Douglas Preston - Relic

Von Oster clapped his hands. “I believe it! I believe it! She making trouble everywhere! This exhibit, she making all kind of trouble!”

Suddenly Smithback was interested. “How so?” he asked.

“She in there every day, saying zis not good, zat not good. Gott , that woman!”

“That sounds like her,” Smithback said with a grim smile. “So what wasn’t good?”

“That, what you call it, that Kothoga tribe stuff. I was in there just yesterday afternoon and she was carrying on. ‘Everybody leave the exhibition! We bring in Kothoga figurine!’ Everybody had to drop work and leave.”

[126] “The figurine? What figurine? What’s so sensitive about it?” It suddenly occurred to Smithback that something so upsetting to Rickman might someday be useful to him.

“That Mbwun figurine, big deal in the exhibition. I not know much about. But she was very upset, I tell you!”

“Why?”

“Like I tell you, that figurine. You not heard? Lots of talk about it, very very bad. I try not to hear.”

“What kind of talk would that be, for instance?”

Smithback listened to the old man for quite a while longer. Finally, he backed himself out of the workshop, Von Oster pursuing as far as the elevator.

As the doors rolled shut, the man was still talking. “You unlucky, working for her!” he called after Smithback just before the elevator lurched upward. But Smithback didn’t hear him. He was busy thinking.

= 20 =

As the afternoon drew to a close, Margo looked up wearily from her terminal. Stretching, she punched a command to the printer down the hall, then sat back, rubbing her eyes. Moriarty’s case write-up was finally done. A little rough around the edges, perhaps; not as comprehensive as she would have liked; but she couldn’t afford to spend any more time on it. Secretly, she was rather pleased, and found herself eager to take a printout up to Moriarty’s office on the fourth floor of the Butterfield Observatory, where the project team for the Superstition exhibition was housed.

She thumbed through her staff directory, looking for Moriarty’s extension. Then she reached for her phone and dialed the four-digit number.

“Exhibition central,” drawled a voice. There were loud good-byes in the background.

“Is George Moriarty there?” Margo asked.

“I think he’s down at the exhibition,” the voice responded. “We’re locking up here. Any message?”

[128] “No, thanks,” Margo replied, hanging up. She looked at her watch: almost five. Curfew time. But the exhibition was being unveiled Friday evening, and she’d promised Moriarty the material.

As she was about to get up, she remembered Frock’s suggestion that she call Greg Kawakita. She sighed, picking up the phone again. Better give him a try . Chances are he’d be out of the building now, and she could just leave a message on phone-mail.

“Greg Kawakita speaking,” came the familiar baritone voice.

“Greg? This is Margo Green.” Stop sounding so apologetic. It’s not like he’s a department head or anything .

“Hi, Margo. What’s up?” She could hear the clacking of keys coming over the line.

“I have a favor to ask. It’s a suggestion of Dr. Frock’s, actually. I’m doing an analysis of some plant specimens used by the Kiribitu tribe, and he suggested I run them through your Extrapolator. Perhaps it will find some genetic correspondences in the samples.”

There was silence. “Dr. Frock thought it might be a useful test of your program, as well as a help to me,” she urged.

Kawakita paused. “Well, you know, Margo, I’d like to help you out, I really would. But the Extrapolator really isn’t in shape yet to be used by just anybody. I’m still chasing down bugs, and I couldn’t vouch for the results.”

Margo’s face burned. “Just anybody?”

“Sorry, that was a poor choice of words. You know what I mean. Besides, it’s a really busy time for me, and this curfew won’t help matters any. Tell you what, why don’t you check with me again in a week or two? Okay? Talk to you then.”

The line went dead.

Margo stood up, grabbed her jacket and purse, and went down the hall to retrieve her printout. She knew [129] he was planning to postpone her indefinitely. Well, to hell with Kawakita. She’d hunt Moriarty down and give him the copy before she left. If nothing else, it might get her that guided tour of the exhibition, maybe find out what all the fuss was about.

A few minutes later, Margo walked slowly across the deserted Selous Memorial Hall. Two guards were stationed at the entrance, and a single docent stood inside the information center, locking away ledgers and arranging sale items in preparation for the next day’s visitors. Assuming there are any , thought Margo. Three policemen stood just under the huge bronze statue of Selous, talking among themselves. They didn’t notice Margo.

Margo found her thoughts returning to the morning’s talk with Frock. If the killer wasn’t found, the security measures could get stricter. Maybe her dissertation defense would be delayed. Or the entire Museum could be closed. Margo shook her head. If that happened, she was Massachusetts-bound for sure.

She headed for the Walker Gallery and the rear entrance to Superstition . To her dismay, the large iron doors were closed, and a velvet rope was suspended between two brass posts in front of them. A policeman stood beside the sign, motionless.

“Can I help you, Miss?” he said. His nameplate read F. BEAUREGARD.

“I’m going to see George Moriarty,” Margo replied. “I think he’s in the exhibition galleries. I have to give him something.” She brandished the printout in front of the policeman, who looked unimpressed.

“Sorry, Miss,” he said. “It’s past five. You shouldn’t be here. Besides,” he said more gently, “the exhibition’s been sealed until the opening.”

“But—” Margo began to protest, then turned and walked back toward the rotunda with a sigh.

After rounding a corner, she stopped. At the end of the empty hallway she could see the dim vastness of the Hall. Behind her, Officer F. Beauregard was out of sight [130] around the corner. On impulse, she veered sharply left through a small, low passage that opened into another, parallel walkway. Maybe it wasn’t too late to find Moriarty, after all.

She moved up a wide flight of stairs, and, looking carefully around before proceeding, walked slowly into a vaulted hall devoted to insects. Then she turned right and entered a gallery that ran around the second level of the Marine Hall. Like everyplace else in the Museum, it felt eerie and deserted.

Margo descended one of the twin sweeping staircases to the granite floor of the main hall. Moving more slowly now, she passed by a life-size walrus habitat group and a meticulously constructed model of an underwater reef. Dioramas such as these, originally fashioned in the thirties and forties, could no longer be made, she knew—they had become much too expensive to produce.

At the far end of the Hall was the entrance to the Weisman Gallery, where the larger temporary exhibitions were held. This was one of the suite of galleries in which the Superstition exhibition was being mounted. Black paper covered the inside of the double glass doors, fronted by a large sign that read: GALLERY CLOSED. NEW EXHIBITION IN PROGRESS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING.

The left-hand door was locked. The right one, however, pushed open easily.

As casually as possible, she looked over her shoulder: nobody.

The door hissed shut behind her, and she found herself in a narrow crawl space between the outer walls of the gallery and the back of the exhibition proper. Plywood boards and large nails were strewn around in disarray, and electrical cables snaked across the floor. On her left a huge structure of Sheetrock and boards, hammered clumsily together and supported by wooden buttresses, looked very much like the back side of a Hollywood set. [131] It was the side of the Superstition exhibition that no Museum visitor would ever see.