Still As Death (19 page)

Read Still As Death Online

Authors: Sarah Stewart Taylor

When she took a break around three to go get some extra catalogs she’d left up in the museum offices, she found Fred by the mailboxes, leafing through a stack of manila envelopes. He was trying to stay cool in tan Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt.

“Hey, Fred.”

He’d been opening one of the envelopes and he turned when he heard her voice. “Sweeney. Hi. What are you doing up here?”

“Just getting these.” She found the catalogs sitting on a chair outside Tad’s office, where he’d told her they’d be. “Hot, huh?”

“I know. Lacey said I looked like a schlub, but I couldn’t stand wearing anything more than this. How are you holding up?”

“Okay. It’s weird having it so quiet around here, though, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “Willem doesn’t know what to do with himself, and Tad finally went home after lunch.”

“Fred, did you once tell me that Tad has a wife who’s really sick?”

“Mother. He takes care of her. I always figured it was why he didn’t go for an academic career. Chances are he would have had to move for a job.”

“What does she have?” Sweeney found herself curious about Tad’s life.

“I don’t know. I remember something about her heart. I think she may just be one of those people who always have something wrong.”

“An invalid. That’s what they used to call them.”

“That’s right. An invalid.” Fred said it in a kind of funny, faux-British accent.

She walked with him back toward his office and the elevator. “Olga didn’t have any family, did she? I wonder if there’ll be a service.”

“I doubt it. If there wasn’t any family. Maybe the museum will do something.”

“We could mention it to Willem,” Sweeney said. “I know he really liked Olga.” Fred did something with his eyes when she said Willem’s name that made her ask, “What?”

“Nothing.”

It had to be about the Potter Jennings show. “Is he going to host something for your book?” she asked innocently.

“We’ll see.” The hallway was fairly dim, but as they reached his office, Fred’s face was suddenly illuminated by the thick sunlight coming in the window at the end of the hall. As he turned to
Sweeney, she saw that his eyes were rimmed with red and that he hadn’t shaved in a few days.

“Are you okay, Fred?”

“What? Oh, yeah, fine. It’s just been so crazy around here. We’ve been having all kinds of security meetings about upgrading the systems. Willem’s going to turn this place into Fort Knox. And I’m trying to get the book off to a good start.”

“Is Lacey throwing you a book party?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Something on his face told her not to ask any more questions. Could he and Lacey be having problems? They seemed like a pretty tight couple to her, but she didn’t know them very well when it came right down to it. She knew that Fred had been putting in a lot of long hours at the museum lately, but she’d assumed it was because of his book.

By the time Sweeney left at quarter to six to meet Quinn and Ian at Flannery’s, she had worked herself into a state of nervous abandon. When she’d called Ian, he had sounded pleased.

Central Square seemed full of people. It was still over ninety-five degrees and Sweeney could feel droplets of sweat running down her back beneath her tank top. There was a strange smell in the air, as though the city itself was sweating, oozing out the odors of the rainwater and sewage and earth that lay just beneath the surface. Flannery’s was a slightly seedy, dimly lit pub, with old green-shaded lamps that hung too low in the aisles between the old leather booths and that people were always banging their heads on. At one time, Sweeney had gone there a lot for the Irish music sessions, but she realized it had been months since she’d been—since Ian had arrived, probably.

She got there early and ordered a scotch, paying for it with cash and finishing it quickly, then opened a tab and ordered another to have on the table when they got there. She’d drink that one slowly so Ian wouldn’t make an issue of it. She felt much better having had the drink, and by the time Quinn walked in at six on the dot, she was starting to think that this might turn out to be a good thing. She liked
Quinn, she wanted to continue to be friends with him, and if he and Ian got along, then that would make it all so much easier. Ian was her boyfriend. She cared about Ian. And he should get to know Quinn. There. It would be fine. She would figure out a way to convince Ian to stay in Boston and they would be great friends with Quinn and everything would be fine.

Dressed in khaki shorts and a gray T-shirt, his forehead shimmering with a fine mist of perspiration, he looked like he’d jogged over. Sweeney was suddenly glad she hadn’t gone home to change. She’d thought about it, but since Ian would probably arrive wearing one of his impeccable suits, she didn’t want to make Quinn feel uncomfortable. “Sorry about this,” he said, pointing to his clothes. “I was playing with Megan outside and I lost track of time. I’m going to just …” he headed in the direction of the restrooms and Sweeney watched him walk across the bar, the muscles on the backs of his calves articulating as he moved.

When he came back, his face pink and clean looking, he looked once around the bar. “Where’s …?”

“Ian’s on his way. He couldn’t get out of work until six,” she said.

“Oh.” He sat down as the waitress approached their table. Quinn ordered a Sam Adams.

“I’ll have one too,” Sweeney said, draining her whiskey glass and pushing it toward the waitress. “It’s so hot.”

“I know. Poor Megan. I gave her a bath, and a few seconds later she was all hot and sweaty again.”

“How’s she doing? She looked so grown up the other day.”

“She’s great. She says ‘juice’ and ‘elephant’ and ‘snuggle.’ That’s her new word: ‘snuggle.’ ”

“That’s pretty cute.” Sweeney smiled at him. There was a look that he got when he talked about Megan. His whole face relaxed and his eyes did something at the corners.

“So, I was hoping you could tell me a little bit about the museum,” Quinn said once they had their beers. “How long have you been working there?”

“Well, all of the history of art faculty have their offices at the museum,” she said. “Or rather in the building behind the museum. So I’ve technically been working in a building attached to the museum for three years or so. But it was only this summer that I started working
in
the museum. I’ve been planning this exhibition for three years, but I really started spending time there around April or May, I guess.”

He took a long sip of his beer. “Who are the staff who work there all the time? On a typical day, who would be in and out of the place? Who would know about, say, the fact that the chest was only in a temporary exhibit?”

“Well, let’s see. It’s a lot of people. There are all the curators. Willem. His official title is director of the museum and curator of Egyptian antiquities, or something like that. Then there’s Lucinda Hack, who’s the curator of European paintings. She’s been on a kind of sabbatical in Italy, though, so she’s not around this fall. And then there’s Fred, who’s the curator of photography, and Gerry Peterson, who’s in charge of American collections. He’s teaching a course this fall and hasn’t been around a lot. Then there’s Tad, who’s the assistant to the director. He helps Willem with all kinds of stuff, mostly administrative but some curatorial. There’s Harriet, the collections manager.” She stopped to think. “Then there are student interns and volunteers and the conservators and the students who are studying conservation. Then of course there’s me. And Jeanne Ortiz. Did she explain to you? She has a show starting in January so she’s been working on that. We were around this summer, so we heard a lot about the chest. Willem had been badgering the guy for years, hoping to get him to donate some items from his collection.”

“Anyone else? What about all of the other faculty members who are in the building? The offices of the art history department are over in the annex behind the building, right?”

“Well, yeah, but they don’t come over to the museum a lot. The buildings really are kind of separate. A lot of them work in the museum from time to time, but they’re not a part of the regular scene, if you know what I mean.”

“But they’re around enough to know about something like the chest?”

“Mmmm. Some of them. I think anybody might have known about the chest. I mentioned it to my aunt, who I happened to talk to the night it arrived and who I know is interested in Egyptian stuff. People talk about things, you know. Do you think someone inside the museum tried to take it?”

“It’s possible. It’s also possible that someone from the outside heard about it and tried to take it. Maybe it was your aunt.”

Sweeney smiled, thinking of her aunt Anna, who was small and gray haired and illustrated children’s books and always seemed to be in a bad mood, even though she wasn’t. “Maybe. So there wasn’t anything on the security cameras, huh?”

She watched his face as she said it, but he saw through her and smiled. “You know I can’t tell you that. Here’s a question, though: How aware were you of the security system in the museum?”

“You knew it was there. I’ve spent a lot of time in museums so I know what the cameras look like. I figured there were probably silent alarms on most of the pieces, motion detectors, that kind of thing. I got into it a little bit because we had to figure out where to situate some of the sarcophagi—those big stone coffins—and other pieces so we could alarm them. Though you usually don’t have to worry about anyone stealing a sarcophagus. It’s hard to carry out.”

He laughed. “I guess so. How about the security? Getting in and out of the building? How do they work that?”

“Well, there’s a guard on duty all the time. Denny or someone else. When the museum’s open, you can go up to the museum and History of Art Department offices from the elevator or stairs on the main floor, or through doors on each floor. You have to have a passkey and a password, though, and only the essential staff have them. Willem gave me one, but only because he’s known me for so long. Normally guest curators would have to be with a staff member. We’re supposed to wear these ID badges, but once everyone knows
you, you really don’t have to. I stopped after a month or so, and none of the people who work there regularly ever wear them anymore. You just wave at the guard as you go in.”

“How did they work it the night of the opening?”

“It was as if the museum was open, I guess. Denny and another guard were on duty, and he was walking around checking on the galleries.”

“What do you think of the people who work with you there?” he asked after a minute. “Is there anyone who strikes you as dishonest?”

“Nothing like that,” she said. “Fred was pretty eaten up about the whole thing this morning. He seemed very … distraught.”

“What about Jeanne Ortiz? What’s she like?”

“I like Jeanne, but I’m about the only one. She and Willem don’t get along at all, and I think she kind of drives Tad and Fred and Harriet crazy, though they don’t make it as obvious as Willem does.” She took a long sip of her beer.

“Harriet seems like a piece of work.”

“Oh, God. She is. But she’s so honest it’s annoying. So, you really think it’s related to the 1979 theft?”

He grinned, hesitated for a minute, then said, “You know I shouldn’t discuss this with you, but yes. It certainly looks that way to me.”

She told Quinn about her conversation with Willem. “So even if you think I’m completely crazy to be suspicious about the disappearance of the collar, you have to look into Karen Philips, because she was working at the museum then. Just look to see if they interviewed her after the theft, okay? And see if you can find out anything more about her death.”

“All right, all right.” He grinned again. “But I would have done it anyway.”

“Sure you would have. You just don’t want to admit that you need me to do your job.”

“I need you to do my job? Is that right?” He reached out and
picked up her empty beer bottle, rolling the neck back and forth between his fingers. “Should I just make you my partner? Is that it?” He was flirting with her. It gave her a strange little thrill.

“I don’t know. Your new partner is pretty cute,” Sweeney said, flirting back.

“I don’t think cute is the word.” And as he said it, he seemed to remember himself, and he sat back in his chair and finished his beer, not looking at her.

There was a moderately awkward silence and then they spoke at the same time.

“I’m sorry I …”

“I should have …”

They laughed. “What I was going to say was that I’m sorry we kind of lost touch,” Sweeney said.

“Me too.” He blushed and then he said, “Megan takes up a lot of my time, and I’m taking an English class. Remember you told me I should?”

“You’re doing that? That’s great. How’s that going?”

“Good, I guess. I have my first paper due next week. On
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
. It’s been so long since I had to write a paper. And now with this, I don’t when I’m going to do it …”

“Sorry I’m late.” They looked up to find Ian standing over the table. “The phone rang just as I was leaving.” He smiled and kissed Sweeney on the cheek.

“You remember Tim Quinn, right?”

He nodded, shaking Quinn’s hand. “Of course. Good to see you again.”

Sweeney had been right. He’d come in his suit from work, and next to Quinn in his shorts and T-shirt and Sweeney in her jeans and tank top, he looked like their older, more respectable father.

Ian ordered a glass of white wine and they made small talk about the weather until it came, along with another beer each for Sweeney and Quinn.

“So what is it you were hoping I could help you with?”

Sweeney glanced over at Ian, taking in his fine-boned face, his blue eyes, intelligent beneath his glasses. She could see his dark beard just starting to come up on his cheeks and chin.

Quinn looked relieved. “Say the chest had been successfully stolen. How would you get rid of it afterward?”

Ian took Sweeney’s hand under the table, rubbing her knuckles with his thumb. “The thing is,” he said, “most thefts of priceless art, they would have been set up beforehand. In other words, the real top-level art thieves don’t just take something because they think it might be worth a lot of money and someone might want it. They steal it because they know exactly how much it’s worth and because they
know
that someone wants it.”

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