Douglas Preston: Relic

“What’s up?” Margo asked.

“Don’t know,” Curly said. “They just got here two minutes ago. But I guess I’d better see your ID this time.”

Margo rummaged in her carryall, wondering if she even had her ID. It had been months since someone had asked to see it. “I’m not sure I’ve got it with me,” she said, annoyed that she hadn’t cleaned her bag of last winter’s detritus. Her carryall had recently won ‘messiest bag in the Museum’ status from her friends in the Anthro Department.

The pillbox telephone rang, and Curly reached for it. Margo found her ID and held it up to the window, but Curly ignored her, his eyes wide as he listened to the receiver.

He put it down without saying a word, his whole body rigidly at attention.

“Well?” Margo asked. “What’s happened?”

Curly removed his pipe. “You don’t want to know,” he said.

The phone rang again and Curly grabbed it.

Margo had never seen the guard move so quickly. She shrugged, dropped the ID back in her bag, and walked on. The next chapter of her dissertation was coming due, and she couldn’t afford to lose a single day. The week before had been a write-off—the service for her father, the formalities, the phone calls. Now, she couldn’t lose any more time.

Crossing the courtyard, she entered the Museum through the staff door, turned right, and hurried down a long basement corridor toward the Anthropology Department. The various staff offices were dark, as they always were until nine-thirty or ten o’clock.

[23] The corridor took an abrupt right angle, and she stopped. A band of yellow plastic tape was stretched across the corridor. Margo could make out the printing: NYPD CRIME SCENE—DO NOT CROSS. Jimmy, a guard usually assigned to the Peruvian Gold Hall, was standing in front of the tape with Gregory Kawakita, a young Assistant Curator in the Evolutionary Biology Department.

“What’s going on here?” Margo asked.

“Typical Museum efficiency,” Kawakita said with a wry smile. “We’ve been locked out.”

“Nobody’s told me nothing, except to keep everyone out,” the guard said nervously.

“Look,” Kawakìta said, “I’m giving a presentation to the NSF next week, and this day’s going to be a long one. Now, if you’ll let me—”

Jimmy looked uncomfortable. “I’m just doing my job, okay?”

“Come on,” Margo said to Kawakita. “Let’s get some coffee up in the lounge. Maybe someone there will know what’s going on.”

“First I want to hunt down a men’s room, if I can find one that isn’t sealed off,” Kawakita responded irritably. “I’ll meet you there.”

The door to the staff lounge, which was never closed, was closed today. Margo put her hand on the knob, wondering if she should wait for Kawakita. Then she opened the door. It would be a cold day in hell when she needed him as backup.

Inside, two policemen were talking, their backs turned to her. One sniggered. “What was that, number six?” he said.

“Lost count,” the other replied. “But he can’t have any more breakfast to bring up.” As the officers moved apart, Margo got a look at the lounge behind them.

The large room was deserted. In the kitchen area at the far end, someone was leaning over the sink. He spat, [24] wiped his mouth, and turned around. Margo recognized Charlie Prine, the new conservation expert in the Anthro Department, hired on a temporary grant six months before to restore objects for the new exhibition. His face was ashen and expressionless.

Moving to Prine’s side, the officers propelled him gently forward.

Margo stood aside to let the group pass. Prine walked stiffly, like a robot. Instinctively, Margo’s eyes traveled downward.

Prine’s shoes were soaked in blood.

Watching her vacantly, Prine registered the change of expression. His eyes followed hers; then he stopped so suddenly that the cop behind plowed into his back.

Prine’s eyes grew large and white. The policemen grabbed his arms and he resisted, neighing in panic. Quickly, they moved him out of the room.

Margo leaned against the wall, willing her heart to slow down as Kawakita came in, followed by several others. “Half this Museum must be sealed off,” he said, shaking his head and pouring himself a cup of coffee. “Nobody can get into their offices.”

As if on cue, the Museum’s ancient PA system wheezed into operation. “ Attention please. All nonsupport personnel currently on the premises please report to the staff lounge .”

As they sat down, more staffers entered in twos and threes. Lab technicians, for the most part, and assistant curators without tenure; too early for the really important people. Margo watched them detachedly. Kawakita was talking but she couldn’t hear him.

Within ten minutes, the room was packed. Everyone was talking at once: expressing outrage that their offices were off-limits, complaining about how no one was telling them anything, discussing each new rumor in shocked tones. Clearly, in a museum where nothing exciting ever seemed to happen, they were having the time of their lives.

[25] Kawakita gulped his coffee, made a face. “Will you look at that sediment?” He turned toward her. “Been struck dumb, Margo? You haven’t said a word since we sat down.”

Haltingly, she told him about Prine. Kawakita’s handsome features narrowed. “My God,” he finally said. “What do you suppose happened?”

As his baritone voice boomed, Margo realized that the conversation in the lounge had died away. A heavyset, balding man in a brown suit was standing in the doorway, a police radio shoved into one pocket of his ill-fitting jacket, an unlit cigar protruding from his mouth. Now he strode through, followed by two uniformed policemen.

He centered himself at the front of the room, hiked up his pants, removed his cigar, picked a piece of tobacco off his tongue, and cleared his throat. “May I have your attention, please,” he said. “A situation has arisen that’s going to require you to bear with us for a while.”

Suddenly, a voice rang out accusingly from the back of the room. “Ex- cuse me, Mister?...”

Margo craned her neck over the crowd. “Freed,” Kawakita whispered. Margo had heard of Frank Freed, a testy Ichthyology curator.

The man in brown turned to look at Freed. “Lieutenant D’Agosta,” he rapped out. “New York City Police Department.”

It was a reply that would have shut most people up. Freed, an emaciated man with long gray hair, was undaunted. “Perhaps,” he said sarcastically, “we may be informed of what exactly is going on around here? I think we have a right …”

“I’d like to brief you on what happened,” D’Agosta resumed. “But at this point, all we can say is that a body has been found on the premises, under circumstances we are currently investigating. If—”

At the explosion of talk, D’Agosta wearily held up his hand.

[26] “I can only tell you that a homicide squad is on the scene and that an investigation is in progress,” he continued. “Effective immediately, the Museum is closed. For the time being, no one may enter, and no one may leave. We expect this to be a very temporary condition.”

He paused. “If a homicide has occurred, there is a possibility, a possibility , that the killer is still inside the Museum. We would merely ask you to remain here an hour or two while a sweep is conducted. A police officer will be around to take your names and titles.”

In the stunned silence that followed, he left the room, closing the door behind him. One of the remaining policemen dragged a chair over to the door and sat down heavily in it. Slowly, the conversations began to resume. “We’re being locked in here?” Freed cried out. “This is outrageous.”