The Keepsake Page 4

  “It’s a type of immortality, don’t you think?” said Robinson.

  “An alternative to rotting away. Your body preserved. Those who love you never have to surrender you to decay.”

  Those who love you. Jane glanced up. “You’re saying this could have been an act of affection?”

  “It would be a way to hold on to someone you love. To keep them safe from the worms. From rotting.”

  The way of all flesh, thought Jane, and the temperature in the room suddenly seemed to plummet. “Maybe it’s not about love at all. Maybe it’s about ownership.”

  Robinson met her gaze, clearly unsettled by that possibility. He said softly: “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

  Jane turned to Maura. “Let’s get on with the autopsy, Doc. We need more information to work with.”

  Maura crossed to the light box, removed the leg X-rays, and replaced them with the CT scan films. “Let’s turn her onto her back again.”

  This time, as Maura cut through the linen strips covering the torso, she wasted no effort on preservation. They now knew this was no ancient cadaver she was cutting into; this was a death investigation, and the answers lay not in the linen strips but in the flesh and bone itself. The cloth parted, revealing the torso’s brown and shrunken skin through which the outlines of ribs were visible, arching up in a bony vault beneath its parchment tent. Moving toward the head, Maura pried off the painted cartonnage mask and began to snip at the strips covering the face.

  Jane looked at the CT films hanging on the light box, then frowned at the exposed torso. “The organs are all taken out during mummification, right?”

  Robinson nodded. “Removal of the viscera slows down the process of putrefaction. It’s one of the reasons the bodies don’t decay.”

  “But there’s only one little wound on the belly.” Jane pointed to a small incision on the left, sewn closed by ungainly stitches.

  “How do you get everything out through that opening?”

  “That’s exactly how the Egyptians would have removed the viscera. Through a small wound on the left side. Whoever preserved this body was familiar with the ancient methods. And clearly adhered to them.”

  “What are these ancient methods? How, exactly, do you make a mummy?” asked Jane.

  Dr. Robinson looked at his associate. “Josephine knows more about it than I do. Maybe she’ll explain it.”

  “Dr. Pulcillo?” said Jane.

  The young woman still looked shaken by the discovery of the bullet. She cleared her throat and straightened. “A large part of what we know comes down to us from Herodotus,” she said. “I guess you could call him a Greek travel writer. Twenty-five hundred years ago, he roamed the ancient world and recorded what he learned. The problem is, he was known to get details wrong. Or get snookered by the local tour guides.” She managed a smile. “It makes him seem human, doesn’t it? He was like any tourist in Egypt today. Probably hounded by trinket sellers. Duped by crooked tour guides. Just another innocent abroad.”

  “What did he say about making mummies?”

  “He was told that it all starts with a ritual washing of the corpse in dissolved natron.”

  “Natron?”

  “It’s essentially a mixture of salts. You can reproduce it by blending plain old table salt and baking soda.”

  “Baking soda?” Jane gave an uneasy laugh. “I’ll never look at a box of Arm and Hammer the same way again.”

  “The washed body is then laid out on wooden blocks,” Pulcillo continued. “They use a razor-sharp blade of Ethiopian stone—probably obsidian—to slice a small incision like the one you see here. Then, with some sort of hooked instrument, they pull out the organs, dragging them out through the hole. The empty cavity is rinsed, and they pack dry natron inside. Natron is poured over the body as well, to dehydrate it for forty days. Sort of like salting a fish.” She paused, staring as Maura’s scissors cut through the last strips covering the face.

  “And then?” prodded Jane.

  Pulcillo swallowed. “By then it’s lost about seventy-five percent of its weight. The cavity is stuffed with linen and resin. The mummified internal organs might be returned as well. And…” She stopped, her eyes widening as the final wrappings fell away from the head.

  For the first time, they saw the face of Madam X.

  Long black hair was still affixed to the scalp. The skin was stretched taut over prominent cheekbones. But it was the lips that made Jane recoil. They had been sewn together with crude stitches, as though joined by the tailor of Frankenstein’s monster.

  Pulcillo shook her head. “That—that’s all wrong!”

  “The mouth isn’t usually sewn shut?” asked Maura.

  “No! How would you eat in the afterlife? How would you speak? This is like condemning her to eternal hunger. And eternal silence.”

  Eternal silence. Jane looked down at the ugly stitches and wondered: Did you say something to offend your killer? Did you speak back to him? Insult him? Testify against him? Is this your punishment, to have your lips bound together for eternity?

  The corpse now lay fully revealed, her body stripped of all wrappings, her flesh little more than shriveled skin clinging to bones. Maura sliced into the torso.

  Jane had witnessed Y-incisions before, and always before, she’d found herself recoiling from the odors as the blade first cut into the chest cavity. Even the freshest of corpses released a stench of decay, however faint, like the sulfurish scent of bad breath. Except that the subjects weren’t breathing. Dead breath was what Jane called it, and just a whiff of it could nauseate her.

  But Madam X emitted no such sickening odors as the knife cut into her thorax, as Maura methodically snapped apart ribs, as the chest wall was lifted like an ancient breastplate to reveal the chest cavity. What wafted up was a not-unpleasant scent that reminded her of incense. Instead of backing away, Jane leaned closer and took a deeper whiff. Sandalwood, she thought. Camphor. And something else, something that reminded her of licorice and cloves.

  “Now, this is not what I expected,” said Maura. She lifted a dried nugget of spice from the cavity.

  “It looks like star anise,” said Jane.

  “Not traditional, I take it?”

  “Myrrh would be traditional,” said Pulcillo. “Melted resin. It was used to mask the stench and help stiffen the corpse.”

  “Myrrh’s not exactly easy to obtain in large quantities,” said Robinson. “It might explain why substitute spices were used.”

  “Substitute or not, this body looks very well preserved.” Maura pulled wads of linen from the abdomen and placed them in a basin for later inspection. Staring into the hollowed-out torso, she said, “It’s as dry as leather in here. And there’s no odor of decay.”

  “So how will you figure out the cause of death?” asked Frost.

  “With no organs?”

  “I can’t. Not yet.”

  He looked at the CT scan on the light box. “What about the head? There’s no brain, either.”

  “The cranium’s intact. I didn’t see any fractures.”

  Jane stared at the corpse’s mouth, at the crude stitches sewing the lips together, and she winced at the thought of a needle piercing tender flesh. I hope it was done after death and not before. Not when she could feel it. Shuddering, she turned to look at the CT scan.

  “What’s this bright thing?” she said. “It looks like it’s in the mouth.”

  “There are two metallic densities in her mouth,” said Maura.

  “One appears to be a dental filling. But there’s also something in the oral cavity, something much larger. It may explain why her mouth was sewn shut—to secure that object in place.” She picked up scissors.

  The suture material was not mere thread, but dried leather, the strips rock-hard. Even after she’d cut through them, the lips adhered together as though permanently frozen in place, the mouth a tight slit that would have to be pried open.

  Maura introduced the tip of a hemostat bet
ween the lips, metal grating against teeth as she gently widened the opening. The jaw joint suddenly gave a shocking snap and Jane flinched as the mandible broke off. The lower jaw sagged open, revealing straight teeth that were so cosmetically perfect, any modern orthodontist would be proud to claim the alignment as his work.

  “Let’s see what this thing is in her mouth,” said Maura. Reaching in with the hemostat, she pulled out an oblong-shaped gold coin, which she set on the steel tray, where it landed with a soft clang. They all stared in astonishment.

  Jane suddenly burst out laughing. “Someone,” she said, “has a sick sense of humor.”

  Stamped on the gold were words in English:

  I VISITED THE PYRAMIDS

  CAIRO, EGYPT

  Maura turned over the object. On the reverse side were three engraved symbols: an owl, a hand, and a bent arm.

  “It’s a cartouche,” said Robinson. “A personal seal. They sell these souvenirs all over Egypt. Tell a jeweler your name, and he’ll translate it into hieroglyphs and engrave it right on the spot for you.”

  “What do these symbols mean?” asked Frost. “I see an owl. Is that like a sign of wisdom or something?”

  “No, these glyphs aren’t meant to be read as ideograms,” said Robinson.

  “What’s an ideogram?”

  “That’s a symbol that represents exactly what’s illustrated. For instance, a picture of a running man would mean the word run. Or two fighting men would mean the word war.”

  “And that’s not what these are?”

  “No, these symbols are phonograms. They represent sounds, like our own alphabet.”

  “So what does it say?”

  “This isn’t my area of expertise. Josephine can read it.” He turned to his colleague and suddenly frowned. “Are you feeling all right?”

  The young woman had gone as pale as any corpse that had ever been stretched out on the morgue table. She stared at the cartouche as though she saw some undreamed-of horror in those symbols.

  “Dr. Pulcillo?” said Frost.

  She glanced up sharply, as though startled to hear her name.

  “I’m fine,” she murmured.

  “What about these hieroglyphs?” Jane asked. “Can you read them?”

  Pulcillo’s gaze dropped back to the cartouche. “The owl—the owl is the equivalent of our M sound. And the little hand beneath it, that would sound like a D.”

  “And the arm?”

  Pulcillo swallowed. “It’s pronounced like a broad A. As in car.”

  “M-D-Ah? What kind of name is that?”

  Robinson said, “Something like Medea, maybe? That would be my guess.”

  “Medea?” said Frost. “Isn’t there some Greek tragedy written about her?”

  “It’s a tale of vengeance,” said Robinson. “According to the myth, Medea falls in love with Jason of the Argonauts, and they have two sons. When Jason leaves her for another woman, Medea retaliates by slaughtering her own sons and murdering her female rival. All to get back at Jason.”

  “What happens to Medea?” asked Jane.

  “There are various versions of the tale, but in them all, she escapes.”

  “After killing her own kids?” Jane shook her head. “That’s a lousy ending, having her go free.”

  “Perhaps that’s the point of the story: that some who commit evil never face justice.”

  Jane looked down at the cartouche. “So Medea’s a murderer.”

  Robinson nodded. “She’s also a survivor.”

  FIVE

  Josephine Pulcillo stepped off the city bus and walked in a daze along busy Washington Street, oblivious to the traffic and the relentless thump of car stereos. At the corner she crossed the road, and even the sharp squeal of tires skidding to a stop a few feet away did not shake her as deeply as what she had seen that morning, in that autopsy suite.

  Medea.

  Surely it was a coincidence. A startling one, but what else could it be? Most likely the cartouche wasn’t even an accurate translation. Trinket sellers in Cairo would tell you any tale in hopes of taking your dollars. Dangle enough money in front of them and they’d brazenly swear that Cleopatra herself had worn some worthless piece of junk. Perhaps the engraver had been asked to write Maddie or Melody or Mabel. It was far less likely that the hieroglyphs were meant to spell out Medea, since it was a name rarely heard except in the context of Greek tragedy.

  She flinched as a horn blared and turned to see a black pickup truck crawling along the street beside her. The window rolled down, and a young man called out: “Hey gorgeous, want a ride? There’s plenty of room on my lap!”

  One rude gesture involving her middle finger was all it took to let him know what she thought of his offer. He gave a laugh and the truck roared off, spewing exhaust. Her eyes were still watering from the fumes as she climbed the stairs and stepped into her apartment building. Pausing by the lobby mailboxes, she dug through her purse for her mailbox key and suddenly gave a sigh.

  She crossed to Apartment 1A and knocked.

  The door swung open and a bug-eyed alien peered out. “You found your keys yet?” the alien asked.

  “Mr. Goodwin? That is you, isn’t it?”

  “What? Oh, sorry. These old eyes aren’t what they used to be. Need Robocop glasses just to see the darn screw heads.” The building superintendent pulled off his pair of magnifying goggles, and the bug-eyed alien transformed to an utterly ordinary man in his sixties, unruly tufts of gray hair standing up on his head like miniature horns. “So did that key ring ever turn up?”

  “I’m sure I just misplaced it at work. I’ve managed to make copies of my car keys and apartment keys, but—”

  “I know. You want the new mailbox key, right?”

  “You said you’d have to change the lock.”

  “I did it this morning. Come on in and I’ll give you the new key.”

  Reluctantly, she followed him into his apartment. Once you stepped into Mr. Goodwin’s lair, it could be a good half hour before you escaped. Mr. Goodwrench was what the tenants called him, for reasons that were apparent as she walked into his living room—or what ought to be a living room. Instead it was a tinkerer’s palace, every horizontal surface covered with old hair dryers and radios and electronic gizmos in various stages of being dismantled or reassembled. Just a hobby of mine, he’d once told her. No need to throw anything away ever again. I can fix it for you!

  You just had to be willing to wait a decade or more for him to get around to it.

  “I hope you find that key ring of yours,” he said as he led her past dozens of repair projects gathering dust. “Makes me nervous, having loose apartment keys floating around out there. The world is full of creeps, you know. And did you hear what Mr. Lubin’s been saying?”

  “No.” She didn’t want to hear what grumpy Mr. Lubin across the hall had to say.

  “He’s seen a black car casing our building. It drives by real slow every afternoon, and there’s a man at the wheel.”

  “Maybe he’s just looking for a parking place. That’s the reason I hardly drive my car anywhere. Besides the price of gas, I hate giving up my parking spot.”

  “Mr. Lubin’s got a keen eye for these things. Did you know he used to work as a spy?”

  She gave a laugh. “Do you really think that’s true?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be? I mean, he wouldn’t lie about something like that.”

  You have no idea what some people lie about.

  Mr. Goodwin opened a drawer, setting off a noisy rattle, and pulled out a key. “Here you go. I’ll have to charge you forty-five bucks for changing the lock.”

  “Can I just add it to my rent check?”

  “Sure thing.” He grinned. “I trust you.”

  I’m the last person you should be trusting. She turned to leave.

  “Oh, wait. I got your mail here again.” He crossed to the cluttered dining room table and gathered up a stack of mail and a package, all bundled together with a rubb
er band. “The mailman couldn’t fit this into your box, so I told him I’d give it to you.” He nodded at the package. “I see you ordered something else from L.L. Bean, eh? You must like that company.”

  “Yes, I do. Thank you for holding my mail.”

  “So do you buy clothes or camping gear from them?”

  “Clothes, mostly.”

  “And they fit you okay? Even through the mail?”

  “They fit me fine.” With a tight smile, she turned to leave before he could start asking her where she bought her lingerie. “See you later.”

  “Me, I’d just as soon try on clothes before I buy ’em,” he said.

  “Never could get a decent fit through mail order.”

  “I’ll give you the rent check tomorrow.”

  “And you keep looking for those keys, okay? You’ve got to be careful these days, especially a pretty girl like you, living all alone. Not a good thing if your keys end up in the wrong hands.”

  She bolted out of his apartment and started up the stairs.

  “Hold on!” he called out. “There’s one more thing. I almost forgot to ask you. Do you know anyone named Josephine Sommer?”

  She froze on the steps, her arms clamped around the bundle of mail, her back rigid as a board. Slowly she turned to look at him. “What did you say?”

  “The mailman asked me if that might be you, but I told him no, your name was Pulcillo.”

  “Why—why did he ask that question?”

  “Because there’s a letter in there with your apartment number and the last name says Sommer, not Pulcillo. He figured it might be your maiden name or something. I told him you were single, as far as I knew. Still, it is your apartment number, and there aren’t too many Josephines around, so I figured it must be meant for you. That’s why I kept it in with the rest of your mail.”

  She swallowed. “Thank you,” she murmured.