Page 19 of Badlands (Nora Kelly #5)

S KIP K ELLY ARRIVED early and waited nervously in the parking lot of the Institute for Edison Nash to arrive.

He eventually did, twenty minutes late, driving a 60 Ford F-100 in two-toned white over turquoise.

It swung into the lot with a scurry of gravel.

If ever there was a vehicle that stuck out, this was it.

Skip hoped to hell that no one was working at the Institute on a Sunday.

“Nice ride,” Skip said as Edison hopped out.

“I just love these old Ford trucks,” said Edison.

“I got three more in the garage—I’ll show you sometime.” He pulled off his sunglasses and looked around at the low-slung adobe buildings tucked among the cottonwood trees.

“Nothing ever changes around this pile, does it?”

“It’s a stuffy old place.”

“I’ll say. Hidebound. Did I tell you, around ten years ago, when I first inherited the collection, I offered to donate a few really nice pieces to the Institute? Not that I’m some sort of philanthropist—I was looking for a tax deduction.” He gave a quick laugh.

“The bastards turned me down, saying the stuff had been collected ‘improperly.’”

Skip shook his head.

Nash had in fact mentioned this story before, and it was obviously a sore point.

“They have all kinds of rules about provenance and so forth.”

“Yeah, but the fact is, archaeologists were the nastiest looters and grave robbers of all time. Now they’ve cleaned up their act and put on a holier-than-thou mug. I’ll bet half the stuff in here was collected ‘improperly.’” He gave a cynical snort.

“Well, let’s go check it out. I’ve always wanted to see their shit. It’s supposed to be one of the finest collections in the world.”

“It is,” said Skip, pride mingling with anxiety.

The other evening, Nash had talked him into a behind-the-scenes tour of the Institute’s collections, and the man was, if anything, persuasive—especially after a few rounds of reposado.

Skip wasn’t sure if showing Nash around was strictly kosher.

He was permitted to escort credentialed visitors through the collections, but whether Nash was “credentialed” or not was questionable.

At least, Skip thought, it was Sunday, and they weren’t likely to be challenged.

Even if they were, Skip figured he could justify it by saying Nash had been asked by the FBI to provide information on lightning stones, and for that reason he needed to see the collection.

Skip slipped in his card and pressed the code at the main door of the collections building, and Nash followed him in.

The reception area was dark, lights turned off.

After crossing the lobby and heading down a hall, Skip filled out the logbook.

He hesitated, wondering whether to put down Nash’s name in the visitors’ column, and then decided not to.

Why raise questions?

There was, of course, security video, but Skip knew that no one ever looked at it and wouldn’t—unless there was a robbery or some other problem.

“This way,” he said.

They headed down a hall to the open collections.

This was storage, but it had been set up in such a way that the finest objects were displayed on shelves and in glass cases, visible and accessible to visitors, so they could be seen and studied without the hassle of opening cabinets and drawers.

Skip flicked on the lights.

A slight gasp came from Nash, who stared into the generous space packed with row after row of ancient Pueblo pottery.

“Incredible!” he muttered.

And it was incredible, thought Skip, even though he had gotten used to it over years of working there.

The front part of the room was where the finest examples of prehistoric pottery were stored: thousands of Chaco black-on-white ollas; Mimbres bowls painted with stylized fish, birds, and insects; Sikyátki dragonfly vessels; gorgeous Tonto polychrome jars; Jeddito black-on-yellow ware—not to mention a shelf of extremely rare golden micaceous jars and funerary urns.

As the collections manager, Skip had learned all the types and kinds of pots.

He glanced over at Nash, who seemed almost thunderstruck.

“I had no idea,” he finally said.

“This is amazing.”

“And it’s just the tip of the iceberg,” said Skip, feeling a flush of pride.

Nash strolled slowly down the main aisle in reverential silence, looking left and right, occasionally stopping to scrutinize a pot.

“May I photograph?”

“It’s allowed for private use,” Skip said.

After a while, they worked their way into the historic pottery section, equally stunning.

At last, Nash turned toward his guide.

“Can we see the artifacts—the lightning stones and such?”

“Right through here.” Skip led him through another door into a smaller room, this one with numerous cabinets and drawers along the walls.

In the center was an open storage system similar to the previous room’s, with the best items in glass-covered cases, selected for viewing.

Nash hurried over and stared at row upon row of beautifully flaked spearpoints, arrowheads, and stone knives; at stone fetishes in the shapes of bears, mountain lions, and deer; at ceremonial pipes, carved bones and teeth, crystals, and turquoise pendants.

Silence reigned as he bent over the items, stepping from case to case, from time to time taking pictures.

Skip could hear him breathing hard.

The guy, he thought, was really into this stuff.

“The lightning stones are over here,” he said after a while, worrying at the length of time Nash was taking.

Nash walked over to a flat case where Skip was waiting.

The case contained a score of paired lightning stones, all in white quartz.

There were no green ones, none of prasiolite.

But they were nevertheless beautiful and mysterious, softly rounded by tumbling and time, some clear as water, others milky.

“Holy fuck,” said Nash.

“I’d love to have some of these in my collection.”

“Yeah, but you’ve got the two best,” said Skip.

“Too bad we can’t take them out and knock them together—test them out.” He hesitated.

“There isn’t a way to, ah, open the cases?”

Skip quickly shook his head.

“They’re locked and alarmed.”

“Too bad.” Nash ogled them for a while and then straightened up, his brow furrowing in thought.

“I can’t stop thinking about how the dead woman they found in the desert was carrying lightning stones. The more I try to picture that, the more it flummoxes me. Do they have any theories about what might have been going through her mind?”

“I don’t think so—not yet, at least.”

“Do you think she might have been out there at night, using them to light her way?”

“Interesting thought.” This idea hadn’t occurred to Skip, and he made a mental note to mention it to his sister.

“You really think the FBI is going to be able to solve this case? I mean, what do those dipshits know about archaeology?”

Skip shrugged.

A thoughtful silence lengthened.

Then Nash spoke again.

“I think—” he started, then paused a moment.

“I think the time might come when we should do a little investigating on our own.”