Authors: Alex Archer
Schermerhorn Hall, a four-story colonial redbrick building, sat just off Amsterdam Avenue. Annja liked the street name. How cool would it have been to live in the seventeenth century when New York was New Amsterdam?
“Not as cool as you wish,” she admonished.
While it was interesting to conjecture a life lived in a previous century, the appeal of it only lasted until Annja reminded herself of lacking plumbing, sanitation, medicine and the Internet.
The building was quiet as she entered. Classes must be in session, she thought. As she passed various classrooms the doors were open to reveal dark quiet rooms. No one about. Odd.
Professor Danzinger was the rock star of the Sociology and Anthropology department. At least in the minds of the attending females. Pushing sixty, the man was still in fine form. Tall, slender and with a head full of curly salt-and-pepper hair, a quick glance would place him onstage, guitar in hand. Closer observation—perhaps a genial handshake, as well—would discover he would have to play backup for Mick Jagger, for the lines creasing his face.
Annja recalled he actually did play guitar—sometimes during class—which only made the girls swoon all the more.
An excellent teacher, most students claimed to learn more from one semester of Practical Archaeology than they did all year during some of the more advanced classes. Danzinger frequently guest taught at universities across the country, and Annja had been lucky to have him for a semester herself in her undergrad days.
She remembered him fondly, and she’d had the requisite crush on him, too. But she’d never dated him, as some of her classmates had.
She peeked inside the open doorway to the anthropology lab and found him bent over a high-powered microscope. Curly hair spiraled down the side of his face. A tatter-sleeved T-shirt revealed thin yet muscular arms. He was wearing brown leather pants so worn they looked like the cow wouldn’t take them back. And bare feet.
“Annja, don’t stare, it isn’t polite.”
She entered the lab, swinging the box containing the skull like a bright-eyed schoolgirl dangling her purse as she watched the football star walk by.
Plopping the box on the lab table with a clunk helped to chase away the silliness in her. So she had her goofball moments. Sue her.
“Fancy little box.” Professor Danzinger pushed from the counter and gave her a wink. He moved in an erratic, over-caffeinated, no-time-to-sit-still motion that made her wonder if he didn’t moonlight in a band on weekends. “Is that the newest fashion in purses for hip, young archaeologists?”
“No, I prefer my backpack. And it’s not mine. It belongs to the thief who gave it to me.”
“Ah, a thief.”
“Alleged thief.”
The professor leaned a hip against the counter, propping an elbow and crossing his legs at the ankle. He signaled beyond her. “Where is he?”
“Dead. His body is floating somewhere in the Gowanus Canal.”
“Too bad. Drowned?”
“No, bullet.”
That got a lift of brow from him. She respected him too much to make up a story, and he was one of those who could take anything a person said as if it were merely a weather report. “Truth earned respect” was one of his favorite mantras.
“Annja, you do have an interesting assortment of acquaintances. I seem to recall a nervous junior movie producer tagging along with you last time we met. Doogie something or other?”
“Doug Morrell. Television producer, and jumpy hyperactive is his normal state. I’d hate to see him on caffeine.”
“He produces your show?”
“It’s not
my
show, but yes, he does.”
“I saw the show a few months ago. Who’s the bimbo?”
“Why? You interested?”
Flash of white teeth. “Always.”
“Good ol’ Professor Danzinger. Always on the make.”
“Sleeping with the professor won’t get you an
A,
but it does promise a night to remember.”
She felt a blush rise in her cheeks. Annja glanced about the room, unconcerned for the stacked femurs or plaster casts of hands and faces. Just don’t let him see my red face, she thought.
Danzinger, blessedly nonchalant, nodded toward the box. “So let’s take a look, because I know my flirtations will get me nowhere with you.”
“Oh, they might,” she said, trying to sound blasé.
“Really?” He tugged the box toward him and leaned over the counter, bringing him closer to her. So close she could smell the spicy cologne and wonder why she never did invest in the extracurricular extra credit the professor had offered.
“Probably not,” she decided with a sigh. “I’m much too busy most of the time. And running about like a mad woman the rest of the time.”
“No time for a love life? Annja.” He shook his head. “What did I teach you about taking time for yourself?”
“The enslaved soul dies. Or something like that.”
“Close enough. You need to take care of yourself, is what it boils down to. All work and no play, well, you know how that one goes.”
She did. But somehow, even when Annja finagled a little vacation time, it managed to become work. Or adventure. Or both—with bullets.
She had to laugh at her life sometimes. It was either that or scream.
The professor pried off the box top and let out a whistle. “Standard skull enhanced with decorative gold. You seen one, you’ve seen a million. Small though. Newborn. What’s so special about this one, Annja?”
“I’m not sure.”
She was surprised at his dismissive assessment of the skull. Though his focus was on sociology as opposed to anthropology, which went a little way in explaining his lacking interest.
“As I’ve said, someone has already been killed for it. The guy I got this from was able to tell me he was afraid someone wanted to take it away from him before he was shot.”
“Such a life you live. Puts my world-crossing shenanigans to shame.”
She doubted that one. Annja did dodge a bullet or two more often than most. But she had nowhere near as many notches on her bedpost as this man.
The professor fished out a magnifying glass from a drawer by his hip and studied the gold creeping along the sutures. “Cross pattée. Teutonic? The gold was added much later than this baby died.”
“You think? What’s your guess on age?”
“Haven’t a clue. Though Teutonic is thirteenth century—formed at the end of the twelfth. That means little. We don’t have the supplies in the lab to properly date it. We don’t have a department dedicated to archaeology, as you know. Though perhaps Lamont might have the carbon-14 equipment. They do dendrochronology—dating tree rings—so they could probably take a look at this skull.”
Annja knew all the earth and environmental science people were located at Lamont.
Danzinger turned the skull upside down to peek inside the hole on the occipital bone at the skull base where the spinal cord normally ran through.
“There’s something inside. Carvings?” he asked.
“What?” Annja was caught off guard.
“You didn’t notice the interior designs? Looks like carvings. I’ll need a scope.”
He tucked the skull against his rib cage and wandered to a cabinet on the wall. Rooting around like a mechanic who sorts through a toolbox, he produced an articulated snake light from a scatter of tools and returned to the lab table with it.
The end of the snake light had a USB connection. He plugged it into his computer. It opened a program that, Annja realized, streamed video from the light.
“It’s a little camera on the end?” she asked.
“Cool, huh? Isn’t technology a marvel?”
He poked the device inside the skull. Carved designs appeared on the computer monitor.
“Wow.” Annja inspected the image. His movements were jerky and she could only make out lines here and there. “Stop. Let me look at this. You think those were carved? But how? That would take a pretty precise instrument to work through such a small hole, and these are very elaborate carvings.”
“Unless the skull sections were pried away for the carvings and then the sutures were resealed with the gold.”
“No, it hasn’t been separated like that. The skull is intact.”
“Annja, you think it came this way? Or rather, it was born this way?”
It was a silly conjecture, she realized. “Let me see.”
He handed her the skull and camera, but she only took the skull.
Poking a finger inside the hole, she traced it along a carved line and dug in her fingernail to test the depth. It was shallow and the edges were smooth. It felt natural, as if the lines had existed since the skull had, well, been born.
It was utterly ridiculous. Human skulls were not embedded with a worm’s nest of interconnecting carvings. The designs had to be manmade, and the gold supported that guess.
Still, she smoothed the pad of her finger over the designs. It was remarkable no sharp edges appeared that would give a clue the lines had been carved. Of course time would soften all knife edges and chisel marks. But even on the inside?
“Can you leave this here with me overnight?” Danzinger asked. “With patience I might be able to map the interior with the camera.”
“So you’re interested now? It’s no longer just another skull?”
“Hey, with the holiday this weekend the building is serene. It’s difficult to leave when there’s not a soul to bother me. I’ve got a few hours to spare tonight. Joleen broke our date.”
“I don’t even want to know.” She caught his sly wink. “What holiday?”
“Seriously? Annja, it’s Thanksgiving in two days.”
“Oh, right. I don’t pay much attention to the calendar.” She tapped the skull. “I’ll leave it. I’d love to see what’s going on inside this thing.”
He took the skull and nestled it carefully in the lamb’s wool. “Cool. I will call you as soon as I have something.”
She scribbled her cell phone number on a piece of paper and he tucked it in his pants pocket.
“So, Annja, if you ever need an expert on classic electric guitars for the show, you know where to find me.”
“You’ll be the first I ask. What a pair you and Kristie would make on the screen. They’d have to do up posters and send you to fan conventions to sign them.”
“You think?”
She smirked, and shook his hand. “Thanks, Professor. Call me as soon as you have something.”
A
NNJA STOPPED
in the lobby below her loft and chatted with Wally, the building’s superintendent, while she sipped coffee. The building’s residents were all on friendly terms. She liked the small community and felt safer for it.
The connection to people who didn’t necessarily know her well, but well enough to smile at sight of her and offer a few friendly words, was something she cherished. A girl who had grown up in an orphanage will take all the camaraderie she can get.
Climbing the fourth-floor stairs, she was glad for the residents’ rule of no elevator after-hours because the thing was creaky and loud. Who needed an elevator when the exercise felt great?
Tugging the thief’s backpack from her shoulder, she swung its empty weight by her side as she took the stairs.
A strange touch of grief suddenly shivered inside her rib cage. She hadn’t known the guy at the bridge. They’d had a few online conversations, shared some common knowledge and a fascination for old skulls. Yet he’d died standing right next to her. She had used his body as a shield to break the water during their fall.
As much as she’d encountered death in her life—and it had increased tenfold over the past few years—Annja would never become so used to it that it didn’t at least make her wonder about the life lost. It was the archaeologist in her.
If some goon were intent on killing her, and she had to take his life to save her own, the regret was minimal. But innocents caught in the line of fire? That was tough to deal with.
Had Sneak been innocent? Bart suspected he might be a thief from the description she’d given him of the tools. Yet, if he were a thief, why bring the booty to her? Wouldn’t he have his own network of experts to authenticate an artifact?
Unless he was just forming that network, and he’d neglected to mention she had been chosen as his expert archaeologist.
What nest of vipers had she stepped into by meeting the man and claiming the skull?
Whoever had killed the thief had gotten a look at her, surely, through the rifle scope. She hadn’t looked her best last night with a ski cap pulled to her ears and bundled against the cold so, hopefully, whatever look the sniper had gotten hadn’t been enough to pick her out from a crowd. With her face flashed across the TV screen on occasional Thursday nights it wasn’t easy going incognito.
She pushed open the fourth-floor stairway door. The sudden awareness that something was not right made her pause before her loft door labeled with 4A. She held her palm over the knob, not touching it.
The door wasn’t open, but she sensed a weird vibe in the air. Intuition had always been good to her.
Had someone been here while she was gone?
“Paranoia does not suit you, Annja,” she muttered, and twisted the knob.
Apparently paranoia fit this time.
Her loft had been ransacked. The messy desktop was now clear save the laptop. Books, papers, manuscripts, pens and small artifacts were spread haphazardly across the floor. One sweep of an arm had cleared them from the desk.
Curtains were pulled from the rod and heaped on the floor. So much for dusting them. Couch cushions were tossed against the wall and the couch overturned. The filming setup in the corner of her living room was trashed. The green screen coiled on the floor, and the camera sprawled on top of that.
Everything had been touched. She didn’t want to venture into the kitchen. She got a glimpse of a cracked peanut-butter jar from the doorway.
The reason Annja didn’t rush into the kitchen sat on the desk chair before her. As if waiting for her return.
Annja lowered her body into a ready crouch, but she did not summon her sword to her grip. She didn’t know who he was, but she wasn’t so quick to reveal her secrets before she learned the secrets of others.
Besides, he didn’t jump her, nor did he have a pistol aimed on any important body parts.