The Five-Day Dig (4 page)

He laughed. “This is only rumor. For sure, there are some ruins, but they have not been professionally investigated. I do not dare speculate what they comprise.”

“The archaeology team at Growden could resolve the mystery for you.” Farber held out a card to him. “We have a world-class reputation in the field. We’ve been excavating for more than a hundred years.”

“A hundred years is not so long here,
dottore
.” The Italian took the card and stuffed it into a pocket without looking at it. “I’m aware of your university’s excellent credentials, but I’m afraid I don’t have time to discuss such a complicated issue now.”

He turned to Winnie. “My daughter has a piano recital tonight, so I must leave, but I hope we see each other again during the conference. It was a pleasure meeting you.”

“Likewise.”
She offered him her hand.

He took it and bowed, holding her gaze.
“My apologies.
Ciao.
”

Then he nodded to Farber and walked away.

She watched him exit the room.
Too bad.
He was totally out of her league, and they probably had nothing in common, but a little flirtation would have been fun. Her flirting needed as much practice as her Italian.

Farber cleared his throat. “We agreed that I would handle the suits tonight, Winifred. Why did you approach Signore Rentino?”

She frowned. Now she needed his approval to talk to someone? “He approached me.”

He hesitated,
then
rubbed his chin. “I see. The influence of physical attraction on our prospects hadn’t occurred to me. It’s something to consider.”

“Just because he spoke to me doesn’t mean he’s attracted to me. He said he’d read one of my books.”

The chairman snorted.
“Him, as well as the conference organizers?
Are you a bestseller in
Italy
?”

“No.” The coincidence had surprised her, too. Fortuna still seemed to be with her. “But Virgil is important to Italians. Maybe he was curious about how an American would view
The Aeneid
.”

“Whatever the case, we need to cultivate the relationship. Not only is Domenico Rentino sitting on an important site, he has the money to fund a dig for us.”

Uh oh
, she thought.
He’s going to hound this guy, and now he wants me to help.
“He didn’t seem eager to discuss it. Didn’t you get the feeling his daughter’s recital was just an excuse to get away from us?”

“Don’t be a marshmallow, Winifred.” He downed a mouthful of brandy. “That’s part of the game. I’ve heard about Rentino. He’s a shrewd businessman, chief financial officer at an auto-parts manufacturer. In all he does in life, he’s going to hold out for the best deal.”

“Sounds like a tough nut to crack.”

“Nonsense.
You’re selling the reputation of the university short. I’ll close this deal.” As the chairman gave her a sly smile, Chaz stepped up behind him just in time to hear him say, “You just keep talking to him. Use your feminine wiles.”

Behind their boss, Chaz raised an eyebrow. Then he flashed a crooked grin at her and left before she could protest or try to explain.

While she stood stunned, Farber walked away, too.

She stared at his back, appalled.
Great.
Her boss wanted her to prostitute herself, and her TA had overheard him give the order. How pathetic the school must have looked to Chaz, relying on women her age to entice donors. Even worse, she knew Farber wouldn’t let up on her now. If she didn’t come through with some sort of project or donor, the pressure on her to snag Rentino would only increase.

Well, I’d better come up with something to appease him
, she thought. She downed the rest of her wine and headed back to the bar for another glass.

T
RE

T
HE FIRST MORNING
of the conference, Winnie attended sessions on ancient graffiti, painting conservation and Roman plumbing – all fascinating.

At lunch she couldn’t spot anyone she knew, so she sat down at a table of older attendees on the off-chance that any of them had known her father. Of course they hadn’t, so she chatted with them about projects they were working on.

After lunch, other sessions followed until late in the afternoon. She managed to meet up with Liz for dinner, then returned to her hotel room and called her brother to check up on him.

“Your resolve to face Italy again has inspired me,” Sam said, his tone cheerful. “I’m on my way to Mom’s to go through those boxes of papers that Dad left in the garage.”

His plan didn't thrill her. He had issues with mood swings, and she didn’t want him setting himself up for a letdown. “I don’t think you’ll find anything interesting in there. We looked through that stuff right after he died, and it’s just financial documents.”

“You assume that financial documents can’t be interesting.”

In spite of her concerns, she laughed. “Well, yes, I do. And we know that Dad had his journal here in
Italy
with him, so you won’t come across that.”

“There are still some items here that I want to look at more closely.”

“Like what?”

Now
he
laughed. “I’m not telling you. Follow your own quest, and leave mine to me.”

“I just hope you won’t be disappointed.”

“Eventually, I’m always disappointed. But I have fun getting to that point.”

She took a deep breath. “Then make the fun last as long as you can, I guess.”

After they hung up, her worries nagged at her. She felt sure those boxes held no clues to their father’s research or plans for his book. Not keeping back-up copies of his work had proved a big failing of his. When it had become clear that his research was lost, that had been her second clue he wasn’t perfect, right after the manner of his death.

But now was no time to dwell on that.

The next couple of days passed in a whirlwind of sessions, symposiums and big Italian meals. Winnie kept donor development in mind but made it her priority to ask other attendees if they’d known her dad.

During her conversations, she learned about a dozen projects that attendees had underway and even received a few invitations to join forces. Unfortunately, none of the proposals had the aura of prestige that her boss required. She pitched several ideas to him, but he invariably dismissed them,
then
asked if she’d seen Domenico Rentino.

She hadn’t. And she
had
been looking – not because she thought she could persuade him to let Growden excavate his property, but because he intrigued her.

He wasn’t the only one out of sight, either. She barely caught a glimpse of any acquaintances. Liz kept busy attending geology sessions to support her colleagues. Chaz was following an Ancient Religions track that didn’t hold much interest for her. And Farber spent most of his time networking at meetings and meals that he didn’t deign to share with her.

On Sunday morning, she woke up dreading her presentation. There would be experts in the room
more well
-versed than she about some of the points on her outline. And if no one else criticized her, she could count on her boss to do it.

When she took the podium, however, she couldn’t spot Farber among the audience, and the attendees sitting up-front looked alert and interested. She had practiced so many times that her speech came to her automatically, so that aspect presented no problem.

“My late father, an archaeologist, introduced me to the classics with Herodotus,” she began. “When I first read
The History
as a teenager, I couldn’t believe how modern the author seemed: how meticulously he observed, questioned and recorded his findings; how he presented multiple points of view and rationally analyzed them. Thousands of years of time closed up for me, and I felt as though I were walking among the ancients.”

From there, she explained how her love of the classics drove her to study ancient languages. During that period of her life, she’d begun to jot down similarities between words that both fascinated her and helped her understand our ancestors. Eventually, she’d had several notebooks full of thoughts.

“I chose the most provocative ones for my latest book,” she said, “and we’ll explore some of them here.”

She ran her visual presentation, laying out examples from Latin, ancient Greek and Egyptian and comparing them with modern words in English and the romance languages. Enough audience members looked engaged – nodding or smiling at the points she made – that she began to enjoy herself. Before she knew it, she reached the final slides.

The display behind her showed the Egyptian phonetic hieroglyphs for
neteru
morphing into the English word
nature
.

“And, finally,” she said, “the ancient Egyptian word for
the gods
, pronounced
neh-teh-ru
, is uncannily like the modern English word
nature
. ”

On the screen, the word
nature
transformed into
mother
.

“Since
n
is known to shift into
m
over time in some cases, we may surmise that
mother
belongs to the same prehistoric root group.”

The screen showed a beautifully executed depiction of Mother Nature with forest animals. Winnie smiled at it, then at the audience. “I find it interesting – even comforting – that though Western culture lost its goddesses ages ago, the goddess-like Mother Nature survives in modern iconography.”

Positive-sounding murmurs in the crowd encouraged her. Most of the people in the front looked thoughtful, like they were considering her argument.

“In my book,” she said, “I explore other provocative, if conjectural, etymological connections like the ones I’ve shared with you today. I hope that, eventually, linguists more skilled than I will verify my ideas, and I hope today’s lecture has stirred your mind.”

She left the podium to hearty applause – nothing wild, but a notch or two above polite. Relieved, she began packing up her things.

A handful of people came up and complimented her on the talk, some probably only being kind, but a couple with real enthusiasm.

After about ten minutes, the last one wandered off, and only Chaz remained behind. As he closed his laptop and got up from the front row, she felt the last remnant of tension lift from her body.

“
Brava
.
Epic presentation.”
He glanced at the projector and computer she had used. “Can I help you with this equipment?”

“Thanks, but the tech people will handle it.” She stuffed her notes and the flash drive holding her files into her bag and swung the strap over her shoulder. “We just need to lock the room when we leave.”

He walked with her to the door. “Are you going to the luncheon reception now?”

“Definitely.”
They stepped into the hall, and she made sure the door locked behind them. “After this, I need a drink. And Dr. Farber will expect us to take one last stab at donor development.”