Free The Mask of Atreus by A. J. Hartley Page A

them into opening sooner," said Bowers, inserting himself into the conversation in full damselprotecting mode. 64
    A. J. Hartley
    "Seemed pretty firm," said Webster. He gave Deborah a sympathetic smile which did not reach his watery eyes. So this was to be her punishment. Webster and the board would take over, shut her out for the next few weeks while they regrouped. She looked into Harvey Webster's blandly disingenuous smile, and she thought she could glimpse her future: the steady reduction of her control of the collection until Harvey's League of Christian (white) Businessmen could take over, and the museum would become what they had always wanted: a species of theme park, light on content, heavy on profits.
    "I'm going to have a word with those detectives," said Webster as he walked away. "See what I can do."
    Get the place closed for an extra month, probably, thought Deborah, feeling outmaneuvered.
    Deborah turned away, suddenly very tired and frustrated by that feeling of powerlessness which she hated above all things. She could sense Bowers behind her, ready to say something encouraging. She stood with her hands on her hips, staring across the bright, empty foyer. Without Richard, she really was alone, and the building felt no more than a shell, vacant and pointless without him.
    Three weeks. All the promotional work for the new exhibits, the glad-handing, the schmoozing and elbow rubbing, the polite smiling through story after story by benefactors, the press coverage pictures of that ghastly ship prow . . . All for nothing. In three weeks Atlanta would have forgotten the museum existed. And what would she do for three weeks?
    Bounce around in this carefully lit mausoleum while Keene and his cronies made third-hand wisecracks about homo erectus?
    God, what a wearying idea.
    "We might be able to get the museum open earlier if you can demonstrate that nothing's missing," said Calvin. He was hovering behind her, keeping a respectful distance. She turned and smiled gratefully.
    "I'm not entirely sure why I want to keep it open so 65
    T h e M a s k o f A t r e u s
    badly," she said. "I guess part of me thinks that if I pretend everything is normal, then somehow . . ."
    "Yes," said Calvin, sparing her the end of the sentence. Deborah took a breath and tried to shake the thought off.
    "I can do a thorough inventory today," she said, "make sure everything is where it should be. Of course, if there was anything missing from that room behind the bookcase in Richard's room, I wouldn't know."
    She shrugged and sighed, finding the memory of the place insist itself on her memory like a familiar and unpleasant odor, the body laid out like that under the lights . . . Wait.
    Something was missing.
    The pot had come from the open display behind the bookcase, and the other cases all looked complete, so she had assumed nothing had been taken. But then there was the curious lighting in that secret room, the square of light shining down from the ceiling, throwing its chill glow on Richard's ravaged body. But what had been there when his poor corpse was not, which needed such special illumination?
    There had been a power outlet in the center of the floor, she remembered.
    Yes. There had been another display in the center of the room. It had been large, and it had been special, the centerpiece of the collection, big enough that it had been wheeled out, tracking oil onto the carpet . . . But what could possibly be so much more extraordinary than the pieces stored in the wall cases, that it was worth taking while the rest of that priceless hoard had not been?
    CHAPTER 14
    "You feel up to a trip to the morgue?"
    This from Detective Cerniga. Deborah sat there mute. She had been en route to the office, but he had flagged her down. She couldn't think of anything to say.
    "Honestly," she said, "I know you need formal identification and everything, but I don't think I'm ready to look at him again. I know it was Richard. There's no question. Do I have