by Lee, Rachel
“Probably not,” he told Newman. “Not for this trip anyway. You go ahead with the Burley case.”
“Good enough.” Newman looked relieved.
Well, thought Tebbins as he headed out, if he had half a brain himself, he wouldn’t want this task. The exhibit came from a museum in Mexico. That meant high-profile media coverage and maybe even some diplomatic kinks. Of course, Newman wouldn’t know that. The man was a philistine. His decision wasn’t proof of his sanity, merely proof of ignorance. The theft of some dusty old artifact probably sounded boring to him.
But, Tebbins thought with a sense of pleasure, he himself wasn’t sane. He was just good.
And he wasn’t just conceited. He’d cleared more cases than anyone else in the squad. He had a higher conviction rate. He knew it, they knew it. Maybe it would have been better if nobody but the chief had known it.
Well, he was cursed with a great mind and a big ego. And he had no desire to change either of them.
When he arrived at the museum, he crossed the tape boundary, nodded to the cops he knew, and signed in to the building. People were milling all over the lobby, from campus police officers to museum staff. And maybe even some visitors, for all he knew.
“Everyone’s a bit upset,” Wes Weathers said. He was a moderately tall man with a soft brown moustache and a balding head, and he looked down at Tebbins. A good Tampa cop, Wes had the maturity to keep a lid on things. “I’m going to send them all to their offices.”
“Might make things easier. Crime-scene van here yet?”
“On its way. Should be here in about ten minutes.”
“Good. For the folks who don’t have offices, make them sit up there on the benches.”
“Will do.”
“Now, what exactly do we have?”
“Somebody managed to steal a jade dagger and replace it with a copy, from inside a vacuum-sealed case. No alarms reported.”
“Anything else?”
Weathers shrugged. “So far nobody has noticed anything else.”
“Strange kind of burglary. There must be other valuable items around. How many people have been at the exhibit this morning?”
“Lots. The ticket people are counting right now.”
“Good job.” Tebbins favored him with a smile and headed for Anna Lundgren’s office. She had struck him as a take-charge kind of woman, and he was a little surprised she wasn’t out here making sure everything was going to her satisfaction. There was, however, an officious-looking guy near the ticket windows, wringing his hands and saying something to the ticket sellers.
Tebbins paused and looked back at Weathers. “Who’s that guy by the ticket windows?”
“The managing director of the museum. Ivar Gregor. He’s having a cow.”
“A Russian cow?”
Weathers laughed behind him.
As he had expected, Anna was in her office. Her chair back was to the door, and she appeared to be staring out the window at palm fronds waving slowly against the sky.
“Good morning, Ms. Lundgren.”
She sat up sharply and whirled her chair around, her face pale. “Oh. You.”
He smiled and entered the room. “I understand we have a problem.”
“This museum certainly does.”
“So the dagger was replaced by the replica you showed me last night?”
She nodded, then shook her head. “My God, this is a mess.”
“Is anything else missing? Have you walked through and checked carefully?”
“I was walking through this morning before I discovered the dagger. I’m not sure, but I didn’t notice anything else.”
“Why don’t we go check that out right now? Before the techs get here and banish us all to Siberia.”
At that she gave him a pale smile. “Siberia actually sounds good right now. It’s cold.”
“Well, it would be a long way from this situation, I’ll grant you. But I prefer the warm weather myself.”
“Not I. I’m from Minnesota.”
He shivered. “No thank you. I once made the mistake of working for the police department in Syracuse. All I remember about it was the unending nightmare of having to shovel snow and then drive on it. And worse, I don’t think I was warm the entire time I was there.”
She smiled again. “You get used to it.”
“Exactly. You’ll get used to it here. It’s actually very nice.”
She rose, and together they walked toward the exhibit. “Except for hurricanes, tropical storms, huge spiders, and droughts.”
It was his turn to chuckle. “We are drier than most would think. Except for tropical storms and hurricanes.”
She spoke when they reached the door of the exhibit. “Aren’t you worried about evidence? Are we going to destroy it?”
“It’s my understanding that a great many people have walked through here today already.”
“Yes.” Her green eyes met his. “You’re saying the evidence is already destroyed?”
“Perhaps not all of it. But we’re going to walk through exactly as dozens already have. And, I might add, I think that is exactly what our thief intended.”
The overhead lighting was turned on in the exhibit, utterly depriving it of all mystery and making it glaringly obvious that this was no trail through a rain forest. The scenery and plants looked fake, and even sometimes shabby. The exhibit cases stood out like sore thumbs.
Anna checked each item as they passed it, shaking her head each time.
“Is the alarm system still on?”
“In the cases, absolutely. There are too many people running around in here right now. Did you enjoy the exhibit, Mr. Tebbins?”
“Very much.”
“Do you know much about the Maya?”
“Very little, actually.” He paused in front of a tall stone carved with the ornate figure of a man that was at least twice his height. The man’s head was facing the left, and he appeared to be wearing flowing feathers on his head and carrying some kind of strange instrument. “Very stylized.”
“Most of their art was. My sense from what I’ve seen was that order was very important to them.” She pointed to some small images down the side, all of which appeared to follow the shape of a square with its edges rounded. Inside the suggested squares were various images, many of which seemed to him to be nothing but a conglomeration of lines.
“That’s their writing,” she said. “Do you see how it all seems to fit a certain shape and size, and how the shape is fully filled in? They were very orderly and precise. But then, they were apparently wonderful astronomers and mathematicians.”
He looked at the symbols with even more appreciation.
“Don’t tell anyone I said this, but I see strong similarities to Egypt in their art and architecture.”
He glanced at her. “What would be wrong in thinking that?”
“Let’s just say it bucks mainstream archaeology.”
“So buck them.” He was pleased when he heard a small laugh escape her. At least she was less upset now. Which meant she’d be more informative. “This thing must weigh a couple of tons.”
“The original does, I’m sure. This is a copy, made from a mold of the original. Plastics over foam. Easier to ship, less likely to break.”
He was disappointed to discover the stela wasn’t real. Which was a strange reaction since he knew perfectly well that many things in the exhibit were replicas. “Why do you use so many replicas?”
“Because so many items are too fragile to ship. Or so unique and extraordinary that under most circumstances no one wants to risk the loss. And unfortunately, we’ve apparently become an example of the worst that can happen.”
He didn’t voice his agreement, deciding it was more diplomatic to keep it to himself.
They resumed walking while she inspected the cases. “Are you in charge of the investigation?”
“At present, yes.”
She glanced at him. “What would change?”
“
Oh, you never know when someone higher up might want to take over. Have you told the Mexican museum what’s happened?”
“Not yet. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to keep it a secret for long. Someone from Mexico is expected to arrive in Tampa tomorrow.”
He nodded, although he personally thought this was a complication he would rather not have. Next it would be someone from the State Department concerned about relations with Mexico.
Then he put all that from his mind and focused himself on that most delightful of all things in life: a mystery.
They passed through the rest of the exhibit, and Anna pronounced everything else in order. In the burial chamber, now brightly lighted, she checked out the other artifacts and made the same pronouncement.
“He only took the dagger.”
“Interesting. There must be other valuable items in the exhibit.”
She looked surprised. “Of course. There are gold and silver objects, and the pottery… and the textiles would fetch a pretty price, too.”
“Then why only the dagger? What’s special about it?”
“Well, it’s a fine example; it was found buried with an ancient king…. It might be the most valuable item in the exhibit.”
“Yes, but that’s not what I’m driving at. If there are other valuable items here, why not take all of them? Apart from value, what’s special about the dagger?”
“It’s unique,” she said.
“Okay. Is anything else here unique?”
“A number of things.” Her brow furrowed in thought. “I see what you mean.”
“So what else is there?”
She stood looking at him, her hands clenching at her sides. “Well,” she said in a voice heavy with reluctance, “there’s the curse.”
CHAPTER FIVE
The silence filling the tomb chamber after Anna’s last words seemed to linger coldly in the air. Tebbins turned them over in his mind, savoring the possibilities, feeling a distinct thrill. The curse was, of course, mentioned in the exhibit, but he hadn’t thought of that as a motivator. All of a sudden he felt like Sherlock Holmes.
He opened his mouth to ask Anna to explain in more depth, but at that moment the techs arrived. He had to deal with them first.
“This room,” he told them, “has been visited by dozens of people already this morning. And until we’re ready to open the display case, we can’t look for anything there. Focus on it and the area around it, though.”
Then he took Anna’s arm. She was looking pale and unhappy, he noted. “Let’s go to your office. We need to talk.”
Three minutes later they were in her office. He noted that she immediately headed for her chair, making herself safe behind her desk. He obliged her by sitting so she wouldn’t feel threatened. Why did this woman feel so insecure? Was she actually afraid of the curse? He tucked the interesting possibility away for future consideration.
“Tell me about the curse,” he said.
Her lips tightened. “You already know about it. It was covered in the presentation last night.”
He shook his head. “That was a superficial explanation. I want to know what you know about it. The stuff that wasn’t included for public presentation.”
She sighed and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her desk and toying with a paper clip. “There’s really not much to it. Honestly. It’s based entirely on a Mayan legend which says that the jaguar god would kill those who trespassed.”
“What about the dagger?”
“That’s also myth. The locals apparently warned the archaeologists that there was a powerful dagger with the head of the jaguar on it in the sarcophagus itself, and it must not be disturbed. They warned that their fathers had told them that any who disturbed this artifact would be cursed unto the second generation to die by fire in the jaws of the jaguar. Legend further holds that someone tried to rob the tomb many years ago and was killed by a gout of fire that rose up from the earth. And the locals apparently went to some trouble to put the dagger back.”
“Pretty,” Tebbins remarked. “So, did this legend turn up before or after the archaeologists found the dagger?”
“Before. At least that’s what I hear. But who can say for sure?”
“The archaeologists.”
She shook her head. “They’re dead. Two were killed in the earthquake that devastated the region, and the third died in an auto accident a couple of months later.”
Tebbins’s eyebrows rose. This was growing more interesting by the minute. “So how in the world did anyone get the dagger?”
“It had already been taken out, along with a bunch of other artifacts.”
“But no one else has died because of it,” Tebbins said. “So the curse is ineffectual now.”
Anna sighed and tossed the paper clip across the desk. “I don’t know.”
“Why not?”
“Because the museum in Mexico hasn’t allowed anyone to handle the dagger since it was recovered. They say it’s out of respect for the beliefs of the indigenous peoples. They might have been persuaded by the earthquake and fire, though, coming as it did on the heels of the discovery.”
Tebbins smiled. He was a man of intellect, but he was still very human. He understood the almost subliminal effects of such things. “It’s a good story. So, sometime after the tomb was opened and the dagger removed, there was an earthquake. How many did it kill? A few hundred?”
Surprising him, she rose from her chair and went to stand with her back to him, looking out the window.
“It was worse than that,” she said presently.
He waited a moment, but she seemed to have nothing more to offer. “Well, the part about the second generation being cursed might put this case in a whole new light.”
“I doubt it,” she said, her voice almost steely.
“Who was the guard on duty during the night?”
She waved a hand. “I’m not sure. You’d have to check with Ivar. He handles all of that.”
“I’ll do that. I suppose it’s the same with the security people?”
“Yes. I’m just the curator. I worry about the exhibits and how everything is presented.”
He looked at her back and wondered what secrets she was concealing. She had access to the artifact, she was the person who found the replica dagger, it had disappeared from her desk…. Containing a sigh, he mentally wrote her down as the first suspect in the crime.
Gil Garcia was still at the scene, keeping an eye on the techs, making suggestions… although there weren’t very many he could make. Checking the windows for illicit entry or egress—as if that wasn’t obvious—and so on. He felt like a fifth wheel.
Cripes, he thought, there isn’t anything visible to go on. No signs of struggle. No signs of drug use, other than what was in the living room. Not so much as a knocked-over lamp, a tilted picture, a pillow cushion in the wrong place. The neighbors hadn’t seen or heard anything unusual. No window had been jimmied, no lock disturbed…
He loved it. Finally, he decided he couldn’t do anything more and should go down to the station to talk to Carole Efrem. It was amazing how much people actually knew that they didn’t realize they knew unless you questioned them carefully enough. And at the moment, she was looking like his only lead.
He opened the door, ready to step out into the unusually hot April day, when the phone started ringing. He turned, considering answering it, and saw something at eye level.
The doorframe was a little cracked and splintering, and there were some green fibers clinging to it. Green fibers the same color as the dead man’s uniform, found crumpled on the floor of the closet. Too high to have come off his shoulders.
“Hey, Les?” he called to the tech who was still going over the couch area.
“Yeah?”
The phone kept ringing.
“There’s some fiber here on the doorframe. See if it matches the vic’s uniform.”
“Will do.”
The phone was still ringing. Annoyed and now c
urious—most callers didn’t wait through so many rings—he decided to answer it, since the cop who was supposed to had disappeared into another room.
Grabbing for it, heedless of the fingerprint powder that was all over it, he lifted the receiver to his ear. “Hello?”
“Hi, this is Billie Sue at the Museum of Antiquities. May I speak to Mr. Malacek?”
“I’m sorry,” Gil said. “That won’t be possible.”
“Then could I leave a message? It’s urgent.”
“It won’t matter,” Gil answered. “Mr. Malacek is dead.”
“Oh!” He heard the shock on the other end of the phone. “Oh, dear! Look, could you please stay on the line? There’s a detective here who’ll want to know that.”
Gil felt the first real smile of the day begin to tug at his mouth. A detective? The plot thickened.
A few moments later, a reedy male voice was on the line. “This is Detective Clarence Tebbins of the Tampa Police Department. To whom am I speaking?”
To whom? God, one of those. He was tempted to hand back a Lily Tomlin line but decided to skip it. If this Tebbins was a prick, he’d squeal on him to his bosses. “This is Detective Gil Garcia,” he replied. “St. Pete Homicide.”
He had the pleasure of listening to a silent line for a few moments as Tebbins absorbed that information. Score one.
Tebbins spoke. “Homicide? The plot thickens. Well, Detective, as soon as you can get away from the scene, we need to speak.”
“I’d dearly love to know why.”
“I’m sure you would. Suffice it to say, there was a major burglary at the Museum of Antiquities while Mr. Malacek was on duty last night.”
“Ahh,” said Gil, who felt his heart kick. “Great news. I was looking for a lead.”
“So was I. Where and when?”
Gil glanced over his shoulder. The medical examiner had already taken the corpse, the techs were almost done.
“I need to question Malacek’s girlfriend,” he told Tebbins. “Can you get away?”
“I’m waiting for the security company to arrive. It’s important, so I’m afraid I can’t. But I would like to know what the girlfriend says.”
