Relic

“Haven’t seen him,” came the response. “Want me to check with Security Command?”

“Naw,” Coffey said. “It’s nice without him. Nice and peaceful.”

D’Agosta’s radio hissed. “Walden here. Listen, we need some help. The guards are having a hard time controlling the flow. There’s just too many people.”

“Where’s Spenser? He should be floating around there somewhere. Have him bar the entrance, let people out but not in, while you and the Museum guards set up an orderly line. This crowd has to be controlled.”

“Yes, sir.”

The exhibition was filling up quickly now. Twenty minutes had gone by and Wright and the Mayor were deep inside the exhibition, near the locked rear exit. They’d moved quickly at first, keeping to the central halls and avoiding the secondary passages. But now, [310] Wright had stopped at a particular exhibit to explain something to the Mayor, and people were streaming past them into the exhibition’s farthest recesses.

“Keep near the front,” D’Agosta said to Bailey and McNitt, the two men on advance duty.

He skipped ahead and did a quick visual through two side alcoves. Spooky exhibition, he thought. A very sophisticated haunted house, with all the trimmings. The dim lighting, for instance. Not so dim, though, that you couldn’t make out nasty little details. Like the Congo power figure, with its bulging eye sockets and torso riddled with sharp nails. Or the nearby mummy, vertical in a freestanding case, that was streaked with dripped blood. Now that, thought D’Agosta, is a little overdone.

The crowd continued to spread out, and he ducked into the next set of alcoves. All clear.

“Walden, how’d you make out?” D’Agosta radioed.

“Lieutenant, I can’t find Spenser. He doesn’t seem to be around, and I can’t leave the entrance to find him with the crowd the way it is.”

“Shit. Okay, I’m calling Drogan and Frazier over to help you.”

D’Agosta radioed one of the two plainclothes units patrolling the party. “Drogan, you copy?”

A pause. “Yes, Lieutenant.”

“I want you and Frazier to back up Walden at the exhibition entrance, on the double.”

“Ten-four.”

He looked around. More mummies, but none with blood all over them.

D’Agosta stopped, frozen. Mummies don’t bleed.

Slowly, he turned around and started pushing past the eager phalanx of gawkers. It was just some curator’s sick little idea. Part of the exhibit.

But he had to be sure.

The case was surrounded by people, as were all the others. D’Agosta made his way through the crowd and glanced at the label: “Anasazi burial from Mummy Cave, Canyon del Muerto, Arizona.”

[311] The streaks of dried blood on the head and chest of the mummy looked like they had come from above. Trying to remain inconspicuous, he leaned as close to the case as possible and peered up.

Above the mummy’s head, the top of the case was open, exposing a ceiling crawling with steam pipes and ductwork. A hand, a watch, and the cuff of a blue shirt protruded over the edge of the case. A small icicle of dried blood hung from the middle finger.

D’Agosta backed into a corner, looked around, and spoke urgently into his radio.

“D’Agosta calling Security Command.”

“This is Garcia, Lieutenant.”

“Garcia, I’ve got a dead body in here. We’ve got to get everybody out. If they see it and panic, we’re fucked.”

“Jesus,” said Garcia.

“Get in touch with the guards and Walden. Nobody else is to be allowed into the exhibition. You got that? And I want the Hall of the Heavens cleared in case there’s a stampede. Get everyone out, but don’t cause any alarm. Now get Coffey for me.”

“Roger.”

D’Agosta looked around, trying to spot Ippolito. His radio squawked.

“Coffey here. What the hell is it, D’Agosta?”

“We got a dead body in here. It’s lying on top of a case. I’m the only one who’s spotted it, but that could change at any moment. We’ve got to get everyone out while there’s still time.”

As he opened his mouth to speak again, D’Agosta heard, over the noise of the crowd, “That blood looks so real.”

“There’s a hand up there,” D’Agosta heard someone else say.

Two woman were backing away from the case, looking up.

“It’s a body!” one said loudly.

[312] “It’s not real,” the other replied. “It’s a gimmick for the opening, it has to be.”

D’Agosta held up his hands, moving up to the case. “Please, everyone!”