Bound For Eternity

by Sarah Wisseman

  The dizziness was worse.

  The way down the front stairs was blocked with paint buckets and ladders. Construction, again!

  I groaned and dragged myself the other way, up the stairs to the museum entrance. The door was still open. I staggered past a horrified Ellen at the front desk and lifted two bloody fingers up to the alarm switch.

  The siren shrieked as I fainted next to the key closet.

  CHAPTER 38

  BANDAGING

  My head was a mess. It hurt in two places now, so I had no trouble identifying it as mine.

  Ellen was bending over me swabbing my neck and head with bloody paper towels.

  "Lisa, we've phoned an ambulance. Can you tell me what happened?"

  Groggily, I tried to sit up. "No, stay on the floor, you're bleeding," Ellen pushed me down gently. "Tell me."

  "Ginny...threw a vase at me. I saw...two databases on the screen...ow!!" I had tried to move my battered head.

  "You're not making any sense," said Ellen, swabbing away.

  "Don't make her talk," said a student I didn't know. "She's in shock."

  "Here's the ambulance crew." Ellen moved out of the way, and an emergency medic gently felt the back of my head while someone else put a dressing on my neck. They lifted me onto the stretcher.

  I reached groggily for my best friend, the recent past forgotten. "Ellen...are you coming with me?"

  "Of course. McEwan's going to meet us at the hospital. He'll interview you there."

  I thought longingly of a hot bath, a soft bed, and a warm cat. And a stiff drink.

  It was days before I got them.

  ? ? ? ?

  A church van coming back from a weekend trip had overturned on the Southeast Expressway. Three people were seriously hurt, and several had minor injuries. The emergency room was teeming with frantic relatives, wailing children, and overworked nurses.

  There were no empty chairs.

  Ellen helped me slide down the wall so I could lean against something. I tried not to bleed on the floor. Trying her best to attract the attention of one of the intake nurses, Ellen loomed over the front desk. She glanced back at me worriedly.

  I closed my eyes and groped around. I could feel crusting blood on my neck. The wound on the back of my head was bleeding in a slow trickle, and there was a sizeable bump where Ginny's last missile had connected with my skull.

  A weary nurse motioned us to a tiny room with a chair and an examining table.

  I sank gratefully into the chair and Ellen headed over to the sink for some more paper towels. She moistened several with warm water and began to gently loosen the crusts on my neck.

  I opened my eyes and tried to smile. "Thanks, Ellen. I'm glad you're here."

  "No problem," said Ellen. "You know, I switched my weekend shift with Susie-you could have had her ministering to you."

  I achieved a better smile. "You're a much better nurse."

  Ellen balled up the bloody paper towels and chucked them into a nearby wastebasket. Outside the room we could hear the constant ringing of phones and people rushing up and down the hallway.

  She sat on the edge of the exam table. "So what happened, exactly? You weren't very coherent in the museum. How come Ginny started heaving vases?"

  "Ginny's the murderer. She's been moving fakes into the collection, selling originals, and tampering with the database..." Quickly I told her what I had discovered.

  Ellen was appalled. "Jeez!" she said at last. "Do you have any idea why?"

  "I got the impression from something she said she felt underpaid," I frowned as I tried to remember. "And entitled to a better life."

  "Most of us feel that way," Ellen said. "But most of us don't kill people to get there." She checked the hallway and picked up the wall phone. "They're still swamped out there; it's going to be a while. I'm going to call James." She dialed before I could say anything, spoke briefly, and hung up. "He's on his way," she said, and resumed her seat on the table.

  James was coming! Relief surging through me, I looked at my friend gratefully. "That was a really nice thing to do, Ellen. Thanks. And I'm sorry I didn't tell you about James sooner."

  Ellen's blue eyes were very direct. "Well. That's water under the bridge. I was pissed, really pissed at you, but I'm getting over it." Her smile was a bit crooked.

  I could hardly breathe. "The reason I was such a coward about it is that I...I didn't want to hurt you. And I didn't want to lose...you as a friend." I started crying.

  Ellen hugged me. "Hey, kiddo, calm down. Everything's going to be okay."

  A young Indian doctor with glossy black hair and slender hands entered the examining room. She looked at the two of us and raised one beautifully plucked eyebrow. "I'm Dr. Harati. What can I do for you?"

  Ellen said, "My friend here got attacked by a psychopath with a Greek vase."

  Dr. Harati looked a little puzzled, which was understandable. She examined me, and laid out thread, needles, and antiseptic. "Where did this happen?" Her voice was low and musical. Ellen grinned appreciatively at her unflappable demeanor.

  "It was like this..."

  James came into the examining room as the doctor was finishing up.

  "I'm the lady's boyfriend. What's the damage here?" Dr. Harati filled him in while I took stock of myself. I had five neat stitches on my neck, a wrenched shoulder, and a spectacular lump on my head.

  The nice doctor gave me some final instructions and smiled gently. "Get some rest. And don't go back to work right away." She moved down the hall to her next patient.

  James's eyes met Ellen's across the chair. "Thanks for calling me, Ellen."

  "You're welcome," Ellen answered with a small smile.

  Finally, he focused on me. "Hi, gorgeous. You're going to be okay." He stroked my forehead.

  I certainly wasn't gorgeous now. "I'm sorry I went to the museum without telling you..."

  "You're impossible. But I plan to keep you, anyhow." He took my hand in both of his massive paws and answered the question I hadn't asked yet. "Emma and Sam are at Charley's watching a video. Good thing they aren't here with me."

  James took a deep breath. His green eyes glistened with emotion and his grip on my hand threatened to cut off my circulation. "Oh, God, I can't stand it, seeing you like this...Lisa, you silly ninny, you nearly got yourself killed."

  I couldn't believe it; he was babbling the way I did when I got really upset. Good, he actually cared whether I got potted by a Greek pot. That boded well for our future.

  "...I'm going to put you in a glass jar. I'll going to make sure you lay low for at least a week. Knowing your workaholic tendencies, I may have to put you in a straitjacket and your exhibit can go to hell. If your crazy boss wants you there in the morning, I'll have to tell him..."

  Further sentimental drivel was prevented by the arrival of McEwan. His eyebrows quivered as he took in Ellen's smile, James holding my hand, and me crying. He shrugged and pulled out his notebook.

  "All right, young lady," he said, fixing his beady eye on me. "From the beginning."

  CHAPTER 39

  HALL OF THE TWO TRUTHS

  The staff meeting late the next afternoon had a surreal quality about it. I arrived early, transported from a restless night in the hospital by James, who had traded his call with another doctor so he could stay with me.

  My head was very sore, my neck was on fire, and I was lightheaded from painkillers and lack of sleep. I wondered how much of the story I'd heard the day before McEwan would choose to reveal to the rest of the staff.

  Everyone else was on time. Except of course for Ginny, who had been picked up trying to escape to New Hampshire early this morning.

  McEwan presided. He took over as if he had always run our meetings. Victor, normally so controlling, kept his attention fastened on the table in front of him, and was doodling a complicated Celtic design on his yellow pad.

  "Ginny Maxwell was part of a fake antiquities racket that had roots in New York. She worked
with a guy called Francoviglia, a dealer in both legitimate Mediterranean antiquities and fakes. Your museum had purchased numerous real artifacts from him in the past; the dealing in fakes didn't begin until Ginny met Franco at a conference in New York three years ago. She used Franco's Boston agent, Emilio Fossi, as forger and shipper-we picked him up this morning, too. Fossi made the forgeries, and Ginny prepared the shipments during odd hours when she worked alone in the registration area."

  "But why?" interrupted Susie. "Ginny was so dedicated. I would have said she was incorruptible." Ellen and Carl nodded in agreement.

  McEwan straightened his tie. "She needed more money than her meager salary provided. For her no-good brother, for her mother's fancy nursing home, and especially for her expensive tastes-she used to be married to a lawyer, and she didn't take kindly to her change in circumstances. Ms. Maxwell also belongs to a pricey health club, and she likes to travel."

  "What happened to her husband?" Ellen asked.

  "He was disbarred because of a legal scandal. Then he shot himself."

  I looked around at the appalled faces. Ginny had kept so many secrets; none of us had known her at all.

  "She must have used those times when no one else was around to slip the fakes into the storerooms..." said Ellen slowly.

  "Wait a minute: how did they produce such near-perfect replicas of our artifacts? That's not so easy to do," said Carl.

  "She took preliminary data from the database-digital photos and measurements, materials, and so forth-and e-mailed them to Fossi, who has a lab here in Boston," answered McEwan. "All her correspondence was kept in a locked file, so no one could read those letters easily. Then, she shipped the artifacts over to Fossi under cover of moving stuff to your remote storage warehouse. His team produced the replicas, which Ginny put back in your collection during the course of her regular duties. The originals never came back to the museum-they were sold by Francoviglia in New York."

  "How many objects did they succeed in replacing?" Victor asked.

  "That's going to take some time to figure out. We have to go through all the dealers' records."

  "Pretty clever. But how did Ginny keep track of everything?" wondered Carl. He put both his elbows on the conference table. "I mean, we have thousands of artifacts, and we're in the middle of re-registration to get ready for the move."

  "She took advantage of the confusion caused by that process," answered McEwan. "And she started a separate database. Miz Donahue here figured it out." He nodded at me.

  All eyes turned to me, and I felt myself blushing. "You know how we all have the link to the shared database on our desktops as an icon?" Everyone nodded.

  "Well, that fooled me at first when I noticed a number of my exhibit artifacts weren't where the database said they should be. Then, quite by accident, I discovered that the database I was using on Ginny's computer was on her hard drive, not the desktop..."

  Carl interrupted. "So that's it! A mirror database with different locations! Why that devious little bitch..."

  McEwan gave him what I thought of as The Stare. "Let the lady finish," he suggested mildly but with a hint of menace. Carl shut up.

  "Ginny was using our numbering system, but she made up extra lot numbers, and added letters sometimes to track replica pieces. For example, my mummy portrait was a duplicate. They were going to sell the real one and let the museum keep the fake."

  "Thereby making a tidy profit," finished McEwan.

  "And," added Susie, clearly enjoying the drama, "Ginny was the most experienced of all of us-she'd been here the longest, and she worked on the design of the database system."

  "I still don't understand how she got the extra things in and out of the museum without someone noticing," asked Carl. "I mean, we all come and go so much."

  McEwan answered, "Ms. Maxwell was very clever. Most of your exhibit and packing supplies came from one company-ArtiFact, Inc.-the very one where Franco's agent Emilio Fossi is employed. That's how the fakes came in. Each box had something the museum had ordered on top. Underneath, though, were extra layers of packing material and an artifact or two. The real artifacts-the ones destined for Franco-went out at the same time as on-campus loans or the stuff you're moving into remote storage."

  "Betsy was Ginny's assistant. Maybe Betsy saw more than she was supposed to, and that's why Ginny killed her?" That was Susie.

  "We can assume that, I think," said McEwan. "And your exhibits lady-Ms. Grainger-must have started asking awkward questions."

  That was probably my fault, I thought grimly. I had asked Marion to find some of my exhibit artifacts-ones that Ginny was in the process of switching with fakes. Out loud I said, "That makes sense. Marion was the only staff member besides Ginny who actually tracked where things were stored-the rest of us never paid attention except when we were trying to pull a lot of stuff at once, like for an exhibit. Marion was starting to make lists about the Egyptian artifacts that weren't where they were supposed to be, and Ginny must have thought she knew too much." I turned to McEwan. "What about the fire? Did that have anything to do with Ginny?"

  "No, that was a student prank. But Ginny did follow you home, and she did rob your apartment looking for your suspicious artifact list."

  Victor raised his head again from his complicated doodle. "We know we have spurious pieces in the museum's collections. How are we going to sort out where they are so we can de-accession them?"

  McEwan was reassuring. "Our database guys are analyzing the mirror database, with some help from Miz Donahue here," he nodded in my direction. "I think we can produce a list for you fairly quickly."

  "One thing Ginny did right," I added, "She documented everything meticulously. As far as I can tell, she didn't leave anything out. She was as thorough with the fakes as she was with the real artifacts because there were so many of them- she couldn't rely on her memory, or a list stored somewhere else."

  "She even documented the conservation-or rather the faking procedures. Maybe I can learn something there." Ellen grinned at the others.

  Victor gave Ellen a rather stern look. "Don't get any ideas, Ellen," he said. "From now on, we are going to inspect the condition all of our artifacts thoroughly as part of the database project. You will design that part of the system."

  Ellen was enthusiastic. "I'd like to do that," she said. "I've got a friend at the Field Museum in Chicago who can be really helpful."

  Then Carl said brightly, "Well! I guess we're recruiting for both a preparator and a registrar!"

  Victor was resigned. "Yes. If you know of any likely candidates, let me know as soon as possible. And," he added, with a gleam of humor as he looked directly at me, "I don't want any from Philadelphia!" I knew he was referring to Valerie, my former boss, who was apparently job-hunting again.

  Carl laughed loudly, until Susie nudged him with her elbow. He glared at her while Ellen rolled her eyes. Some things hadn't changed.

  McEwan's eyebrows danced as he took it all in. He shook Victor's hand, gave me a mock salute, and strode out of the room.

  CHAPTER 40

  COMING FORTH BY DAY

  I met with Victor the next day. This time, he motioned me into a comfortable chair, and came out from behind his gleaming wooden desk to an armchair near me.

  "I have another assignment for you, Lisa," he said, sliding his polished loafers out in front of him, "but you don't have to start it for at least a week."

  I gave a sigh of relief-I was wondering how I could fit anything else in with the Egyptian opening only two days away.

  Victor flexed his long hands over his charcoal wool trousers. His nails were as neatly manicured as a woman's. "I've been working on a deal for some time..." Here it comes, I thought, scarcely breathing. "We are obtaining a major gift of Celtic artifacts from a donor in Wales-a contact I made when I had my fellowship in London. Have you ever heard of the Bryn Mawr Torque?"

  "Good Heavens! We're getting that?"

  "Yes. That, plus a great deal of other exqu
isite metalwork." Now he was really smiling. I thought how much it improved his appearance, and suddenly I glimpsed what Susie saw in him.

  "Is that what Carl has been so secretive about?" I asked.

  Victor actually looked apologetic. "Yes. Susie, too. Carl did the background research for me on the less well-known pieces by working overtime, and Susie took care of all the shipping arrangements on her lunch breaks. I told them to keep the whole thing quiet because the jewelry is spectacular and very valuable- I didn't want any leaks to the press before we got everything here and safely in the vault. Most of it won't go on exhibit until we have moved to the new building, with a more reliable security system. Now that we've got a signed donor's agreement, the Dean has promised an increase in the budget so I can hire a full-time security manager."