Oh, brother. How typical of him. Carl hated to admit it when his best ideas came from somebody else.
Ellen wasn't about to let it go by. "My idea, actually," she said with a perky little smile. Then she winked at me.
Victor acknowledged her contribution with a quick nod (I didn't think he had seen the wink). Carl stared at his hands to avoid looking at Ellen.
Victor pushed his notes to one side. "And now for the latest news on our new building..."
The new museum from hell, I thought. The money for the building had been donated almost two years ago, but the university lawyers were still fighting over the terms of the donor's estate until a few months ago. Too bad it wasn't an engineering laboratory-we were beginning to wonder if we'd get a new facility in our lifetimes.
"...The Dean has diverted some funding to pay for the new utilities, so the auditorium will be cut and the library has been combined with the conference room." He spread out the revised plans and we all crowded around to look. "And the real sticking point is furniture and computers. It seems our budget will not cover anything except the new compact shelving for the storerooms."
"What do we do for desks, then?" asked Carl with a scowl. "Use cardboard boxes?"
"No, we go to Surplus like we always have," said Susie, standing up to her full height, which was an impressive five feet, nine inches. "We can always get rejects from the richer departments."
Everyone groaned. We knew that meant the beat-up gunmetal gray desks discarded by Physics and Chemistry. The science departments with their large National Science Foundation grants could always afford new office furniture.
"The good news," Victor continued, "is that groundbreaking has been scheduled for March fifteenth, with estimated completion by early the following year. Now that we have that date, I want you all to think about how long we need to pack up the museum, and when we should close this facility to the public. We will make that decision at our next meeting." Victor had another appointment at eleven-thirty, so the staff reconvened in what we liked to call our "lounge."
? ? ? ?
The museum's lounge, another repository for reject furniture, boasted several shabby and overstuffed armchairs in faded green brocade. The only new item in the room was the coffee pot. Victor had decided that his staff would function better on real coffee than freeze-dried muck. Naturally, he had his own private stash of gourmet coffee beans, personal coffee grinder, and a Krups coffeemaker in his office.
Everyone was discouraged, but predictably, Carl was the most vocal. "There goes my chance of a decent computer!" he grumbled.
I sympathized, since my own computer was an aged Macintosh whose memory was inadequate for most of the applications I was using. But computer-doorstops were low on my list of concerns at the moment.
"Poor Carl! As if you're the only person who matters here!" Susie could be vicious when she was upset. Carl glared at her, moving over to stare morosely out the narrow window.
"No storage cabinets, I bet!" muttered Ginny. She was not sitting like the others, but leaning against a bookcase with her arms crossed over her ample chest, smoking the inevitable cigarette.
"What a rotten deal!" Susie said, indignant for once. "Victor should talk to the Dean. Maybe Saltonstall can release some of his discretionary funds."
"I had the impression Victor has already asked, and the answer was 'No,'" Ginny said. She looked around for an ashtray, which had migrated over to the windowsill.
"I need another hood in the lab," said Ellen, dropping into one of the green chairs. "And I don't see how we can afford to get another microscope now." She braced her feet against the rickety wooden coffee table, a Salvation Army find of Susie's.
I had listened long enough. "Hey, come on guys, our friend and colleague has been murdered and all you can talk about is furniture? Don't any of you care about what happened to Marion? Or the fact that the police haven't a clue who did it? Why, any one of us could be next."
Everyone avoided meeting my glare. Someone chucked a napkin into the wastebasket with a tiny thump.
"Lisa's right. We need to keep on top of the police investigation. What did the cops ask you?" Carl looked at me challengingly.
"The usual stuff-where I was at the time she was killed, what the gallery looked like when we came in, did anyone have a grudge against Marion..."
"Does anyone know exactly when she was killed?" asked Ginny.
"I haven't heard the police say anything about the time. But Marion was still warm when I tried to get a pulse, so it must have been shortly before we got there." I swallowed hard, remembering Emma's pinched little face.
Ellen looked at me with concern.
Pulling out a Kleenex and facing away from their curious stares, I blew my nose.
Carl said what I had been thinking. "You know, guys, they think it was one of us."
The others stared at him.
"What makes you say that?" asked Susie, finally sitting down.
"It's obvious. The direction of the questioning. The way they keep coming back. You can tell our boss is upset, with the crime scene unit all over the place and reporters calling day and night."
"Victor's upset," said Susie. "But I know his moods. He just has to be handled right." That smug remark caused Carl to turn around quickly and stare at her, looking for a sign that Victor had succeeded where he, Carl, had failed. Susie smoothed her red curls and crossed to the door with feline grace. Her departure broke the tension, and conversation flowed onto other topics.
I cornered Ginny before she could disappear. "Ginny, I need a lesson on the database. Do you have time later this afternoon?"
"I suppose so." The tall registrar looked at me as if she were judging my weight. "Come at three-thirty. I can get you started, and then you can get the rest from the on-line manual. If you knew how much I have to do this week!"
As Ginny grabbed her stuff and strode out the door, I wondered why she never hung around for a real conversation. Certainly we were all over-worked and under-paid, but people who went into the museum field expected that. It went with the territory, like weekend shifts, evening events, and the high turnover of junior personnel. Ginny's aloofness was hard to understand. She had been there longer than anyone else and had more seniority, so presumably her job was secure. What was Ginny's home life like? She'd never mentioned a roommate, or a lover. I knew she had a mother and a brother in the Boston area. It was high time I found out more about Ginny Maxwell.
I caught up with Ellen going down the hall, and we decided to go to the new Chinese restaurant on Boylston St.
CHAPTER 11
"CHOOSE FOR HIM A PLOT AMONG YOUR FIELDS..." (FIFTH DYNASTY INSCRIPTION)
The Rainbow Garden was a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant. Two gorgeous ceramic Fu dogs guarded the entrance to a red and gold dining room full of cozy booths. The enticing smell of shrimp and ginger and Chinese spices made me sniff the air like a little dog.
Ellen and I were seated immediately in a booth near the window. I loved window seating, if it wasn't too drafty. You could watch people hurry past, and revel in the more bizarre student fashions. The Boston street scene included the full range of piercings (nose, upper lip, tongue, and ear), blue or orange hair, and weird combinations of layered clothing with the shortest garment on top. Baggy clothes with the crotch at knee level (young male) and midriff-baring, tight outfits with killer shoes (young female) provided endless free entertainment.
Being with Ellen away from the museum felt like old times-good times, before death and murder had intervened. I looked at her with affection. I was supposed to keep an open mind, but I refused to consider the possibility that my best friend was a murderer.
"I heard they have fabulous eggplant here," Ellen began, clearly eager to talk about something besides work.
"You mean that stir-fried dish of little purple eggplants with tons of garlic? I love that!"
"Here it is," Ellen showed me the number on the handwritten menu. She chose a chicken and c
ashew plate, and we decided on soup and a pot of green tea for both of us.
The waiter appeared and took our order, returning with ice water and chopsticks. I unwrapped mine and smiled.
"What are you remembering?"
"I can never use chopsticks without remembering the woman on our China trip who kept asking for a fork. Someone dubbed her the 'I Wanna Fork Lady.'"
Ellen laughed. "I bet she didn't like the food, either."
"You're right. You should have seen her expression that lunchtime when she discovered we'd been eating sea slug."
"Isn't sea slug good for your complexion?"
"Oh, yes! Old Chinese remedy, better than Nivea!"
The hot-and-sour soup arrived. It was steaming and delicious.
Ellen bent over the table with a wicked grin. "So, what did you think of Carl's maneuver?"
"You mean, trying to take all the credit for the exhibit name? I thought it stank." I'd had my own experiences with male colleagues who tried to pretend professional women didn't exist.
"Carl just can't share; he's too ambitious and too selfish. He wants all the glory for himself." Ellen leaned back so the waiter could deliver her entrée.
I sighed. "We all want Victor's approval. But Carl and I are probably the most needy right now since we don't have permanent jobs."
Ellen was already had a permanent position through state funding, but she knew how precarious my situation was. "You won't have to wait much longer. And I'm betting on you. Victor isn't an easy boss, but he can't miss the fact that you work harder and produce twice as much as Carl ever did." She dug hungrily into her chicken stir-fry.
I took a big bite of spicy eggplant. "It's fantastic-try some." We exchanged samples. "How's James?"
My not-so-innocent question made Ellen halt in mid-bite. Her cheeks grew pink, either because the thought of James made her blush, or because of the spicy food.
"He dumped me. We had a dinner date the other night. Halfway through dessert he told me it wouldn't work, that he'd met someone else." Ellen was indignant. "I can't believe it. We had such a good thing going. I think I'll give him a little cooling off period and call him again. Maybe the new lady will disappear."
"I'm sorry," I said insincerely. Ellen didn't seem that upset, so I wasn't worried about her emotional well-being-just her notorious temper. Was I the "someone else?" There was something about the way James had looked at me...this could get really sticky. Would he call, now that he was no longer dating Ellen? If he did, would I agree to see him? Would we...
"Come back, Lisa," said Ellen, seeing I wasn't paying attention.
James was a dangerous subject. Better avoid any further discussion. I picked up my fortune cookie. Ellen and I found the usual Chinese fortunes too bland and impersonal, so we liked to make up our own. Now I pretended to read: "You are strong of mind, except around chocolate."
Ellen said, "Happiness is a fat cat (to eat)."
"Yuck. You will meet a tall, bushy radiologist."
"You are admired for your ability to sleep through meetings."
I laughed and looked at my watch.
"Yikes! We're going to be late." I started groping for money in my capacious shoulder bag.
Ellen flagged down the waiter and we gathered up our coats.
? ? ? ?
After lunch, we had a date with Susie and Carl to help move a statue up from storage to fill holes in the Egyptian gallery where I'd swiped pieces for my exhibit.
When we arrived in the storeroom, Ellen was regaling me with pre-James adventures and the story of a disastrous double date.
"So did you ever see him again?" I asked, as I changed my loafers for running shoes.
"Are you kidding? After the way that jerk behaved?" replied Ellen, dumping her purse on a nearby table. She didn't need to change her shoes since she was already wearing Rockports with rubber soles.
Susie was next on the scene, carrying a pair of immaculate white tennis shoes that looked like they had never been worn. She sat down and slipped off her expensive Gucci high heels.
"Where's Carl?" I asked.
"Carl's not back from lunch," said Susie.
"It figures." said Ellen. "What are we moving this time?"
"That," said Susie, pointing to an enormous plaster cast sitting on a flatbed cart. It was Khafre, the pharaoh who supervised the building of the second pyramid at Giza. The statue was so big that almost one-third of it stuck out over the edges of the cart.
"Ye gods," I groaned, shoving my hair behind my ears. "Couldn't Victor afford the maintenance guys for this one?"
"Not if you want your full exhibit budget," said Susie, knowing how I would respond.
"Right." I walked around the cart to survey just how tricky it was going to be. "Okay, ladies, let's see if we can get it into the elevator."
We took up positions around the cart, which was an elderly model with squeaky wheels. With difficulty, we managed to get it out the door. The elevator was down the hall, around two corners.
We approached the first corner. I was walking backwards, facing Ellen and Susie who were pushing forwards.
"Watch out for the..." Susie said, just as there was a sickening crash.
"...Restored foot," Susie finished, gazing in horror at Khafre's right foot that was now lying on the floor.
We stood there in stunned silence. Ellen glanced at me, raising her eyebrows comically.
"Well," I said taking a deep breath. "Victor can't fire all three of us. He'd have no one left to run the museum."
Susie was almost in tears. "Oh, my God, Victor will have a fit. Can you just imagine what he'll say? Oh, God. I should have been on that corner."
"Take it easy," said Ellen briskly, "I think I can fix it. Victor need never know." She fixed a beady eye on Susie.
Susie usually told Victor way more than the rest of us wanted him to know. This time, she agreed. "I guess. What he doesn't know won't hurt him."
I thought cynically that Susie would probably have reacted differently if she hadn't been involved in moving the statue. "How will you mend it?" I asked Ellen.
"Good old spackling compound and a little black paint, with some white and green specks to look like granite. It'll be as good as new."
"Maybe you should go into business," I said. "Ellen's Pseudo-Stone Restoration."
"It's really just like faux-marbling. You know, what people do to jazz up their kitchens and living rooms, adding marble pillars and all."
"Is that what they taught you at NYU?" asked Susie sweetly.
Ellen rolled her eyes.
Ginny Maxwell came around the corner. "What's all this?" she said with a mischievous smile.
"Ah-well, we had a little accident with an Egyptian pharaoh," I answered.
"Hmm," she said, surveying the damage. "Well, it doesn't look too bad. It can be fixed, can't it?"
Ellen nodded.
Relieved that Ginny seemed to think that breaking statues was a perfectly normal part of museum work, I changed the subject. "You think this was bad, wait until we do the move to the new building," I said. "I heard a maintenance guy telling Victor that the only way to get these bigger statues out of Wigglesworth Hall is to take out the elevator and lower the statues one by one down the shaft."
"No!" Ellen and Susie said in unison. Ginny laughed.
Susie said, "Oh, my God! Lucky for us, that won't happen for a while."
"You're right," I agreed. "Let's get this baby back to Ellen's lab."
? ? ? ?
Rubbing my aching back an hour later, I entered the registration area on the third floor.
"Ginny?" I called. There was no answer. Ginny must be out on an errand, so this was my opportunity to snoop around. Looking around me at the stacks of boxes and papers overflowing from cubbyholes and piled on chairs, I understood how it would take massive reorganization for our museum to be accredited. Not only did the American Association of Museums require a modern facility, they also required clear divisions of labor and re
sponsibility. Each museum going through the accreditation process had to do a self-assessment, clearly defining every job, every function, and every process the staff used, from accounting to pest control. We'd never pass in our current condition, just as we could never do outside loans-only temporary trades of artifacts with the other campus museum.
I navigated an aisle of boxes and tables covered with artifacts and found Ginny's terminal. It was booted up and ready. I plunked down in her uncomfortable wooden chair, dumping my file folder on top of a nearby pile. Keying in my password, I waited for the whirring of loading to stop. The first artifact record flashed up. The record was divided into quadrants, with the categories "artifact specifics," "provenance and acquisition," "location and exhibit history," and "conservation and registration" status. As a curator, I was most concerned with the "provenance" section that contained all the information on country, region, and site of origin, as well as the history of how each artifact had come to the museum. Ginny and Marion overlapped in the categories they tracked. Marion, the preparator, had been most concerned with exhibit status. The registrar, Ginny, kept the database up-to-date for new acquisitions, recorded objects moving in and out of the Conservation lab, and was in charge of revamping the old artifact records before the move to the new building.
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