Pendergast [07] The Book of the Dead(12)

Menzies nodded. “Excellent, Nora.”

Nora felt a mounting excitement. “If done right, with computerized lighting and so forth, it would give visitors an experience they’d never forget. Make history come alive inside the tomb itself.”

“Nora, someday you’ll be director of this museum.”

She blushed. The idea did not displease her.

“I’d been thinking of some sort of sound-and-light show myself. It’s perfect.” With uncharacteristic exuberance, Menzies seized Nora’s hand. “This is going to save the museum. And it will make your career here. As I said, you’ll have all the money and support you’ll need. As for the computer effects, let me manage that side of things—you focus on the objects and displays. Six weeks will be just enough time to get the buzz going, get out the invitations, and work the press. They won’t be able to trash the museum if they’re angling to be invited.”

He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to prepare Dr. Collopy for the press conference. Thank you so much, Nora.”

He bustled out, leaving Nora alone in the silent laboratory. She turned her eye regretfully to the table she had so carefully arranged with potsherds, and then she started picking them up, one at a time, and returning them to their storage bags.





7





Special agent Spencer Coffey rounded the corner and approached the warden’s office, his steel-capped heels making a satisfying tattoo against the polished cement floor. Short, bottle-mustached Agent Rabiner followed, deferentially riding his wake. Coffey paused before the institutional oak door, gave a tap, then opened it without waiting for an invitation.

The warden’s secretary, a thin bleach-blonde with old acne scars on her face and a no-bullshit attitude, gave him the once-over. “Yes?”

“Agent Coffey, Federal Bureau of Investigation.” He waved his badge. “We’ve got an appointment, and we’re in a hurry.”

“I’ll tell the warden you’re here,” she said, her upstate hick accent grating on his nerves.

Coffey glanced at Rabiner and rolled his eyes. He’d already had a run-in with the woman over a dropped connection when he called earlier that day, and now, meeting her in person, he confirmed she was everything he despised, a low-class hayseed who’d clawed her way into a position of semirespectability.

“Agent Coffey and—?” She glanced at Rabiner.

“Special Agent Coffey and Special Agent Rabiner.”

The woman picked up the intercom phone with insolent slowness. “Agents Coffey and Rabiner to see you, sir. They say they have an appointment.”

She listened for a moment, and then hung up. She waited just long enough to let Coffey know she wasn’t in nearly the hurry he was. “Mr. Imhof,” she finally said, “will see you.”

Coffey started to walk past her desk. Then he paused. “So. How are things down on the farm?”

“Seems to be ruttin’ season for hogs,” she responded without a pause, not even looking at him.

Coffey continued into the inner office, wondering just what the bitch meant and whether he’d been insulted or not.

As Coffey shut the door behind them, Warden Gordon Imhof rose from behind a large Formica desk. Coffey hadn’t seen him in person before, and found the man far younger than he expected, small and neat, with a goatee and cool blue eyes. He was impeccably dressed and sported a helmet of blow-dried hair. Coffey couldn’t quite pigeonhole him. In the old days, wardens came through the ranks; but this fellow looked like he’d gotten some Ph.D. somewhere in correctional facility management and had never felt the satisfying thok! of a nightstick striking human flesh. Still, there was a thinness to the lips that boded well.

Imhof extended his hand to Coffey and Rabiner. “Have a seat.”

“Thank you.”

“How did the interrogation go?”

“Our case is developing,” Coffey said. “If this doesn’t fit the federal death penalty statute to a T, I don’t know what does. But it’s no slam dunk. There are certain complications.” He didn’t mention that the interrogation had, in fact, gone badly—very badly.

Imhof’s face was inscrutable.

“I want to make something clear,” Coffey continued. “One of this killer’s victims was a colleague and friend of mine, the third most decorated agent in the history of the FBI.”

He let that sink in. What he didn’t mention was that this victim, Special Agent in Charge Mike Decker, was responsible for a humiliating demotion Coffey had been hit with seven years before, in the wake of the museum killings, and that nothing in his life had satisfied Coffey more than hearing about his death—except the news of who’d done it.