The Keepsake (18 page)

“It’s been a week since you brought that girl home, right? And nothing’s happened.”

“There’ve been no sightings.”

“Then he’s probably left town. Moved on to easier hunting grounds.”

“Or he’s just waiting for things to quiet down,” said Jane.

“Yeah, that’s the problem, isn’t it? It takes resources to keep up surveillance. How do you know when to pull back your protection? When’s that girl going to be safe?”

Never, thought Jane. Josephine will always be looking over her shoulder.

“Do you think he’ll kill again?” said Angela.

“Of course he will,” said Korsak. “Maybe not in Boston. But I guarantee you, right at this moment he’s out there hunting somewhere.”

“How do you know?”

Korsak loaded the last steak onto the platter and shut off the flame. “Because that’s what hunters do.”

TWENTY-THREE

All Sunday afternoon, the storm had been building, and now they were caught in the worst of it. As Josephine sat in her windowless office, she could hear the crash of thunder. The reverberations shook the walls with such violence that she did not notice Nicholas approach her doorway. Only when he spoke did she realize he had been standing nearby.

“Is someone driving you home this afternoon?” he asked.

He hesitated in the doorway, as though afraid to step into her space, afraid that approaching any closer might be forbidden. Days before, Detective Frost had briefed the museum staff on security, and had shown them the photo of Bradley Rose, digitally aged to replicate the passage of two decades. Since Josephine’s return, the staff had been treating her like fragile goods, politely keeping their distance. No one was comfortable working around a victim.

And I’m not comfortable being one.

“I just wanted to make sure you’ve got a ride home,” said Robinson. “Because if you don’t, I’d be happy to drive you.”

“Detective Frost is coming to get me at six.”

“Oh. Of course.” He lingered in the doorway as though he had something else to say, but did not have the nerve to speak. “I’m glad you’re back” was all he managed before he turned to leave.

“Nicholas?”

“Yes?”

“I owe you an explanation. About a number of things.”

Although he stood only a few feet away, she found it hard to meet his gaze. Never before had he made her feel so uncomfortable. He was one of the few people with whom she usually felt at ease, because they inhabited the same esoteric little corner of the universe and shared the same unlikely passion for obscure facts and amusing oddities. Of all the people she’d deceived, she felt the most guilty about Nicholas, because he, more than anyone, had tried the hardest to be a friend.

“I haven’t been honest with you,” she said, and gave a sad shake of the head. “In fact, most of what you know about me is a lie. Starting with—”

“Your name isn’t really Josephine,” he said softly.

Startled, she looked up at him. Before, when their gazes met, he would often look away, flustered. This time, his gaze was absolutely steady.

“When did you find out?” she asked.

“After you left town and I couldn’t reach you, I got worried. I called Detective Rizzoli, and that’s when I learned the truth.” He flushed. “I’m ashamed to admit it, but I called your university. I wondered if maybe…”

“If you’d hired a complete fraud.”

“It was wrong of me to invade your privacy, I know.”

“No, it was
exactly
what you should have done, Nicholas. You had every reason to check my credentials.” She sighed. “That’s the only thing I
have
been honest about. I’m surprised you let me come back to work. You never said a thing about it.”

“I was waiting for the right moment. Waiting until you felt ready to talk. Are you?”

“It sounds like you already know everything you need to.”

“How could I, Josephine? I feel as if I’m just getting to know you
now.
All the things you told me about your childhood—your parents—”

“I lied, okay?” Her response was more curt than she’d intended, and she saw him flush. “I had no choice,” she added quietly.

He came into her office and sat down. So many times before he had settled into that same chair, with his morning cup of coffee, and they would happily chat about the latest artifact they’d dug out of the basement or the obscure little detail that one of them had managed to track down. This was not to be one of those pleasant chats.

“I can only imagine how betrayed you feel,” she said.

“No. It’s not that so much.”

“Disappointed at the very least.”

His nod was painful to see, because it confirmed the gulf between them. As if to emphasize the breach, a crack of thunder split the silence.

She blinked away tears. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“What disappoints me most,” he said, “is that you didn’t trust me. You could have told me the truth, Josie. And I would have stood up for you.”

“How can you say that, when you don’t know everything about me?”

“But I know
you.
I don’t mean the superficial things like what name you call yourself or which towns you’ve lived in. I know what you care about and what matters to you. And that gets more to the heart of a person than whether or not your name is really Josephine. That’s what I came to say.” He took a deep breath.

“And…something else, too.”

“Yes?”

He looked down at his suddenly tense hands. “I was wondering if, um…do you like movies?”

“Yes, I—of course.”

“Oh, that’s good. That’s really—that’s splendid! I’m afraid I don’t keep track of what’s playing, but this week there must be something that’s suitable. Or maybe next week.” He cleared his throat. “I can be counted on to get you home safely, and at a reasonable—”

“Nicholas,
there
you are,” said Debbie Duke, appearing in the doorway. “We have to leave now, or the shipping office will close.”

He glanced up at her. “What?”

“You promised you’d help me bring that crate over to the shipping office in Revere. It’s going to London and I need to deal with the customs forms. I’d do it myself but it weighs over fifty pounds.”

“Detective Frost hasn’t come for Josephine yet. I hate to leave.”

“Simon and Mrs. Willebrandt are here and all the doors are locked.”

He looked at Josephine. “You said he’s coming to get you at six? That’s not for another hour.”

“I’ll be fine,” said Josephine.

“Come on, Nick,” said Debbie. “This thunderstorm’s going to slow down traffic. We need to leave now.”

He stood and followed Debbie out of the office. As their descending footsteps echoed in the stairwell, Josephine sat at her desk, still startled by what had just happened.

Did Nicholas Robinson just try to ask me out on a date?

Thunder rocked the building and the lights briefly dimmed, as if the heavens had just answered her question.
Yes, he did.

She gave an amazed shake of her head and looked down at the stack of old accession ledgers. They contained the handwritten lists of antiquities that the museum had acquired through the decades, and she had been slowly making her way down that list, locating each item and assessing its condition. Once again, she tried to focus on the task, but her mind drifted back to Nicholas.

Do you like movies?

She smiled.
Yes. And I like you, too. I always have.

She opened a book from decades before and recognized Dr. William Scott-Kerr’s microscopic handwriting. These ledgers were a lasting record of each curator’s tenure, and she’d noted the changing handwriting as old curators left and new ones arrived. Some, like Dr. Scott-Kerr, had been with the museum for decades, and she imagined them growing old along with the collection, walking the creaky floors past specimens that over time would have seemed as familiar as old friends. Here was the record of Scott-Kerr’s reign, recorded in his sometimes cryptic notations.

—Megaladon tooth, details of collection unk. Donated by Mr. Gerald DeWitt.

—Clay jar handles, stamped with winged sun disks. Iron Age. Collected at Nebi Samwil by Dr. C. Andrews.

—Silver coin, probably 3rd C
BC
,
stamped with Parthenope and man-headed bull on reverse. Naples. Purchased from private collection Dr. M. Elgar.

The silver coin was currently on display in the first-floor gallery, but she had no idea where the clay jar handles were located. She made a note to herself to hunt them down, and turned the page, to find the next three items listed as a group.

—Various bones, some human, some equine.

—Metallic fragments, possibly remnants of pack animal harness.

—Fragment of dagger blade, possibly Persian. 3rd C.
BC
,
Collected by S. Crispin near Siwa Oasis, Egypt.

She looked at the date and froze at her desk. Though thunder crackled outside, she was more aware of the thudding of her own heart. Siwa Oasis. Simon was in the western desert, she thought.
The same year my mother was there.

She reached for her crutches and started up the hall to Simon’s office.

His door was open, but he had turned off the lights. Peering into the gloom, she saw him sitting near the window. The weather had taken a violent turn, and he was gazing out at the lightning. Fierce gusts rattled the window and sheets of rain splattered the glass as though tossed by angry gods.

“Simon?” she said.

He turned. “Ah, Josephine. Come and watch. Mother Nature is providing us with quite a spectacle today.”

“May I ask you something? It’s about an entry in this ledger.”

“Let me see it.”

She thumped across the room on her crutches and handed the book to him. Squinting in the gray light, he murmured: “Various bones. Fragment of a dagger.” He looked up. “What was your question?”

“Your name is listed as the collector. Do you remember bringing home these items?”

“Yes, but I haven’t taken a look at them in years.”

“Simon, these were collected from the western desert. The blade’s described as possibly Persian, third century
BC
.”

“Ah, of course. You want to examine it for yourself.” He grabbed his cane and pushed himself to his feet. “Well then, let’s take a look and see if you agree with my assessment.”

“You know where these items are stored?”

“I know where they should be. Unless someone’s moved them elsewhere since I last saw them.”

She followed him up the hall, toward the ancient elevator. She had never trusted the contraption and usually avoided taking it, but now that she was on crutches she had no choice but to step in. As Simon closed the black grille cage, she felt as if the jaws of a trap had suddenly snapped shut. The elevator gave an alarming shudder and slowly creaked down to the basement level, where she was relieved to step out safely.

He unlocked the storage area. “If I recall correctly,” he said, “these items were quite compact, so they’d be stored on the back shelves.” He led her into the maze of crates. The Boston police had completed their survey, and the floor was still littered with wood shavings and stray Styrofoam peanuts. She followed Simon down a narrow passage into the older section of the storage area, past crates stamped with the names of enticingly exotic locales.
JAVA. MANCHURIA. INDIA.
At last they arrived at a towering set of shelves, on which dozens of boxes were stored.

“Oh, good,” said Simon, pointing to a modest-sized box with the matching date and accession number. “It’s right within reach.” He pulled it off the shelf and set it on a nearby crate. “It feels a bit like Christmas, doesn’t it? Peeking at something that no one’s looked at in a quarter century. Ah, look what we have!”

He reached inside and pulled out a container of bones.

Most were merely fragments, but she recognized a few dense nuggets that had endured intact while other parts of the skeleton had cracked and worn away over the centuries. She picked up one of the nuggets and felt a whisper of a chill on her neck.

“Wrist bones,” she murmured.
Human.

“My guess is, these are all from a single individual. Yes, this does bring back the memories. The heat and the dust. The thrill of being right in the thick of it, when you think that at any instant, your trowel might collide with history. Before these old joints gave out. Before I somehow became old, something I never expected to be. I used to think I was immortal.” He gave a sad laugh, a sound of bewilderment that the decades could have fled by so quickly, leaving him trapped in a broken-down body. He looked down at the container of bones and said, “This unfortunate man no doubt thought that he, too, was immortal. Until he watched his comrades go insane with thirst. Until his army crumbled around him. I’m sure he never imagined that this would be their end. This is what the passage of centuries does to even the most glorious of empires. Wears them down to mere sand.”

Josephine gently set the wrist bone back in the container. It was nothing more than a deposit of calcium and phosphate. Bones served their purpose, and their owners died and abandoned them, much as one abandoned a walking stick. These fragments were all that remained of a Persian soldier doomed to perish in a foreign desert.

“He’s part of the lost army,” she said.

“I’m almost certain of it. One of the doomed soldiers of Cambyses.”

She looked at him. “You were there with Kimball Rose.”

“Oh, it was his excavation, and he paid a pretty penny for it. You should have seen the team he assembled! Dozens of archaeologists. Hundreds of diggers. We were there to find one of the holy grails of archaeology, as elusive as the lost Ark of the Covenant or the tomb of Alexander. Fifty thousand Persian soldiers simply vanished in the desert, and I wanted to be there when they were uncovered.”

“But they weren’t.”

Simon shook his head. “We dug for two seasons, and all we found were bits of bone and metal. The remains of stragglers, no doubt. They were such meager spoils that neither Kimball nor the Egyptian government had any interest in keeping any of it. So it came to us.”

“I didn’t know that you worked with Kimball Rose. You never even mentioned that you knew him.”

“He’s a fine archaeologist. An exceedingly generous man.”

“And his son?” she asked quietly. “How well did you know Bradley?”

“Ah, Bradley.” He set the box back on the shelf. “Everyone wants to know about Bradley. The police. You. But the truth is, I scarcely remember the boy. I can’t believe that any son of Kimball’s would be a threat to you. This investigation has been quite unfair to his family.” He turned to her, and the sudden intensity of his gaze made her uneasy. “He has only your best interests in mind.”

“What do you mean?”

“Of all the applicants I could have hired, I chose you. Because he said I should. He’s been looking out for you.”

She backed away.

“You really had no idea?” he said, moving toward her. “All along, he’s been your secret friend. He asked me not to say a word, but I thought it was time you should know. It’s always good to know who our friends are, especially when they’re so generous.”