Last Breath (8 page)

“And got lucky again.” She tapped him on the arm and pointed to her screen. “It appears that Damian Cross from Centerville, Delaware, is the proud owner of a statue of the goddess Ereshkigal.” She glanced over at Connor. “Centerville is really close, maybe a forty-five-minute drive. We could go…or should we try to get a number and call first?”

“I think we should just drop in on him. For one thing, if you call, maybe he doesn't like what he's hearing, he hangs up. If you cold-call, once you get your foot in the door, he's likely to hear you out.”

“Okay, so let's go.” Daria began to stand.

“Let's finish up first. I know you're eager to get going, but let's get all the info we can now, then we'll start tracking people down.”

“All right.” She sat back down. “You're right. It's going to make me crazy, though, knowing that there's a piece so close. Just down the road, practically.”

“If he still has it, it'll most likely be there tomorrow.”

“True.”

“And this way, we'll track what we can, check off what we've found on the list, then maybe have this friend of mine see what he can do before we decide whether we want to turn over the list to the Bureau.”

“Good point.” She resumed her search. “Why don't you stick with the private collectors, and I'll start going through the museums.”

“How will you know if a museum has any of the missing items?”

“Easy. Many of them list their exhibits by name and identify not only the artifacts, but where they came from.” She typed for a moment, then sat back and said, “For example, here's the website for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Over here on the left, we'll click on Permanent Collections. There, you have a listing of their collections. We'll click on Ancient Near Eastern Art…”

“You can see photos of what they have right online.” He shook his head. “Why does this strike me as being too easy? Shouldn't someone have done this before?”

“Why would anyone? Who would have known to look? Remember,” she lowered her voice to a whisper, “no one knows it's here but us.”

“I hope you're right about that,” he muttered.

“Well, they certainly have a wonderful collection, but I don't see any sign of what we're looking for. Not that I'd expect to, but I wanted to show you how easy it can be to track things. And see how under the photograph of each item they list the provenance of the piece. Where it came from, whether it's on loan from a private collection or donated outright or purchased, and the year of its acquisition.”

Connor watched over her shoulder as she skipped from one item to another.

“Do all museums have their collections available like this?” he asked.

“There's one way to find out.” She closed out the screen and typed the name of another museum into the search engine. “Let's see what they have.”

They spent the next several hours searching the Internet, but came away with a mere six artifacts in private hands. Interestingly, four were within driving distance of Howeville.

“That's six more than we knew about this morning,” she reminded Connor as they walked across a quiet campus. “And all very significant pieces, three of the collectors are almost in our backyard. One in Greenville, the other two here in Pennsylvania. Which makes me think there's a dealer—or was, at one time—close by. Maybe in Philadelphia or Wilmington.”

“I want to get on this right away. We'll start tomorrow with Damien Cross,” Connor said thoughtfully. “He's the closest, and he might know of other collectors and be able to direct us to someone else. We'll find out who sold him the piece, and when, and maybe we can track down the dealer or the party who sold it to
him.
Then we'll move on to the Blumes—Anderson and Kelly, they're the couple in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania—and from there, we'll go see Mrs. Sevrenson in Philadelphia. We'll leave the two parties in New England—the Westport couple and the woman in Marion, Massachusetts—for last.”

“Sounds like a plan. I can't wait to get started.”

“You're really enjoying this, aren't you?” Connor couldn't help but smile. “You're just beaming from ear to ear.”

“Well, it was a successful search. We're close to at least a few of the missing artifacts, and maybe tomorrow we'll even get to see one of them. I'd say that was a good day's work.”

“Agreed.” They'd reached McGowan House and stopped at the end of the walk.

“You're not driving back to Maryland tonight, are you?” Daria asked.

“I don't have a reservation anywhere, but I noticed a motel on the main drive coming into town, right off the highway. I'm sure I can get a room.”

“Great. I'll see you in the morning.”

“See you then.” He walked off into the night.

Daria entered the quiet house and locked the front door behind her. She dropped the bag holding her laptop at the bottom of the steps and went into the kitchen. It was closing in on eleven, and she realized that she hadn't eaten all day. She rummaged in the refrigerator and came out with an orange. She made a piece of toast and spread it with honey from the jar Vita had brought her that morning from one of the local farms and ate standing up. Her hunger sated, she sat at the table and went over her notes.

Six, she told herself. This morning she'd known only that they were missing. Now she knew where they were, or at the very least, where they had been. There was always the possibility that one or more items had been sold or gifted or loaned to a museum. For now, it was enough to know that these six artifacts existed and were almost within reach. And there was also the very real possibility that some of the owners might know of other pieces in other private collections.

She opened her bag and took out her notebook, prepared to check off the items which may have been located. She noticed that her phone, which she'd silenced in the library, was blinking to alert her to a new message.

“Daria, it's Louise. I couldn't wait until morning, so I called Jim Sanders. We have a meeting with him tomorrow morning at eleven. Please meet me at my office by nine-thirty and we'll go over to the museum together and select a few items to take with us. See you then.”

Daria erased the message and scrolled the phone's list of calls received. When she found the number from which Connor had called her two nights ago, she hit send and waited while it rang.

“Shields.”

“Connor, it's Daria. I just got a message from Louise about tomorrow. We have an appointment with the bank at eleven, and I'm meeting her at nine-thirty to go to the museum and select a few of the artifacts to take with us.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“I don't know.” She frowned. She hadn't thought of that. “I don't know if the presence of the FBI would alarm the banker or reassure him.”

“In that case, go without me but let him know we're on the case if you feel you have to. I'll spend the morning trying to locate more of the artifacts. I've already put a call in to my friend at the Bureau to see what he suggests, so maybe we can add to that list we started tonight.”

“Good idea. How about I call your cell when I get back from the bank?” Through the phone, she could hear sirens and traffic sounds in the background. He was still on the road.

“Great. Then you can let me know what the banker had to say and I'll tell you what the FBI's computers have been able to dig up.”

“Deal. I'll see you then. Good night, Connor.”

“See you tomorrow.”

Daria disconnected the call and dropped the phone into her bag. She wondered if she should have offered him a room here at McGowan House. There were five empty rooms on the second floor. Funny, if he'd been one of her colleagues, she wouldn't have thought twice about having a man stay in the house. The men she spent time with in the field were all friends, and nothing more. They shared commonalities of education and philosophy and reverence for the past. They spent much of their days together on a dig, painstakingly sorting through the debris of the ages, and their nights gathered around a communal fire talking about the day's finds and frustrations. There had been the occasional fling, but other than a professor in Near Eastern studies she'd met two years ago at a symposium at Harvard, serious affairs had been few and far between. She thought of the men with whom she'd spent the greater part of her adult life in the field, and couldn't name one who had sparked more than a professional interest. Compared to Connor, they all appeared in her memory as dry and pale. Intellectually stimulating, perhaps, and comfortable companions, but not the sort of men who set your pulse racing.

There was nothing dry or pale about Connor Shields.

Stimulating, on the other hand…yeah, she could say that. Tall and rugged, a killer smile. Nope, nothing dry or pale there…

Careful, girl,
she told herself as she got up and went to the back door to make sure it was locked.
He's probably not going to be around for that much longer, and even if he was, do you really think you're his type?

She tried to close the windows, but except for one, once opened, it was as if they were resisting being returned to the position they'd been stuck in for God only knew how many years. Daria gave up and gathered her notes, her bag, and the phone from the table and turned off the kitchen light. She checked the front door, turned off the lamp in the parlor window, and headed up the steps.

In Iliana's bedroom, she paused and glanced in the mirror that stood on the dressing table near the window. Nothing flashy about that face, she told herself. She ran a hand through her hair, which had grown out since the last time she'd cut it. Good enough for the field, but maybe now a real cut from someone who knew what they were doing might be in order. Maybe even some makeup.

Forget it.
She turned away from the mirror and went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. What was she thinking? Neither a new hairstyle nor a new face would make her anything other than what she was, and right now she was…well, field-weary, her mother would say. Tired from trekking over hills and mountains, with dark circles under her eyes and skin dry from too much desert sun.

“Yeah, I'm a real glamour girl,” she said softly as she stripped off her clothes and headed for the shower. “Chances are there's a woman in his life anyway, so don't set yourself up for a fall.”

All the same, she thought as she began to shampoo her hair, she could use a cut with a little style. After all, if she stayed at Howe for a while, there'd be meetings with the bankers and the trustees and members of the archaeology department, and eventually the media, if they really got this project off the ground. She would need to look a little more polished—all right, a lot more polished—and less like she'd just crawled out of a tent.

She made a mental note to ask Louise if she could recommend a salon.

SEVEN

“H
ow'd you make out at the bank?” Connor asked when Daria opened the door to McGowan House around one the next afternoon.

“We caused quite the commotion.” She grinned. “Louise's banker took one look at the pieces we'd brought with us and immediately called in the branch manager and several others. Long story short, they're preparing a vault and will have an armored truck pick up the crates as soon as humanly possible. In the meantime, they've hired armed guards, the first of whom should arrive by three.”

“Pretty much as I thought. They're not going to take any chances. I figured they'd want the entire collection safely under lock and key.”

“Right. Their lock and key. Which is as it should be. If they're going to loan such a huge amount of money to the school, they're going to want to protect their collateral. They've already locked up the artifacts we took with us. We left them in one of the vaults.” Daria walked toward the kitchen and Connor followed. “There's a meeting scheduled at the bank's main branch in Wilmington on Wednesday, to show the finance guys some of the collection.”

“So the loan looks like a go?”

“They're giving Howe a modest line of credit to start out, but I'm sure that getting money for the building repairs isn't going to be a problem.” She was still grinning from ear to ear. “There was so much excitement in that room when we started unwrapping the pieces we'd brought with us. I've been handling antiquities for so many years, I'd forgotten how it feels to see something like that for the first time.”

“I take it they were blown away.”

“Totally. And I have to admit I got just the tiniest kick out of the drama, you know? Building the suspense by telling them about my great-grandfather's quest; reading to them from his journal; slowly unwrapping each piece…”

“Sounds like an archaeological striptease.”

Daria laughed. “And every bit as provocative, I assure you.”

“I never would have suspected it of you, but it sounds as if you got the job done.”

“There was an audible, collective gasp when I unwrapped the goblet and let them pass it around the table.”

“You should have your own TV show, like that guy on the Discovery Channel.”

She looked at him blankly.

“Guess you don't watch a lot of TV,” he said.

“Not so much. By the way, Louise has already spoken with her insurance agent. They're lining up an appraiser for the artifacts and one of their property people is coming to look at the building ASAP. Maybe as early as tomorrow.”

“So all she needs now is a number and an okay from the bank.” Connor took a seat at the kitchen table.

“Cutting to the chase, yes. Of course, the bank is going to want to have everything authenticated. Fortunately, there is someone at the Philadelphia Museum of Art who is qualified, and they're going to try to get her down here quickly. Hopefully, she and the insurance appraiser can work together. It's very hard to put a dollar value on some of these artifacts, and I'm hoping the art historian from the museum can help the appraiser understand that.”

“You know, even if you decide not to take the job, you've already done the university a great service.”

“Are you kidding? If they get the funding, no way I'm walking away from this.” Daria leaned against the kitchen counter. “There will never be another opportunity like it. Besides, I feel this is something I'm
supposed
to do.”

“Because Alistair was your great-grandfather?”

“If I said I didn't feel that connection, I'd be lying. I've read all his journals. I feel as if I know him. I understand how and why his imagination was captured by the poets who'd written about the City Ruled by the Queen of the Night—that's how Shandihar was known in antiquity. I understand, because I was drawn to the field by similar stories, stories told by my own father. And I understand how his curiosity grew into obsession, and how he felt when he stood on that mound of rocks and sand and knew that the object of his quest lay beneath his feet. I felt as if I was there with him. When he described how it felt to touch the past with his own hands, I knew the feeling intimately.”

“Because you've felt all those things, too.”

“A thousand times.” She jammed her hands into the pockets of her shorts. “I've brushed away dirt from the face of a hundred idols, and uncovered the bones of kings and priests, farmers and potters. When you live in that world—the world where the past surrounds you—you experience life in a different way. You see what's important, what lasts and what falls away.” She paused, as if gathering her thoughts. “You see the evolution of society through countless eyes, and you see the patterns of society that emerge over the centuries, the advancements, how one society builds upon the discoveries of a previous one. How knowledge is shared, how religions spread. You develop a deep respect for those who lived in ancient times, believe me, when you've uncovered their homes and seen how they lived, who they loved. You hold the cups they drank from, the combs they used to dress their hair, a statue of the deity they worshipped, and you
feel
them.”

“I imagine being the daughter of both an anthropologist and an archaeologist, you would be as mindful of the individuals as you are of the civilizations you've studied.”

“You remembered that, about my parents?” She smiled, pleased that he'd recalled their conversation over dinner the night they met.

“I remember everything you said,” he told her. “I remember you were going to give me some information about your brother—Jack, right?—and I was going to see if some friends of mine could get a lead on him.”

“Yes, Jack.” She nodded. “If you're serious, I can get copies of the reports written by the investigators my parents have hired over the years. That's probably the most accurate way to bring you up to date. My parents have a full file of reports.”

“Of course I'm serious. Get them to send you copies of those reports and we'll take a look.”

“Thank you. I'd really appreciate that. And I know my parents will. I'll give them a call right now.” She patted her pockets for her phone. “I must have left my phone upstairs when I changed after the meeting with the bank. Hang on for a sec while I run up and get it.”

She was almost out of the room when he asked, “Daria, do you ever worry that you spend more time in the past than you do in the present?”

“Why would you ask that?”

“Because you never talk about your own life in terms of today or tomorrow.”

“I never think about it. But I suppose it's because the past is my job, my career.”

“But it doesn't need to be the focus of your life,” he said softly. “What do you do when you're not working? What do you do for fun? Who are your friends?”

“There aren't too many times when I'm not working, and frankly, I think my work is fun.”

“And your friends?”

“Mostly people I've worked with.” She crossed her arms defensively. “How many of your friends are in the FBI, Connor? How much of your life do you devote to your job?”

“Point taken.” He nodded. “Most of my friends are in the Bureau, and I do spend much of my time working on my cases.”

“So what's the difference between you and me?”

“The difference is that I live my life in the present,” he told her. “You seem to live a lot of yours in the past.”

She reddened but did not reply.

“Don't you want a here and now?” he asked. “Don't you want a story of your own?”

She stared at him for a long moment, then left the room.

Good move, Shields,
he chastised himself as her footsteps echoed down the hall, then seconds later on the stairs leading to the second floor. What had he been thinking, saying such personal things to her? And who was he to question how she lived her life?

“No one,” he answered himself aloud. “No one at all.”

Daria was an intelligent woman who'd made her choices a long time ago, and appeared to be happy with those choices. She was well-known, had published widely, and was successful on an international level.

Connor wryly thought that he, too, could make this last claim, though his success was certainly on a far different level than hers.

“The eagle and the dove,” he muttered aloud.

“What?” Daria walked back into the kitchen, her shoulder bag over her arm and a folder fat with paper in her hands.

“Listen, I'm sorry. I had no right to say what I did. It's your life and one you're obviously happy with, so just forget what I said.”

She waved a hand dismissively. “My parents are going to send me a copy of their file on Jack. I'll let you know when it comes. They said to tell you thank you. But right now, we have other things to talk about. Was your friend at the FBI able to locate any of the missing artifacts?”

“Yes, he was.” Connor opened his briefcase and took out several pieces of paper. “Quite a few, actually.”

“Yes!” She grinned and reached for the papers, her previous pique apparently forgotten.

Connor handed them over, saying, “There are several galleries that have objects on loan, and two or three that have purchased pieces outright. Assuming that these are authentic and are in fact from Shandihar…”

“Easy enough to check.” She opened her folder. “Here's the list of items we're missing. Let's see what matches up.”

Daria took the chair next to Connor and handed back his papers. “What's first on your list?”

Connor picked up the top sheet of paper and read, “Bronze and gold figure of woman believed to be high priestess of Ereshkigal. Circa 1000
B.C
. Shandihar. Gift of Celina Shaw, 1965.”

Daria scanned the list she'd made of the missing objects.

“Bronze and gold priestess. Check.” She glanced up from the list. “Where is it?”

“In the Raines Gallery in Boston.”

“Great. What else?”

“Large silver jug. Circa 900
B.C
. Shandihar. On loan from a private collector, 1998. The William Joseph Peaks Gallery, St. Louis.”

“Silver jug…large. Yes, got it.” She tapped her pen on her bottom lip. “I wonder if we can get the gallery to tell us who the owner is.”

“If you can't, we can.” He leaned against the back of the chair. “I'm still not sure we shouldn't turn this over to the art-theft people. I understand all your reasons, and I respect the fact that you want to protect the owners. But the more I think about it, the less I think anyone is going to simply hand something over to you. I mean, why would they?”

The pen continued to tap away on her lip.

“Because somewhere along the line, these artifacts came into the mainstream through the back door. At some point, there was an illegal sale, and no respectable collector or gallery wants their name sullied. No one wants to be suspected of having bought from the black market, or from a shady dealer.”

“These people, who probably paid large sums of money for the pieces they bought, are going to believe you…why?”

“Because I'll have the journals with me, I can show them—”

“Yeah, yeah, the journals. The inventories. Daria, that sort of thing can be faked.”

“Well, then, I'll have you with me.”

“You are very naïve if you think that you're going to walk out of anyone's house with any of these artifacts in your hands.”

“I never expected that to happen. What I expect is that people will call their lawyers, who will then call the university, their lawyers will talk to Howe's lawyers, and things will go from there. There will be meetings, negotiations, that sort of thing. In the end, I suspect that some of the pieces will be ‘donated' to the university by the present owners. Besides giving them the cachet of being donors, it gives them a healthy tax write-off and the opportunity to get some very positive press when the museum is ready to open. Howe is more likely to see the return of at least some of the items that way.”

“That makes sense. I think.”

“Look, you have to understand the people who collect these things. They invest a lot of money to have something that no one else has.”

“All the more reason not to hand it over because some very pretty woman rings the doorbell and asks for it.”

“They'll respond better to me—someone who understands the piece, who understands the way the market works—than they will to having a couple of badges waved in their face. One badge makes it official business. More than one badge makes people think they're about to be arrested. Plus, when given the choice between having your reputation damaged and the chance to come out looking like a philanthropist, most people are going to choose door number two.”

“All right. We'll try it your way and see what happens.” His eyes dropped to the report. “A pair of bronze griffins…are these the ones you mentioned earlier?”

“No, those were gold. Where are the bronzes?”

“The Hollenbach Gallery in Chicago. Purchased through the gift of Emory and Doris Wilcox, 1951.”

“They're not going to want to give those back if they purchased them. That one might have to go to your team of experts,” Daria told him. “If the piece is on loan, the gallery or museum doesn't have to make a decision; they can just refer back to the owner. But if funds were spent to purchase the item, you have a board of directors to be dealt with, and you might have corporate issues. Those pieces could end up in litigation.”

“So let's put together a list of the items we're going to go after, and I'll turn the others over to the Bureau.”

“All right,” she said with some reluctance. “It's probably for the best. Let's see what else you have.”

They worked through the rest of the list and by two-thirty, Connor had called John Mancini, explained the situation, and promised to e-mail a list of the items and their present locations when he got back to his motel room.