The Collector (16 page)

“No
kid
had anything to do with what I saw at the murder scene.”

She opened her eyes. “The demon is different from the possessed. I have no idea how old the possessed person could be. I don’t even know if it’s a man or a woman.”

Seven gave her another smile. He couldn’t help it. The whole conversation was so out there. “It must be hell on sleep.”

“You have no idea.”

There were indeed dark circles under her eyes. He held back the urge to reach out and brush his thumb there. Instead, he held on to his coffee cup, the desire to touch her so strong it actually made him jumpy.

“You should talk to him,” she said. “It might help.”

She was talking about Ricky again. Reminding him of all those sleepless nights he’d spent worrying about his family.

Now he knew what Erika had felt when Gia had told her that stuff about Alfonso. It wasn’t a good feeling, the idea that someone could open your mind up like a can and peer inside.

He shook his head. “That’s some gift you have.” He watched her carefully. “Is that how you figured out Mimi Tran’s security code? You read her mind? Or did you see that in a dream?”

“What?”

“The security code to the victim’s house. You know it.”

She gave him a puzzled look. “I most certainly do not. What gave you that idea?”

“During the first interview. You stood to act out the victim opening the door. She disabled her security system, punching in the code. Your hand, it was at the exact level of the actual keypad. The numbers you punched in—you know the code.”

She still looked mystified. “Maybe my body knows the code.”

“Your
body
knows the code?”

“It’s like automatic writing,” she said, trying to figure out what had happened, for all intents and purposes acting like someone who had no memory of the event. “It’s a common form of automatism, muscular movement attributed to supernatural guidance.” Suddenly, she glanced up, those blue eyes meeting his. “Do I need an attorney?”

The two of them sat staring across the tiny table, the silence absolute.

He answered by echoing back her own words. “Not yet.”

She picked up the mailbag and started fishing through it coming up with her wallet. “I’d better go,” she said.

He told her, “It’s on me.” And when she looked like she might argue the point, he added, “Hey, we’re full service at Westminster Homicide.”

He said it with a smile, trying to get back a lighter mood. But she wasn’t buying it.

She stood up, watching him, and the look she gave him…it was almost as if the air were crackling around them with that static charge. Slowly, as if trying not to spook him, she reached out and touched his hand.

It was only the slightest touch—her fingertips brushing over his knuckles—but suddenly, he felt on fire.

An image flashed inside his head, he and Gia, naked in bed together, their arms and legs wrapped around each other so that he couldn’t tell where one started and the other ended.

He pulled his hand away, shocked. He could feel himself trying to catch his breath, almost as if those passionate kisses had been real. He looked up to find her staring at him.

She said, “I have to go.”

She turned and jogged into the parking lot. He could still feel his heart hammering in his chest.

He noticed she drove a hybrid. A Prius.

In his jacket pocket, his cell phone chirped to life. Taking a few breaths, he glanced at the display and saw that it was Erika calling.

“What’s up?” he said into the phone, thankful that his voice sounded normal as he watched Gia drive off.

“No kidding,” he said, hearing the news.

The archaeology professor, Murphy—he’d shown up at the precinct. And he’d brought the troops.

S
even walked into the Crimes Against Persons unit to discover it had been turned into a laboratory. The sight of microscopes, laptops, scales and calipers warred with the utilitarian office furniture where Professor Murphy and his minions had set up to examine the bead. Looking around, Seven hoped the professor hadn’t brought along anything radioactive.

The troops turned out to be five grad students, one with a digital camera preparing to catalog the moment, until Seven shut down the impromptu documentary. The precinct had its own video equipment, thank you very much.

Murphy was at the center of the controlled chaos, practically rubbing his hands together in anticipation of “authenticating” the bead…while Erika made sure to dot her i’s and cross her t’s on the chain of custody. Seven felt a tad de trop in the hustle and flow. But given his discussion with Gia earlier, he was incredibly curious as to what the hell the professor might find.

At least Murphy was entertaining. A man used to the lecture podium, he hadn’t stopped talking since Seven stepped into the room. The topic of the moment: the theft of a couple hundred artifacts from the Corinth Archaeological Museum.

“It was only a matter of time, really. With no more ancient treasuries to loot and a high demand on the black market, the thieves naturally turned to the museum collections themselves. There were 285 artifacts stolen in all, by a gang of Greek nationals, as it turned out. Several found their way to Christie’s and were sold at auction. One of the pieces, a vase, was published in a catalog for sale. An Oxford professor recognized the piece and told the seller it had been stolen. Of course, the man immediately contacted the FBI.”

The professor hovered over his microscope, talking as he peered through the binocular lenses. He kept referring back to the laptop, tapping in notes with two fingers, like Morse code.

“The FBI recovered most of the artifacts sealed in plastic boxes inside fish crates in a Miami storage facility. Can you imagine? Fish crates!”

“No kidding,” Seven said, seeing a reaction was expected. At the same time he wondered what the hell any of this had to do with the damn bead.

“Except for just a few pieces,” Murphy continued, “every one of the stolen artifacts was returned to the Greek government with the cooperation of the FBI.”

“And the artifacts that were never recovered?” Erika asked, catching on to where the professor was headed.

“Estelle Fegaris believed that the very people who had those missing pieces also maintained possession of the Eye.” The professor turned to Seven. “Have you ever been to Delphi, Detective?”

European vacations being such a big part of a homicide detective’s lifestyle? “Can’t say I’ve had that pleasure.”

“It’s considered the navel of the earth. Zeus let loose two eagles and they met at Delphi. One of the eagles dropped a stone from its beak and it made a hole in the ground. The
umphalos
—the navel of the earth. There’s a stone still there to commemorate the spot. Tourists like to take their photographs showing their belly button in front of the stone.”

Seven watched as Murphy removed the bead from the microscope and grabbed a tiny vial. He let fall a droplet of whatever was in the vial, then quickly returned the bead to the microscope.

“About the Eye?” Seven prompted.

“It’s a colorful explanation for a location documented to have volcanic activity,” Murphy continued, ignoring Seven’s attempt to keep the conversation focused on the evidence. Apparently, a lecture on the classics was part and parcel of any relevant information the professor was giving up.

“Delphi, the home of the oracle, held the Panhellenic games every four years, called the Pythian games, their importance second only to the Olympic games in ancient Greece. It’s also on the slopes of Mount Parnassus, rumored to represent Mount Olympus itself, the throne of the gods. It’s truly an amazing place. The soil is purple from the bauxite mined there. The blue Ionian Sea meets what is called the green sea of Itea—a grove of five million olive trees.”

Standing next to Seven, Erika gave the supervising tech a nervous glance that seemed to say,
What the hell is he doing to our evidence?

“Mythology tells us that Zeus commanded Apollo to leave his sister and mother on the sacred island of Delos. So Apollo turned himself into a dolphin and traveled to Delphi. He fought the Python, Gaia’s sacred creature, and killed it to claim Delphi for his oracle.”

Murphy moved back to the laptop. Even from where he stood, Seven could see graphs light up the screen. He couldn’t make heads or tails of it, of course, but he knew it would mean something to their own techs…which he figured was the point of putting up with the professor. Murphy was the expert here, helping to authenticate the damn evidence.

“In the ruins, you can still see where Apollo’s priestess,” he said, not missing a beat as he typed, “the Pythia, would crawl through a tunnel into the sanctuary of Apollo, chewing the leaves from the sacred laurel tree. Deep inside, in a place where only she was allowed entry, there bubbled up from the earth a poisonous spring. There she’d sit and chew her leaves. Many believe that the ethylene gas vapors combined with the juices from the laurel leaves to put the Pythia into a state of ecstasy, a trance, from which she would interpret the future. Estelle Fegaris postulated something different.”

“The necklace?” Seven prompted.

“According to Fegaris, the Eye acted like a lens, magnifying the psychic powers of its wearer, a theory considered by many to be wildly out of touch with the evidence in the field. Fegaris needed to produce the necklace as proof.”

“Is there a picture of this thing on some piece of papyrus somewhere?” Seven asked, thinking of Gia’s sketch.

The professor shook his head. “That would be too easy. Only Fegaris claimed to know the necklace’s appearance and origin, and she wasn’t sharing. It was one of the many mysteries surrounding the Eye.”

“So how do we know she didn’t make the whole thing up?” Seven asked.

“We don’t,” Murphy said, suddenly stepping away from the stone. “But given her reputation, there were those of us who chose to believe in the Eye’s existence.”

The professor stood there, staring at the bead. He glanced back at the computer screen, a strange expression on his face.

“What is it, Professor?” Erika asked. “What did you find?”

“Dating ancient glass can be a tricky business.” His expression now changed to one of reverence as he approached the tiny sample. “Frankly, the dating of an isolated piece like this is a near impossible task, particularly with no existing
comparanda
.”

“Meaning?” Seven said, getting a bad feeling.

“I can’t authenticate the artifact. Not here,” he said, still focused on the bead. “It requires the kind of chemical and physical examination that can only be done in a major laboratory—if it can be done at all. Perhaps the University of Pennsylvania. Or the University of Washington.” His expression visibly brightened, as if he’d just come up with a wonderful idea. “In fact, I have a colleague I could call there. I would be happy to accompany the piece myself.”

“I just bet you would,” Seven said. “Dr. Murphy, you knew before you came that you couldn’t authenticate the bead, didn’t you?”

“That would be correct, Detective.” Murphy pressed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “Of course, if I had said as much before, I would have risked never seeing the bead…something I found completely untenable. What can I say, Detective? I took my shot.”

Before Seven could take
his
shot, Erika stepped between the two men. “Come on, Professor. The last hour wasn’t just for show. You found something.”

“I
can’t
categorize the sample, Detective.”

“For someone who just came up with a blank,” Seven said, “you look incredibly pleased.”

“The fact is, I am, Detective. This stone, its unique ability to change color—the cat’s-eye slash of light down the center—Fegaris described it perfectly.”

“And?” This time, Seven didn’t even try to keep the impatience out of his voice.

“There is a family of crystals here on earth called chrysoberyl that exhibit similar traits to this stone. Alexandrite, named for the Russian tsar, Alexander II, can change from red to green, the colors of Imperial Russia. A cat’s-eye variety also exists. Microscopic inclusions occur in an orientation parallel to the c-axis, producing the effect. This, however, is nothing like that.”

“So what is it?” Erika asked.

“I’m not sure, but after a cursory examination, I am convinced more than ever that this bead is part of the Eye of Athena. Which means Estelle Fegaris was right. The Eye exists,” he said, indicating the bead was proof of just that. “And if she was right about the existence of the Eye, then I tend to think Fegaris was right about its origins. This bead, Detectives,” he said, turning to look at both Seven and Erika, “is not of this earth.”

S
even found himself back at the Coffee Factory, this time with Erika across the bistro table sipping iced coffee through a straw. It was almost three o’clock in the afternoon. Other than a table of Vietnamese men in business attire, they were the only people in the place.

Seven watched a middle-aged woman power-walk through the parking lot wearing a conical hat made from braided palm leaves. The hat, a
non la,
was typical here. He looked around the pastel minimall. The clapboard storefronts all carried Vietnamese names; billboards pitched their slogan in the same language. Everything looked clean, upscale—a glimpse, perhaps, at what might have been if the Americans had won the war decades ago.

It still surprised him, this small enclave of the exotic. If you were Vietnamese, you might live as far away as Irvine, but come the weekend, the diaspora descended here. And why not? Little Saigon provided
Pho
noodle shops and
banh mi
eateries, block-long supermarkets and jewelry stores, not to mention the latest that Vietnamese pop stars had to offer—all in a shiny new home away from home.

He thought of his own background, French-Canadian. Erika was right, he’d been whitewashed long ago, assimilated into the SoCal culture of burgers and surfing. His father barely spoke French, Seven spoke none at all. Traditional meals at home had long ago given way to Kentucky Fried Chicken and Hamburger Helper.

“I noticed you passed on the avocado smoothie again,” Erika said.

“Big mistake there,” he said, choosing to tank up on hot coffee sweetened with condensed milk.

He glanced down at the spiral notebook on the patio table, a mishmash of dashed-off notes and underlined names connected by arrows, the mind map they’d been working from. He and Erika had spent the last half hour piecing the story together.

Estelle Fegaris, renowned classical archaeologist from Harvard University, believes in the existence of the Eye of Athena, a crystal that supposedly allows its wearer to amplify psychic abilities. Fegaris postulates that the Eye, a crystal from outer space, was worn by the oracle at Delphi in the form of a necklace. Only, she can’t reveal how she found out about the Eye or why she even believes it exists. Despite this, Professor Murphy recognizes one of the beads from the oracle’s necklace.

Fegaris, according to the professor, asks for the archaeological community to take a leap of faith. When that doesn’t happen, she sets out to find the damn stone to prove she’s right.

She claims the Eye is part of the Treasury of Atreus, looted from the Beehive Tomb during ancient times. Fegaris discovers a connection between the looted Treasury of Atreus and artifacts stolen from the museum at Corinth during the 1990s.

Eventually, Fegaris reveals her dark side, giving in to the psychic within. She becomes very active in psychic archaeology. She takes part in a series of experiments conducted by Morgan Tyrell on the human brain. The connection ends up costing Fegaris her job. Harvard gives her the heave-ho.

But Fegaris doesn’t seem to care. For the next decade, she is a woman on a mission, tracking down the Eye. She ends up in Greece, presumably dealing with the shadier side of archaeology, the black market in antiquities, desperate to locate the object.

“But she can’t prove a thing,” Erika says, tapping her finger on the mind map where the words
The Eye
appeared underlined. “She has no methodology, no proof. Nothing. Only a bunch of ragtag amateurs ready to believe what she’s selling.”

“Not just amateurs,” Seven said, pointing out the obvious. “I think we’re talking acolytes. And Fegaris has enough credentials to sell her vision to the likes of our man Murphy…and others in the field.”

“So what does she want with this Eye of Athena? And why isn’t she telling what she knows?”

“Maybe she wants to use it. You know, dangle it from her neck and become Super Psychic. I-will-use-my-power-only-for-good sort of thing.” He cocked his head, staring down at the mind map on the notebook page. “Or maybe she just wants to get her ducks up in a row before she reveals what she knows and gives her colleagues a chance to pooh-pooh her ideas.”

“I don’t know, cowboy. After reading that Web site, I think this is more about some cult figure than any serious work.”

“Maybe.”

When Estelle Fegaris is killed, purportedly by the very antiquities dealers she sought out in tracking the Eye, the whole thing takes on new life. Fegaris becomes a martyr for her cause. Her acolytes go to ground, spawning Web sites and a legend worthy of Camelot. They call themselves Lunites. Others in the field call them Lunatics.

“Fegaris left clues about her killer’s identity,” he said. “Presumably a student. But the charges don’t stick, so twelve years later, we’re left with a cold case somehow connected to Mimi Tran’s murder.”

“And now, Murphy claims the Eye does exist. That someone has it—‘something not of this earth,’” Erika murmured, quoting Professor Murphy.

“And darned if it doesn’t end up stuck in the mouth of our victim.”

Erika shook her head. “It’s all too Erich Von Daniken for me.”

“Erich Von who?” Seven asked, wondering if he would ever get to sleep tonight after downing his second
ca phé sua nong
.

“Von Daniken? You know, the
Chariots of the Gods?
” And when he still drew a blank, she muttered, “Jesus, Seven. Don’t you ever watch the Discovery Channel?”

“Hey, I have seen every Freddy Krueger movie ever made, at least
twice,
so don’t you even try to say I lack culture. But look, I’m actually impressed. I think I should start calling you the Amazing Supernatural Sleuth.”

She pursed her lips. “You’re going to call me ASS.”

“Would I do that?”

She gave a long, loud slurp on the straw. “I was thinking maybe your psychic is right, after all.”

Your psychic.

Seven hadn’t mentioned anything about his conversation with Gia after Erika left the interview room—especially the part about him having a vision of the two of them in bed together. But here was Erika with her sixth sense, pushing him.

Your psychic.

“What exactly is my psychic right about?” he asked.

Erika slid the empty cup away. “She said whoever had the necklace wouldn’t want us to know they had it…because it was part of some stolen collection. That’s starting to sound a lot like what the professor said when he mentioned Fegaris and the stolen goods from the museum in Corinth. Think about it, Seven. It’s the perfect crime.”

“Who’s going to report that the damn thing is missing if it’s stolen in the first place?”

“What about Murphy’s claim that the bead we found comes from outer space?”

Seven made a rude noise. “The guy would say anything to get his hands on that artifact, so he drops some theory on alien visitation. We’re supposed to freak out and hand him the bead so he can fly it up to some lab? You saw how he played us today. I don’t care what Guru Lois said about the guy’s impeccable credentials. Any more testing gets done by our people alone.”

Erika shut the notebook. “So we focus on the bead and its connection to the Tran murder—like the possibility that the damn thing was bait. The killer leaves a single bead at the murder site.”

“It’s like advertising.”

She nodded. “A sensational killing, guaranteed to get lots of press. Whoever wants the necklace knows the killer has the rest.”

Seven thought it made sense. Only, there was this other theory bumping around his head.

The killer will keep giving you bits and pieces of it, like bread crumbs.

That’s what Gia had told them. That this was just the beginning…there would be other killings, each with its own piece of the necklace.

Erika tossed her plastic cup into the garbage can. “Me? I still like the psychic as a suspect.”

“Yeah.” He looked away. “So you said.”

“But not you?”

He sighed. “I’m stuck on the fact that she came to us. I mean, come on.”

“You’re really going with the no-one-could-be-that-stupid defense?”

“It’s just a gut feeling. You saw that crime scene. You really think she’s the perp?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time some sweet little thing done someone wrong,” she countered.

Seven stood and threw his own cup into the trash, making the bank shot. Despite the hot coffee he felt chilled by the direction the case was taking.

“All righty then,” he told Erika. “In the meantime, what do you say we actually find the asshole who did this—before anyone else dies.”

David stared down at the velvet-lined drawer. He felt himself hyperventilating.

The necklace had been decimated, its precious beads tossed around like dice inside the drawer. The central crystal, the Eye, was missing.

No, not missing. Stolen.

The Eye of Athena, a crystal worn by Apollo’s Oracle, had been stolen from right under his nose.

After the first break-in, he’d had his security team go over the place with a fine-toothed comb. Jack had juiced up the safe room to just a notch below Fort Knox. No way anyone was getting into his vault again. Guaranteed. Not without triggering multiple alarms and safety devices.

David had just got off the phone with Jack to hear that, according to the motion sensors and video cameras, there
hadn’t
been a break-in. Every damn piece of equipment showed that the only person to enter the safe room had been David himself. Jack would messenger over the DVDs for him to look at.

And still the necklace lay in pieces, completely disassembled, the central crystal, the object of power, gone.

He sat down on the couch, trying to catch his breath. He remembered his last meeting with Mimi, their lunch at Le Jardin.

That which is invisible is always the most dangerous.

Shit. Shit!

Twelve years ago, he’d been on top of the world. He’d acquired the thirteenth tablet of the Gilgamesh saga, the
Odyssey
of the Ancient Near East, that had been discovered in the ruins of Niveveh, the capital of ancient Assyria. Only David knew of the existence of the thirteenth clay tablet.

He had been captivated by the story, a tale that gave voice to man’s grief and fear of death as Gilgamesh, the king, searched for immortality. David saw himself as a Gilgamesh figure, a king who was part god, part human.

All twelve original tablets were hidden away in the British Museum in London. Many scholars didn’t even include the twelfth one as part of the original story. Inconsistencies within that tablet made it an independent tale in the eyes of many—particularly because Enkidu, one of the main characters, who dies in the original eleven tablets, is alive and well in the twelfth, traveling to the underworld to retrieve objects of power for his friend Gilgamesh.

The tablet David possessed continued the story written in that last tablet. In the thirteenth tablet, Enkidu takes to Gilgamesh precious objects that “rained down from the heavens.” The first tablet in the original story hinted of the existence of these objects, referring to a dream Gilgamesh had in which a magnificent meteorite falls to earth. The fourth tablet referred to dreams of the sky lighting up in a storm, lightning smashing to the ground and setting it ablaze. Death flooded from the sky. David’s translation of the thirteenth tablet mentioned both dreams and continued to describe the Eye in detail.

That’s how he knew Fegaris was doing righteous work. The thirteenth tablet described the Eye exquisitely.

So he’d contacted Fegaris, became a silent partner in her quest. He’d told her then and there he was willing to do whatever it took—
whatever
. He’d said everything she wanted to hear, giving her some bullshit about the Eye’s importance to the field of psychic archaeology.

And now it was gone, the necklace destroyed.

He shut the vault, using the remote control. He dropped the device and headed out the door. Rounding the corner, he almost slammed into his wife, who was looming at the top of the stairs.

For a minute, he had to fight back the urge to just grab her and shake her. He could see it like a movie in his head: he’d shove her down the stairs, watching as Meredith toppled head over feet. He could see her lifeless body at the foot of the stairwell, her limbs in disarray.

It was an accident, Officer….

He gulped down another breath, squashing the urge. Fuck. The last thing he needed was to have another dead body pointing the finger at him.

“What is it, Meredith?”

“You’ve done something,” she said in that fragile voice, her eyes darting up and down the hall. “The police, they’re going to come after Owen, aren’t they?”

When he ignored her, stepping around her, she curled her fingers into his biceps, hanging on. She looked up at him in a wild-eyed stare. “Don’t send him away again, David. I couldn’t bear it.”

“Don’t you have some church meeting to go to?”