Chapter 6

 

“Do you know what a mummy hunter is?” Patricia asked them once she had a glass of wine in her hand and was settled into an armchair.

“I thought we were going to start with this Marcus guy?” Joe said.

“I’ll get there, but you need some background first. Do I need to explain what a mummy hunter is or do you all know what I’m talking about?”

“Let’s assume we don’t have a clue.” Ed pulled out a chair at the dining table. “Start from the beginning and fill us in.”

Joe was sitting on the sofa beside Julia. He leaned forward, grabbed a bottle of water from the table in front of them, unscrewed the cap and handed it to Julia. When she took it and drank without looking up from the notes she was scribbling on her iPad, he smiled indulgently. Her brain was working a mile a minute. Again. Damn, but she was gorgeous when she was thinking. He mentally rolled his eyes at himself. He was losing his mind over the woman. It was only a matter of time before he started googling Shakespearean sonnets to drop into conversation.

Patricia rested her wine glass on the arm of the chair. “There are a dedicated group of people who study mummified bodies. Most of them aren’t experts in the field, but enthusiasts. Well-educated enthusiasts. We’re talking research biologists and professors in palaeontology or criminal pathologists.” She pointed at Julia. “You would have made a fabulous criminal pathologist, darling. It isn’t too late to continue your studies, if you’re interested. I could put a word in at my old university for you.”

“Thanks, Gran,” Julia mumbled, her focus on her iPad.

“Back to the mummy,” Joe said when Patricia paused. Presumably so they could spend a moment in awe of the calibre of her fellow mummy-obsessed nut jobs.

After giving him a look of pure censure, she carried on. “These people get together every couple of years for a conference in Chile. They present papers on everything to do with mummies. They swap stories of new finds and speculate about sites for undiscovered bodies. About ten years ago, just before she officially retired, Alice made a documentary for the Discovery Channel about the conference and the people who attended.”

“I thought she wasn’t used to being in front of the camera?” Ed said.

“She was a producer,” Patricia said. “Women can do that nowadays—in their free time away from cooking and cleaning, and looking pretty for their husbands.”

Ed held up his hands in an amused, but genuine, sign of apology.

“Anyway, that’s when she became hooked on the subject of mummified bodies. Alice asked me to attend the next conference with her, and I was just as fascinated. Since then, we’ve become part of the group and have attended all of the conferences.”

“What’s this got to do with your missing friend?” Joe asked.

“I’m getting to that,” Patricia snapped. “Have a little patience.”

Joe rubbed a hand over his jaw and motioned for her to carry on. Seemed like they were going to do things at her pace, whether they liked it or not. It didn’t appear to matter that they were working against a damned tight deadline.

He got up, wandered to the food cart, selected some prewrapped cookies and took them back to Julia. Again, she accepted the snack and ate it without even realising what she was doing. It made Joe want to keep feeding her just to see how long it would take her to register she was being fed. He glanced at the iPad, which she was furiously filling with information—all in neat, bullet-pointed columns. There was definitely something spectacular going on in her gorgeous head.

“Alice and I started researching South American mummies,” Patricia said, pulling Joe’s attention back. “Because there’s already a lot of information out there and we were novices. The more we studied, went to meetings and read other members’ papers on the topic, the more we were convinced that some Peruvian mummies held secrets.”

“What kind of secrets?” Joe said.

“Will you stop interrupting me?” Patricia demanded. “Honestly, young people have no patience these days. When I was your age, I would never have dreamed of being so rude.”

“Gran.” Julia looked up from her iPad. “We’re on a deadline here.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that, Julia. It’s literally a deadline, because if we don’t meet it, Alice won’t be coming home. Forgive me if I’m going too slow for you. I’ve just spent a sleepless week in a cell with ten other women. Not to mention the stress of worrying I’d have to spend the rest of my life as the girlfriend of a serial killer called Bertha.”

Joe felt his ire rise as Julia shrank back at the rebuke.

“Do not speak to Julia like that,” he said.

“Joe.” Julia placed her hand on his leg, a plea for his silence. But it wasn’t going to happen. There was no way Joe would sit back and let anyone talk to her that way.

He kept his eyes on Patricia and hoped she saw his intent. He didn’t give a damn that she was family. She would respect Julia. “Keep in mind who’s responsible for getting you into this mess in the first place. Here’s a clue: it wasn’t Julia. All your granddaughter has done has been to drop everything and run halfway across the world to save your ass. So watch your tone.”

He felt Julia wince beside him and covered her hand with his, rubbing his thumb over the back of it.

To her credit, Patricia was instantly contrite. “I’m sorry, honey,” she said to Julia. “Joe’s right; this is entirely my fault, and I shouldn’t be taking it out on anyone else. Forgive me.” She studied the contents of her wine glass for a moment. “The obvious secrets the mummies hold are found in the things they’re buried with. Each grave tells a tale. They hold insight into ancient practices and cultures. Then there are biological and environmental secrets. Sometimes, because of the drier preservation conditions over here, scientists are able to unlock information on illnesses and the cures ancient Peruvians used. Then there are other secrets.” Patricia looked away and sipped from her glass. She swallowed hard before she looked back at them. “I was an art history professor. Alice was a media specialist, whose job involved investigating many different cultural and historical stories. Between us, we heard a lot of rumours and tales from this region.” She fidgeted in her seat, and Joe leaned towards her. They were obviously getting to the heart of the matter.

“During our studies into mummies,” she said, “and the culture surrounding the sacrificial mummified children of the Andes, we came to believe that there were messages hidden with these children. Messages that the Incas didn’t want the Spaniards to find. And those messages were written in code.”

“You cracked the code, didn’t you?” Julia’s head shot up.

Joe shared an incredulous look with Ed. Patricia thought she was a combination of Indiana Jones and Robert Langdon.

“Yes.” Patricia somehow managed to look both guilty and excited at the same time. “I specialise in the study of textiles. I’ve spent my life on it, and it’s an area of expertise that isn’t common amongst mummy hunters. The code was woven into the textiles the mummies were wrapped in. You see”—she leaned forward in her seat, bubbling with enthusiasm about the topic, despite the circumstances—“for decades, scholars have believed the Incas didn’t have a written language, and when they wanted to communicate, they used a series of knots in a complicated pattern on a stringed object called a quipu. But Alice and I realised the drawings in the textiles were a form of hieroglyphics—like on the walls of the Egyptian pyramids. We decoded enough samples from museums around the world to build up a language.”

“Is this why you wanted to steal that mummy? There was something written on the textiles it was wrapped in?” Joe asked.

Patricia shook her head. “We never intended to steal it. We only wanted to get close enough to photograph it, for later study. We’d already petitioned the owner for time with the mummy, but he refused.” Her look implored them to believe her. “It drove us mad. It wasn’t like we were going to damage the thing. We only wanted to look at it because we knew that particular mummy held the key to so many riddles.” She slumped back in her seat. “In the end, we were desperate and stupid. We broke in to take photos, but the body was already gone.”

Joe pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s a helluva coincidence, Patricia. Kind of hard to believe that on the same night you break in to take photos, somebody else breaks in to steal the body.”

“If I was going to lie, Joseph Barone, I’d have come up with something far better than that.” Patricia’s tone took Joe straight back to elementary school and a particularly evil teacher who could reduce him to tears just by saying his name.

He squeezed Julia’s hand. “Please, if you care about me, even a little, never tell her my middle name.”

A tiny giggle erupted from Julia, stunning both of them. Julia’s hand shot up to cover her mouth. Joe felt like the whole world had dissolved around them. He’d made her giggle. Damn, but he felt ten feet tall.

“Do you have an explanation for the coincidence?” Ed asked, bringing the world crashing back into focus.

Joe tore his eyes from Julia to look back at Patricia, who suddenly wasn’t looking all that haughty anymore.

“Well,” she said to her knees, “I didn’t, but then Alice kept mentioning Marcus. We only know one man with that name. He’s one of the other mummy hunters, and he may have been harbouring a grudge against us…well, against me…although, after Alice’s performance, it could be both of us…” Her cheeks flushed. “I can’t help it if some of the men become too attached. It’s not like I encourage it. I’m perfectly happy as I am. I was married for thirty-five years. My husband was my first lover. I have the right to sow some wild oats now that he’s popped his clogs. But foolish Marcus took my refusal for a second night, as a blow to his teeny-tiny ego.” She grinned widely. “It wasn’t the only thing about him that was teeny-tiny.”

“Gran!” Julia leaned forward and put her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands. Joe reached over and gently rubbed her back. She initially stiffened under his touch, but then relaxed enough to tolerate it. He took that as progress.

“Can we get back on track?” he said. “Tell us what you know about this guy.”

“Marcus Delaney. He’s an American archaeological professor who thinks he’s Indiana Jones.”

“Funny,” Joe said. “I was just thinking the same about you.”

That earned him another glare.

“You think Delaney took the mummy?” Ed asked.

“Who else would it be? He wants to stop me from publishing before him.”

“He plans to publish the same research?” Ed said.

Patricia snorted. “Of course not. He has another theory entirely. You think I would spill my research as pillow talk? Not likely. The man was an idiot. Great body, full head of hair, but dumb as dirt. And before you ask, if Alice did sleep with him, she wouldn’t have shared any secrets either.”

Julia groaned again, and Joe rubbed her back some more.

The issue wasn’t who told this Marcus guy about the importance of the mummy—the issue was finding out what he knew so they could get the damn thing back.

“Patricia.” Joe was just about out of patience. “The guy found out somehow. It didn’t happen by magic. One of you must have told him.”

“It’s possible we might have mentioned something at the get-together last week,” Patricia said. “Things got out of hand and we got a little drunk.”

“By we, you mean you and Alice?” Ed asked.

“All of the mummy crowd. We were celebrating someone’s new research and it turned into a party.” Her eyes stayed firmly fixed on her drink. “And, well, we might have gotten a bit carried away with the occasion and shared a little too much with the people who were with us.”

“In other words, you got drunk and blabbed your plan to a room full of mummy hunters,” Joe said.

“Honestly, I can’t remember what we blabbed,” Patricia said. “I find it difficult to remember most of that evening.”

“Was this Marcus guy there?” Joe asked.

Patricia nodded.

“So basically, you’re telling me you told a guy with a grudge how to get back at you.” Joe seriously hoped Patricia’s crazy behaviour didn’t run in the family.

“Yes, that’s what I’m telling you. Obviously Marcus heard everything and is behind this whole mess. Why else would Alice mention him?”

“This guy still in Peru?” Joe said.

“If he is, and he hasn’t absconded with the mummy, then he’ll be regaling other idiots with his tales in the English bar at the Country Club—which is exactly where we were last week. It’s his haunt. I think it makes him feel like an English lord.” Patricia held out her empty wine glass and, with a smile, Ed filled it for her.

“Gran.” Julia sounded weary. “What’s the message on the missing mummy’s textiles? What did you tell everyone that night to make Marcus want the mummy so badly?”

Patricia slumped back into her chair. “It’s directions. A map, if you like.” She looked at each of them in turn. “We think, but we won’t know for sure until we study the textiles, that it leads to a hidden cache of Incan gold.”

Ed let out a low whistle. “There are a lot of people who’d like to get their hands on some Incan gold. I know I would.”

“But it can’t be real,” Julia said.

“Yeah, it can,” Ed said. “We’ve only discovered a fraction of the artefacts left over from the Incan Empire. Someone finds something new every year. If Patricia here thinks she has a map that leads to gold, then people would kill to get it.”

“Let’s make sure Alice isn’t the first to die,” Joe said.