Dead Guilty Part 41

"Let that be a lesson to you."

She left him there calling after her and worked her way through the pa.s.sages to the mouth of the cave. She retrieved her phone from beneath her driver's seat and punched in 911.

Mike looked pale against the white hospital pillow. The bullet had nicked his intestines, but luckily did no organ or spinal damage.

"You were caving in the dark? G.o.d. What were you thinking-that you could feel your way through the cave?" He grinned at her. "You got guts."

"I thought I could negotiate in the dark better than he could," Diane said. "It barely worked."

"We could hear the gunshots. Didn't know what to think." He touched the bruise on her face left by the flashlight. "So how about it, Doc, willing to take care of a wounded friend?"

Diane grabbed his hand and held it. "I think the hospital's doing a fine job." She paused a moment. "Mike, I'm sorry."

He put a finger on her lips. "Not your fault, Doc. It'll make a good chapter in my caving journal."

MacGregor wheeled in in his wheelchair. Both feet were immobilized in casts and his arm was bandaged. La Salle had shot him in the metatarsal portion of both feet. Bad enough, but they were injuries that were easier to deal with than had he hit the closely packed tarsal bones. Diane had expected MacGregor to be angry and never want to see them again. Instead, he'd bonded. He sat there and grinned at Diane, showing off the autographs on his casts.

"The doctor says I'll be in walking casts real soon. I'll be ready to go caving with you again in no time."

"We'll keep a guard at the entrance next time," said Diane. MacGregor cackled. "Take care," she said. "I'm going to check on Neva."

"She was a real trouper," said Mike. "Hung on to that rope like you told her to, didn't complain. That had to be scary."

"I hope it hasn't put her off caves," said Diane.

"We'll get her back out there as soon as our wounds heal."

Diane was silent for a moment watching Mike. "I'm glad you followed my instructions and stayed alive."

"You were pretty firm about that," he said.

Diane left them and walked down the hall to Neva's room. She was dozing. Jin and David were sitting in chairs by her bed.

"How's Mike and that fellow?" asked David.

"Doing well. Mike'll be back to work in about a month," said Diane. She gestured toward the bed.

"Good," said Jin. "Neva's doing just fine."

Neva's rescue had been complicated. The rescue team rigged a rope system for themselves so they would have the support needed to work in safety. Get ting a harness around her chest was a big step. It gave her arms a rest. One of the rescuers had to hang over the edge with Neva and chisel out the rock from around her to free her so she could be pulled to safety.

Neva opened her eyes. "Hi," she said. "How are Mike and d.i.c.k?"

"They're doing fine. How about you?"

"Glad to be out of that crack."

"Think you'll want to try caving again?"

"I have to. I bought all that equipment-hard hat, backpack. I had five backup flashlights in my back pack." Neva sobered a moment. "Jin was telling me they didn't find LaSalle, just a trail of blood leading off to a wild part of the cave."

"The police are going back in to look for him. Gar nett said a team of federal marshals who are also cav ers are coming down to join the search."

"Jeez, that's scary. What do you suppose happened to him?"

"I can't imagine he got far, the way he was wounded. He couldn't have stood on his feet. I think he probably crawled somewhere and got into trouble."

"I can't say I have much sympathy," said Neva.

"No, I can't say I do either," said Diane.

Epilogue.

The museum was closing for the day. Diane stood in the new Egyptian exhibit, taking another look before its opening the next day. It was in a small room on the second floor that suited the few artifacts on display and made it seem like a larger exhibit than it was. Also more personal.

The walls were painted in colorful but muted tones like the worn walls of an Egyptian tomb. The real star of the exhibit was Neva's sculpture, sitting crosslegged in the middle of the room. The entire face and body were a 3-D reconstruction made using the measurements gained from the CT scan.

Neva sculpted him from clay first. The museum then had experts from Madame Tussaud's make a wax fig ure. He looked so real Diane expected him to unfold his legs, take the papyrus lying in his lap and walk off his pedestal. They had concluded he was a scribe. Jonas figured him to be a royal scribe because of the position of the hands and some of the amulets that belonged to him.

Diane walked around the wax figure, viewing it from several angles. He had tan skin and a dark wig styled similar to figurines and wall paintings from the times. He wore a simple white linen loincloth, and a reed pen and pallette hung from his neck. An auto mated video beside the figure described his life and the process the museum used to research the mummy.

The a.n.a.lysis of his tissue samples revealed that he had several bacterial infections common in ancient Egypt. Release of this information garnered Diane an other mountain of mail wanting access to the mummy. The a.n.a.lysis on his kidney tumor showed it to be be nign. When the report came in, Jonas and Andie were relieved, somehow glad that the scribe hadn't died of cancer.

The mummy himself was inside the anthromorphic coffin that they still were unsure was really his. The closed coffin was inside a gla.s.s case built just for the mummy. Diane decided to exhibit the actual mummy only a few times a year. But there were photographs of him on the walls. A video doc.u.mented his rewrap ping by Korey and his a.s.sistants, beginning with his own wrappings and supplementing those with a sub stantial amount of modern linen.

The amulets were displayed under gla.s.s, each high lighted on its own pedestal. They decided not to dis play the Victorian pickle jar. The rest of the exhibit included models based on life in twelfth-dynasty Egypt. In one end of the exhibit, there was an entire miniature Egyptian town, including a scribe's house.

Diane was pleased with the exhibit. From a small number of artifacts, Jonas, Kendel and the exhibit de signers had done a great job. The room dimmed as the daytime lighting went off automatically and the nighttime lighting came on. In the shadows of the dim light, the wax figure looked as if he might indeed come to life. She turned and left the room.

DEAD GUILTY 387.

Diane walked out of the museum to her new SUV and, like she now did when she left the museum, or anywhere, she scanned the area looking for anything out of the ordinary or dangerous.

Beverly Connor is the author of the Diane Fallon Fo rensic Investigation series and the Lindsay Chamber lain Mystery series. Before she began her writing career, Beverly worked as an archaeologist in the Southeastern United States specializing in bone identi fication and a.n.a.lysis of stone tool debitage. She weaves her professional experiences from archaeology and her knowledge of the South into interlinked sto ries of the past and present. is the author of the Diane Fallon Fo rensic Investigation series and the Lindsay Chamber lain Mystery series. Before she began her writing career, Beverly worked as an archaeologist in the Southeastern United States specializing in bone identi fication and a.n.a.lysis of stone tool debitage. She weaves her professional experiences from archaeology and her knowledge of the South into interlinked sto ries of the past and present. One Grave Too Many One Grave Too Many was the first book in the Diane Fallon series. Five of her t.i.tles have been translated into Dutch and are available in countries of the European Union. was the first book in the Diane Fallon series. Five of her t.i.tles have been translated into Dutch and are available in countries of the European Union.