“How does that work with the alarm?”
“There’s two different settings,” Eric answered. “A system setting and a zone setting. While I’m in the security station, the whole place is on the system setting. If anyone enters through any door, it trips the alarm. When I go out to make rounds, I switch it to zone setting.”
“What’s the difference?”
Eric shrugged. “I don’t know exactly. All I know is that when I switch it to zone, I can walk into each area and it gives me about a minute to get to the keypad. I enter the code and it shuts off that zone for five minutes or until I enter the code in another zone. Then it resets. That way, I can make my rounds without completely shutting down the security system.”
“So theoretically, someone could time their entry to coincide with your rounds?”
“Huh?”
Finch repeated the question.
Eric gave him a quizzical look. “You mean come in through the door in a zone right after I walked past?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“No?”
Eric shook his head. “The zone setting doesn’t affect the doors like the system setting does. They’re still alarmed. All it does is shut off the motion sensors inside the building.”
“So someone breaking in would still set off the alarm?”
“Yeah. Unless they had the code.”
Finch nodded while Elias made notes. “Is there video surveillance of the museum, Eric?”
Eric’s face fell. His eyes dropped and his bony shoulders slumped. “Yeah,” he whispered. “There’s cameras on the doors and the exhibits.”
“And they’re taped?”
“Yeah. It switches from camera to camera every two seconds.”
“So we can just pull the tape and see what happened?”
Eric’s lip quivered. “No.”
“Why not?”
“I…I screwed up.” Tears sprang to his eyes. He brushed them away briskly, not making eye contact with either detective.
Finch leaned forward, closing body space. He sensed a confession coming. “What happened?” he asked. He kept his tone soft, not wanting to scare the kid into clamming up.
Eric swallowed. “I fell asleep.”
Finch cocked his head, mildly surprised. “Fell asleep?”
Eric nodded glumly.
“When?”
“I don’t know exactly. Sometime after eleven, I guess.”
“Was Michael Booth still in the museum?”
“No. It was after he left.” Eric buried his face in his hands and sobbed. “I’m overloaded on credits at school. I get a ton of reading and other homework, so I don’t get much sleep.”
Finch and Elias exchanged looks while Eric wept. Finch read the suspicion that still resided in his partner’s eyes. He reached out and patted Eric on the shoulder. “When did you wake up?” he asked softly.
Eric pulled his face away from his hands, wiping away tears and sniffling. “At five-eleven.”
“Are you sure?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I looked right at the clock and realized I’d screwed up. I knew the timing on the tapes would be off and if anyone checked the alarm logs, they’d see that I didn’t do my rounds.”
“Do they check often?”
“Never,” Eric replied. “At least, not that I know of.”
“Have you fallen asleep before?”
Eric’s hesitation gave Finch the answer.
“How many times?” the detective asked.
Eric sighed. “A couple times. But never for this long. Just…catnaps, really.” He looked frantically from detective to detective. “I didn’t mean to. Honestly, I didn’t. I was just so tired and comfortable and I knew that the alarm would go off if-”
Finch held up his hand, stopping him. “I understand. What did you do once you woke up?”
“I figured I better go do my rounds, so I headed out.”
“Did you see anything?”
“No. All the doors were secure. All the alarms were set.”
“But the little mummy was missing?” Elias asked.
Eric shifted his gaze to Elias and nodded. “Yeah. When I saw he was gone, I called Dr. Leavitt right away.”
“Why didn’t you call Tony Moore?” Finch asked. “He’s the head of security.”
Eric eyed both of them, his face difficult to read. “That’s not how it works here,” he said. Then he asked Finch, “Am I going to jail?”
“Did you steal the mummy?” Elias asked, cutting in.
Alarm shot through Eric’s eyes. “No!”
“Know who did?”
“No, sir!”
“Then I guess we’ll see,” Elias told him, clapping him on the shoulder. “In the meantime, don’t leave town.”
After Eric closed the door behind him, Finch shook his head at Elias. “That was mean.”
“And you’re never mean?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“What do you call sending Tower and Browning on a wild goose chase investigating that contractor when we worked the two-fer on Palmer Court?”
“That’s between professionals,” Finch argued. “This is different. You’re making a college kid sweat. That’s mean.”
“Let him sweat. He fell asleep. Maybe he’ll learn a lesson from it.”
“Detective Elias, teacher to the world,” Finch said expansively.
“And what if he’s lying?” Elias asked, ignoring Finch’s sarcasm.
Finch considered for a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t think he’s lying.”
“Neither do I,” Elias admitted, “but we don’t know for sure. And objectively speaking, he’s our most likely suspect so far. He had the means and the opportunity.”
“What about our ex-con? Or Moore?”
“I haven’t decided yet.” Elias rubbed his eyes while he spoke. “You call for Adam. Get him down here to do some computer work for us on that alarm system. I’ll get Renee to run our principals through the computer for background. Then we’ll meet the department head.”
Twenty minutes later, the two detectives sat in the museum foyer and exchanged notes.
“Adam should be here in half an hour,” Finch said. “What did Renee tell you?”
Elias shrugged. “Not much. No one has a criminal record except for Booth. He did three years for possessing stolen property with a misdemeanor marijuana possession kicker.”
“Which tells us what?”
“That he’s a thief and a doper.” Elias grinned. “Or that he was. He’s rehabilitated now.”
“Renee had nothing else?”
Elias shook his head. “Except for the addresses on all five, nada.”
Finch frowned.
“What’re you thinking, Finchie?”
“I don’t know for sure yet,” Finch said. “Too many unknowns. Let’s go talk to the department head.”
Dr. Ruth Ingram surprised Finch twice.
The first surprise came when he first saw her. Instead of a matronly woman in black-rimmed glasses and a scowl, she turned out to be in her early thirties with dark hair in a long braid. Her trim, curvy figure filled out a pair of khakis and a white business-casual blouse. The only expectation that remotely panned out was the eyeglasses-a stylish pair with a petite frame and thin gray rims.
Finch flashed his badge. Elias did the same.
Dr. Ingram was not impressed. “Have you found the relic yet?”
“Not yet,” Finch admitted.
“I figured as much. The insurance company will send special investigators.”
Elias raised an eyebrow. “Special ones, huh?”
Dr. Ingram eyed him coolly. “Artifact theft can be complex, detective.”
“Burglary is burglary, theft is theft.”
“Hardly.” She adjusted her glasses. “Now what can I do for you? I assume you’re here to question me.”
“We’re hoping you can help us with the case, yes,” Finch said. “When was the last time you saw the mummy?”
“When I left last night.”
“Which was?”
“Six o’clock or so.”
“And where did you go?”
“I went straight home.”
“Did you return to the museum?”
“Not until this morning. I assume by that question that you consider me a suspect?”
“Everyone is a suspect,” Elias said with a tight grin.
“Preposterous,” she snapped. “There was no forced entry into the museum, which means that whoever took Babafemi had the alarm code and a key. And since you haven’t simply reviewed the video surveillance tapes, I gather that something went awry with that system, which doesn’t surprise me at all.”