Midnight Betrayal (Midnight #3)(3)
“Let me get you a chair.” Cusack rounded his desk, picked up a wing chair in the corner by the seat back, and angled it between his desk and the detectives. Louisa was no genius at reading subtle human body language, but her boss’s position was blatant. He was declaring his neutrality. He’d neatly put her between him and the police and distanced himself from the situation.
She shook the policemen’s hands and perched on the chair. “What can I do for you gentlemen?”
The older detective, Jackson, cleared his throat. “We’d like you to look at a few pictures, Dr. Hancock. But I need to warn you they might be a little . . . disturbing.”
Louisa touched the pearls at her throat.
“We’ve found a couple of symbols that look strange. Director Cusack thinks they’re Celtic. He says you’re the expert.” Jackson’s shrewd eyes watched her fidget.
She lowered her hand, interlocking her fingers on her lap to hold them still, and glanced at her boss. He avoided eye contact. The rat. The museum Cusack ran in England was full of Celtic artifacts. “Where did you find the symbols?”
Jackson’s response was abrupt. “On a murder victim.”
She flinched. They couldn’t want her to . . . She met the detective’s unwavering gaze. They did. Despite a silk blouse and suit jacket, a wave of damp cold rolled over Louisa’s arms like fog across the bay. “You want me to look at a dead body.”
“Not exactly,” Jackson said in an equally flat voice. “Photos.”
Pictures were a better option, but not by much. She took an unsteady breath. Someone had to help the police, and it was obvious that someone wouldn’t be her boss. “All right.”
Jackson slid three photos from a yellow clasp envelope and spread them out on the director’s desk. The images were zoomed in so closely that at first she wasn’t sure what she was seeing. Plus, the skin was dark . . .
Louisa put on her glasses. Oh God. That was a person’s skin.
“The marks are hard to see.” Jackson pulled a small magnifying glass from his pocket. “They’re very small, and the body was burned.”
The graphic mental image that followed his statement dimmed her vision for a fraction of a second. Knife wounds. Charred skin. She was accustomed to seeing blade marks on bones that had been buried for a thousand years. Time provided distance. But this . . .
These wounds were here and now. They screamed pain and fear and violence.
Jackson hovered the glass over the tiny purplish blotches. “These bruising patterns are what we’re interested in. They look like spirals and something else.”
Louisa closed her eyes to the gruesome images and took a single deep breath. She lifted her eyelids and studied the marks, trying to detach herself from the pictures as if studying a recently unearthed bone. It didn’t work. This was too recent, too fresh, too real. She still saw a person, charred skin, and suffering. Determined, she cleared her throat and focused. “Those look like typical Celtic symbols: spirals and knots. This one might be a horse.”
“What can you tell us about them?”
“Celts decorated their weapons with symbols of their gods and beliefs, whatever they thought would give them an edge in battle.” Louisa fought the nausea gathering beneath her sternum.
“What type of weapon might leave marks like this?” Jackson asked.
“We have a few Celtic daggers with engravings.” Louisa knew she’d seen a similar pattern.
“Are the weapons here?” Jackson stacked his photos and slid them back into their envelope.
“Yes, they’re in the collection storage room. We’re in the process of building a new exhibit of Celtic weapons. The artifacts are locked away until the renovations are complete.”
He fastened the metal clasp. “Can we see them?”
“Certainly, but the blades aren’t sharp enough to kill anyone.” Louisa shuddered. To leave bruises around the wounds, the blade must have sunk to the guard. Great force—or great rage—would have been required. “They’re between eight hundred and two thousand years old.”
“No one is claiming that the weapons have anything to do with a murder.” But Cusack’s voice sounded hollow.
Louisa and the policemen ignored him.
Swallowing a wave of sickness, Louisa walked toward the door. The three men followed her back to the artifact room. She unlocked the door with a swipe of her ID card. Inside, she pulled on white gloves and scanned the shelves for the boxes she wanted. The first three she checked held Iron Age daggers. Only one was engraved, but the carvings didn’t match. She grabbed the next box containing a Bronze Age specimen. She moved it to the center table and raised the lid. The corroded blade was encased in a thick patina of verdigris and rust. She pointed to the curved guard that separated the blade from the handle. “It’s hard to see on the original piece, but the engravings were spirals and knots. May I see the photo again?” Though that was the last thing she wanted to do.
Please don’t match.
Jackson pulled out the picture and held it next to the artifact. “All I can see is rust.”
She slid a magnifying lamp from the center of the worktable and positioned the flexible gooseneck over the dagger. Worn down by time, the engravings were faint, but her experienced eye visualized a mirror image of the marks on the victim’s skin. She compared the symbols to the marks in the photo in Jackson’s hand. Not every symbol had made a distinct impression, but the ones that were visible matched those on the ancient weapon.