Linda Fairstein - The Bone Vault

“The donors have a shot at immortality. They just plaster their names all over a wing or an auditorium or a species of lizard. It’s the lousy turtles who get screwed every time.”

“Who are we going to be talking to in the morning?”

Mike looked at the name he had scribbled on a piece of paper. “Elijah Mamdouba. Vice president in charge of curatorial affairs. He’s got a full schedule, but he’ll try to see us. The routine bureaucratic hand job.”

We made our way back through the quiet hallways and were escorted out by another guard. Mike squared the block in his car, then headed east through Central Park at Eighty-first Street.

“Drop me at Grace’s Marketplace. I’ll get some hors d’oeuvres and meet you in the lobby of my building.” I got out of the car at the corner of Seventy-first Street and bought an assortment of cheeses and pâtés to hold us until dinner. Mike and Mercer were chatting with the two doormen when I got home. Mercer took the shopping bag from my hand, and I pressed the elevator button for the twentieth floor. “How’s Vickee feeling?”

“Tired, cranky, excited. Went to the doctor this afternoon and she said we’re about two weeks away from the delivery. First baby, may be a few days late.”

“How can you concentrate on anything? This new little life coming along…”

“Yeah,” Mike said, leaning back against the wall of the elevator. “Our first kid.”

Mercer beamed.

“At least for the time being it is. Can’t seem to get blondie here interested in the how-to’s of making one of those things. I remember being at the Natural History Museum once, must have been fourteen or fifteen years old. They had these beetles, they were called feather wings. The whole friggin‘ species was female. Reproduced without any fertilization by a male. I’m gonna check tomorrow and see if they still have any of those bugs around. Must be the way Coop plans on doing it.”

Mercer tried to get me off the hook. “I think Jake’s got the program under control.”

I reached into my bag to get the keys and unlock the door. Mike kept talking. “One minute the man’s in Washington, next day he’s in Jerusalem or Hong Kong or Moscow. How can he score any action from long distance? Now it’s getting worse, ‘cause Ms. Cooper here is trying to depriveme of a little tender loving care.”

“Female bonding in the country.” I smiled at Mercer. “Nina Baum arranged to come on this business trip with her boss so she could stay east for Memorial Day weekend and go up to Martha’s Vineyard with me. I’ve invited Val to come with us, too,” I said, referring to Mike’s girlfriend. “Food, wine, massages, beach walks, girl talk all night. No testosterone.” I flipped on the light switch and dropped my things on the ottoman in my living room. “I’ll get the ice.”

“You think people don’t wonder why you like being in charge of sex crimes prosecutions? You should hear the crap people ask me about you. ‘Is it because she hates men?’ ‘You figure she thinks about it when she’s in the sack with a guy?’ or ‘You think it turns her on to listen to those stories all day?’”

I walked from the kitchen to the den, carrying a bucket of cubes. “I can’t even begin to imagine the clever answers you dream up to amuse them.”

“I used to shut a bunch of ‘em up by telling them we lived together, but then they began to look at me likeI had some kind of problem, too, so I quit with that line.”

Mercer poured the drinks while I went to my bedroom to change into casual clothes. When I reentered the room, he was telling Mike what he learned at his hospital interviews after leaving us at the Cloisters, the television muted in the background. This would be an easy case to prove, despite the victim’s inability to testify, because the nurse had witnessed the assault. It would just be a matter of tracking down the assailant, and then helping a jury to understand why an incontinent ninety-year-old bed patient had been the object of someone’s sexual appetite-or rage.

I picked up the phone and dialed Hal Sherman’s cell number, letting it ring until the crime scene specialist answered the call. “Catch you at a bad time?”

“Bad for who? Me or the dead guy?”

“Where are you?”

“Not Chapman’s beat, Alex, if that’s who you’re looking for. Manhattan South. Some poor schmuck from the ‘burbs picked up a hooker in his wife’s new Beemer for one last fling before the long weekend. Must have been quite an argument. Five stab wounds to the chest.”

“Who’s wailing like that?”

“The widow. Not because she’s in mourning. She’s screaming like a banshee because the chief of D’s won’t release the car to her. ‘But it’smine, ’ she keeps saying. ‘It’s registered inmy name.’ Kind of lost sight of the fact that it’s the murder scene. I’m wrapping up. What do you need?”

“Mike’s with me. Just want to know if you’ve had a chance to do blow-ups of the photos you took for us in the truck Wednesday morning.”

“I’ll have them on your desk tomorrow. Came out great.”

“Could you make out any designs on the sarcophagus?”

“Like hieroglyphics?”

“Exactly.”

“Yeah, it’s covered with them. It’s carved all over the place.”

“Any symbols you remember? I didn’t get close enough to see when I was up on the truck.”

“You must be kidding. I just take the pictures. I don’t airbrush out the bloodstains or bullet holes, and I don’t do translations.”

“I mean, was it all writing, or are there any figures on it, too?”

“Loads of little Egyptians.”

“Any animals?”

“More than they got inThe Lion King. All kinds of monkeys, enough cats to make my allergies act up, rams and lambs, ducks and falcons and-”

“Great. Thanks for coming out on this one. I owe you.”

“I’ll add that to Chapman’s list. I could be a very rich man some day if you clowns pay up.”

Mike clicked on the TV volume as I hung up. “Hal says there are a lot of animal symbols on Katrina’s sarcophagus.”

“I could have told you that. I was right on top of it with the flashlight. Sssssh.”

Alex Trebek had just told us that tonight’s Final Jeopardy! category was “Greatest Hits.”

“Everybody in for twenty?”

“I wish youhad told me that. It means the coffin could easily have been designated as part of the exhibition. Katrina could have been studying it up at the Cloisters, or it could have been on site at the Museum of Natural History.”

“Obviously. ‘According to ASCAP, this song has been played on American radio stations more times than any other hit.’ Mike was doing his Trebek imitation. ”What’s your question, Coop? How about you, Mr. Motown?“

Mercer held his arm out straight, palm forward. “I’m guessing The Supremes, early. ‘Stop, in the Name of Love.’”

“We’re going to be all over the map with this two-ton sarcophagus. How is that possible?” I couldn’t fathom that something as large and heavy as the ancient coffin could be so difficult to keep track of. “It’s gotta be something Sinatra. ‘Strangers in the Night’?”

“Exactly what I mean, Coop. There’s a lot of people would read a personal clue into the answer you just gave. Strangers in the night, one-night stands. Too much sex on the brain. Me? I’m going with Elvis. ‘Love Me Tender.’ ‘What is…?’ of course.”

“I’m sorry, ladies,” Trebek feigned dismay at their three wrong questions. “And that brings our Campus Winners Week to an end. The correct answer would be, What is the Righteous Brothers’ ‘You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling‘?”

Mike zapped off the television set, as Mercer sang, “‘Now it’s gone, gone, gone…’ Can’t believe that blue-eyed soul gets all that airtime.”