted in the direction of the other lid, moving there on hand and knee. "And this is—" another pause, "Yuya, priest of Set." She frowned and shook her head.

  What now, Sawhill thought. "Another problem?"

  "I'm not sure. Gus, you got a flashlight?"

  "Sure, Miss Langly. Ain't it bright enough in here for you? I got all the lights on." He handed her the large heavy flashlight which hung from a strap on his belt.

  "Sure it's light enough. I just want to check something." She clicked on the light and brought its beam to bear upon the lid. "Same phrases," she muttered. "Anubis, Set, ankh, tekenu—"

  "Same medallion," Sawhill added helpfully. He was standing over the mummy Harriet had identified as that of Meret.

  "Don't ogle the dead, Tommy," she warned. She rose to her feet, brushed off her hands and knees, and looked down at the medallion which rested upon the breast of the woman. "Not quite the same."

  "Does this one make sense?"

  "Maybe," she muttered. "I think I understand."

  He waited for the explanation which was not forthcoming. "Well? Want to let me in on it?"

  She looked up. "Sorry I was thinking." She paused, deep in thought. "Do you remember the hieroglyphs on the first medallion?"

  "No," he said with amusement. "They all look the same to me."

  "Well, there were four of them: two figures of Anubis, the cross of life, and the tekenu. This one has one figure of Anubis, the cross, the tekenu, and the fourth hieroglyph is the symbol for Isis."