“What happened? We’re open to anything you have to say, I swear,” Kat told him.
He looked at her again and seemed to really focus on her. “Are you sure you’re not an angel? Hey, if I get out of here, do you want to have dinner?”
“Please,” Kat said. “We need to be serious.”
He looked away, gazing at the heart monitor. “I heard something and I got up. I was stunned. It was coming from the climate-controlled room.”
“What was coming?” Kat asked.
“It was coming. It—it didn’t stumble…. It came toward me, moving slowly. Steadily. I got up from the guard desk. I just stared at it. And then I drew my gun, but not fast enough. It was on me, and was strong…so strong. It got hold of my hand and the gun and I was trying to shoot it…but it was stronger. It twisted the gun. I remember the pain….”
“What was it, Mr. Leary?” Kat persisted.
He curled his lips in a sardonic expression as if mocking himself. “The mummy. It was the mummy. Old Amun Mopat must have crawled right out of his coffin thing. It was the mummy, and it made me shoot myself. It was the mummy.”
Before they could leave the station, Will received a call from Earl Candy.
“You’re not going to believe this,” he said.
“What?” Will asked, bracing himself.
“The remote. The guys called in from the security boat. They were watching the remote and the screen went dark—and then it cleared again. But there was no movement, and one of the bozos finally realized that nothing was changing down there. Like, like the fish were in the same spot forever. They played with the lens but didn’t get anything. Someone was down there, Will. Someone was down at the wreck site, and they destroyed my remote!”
“What time was that?”
“Damned if anyone knows. The guys didn’t. And the time on the film footage was stopped. They realized it about twenty minutes ago, called me and I’m calling you.”
“We’ll get down there and check on it in the morning,” Will said. “Can’t do it any earlier than that.”
“Yeah, it’s almost dark. I wouldn’t want anyone dying over a remote, but what the hell? Someone’s been down there.”
“We’ll get on it first thing, Earl,” Will promised again.
He speculated as he watched Landry. The man didn’t act as if he was afraid he might have been the object of a conversation. Of course, Will had been careful.
“Let’s go,” Will said. He collected Tyler, who’d finished with Simonton and let him go. As they drove to the dock, he tried to calculate the timing. The remote camera could have been disconnected hours ago. That would have given Landry all morning to be out at the wreck.
At the dock in the boathouse, Landry seemed almost impatient to bring Will and Tyler over to his underwater propulsion device. On the way to the heavy steel shelving where he kept a number of his diving toys, they passed Landry’s various pleasure boats.
He could see water on one of the Sea Ray speedboats, Lake Shark.
It looked as if the boat had been out—and not long ago.
But Landry didn’t even notice it; he was leading them to the steel shelving.
“There. It’s right there. Where it’s supposed to be. And it’s—”
He stopped dead, his hand reaching toward the motorized device.
“It’s wet,” Tyler said.
“I wasn’t using it! I’m telling you, I haven’t had the damned thing out all season. Look, I don’t even keep this boathouse locked. There are always too many people working in and around here who need access. I mean, we lock up at night, but during the day…”
He stared at the faces around him.
“I think we need to go back to the station,” Will said.
“I think I need to call my lawyer.”
“Fine. He can meet us down there.”
Kat returned to the hotel with Kelsey; it was seven o’clock and they were due to gather in the suite, where Logan had arranged for room service.
Dirk Manning seemed happy. He had a room adjacent to the suite, so he knew that Kelsey or Logan or both could reach him in less than a minute if necessary. He was in bed by the time they got back to the hotel.
Only Will and Tyler hadn’t shown up yet. Seated together, the others went over the events of the day.
They realized by then that a search warrant had been executed on Stewart Landry’s home, his office, car and property.
Strips of ancient linen had been hidden in a secret compartment of his glove box. That seemed the clincher, despite the fact that Landry continued to bitterly disclaim all knowledge of anyone using his UPD or his boat. Or, for that matter, his car. What they’d found had nothing to do with him, he said.
He had never killed anyone. He’d never caused anyone to suffer an accidental death, and he was completely innocent.
But he was being held overnight while charges were prepared against him.
Kat didn’t know why she didn’t feel relieved, but when Will returned with Tyler Montague, she saw that he didn’t seem particularly relieved, either.
While they ate, the conversation revolved around Landry.
“How did he get hold of linen wrapping used for mummy preparation that was thousands of years old?” Kat murmured. “Even if he claims he didn’t know anything about it…”
“It’s possible that he was in on it with Amanda,” Logan said. “We know she called his company countless times during the past month.”
“Okay, so we think Amanda supplied him with Brady’s information regarding his search for the Jerry McGuen?” Kat asked.
“She really didn’t have to,” Sean told her. “I studied his social networks and his website today. Not long after that party the Sand Diggers had, Brady published his reasons for believing the ship could be found. He’d used weather reports from the era and pertinent weather and lake information throughout the following decades. In other words, he made his theories public. And, using what he wrote, someone who knows the lake—like a salvage diver—could have gone through his calculations and come up with the same approximate findings.”
“Which brings us back to Landry,” Will said thoughtfully. “The guy must be one hell of an actor, though. He really looked shocked when we found his gear wet—and that his boat had been out.”
“How did it go with Andy Simonton?” Logan asked.
“Simonton was forthright and told me he’d been at the lecture and that it was ‘tremendously interesting’—his words. He said, though, that Dr. McFarland was a jerk, pompous and full of himself,” Tyler replied.
“Well, Landry’s being held overnight,” Logan said. “We’ll see what a night in lockup will do. Maybe we’ll learn more tomorrow.”
“Someone tampered with the remote camera today,” Will reported. “I’m going back down in the morning.”
Kat frowned. “Here’s what I don’t see. All right, so say Amanda was Landry’s Egyptologist and that she got him the mummy wrapping, which she must have had access to at various points during her career. Then he starts to worry about her for some reason. He gets into the center because she lets him in. He kills her, and then goes for Abel Leary, the guard. But, according to Abel, the guy who made him shoot himself—the supposed mummy—was strong. Landry isn’t that young. Could he be that strong?”
“I guess he’s got lots of stamina,” Tyler said in a wry voice. “He has a wife—and he’s apparently having an affair with his young receptionist. Although how he thinks he’s hiding it from his wife, I don’t know. Hey, has anyone talked with Mrs. Landry?”
“Yes, I spoke with her this afternoon,” Logan said. He shrugged. “She figured out that her husband worked the hours he worked because he was having an affair with Sherry. She’s ready to throw him to the wolves. She said that nothing she knew pegged him for a murderer, but she couldn’t alibi him for any time period.”
“Couldn’t—or wouldn’t,” Sean added.
“There’s just something that doesn’t feel right.” Kat looked at Will. “If you’re going down tomorrow, I am, too.”
She talked to them about the icebreaker, the Egyptian, and how the captain had believed that Amun Mopat’s scepter had been the source of his power. He might well have rammed the Jerry McGuen with his ship and suffered a bout of madness before setting out on another stormy night soon after—and meeting his own demise.
“Still…could anyone believe that today? That an object could be the source of incredible power?” Kelsey asked skeptically.
“Hey, could anyone believe that a mummy—rotting for thousands of years—could possibly attack them?” Tyler countered.
“Maybe the scepter did have power, but not the way ancients Egyptians thought it did,” Kat said. “That kind of crystal could catch sunlight. It could even have been used to start a fire on a bed of dried tinder. The thing is, Captain Ely accepted it. And I have to conclude that the scepter is what our killer considers the greatest treasure of the Jerry McGuen.” She paused. “Precisely why, I don’t know.”
They discussed that and various other possibilities, then broke for the night.
Kat and Will didn’t even pretend they were doing anything other than going to one room.
Kat wanted to spend a little time with the cat, but Bastet was no longer in either of their rooms. Before she could worry, Logan appeared at her door to tell her he’d come to fetch the cat and her equipment earlier. Bastet seemed to bring Dirk Manning a measure of comfort, so he was letting the cat stay with him for now.
When Logan was gone, Kat grinned at Will. She didn’t have to speak. They showered together, made love and lay still, talking quietly. The next day would be a long one.
Stewart Landry was being held in jail. They’d found his UPD and his boat wet—both had been out on the lake. It fit; someone had tampered with the remote that day. And mummy wrappings had been recovered from his car. All signs seemed to point to him. She should have rested well.
