Disclaimer: This story was written by a fan only for the enjoyment of other fans, without any monetary compensation. Gundam Wing and its characters are registered trademarks of Bandai Entertainment Inc.™ and Sotsu Agency. All rights reserved.
'The Museum' set in my Ghost Detective universe set during the last days of 'The Junkyard' while Duo and Heero are still out of town, and at the beginning of 'The Piano'. Hope you enjoy!
The Museum
Chapter 8
Nassar Hazzir opened the door at the first knock. The hotel clerk had called a few minutes earlier to inform him of his visitors.
"Please come in." The archaeologist indicated a slight bow. "Consider my home yours."
Quatre Winner mirrored the gesture as he politely replied. "We accept your hospitality respectfully. - You remember my friend, Trowa Barton?"
"I do...from the museum. It is a pleasure to meet you again."
Trowa simply inclined his head in greeting.
"Please!" Hazzir gestured at the couch and chairs in the living area of the suite. But before the three men could settle down there was another knock at the door.
"Room service." their host explained. "I ordered tea for us."
He went back to let in the waitress, a young woman who smiled politely as she set three cups of steaming tea and a plate of what looked like almond cookies onto the low coffee table.
"Enjoy!" she wished as she left, accepting a generous tip from Hazzir on the way out.
The archaeologist closed the door behind her then joined his guests at the table.
"You said you needed to speak to me," he said, directed at Quatre. "I assume you have heard about what happened at the museum?"
The young man nodded. "Yes, we've heard. The recovery of the Canopic Jar is a good thing, isn't it?"
"Yes it is," the archaeologist agreed, although without much conviction.
Trowa and Quatre exchanged a brief look.
"Is everything alright?"
"Yes, of course." Nassar Hazzir's smile looked somewhat forced as he admitted. "I am just a little nervous, I think."
"About your summoning to the sheriff's station?" Quatre asked. "I don't think you have anything to be nervous about. Sheriff Bonaparte is a good man and a very capable police officer. He will listen to your story with an open mind."
"Yes, I suppose. But he was acting very suspicious earlier."
"Suspicious?" Trowa echoed. "In what way?"
"Oh no, I'm sorry. I think I said that wrong. What I mean is, he seemed to be suspicious of me."
"Can you blame him? After all you had access to that basement, it was your amulet that was found next to the stolen jar, and you DID lie to him about when you left the museum Sunday night."
"Trowa!" Quatre admonished, but Hazzir raised his hand to stop him.
"No, Mister Barton is right." The archaeologist sighed. "It does look bad. To tell the truth, if I was the police, I would have arrested myself. But I assure you, I did not lie to the sheriff. He asked me if Mister Peterson, the young assistant had given me a ride back to my hotel as he claimed, and I confirmed that he did."
"But you came back later?" the blonde assumed, because it was the only thing that made sense.
Hazzir nodded. "I discovered I had left my reading glasses at my office. I couldn't sleep and wanted to go over some research for my new book. I took a taxi back to the museum and asked the driver to wait. The security guard let me in, I recovered my glasses, we spoke for a few minutes and I left." Another sigh. "Now I am thinking... If I would have stayed, done my work at the office instead of my hotel room..."
"You really need not blame yourself. Nobody could have foreseen what happened that night."
"Thank you, you are very kind."
"However, all of this doesn't explain what your amulet was doing with the jar when Sheriff Bonaparte found it." Trowa seemed determined to get to the root of things, and he seemed less convinced of the archaeologist's innocence than his friend.
"I must have lost it." Hazzir paused as he looked up. "When I was hiding the jar."
There as a long moment of surprised silence. Quatre almost gasped.
"You hid it? But..."
"I found the jar the morning after the break in, when I went down to the basement to retrieve a packing list I had left in one of the crates. I did not know if the police would search everywhere, so I decided it was safer to hide it, away from the public... away from everyone."
"Why?" Trowa wanted to know.
The older man shook his head. "I do not expect you to understand. And the sheriff won't understand either."
"That's right, I don't understand. Because it makes absolutely no sense."
"Actually," Quatre replied. "It finally is starting to make sense, at least to me."
Trowa, and even Hazzir gave the young man a surprised look.
"I should have realized it all along. You feel them too, don't you Dr. Hazzir, the traces of those who haven't passed on to the next world for one reason or another? Back at the dig site when I told you about my ability, you knew exactly what I was talking about, even though you didn't really understand."
"And I still don't understand." Hazzir admitted. "Maybe it is because I have spent most of my life amongst the dead that I have become more ...umm... sensitive to them? Sometimes I can feel their presence but I don't know why."
"Or maybe it is the other way around," Quatre suggested. "Maybe you became an archaeologist because you were drawn to it by those spirits. If I have learned something over the past year or so it's that sometimes even the dead need a little help; help to pass on to the next life, help in finding justice in this one. And with that realization I have come a long way toward understanding my ability."
Crooking his head slightly, Trowa looked at his friend in a mixture of surprise and amazement. Quatre had indeed come a long way, from the spoiled kid wailing in self-pity about his gift to accepting it.
"Say, Doctor Hazzir..." the blonde asked. "Do you really believe that the spirit in the basement of the museum and the Canopic jar are connected?"
"I am sure of it," the archaeologist nodded.
"Hmm..."
"You do not think so?"
"No, no... I take your word for it. It just throws a different theory we had completely out of the window. But anyway, who does the jar belong to?"
"We don't know...yet. It is something I am still working on. The jar has only been discovered several weeks ago, under...somewhat strange circumstances, you might call it."
"Oh?" Quatre gave the older man a curious look. "Mind telling us all about that?"
"I would love nothing more, but I'm afraid it will have to be later. Sheriff Bonaparte is expecting me, as you know, and I do not think it would be wise to let him wait for too long."
"You are probably right. But you could tell us the story on the way to the sheriff station. Trowa..." he turned toward his friend and bodyguard, "it is alright to give Dr. Hazzir a ride to the station, isn't it?"
The young man shrugged. "It makes no difference to me."
"Thanks. Then..." Quatre turned his eyes back at the archaeologist. "Would you mind me using your bathroom before we leave?"
"Not at all. It is the second door to the left." Hazzir pointed in the direction.
"Thank you."
As the young man disappeared into the bathroom the room filled with uncomfortable silence until the archaeologist cleared his throat, giving Trowa a tentative smile.
"You are his bodyguard, are you not? I do remember there always being one with young Mister Winner during that summer when he visited Egypt. You are doing your job well, Mister Barton. If I had not noticed your gun when we met at the museum..."
"I'm not only Quatre's bodyguard. I'm also a friend who cares a great deal about him. And as such I can tell you I won't let anyone hurt him or take advantage of him."
Hazzir nodded. He doubtlessly had understood the warning behind those words.
"I admire your honesty. But I assure you, young Mister Winner is my friend as much as he is yours."
###
During the drive Trowa spoke very little. He kept his eyes on the road, only occasionally looking into the rearview mirror to check on Quatre and Hazzir sitting in the back.
The archaeologist was telling the story of how the Canopic jar had been discovered.
"... if I remember correctly it was the afternoon of our third day at the new dig-site when a villager showed up at the camp with some fragments of broken pottery. He said his son had found them while looking for some runaway goats, and he was wondering if they might be worth something. - The Egyptian government has started giving out rewards as an incentive for people to turn over any archaeological finds rather than selling them on the black market."
"That seems like a good solution." Quatre nodded.
"It is helping," Hazzir confirmed. "So, I checked out the pottery pieces and recognized them as 13th century. Probably parts of a decorative jar or bowl. I wanted to know where the pieces had been found. The villager said he would show me the place on a map but wouldn't take me there. Apparently they were afraid of some kind of curse. Three of the goats that had been eating grass in the area had died soon after. I paid him enough to replace his goats and some extra and he marked the spot on my map."
"The next morning we drove out into the desert. As soon as we reached the area I could sense an ominous feeling in the air. Even the dogs that we always take along to protect us from wild animals and possible thieves, refused to leave the jeep."
"But that didn't stop you from digging anyway?" Quatre assumed.
"Of course not. We quickly came across more shards from the same piece of pottery, and then when we thought it might be all that we might find one of my men discovered a body."
"A mummy?"
"Not in the sense of one that had been embalmed by priests, but rather a mummy that had been naturally created. The body turned out to be old, perhaps as old as the pottery itself. Beneath it we found the unbroken Canopic jar, which he was still clutching in his hands, a knife, and some other small items."
"If he wasn't mummified by embalming it's to assume that the jars were not his own."
"Correct, that much we can be sure of, yet we have no idea as to his identity or how the jars ended up buried with him."
"That is indeed strange," Quatre admitted.
"But it isn't the strangest part yet," Hazzir told him.
"It isn't?"
The archaeologist shook his head. "When we were sure we recovered everything there was, we took the artifacts and the body back to the base camp. And from there they were supposed to be taken to the Cairo museum. That first night my tent was broken into..."
"What was stolen?"
"Nothing. That's the mystery. But it was clear by the chaos that somebody had been searching for something. After the artifacts had been sent to the museum things started to happen there too. Lights would burn out, alarm systems would go off or stopped working; very very strange things. And then of course there was the aura surrounding the jar. I was almost ready to speak to my superiors about it, but what was I supposed to tell them? Who would have believed me? I surely would have been laughed at. And then all of a sudden it was decided that the jar was going to be sent along on the traveling exhibition. At once I realized that I might not have been the only one who had noticed the strange incidents. I was sure the museum's director was trying to rid himself of the jar by sending it on tour. My protests fell on deaf ears. There was only one thing I could do..."
"Accompany the exhibition!" Quatre concluded. It made sense, and it explained a lot.
Hazzir nodded. "I thought that way at least I could keep an eye on it, but after the break-in...when everybody thought the jar had been stolen and I suddenly found it in the basement I knew this was my chance to make it...umm 'disappear'."
"What exactly were you planning on doing with it?" Trowa finally asked.
"I was going to take it back."
"Back to Egypt?" Quatre asked.
"Back to the desert, to the place where we found it. I was going to bury it and hope it was not found again for another few millenniums."
"That seems a strange endeavor for an archaeologist," Trowa pointed out.
"I realize that. But I do not know what else to do. I am very sure whatever is connected to that jar did not want to leave the desert. The aura has become darker and angrier the further we took it away from there. I was afraid that something might happen, that somebody might get hurt."
"Somebody like the guard at the museum?" Quatre asked quietly.
Hazzir didn't answer and that in itself was answer enough.
"But that guard was attacked by an intruder. It might have happened whether or not your jar would have been at the Browers museum," the young man pointed out.
"But we don't really know that." the archaeologist replied. "Do you think it was a coincidence that the break-in happened just after the artifacts arrived?"
"Maybe not, but it is also possible that it has nothing to do with coincidence, but rather with the fact that it has been an inside job, just as Sheriff Bonaparte suspects. Other things have gone missing in the past."
"Other thefts?" Hazzir's eyes widened.
"At least one that we know of," Quatre confirmed, earning himself a sharp look from his bodyguard.
The young man gave Trowa an apologetic smile.
"I heard nothing about it. What was stolen?"
"I'm sorry, I can't tell you. Sheriff Bonaparte has sworn us to secrecy. It would be best if you didn't tell anybody about it."
"You have my word," the archaeologist nodded firmly.
There was a long moment of silence until the BMW pulled into the parking lot in front of the sheriff station. Hazzir looked up.
"Mister Winner, would you mind coming inside with me? I think I would feel more comfortable not to have to face the sheriff alone."
"Under one condition," Quatre replied. "You need to stop calling me MISTER Winner. I think we have known each other for long enough to drop such formality. My name is Quatre."
"Very well, but then I must insist that you call me Nassar, as well."
"It's a deal." the young man smiled. "So, how much are you planning on telling Bonaparte?"
"He seems like a good man, and I really don't want to lie to him. But I have learned the truth can be a double-edged sword. Perhaps it is wiser for now to tell him only what he needs to know."
"I think that sounds like a good strategy." Quatre agreed, and even Trowa could not help but admit that they were right.
TBC
Author's note: Sorry this took so long. My muses absolutely refused to work over the holidays, threatening with union strike and what-not else. But now I think they are back. ;)