Barbara Silkstone - Wendy Darlin 04 - Miami Mummies (11 page)

My guy strode to a large autopsy table in the center of the room. “I’ll be damned, they
are
sitting mummies!”

Each was contained in a separate temperature-controlled glass case. The bodies were in cross-legged squats, their heads drooped on their chests. They could have been two little kids wrapped in tattered blankets huddled around a campfire except that they were thousands of years old.

Roger paced slowly around the glass cases. His eyes never left the mummies when he whispered, “These are the missing Incan child mummies. They were stolen from the museum in Peru last month. I was investigating their theft less than a week ago.”

I stepped aside feeling a weird mixture of fear and sadness. Incans had a tradition of mountaintop child sacrifices. Were these children drugged and left to die on frozen summits? What agony did they suffer before they died? Were they accepting of their fate or did they struggle calling for their mothers?

The thud of a compressor kicking in made me jump out of my shoes. Heavy-duty air conditioners and dehumidifiers labored to fight the Florida heat and humidity.

Roger leaned closer to the mummies. “There’s no gauge on these cases.” He put the back of his hand against the glass. “Damn. It’s not cold enough for these children.”

I sensed his tender heart torn by what should have been purely scientific observation, but the setting had become a requiem for his younger brother kidnapped so many years ago. “I must call Delaquez and tell him his Incan children are in Florida.”

He turned to face me. “That downtown site was salted with these mummies.”

“Salted mummies?”

“They were planted there. Sitting mummies are indigenous to the Incans or the Mayans, not the Florida Tequesta tribe. No way were these mummies originally buried in Miami. I don’t even have to take soil samples from their wrappings to confirm it. I can tell they are the stolen Peruvian mummies. Why anyone would stick these valuable specimens into a dig in Florida is the real question.”

“Are they fake mummies?”

“They aren’t forgeries. Not like the Hackensack mummy.”

Hic’s password! I heard a gulp. It was mine. “What made you say
that
?” I studied his face for a sign. No response. He was lost in thought. I made a mental note to Google
Hackensack.

Roger circled the cases, stopping on the opposite side of the table and shaking his head, “This must be the work of—”

A loud crack followed by the sound of glass crashing to the floor. A second crack. I looked toward Roger. There were two bullet holes in the wall above his head. We dropped to the floor and met under the autopsy table.

A third shot ricocheted off the concrete floor near Roger’s ear.

We were the proverbial sitting ducks. I snatched Roger’s Indiana Jones fedora from his head, Frisbeed it toward the hole in the window, and croaked, “Roll.”

The unseen shooter flinched and fired. The bullet flipped the hat in the air while we dove and rolled against the wall under the window. The shooter would have to stick the gun through the hole in the window and aim downward to have a chance to hit us.

The door flew open and Igor did a Kramer entrance sliding in and saying, “What was that noise? Did you break a case?”

When he came to a complete stop, his horn-rims flew off his face. The shooter’s next blast sent them to eyeglass heaven. Igor’s eyes rolled up in his head and he collapsed knees first, ending up flat on his back.

I worked my feet under me into a squatting position. I was directly under the shattered part of the window. If the shooter stuck the gun through the hole, I could spring up and grab it and with luck hold it ’til Roger could help.

The shooter must have decided it was a failed mission because I heard feet pounding down the corridor.

I duck-walked to Roger. “Are you okay?”

He smiled at me and patted my knee. “Thanks, sweetheart. That was quick thinking.” He got to his feet, brushing himself off, picked up his hat, and showed me the bullet hole in the crown, saying, “But a little hard on the wardrobe,” before jamming it on his head.

The first chance I got that holey hat was going to hit the trash.
Ick.

Roger acted as if we hadn’t just been used for target practice. He walked around the two mummy cases, verifying they were intact. He stopped by Igor’s carcass. “I guess we should revive this guy.”

I knelt beside Igor and whispered in his ear, “Someone is stealing your iPad.”

He bolted upright almost taking my nose off. “What? OMG somebody shot at me.” He passed out again.

This time I slapped his face lightly until his eyes fluttered open. He sat up slowly. “I have to file a report about this. Where are my glasses? OMG they were shot.” He passed out again.

It was looking like a long afternoon.

Roger muscled him to a sitting position, propped him against the wall, and squeezed his cheeks. “Igor can you hear me? Stay calm. You aren’t in danger.”

His eyes opened with a look of panic. He dug in his pocket and pulled out a capsule which he dry swallowed. He blew out a breath. The panic left his eyes. “Medical bacon.”

The gunfire must have affected my hearing. “Medical bacon?”

He nodded. “Comfort food in a capsule. Drives cholesterol through the roof but what the hey?”

Roger shook his head. “Listen, Igor, you asked us to tell you when we’re leaving so you could lock up. Well, break out your keys because we’re gone.”

Panic started to show in his eyes again. He popped another capsule. “But… but… this mess?”

Roger made a show of looking around. “What mess?”

He took out his iPhone and snapped a few photos of the mummies. We left Igor sitting on the floor babbling about reports and eased into the corridor. We inched along the walls and scooted out the door into the parking lot, quiet as mummies in a tomb.

Not one gun-toting mummy stealer in sight. We jumped in Goldie. Her engine purred to life. I backed out and headed toward the guard gate. “Okay, Roger, who were you going to name just before the shooting started?”

“Kyzer Saucy because I’m positive he’s behind the theft of the mummies in Peru. But bringing those mummies here doesn’t compute.”

“Saucy? You said he wants to kill you and somebody just tried. That computes. Perhaps you’ve become the man who knew too much.”

“I can’t figure it. Saucy wants me dead because I’m getting close to him and his multimillion-dollar-stolen-mummy-and-antiquities operation. But to bring his action to the states is really pushing his luck. The feds just broke up a major mummy smuggling ring in Virginia.”

“Is Saucy connected to Senator Grant? Tippy thinks he’s mixed up in the mummies being found on her property then mysteriously being moved out here.”

Roger shrugged. “Not that I know of, but anything’s possible with Saucy. One thing is obvious. Somebody’s trying to keep me away from that dig and killing me
is
an acceptable option to accomplish that. Let’s get there fast before they succeed.”

We reached the guard booth which was empty and turned onto the unpaved road that brought us here. I checked the rearview mirror a dozen times. We weren’t being followed. The more I thought about it the more it worried me. Mummies among the kale and cabbage.

Goldie sputtered. I looked at the gas gauge. “That can’t be. I always keep her at least three-quarter full. And the dinger didn’t go off.” I thumped the gauge as if that would help.

We coasted to the side of the road into a rut near a field of sprinklers swishing over rows of dull green plants. Ignoring Roger’s frown I said, “AAA will be here in no time.”

I fumbled in my bag for my membership card. Nuts. It was on the kitchen counter as a reminder to renew. I smiled at Roger sheepishly. “Slight problem. My membership expired. No road service. How about a quickie instead?”

“Never a quickie…always a longie.”

I laughed. “
Love at First Bite
with George Hamilton.”

Roger hmmpfed. “Now that we have the humor out of the way, where’s the nearest gas station?”

The GPS showed a gas station one thumb distance away. I tapped the mileage. Six miles. Shit. We had a mummy emergency and no gas. How did this happen?

“Call nine-one-one. They should be able to send road service to us.” A great idea but flawed, no cell service down in the boondocks.

Roger scowled at me. I shrugged. We popped our doors and stepped onto the sandy limestone road. I clicked Goldie’s locks and followed Roger. “Speak to me,” I called after him. He was twenty feet from the car when I caught up. “You know I always keep a full tank. This isn’t my fault.”

“Maybe someone syphoned your gas while we were in the lab. Your car’s probably bugged, too. If this mummy mess didn’t have Kyzer Saucy’s fingerprints all over it, I’d think it was connected to that key around your neck you avoided discussing.”

Damn, he hadn’t been distracted by my interest in his Peruvian-Mexican adventure.

He turned our walk into a trot. Good thing I was in my Nike trainers. Plumes of dust coated my black jeans and DKNY t-shirt. We’d been stumble-trotting for about ten minutes when a biplane crop duster appeared in the sky to the west and passed over us at a couple hundred feet. It did a U-turn and came diving toward us. Good, help was on the way. I expected the agile little plane to land or at the least give us a wave and thumbs-up to let us know he was calling for road service.

I pulled Roger to the side of the road into a dry drainage ditch making way for a rescue landing. Instead the rattling two-winger dove at us full bore trailing a stream of white powder. What the hell?

We covered our heads and flopped into the ditch. The plane cleared us by about five feet but the powder covered us and fouled the air, a white granular fog cut our visibility to a few feet. I didn’t know what he was dumping but it sure as hell wasn’t health food. My eyes were on fire and I couldn’t catch my breath. I heard the plane slow. It was going to circle and make another pass at us.

Roger was coughing violently. I stood and pulled him to his feet. “Run!”

My eyes were blurry and streaming tears but Roger appeared to be blinded. My sunglasses must have given me some protection.

I held on to his hand as we staggered down the road, coughing and hacking, unable to build up speed, Roger clomping along in his wingtips. I glanced over my shoulder and saw the crop duster banking.

We couldn’t survive another direct hit of that toxic spray and if we stayed on the road, the plane could give us a fatal haircut with its wheels or fuselage. I angled us to the right side of the road and chanced a peek. The plane was about five feet off the ground bearing down on us, the nasty spray thick behind it.

“Roger, can you see at all?”

He was still wiping his eyes but choked out, “A little.”

“When I say
go
, make a hard left and dive into the ditch on that side of the road.”

I heard the plane closing in, took one last look, and screamed, “Go!”

We streaked across the road, and hit the ditch as the crop duster roared by blowing dirt and sand, but the wheels and body of the plane and the heavy part of the spray missed us.

The pilot had to pull up sharply to avoid a stake-bed truck about a hundred yards down the road. The driver had his bare arm out of the window shaking his fist at the crop duster. I dragged Roger to the middle of the road and did some jumping jacks to flag the rattling truck to a dusty stop.

A weathered farmer in bib overalls and no shirt sat behind the wheel. His face resembled a dried apple doll with tobacco-stained picket-fence teeth, gray hair cut short under his straw cowboy hat. He raised a knotty-muscled veiny arm and put the truck in neutral.

“Looks like you folks need a hand and that dang fool crop duster needs a foot up his butt,” he said in a Florida cracker twang. His truck was bursting with watermelons, the wood-slatted sides ready to release the load and create a Gallagher mash up.

I heard an engine. I turned and saw the plane had circled and was coming at us again with spray spewing.

The farmer did a double take. “What in the blue blazes? That guy’s dumber than a bag of hammers.” He stuck a giant Dirty Harry revolver out his window and fired. One shot hit a wheel, popping the tire. The second shot shattered the windshield. The plane banked and flew off without getting close to us with the spray.

“High on drugs. Seeing more and more of that out here.”

He pulled a gallon water jug from the passenger floorboard and handed it out the window. “First thing you need to do is wash that crap he was spraying off your faces. I got two more gallons if you need it. Old Betsy here occasionally gets cantankerous when she’s loaded and needs some juice for her radiator.”

I bent Roger backward over the fender and used half of the gallon to flush his eyes, face, and hair then carefully dabbed the other half on me. My face and eyes quit burning and Roger and I quit coughing. But I was pissed. Somebody was going to pay for this, and not with money.

I gave the farmer the empty jug. “Thanks. I’m Wendy Darlin and this is Roger Jolley.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance. I’m Squire Pengallon.”

“Are you really a squire?”

“Nah. My momma had a thing for English novels.” He turned his craggy face and took a hard look at me. “You appear familiar, little lady. I’m getting old but I never forget a pretty face. Matter of fact, I remember them better now than when I was young.”

He chewed on it for a minute then slapped the steering wheel. “I got it. I saw you on TV, on that early Sunday morning local news magazine, I think they call it
Miami Nice
. They talked to you about how you went from selling exclusive real estate to finding valuable old junk, you know, treasure hunter stuff. You were in some tight scrapes too, best I recall.”

“We’re more like treasure rescuers.” I figured I’d get his attention. “And we’re hot on the trail of stolen treasure right now.”

“Well smack my ass and call me Norma, this is exciting. Never been in an adventure except gators and snakes, and they hardly count. What can I do you for?”