The Reincarnationist (8 page)

T
he scraping sound emanated from the opening. They both looked up in time to see an aluminum ladder descending. One black loafer on the top rung. And then another as the man appeared from the bottom up.

“I'm Detective Alexander Tatti with the NTPA,” he called down in better English than any of the other policemen had used. “And we have a new ladder, as you can see,” he added as he proceeded to climb the rest of the way down.

“The Nucleo per la Tutela del Patrimonio Artistico protects Italy's art, finds and retrieves stolen works,” Gabriella explained to Josh as she moved away from the freshly refilled alcove and got down on her knees by the mummy.

“Thank goodness you've come,” she said to the detective in a voice dusted with sugar. “Thank you for bringing the ladder. I've been going crazy stuck down here for the past forty-five minutes. I need to go to the hospital. Do you know how the professor is? Do you have news?”

Tatti finished his climb with surprising agility for a man who appeared, from the lines in his face, to be near retirement age. “He's in intensive care. They won't let
you in yet. So you might as well stay and help me out on this end. All right?”

She nodded.

Unexpectedly, he didn't barrage either of them with questions. Not right away. Instead, he made a slow and careful examination of his surroundings with an expression of reverence on his face. Josh liked him right then, for noticing where he was, for paying it some sort of tribute before he proceeded to defile it further.

After he had made a 360-degree circle, his glance returned to Sabina. He took six steps to her side and crouched down so he was on her level.

“How old is she, would you say?”

“We estimate she was buried here in 400 A.D.,” Gabriella answered. “Or do you mean how old was she when she died?”

“I mean when she was buried and when she died. Both.”

“There's little wear on the few joints that we were able to see. We're guessing about twenty-two.”

“Was she disturbed during this morning's incident?”

“Yes, very badly.”

“Yes? How?”

“She was completely intact when we found her. Last night when I left…it was extraordinary…Now…” Gabriella looked at Sabina. “Now she's broken apart, here and here….” She pointed to the mummy's waist, her neck and her right hand. “She had been holding on to that box. Or what's left of it.”

“What box?”

Josh could see Gabriella flinch. She hadn't meant to draw the detective's attention to the broken receptacle. But now she was trapped. She pointed across the room to the splintered wood.

“What was in it?”

She shrugged. “It was sealed. We hadn't opened it yet,” she lied. “Now you know everything I know. Can I go to the hospital?”

“As I said, the professor is in intensive care. His wife is with him. As soon as there is news, they will call me and I will tell you. Or if we are done sooner than that, you can go over then. In the meantime—” his accent was pleasant, giving a lilt to the English words “—you expect me to believe that you found this mummy holding on to a box and you didn't open it?”

“Yes. We have protocols. We go slowly. Everything was a surprise. One more could wait. We wanted to examine the seal before we destroyed it.”

He turned around to Josh, flinging questions so fast there was no time to duck. “You are?”

“Josh Ryder.”

“The man who called the ambulance?”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Ryder, what was in the box?”

“I have absolutely no idea.” Josh's turn to lie.

“What were you doing down here?”

“I had just met the professor, he was telling me about the find.” Damn, had he screwed up? Had he just admitted he was in the tomb?

“What time did you get here?”

“Around six-thirty this morning.”

“Why so early?”

“I don't need much sleep.”

“I talked to Dr. Samuels while I waited for the ladder. He told me that you are from New York, that the two of you had an appointment to meet Professor Chase at the hotel at eight o'clock but that you didn't show up.”

“No, I was here.”

“That's what is so confusing. Why would you come
here a few hours before you were going to be brought here by Professor Chase? Was there something here that couldn't wait?”

Gabriella listened just as intently as Tatti; after all, she didn't know what had happened, either.

“I couldn't sleep. Jet lag. Too much coffee. I don't know. I took a walk.”

“You took a walk. Fine. You could have walked anywhere. Why here? Why didn't you wait? Why did you come here alone without your associate and without Professor Chase?”

“I told you. I was restless.”

“How did you get here? There is no car for you.”

“No. I said I walked.”

“You walked? Walked from where?”

What was it about Tatti that seemed so familiar?

“From the hotel. The Eden. We're staying there.”

“I really need to go to the hospital,” Gabriella interrupted.

“Professor Chase, please. As I have said, the doctors are going to call me as soon as they know anything. This is the scene of a murder attempt, and you know the man who was attacked. You might also know who attacked him. There are also, potentially, priceless artifacts here. You are the only one who knows what they are, where everything was, what has been moved, what might have been taken if something
was
taken. You will do me more good here than you will do him there. At least for now.”

Turning his attention back to Josh, he picked up where he'd left off.

“So. Yes. You said you walked here from the Eden?”

“Yes.”

“You evidently like to walk.”

It wasn't a question, and Josh didn't answer it. He was
still trying to figure out what was so familiar about Tatti. When he realized it he almost laughed. It wasn't some memory lurch. Every one of the detective's mannerisms seemed borrowed from one of two Hollywood stereotypes, either Inspector Clouseau or Detective Columbo.

“Now, Mr. Ryder. Please.” He let his exasperation show. “Tell me what the truth is about what really happened.” He was a movie star playing the part of a real-life detective.

“I did tell you. I slept badly. I woke up, I took a walk.”

“It's ten kilometers from the Eden, Mr. Ryder. Exactly what time did you leave the hotel?”

“I'm not sure, I wasn't paying attention. It was still dark.”

“Professor Chase, did Mr. Ryder or Dr. Samuels know the address of this site?”

“No. We didn't tell them. But despite all our efforts it has been in the press.”

“Yes, it has.” Tatti nodded. “Is that how you found it, Mr. Ryder? From the newspapers? From a taxi driver?”

“No. No one told me. I didn't know where I was walking. Ask the emergency operator. I didn't know where I was when I called.”

“She told us that you had to call someone on the phone to find out the address. But that might be a very convenient ploy, no? You pretend you don't know where you are so as not to look suspicious.”

Again, it wasn't a question, so Josh didn't give him an answer.

“Let's assume you are telling me one truth. How can you explain that truth? How can you make sense out of leaving your hotel at, say, five o'clock in the morning, and finding your way here?”

“I can't.”

“What do you take me for, Mr. Ryder, a fool? What were you doing here?”

All Josh could think of was the explanation Malachai gave to the children he worked with: the five-, six-, seven-and eight-year-olds who were frightened by the power of the stories in their heads. “You are unforgetting the past, that's all. It might seem scary but it's really quite wonderful,” he would tell them.

That might have been what Josh was doing there, but it was the last explanation he was going to give.

Gabriella interrupted the detective and begged him to conduct the rest of the interview outside of the tomb. “This is an ancient site that we've just begun to work on. I need to protect it and close it down as soon as possible.”

Tatti promised her they would work as quickly and carefully as possible and leave as soon as they could, but not quite yet. He turned back to Sabina, and his eyes rested on her. For a few seconds, it was totally silent in the tomb. And then he asked Gabriella, once more, what she thought had been taken.

She was losing her patience. “We've been over this, haven't we?”

“We have. But I'm still not satisfied that you and the professor found this tomb, excavated it, started to catalog its contents and yet never looked inside the box. Weren't you curious?”

“Of course. But there is a protocol. To us, every inch of this tomb is as exciting as what might be in the box. The very fact that the woman buried here was comparatively incorruptible was of greater archaeological and scientific importance—even religious significance—than some trinket inside a box.”

“So it was a trinket?”

She flew into a rage at that and spoke to him rapidly in Italian. Surprisingly, he seemed to be agreeing with what she said and nodded along with her tirade. When she was
done, he climbed up the ladder and stayed perched there, half in and half out, as he called over the two policemen who had first arrived at the scene and had spoken to them.

Gabriella waited by the bottom of the ladder, watching him, listening to what he was saying. Beneath her anger, she was still extremely anxious. Twice, she glanced at her watch. Several times she looked over at Sabina with a curious, questioning expression in her eyes. And although Josh didn't know Gabriella yet, he knew she was wishing that the mummy could communicate, that Sabina could tell them what she'd seen, who had come down here and invaded this sacred space.

For the next few minutes, while the detective continued his discussion with the two officers, Josh struggled not to lose touch with reality and give in to where his mind wanted to go. Tried not to think. But the images were crowding in, demanding attention, refusing to go away. He held his camera up to his face and focused on Gabriella while she listened to the detective talk with his minions. From behind the lens he examined her face—the broad forehead, the high cheekbones. The intelligent eyes.

He remembered a sculpture in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, a head entitled
The Muse
, by Brancusi, made of highly polished bronze: golden, spare, cerebral. Wide almond eyes, perfect oval face.

She could have modeled for it.

Using her expressions as clues, he tried to decode the discussion the detective was having with the policemen. Several times she almost interrupted but stopped herself. Without thinking, Josh took a shot of her. The flash went off. She looked up and over at him, annoyed. Josh lowered the camera.

Finally the detective climbed back down.

“Professor Chase, I don't want to corrupt your site any more than you do. After all, my job is protecting Italian treasures. I know something about archeology, and from the look of this tomb and its location, this woman might be an early Christian martyr. She might be a saint. As we can see, she's barely corrupted.” He gestured to Sabina with a flourish, trying to impress her with his knowledge. “The police understand. They will come down now and work both quickly and carefully. Luckily, this is a very small space and it will not be complicated. Then you can shut down the site until this ugly matter is dealt with. As long as you agree to give us access if we need it again.”

She said, “Of course,” and bowed her head for a second as if a prayer was being answered.

Then he turned to Josh. “Mr. Ryder, I need you to come with me, please. I still have additional questions for you, but we can take care of them up there.”

Out of the tomb, the detective led Josh away from the clearing and closer to the line of oak trees that stood like sentinels at the edge of what seemed to be a forest. Leaning against one of these massive trees that probably had been standing since the tomb was built, since Sabina had been buried there, Tatti made Josh repeat what had happened since he'd left his hotel.

“I simply don't believe your story, Mr. Ryder,” he said when Josh finished. “You walk all the way here before dawn when you already have an appointment in the morning? Why?”

“I was restless.”

“But how did you know where to come?”

“I didn't.”

“And you expect me to believe a coincidence like this? You think I'm stupid, Mr. Ryder?”

Josh knew how preposterous it sounded. But the truth would have sounded more like a lie.

I felt propelled here, even though I didn't know where I was going.

“If you were me, what would you do if you heard this crazy recital? Would you believe a word of it?”

What should he tell him? What could he tell him? And then he realized the truth in this case might work. “No. Probably not. But honestly, there's just nothing else I can tell you.”

Tatti threw up his hands. He'd had enough for at least the time being. Grasping Josh by the arm, with greater pressure than was necessary, he escorted him over to an unmarked sedan, opened the back door, waited for him to get in and then shut the door and locked it after him.

“I won't be long. Make yourself, how do you say it? Oh, yes, at home.”

Despite the open window, the detective's car was hot and smelled of strong cigarettes and stale coffee. He watched Tatti interrogate Gabriella, watched how she glanced over in Josh's direction. Again. And again. As if she was putting the blame on him, or as if she was asking him to come to her rescue and save her from any more questions.

As if she was asking him to save her.

How familiar that thought seemed.

Had someone else once asked him to save her here in this grove?