The Vandemark Mummy (9 page)

When, where, from whom, and for how much, the mummy was purchased will not be known until the credentials that accompanied the collection to Portland have been thoroughly gone over. Until then, the mummy remains shrouded in mystery.

Security Is Adequate, Spokesman Says

Representatives of the college and the Portland Museum
were all present for the unveiling of the antiquities. Mark Batchelor, assistant director of the museum, inquired about the security arrangements and Mr. Hall, curator of the collection, assured him that they were adequate.

The collection is presently being kept in a windowless room in the cellar of the college library. Climate and temperature control systems have been installed. The building is locked at all times when it is not in use. The college also maintains a 24-hour security watch over the campus. “The whole city will benefit from this gift,” President Blight said. “I'm sure that was in Mr. Vandemark's mind when he decided to honor the college with the collection.”

The front page picture was the mummy, her face turned into grainy black and white. One picture on the back pages, accompanying the continuation of O'Meara's article, showed the storage room seen from the corridor, the open doorway framing a picture within, with vague shapes on shelves, and the mummy lying on its table. Another was a photograph of the group standing around the table (“Those present include Samuel Hall, far right, and Mark Batchelor, of the Portland Museum, second from left.”). The third was of the artifacts on the shelves, with the wreath at its center (“Artifacts that accompanied the mummy on her long journey. The funeral wreath was described by Mr. Batchelor as priceless.”).

Phineas's father groaned aloud as he read the article. He swore aloud when he'd finished.

“She didn't quote you at all,” Althea said to her father.

“Maybe I'm not quotable.”

“She quoted Ken.”

“What upsets me is that the woman has as good as given a map. The room number is the clearest thing in any of these misbegotten photographs.”

“You actually think somebody would want to steal the stuff?” Phineas asked.

“I can't imagine it, not seriously,” his father answered. “Who'd want a mummy? I mean, what would you do with it? It's not as if you could hang it over the fireplace like a Picasso. There's not much of a market for stolen mummies, not like cameras, VCRs, cars. But I don't like it.”

“What about the wreath?” Althea asked. “They keep saying how valuable it is.”

Phineas was more interested in who would want to steal a mummy. “What about devil worshipers? I bet they'd love to get their hands on a body. Or a grave robber? Schools use bodies for science don't they? Or, aren't there people who just like dead bodies? There are, like people who have a thing about shoes, body fetishists.” Now he started to think of it, he could think of a hundred reasons for someone to steal the mummy.

“I don't like it,” Mr. Hall repeated.

“I don't like Ken,” Althea offered.

“I don't mind him,” Phineas said. “But then,” he needled, “he didn't put me down like he did you.” The truth was, sometimes Althea needed a little squashing.

“I'm glad we didn't tell O'Meara about the alarm,” Mr. Hall said. “If we had, she would probably have made
that her headline, with a diagram and instructions for how to turn it off.”

“I wouldn't worry, Dad. Anyone who didn't know his way around down there couldn't even find the room. The room numbers don't follow any pattern,” Althea offered.

“But the number is there, by the door.” Mr. Hall couldn't be comforted.

“We could guard it if you want,” Phineas offered. “We could camp out there, taking watches, in our sleeping bags.” He thought that might be fun, and scary down there in the dark, mazelike corridors.

“Speak for yourself, Phineas. You wouldn't catch me doing that,” Althea said.

“We're being irrational,” their father announced. “Only an expert would be interested in the collection, and an expert would know it's not worth stealing. We've got locks, we've got an alarm system, we don't need to worry.”

Phineas was a little disappointed to hear that.

The sound slammed up against the darkness.

Phineas was out of bed, out of the room, halfway down the stairs before it came again.
Blatt-blatt.

It was the phone. Up in Maine, phones didn't ring. Instead, they blatted, like a double raspberry,
blatt-blatt.
It was the middle of the night, it was dark, who would call in the middle of the night? Bad news. Seriously bad news.

Phineas stopped where he was, halfway down the stairs. His heart pounded but his feet stayed put. He wasn't about to go down there and pick up the phone and hear what the bad news was.

Blatt-blatt.

He didn't know where his mother was. He didn't even know what time it was where she was.

His father thudded past him, down the stairs.
Blatt—
“Hello . . . Dan, yes.”

A light came on in the upstairs hallway, and Phineas could see the railing, his father's naked back and rumpled boxers, the black telephone hunched on its table.

“You're kidding,” Mr. Hall said. His fingers scratched at his frizzy hair. “But why would anyone?”

Althea had stopped to put on her bathrobe over the flannel nightgown, and her slippers. The light in her room would have already been on, because Althea always slept with the light on. The switch for the hall light was right outside her door, so she'd turned it on, on her way to join Phineas, so she wouldn't ever have to be in darkness.

“No, I'll be right over,” their father said. Althea sat on the step beside Phineas. “I won't be able to get back to sleep anyway,” Mr. Hall said. He turned around and saw his children watching him. “Everything's okay,” he told them. “No, talking to my kids. Just give me a couple of minutes to get dressed. I'm glad you called me.”

“What time—” Althea wondered.

“Three,” Phineas answered without thinking. He wondered if he was right. He'd never tested his time sense in the middle of the night. Althea was the one who slept restlessly, and had bad dreams. Phineas put his head on the pillow, and was out until hunger, or the alarm, woke him.

“I'll be with you shortly,” Mr. Hall said. He hung up
the receiver and turned around. “That's enough to give a man a cardiac arrest.”

“What happened?” Althea asked.

“I thought—” Phineas started to say.

“Me too,” his father said. Then he laughed. “We could call her, to make ourselves feel better, but we'd probably wake her up, and scare her out of her wits too.”

“Who was that?” Althea asked.

“Dan Lewis, head of security. Somebody, apparently, tried to break into room oh-fifteen. Dan said it looks like the alarms chased off whoever it was. Nothing's been taken.”

“Is he sure?”

“That's why I'm going over.”

“Me too,” Althea said. She ran up the stairs.

“I'll get my shoes,” Phineas said. He slept in his clothes, so shoes were the only thing he was missing.

“There's no need,” his father said.

“Yeah but I want to,” Phineas said. He didn't want to be left out of the excitement, if there was any.

*  *  *

They drove to the library and parked by the rear entrance. Mr. Hall had brought along his big flashlight, because the library lights were automatically turned off at night. A man waited in the yellow light by the door. He was a slight man, in a gray uniform that looked like a police uniform but wasn't. He had gray hair, in a military cut, and stood with a soldier's erectness.

“Phineas, Althea—Mr. Lewis,” Mr. Hall introduced them. “Shall we take a look? The kids have worked with the collection from the start, Dan.”

“Well”—he considered Althea and Phineas and made up his mind—“I guess it's okay. I've been through the whole place, and it looks like he's long gone. Come on in, Professor, kids. I've got the lights switched on, so you won't need that flashlight.”

“I'm not a professor,” Mr. Hall said, “just an instructor. Call me Sam.” He led the way inside.

Lights shone in the corridors, and they hurried along, turning left, turning right, turning left and then right again. At the door, they all stopped. The door was just slightly ajar. On the door itself, and on the frame, there were concave dents, like a car after a fender bender.

“I figure, he must have used a crowbar. The same kind of marks are on the door from the library.”

“So he got back into the cellar from inside the library?” Althea asked. “How did he get in the library?”

“Good thinking, young lady. A window, it must have been left unlocked, open, into the reading room.”

“Well,” Mr. Hall said, and pushed with his shoulder against the door. It swung open. He pulled his sweatshirt down over his hand to switch on the light.

At first glance, the room looked exactly the way they'd left it the evening before. The mummy lay on her table, the artifacts were lined up on the shelves. While his father and sister went to look at the shelves, Phineas checked on the mummy. She looked up at him, with her sad little smile. She hadn't been touched.

“I think the alarm probably scared him off,” Mr. Lewis said from the door. “Everything present and accounted for Pro—Sam?”

“As far as I can tell. Althea?”

She nodded.

“It took me maybe five minutes to get over here once the alarm sounded in the office. I figure he's long gone.”

“If the door was like that, he probably never even went inside,” Phineas said.

“My guess exactly,” Mr. Lewis said. “Of course, I could be surprised. I've been surprised a few times in my life.”

“I thought things were pretty crime free up here,” Phineas said. “Who do you think—?”

Mr. Lewis shook his head. “No idea.”

“It's a good thing you put in that alarm,” Althea said.

“It's an even better thing only the four of us knew about it,” her father answered.

“You two kids,” Mr. Lewis said, “why don't you go back to bed, now you've seen what there is to see?”

Phineas hesitated. He would rather have stayed, to find out what it was like being questioned by the police. One look at Mr. Lewis's face, however, convinced him that it was a good idea to go back home. Mr. Lewis was looking him straight in the eye, waiting to be obeyed. He looked like the kind of man accustomed to having people do what he told them.

Mr. Lewis thought he was hesitating for a different reason. “You'll be perfectly safe, walking back. You'll be fine alone in the house.”

“That wasn't—” Phineas didn't want Mr. Lewis thinking he was afraid, but his father cut him off.

“Tell me something, Dan, why is it that everyone seems to know all about my private life? I haven't even been here four weeks.”

“Is that getting to you?” Mr. Lewis asked. “If it is, my
advice is, you better get used to it. Vandemark's a small place. You show up with two kids and no wife—or wife equivalent these days—and people want to know why. If it helps, the gossip's mostly done with good intentions. There's never more than just a little spicing of malice.”

The two men looked at one another, and laughed. “Okay,” Mr. Hall said. “Then how about you? How long have you been here? I know you're ex-service, but what else is there? A family? Where did you serve? What branch were you in?”

Phineas and Althea left them to it.

*  *  *

They walked across the empty campus without speaking. Phineas wasn't sleepy, just the opposite. The night silence, the trees looming over the deserted pathway, the vast dark sky full of stars—it all made him feel as if something was about to happen, and he was ready for it.

When they got home, Althea went straight to the kitchen. She took down two mugs and the box of cocoa mix, put milk on to heat, and emptied two packets into the mugs. “Incredible cocoa,” she read from the box. “I'm going to write them a letter.”

Phineas looked at her.

“I am. I want credible cocoa, real cocoa—think about it, Phineas. Don't you ever think about that? Incredible cocoa—you know what that is?”

Phineas shook his head.

Althea stared at him. She didn't say a word. She didn't say anything, but all the words she wasn't saying seemed to be crowding up inside her mouth, trying to get out,
like lava trying to find the weak spot in a volcano's surface. She turned her back on him and poured the milk into the mugs. Phineas accepted his and blew across the top, sniffed in the chocolaty-milky smell, and waited for whatever was bothering Althea.

“You never say anything,” finally burst out of her.

Phineas knew what she meant. He had thought that was it. He wished the phone would ring again, or the police would come to ask them questions, anything for her to use this worked-up excitement on. Althea wanted to talk, but she'd just try to blame someone, and work herself up to anger; then she'd probably cry and run out of the room. He had to say something. “Lay off, Althea, will you? Please? I'm twelve years old—I break things and my feet smell and teachers yell at me—what is there for me to say?”