“Well, down to it! The truth, the answers, are in this note, I know it. Listen, I’m going to read it again,” Kelsey said.
“Kelsey was always my little wonder child. She was fascinated with history. Her friends’ parents sometimes thought I must be very odd, even scary, because of the objects I collected. But Kelsey knew and understood peoples and cultures, and as we often discussed, there are so many paths to God. Kelsey knew that the true path to God only came through great sacrifice. She knew this even as a child.”
Bartholomew shook his head. “I don’t understand. If he’s giving you clues, I’m not getting them. Why not just say where he left the reliquary.”
“He couldn’t do that. Someone else might have found the book and the notes,” Kelsey explained.
“So, what you’re getting out of it is—religion?”
“Yes, and he’s using it for two reasons—he found a great hiding place, and because he was a believer in a higher power—God.” She smiled. “He was also a believer that love—love for each other or love for God—sometimes involved making sacrifices. He didn’t believe in the book he was holding. But he held that book because the perpetrator believed in the power of that book. Oh, I’m not sure, nothing is a direct clue. But, anyway, time to get started.”
“Where?” Bartholomew asked.
“Corner table, the runes and the masks of the Norse gods. The cabinet with the chalices, the mummy and the voodoo altar,” she said.
“I’m not much help,” he said ruefully.
“Being with me helps me,” she assured him.
“Start with Odin,” he suggested.
Gary White’s room was a cluttered mess.
Liam knew that officers and a crime-scene unit had gone through it and found nothing, but he wasn’t satisfied.
He was certain that Gary White had been in on some part of what was going on. He had been too young to have been guilty of subtly finding a way to kill Kelsey’s mother. He went through the clutter of magazines—most of them old, taken from coffeeshops or tables on the streets—paper bags, fast-food containers and junk. He wasn’t sure if he was sorry for the man or angry when he saw the musician’s guitar sitting next to the one overstuffed chair.
The drawers were full of worn clothing; the hamper was overfull. He was about to leave the apartment in frustration when he looked at the chair again.
He strode to it and pulled up the cushion. It was heavy, with a zippered upholstery cover over it.
He unzipped it and stuck his gloved hand into the cushion. He felt around.
And he found something. A book.
He pulled it out. It was the book.
Had he been killed because he had held out on someone?
Or had the murderer never thought that Gary White could hide something so completely?
“Not in Odin, eh?” Bartholomew asked, leaning against the wall as he watched her.
“Not in Odin. Not in the chalices, not in any of the rune cases,” Kelsey said.
“The mummy?” Bartholomew suggested, wrinkling his nose.
She walked over to the mummy. Though the coffin was open, there was a sheet of glass over it, keeping the mummy from deteriorating. She lifted the glass. This mummy had been dug up long, long ago. Long before they had known about preservation techniques. Though the sarcophagus was nice, handsomely painted, she knew that it was common for the upper-class working masses. The mummy hadn’t been buried with jewels or anything of value.
“I’ll probably break it to dust,” Kelsey muttered. She had on a pair of gloves, not the best, but the kind that came with certain hair products. She’d found them under the sink. Cutter’s last housekeeper must have used them.
“Dust to dust,” Bartholomew reminded her.
She tried to feel around the mummy. The old wrappings made her sneeze.
“Finding anything?”
“No.”
“How about the sarcophagus?”
“I’m going to have to crawl in it.”
“You don’t have to do anything,” Bartholomew reminded her.
She crawled in and searched every corner, patting the sides. To her astonishment, a secret panel sprang up from the floor of the sarcophagus. “Bartholomew!”
“You found it?”
“No! But…”
She sneezed and crawled out. Perplexed, she looked at Bartholomew. “But it… I’m not sure. It’s just made me think.”
She walked to the door of Cutter’s office and turned on the lights. The room looked as it always did. She started walking around, pushing at books, stomping on the floor.
“Oh, dear,” Bartholomew said.
She shook her head. “I’m not going crazy. I keep thinking that someone is in here, even when it’s locked up. Even now, with an alarm. I lock my bedroom at night. Even Liam locked the door when I wasn’t here.”
“I can pat walls,” he said.
“Perfect, help me!” she said.
He started around the room. As he did so, Kelsey’s phone rang. Distracted, she answered it without looking at the caller ID.
“Kelsey.”
It was Liam.
“Hey,” she said.
“You’re all right?”