Linda Fairstein - The Bone Vault

Mamdouba looked serious. “It’s a staple in our conservation department, Detective, and we wouldn’t want any of the workers to breathe it in. Could be deadly.”

“Forgot your pass, Mr. Mamdouba?” A bespectacled young man, about thirty, dressed in a denim work shirt and jeans, came up behind the curatorial director and tapped him on the back.

“Ah, Zimm. Perfect man for the job. Meet Alexandra Cooper here. And Mr. Chapman.”

“Mark Zimmerly. Entomology.”

“Bugs?” Mike asked as they exchanged handshakes.

“Yeah, well, spiders in particular. Gnaphosoidae. Australian ground spiders. Six hundred and fifty species and still counting.”

“No offense, but I was hoping for something with fewer legs and no stingers.”

Zimm turned and led us back to a tall doorway behind the bank of elevators. There was a laminated photo ID around his neck, and he bent over to scan it in against the security pad.

Mamdouba followed Zimm, taking us down a poorly lighted staircase that wound around for three flights. The dull gray paint was chipped and faded, and there were smudged handprints on the wall where people before us had tried to balance their footing on the narrow treads.

Chapman whispered in my ear as I turned a corner, “Remind me to tell Mercer and Vickee never to let the kid go to a museum. Friggin‘ arsenic everywhere. Did you have any idea?”

“Takes us back to square one. Whoever poisoned Katrina Grooten knew the field of suspects would be wide open. He didn’t have to go into a pharmacy and ask for a prescription. Just point the finger at someone else who worked in any of the institutions.”

At the bottom of the steps was a large sign:BESTIARY. A red arrow pointed to the right, below the wordsTHE MET. And a green arrow headed left:AMNH. We all followed Zimm around to the office in which he worked.

“Miss Cooper and Mr. Chapman are investigating Katrina Grooten’s death.”

“What a shocker,” the young man said. “Saw the story in thePost. Couldn’t believe it was someone I knew. Someone who worked here with me.”

“Why don’t you tell them about what you’re doing here, and what her role in it was. Zimm’s been with us since he was a high school student.”

“I’m a graduate student at NYU. Started to come here when my family moved to Manhattan, fifteen years ago. Thought this was the coolest place in the world. Spent all my free time here, so my teacher encouraged me to do an internship while I was at Stuyvesant.” Zimm had gone to one of New York City’s premier public high schools, specializing in science and math, for which kids had to pass a special test for admission eligibility.

Mike smiled at him. “So you started working at the museum when Pluto was still a planet, huh?”

“Ah, Mr. Chapman. At least we’re always controversial here,” Mamdouba said. “You disagree with my friends at the planetarium?”

“All I know is that for the first thirty-five years of my life, there were nine planets in the solar system. Now your museum decides Pluto’s just an icy comet. I don’t deal with change that well.”

“Don’t hold it against me, man.” Zimm laughed. “I’ve got nothing to do with the astrophysicists. What we’re doing down here is assembling and cataloging all the specimens that are under consideration for selection in the exhibit.”

“Who’s in charge?”

“Well, Elijah has the final word. I’m just the functionary. People bring me their artifacts, or photographs of the items. I inventory them, scan them into the computer, and pass the lists along to the joint committee, and to Elijah.” He moved over to his desk and clicked the mouse of his computer; the program for the big show appeared on the screen. He scrolled down to give us a sampling of the thousands of proposed artifacts.

Mike stopped him halfway down the list ofB ‘s. “Whoa. You got a namesake here, Coop. They’ve got their own Blondie.”

“Right behind you, Detective.” Zimm pointed, and I looked at the large mason jar on the counter at my elbow. “Blondie-my personal favorite.”

“Mine, too,” Mike muttered to me. “Golden hair, lots of leg, and very painful when she lands on top of you.”

There in the jar was an albino tarantula, about the size of a soup dish. Dead, I hoped.

“This one was raised in the museum and lived here all her life. Kinda the department mascot. She’s my candidate for the bestiary show.”

I stepped away from the large spider and drew the conversation back to our mission. “Katrina, did you work with her on this?”

“Sure. I guess I saw her whenever she came to the museum.”

“How often was that?”

“Last year? I’d say at first it was a couple of times a month. But by last fall, probably two or three times a week.”

“I didn’t realize she had to be here that often.”

Zimm blushed. He looked over at Mamdouba but didn’t offer any more information.

“What’s your hesitation? She’s not exactly going to get in trouble for anything at this point.”

“Oh, well, I’m not sure how much of it was business she had to do for the Cloisters. I mean, I think she just discovered how interesting this place is. She’d do her work, all right. Faster than the rest of us. Then she’d just take off and wander around.”

Mamdouba frowned. This seemed to be news to him. “In the museum, son?”

“Yeah.”

The director took over the questioning. “Are you talking about areas open to the public, or did she have a security pass, like yours?”

“No, sir. Katrina had the basic ID to get into the building and access this office, but she couldn’t get into any of the other departments-without help.”

“What kind of help would that be, Zimm?”

The entomologist was fidgeting with a jar full of stiff bugs, rolling it around with one hand, gripping it by the lid. The label read,Lobster Roaches.

“Katrina made some friends here, Elijah. Borrowed their swipe cards. Nothing wrong with being curious about this place.”

“Who loaned her their cards?” Mike asked.

Mamdouba tried to cut that avenue off. “Why don’t you see me later on this, young man? Detective, this is an internal security matter. It has nothing to do with your investigation.”

“I hate to disagree with you, but it might be exactly what we’re looking for. And what would have stopped her from walking off through the basement from right here, finding her way up into any part of the building?”

“Because, Mr. Chapman,” the director snapped back, “this museum consists of twenty-three separate building structures. Most of them have no interconnection from this level, belowground, to any other.”

“How did that happen?”

“It’s called cash flow. The founders ran out of money early on, so the master plan was never completed. Wings were added piecemeal, and most of them are freestanding structures that only connect on the main floor or some corridor above. Who were Katrina’s friends, Zimm?”

He was still twisting his bugs, their legs and antennae seeming to catch and entangle in each other like a delicate jigsaw puzzle. “I’m really bad on names. There was a woman, a postdoc in anthropology-they used to have lunch together all the time. But she doesn’t work here anymore. I think she was British. And a few researchers in the African peoples department. Honestly, Elijah, I never hung out with any of them. Oh, the Rare Book Room-she loved to go there.”

“Why?”

“Mr. Chapman, we have perhaps the most superb collection of books, journals, documents, and photographs ever assembled about the diversity of human cultures and the exploration of the natural world. Very fragile, some of it. And not accessible in our library. They must be kept in a restricted area, of course, or these papers would just walk out the door. Terribly valuable.”