Last Breath (3 page)

“Dr. Burnette…”

“Please. Call me Louise.”

“Louise, I need to think this over. This project would take, minimum, a year, a year when I would not be in the field, and I—”

“You've spent how many years ‘in the field'?”

“What difference does it make?”

“Twelve years, I think I read, but I had a hard time believing that,” Louise said. “That's a long time to be living out of a suitcase.”

“Dr. Burnette…Louise…I'm an archaeologist,” Daria said patiently, as one might explain to a child. “I'm the child of an archaeologist
and
an anthropologist. Until I was ten, I rarely stayed in the same place for more than six months.”

“When you were ten, your parents both accepted positions at Princeton. They lived there for years. That's hardly an outpost.” Louise had done her homework.

“Yes. But even then, as soon as school was out, we'd be off for several months.”

“Are you afraid you can't remain in one place for a whole year?”

“Could be a challenge.” Daria smiled in spite of herself. “I've been living in a tent for most of the past five.”

“Might be a nice change, after all those years of living like a nomad.”

Daria laughed. “Actually, I'm quite at home in a tent. I don't own much, and I have no one to answer to. The nomadic life suits me quite well.”

“Interesting.” Louise seemed to study Daria for a moment. “How about we walk over to the museum and take a look around?”

When Daria hesitated, Louise leaned forward and said, “Aren't you even curious? Don't you even want to take a look?”

“Of course, yes, I'd love to take a look.” Daria finished her tea and placed the glass on the tray. “Lead the way.”

         

On the way across campus, Louise pointed out each of the buildings and their functions.

“That's the arts building,” she told Daria as they passed a building that appeared to have its roots in the 1920s. “Fine arts, mostly. Our art history and conservation departments have their offices on the second floor, and there are a few studios on the third. I've been told the light there is exceptional. There's an addition on the back of the building—you can't see it from here—where there are classrooms. Photography labs are in the basement.”

“And the building next to it?” Daria asked.

“Mathematics and the sciences. They have labs in both wings. The next building houses liberal arts; that brick building in front of us with the white pillars is the library.” She paused as they passed by. “Some of the archaeology professors have their offices in the basement.” Before Daria could comment, Louise hastened to add, “Their choice, I assure you. The department is officially housed over here on our right, on the second floor of that back wing. The Victorian-style mansion was once Howe's personal residence.”

“I'm pretty sure I was there once, when I was little, for some sort of reception.”

“Oh, quite likely. Unfortunately, in the mid-nineties, the roof began to leak. It's paid for its own repairs, though.” Louise smiled and added, “Wedding receptions. It's quite the hot business. We've been renting it out for weddings and other special events for the past five years, and I must say, the old girl is definitely paying her own way these days.”

She pointed to a building straight ahead. One story high and built in a semicircle, it had a brick courtyard at its center. “There's the museum.”

“It looks surprisingly contemporary,” Daria remarked.

“It was designed by one of the architectural students here at Howe right around the turn of the last century,” Louise said as she dug for keys in her purse. “There was a competition and Benjamin Howe chose the design from the entries.”

“I would have expected him to opt for something that blended in with the other buildings on campus.” Daria turned back to the building that had a different feel. “Except for the arts building and the mansion, all of the others look Georgian.”

“Yes, very classical.” Louise nodded. “Your great-great-grandfather was going for a look that mimicked the older, great colleges and universities. The University of Virginia, for example, has that classical look, as so many other campuses do. He had high hopes for Howe.” She shrugged. “Unfortunately, we've never attained the level of prominence he'd wanted.”

She found the keys and jingled them as they crossed the brick courtyard. Grass and weeds grew up between the bricks, and the landscaping that followed the curve of the building was badly overgrown.

“It's been completely boarded up for years, but I had all that removed anticipating your visit,” Louise told her as she pushed open the door. “It's going to be a bit stuffy and dusty.”

“Dust doesn't bother me.” Daria followed her inside. “I'm used to dust.”

They stepped into a large round room that had elevated glassed areas off to each side.

“This is the reception room,” Louise explained. “Howe planned it to work as a gallery, as an exhibition hall, and a reception room. He called it the Great Room. There are photos from the opening back in 1912 which I'd be happy to share with you. Of course, Alistair was gone by then—he died in 1910—but Iliana and her father were there. His death actually put the opening off by a year while they scrambled to get the Jacobs collection ready to be displayed.”

“I'd love to see the photos.”

Daria walked slowly through the room, studying the few exhibits that remained. Small dinosaurs roamed in a procession over a sandy floor against a backdrop of enlarged photos of a generic desert. She tried to imagine a throng of people crowding around the glassed display areas. The room was comfortable and functional, and she couldn't help but think how, if properly designed, the exhibits could be nicely arranged in the showcases. The natural light from not only the front and back, but overhead, enlarged the space and gave it an importance that artificial light would not have.

“Very nice. Whoever designed this space did a good job of utilizing the natural light and the flow of the room.”

Louise smiled, pleased that Daria approved of the room's design.

The corridors off to each side offered more space for exhibits. At the end of the hall to the right there was a short flight of four steps leading to a lower level where several offices were locked and forgotten. Another longer set of steps led down to the basement, which had no windows and was in total darkness.

“Let me see if I can remember where the light switches are,” Louise said. A few moments later, an overhead light went on. “There. That should do it. Now, this way to the storage rooms.”

Daria followed her down the wide hall to a series of locked doors.

“The remains of the natural history museum are in here, if you're interested,” Louise pointed to the first three doors on the right. “I'm thinking maybe we could hire someone to deal with that. I think, if nothing else, we should be able to sell the dinosaurs. I read somewhere that recently several were sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

“You might not want to get rid of everything,” Daria told her, “at least, not all at once.”

“This is not my field, Daria. I don't know what's valuable and rare, and what isn't.”

“It isn't mine, either, but I don't think it's a good idea to dump an entire collection at once.” She walked on down the hall. “What's over here?”

Louise unlocked the first door to Daria's right.

“The Oliver Jacobs collection.” Louise pushed open the door to reveal a long room with shelves that reached almost to the ceiling on every side. Wooden crates were stacked almost haphazardly around the room, some opened, some sealed. Daria walked around them, occasionally touching one or another.

“Jacobs dug in southern Mesopotamia, if I recall,” Daria said.

“So I've been told.”

“Was his exhibit cataloged?”

“Yes. There are several copies around. In the office upstairs, in the library.”

“I'd like to see the catalog, if I may.”

“I'll get one for you.”

Daria continued to survey the contents of the room for another ten minutes in silence. Finally, she said, “Where are the artifacts from my great-grandfather's expedition?”

Louise pointed to a door at the end of the room.

“Behind that door.”

“Would you…?” Daria pointed to it.

“Of course.”

Louise made her way around the crates and boxes to the back of the room.

“I might need a hand with this,” she told Daria.

Several large boxes were stacked near the door, partially blocking it.

The two women pushed the boxes to one side so that Louise could unlock the heavy metal door. Once it was opened, she turned on the overhead light and stepped back.

“Take as much time as you need,” she told Daria. “Feel free to look around. I'm going to go back up to the next level and see what shape the offices are in.”

Daria entered the room, and her first thought was how like a tomb it was, with its stale, lifeless air and dark corners. To one side was a small desk, and Daria knew immediately that this was where her ancestor sat while he inventoried his remarkable find. She crossed the room and sat on the chair, then opened the desk drawer. She found it empty save for some papers which she removed and studied for a moment. The writing was small and elaborate, the ink faded and almost illegible. They appeared to be worksheets of some kind. She set them aside atop the desk, then began to inspect the cartons.

Her mouth was dry and her hands shook with an anticipation she hadn't expected. She ran her hands along the crates, wondering what lay within each of the wooden boxes that had been packed on a Turkish plain almost one hundred years earlier. If Louise was correct, the contents had only been seen one time since then, when Alistair prepared his inventory. Daria began to count the crates. There were fifty-seven in the room. If the stories were true, a fortune in rare antiquities was just within her reach. Artifacts that had been hidden for centuries, never seen by the modern world, lay at arm's length. The thought made her mind go numb.

She noted the seals on the crates and wondered who would have placed them there. Would Alistair have done so, if he was planning on exhibiting the contents? Iliana, perhaps, after her husband's death? She toyed with the edges of one of the wax seals, sorely tempted to break it and look inside, but she hadn't been hired yet and really didn't have the right.

This was the chance of a lifetime, and she knew it. She gathered the papers from the desk before leaving the room, securing the door with the key that Louise had left in the lock, and went out through what she already thought of as the Jacobs room.

“I found some worksheets in the desk downstairs,” Daria said when she found the office where Louise waited for her. “I took the liberty of bringing them up so I could look them over. I hope that's all right.”

“Of course.”

“How soon do you need an answer from me?”

“As soon as possible. I don't need to tell you how involved this project will be. I can't even begin to imagine.” Louise stood. “But we'll need to open by November of next year if we're to going to do it for the anniversary.”

“That's hardly enough time to do this correctly.”

“That's all the time we have, unfortunately.” Ignoring the layer of dust, Louise leaned back against the desk. “Here's what we can offer you. Besides the opportunity to be totally in charge of an archaeological event that will have everyone in your field talking for years, we'll pay you a salary.” She mentioned a sum that was less than Daria made for consulting on a single dig. “The guesthouse will be yours for as long as you're here, and you'll have a car at your disposal.”

Louise smiled. “Not a very new one, or a very sporty one, but it's a car, all the same.”

Daria smiled back. If Louise could see what passed as working vehicles in the part of the world where she'd just come from she'd laugh out loud. Even the very basic rental she'd picked up at the airport seemed luxurious.

“And you'd have meals at the dining hall, whenever you chose.” Seeing the look of horror that crossed Daria's face, Louise laughed. “I eat there myself, really. The food is actually very good. We have a wonderful cook. She's been here for over thirty years. Buys as much fresh in season from the local farmers as she can.”

“I'll take your word for it.”

“So what do you think?” Louise asked.

“I'd like to think about it. And while I'm here, I'd like to read over Alistair's journals.”

“I'll get them for you. I can make accommodations available for you to spend the night here on campus.”

“That would be fine, thank you.”

“We can stop at my office and pick up the journals, and I'll turn over the key to the guesthouse.” Louise started for the door and Daria followed her. “I had my housekeeper air out and freshen McGowan House over the past few days, in hopes that you'd accept our offer.”

“McGowan House?” Daria asked as they walked from the dimly lit basement to the bright lobby.

“The guesthouse.” Louise opened the front door and turned to lock it behind them. “Benjamin Howe had it built for Alistair and Iliana as a wedding present. I don't know if a McGowan has slept under the roof since she died in 1939. Though some claim to have seen her now and then,” Louise said with a perfectly straight face. “And who knows, Daria, she might even like the company enough to stick around for the reopening of the museum…”

THREE

H
aving declined Louisa's offer to show her through the house, Daria unlocked the front door. The recent rain and humidity had caused the jamb to swell, and as a result, it opened only reluctantly after a good shove.

The front entry was long and narrow, with stairs that came down along the left wall. There were parlors to the left and right of the foyer, both with fireplaces, and sheets covering all the furniture. Behind the second parlor was a library straight out of an English novel, with shelves that ran floor to ceiling, an ancient oriental carpet, and a mahogany desk that any antiques dealer would love to take to auction. Chairs flanking the fireplace were, like those in the parlors, covered with sheets. Daria peeked and found both were of well-worn dark brown leather. A spacious dining room just down the hall opened into a butler's pantry and the kitchen. A small sitting room was off the kitchen, and a glass-enclosed conservatory lay beyond.

Daria was dazzled by all the space, the high ceilings and tall windows. She hadn't been exaggerating when she'd told Louise she'd spent the last twelve years living in tents. She dropped her bag in the front hall next to the steps, and went into the kitchen carrying the canvas satchel that held the journals Louise had given her. There was a swinging door between the butler's pantry and the kitchen, and it closed behind her with a slight
whoosh.

The appliances were far from new, but Louise had assured her they worked. The cabinets were old but had been painted fairly recently. She opened one after another, pausing to examine the contents of each. A set of Fiestaware in colors popular in the 1930s, some pottery bowls, some glasses, but not surprisingly, no food.

She opened the refrigerator and noted that it had been turned on but stood empty. Behind the freezer door, ice trays had been filled. She popped a few cubes from a tray and slid them into a glass she took from the cabinet, then filled it with water from the tap. In the field, there were times when ice was more precious than gold. The first time she'd seen a refrigerator that dispensed not only ice water but ice cubes and crushed ice as well, she'd been fascinated.

Now, of course, such appliances were commonplace, and it seemed that every time she came home, there was more technology to be learned. For someone who owned so little, who spent more time in the past than in the present, the accoutrements of modern life were mind-boggling.

Daria had no such problems with computers, however, and used them in almost every aspect of her work. Remembering that she needed to charge her battery, she went back to the front hall, took her laptop from her shoulder bag, and plugged it into an outlet. She wandered upstairs, going from room to room, wondering which of her relatives had spent a night in this bed or that. It gave her an odd feeling, knowing that three generations of her ancestors had slept under this roof.

At the front of the house she found the master bedroom, complete with four-poster bed, bath, sitting room, and a balcony that overlooked the back of the campus. She thought of poor Iliana, who had spent many a night here alone after Alistair died.

Then again, maybe not, Daria mused. No one seemed to know much about Iliana. Maybe through her diaries and her husband's journals, Daria would get a glimpse of the woman who had been her great-grandmother.

Daria went back to the kitchen, opened the canvas bag and took out all the journals. She sat at the kitchen table in the corner of the room and leafed through them, hoping to put them in chronological order. When she felt she had it right, she took the top leather-bound book from the stack and began to read.

The year was 1864, and fourteen-year-old Alistair had just read the epic in which life in the city of Shandihar was described, written in the sixth century
.

There were houses several floors high, wherein dwelled the merchants and their families. There were slaves from the four corners of the world, and comforts such as cannot be described. There were foods such as we had not tasted, from cities far beyond the mountains, beyond the desert. And in the temple of the goddess, treasures unknown to any man…

The journal told how Alistair had been drawn in by the tale of the city of riches in the desert of Asia Minor, how he memorized every word ever written on the subject, and how, by the time he was twenty, he was convinced that not only had the city been real, but that he knew where to find it.

It took years, but in Benjamin Howe, he had finally found someone who believed him.

Daria closed the journal and rubbed her eyes, then glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. It was almost seven-thirty. She'd been reading since one. In her eagerness to get to Alistair's journals, she'd declined Louise's offer to join her for lunch. Now she needed dinner, and couldn't remember where the dining hall was. She locked up the house and drove directly to the diner in Howeville, where she read over the notes she'd taken from Alistair's desk while she absently picked at crab cakes and a salad. On her way back through Howeville, she stopped at the renovated train station and picked up a cup of rum raisin ice cream—large, since she hadn't had this favorite in longer than she could remember—and returned with it to McGowan House. She took the last of the journals into the library where she removed a dusty sheet from an overstuffed chair and sat, reading and eating ice cream, long into the night.

For what had seemed to be hours, I dug through the dirt, where once bricks made of baked mud had formed walls. Upon the stone floor, beneath the sand, the mosaic outline of a woman was clear. With my hands, I brushed away the debris until the whole of her form was clear. She stood upon a lion, eagle talons where her toes should be and wings upon her back. In each hand she held an arrow, and upon her head was a tall crown. Around her, a ring of lapis lazuli formed a circle, and I knew immediately who she was, and what I'd found.

The Queen of the Night. Ereshkigal, the goddess brought from Mesopotamia by the earliest settlers of the city. The Queen of the Underworld.

I felt the breath leave my lungs as I stared upon the face of the goddess, a face that had not been seen since the great earthquake buried Shandihar beneath the desert sands…

Daria blew out the breath she'd been holding. The goddess Ereshkigal was well known to her, indeed, to anyone who'd studied the early cultures of the Near East. In Mesopotamia, she'd been the sister of Inana, one of three great goddesses. Once transported to Shandihar, however, she had become supreme, the only deity, one who demanded total fealty and expected nothing less than total devotion. Her priestesses had ruled the city in her name, and for several centuries, all passing through Shandihar had been required to pay a toll. It was said that by the time the desert had reclaimed the city, its treasure had rivaled that of Solomon.

Daria closed the journal and took another long look at the work notes Alistair had left behind, but the ink was far too faded to make much sense of them in this light. She finished the ice cream and took the cup and the journals into the kitchen. She closed up the house and took her belongings along with the canvas sack to the second floor. On the landing, she debated which room to sleep in.

“Oh, why not?” she said aloud, then went into Iliana's room and switched on the light.

She took a long hot bath in the claw-foot tub, every word she'd read that day and night etched in her brain. Her great-grandfather had found an uncommon treasure. Much like Heinrich Schliemann had done in Troy, Alistair McGowan had used the tale of an ancient storyteller to find an ancient city. That he'd never doubted himself was clear in his writings, from the time he'd made his first journal entry as a teenager, until he was a man in his forties standing at the brink of an immense treasure. He'd never stopped believing that the city existed, and that he would be the one to find it. It had taken him four expeditions, but he'd been proven correct. Finding Shandihar had been his destiny.

Was bringing it to the eyes of the modern world hers?

         

“You understand how very costly this is going to be, Louise? It's something the trustees have to consider.” First thing in the morning, Daria went to Louise's office, and over coffee laid out her plan.

“I do. I'd be relying on you to appraise the collection so that we'd have a number to take to the bank for the loan.”

“I'm going to need staff. At the very least, to start, I'm going to need an assistant, preferably a fellow archaeologist who specializes in the region.”

“We have Dr. Bokhari on staff,” Louise said thoughtfully. “She's out of the country right now supervising a group of graduate students on a dig, but I expect her back well before the start of the fall term. I'm sure she'll want to be involved.”

“Sabina Bokhari?” Daria asked.

“Yes. Do you know her?”

“I know of her. We have mutual friends. I think she worked on a dig in Afghanistan several years ago.”

“She was on sabbatical then.” Louise nodded.

“And she's on staff here?”

“She's head of the archaeology department.”

“You're very lucky to have her,” Daria said. “She has a fine reputation.”

“And you're wondering why she's here.” It was a statement, not a question. “I've asked myself that. Every time she makes an appointment to come to see me, I hold my breath, hoping that she isn't coming in to resign.”

“Why didn't you ask her to work on this project?” Daria asked.

“It did cross my mind. She's certainly qualified,” Louise told her, “but once the trustees decided to go ahead, they felt it necessary to start immediately. Sabina had already committed to being out of the country for part of the summer. They also felt—as I do—it was fitting that a descendant of the man who found the treasures be the one to supervise the exhibition. And frankly, they wanted a bigger ‘name' in the field. Your name alone will make this of interest in the academic community.”

“And if I'd been unavailable, or said no?”

“You still haven't said yes,” Louise reminded her.

“I'm going to ask that you permit me to take an inventory first. If in fact the collection has been overstated, or if the artifacts aren't in condition to be displayed, it may not be worth it for the university to invest so much—to mortgage itself, in effect—if the return won't compensate.”

“You've read the journals?”

“Yes.”

“Then you know what Alistair described having found.”

“Yes. But what I don't know is how much of it made its way back to Howe, and what condition it's in. Let me take a look, and we'll go from there.”

“All right.” Louise opened her top desk drawer. “Here's the key to the building; this one is for the room you were in yesterday.”

“Thank you.” Daria reached out a hand for the keys. “If you don't mind, I'd like to start.”

“Absolutely. Go. Good luck.” Louise stood and crossed her arms over her chest. “We'll send you some lunch around noon. I expect you'll forget.”

         

Daria had forgotten. It was Vita who'd brought her the covered dish with a chicken salad sandwich, an apple, some grapes, and two brownies—“Because one is never enough. I made these, and they're amazing, if I do say so myself”—and a thermos of iced tea.

“How can you stand it in here? It must be a hundred degrees. And the dust!” Vita coughed for emphasis. “The air is just thick with it.”

“Is it?” Daria looked up from the desk where she'd been poring over the inventory Alistair had written. “I suppose I might have kicked up a bit, opening the crates.”

“So, is it as wonderful as you thought it would be?” Vita's eyes gleamed in the overhead light.

“What? Yes. I suppose.” Daria stood and stretched. “I've only gotten through a few crates, but judging from what I've seen so far, it was a spectacular find.”

“How can you be so calm?” Vita frowned and peeked inside an open crate.

“If I let my emotions take over right now, I won't be able to do my job.” Daria smiled and uncovered the platter. “Thanks a million for bringing this, by the way.”

“Dr. B. was afraid you'd get caught up in your work and forget to eat.”

“Dr. B. was right about that.”

“So is there anything you can show me?” Vita touched the paper wrappings in the crate hopefully.

“Sure.” Daria took a bite of sandwich, then got up and walked to the crate. She took out the object Vita had been poking. “This was a ceremonial goblet. See the figures here? The woman with the wings and the eagle talons for feet? This is Ereshkigal. She was the goddess around whom the culture in Shandihar was built. There were no minor goddesses, or—heaven forbid—gods. This was strictly a matriarchal society. Women ruled. And the most powerful women in Shandihar were the high priestesses of Ereshkigal.”

“What's that in her hand?” Vita took a closer look.

“That's a human head,” Daria told her. “With its tongue cut out. See how the mouth is empty?”

“Oh, Good Lord! That's just gross.” Vita backed away from it. “Why did they put that on the cup?”

“Ereshkigal ruled the afterworld. Her followers believed that when you died, you came before the gates that separated heaven from hell. In each hand, you brought an offering to the goddess. And you would stand at the gate and tell of all the good deeds you had performed while you were alive.” Daria set the goblet on the desk and picked up her sandwich and took another bite. “The punishment for any transgression was to cut off the hands of the offender. Because if he showed up at the gate without an offering, he would not be admitted. Likewise, if he failed to tell of his good deeds, he would not get past the gate. So people who broke the law, or displeased the goddess or her priestesses, were punished by having their hands cut off, or their tongue cut out. Or both, if they'd been really bad.”