On board, they took off their dive gear and studied the box, now removed from its tarp. Alan King was the one who suddenly exclaimed, “Look at the markings on it! There are lions and jackals and—Will, that’s it. That’s got to be the scepter of Amun Mopat. The source of all his power!”
15
Dirk Manning was happy to sit with the police.
The Preservation Center, empty of life and sound, with the auxiliary lights burning, seemed an eerie place as they walked in.
“I wonder what’s happening with the rest of the employees,” Jane said. “From what I understand, the place is actually governed by a board, but Amanda Channel was the boss. Brady and Jon reported to her, and there was a receptionist, the guards hired on by the center, and a bunch of interns coming and going.”
“I doubt any of the interns are eager to get back in. And Jon Hunt is a total basket case, so who knows if he’s even returning to work?” Kat responded.
“Where should we start?” Jane asked.
“Why don’t you take Brady’s office and I’ll take Amanda’s,” Kat suggested.
“And at this point, we’re looking for absolutely anything, right?”
“That’s about it.”
They parted ways in the hall, going to the separate offices. Kat began to rummage through Amanda’s drawers. She was surprised and somewhat saddened to see that Amanda had stashed away a bag from a chic lingerie shop, together with gift wrap and an unsigned card that read “To my Best Friend.” Kat didn’t have time to consider the pathos of that. Because behind the bag, as if caught there when the drawer was opened and closed, she found a crumpled piece of paper. Kat straightened it. The paper had a phone number on it and a quick notation: “7:30 p.m. S.B.”
Frowning, Kat studied it. She dialed the number, using her cell phone.
She had a suspicion as to whose number it might be, and she was right. Landry Salvage. Her call was answered by an automatic message that said the offices were closed.
Kat set the paper down and tapped her fingers on the desk.
S.B.
Sherry Bertelli?
Landry was dead; he’d been killed by someone who had known or guessed why she and Will wanted to talk to him again—that they still had unanswered questions. Sherry had seen them run after Landry. She must have assumed they’d discovered something else that would implicate Landry, and perhaps Landry had been ready to point the finger at her.
Sherry had access to everything that was Landry’s. Landry was madly in love with her, and would have never questioned anything she did.
And now he was dead.
She automatically tried Will on her cell phone but, of course, he didn’t answer. He was down on the dive to the Jerry McGuen.
She should call Logan, and she did that next. He answered on the first ring. “We need to pick up Sherry Bertelli,” she said.
“The receptionist?”
“Yes. Logan, it makes sense. We didn’t find anyone in the maze when she was supposedly attacked by the so-called mummy. I’m positive she was the one who left that swath of wrapping. She was definitely dealing with someone at the Preservation Center—I just found a note in Amanda’s desk with her initials and a time on it. Plus Amanda was calling Landry Salvage constantly. I think that Amanda was involved with Sherry, maybe hoping to be her friend, and Sherry had access to this place because of her. She was with Landry when Dr. McFarland gave his lectures.” She paused to take a breath. “We didn’t look at her because we were too busy looking at Landry. And, frankly, she didn’t seem bright enough to carry out this plan. Talk about stereotyping, huh?”
She paused again; she thought she’d heard movement down the hall, although she and Jane should have been the only ones there. Unless it was Jane, coming to talk to her about something she’d found.
“Logan, get someone to bring in Sherry Bertelli. We’ll finish up here and meet you at the station.”
“We’ll get her,” he said. “I’ll send out some officers to find her right now.”
There was no further sound in the hallway. Kat stood up, about to head into Brady’s office and find out what Jane was doing and share her suspicions. Her phone rang; she saw it was Will and answered quickly. “Hey! You’re out of the water fast.”
He hesitated, and she knew he was about to say that he was worried about her.
But he managed not to. She smiled. “I’m okay, Will. I’m with Jane at the center. Listen, I just talked to Logan. Will, I think Sherry Bertelli had something to do with all this. She was everywhere with Landry, and Landry would do anything in the world for her.”
“Then we’ve got to bring her in—now. She may realize that with Landry dead, she’d be next on the suspect list.”
“Logan has detectives going for her now.”
“Good. Hey, I’ve got news for you, too. We found the scepter. Amun Mopat’s all-powerful scepter.”
“You’re kidding! You sure?”
“Alan is certain of it. He read what could still be seen on the box…but we didn’t take it out. None of us knows a thing about preservation, but…anyway, we’re coming in. I’ll drive over and meet you and Jane at the center.”
“Once they’ve brought Sherry in, maybe you should be the one to interrogate her,” Kat said. “You’ve seen her, talked with her….”
“Maybe it should be you. A woman might react more honestly with another woman.”
“Well, let’s give them a chance to bring her in first,” Kat murmured. “I’ll see you soon.”
She hung up, feeling hopeful. Sherry Bertelli. Right. Naturally, the men—the CEOs of the salvage companies—would be the initial suspects. And now that Landry was dead, anyone who might have known of her involvement was out of the way.
But what had she wanted? The scepter?
Kat stood, remembering how she’d thought for a moment that she’d heard Jane in the hallway. She stepped out. It was empty, just as it should have been. Then she walked down to Brady Laurie’s office and looked inside.
Jane wasn’t there.
Kat decided not to shout out her name, even if that would more easily assuage her sudden fear. If her colleague was in any kind of danger, Kat could amplify that danger by spurring someone into action.
Silently, she moved along the hall in the other direction. She passed the empty conference room and stopped, drawing her Glock and clicking off the safety. She peered through the plastic sheets that led to the clean room.
Someone was there. Someone was standing over the sarcophagus of Amun Mopat.
While the film crew had been perplexed by Will’s determination that they surface before their time was up, Tyler and Sean had been willing to follow his lead.
He apologized to the others as the boat motored in.
“Maybe this is getting to me,” he said. “I thought I saw Amun Mopat down there.”
“Maybe you did see something—a vision of the past,” Tyler told him. “We now know that Captain Ely was a quack—with a ship that had Amun Mopat for a figurehead—and we’re pretty sure that he used his ship, guided by that figurehead, to ram the Jerry McGuen.”
Will shrugged. “I thought he was warning me of danger. In fact, it almost seemed that he said the word. I was afraid he meant Kat was in danger, but I talked to her. She and Jane are at the center. She found some evidence there that incriminates Sherry Bertelli.”
He explained the situation while they completed the return trip to the dock. He was still puzzled. “I see where we might have missed something with Sherry. She could definitely be part of it. But whoever killed Brady Laurie was strong—probably very strong. Sherry may be fit, but judging by her size, I don’t see how she could have had the strength to kill Brady. And the guard, Abel Leary—he struggled with his attacker. With the ‘mummy.’ Maybe they were in it together. Maybe Sherry took care of Amanda and managed to befriend her for access to the Preservation Center, and Landry was the muscle behind it all.”
“It’s a theory,” Tyler said slowly, “and maybe her involvement was with—and because of—Stewart Landry. Maybe he was the one who wanted to destroy the center’s involvement in hopes of being next on the list of companies to salvage the wreck. Or maybe he wanted a specific object that was on the ship. Sherry just did what he asked to her to, but when it looked like he might put the blame on her, she felt she had to kill him. Amanda was already dead, so if everything pointed to Landry, then she’d be an innocent bystander.”
“All right, so Sherry befriended Amanda,” Will said. “She then had access to the center, and she might have met with Amanda before she died.”
“If that was the case,” Sean continued, “she could have somehow gotten Amanda to eat the shellfish. She must’ve known Amanda was allergic but she could have slipped it into something else Amanda was eating. Of course, they’d have had to get to the museum really fast after their meal—that kind of poison can act quickly.”
“Or they met at the Preservation Center for dinner, and when Amanda was dead and the guard taken of, she took whatever plates she’d used and escaped out the back, the same way she and Amanda both entered,” Will said.
When they arrived at the dock, Will decided he’d go straight to the center. Sean and Tyler would make their way to the police station and help out if they discovered that Sherry Bertelli hadn’t been brought in yet.
As he drove, Will kept thinking about Sherry Bertelli, Stewart Landry and the strange night they’d spent with the Egyptian Sand Diggers at the memorial service, when Sherry had been screaming in the maze. Landry had seemed truly devastated that something might have happened to his mistress. Was he really that good an actor?
Someone other than the petite woman had been involved. And someone other than the very slight Amanda Channel, as well.
Landry. That was where it all pointed.
Except for that one night.
