“It figures.” She quickened her pace down the hall, irritated that her curiosity was aroused.
Smithback grabbed her arm. “I hear they’re serving a delicious aged and oven-dried lasagna in the cafeteria.” He steered her toward the elevator.
The lunchroom was filled with the usual crowd of curators, beefy guards talking loudly, and assorted technicians and preparators in white lab coats. One curator was passing specimens around to a table of fellow scientists, who were murmuring in admiration and interest. Margo took a closer look. The specimens were pickled parasitic worms, coiled in jars of cloudy formaldehyde.
They sat down and Margo tried to saw through the crust of her lasagna.
“Just like I promised,” Smithback said, picking up a piece in his hand and biting off a corner with a crunch. “Been on the steam table since nine o’clock this morning, at least.”
He chewed noisily. “Well, the police finally made it official. There were two murders here last night. Brilliant to have figured it out! And you remember all those questions the reporters asked about wild animals? Well, there’s also a chance they were mauled to death by a wild animal.”
“Not while I’m eating,” Margo said.
“That’s right. Literally shredded, by the sound of it.”
Margo looked up. “Please.”
“I kid you not,” Smithback continued. “And the heat is on to get this thing solved, particularly with the big exhibition coming up. I hear the cops have even enlisted a special coroner. Someone who reads gaping claw wounds like Helen Keller reads braille.”
“Damn it, Smithback,” Margo said and dropped her fork. “I’m sick of this—your cavalier attitude and your gory particulars while I’m having lunch. Can’t I eat first and hear about this stuff later?”
“As I was saying,” Smithback continued, ignoring the outburst, “she’s supposedly an expert on big cats. Dr. Matilda Ziewicz. Some name, huh. Sounds fat.”
Despite her annoyance, Margo suppressed a smile. Smithback might be a jerk, but at least he was a funny jerk. She shoved her tray away. “Where’d you hear all this?” she asked.
Smithback grinned. “I have my sources.” He shoveled another piece of lasagna into his mouth. “Actually, I ran into a friend who writes for the News. Somebody got the story from a contact in the NYPD. It’s going to be all over the afternoon papers. Can you imagine Wright’s face when he sees that? Oh, God.”
Smithback cackled for a moment before filling his mouth again. He’d finished his own and was starting on Margo’s. For a thin guy, he ate like a beast.
“But how could there be a wild animal loose in the Museum?” Margo asked. “That’s absurd.”
“Yeah? Well, get this: They’ve got someone in here with a bloodhound, trying to track the son of a bitch.”
“Now you’re joking.”
“Hey, not me. Ask any of the security guards. There’s a million square feet in this joint where a big cat or something could be roaming, including five miles of forced-air ducts big enough for a man to crawl around in. And under the Museum is a warren of abandoned tunnels. They’re taking it seriously.”
“Tunnels?”
“Yup. Didn’t you read my article in last month’s magazine? The first Museum was built on an artesian swamp that couldn’t be permanently drained. So they built all these tunnels to divert the water. Then, when the original Museum burned down in 1911, they built the present Museum on top of the old Museum’s basement. The subbasement is huge, multileveled ... much of it isn’t even electrified. I doubt if there’s anybody still alive who really knows their way around down there.”
Smithback munched the last piece of lasagna and pushed the tray aside. “And then, there’re the usual rumors about the Museum Beast.”
Anybody who worked in the Museum had heard that story. Maintenance men working late-night shifts saw it out of the corners of their eyes. Assistant curators wandering down dimly lit corridors on their way to specimen vaults saw it moving in the shadows. Nobody knew what it was, or where it had come from, but some claimed the beast had killed a man several years before.
Margo decided to change the subject. “Is Rickman still giving you trouble?” she asked.
At the mention of the name, Smithback grimaced. Margo knew that Lavinia Rickman, the Chief of Public Relations for the Museum, had hired Smithback to write his book. She had also worked out the Museum’s cut of the advance and royalties. Although Smithback wasn’t happy about the contractual details, the exhibition promised to be such a blockbuster that book sales, riding on the success of the exhibit, could easily climb into six figures. It hadn’t been a bad deal for Smithback at all, Margo thought, given the only modest success of his previous book on the Boston Aquarium.