Barbara Silkstone - Wendy Darlin 04 - Miami Mummies (3 page)

My hackles stood at attention. “Who’s MacGuffin?”

He coughed juicily, sputum hitting the phone in little splats. “My transition coach. Now let’s get back to the favor you owe me.”

There was only one thing I could possibly owe Alfred Hiccup… his
Bronco Buster
. Hic had entrusted me with his early cast of Remington’s
Bronco Buster
last summer. The thirty-two-inch high statue was worth at least a quarter million. Remington cast only ninety of them in bronze. One of them resided in the Oval Office, one of the reasons that Hic’s was very special to him. The darn thing was stolen while in my care as a volunteer coordinator for a charity exhibition for retired Florida cowboys.

I tried to escape the trap I felt closing around me. “Don’t be silly. You’re not dying. You’re peppery as hell.”

He growled, “An art dick located my bronco. I want you to steal it back. Get your ass up to Nashville now. I’m at the Thornhill. I’ll put you up for the night. We’ll work on a tactical plan for the repossession.”

“I was a witness to a murder today. The police said not to leave town.”

“There’s a late flight out of Miami International. Be on it.”

The hands on my White Rabbit watch read seven on the pink nose. I was sticky from the crime scene and slimy from McKenna’s probing. Plenty of time to get across the causeway to my Miami Beach apartment, shower, change, and pack before meeting Tippy at eight-thirty.

I used the Bluetooth link in my Jag to make a plane reservation on the last flight to Nashville via my cell phone. With that accomplished, I was able to devote more of my energy to fretting. I was on the causeway but barely moving. The Friday Traffic Gods had nailed me. I squirmed, tapped my fingernails on the dashboard, and mumbled unladylike words. None of it helped. We proceeded at stop-and-crawl all the way to the end of the causeway where a fender-bender had idiot rubberneckers gawking instead of driving.

That burned up an hour. Collins Avenue would be a mess so I had to meet Tippy before going to my apartment. I’d keep it short then go home, pack, and head to the airport. I should have blown Tippy off but she was a big-bucks client in some kind of trouble and said she needed me. I don’t have it in me to leave people in the lurch, even when they weren’t my favorite people.

Goldie and I fought our way south on Collins to Spellbound, an upscale club specializing in dark private booths. I didn’t have time to fool with valet parking so I pulled into an empty slot next to the valet stand and wedged a twenty in the attendant’s hand. “I’m keeping my keys. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

I tripped as I walked from marble to carpet but caught myself on the hostess stand. The slender brunette shot me a condescending smile. “Wendy?” I nodded and she led me to a back booth where Tippy was sipping white wine.

I slid into the booth. The dainty debutante pushed a glass of white wine toward me. She lowered her nearly empty glass and glared at me. “You owe me big time.”

She knew how to get my dander up. “I don’t owe you jack. A deal is a deal. I did my part by bringing the owners of the Bates Hotel to the table at a great price, about thirty percent below market. Thanks to my sources, you knew they were in a tight spot and would take a deep discount for a quick deal. It’s not my fault you didn’t commission a routine archaeological field survey in accordance with the historic preservation code. Your dad knew better…”

Tears trickling down her cheeks stopped my tirade. She wiped her eyes with her drink napkin. “That was my fault. Daddy left that up to me and I messed up. Now I have mummies. Not one but two friggin’ mummies!” She threw her hands in the air dumping the last drops of her Pinot Grigio on the table. “And worse, I have Indians on the warpath.”

I winced. I guess when you grow up with as much money as Tippy, political correctness isn’t always on your mind. Now that she’d raised the subject of Native Americans, the face of the dead guy struck a note. “Is the Bates deal related to what happened in the garage?”

She nodded. “I don’t know how they found out, but a few days after the mummies were found, we got a call from a Semaphore tribal elder. He claimed the land was a burial ground for the old Tequesta tribe and should not be further disturbed. We told him it was our land and we’d do what we wanted with it once the mummy hoax was cleared up. The tribe has become ever more threatening since then. I found a tomahawk on my doorstep this morning.”

“That doesn’t sound legit. They might as well leave their address for the cops. A tomahawk is a joke.”

“The guy in the garage today wasn’t a joke. Nor was this.” She pulled her Hermès scarf aside revealing bruises on her neck that could have been made by somebody grabbing her throat.

I grasped her hand. “Oh my God, Tippy. What happened?”

“My architect is in a building right around the corner from that garage so it’s the easiest place to park. I stepped out of my car and there was this Indian, ranting about how we weren’t going to dishonor his ancestors and the graves and a bunch of stuff I couldn’t understand. He was crazy or on drugs or something. I tried to get back in my car. He grabbed me by the neck. I managed to get my knife out of my purse. I only wanted to scare him but he squeezed my neck harder and pushed. I fell back and he kind of fell on the knife and then rolled over. I started screaming and you showed up. Then I went downtown and gave my statement. Did you know they can lift fingerprints from your skin?”

“What’s the story on the knife?”

“I always carry it. Daddy didn’t want me to carry a gun… figured I’d shoot myself in the foot or something so he gave me a switchblade for my birthday. No way was this guy expecting a shiv. Surprise.”

A
shiv
? Who had this Bal Harbour babe been hanging with?

“Any idea about how he knew where to find you?”

She stared into her empty wine glass. “I don’t know. He must have followed me.” The waiter appeared at her side and filled the glass.

For the first time since I arrived, I took stock of her. She looked perfect in a cream-colored suit with dolman sleeves and a row of tiny gold buttons down the front. I wasn’t going to ask how she did it. She probably had three servants rush over to Miami PD and dress and groom her before she left.

A glint of steel showed in her eyes like I’d never seen in her before. “But I’m going to do this project. For Daddy. And for me.” Then she slid back into her usual personality. “But some boy-genius has decided the mummies might be from another civilization. The history nuts are coming out of the woodwork. I can’t put a toy shovel in the ground much less heavy equipment. I’m sure these mummies are red herons.”

I gritted my teeth. “Herrings. Red herrings.” Idiots and idioms.

Tippy rubbed me the wrong way more than once. She had some sort of borderline personality disorder. I was surprised the INS hadn’t picked her up yet.

She snapped, “Whatever. Anyway, I didn’t commission a friggin’ study. And if I hire just
any
archaeologist or let the state’s bone-spinner step in I might as well just hand over the land. They’ll declare it a historic site, give me ten bucks, pat me on the ass, and send me down the road.”

She chugged her wine.

Her hands fluttered erratically like moths. She babbled. “The construction plans are inked and stamped. I’ve agreed to all the bids and signed the contract to demolish the Bates. A delay will wipe me out financially and Daddy will roll over in his grave.” She belted back the last mouthful of wine.

To her the mummies were an inconvenience but I was intrigued. Florida history recounted an early Tequesta settlement at the mouth of the Miami River marked by a previous find called the Miami Circle. That site lay just blocks east of the Bates land. The discovery of mummies might indicate the initial inhabitants weren’t Tequestas. Her site might end up an expensive park donated to the state by the Henman family.

“What have they got so far?” I asked.

“Two hours into tearing out the parking lot, they found a bunch of stuff in the bucket of a backhoe. Then up comes the head of a sitting mummy. The superintendent thought it was evidence of a murder. Bingo, within fifteen minutes some smartass from the governor’s office closes down the site. The state archaeologist’s gophers found two sitting mummies.”

“Sitting mummies?”

“Yeah. Sitting. Weird.”

“The state was going to leave the mummies in the ground until the chief archaeologist returned from god-knows-where to supervise their removal and certify the mummies are Tequestas. Instead they packed them off to the San Sebastian Lab in Florida City.” She waved the waiter for another round. I passed.

“The state has shut down the site and is jockeying to force me to sell the land to them so they can begin to excavate and look for more artifacts. The governor’s office is moving too fast. There’s a fix in somewhere.”

I knew if the state took the land, it could later swap it for wetlands or other sensitive land. So if somebody owned that kind of property and had somebody working on the inside in the state hierarchy, that somebody could end up with the Bates land for a fraction of what Tippy’s father paid for it. So Tippy could be on the right track.

“How did the governor’s office get involved so quickly?”

Tippy ran her finger around the edge of the glass, dunked a pinky in the wine, pulled it out, and sucked on it. Removing her finger she said, “A man worthy of Slytherin, Senator Harry Grant, showed up within forty-eight hours of the discovery of the mummies. He was accompanied by a brand new assistant, a bottle redhead with ice water in her veins.”

“And you know this how?”

“I recognize the color. She’s doing it herself.”

“I mean the ice-water vein thingie.”

“She looks all uppity and tall and perfect. You know the type, cold and bitchy,” Tippy spoke through her wine. She was stewed. “The bitch seems to be the brains behind Grant or his son. She’s barely had time to sharpen one pencil and she’s handing out orders.”

I slumped in my seat. Something wasn’t kosher. The Senator had his hands in more dirt than on-site digs. He fought tooth and nail for this site, but lost out to Tippy’s father in the bidding war. I thought he gave up and went off to lick his wounds, but maybe not.

Senator Grant’s son was a Tallahassee lobbyist with an amputated conscience. Father and son were known for having perfect timing. They were often on the scene before the scene occurred. Their hotline sizzled twenty-four/seven with secret deals.

“Senator Grant’s a big time developer first and a sworn servant of the people last. You’re right; this is taking on the odor of expired sushi.”

Tippy stared at her empty wine glass. “And I’m sure that even after tonight’s incident, the Semaphore Indian tribe will continue to strong-arm me. They want me to deed the land over to them so they can prevent the site from being exploited. Free and freakin’ clear. I’m supposed to just hand it to their tribe. They say that disturbing the mummified ruins would end the spirit journey… like they didn’t leave for the happy hunting grounds centuries ago.”

I swallowed the last of my wine. “Semaphores?”

“The signaling tribe for the Seminole Nation. A radical spinoff tribe.”

This was all new to me, including Florida mummies.

The waiter deposited a full wine glass in front of Tippy, scooped up both empties, then stared at me. Was he flirting or memorizing my face? I turned away. No sense in making it easy for him either way.

Tippy drank half the glass in one huge cheek-puffing gulp, wiped her mouth with her sleeve smearing her red lipstick across her face. She looked over her right and then her left shoulder and leaned in for a whisper.

“I’ve followed your adventures in the Miami Herald. Cute sidekick you got. Looks a hell of a lot like Johnny Depp.”

She poked a manicured finger at me. “Here’s what I want from you. You and your hunky sidekick get to the bottom of the mummy pit. He declares them bogus and I get my land untangled. Do it like… yesterday. Otherwise, I will see you in court.”

“You have no grounds to sue me. You had ninety days to run a fine-tooth comb over that property. The ball is in your court.” I bit back the word
bitch
as I tripped over my clichés.

“Grounds, schmounds. Either you make those mummies disappear or lawyer up.”

I was in the right, but that never means a darn thing. I could spend months or even years in court defending the print on the agreements Tippy signed. I felt my shoulders slump as they made room for the migraine that flew up my nostrils.

She poked her finger at me again. “I need an unbiased examination of those mummies. Something doesn’t smell right. If I hire a professional archaeologist or let the state do it I might as well roll over right now. I want those rag dolls discredited before the state forces me to sell or the Indians kill me. I promised Daddy I would build that high-rise and I meant it.”

“Your lawsuit doesn’t scare me.” The lie “But those mummies interest me.” The truth. “When Roger returns, we’ll look into them.” I stood. “Now I have a plane to catch.”

I had no idea when Roger would be back but immediately wasn’t soon enough.

I caught six red lights on the way home and breezed through the rest. My garage door eased open and I pulled Goldie into her dehumidified home. It was a cool sixty degrees and tight as a tomb. Sure the utility bills might fuel a jumbo jet from Miami to… well… Palm Beach, but it kept my car happy.

No time for a shower if I was to make that last flight. I’d clean up at Hic’s hotel. I gobbled a quart of mango ice cream, threw pajamas and a robe in an over-night bag along with jeans and a sweater, and non-sexy undies. Speed changing into dark brown slacks, a chocolate-colored silk knit turtleneck, and brown Ferragamo flats, I flipped a yellow pashmina around my neck for a pop of color and flung my London Fog trench coat over my shoulder. The power cord slipped in the side pocket of my laptop case and I threw both bags in Goldie’s front passenger seat.

As I backed my car out of the garage a shadow slipped behind the building. I flashed my high beams but caught nothing in the lights. It could be my imagination or one of the dozens of dog-walking dames who followed their pooches with little plastic poop bags they never used. The shadow crossed in front of my door. It had to be a neighbor.