Krewe of Hunters 7 The Unspoken (23 page)

“Of course,” Kat said.

She slipped into the room, aware that Kelsey had followed and stood just behind her.

Abel Leary was probably in his late twenties. There was an IV in his arm, heart monitor attached, the instrument panel at his side humming its watchful rhythm. His eyes were closed when they entered, and Kat said his name very softly. His lids flickered for a moment, then his eyes opened and he stared at her.

“Hello.” His eyes closed and he winced. He slowly opened them again. “Are you an angel?” he asked in a raw, husky voice.

“Mr. Leary, I’m Kat Sokolov and I’m with the FBI. This is my colleague, Kelsey O’Brien. We’re trying to catch whoever did this to you. We’re desperate for any help you can give us.”

His eyes closed once more.

“I shot myself,” he said. “Didn’t you see? I shot myself.”

“Why would you shoot yourself, Mr. Leary? Did you see Amanda Channel when she came in?”

He winced again, obviously in pain.

His eyes met hers. “No,” he said. “I didn’t see Amanda Channel.”

“What
did
you see, Mr. Leary? What did you see that caused you to shoot yourself?”

He was silent again for a minute. “No one will believe me,” he said.

“We’ll believe you, Mr. Leary. We’re trying to get to the bottom of this.”

“They said it was cursed,” he murmured.

“What happened? We’re open to anything you have to say, I swear,” Kat told him.

He looked at her again and seemed to really focus on her. “Are you sure you’re not an angel? Hey, if I get out of here, do you want to have dinner?”

“Please,” Kat said. “We need to be serious.”

He looked away, gazing at the heart monitor. “I heard something and I got up. I was stunned. It was coming from the climate-controlled room.”

“What was coming?” Kat asked.

“
It
was coming. It—it didn’t stumble…. It came toward me, moving slowly. Steadily. I got up from the guard desk. I just stared at it. And then I drew my gun, but not fast enough. It was on me, and was strong…so strong. It got hold of my hand and the gun and I was trying to shoot it…but it was stronger. It twisted the gun. I remember the pain….”

“What was
it,
Mr. Leary?” Kat persisted.

He curled his lips in a sardonic expression as if mocking himself. “The mummy. It was the mummy. Old Amun Mopat must have crawled right out of his coffin thing. It was the mummy, and it made me shoot myself. It was the mummy.”

* * *

Before they could leave the station, Will received a call from Earl Candy.

“You’re not going to believe this,” he said.

“What?” Will asked, bracing himself.

“The remote. The guys called in from the security boat. They were watching the remote and the screen went dark—and then it cleared again. But there was no movement, and one of the bozos finally realized that nothing was changing down there. Like, like the fish were in the same spot forever. They played with the lens but didn’t get anything. Someone was down there, Will. Someone was down at the wreck site, and they destroyed my remote!”

“What time was that?”

“Damned if anyone knows. The guys didn’t. And the time on the film footage was stopped. They realized it about twenty minutes ago, called me and I’m calling you.”

“We’ll get down there and check on it in the morning,” Will said. “Can’t do it any earlier than that.”

“Yeah, it’s almost dark. I wouldn’t want anyone dying over a remote, but what the hell? Someone’s been down there.”

“We’ll get on it first thing, Earl,” Will promised again.

He speculated as he watched Landry. The man didn’t act as if he was afraid he might have been the object of a conversation. Of course, Will had been careful.

“Let’s go,” Will said. He collected Tyler, who’d finished with Simonton and let him go. As they drove to the dock, he tried to calculate the timing. The remote camera
could
have been disconnected hours ago. That would have given Landry all morning to be out at the wreck.

At the dock in the boathouse, Landry seemed almost impatient to bring Will and Tyler over to his underwater propulsion device. On the way to the heavy steel shelving where he kept a number of his diving toys, they passed Landry’s various pleasure boats.

He could see water on one of the Sea Ray speedboats,
Lake Shark.

It looked as if the boat had been out—and not long ago.

But Landry didn’t even notice it; he was leading them to the steel shelving.

“There. It’s right there. Where it’s supposed to be. And it’s—”

He stopped dead, his hand reaching toward the motorized device.

“It’s wet,” Tyler said.

“I wasn’t using it! I’m telling you, I haven’t had the damned thing out all season. Look, I don’t even keep this boathouse locked. There are always too many people working in and around here who need access. I mean, we lock up at night, but during the day…”

He stared at the faces around him.

“I think we need to go back to the station,” Will said.

“I think I need to call my lawyer.”

“Fine. He can meet us down there.”

* * *

Kat returned to the hotel with Kelsey; it was seven o’clock and they were due to gather in the suite, where Logan had arranged for room service.

Dirk Manning seemed happy. He had a room adjacent to the suite, so he knew that Kelsey or Logan or both could reach him in less than a minute if necessary. He was in bed by the time they got back to the hotel.

Only Will and Tyler hadn’t shown up yet. Seated together, the others went over the events of the day.

They realized by then that a search warrant had been executed on Stewart Landry’s home, his office, car and property.

Strips of ancient linen had been hidden in a secret compartment of his glove box. That seemed the clincher, despite the fact that Landry continued to bitterly disclaim all knowledge of anyone using his UPD or his boat. Or, for that matter, his car. What they’d found had nothing to do with him, he said.

He had never killed anyone. He’d never caused anyone to suffer an accidental death, and he was completely innocent.

But he was being held overnight while charges were prepared against him.

Kat didn’t know why she didn’t feel relieved, but when Will returned with Tyler Montague, she saw that he didn’t seem particularly relieved, either.

While they ate, the conversation revolved around Landry.

“How did he get hold of linen wrapping used for mummy preparation that was thousands of years old?” Kat murmured. “Even if he claims he didn’t know anything about it…”

“It’s possible that he was in on it with Amanda,” Logan said. “We know she called his company countless times during the past month.”

“Okay, so we think Amanda supplied him with Brady’s information regarding his search for the
Jerry McGuen?
”
Kat asked.

“She really didn’t have to,” Sean told her. “I studied his social networks and his website today. Not long after that party the Sand Diggers had, Brady published his reasons for believing the ship could be found. He’d used weather reports from the era and pertinent weather and lake information throughout the following decades. In other words, he made his theories public. And, using what he wrote, someone who knows the lake—like a salvage diver—could have gone through his calculations and come up with the same approximate findings.”

“Which brings us back to Landry,” Will said thoughtfully. “The guy must be one hell of an actor, though. He really looked shocked when we found his gear wet—and that his boat had been out.”

“How did it go with Andy Simonton?” Logan asked.

“Simonton was forthright and told me he’d been at the lecture and that it was ‘tremendously interesting’—his words. He said, though, that Dr. McFarland was a jerk, pompous and full of himself,” Tyler replied.

“Well, Landry’s being held overnight,” Logan said. “We’ll see what a night in lockup will do. Maybe we’ll learn more tomorrow.”

“Someone tampered with the remote camera today,” Will reported. “I’m going back down in the morning.”

Kat frowned. “Here’s what I don’t see. All right, so say Amanda was Landry’s Egyptologist and that she got him the mummy wrapping, which she must have had access to at various points during her career. Then he starts to worry about her for some reason. He gets into the center because she lets him in. He kills her, and then goes for Abel Leary, the guard. But, according to Abel, the guy who made him shoot himself—the supposed mummy—was strong. Landry isn’t that young. Could he be that strong?”

“I guess he’s got lots of stamina,” Tyler said in a wry voice. “He has a wife—and he’s apparently having an affair with his young receptionist. Although how he thinks he’s hiding it from his wife, I don’t know. Hey, has anyone talked with Mrs. Landry?”

“Yes, I spoke with her this afternoon,” Logan said. He shrugged. “She figured out that her husband worked the hours he worked because he was having an affair with Sherry. She’s ready to throw him to the wolves. She said that nothing she knew pegged him for a murderer, but she couldn’t alibi him for any time period.”

“Couldn’t—or wouldn’t,” Sean added.

“There’s just something that doesn’t feel right.” Kat looked at Will. “If you’re going down tomorrow, I am, too.”

She talked to them about the icebreaker, the
Egyptian,
and how the captain had believed that Amun Mopat’s scepter had been the source of his power. He might well have rammed the
Jerry McGuen
with his ship and suffered a bout of madness before setting out on another stormy night soon after—and meeting his own demise.

“Still…could anyone believe that today? That an
object
could be the source of incredible power?” Kelsey asked skeptically.

“Hey, could anyone believe that a mummy—rotting for thousands of years—could possibly attack them?” Tyler countered.

“Maybe the scepter did have power, but not the way ancients Egyptians thought it did,” Kat said. “That kind of crystal could catch sunlight. It could even have been used to start a fire on a bed of dried tinder. The thing is, Captain Ely accepted it. And I have to conclude that the scepter is what our killer considers the greatest treasure of the
Jerry McGuen.
” She paused. “Precisely why, I don’t know.”

They discussed that and various other possibilities, then broke for the night.

* * *

Kat and Will didn’t even pretend they were doing anything other than going to one room.

Kat wanted to spend a little time with the cat, but Bastet was no longer in either of their rooms. Before she could worry, Logan appeared at her door to tell her he’d come to fetch the cat and her equipment earlier. Bastet seemed to bring Dirk Manning a measure of comfort, so he was letting the cat stay with him for now.

When Logan was gone, Kat grinned at Will. She didn’t have to speak. They showered together, made love and lay still, talking quietly. The next day would be a long one.

Stewart Landry was being held in jail. They’d found his UPD and his boat wet—both had been out on the lake. It fit; someone had tampered with the remote that day. And mummy wrappings had been recovered from his car. All signs seemed to point to him. She should have rested well.

But she didn’t.

The dream began, but this time, when the wall of darkness turned into the face of Amun Mopat, he was real, and he spoke to her again.

Even in her dream she paused to wonder how an ancient Egyptian spoke English so well. She didn’t understand that, but they communicated with ease.

“Stop them. There is no power. There is no curse, and there is no power. People kill for what they believe, not for what is real.”

As he spoke, the wall of water started coming toward her, closer and closer.

“We’ve found the man,” she said. “It’s over. A full-blown salvage effort will begin, and all the treasures will come up. No one man will claim them. They’ll eventually be returned to the Egyptian people.”

The water was still coming.

“I have tried. I have prayed,” he said. “My scepter was nothing but a way to keep the laws of a good man, perhaps harsh at times, in a different world.”

The water poured over them.

Kat heard screams, and realized she was the one screaming.

Will was at her side, holding her, shushing her, whispering that she needed to breathe.

As she felt his warmth and his strength, she looked into his dark, concerned eyes. “It’s not over, Will,” she told him. “It’s not over.”

“How do you know?” he asked gently.

“The mummy told me.”

14

T
he next morning, Will and Kat went out to the dive site with Sean and Tyler. They met Earl, Alan and Bernie at the dock, where they boarded Captain Bob’s boat.

The night Amanda was killed, Jon Hunt had been in such a state that he’d been sedated for the past few days. He didn’t ever want to go back to the wreck, he insisted. He didn’t know what would happen now, but he wasn’t going back down.

Bernie, too, seemed depressed. On the way out to the site he told Will, “I love Alan. He’s a great guy. He likes to film and preserve history. But all these people dying—I can’t take it. I think I need to go back to working on frivolous comedies, the kind full of silly fart jokes and sexual innuendoes.”

Will wasn’t sure what to say to him, so he just patted him on the shoulder.

At the site, they all went down together, including Jimmy Green. Will noted that Kat paused at the salon, but when she saw that he was waiting for her, she shook her head, eyes enormous behind her mask.

They dived deeper, and he joined Earl and Sean at the remote camera. Earl was maneuvering it, irritated as he showed Sean and Will the switch that had been jammed, freezing the image of fish swimming around the hold.

Will motioned to him to fix the switch and leave the camera there. Earl frowned, but then shrugged.

Will realized that Bernie had taken over with one of the underwater cameras while Earl worked on the remote.

It might all be worthy of a documentary, although not the one that had originally been planned. He had a feeling that the documentary was no longer going to focus on ancient treasure.

Instead, it would focus on the lust for power.

Kat was hovering in the hold, barely moving, and staring at one of the doors. He swam toward her, and she pointed, but he wasn’t sure what she saw.

They swam to the door. There, with the power of the water, the door had been solidly wedged shut. It seemed to fascinate Kat, however, so he worked at it. A moment later, Tyler and Sean came to help.

Between them, they shoved the door open against the force of the water and the rusted hinges. They could hear the creaking, even in the water, as it moved.

Tyler flashed his headlight into the hold room that was now open as Will gave a slight kick and eased himself in. At first, he saw nothing other than more crates, piled on top of each other.

Then he saw something that gleamed beneath the light.

He swam down to retrieve it. He turned the object over in his hands. It was no great artifact from the age of the pharaohs.

It was a dive knife, shiny and new.

They might have had difficulty with the door, but it had been opened before—and then closed, jammed tight against the hold. He gestured at Tyler, and they returned to the others just as Jimmy Green tapped his wrist, indicating that they’d run out of time.

They surfaced, using the same care they’d taken with their descent.

Back on the boat, Will produced the knife and they all studied it. Even Captain Bob came over to look. “Oh, that’s a local manufacturer,” he said. “It’s an Everstone.” Everyone stared at him. “Everstone Dive Accessories. They’re just off Lake Shore Drive, near the park,” he said. “They sell spear guns, compasses, suits, regulators—you name it. They manufacture for the entire lake region. See—there’s their little insignia on the back.”

“Well, I think we found out how Brady Laurie was ‘helped’ to drown,” Kat murmured.

“We’ll get over there as soon as we’re back,” Will said in an equally quiet voice.

Later, as they were on their way to shore, they sat near the bow, where they had at least a little privacy.

“How did you know?” he asked her.

She gave him a lopsided grin. “Okay, even for us, this sounds crazy. Last night I told you about Amun Mopat being in my dream? Now, none of us is really sure we’ve hit the mark with Stewart Landry, and that kind of worry could cause a dream—or a nightmare. I know that. But today, when we were down there…I could swear I saw him again.”

“Him? Amun Mopat, you mean?”

“Yes. He’s not some ugly wizened creature with an evil look on his face, the way he was portrayed in the movies. He was relatively young when he died, or young for us—about forty. He has the face you see on his death mask. Intense dark eyes…” She paused. “A bit like yours, really, although he wears much more makeup.”

“Ouch. I don’t wear makeup at all!” he protested.

She smiled. “I know. You have a similar dark coloring—but don’t worry, I’m not seeing you as his reincarnation or anything. I’m seeing him, I think, because he
wasn’t
evil, he didn’t bring about death. He just found his place at the pharaoh’s side, and tried to serve him and their people. Anyway, he was trying to make me see the door. That’s why I knew there had to be something behind it.” She smiled again. “This is one thing that makes me crazy. You know how in movies about aliens they’re always familiar with English? Well, either that or they’ve come down to kill us all. The thing is, I understand him when he speaks.”

“Maybe language doesn’t matter when we’re dealing with the sixth sense.”

“I guess. But I feel that the real Amun Mopat has been hovering around
my
sixth sense from the beginning. Maybe I only saw him in nightmares because after our experience with the
movie
version of Amun Mopat, I thought he had to be purely evil.”

“You’re probably right.”

“I just feel he’s trying to tell me something.”

“Then he will do so,” Will told her, “when he’s ready.”

He rose; he was still in his swim trunks but he could hear his phone ringing from the helm, where he’d left it.

“Landry is out,” Logan told him, not bothering with a greeting.

“What? How?”

“Ms. Sherry Bertelli. She came into the office, tearful and swearing that he couldn’t have been out in his boat or using any kind of device yesterday morning. He was closeted with her, working on…work,” Logan said.

“Did anyone else verify that?”

“Well, Landry swore he’d been working.”

“Why didn’t he give Sherry as his alibi before?” Will asked.

“Maybe he thought his wife really didn’t know. Maybe Landry thought it was better to be held on murder charges than to admit to a very angry wife that he was having an affair,” Logan said. “Or…maybe he was waiting for Sherry.”

Will gritted his teeth. “She’s lying for him. She’s sleeping with the guy, and he’s probably paying her to lie for him. Logan, they found the mummy wrap in his car!”

“He swears it was planted there.”

“We’re on our way back,” he said. “See you soon.”

He hung up and told Kat the news.

“But they’re lying. They’re obviously lying.”

“Well, at the moment—despite the mummy wrap—everything we’re looking at is circumstantial evidence. Remember, a district attorney, or a federal attorney, has to prove the accused party’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. So far, it seems evident to us that Brady was drowned, and while we know that Amanda was poisoned, she
could
simply have eaten shellfish without being aware of it. And Austin Miller
did
die of heart failure. The only witness we have is going to sound crazy, because he says a mummy made him shoot himself, and he has Landry’s wide-eyed mistress to back him up on that because
she
believes she saw a mummy at the Sand Diggers’ maze. Which, of course, we believe, too—though we don’t think it was an actual mummy,” Will said.

“Where does that leave us?” Kat asked.

“Continuing to investigate.” Will hesitated. “And, probably, now that two of the center’s experts are dead and the third is an emotional wreck, the board of directors will have to hire new experts and arrange for serious equipment to move forward with the salvage. Unless they choose to give up their bid to work the site.”

“No one will do that,” Kat said with certainty.

“So, we keep looking,” Will said. “We just go back over all of it until we find out what we’re missing.”

“Or…we find the scepter.”

* * *

At the hotel, the divers showered. Logan and Kelsey were at the police station reviewing all the information that had been gathered, and Jane was at the hospital, keeping watch over their gravely injured eyewitness.

Dirk Manning was with Kelsey and Logan, refusing to be left alone. He sat in their borrowed office, calmly reading the paper.

Kat had to wonder what would happen with Dirk if they were forced to give up their investigation before the case was completely solved.

“I’ll get started on the research,” she told Will. “I still think there’s something from the past that we’re missing. I’m assuming you’re going to Everstone Dive Accessories to find out about our knife?”

“Yeah, I’d love to know who bought it,” he said.

It was decided that Tyler would stay at the hotel, ready to move in any direction when needed, and Sean and Will would go to Everstone to learn who’d purchased the knife.

Kat leafed through more of the journals and read about Austin Miller’s grandfather’s adventures, but she felt restless and couldn’t concentrate.

Tyler was reading over the many computerized sheets matching up who’d been where and who could’ve had access to Egyptian knowledge or the Preservation Center when Kat looked up. “I’m spinning my wheels here. Let’s go to Landry Salvage.”

“You think Landry will welcome us?” Tyler asked. “We need something else if we want to bring him back in or even talk to him.”

Kat smiled. “I don’t want to go after Landry. I want to go after Sherry Bertelli.”

“Sherry?”

“She’s lying. She’s lying through her teeth,” Kat said.

“Gee, you don’t believe they really spent the morning working—or shacked up together?” Tyler asked sarcastically.

“Come on, what can they do? Kick us out? People rarely do, not when we go in with Federal shields.”

“All right,” Tyler agreed. “I’ll just tell Logan where we’re going.”

They drove out to Landry Salvage with Logan’s blessing. When they entered, Sherry, who was at her desk, saw them and immediately stiffened. “Mr. Landry is not available,” she said.

“We didn’t come to speak to him. We came to speak to you,” Kat told her.

“Me?” she squeaked.

“I think you’re lying to protect your boss.”

“Oh, you people are terrible!” Sherry said. “I’m not lying. I wouldn’t protect anyone involved in this. You forget, the mummy came after
me!
”

“I’m going to ask you to call all the employees out here,” Tyler said, leaning on the reception desk. “And then we’ll find out if anyone can vouch for the fact that you two were together.”

“Most of the staff is out now,” Sherry said regally, tossing back her hair. “Why don’t you leave him alone? He’s innocent. I swear it.”

“So who’s guilty, then, Sherry?”

“Go after that Andy Simonton!” she yelled. “He’s a creep! And he’s rude and obnoxious, too.”

As they spoke, Kat heard the sound of a floorboard creaking and turned to see a door opening.

Someone was sneaking out the back.

She drew her gun and hurried through the hallway, with Tyler close behind her. When they dashed out the door, they found themselves at the boathouse.

“Hey, careful!” Tyler warned. “We don’t have what we need on Landry.”

Kat nodded, but she clicked off the safety on her Glock. “Mr. Landry, if you’re innocent, why are you running from us?” she demanded.

She moved past the speedboat called
Lake Shark,
and as she did, a bullet whistled by her.

“Down!” she shouted to Tyler.

She ducked low herself, trying to determine where the shooter was. Landry had to be hiding behind a cabin cruiser, she decided. She carefully made her way over there.

Another bullet whizzed by, but she was low and the aim was terrible. She fired back in the direction of the shot.

“Put down your weapon! Throw it out here! Come out with your hands high!” she ordered. “Come on, Landry! You don’t want to die here!”

Another shot exploded. Kat bent low and inched around the speedboat.

Then she stopped.

“Kat?”

“Here!” she called to Tyler.

He ran over to her. Landry was on the ground, bleeding out from a hole in his forehead. Eyes wide open, he stared into space.

“Son of a bitch!” Tyler said, turning to her.

“I didn’t hit him.”

Tyler looked at her incredulously. “If you didn’t shoot him…” He paused, studying the scene. “There’s his gun…beside his hand. He shot himself in the forehead rather than speak with us?”

Kat shook her head, scrutinizing Stewart Landry where he lay, eyes open, blood pooling beneath his head. “That’s impossible. The angle is impossible.” She frowned. “He didn’t shoot himself, Tyler. Someone else was out here with us. Someone who killed him and wanted it to look like
we
did—or like he killed himself.”

* * *

Will knew he didn’t have the right to feel upset. Kat Sokolov was fine. She’d done the necessary training, passed the tests, and she had the skill to handle a firearm.

He and Sean found out about Landry’s death as they returned from the dive store, when Logan called to inform them. Instead of going back to the hotel, he and Sean drove straight to Landry’s and the boathouse. Tyler and Kat were there, speaking with one of the local agents, giving their reports of the incident. Neither of them was suspected; the bullet that killed Landry had come from his own gun, a 57-Magnum. But a man was dead, and that meant paperwork. Lots of paperwork.

The body had yet to be picked up, and Dr. Cranston Randall had been called to the scene. Perhaps because of his seniority—or perhaps because he’d pissed off a superior—it seemed they now had Dr. Randall on all the deaths associated with the
Jerry McGuen.

Will paced near the body. He couldn’t help realizing that there’d been a lot of bullets, and Kat could easily have been hit. He tried to reason with himself.

“Poor bastard should have stayed in jail,” Logan said. He was close to the activity, ready to step in if a team member needed him.

“Yeah, I guess he should have.” Will sighed. “We’re falling deeper and deeper into this quagmire.” He stopped pacing and looked at Logan. “I forgot to tell you—Stewart Landry bought the knife we found in the
Jerry McGuen.
The salesman remembered him perfectly, even though he bought it about a year ago. Landry bought a lot of his dive gear there.”