Chapter 5

Bright and early the next morning, Frank and Joe walked through the doors of the Bayport University Art Museum. Joe glanced across the lobby and spotted Emily talking to a young man. His eyes moved over her slowly, taking in her form-fitting black turtleneck sweater, her red and black plaid knee-length skirt and her black high-heeled boots. Frank leaned into him and said with a grin, "You might want to pick your jaw up off the floor before you go talk to her."

Joe glared at him then strode purposefully across the lobby in Emily's direction. She looked up, but continued speaking with the young man in front of her. Joe overheard the last part of their conversation as he reached her.

"Do you think you could refill the rack with these brochures, Brian?"

The young man smiled at her eagerly. "Of course I can. I'll do it perfectly."

Emily returned his smile with a warm one of her own. "I know you will. You always do a wonderful job. I don't know what we'd do here without you."

Joe watched as the teenager walked towards the metal display rack by the front door, stopping to look back at Emily every few seconds. She waved at him then turned to Joe.

"Brian helps us out here three days a week. He's part of a program with the group home for developmentally disabled adults."

He nodded. "The one just over on Oak Street?"

"Yes," she said with a smile. "He does a great job."

"He has a crush on you."

"He's very sweet. It's a great program." She looked up at Joe just as Frank approached them. "Now, what can I do for you?"

Joe glanced at Frank out of the corner of his eye and caught the grin spreading over his brother's face as he heard Emily's question.

He shot his brother a warning look. Don't you dare say what you're thinking, Frank. He turned his attention back to Emily."Well, I need to get some more information about the case. Is Duncan here?" Joe asked pointedly.

"No," she replied. "He's meeting with the dean of the College of Fine Arts and Humanities this morning." Her eyes clouded. "To talk about what happened yesterday."

Joe nodded. "Okay, well, since you told me he's the only person I'm supposed to discuss this with, I guess we'll come back later." He turned and began to walk away.

"Joe," Emily called out. "Don't go."

He paused as she approached him. "I'm sorry. I know I was rude yesterday. I didn't mean for what I said to sound like that. It's just that I didn't want you to think...I mean I didn't want you to..." She sighed and waved her hand. "I'd be happy to talk to you. I'm not sure I can help, but I'll try and answer any questions you have." Joe watched as she looked toward an older woman with a nametag, standing by the entrance to the Impressionism exhibit. "Just a minute, let me get Mrs. DeLuca to cover the desk."

As she walked away, Frank leaned into him. "She meant that she didn't want you hitting on her. I'll bet she already has a boyfriend."

Joe didn't respond. He just watched her as she walked across the lobby, an unfamiliar feeling he didn't want to try and identify, squeezing his chest.

"Okay, I think I'm good for a few minutes now," Emily said, as she hurried back over to Frank and Joe. She glanced around the lobby. "Maybe we should sit outside. Voices really carry in this place."

The three of them stepped through the museum's main doors and into the brilliant sunshine of a warm October day. Emily gestured to a wrought iron table and chairs in a small courtyard to the right of the museum's entrance. "Is this all right?"

"Perfect," Frank smiled, as he took a seat.

Joe pulled out a chair for Emily, then sat and scooted his own seat a bit closer to hers.

"So, what would you like to know?" Emily asked.

"Well, let's start with Professor Ayres," Joe suggested. "How well did you know him?"

"We were acquainted," she replied. "I've taken a class or two from him. He was responsible for bringing the Scottish clans exhibit here. I haven't personally spoken to him beyond a 'hello' every now and then when he was in the building."

"About this exhibit," Frank began. "We found an article in the library mentioning that Professor Ayres didn't even have the funding to get the artifacts here four months ago. What changed? Where did the money come from?"

"I wouldn't have a clue," Emily replied. "You'd need to check with the museum director, Mr. Perriton, or Duncan for that information. I do know that sometimes when a museum mentions a lack of funding to the press, it spurs people to donate money. Maybe that's why it was in the paper."

Joe leaned back in his chair. "What exactly do you do here, Emily?"

She laughed. "Everything nobody else wants to. Tours, paperwork, cataloging, shipping and receiving, employee scheduling. A little bit of everything and a whole lot of nothing."

"Duncan mentioned something about a curse yesterday," Joe said. "Do you know what he was talking about?"

Emily sighed. "Duncan is an amazing historian. He knows so much about Scottish clans and their history...but he can be a bit superstitious."

"He's Scottish, right?" Frank asked.

"Yes, he's visiting from the university in Edinburgh," she explained. "In fact, Duncan is the one who arranged for this whole exhibit to be brought here."

"But he seemed worried about some of it." Joe was confused. "Why would he arrange for it and then be superstitious about it?"

"Well, he got Professor Ayres involved, because he's quite an expert on some of the clans from western Scotland, particularly the Isle of Skye. He spent a lot of time there and he's the one who got special permission to bring certain artifacts here."

"And those objects are the ones Duncan is concerned about?"

"Yes. He really freaked out when he found that Professor Ayres had arranged for the Chief of Clan MacLeod to allow us to exhibit Rory Mor's horn."

"Who's what?" Joe asked.

Emily laughed. "Rory Mor MacLeod was the fifteenth chief of the clan MacLeod and he was quite the legend. The 'Mor' in his name means 'great'."

"So he was known as Rory the Great?" Joe asked. "Wow, how cool would that be?"

"He deserved the title, apparently. Anyway, the horn is an actual ox horn, and the legend goes that Rory was watching some sort of agricultural exhibition when he heard that members of their enemy clan, the MacDonalds, had landed on their island to invade. So, Rory jumped on the back of one of the oxen to repel the invasion force and saved the day. The ox he rode was allowed to die a natural death and when that happened, they sawed off one of his horns, hollowed it out and made the legendary 'Rory Mor's Horn.'"

"And, what does one do with this horn?" Frank wanted to know.

"Well, the clan heir, when he comes of age, has to fill the horn with claret and drink it all in one swig, without sitting down...or falling down," she laughed.

"A full horn? How much is that?" Joe asked.

"About one and two-thirds bottles."

"Holy cow!" Frank whistled low. "Has anyone ever done it?"

"They all have," she assured him. "In fact, one of the chieftains set a record in nineteen sixty-five for downing it in less than two minutes."

"And none of them died of alcohol poisoning?" Frank quipped.

"None that I know of," she said with a smile.

"So, what's the curse that goes with it?" Joe persisted.

"That I'm not sure of. I actually think it's only in Duncan's mind. He seems to feel that the horn shouldn't have been removed from Dunvegan castle," Emily sighed. "I don't know of any 'official' curse tied to that object." She shrugged. "But, I guess that's the stuff of which legends are made."

A side door near the patio opened, and the older lady Emily had left in charge of the lobby peered around it. "Emily?"

"Just a minute," she said to Frank and Joe. She spoke quietly with the woman for a moment then turned back to the brothers. "I'm sorry, I need to go right now. Was there anything more you needed to discuss with me?"

"Yes," Joe replied immediately. "Um, when are you finished today?"

Emily looked down at her watch. "Around two."

"Can I come back then?"

She nodded. "I'll meet you in the lobby." She stepped back into the museum and Joe sighed, then looked up and caught Frank staring at him.

"What?"

"Can I come back? Didn't you forget someone?"

"Oh. Well, I figured you'd probably be busy investigating somewhere else," Joe said. "No sense both of us spending all our time questioning one witness. Didn't you say something about talking to Ayres' neighbors last night?"

Frank rolled his eyes. "Unbelievable."

OOOOOooooOOOOO

Frank leaned over the shoulders of his father and Chief Collig as he watched the surveillance video from the art museum on the monitor in Collig's office later that morning.

"Okay, so we can see that several people walked back and forth past the construction entrance between nine-thirty a.m. when Professor Ayres was speaking with Duncan MacLean and two-thirty p.m., the approximate time you discovered the body," Collig explained.

"Yeah, but none of them are carrying anything that looks remotely like a body," Frank said. "In fact, not even Professor Ayres passes this way."

"Correct," Collig said. "This part of the tape was shot between nine-thirty and noon. Now here comes the interesting part." All of sudden the screen went black.

"What happened?" Fenton asked.

"The camera stopped working." Collig's voice was grim.

"What?" Frank's mouth hung open in disbelief.

"Yeah, for eight minutes," Collig sighed. "And, I'm willing to bet that it was during those eight minutes, someone dragged Professor Ayres' body into the exhibition room and plunged his head into the cement."

"Then this was an inside job," Frank said. "Someone tampered with the surveillance camera."

"That's what it looks like," Collig agreed. "Although, it certainly could have been an outsider familiar with the security camera set-up the museum uses. It isn't very sophisticated. Budget problems and all."

"So Ayres was murdered sometime between ten a.m. and noon," Fenton surmised.

"That's what we're guessing." Collig leaned back in his chair. "The last person to see Ayres was a secretary who watched him exit Duncan MacLean's office. We lose track of him after that. Nobody saw him leave the museum and no one saw him anywhere else that day after his appointment with MacLean."

"Did the secretary say what kind of mood he was in after the meeting?" Fenton wanted to know.

"She said that he seemed to be in good spirits," Collig replied. "In fact, the reason she noticed him was that he stopped by her desk. She mentioned he took some candy out of the bowl she keeps there and that he said hello to her."

Frank paced behind his father and the chief. "Okay, so he wasn't upset when he left Duncan's office. But he must have stopped somewhere else in the museum. We're pretty sure he didn't leave between the time of his meeting and the time he was murdered." He looked at Collig. "But the video doesn't show Ayres entering the exhibit hall where we found him in the wheelbarrow."

"No, and no video exists of him anywhere else in the building that day. The surveillance cameras are only placed in the exhibit halls, the lobby, and near all the entrances and exits to the building. The office and storage areas of the museum are camera free."

Collig reached forward and pulled a report off the pile of papers on his desk. "One more thing. Preliminary report from the coroner, pending an autopsy." He handed it to Fenton.

"Strangulation," Fenton said, passing the paper to Frank.

"Yep," Collig said. "Bruising around the neck indicates that, but we won't know for sure until the autopsy is complete. That'll take a few more days, maybe a week."

"Well, if he was strangled, that's a clue," Frank said. "Professor Ayres wasn't a small man. Whoever murdered him was fairly strong."

Collig spun his chair around and faced Frank. "I hate to do this, but I'm going to need to ask for your help with this one." He sighed. "Your help and your brother's."

Frank fought back the smile that started to tug up the corners of his mouth. "Oh?"

"We don't have a motive," Collig continued. "And we need one. Unfortunately, the Bayport police stick out like a sore thumb on campus. I'm afraid we might not be able to get the information we want fast enough." He sighed again. "At least not as fast as a college student working undercover might."

This time Frank did smile. "So, you want Joe and me to investigate this crime?"

"Under my direction and supervision," Collig said, holding a finger up in warning. "And only if you promise to keep that brother of yours on a tight leash."

"I'll do my best," Frank said.

"You report to me every day and let me know what you find." Collig shuffled through more papers on his desk. "Here are two ID badges for you." He shoved them at Frank.

"Thanks, Chief."

"I'm only doing this because the danger to the public of having a murderer on the loose outweighs my extreme reluctance to give Joe Hardy a badge of any kind." He looked at Frank intently. "Don't make me regret it."