Douglas Preston - The Book of the Dead

“I assume you checked his background before you hired him. Did he have a criminal record, a history of aggression?”

Menzies shook his head. “Absolutely nothing like that.”

Hayward looked around and saw to her relief that Visconti had been assigned to the museum that day. She motioned him over.

“I want you to take statements from Dr. Menzies and the guard who shot Wicherly,” she said. “We can get Dr. Kelly’s when she returns from the hospital.”

“No way,” Nora said. “I’m ready to give a statement now.”

Hayward ignored her. “Where’s the M.E.?”

“Went to the hospital with the body.”

“Get him on the radio.”

A moment later, Visconti handed her a radio. Then he led Menzies off to take a statement.

“Doctor?” Hayward spoke into the radio. “I want an autopsy performed as soon as possible. I want you to look for lesions to the temporal lobe of the brain, particularly to the ventromedial frontal cortex… No, I’m not a neurosurgeon. I’ll explain later.”

She handed the radio back to Visconti, then cast a firm eye on Nora. “You’re going to the hospital. Now.” She gestured to the EMTs. “Help her to her feet and get moving.”

Then she turned to Smithback. “I want to talk to you privately, in the hall.”

“But I want to go with my wife-”

“We’ll have a police car take you after we speak, sirens, the works. You’ll get there at the same time as the ambulance.”

She exchanged a brief word with Nora, gave her a reassuring pat on her shoulder, and then nodded Smithback into the hall. They found a quiet corner and Hayward faced the journalist.

“We haven’t spoken in a while,” she said. “I was hoping you might have something to share with me.”

At the question, Smithback looked a little uncomfortable. “I published that story we talked about. Two, even. They didn’t shake free any leads-at least none that I heard about.”

Hayward nodded, waiting. Smithback glanced at her, then glanced away. “Every trail I tried turned cold. That’s when I… paid a visit to the house.”

“House?”

“You know. His house. The one where he held Viola Maskelene.”

“You snuck in? I didn’t know they’d finished the investigation. When did the crime scene tape come down?”

Now Smithback looked even more uncomfortable. “It wasn’t down.”

“What?” Hayward raised her voice. “You trespassed on an active crime scene?”

“It wasn’t all that active!” Smithback said quickly. “I only saw one cop the whole time I was there!”

“Look, Mr. Smithback, I don’t want to hear any more. I can’t and won’t have you operating extralegally-”

“But it was in the house that I found it.”

Hayward stopped and looked at him.

“Well, it’s nothing I can prove. It’s just a theory, really. At first I really thought it was something, but later on… Anyway, that’s why I didn’t call you about it earlier.”

“Out with it.”

“In a coat closet, I found a bunch of Diogenes’s coats.”

Hayward crossed her arms, waiting.

“Three were very expensive cashmere or camel’s-hair, elegant, Italian-designed. Then there were a couple of big, bulky, itchy tweed jackets, also expensive but of a totally different style-you know, stodgy English professor.”

“And?”

“I know this sounds strange, but something about those tweeds-well, they almost seemed like a disguise. Almost as if Diogenes-”

“Has an alter ego,” Hayward said. She realized where this was going, and she was suddenly very interested.

“Right. And what kind of alter ego would wear tweeds? A professor.”

“Or a curator,” Hayward said.

“Exactly. And then it dawned on me he’s probably a curator in the museum. I mean, they’re all saying the diamond heist had to have been an inside job. He didn’t have a partner-maybe he himself was the inside man. I know it sounds a little crazy…” His voice trailed off, uncertain.

Hayward looked at him intently. “Actually, I think it’s far from crazy.”

Smithback stopped to glance at her in surprise. “You do?”

“Absolutely. It fits the facts better than any other theory I’ve heard. Diogenes is a curator in this museum.”

“But it just doesn’t make sense. Why would Diogenes steal the diamonds… and then pound them into dust and mail them back here?”

“Maybe he has some personal grudge against the museum. We won’t know for sure until we catch him. Good job, Mr. Smithback. There’s just one more thing.”

Smithback’s gaze narrowed. “Let me guess.”

“That’s right. This conversation never took place. And until I say otherwise, these speculations are to go no further. Not even to your wife. And certainly not to the New York Times. Are we clear?”

Smithback sighed, nodded.

“Good. Now I need to track down Manetti. But first, let me get that squad car to take you to the hospital.” She smiled. “You’ve earned it.”

In the great paneled office of Frederick Watson Collopy, director of the New York Museum of Natural History, a silence reigned. Everyone had arrived: Beryl Darling, the museum’s general counsel; Josephine Rocco, head of PR; Hugo Menzies. The short list of Collopy’s most trusted staff. They were all seated and looking in his direction, waiting for him to begin.

At last Collopy laid a hand on his leather-topped desk and looked around. “Never in its long history,” he began, “has the museum faced a crisis of these proportions. Never.”

He let that sink in. The silence, the immobility, of his audience held.

“In short order, we have been dealt several blows, any one of which could cripple an institution such as ours. The theft and destruction of the diamond collection. The murder of Theodore DeMeo. The inexplicable attack on Dr. Kelly, and the subsequent killing of the assailant-the very distinguished Dr. Adrian Wicherly of the British Museum-by a trigger-happy guard.”

A pause.

“And in four days, one of the biggest openings in the museum’s history is scheduled. The very opening that was to put the diamond theft behind us. The question I pose to you now is this: how do we respond? Do we postpone the opening? Do we hold a press conference? I’ve gotten calls from twenty trustees so far this morning, and every single one has a different idea. And in ten minutes, I have to face a homicide captain named Hayward who-I have no doubt-will demand that we postpone the opening. It’s up to us four, at this moment, to set a course and stick with it.”

He folded his hands on the desk. “Beryl? Your thoughts?”

Collopy knew that Beryl Darling, the museum’s general counsel, would speak with brutal clarity.

Darling leaned forward, pencil poised in her hand. “The first thing I’d do, Frederick, is disarm every museum guard in the building.”

“Already done.”

Darling nodded with satisfaction. “Next, instead of a press conference-which can spin out of control-I would immediately issue a statement.”

“Saying?”

“It will be an unvarnished recitation of the facts, followed by a mea culpa and an expression of profound sympathy to the families of the victims-DeMeo, Lipper, and Wicherly-”

“Excuse me. Lipper and Wicherly? Victims?”

“The expression of regret will be strictly neutral. The museum doesn’t want to get in the business of throwing stones. Let the police sort out the facts.”

A frosty silence.

“And the opening?” Collopy asked.

“Cancel it. Shut the museum down for two days. And make sure nobody-and I mean nobody-at the museum talks to the press.”

Collopy waited a moment, then turned to Josephine Rocco, head of public relations.