The Whisper

'Can you talk, Frank?' Scoop asked.

'Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay.'

'You need to get checked out.'

He held up a hand in protest. 'No. I'm okay.'

Scoop didn't relent. 'Were you hit on the head? Drugged?'

'I don't know.' He sat on the tile floor in the water and sank back against the tub, wincing, coughing some more. He put a hand up to the right side of his neck. 'Head hurts.'

Scoop took a look. 'You've got some swelling.'

'Yeah. I remember now.' He breathed in, steadier. 'Whew.'

'What happened?'

'I called you. You were already on your way here. I was closer and got here first. I walked into the conference room and saw a light down the hall and came in to investigate and--bam.' He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, which was visibly trembling. 'Next thing I'm soaking wet, choking to death and looking at your ugly face.'

'You came alone?' Scoop asked.

'Yeah. No one knows I'm here except you. I'm not on duty until later.'

Scoop put a hand out to him. 'You'll get hypothermia sitting in that cold water--'

'I can get up on my own.'

Acosta started to his feet, slipped and fell back against the tub with a moan. He was shivering, drenched, water dripping out of his hair down his face.

Scoop sighed. 'Screw this.'

He took Acosta by the upper arm, hauled him up with one quick motion and in two strides had him out in the hall. Shivering now herself, Sophie grabbed a bath towel off a hook and followed them to the kitchen, where Scoop sat Acosta on the dry floor. He was ashen. She flipped on a light switch and handed him the towel.

His hands were shaking uncontrollably and he was still clearly weak, but he dried off his face and managed to glare up at her. 'Why are you here?'

Scoop, his eyes on Acosta, answered. 'She walked over from the hotel first thing this morning. She's why I came. I just didn't tell you that when you called. She's the one who pulled you out of the water. Did you see anyone when you arrived?'

'Just the receptionist.'

'I must have arrived after he did,' Sophie said. 'I took my time. I've only seen the receptionist, too.'

'Doesn't answer my question,' Acosta said, clutching the towel. 'Where's your friend Percy? Do you two have something going? We only have your word Cliff looked you up on Beacon Hill the other morning.'

Meaning, she thought, no witnesses. She walked over to the stainless-steel sink and pulled open a drawer, got out dish towels and did her best to dry herself off. She was aware of the two men--the two police officers-- watching her.

She pointed toward the conference room with her towel. 'I can wait out there--'

'You could have killed Cliff yourself,' Acosta interjected, not letting up. 'All that ritualistic crap. That could have been you. Kill him, go back to Beacon Hill, make up that whole bit about him coming to find you. You know you've got Scoop wrapped around your little finger.'

'I'm going now,' Sophie said, heading for the door.

Scoop shook his head. 'Stay with me. Whoever tried to kill Frank could still be out there. He can't have been in the water long or he'd be dead.'

Acosta cast the towel aside and staggered to his feet, his skin, if possible, turning even grayer. 'Check out your archaeologist, Wisdom.' He coughed, gritted his teeth visibly as he seemed to fight off pain and nausea. 'She's the one with axes to grind. We don't know what happened with her and Cliff. No one does. It's just her word.'

'Take it easy, Frank. You probably have a concussion. You've had a bad scare--'

'A bad scare? I damn near drowned. This woman's the expert. If she's obsessed with Celtic whatever--art, religion, history, bones, I don't know--she could have her own game. What if she set this up--sold fake Celtic jewelry, or found the real thing and wants to keep it for herself? What if she's blackmailing Percy Carlisle to get him to buy them or get someone else to buy them?'

Scoop hadn't interrupted Acosta's rant. 'You need to take it easy, Frank.'

Acosta ignored him. 'Your Dr. Malone could have thrown Percy Carlisle off some damn Irish cliff before she flew back to Boston.'

'The Irish are looking for him,' Scoop said. 'We can talk about all this after the paramedics have checked you over.'

'What if your archaeologist was behind the break-in here seven years ago? She's smart as hell. She could have orchestrated the mess with the old man in Ireland, then broken in here so that we'd all look to some disgruntled employee. Maybe the son suspected her but couldn't prove it. Maybe he went to Ireland to confront her.'

'You're speculating,' Scoop said.

'Brainstorming. There's a difference.' Acosta's dark eyes--bloodshot, red-rimmed, accusatory--were riveted on Scoop. 'I'm not emotionally involved.'

'You are emotionally involved.' Scoop's voice was calm. 'Cliff was your friend.'

'Friend? Cliff didn't have friends. He was a lazy, cynical SOB who blamed his problems on everyone else.'

'Was he involved with the thugs Estabrook hired?'

'How the hell would I know?'

Museum security and two uniformed BPD officers arrived. Acosta shook off their help, then stumbled. They caught him as he fainted.

Scoop touched Sophie's elbow. 'You okay?'

She nodded. He walked with her back to the conference room. Paramedics and the homicide detectives investigating Cliff Rafferty's death arrived next.

Bob O'Reilly was right behind them. 'Damn,' he said, glaring at Scoop, then at Sophie. 'You two again.'

By the time she finished with the BPD, Sophie was dry enough to head over to the main part of the museum. She'd loved wandering through the different collections as a student and welcomed being among the familiar paintings, sculptures and artifacts. The homicide detectives had been thorough and professional, but she had no illusions. They grilled her not just about how and why she'd come to the museum this morning, what she'd seen, what she'd done, but about everything--her life from meeting the Carlisles as a student to sitting in the conference room answering their questions.

Scoop hadn't stayed with her. She wasn't sure he would have been allowed to, and he had his own questions to answer. The police and museum security had shut down the museum and searched it for possible assailants, witnesses and evidence.

Sophie was staring blankly at a trio of Early Medieval Irish silver chalices behind a glass case when Scoop found her. 'They're beautiful, aren't they?' Her voice was hoarse, but she continued. 'You can see the Celtic motifs. The spirals, the knots. The museum doesn't have a lot of Irish works--these are on loan from a private collector.'

'You don't have to be here.'

She looked up from the chalices and saw that his gaze was on her, nothing about him easy to read--easy on any level. 'I didn't wait for you this morning because I wanted to come here alone. It was a beautiful morning for a walk. It never occurred to me I'd find...' She didn't finish. 'Security's obviously not as tight in the administrative offices as out here in the exhibits.'

He touched a hand to her upper arm. 'I can take you back to the hotel.'

She nodded but moved over to a series of small, dark paintings. 'If Percy's in Boston--if he's into dark pagan rituals, twisting them for his own purposes, and all this is his doing...' She shook her head. 'I can't imagine. Helen would be devastated. Everyone here would be. When Detective Acosta was 'brainstorming,' all I could think about was how many possible explanations there are to what's happened. Percy could be hiding and afraid--he could think he's being framed for something he didn't do. He could have been working with Rafferty or Augustine.'

'That's why you have to leave the investigation to the police. They'll follow the evidence wherever it takes them.'