Tess Gerritsen - The Keepsake

Josephine was desperate to be left alone, but she could think of no graceful way to brush off Detective Frost. He’d followed her upstairs to her office and was now standing in her doorway, watching her with a look of concern. He had mild eyes and a kind face, and his shaggy blond hair made her think of the towheaded twin boys she often saw whooshing down the slide in the neighborhood playground. Nevertheless, he was a policeman, and policemen frightened her. She shouldn’t have left the room so abruptly. She shouldn’t have called attention to herself. But a glimpse of that newspaper had hit her like a fist, stealing her breath, rocking her off her feet.

Indio, California. Twenty-six years ago.

The town where I was born. The year that I was born.

It was yet another eerie connection to her past, and she didn’t understand how it could be possible. She needed time to think about this, to figure out why so many old and secret ties to her own life should be hidden in the basement of the obscure museum where she had taken a job. It’s as if my own life, my own past, has been preserved in this collection. Even as she mentally struggled for an explanation, she was forced to smile and keep up the small talk with Detective Frost, who refused to leave her doorway.

“Are you feeling better?” he asked.

“I got a little light-headed in there. Probably low blood sugar.” She sank into her chair. “I shouldn’t have skipped breakfast this morning.”

“Do you need a cup of coffee or something? Can I get one for you?”

“No, thank you.” She managed a smile, hoping it would be enough to send him on his way. Instead, he stepped into her office.

“Did that newspaper have some special significance to you?” Frost asked.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just that I noticed you looked really startled when Dr. Isles opened it up and we saw it was from California.”

He was watching me. He’s still watching me.

Now was not the time to let him see how close she was to panic. As long as she kept her head down, as long as she stayed on the periphery and played the role of the quiet museum employee, the police would have no reason to glance her way.

“It’s not just the newspaper,” she said. “It’s this whole creepy situation. Finding bodies-and body parts-in this building. I think of museums as sanctuaries. Places of study and contemplation. Now I feel like I’m working in a house of horrors and I’m just wondering when the next body part’s going to pop up.”

He gave a sympathetic smile, and his boyishness made him look like anything but a policeman. She judged him to be in his midthirties, yet there was something about him that made him seem much younger, and even callow. She saw his wedding ring and thought: There’s yet another reason to keep this man at arm’s length.

“To be honest, I think this place is already pretty creepy,” said Frost. “You’ve got all those bones displayed on the third floor.”

“Those bones are two thousand years old.”

“Does that make them less disturbing?”

“It makes them historically significant. I know it doesn’t seem like much of a difference. But something about the passage of time gives death a sense of distance, doesn’t it? As opposed to Madam X, who could be someone we might actually have known.” She paused, feeling a chill. And said, softly: “Ancient remains are easier to deal with.”

“They’re more like pottery and statues, I guess.”

“In a way.” She smiled. “The dustier the better.”

“And that appeals to you?”

“You sound like you can’t understand it.”

“I’m just wondering what kind of person chooses to spend a lifetime studying old bones and pottery.”

“ What’s a girl like you doing in a job like this?Is that the question?”

He laughed. “You’re the youngest thing in this whole building.”

Now she, too, smiled, because it was true. “It’s the connection with the past. I love to pick up a pottery shard and imagine the man who spun the clay on his wheel. And the woman who used that pot to carry water. And the child who one day dropped it and broke it. History’s never been dead for me. I’ve always felt it was alive and pulsing in those objects you see in the museum cases. It’s in my blood, something I was born with, because…” Her voice trailed off as she realized she’d strayed into hazardous territory. Don’t talk about the past.

Don’t talk about Mom.

To her relief, Detective Frost did not pick up on her sudden wariness. His next question wasn’t about her at all. “I know you haven’t been here too long,” he said, “but did you ever get the feeling things weren’t quite right here?”

“How do you mean?”

“You said that you feel as if you’ve been working in a house of horrors.”

“That was a figure of speech. You can understand it, can’t you, after what you just found behind the basement wall? After what Madam X turned out to be?” The temperature in her air-conditioned office seemed to keep dropping. Josephine reached back to pull on the sweater she’d hung on her chair. “At least my job isn’t nearly as horrifying as yours must be. You wonder why I choose to work with pottery and old bones. And I wonder why someone like you would choose to work with-well, fresh horrors.” She looked up and saw a glimmer of discomfort in his eyes because this time, the question was directed at him. For a man accustomed to interrogating others, he did not seem eager to reciprocate with personal details of his own.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess I’m not allowed to ask questions. Only answer them.”

“No, I’m just wondering what you meant.”

“Meant?”

“When you said someone like you. ”

“Oh.” She gave a sheepish laugh. “It’s just that you strike me as such a nice person. A kind person.”

“And most policemen aren’t?”

She flushed. “I keep digging the hole deeper, don’t I? Really, I meant it as a compliment. Because I’ll admit, most policemen scare me a little.” She looked down at her desk. “I don’t think I’m the only one who feels that way.”

He sighed. “I’m afraid you may be right. Even though I think I’m the least scary person in the world.”

But I’m afraid of you anyway, she thought. Because I know what you could do to me if you learned my secret.

“Detective Frost?” Nicholas Robinson had appeared in her doorway. “Your colleague needs you back downstairs.”

“Oh. Right.” Frost shot a smile at Josephine. “We’ll talk more later, Dr. Pulcillo. And get something to eat, why don’t you?”

Nicholas waited until Frost had left the room, then he said to her: “What was that all about?”

“We were just chatting, Nick.”

“He’s a detective. I don’t think they just chat. ”

“It’s not as if he was interrogating me or anything.”

“Is something bothering you, Josie? Something that I should know about?”

Though his question put her on guard, she managed to say calmly: “Why would you think that?”

“You’re not yourself. And it’s not just because of what happened today. Yesterday, when I came up behind you in the hallway, you almost jumped out of your skin.”

She sat with her hands on her lap, grateful that he could not see them tighten into two knots. In the short time they’d worked together, he had become eerily astute at reading her moods, at knowing when she needed a good laugh and when she needed to be left alone. Surely he could see that this was one of the times she wanted to be alone, yet he did not retreat. It was unlike the Nicholas she knew, a man who was unfailingly respectful of her privacy.