been the murder weapon.
Where else could those terra-cotta fragments have come from? Not from the tree of life; it had been ceramic. The smaller terra-cotta tree must have been shattered too, or at least badly damaged, when it crushed Frank’s skull. It was heavy, but not so heavy that a strong person couldn’t pick it up, raise it, and… I shuddered at the image.
So where was the tree of death now? The killer must have taken it away. But what if he hadn’t taken it far? It would have been cumbersome to carry. Where could he have hidden it?
The museum cellar, with all the other artifacts?
I got up from the table, leaving my wine unfinished, and put a five-dollar bill under the ashtray. Then I rushed down the passageway to where my car was parked on Anacapa Street. I drove the few blocks to the museum and was about to leave the Rabbit at the curb when I realized it would indicate I was inside. Slowly I drove around the rear of the building to the parking lot and pulled up in the shadow of the loading dock.
The most unobtrusive way to enter was through the courtyard off Frank’s office. I opened the padlock on the iron gate, then stepped through and snapped it shut again. Quickly I slipped down the path and across the courtyard, skirting the expensive bushes Frank had lovingly planted, and fumbled with the alarm key.
All was dark, quiet. Briefly I thought of Isabel’s warning to be careful around here. Nonsense. I had set the alarm at three-fifteen when I sent everybody home and left for my appointment with Kirk. The alarm was still set; I would be safe inside.
Turning on only what lights were necessary to find my way, I hurried through the office wing to the cellar. The flash was where I had left it. I moved through the maze of boxes toward the front. A logical place for the killer to hide his weapon would be among the jumble there, where the artifacts purchased with the embezzled funds were piled.
Except that the artifacts weren’t there.
I stopped, disbelieving, shining the flashlight on the empty floor space. The stacks of boxes I’d pawed through that afternoon were gone. Faint marks in the dust showed where they had been.
There was a rustling sound behind me.
I stood very still, listening. Silence. Imagination, I thought, kneeling to examine the outlines in the dust.
The rustling began again, closer. It sounded like bare feet moving over the concrete floor.
Quickly I straightened and shone the flashlight back the way I’d come. Nothing. I held my breath. There were almost imperceptible sounds, as if someone else was doing the same. I started around the nearest stack of cartons, to confront whoever was hiding there.
A dark figure rushed at me, knocking the flashlight from my hand. Its upraised arm descended toward my head…
eleven
The first thing I felt was a pain in my rib cage. I was lying on my side, my head on my outstretched arm. I flopped over onto my back, and the pain dulled a little.
Pain. Now I was aware of my head throbbing, too. I opened my eyes and stared up at a dark, cloudless sky studded with stars.
Stars? I tried to sit up, but the pain was too much. With one hand I groped around and felt a sharp rock and clods of earth. The rock must have been what had hurt my ribs.
I closed my eyes again and breathed in deeply. The air was night-cool and sweet. I breathed once more and identified the scent of young onions. Funny how they smelled so much sweeter growing in the field than they did in the stores…
In the field! Now it all came flooding back-the museum, the cellar, the missing boxes, the dark figure. Whoever it was had hit me with something heavy. No wonder my head ached so. But where was I now?
I opened my eyes and struggled up on my elbows, the pain in my head making me feel nauseated. On three sides of me were onion plants. On the other was a steep slope that looked as if it might rise up to a road. All logic to the contrary, it seemed that I was lying in an onion patch.
After a moment I sat up all the way and put one hand to my head. It hurt toward the front, above my forehead. Did I have a concussion? Wasn’t one of the symptoms nausea? I certainly felt that.
Besides being in an onion patch where was I? There were farms north of town, but quite a way north, above Goleta and UCSB. How had I gotten here?
After a couple of minutes my stomach settled down. The pain in my side was not nearly as severe as when I’d come to. Probably nothing wrong there but a crimp from lying on the rock. I looked at the luminous hands of my watch and saw it was after midnight. I could have been lying here a long time.
Gradually I hauled myself to my feet. A momentary wave of dizziness passed over me, but then I was okay. I looked at the embankment, a seemingly insurmountable mound of dirt, and then began climbing it on my hands and knees. It led to the road, all right. And there, not twenty yards away on the opposite shoulder, sat my VW Rabbit.
What was it doing here?
I stood a minute, catching my breath, then crossed the highway to the car. My purse lay on the passenger seat and the keys were in the ignition. At least I had a way to get back to town. I opened the door and got in.
From here on the shoulder I could pinpoint where I was. Farmland curved off to the west and in the distance I could see a faint silvery strip of sea. To the east were the softly rounded hills. I had to be a least twenty miles north of town, on the coast highway.
I pushed in the clutch and turned the key. The car spluttered and died. I tried again. No luck. Then I looked at the gas gauge. It was on empty.
Damn! I hated to go to gas stations, always put off filling the tank. Well, finally I’d been caught by that habit-I, and the person who’d driven me here. The question now was how to get back to town. I was in no shape to walk it, but it was almost one in the morning and no cars were in sight. Maybe, though, if I started walking, some late traveler would come along and give me a lift. I picked up my purse, removed the keys from the ignition, and started south down the opposite shoulder.
My head still ached, but not as much as before. The air was cool and fresh, and the sweet onion scent rose up from the fields. In any other circumstances I would have enjoyed it. At least the fog spell we’d been having had broken. The mere thought of being stranded out here in thick fog made me shiver.
As I tottered along, I tried to piece together what might have happened. Someone had gotten into the museum and begun moving the boxes of artifacts, but I’d returned to look for the tree of death before he could complete the job. Who? And how had he gotten in? Well, he’d gotten out and left the alarm system intact before. Given that, I supposed he could get in, too.
I reviewed the events of the night before: I return to the museum before the killer can get off the premises with the stuff. He sees me go to the cellar, suspects I’ve caught on to the embezzlements. Why else would I be pawing around down there at night? He follows, finds me looking for the boxes he’s already moved. Now he knows for sure I’ve discovered them. He creeps up, hits me on the head, knocks me out.
Then what? He puts me in my own car, drives me north, and runs out of gas. For some reason, he drags me from the car and dumps me in the onion patch. Then he hitches back to town.
Why did he bring me here? Because he didn’t want another crime bringing the cops back onto museum premises? Or maybe he thought he’d killed me. I have a slow heartbeat. If the killer was someone who had trouble finding a person’s pulse, he might have thought I was dead and decided to get rid of my body. But why? I would have been discovered quickly, lying there beside the road. All I could figure was he’d been headed to a better place, maybe to fake an accident with the car, and had panicked when the car ran out of gas.
After about fifteen minutes, I was beginning to tire. I stopped on the shoulder, looking for a place to sit down and rest. Then I heard the low rumble of a truck in the distance. It was coming from the north and seemed to keep coming for a long time. Then its lights flooded the road as it came around a bend; they washed over me as I waved my hands over my head.
At first I didn’t think the truck would stop, but then I heard the hiss of its air brakes as it rolled onto the
