Blood Lines

that."
    'All right, tell me this: Why aren't you picking Celluci's brain."
    'Picked clean. And, as he tells me you've taken him off the case, I just wondered why."
    'You've never just wondered anything in your life, Nelson, but, in view of past services and because I'm a nice guy, I'll tell you what I told him…"
    As he spoke, Vicki hid a frown. He was telling her exactly what he told Celluci, word for word, as though it were something he'd memorized and now repeated by rote. And try as she would, she couldn't get him to expand on it.
    Finally, she gave up and stood. "Well, thanks for the time and the coffee, but I've got to be…" A thick cream-colored envelope, its return address done in embossed gold ink caught her eye. "You going to a wedding?" she asked, picking it up.
    'I'm going to a Halloween party at the Solicitor General's." Cantree snatched it out of her hand and Vicki stared at him.
    'You're bullshitting me?"
    'Wouldn't dream of it." He slapped the envelope down on his blotter. "Apparently the Honorable Member's got some hot new adviser he wants everyone from department heads on up to meet."
    'Who?"
    'How should I know? I haven't met him yet. Some new guy in town with a lot of big ideas no doubt."
    Vicki reached down and twitched the invitation free. "The thirty-first. Next Saturday. Halloween. How nice, it's a costume party." She had an image of Inspector Cantree- who did look remarkably like James Earl Jones-dressed as Thulsa Doom, the villain of the first Conan movie, and hid a smile.

    'Sure, nice for you, you haven't been ordered to attend." He grimaced and Vicki barely managed to save her fingers as he swept both invitation and envelope into the top drawer of his desk. "The Chief says we're going, no excuses, and I hear the local OPP boys'll be there as well. Not to mention the goddamned Solicitor General's entire goddamned department." The grimace hardened into a scowl. "Just the way I look forward to spending a Saturday night, talking shop with a bunch of politicians and political cops."
    'And very powerful people…" She caught the Inspector's expression and grinned, masking a sudden rush of apprehension. "I see you at least got enough notice to get your loins properly girded."
    'You leave my loins out of this. And the damn thing came by special courier this morning."
    'Special courier? Don't you find that a little strange?"
    He snorted. "Ours is not to reason why…" The rest of the quote got lost in the shrilling of the phone and she mouthed, I'll see myself out , as she backed toward the door.
    Out on the street, Vicki looked back at Headquarters and shook her head. I've got a bad feeling about this .
    Sometimes, only a cliche" seemed adequate.
    Chapter Eight
    'Did you ever find those papers you misplaced?"
    'Papers?" Celluci asked, holding open the restaurant door.
    'The papers your cousin came over to the museum for." Dr. Shane shook her head at his blank expression. "You called her yesterday, asked her to check for them at the museum after work…?"
    All at once, Celluci understood. "Oh, that cousin. Those papers." He wondered if Vicki had left him in the dark on purpose or if it just hadn't occurred to her to fill him in on their new relationship. "They turned up this afternoon at the office. I guess I should've called to let you know." He tried a charming smile and made a mental note to take care of Vicki later. "I did call to ask you to dinner."
    'So you did."
    She didn't appear particularly charmed, but neither did she appear completely immune.
    Celluci was having a little trouble deciding how to approach the evening. Rachel Shane could have information that would help them find and capture the mummy, which meant he'd have to question her and, to complicate matters, he couldn't question her directly or she'd want to know why. He couldn't tell her why.
    "Look, this is where things stand: the mummy that killed Dr. Rax is now rampaging through the city and we need your knowledge to catch it. "
    "And where did this mummy come from?"
    "The sarcophagus in your workroom. "
    "But I told you that was empty. "
    "The mummy messed with your mind. "
    "Excuse me, waiter, could you call 911? I'm having dinner with a crazy man. "

    No. Telling her would merely cut off the only source of information they had. A scientist trained to pull knowledge out of bits of old bone and pottery simply wouldn't believe that a few of those old bones got up and committed murder on the say-so of a homicide detective, a