Shared Obsession Chapter 157
Kate's cell phone sounds off. "The CSU report?" Castle asks.
"Uh-huh. Opening the email now. "What the hell! No drugs. But no mummy either."
"Maybe Grimes found another buyer and they took it," Castle suggests.
"But how would they get it out of the museum?" Kate wonders. "Rachel said the atmosphere would damage a mummy. And Grimes told me that private buyers are very particular about what they buy. It would have had to be put in a special container or something and then someone would have to sneak it past security to get it out."
"Unless no one got it out," Castle suggests. "As a member of the Platinum Circle, I got a tour of museum storage, the basement, and rooms behind the scenes. There's a huge amount of space, crammed with stuff from exhibits from decades past. Someone who knew the museum could hide anything there to get out after the furor died down. Maybe it was an inside job."
Ryan greets Kate and Castle at the entrance to the museum basement. "This place is gigantic. They have over 30 million specimens down here."
Castle throws Kate an "I told you so" look.
"We've got a canine unit coming in to help, but finding this mummy might be like finding the lost ark," Ryan goes on.
"Have CSU check the sarcophagus for prints and sweep the area," Kate instructs. "Whoever stole the mummy must have left some evidence behind."
Rupert Bentley runs up to Kate and Castle. "Disaster PR, disaster! I only hope the press doesn't hear about this."
"Ten bucks says he calls the press just as soon as we're out the front door," Castle says as Bentley rushes off again. "Hey, you don't think he could have orchestrated this whole thing just to generate interest in the exhibit, do you?"
"Murdered Medina just to boost ticket sales?" Kate considers. "That would make this Scooby Doo and I'm not Velma."
"Velma! Are you kidding? You're Daphne. You're smart but not aggressively brainy with legs that don't quit. You don't usually wear short skirts. But there was that '60s party we went to…."
"I remember," Kate says. "But I think in the '70s Angie Dickenson played out the cop with great legs thing about as far as it could go. And it's hard to hide a backup piece dressed like that."
"It would rule out an ankle holster," Castle agrees.
Kate plunks herself behind her desk in the bullpen. "Rogue archaeologists, Mayan death threats, drug dealers claiming to deal in antiquities and missing mummies. There's got to be a story behind all this that makes sense."
Castle gingerly takes his accustomed seat and then rubs his back against the chair. "If I ever stop itching, maybe I can write it."
Ryan holds up a report. "This should help. We hit a home run with the prints from the sarcophagus. One popped that doesn't belong to anyone in the museum."
Esposito rocks triumphantly on the balls of his feet. "But according to the background check, he does work at 1127 Avenue of the Americas, the address on Medina's calendar."
"At a company called Bio Inc.," Ryan puts in. "And here's the best part." He holds up a scan of a passport. "His name is Charles Taylor."
"C.T.!" Kate and Castle exclaim simultaneously.
"Spoke to the guy two days ago," Esposito recalls, "and he insisted he'd never met Will Medina. Lied to my face."
Taylor stares across the box's table at Kate and Castle. "No, I didn't lie. I swear to you, I don't know Will Medina."
"You didn't see him two days ago at 5:30 PM?" Castle presses.
"No. You got the wrong guy," Taylor insists.
Kate taps her fingertips against her folder. "But you admit that you were in the basement of the New York History Museum."
"No," Taylor claims.
Kate sighs her impatience. "Charles, we have your fingerprints on a sarcophagus. So you can either tell us the truth now or after spending an afternoon in a holding cell entertaining a meth addict going through the violent phase of withdrawal."
"I might have been down there," Taylor concedes.
"When?" Kate demands. Taylor's lips close in a tight line. "OK, holding cell it is."
Taylor holds up a hand. "Wait. It was five days ago."
"And Medina?" Castle questions.
Tayler crosses his arms on the table and leans across them. "Look, I heard he was dead. I didn't want to get mixed up in that. I was only sent there to check out the mummy."
"The mummy?" Kate probes.
"I was sent by a private collector to examine it."
"Grimes was telling the truth," Castle whispers to Kate. "Medina was trying to sell the mummy."
"This collector, where is he from?" Kate inquires.
"Taipei. I've done testing for him before, uh, uh, hominid skulls, a mammoth tusk. He wanted me to carbon date the mummy, make sure it was real."
"And was it?" Kate asks.
"It's complicated," Taylor warns.
"We'll try to keep up," Kate responds.
"As soon as an organism dies, it quits taking in new carbon. Specifically, we focus on carbon 14 which starts to decay in the body as soon as it dies. By examining the rate of decay, we can actually date the age of the dead organism with incredible accuracy. When I tested the mummy, I took samples from the sarcophagus, the cloth the mummy was wrapped in, and a small piece of bone. I ran them all through the mass spectrometer. That's when things got weird."
"Define weird," Castle says.
"The samples from the sarcophagus and the cloth dated at over 2,000 years old. But the piece of bone was too young to date, meaning it was less than 500 years old."
"How much less?" Kate queries.
"I have no idea," Taylor admits. "Five hundred years is as low as the test goes."
"Are you saying that the mummy Medina was trying to sell was a fake?" Castle asks.
"All I know is there was a discrepancy," Taylor replies, "and I called and told him that. But he didn't believe me. He insisted on coming to see me – that must have been the night he died."
Montgomery opens the door to the box. "Beckett, uniforms just found your mummy."
"Where?" Beckett asks.
"In a dark corner of the museum basement. Someone was doing their best to make sure it was never found."
"Medina's buyer rejected the mummy because it wasn't real," Kate recounts. "And then when Medina started asking questions, he was killed."
"And now someone's trying to make it disappear," Castle adds.
Montgomery palms his head. "I think we need to take a closer look at that mummy."
"Your carbon dater was right," Lanie announces. "The girl's body is definitely less than 500 years old."
"How much less?" Kate asks.
"She died four months ago. Hey, you all right Castle? Last time I saw scratching like that it was on a flea collar commercial."
"I don't want to talk about it – unless you know some secret medical examiner treatment for hives from Yucatan pollen," Castle says hopefully.
"Sorry, I don't usually treat the living and the dead don't itch. You can bet your mummy here doesn't. And whoever mummified her knew what they were doing. Her blood's been drained. There's an incision on her left side which the killer used to remove her organs before starting the desiccation process."
"How did she die?" Kate asks.
"Blunt force trauma. Someone hit her in the back of the head. She never saw it coming."
"Do you have any idea who she is?" Kate queries.
"No, and I was unable to get a usable fingerprint."
"We don't need one," Castle declares. "She died four months ago. I know exactly who this is."