Dead Hunt

yet.’’
‘‘That’s odd.’’ It was the only comment Jacobs made. He had not yet even asked any questions.
Diane took him up to the second floor and into the room housing the Egyptian exhibit. She wanted him to see what they had now, so he would understand why they only wanted certain artifacts and not the ones that were sitting in the conservation lab.
Diane loved walking into the room housing the exhibit. It was like entering ancient Egypt. The walls were painted like the walls of an Egyptian tomb. But upon entering, the visitor’s gaze first fell on Neva’s reconstruction of their mummy, a scribe, they had concluded, sitting cross-legged on a pedestal in the middle of the room as if he were about to take up his sharpened reed and write on the papyrus lying in his lap.
The mummy whose likeness greeted visitors was in a closed anthropomorphic Egyptian coffin housed inside a glass case away from the hands of curious visitors. Above him on the wall were photographs of him before and after he was rewrapped and placed back in his coffin.
Along another wall sat a glass display case for the amulets that had been wrapped with the mummy. Each now had its own pedestal. Acquiring them had been a coup for Kendel. The museum had inherited the mummy—a survivor from a Victorian unwrapping party and handed down through a family until the last surviving member gave it to the museum. Another branch of the family had owned the good-luck amulets from inside the wrappings. Kendel had negotiated their purchase: an alabaster scarab that probably once resided over the mummy’s heart, several small alabaster and lapis lazuli fish figurines, an inscribed sandstone cylinder with the name Senwosret III, two faience figures, several limestone figurines, and black steatite shabtis .
The exhibit contained a diorama based on life in twelfth-dynasty Egypt, including an entire miniature Egyptian
Egyptian
town, highlighting a scribe’s house. The room was one of the most popular in the museum.
‘‘Our mummy is from the twelfth dynasty,’’ said Diane. ‘‘This is a learning museum and we didn’t want an unrelated assortment of Egyptian artifacts from all over the historical timeline. We decided to specialize in twelfth-dynasty items. That is what we ordered and that is what the documents said we had. That is not what arrived.’’
‘‘It’s an excellent exhibit,’’ he said, peering at the amulets. He looked up sharply. ‘‘So, Golden Antiquities sent the wrong items?’’ He pulled out a chair from one of the computer terminals and sat down.
Diane took another chair and sat across from him. ‘‘Yes, but the items they sent were similar to what we ordered. That’s what’s so odd,’’ said Diane.
‘‘So someone sent authentic documents to provide provenance for artifacts that were switched.’’
‘‘But that wouldn’t have worked,’’ said Diane.
She went over the same arguments with him as she had with Frank—how more than one person verified the provenances, how she herself signed off on everything that arrived at the museum, how the museum pretty much displayed everything it owned.
‘‘No one could get away with using this museum to launder antiquities,’’ said Diane.
She studied him as she spoke, wondering whether she could trust him. In the end she decided to wait to tell him about her attacker and what he had said. She stood up.
‘‘Jonas’ office is across the way here.’’
Jonas Briggs was in his office and Diane introduced him to Agent Jacobs. He seemed to be waiting for them, the way he answered his door so quickly. Andie must have called. Jonas was a retired professor from Bartram University. He had white hair, a toothbrush mustache to match, and white bushy eyebrows over crystal blue eyes. He was dressed in jeans and one of the ubiquitous Richard III T-shirts.
‘‘This is just terrible,’’ said Jonas. ‘‘Just terrible. Kendel and I were looking forward to the new artifacts.’’ He shook his head and offered them a seat.
‘‘Actually, I would like to see the artifacts and the documents first. Will you be here for a while?’’ asked Agent Jacobs.
‘‘I can be,’’ said Jonas.
‘‘Good. So you are an Egyptologist?’’ said Jacobs.
‘‘No. My field is southeastern U.S. archaeology. However, I have taken to learning Egyptology. I’ve always liked it.’’
‘‘Did you negotiate the purchase of the objects?’’ asked Jacobs.
‘‘No. I can’t negotiate the