THE FRAGMENT
OF SERPENTINE MARBLEIllustration by Val B. Mina | By DON CUSHMAN
I will never get used to walking into a place where someone has recently died. Especially when death intrudes on an otherwise tidy existence. A Spode tea cup had spilled its contents on the expensive Persian carpet. A fine layer of dust covered everything, although the house was well sealed against the elements. Astonishing how decay begins immediately. Most of our lives we fight against the inevitable decline which begins the minute we turn our backs, or the minute our backs are turned for us.
There was very little blood. A thin, almost black, trickle ran down his neck and marred the surface of the antique desk. Professor Di Stephano had died quickly. And the death he had invited into his study found him seated at his desk studying a fragment of rare serpentine marble. An opened DHL overnight package lay at one side of the desk, with a return address to Dante Palmieri, Professor of Egyptology at the University of Bologna. The look of astonishment on the dead professor's face reminded me of Sumerian statuary, which always seem to convey an almost supernatural surprise, as though they had just glimpsed something of supreme importance, something that changed everything.
The letter which accompanied the DHL package was in Italian. My eyes scanned the page: "Scavo... K5... Pavimento... Tombo...Valle Egyptus."
I looked at Esther Wong, the young medical examiner, and she raised an eyebrow. I figured the set-up was worth at least a raised eyebrow.
My name is Arthur Stockton and in my capacity as a private detective I was doing one of my occasional favors for the higher-ups at UC-Berkeley. I had taught at this august institution once. I had just enough originality, scruples, and social conscience not to be recommended for tenure. Esther motioned me over.
"Look Arthur," she said under her breath,"What are you doing here? Don't ask me to write natural causes, and suicides don't stick themselves in the spine. I'll know tomorrow exactly what was in the syringe. From the looks of it, it wasn't dope. It wasn't the substance that killed him, but the precise placement of the needle. Just below the occipital bulge, as you can see." She grimaced slightly as punctuation. "That's about it."
"That's about nothing," I mumbled under my breath. "Let me know when you know, OK?" Esther nodded and moved away.
She called back the next afternoon. "Arthur, it's pretty much what I thought. Someone used the hypodermic like an ice pick. It's not hard to learn. An anatomy class and a nasty imagination. There was a trace of insulin in the syringe. Our perpetrator re-used a spent syringe."
"Thanks, Esther, I owe you one," I said slowly, my mind already turning to the letter and chunk of marble at the murder scene. Both seemed innocent enough. According to Esther, the letter was filled with accounts of excavations and a detailed list of measurements, mostly of doorways, some with asterisks next to them.
Next page: A gigantic ego from Stanford
