Moore nodded glumly. “Like you guys don’t fool around.”
Finch ignored that and handed Moore his notepad and a pen. “Write down her number.”
Finch dropped the phone onto the cradle and frowned. “She backs his story, one hundred percent.”
“Which puts him neck and neck with the professor for last in line.”
“Can we stop with the horse-racing metaphors?”
“Would you prefer chariots? Since we’re dealing with a mummy and all that.”
Finch ignored the question by asking one of his own. “The janitor?”
“Yep.”
“I knew you guys’d be back,” Michael Booth told them, putting down his magazine.
“Why’s that?” Elias asked.
Booth smiled humorlessly. “Cops always come back.”
“Profound,” Elias muttered.
Finch pulled a plastic chair from the corner of the room. He sat near Booth and regarded him quietly for a moment. Booth stared back at him, unfazed. Finch continued to stare.
After about a minute, Booth shrugged at him. “What?”
“You are the only person in this investigation with a criminal record,” Finch said.
“So what? That doesn’t make me the only criminal.”
“What’s that mean?” Elias asked.
Booth glanced up at him. “What, I spoke Portuguese?”
Elias’s face flushed and his jaw clenched.
“What are you driving at when you say that?” Finch asked.
“Simple,” Booth replied. “Someone else took the mummy, right? And that guy’s a criminal.”
“What if that guy was you?” Finch asked him.
“It wasn’t.”
“But what if it was?”
Booth shrugged. “What if daisies were dollars?”
That one surprised both detectives and they gave him questioning looks.
Booth smiled broadly. “Well, if that were so, I’d have a million dollar field growing right in my front yard.”
“You think this is funny?” Elias asked.
“No,” Booth said. “But I know I didn’t do it. And my answer will be the same no matter how many times you ask.”
Finch tried a different tactic. “If you didn’t do it, then you wouldn’t mind taking a lie detector test, right?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t believe in them,” Booth said.
“Ah,” said Elias, giving Finch a wink. “A skeptic.”
“They’re not admissible in court, anyhow,” Booth went on.
“A skeptic and a legal scholar,” Elias observed. “When did you get your law degree, Grisham?”
“I spent some time in the law library when I did my stretch. Keeps me from getting jerked around by cops.”
“We’re not jerking you around,” Finch told him. “We’re trying to find the mummy.”
“I didn’t take it.”
“So take the polygraph.”
“Like I said, I don’t believe in them.”
Finch shrugged. “It doesn’t matter if you believe in them. We do.”
“That’s your problem.”
“Look, if you take the polygraph and pass, we believe you. If you take it and fail, it’s not admissible in court. How can you lose? Take the test and clear your name.”
Booth shook his head. “No.”
“You know,” Elias said conversationally, “if the museum thinks you had anything to do with this, they’ll fire you.”
“So? It’s a janitor job. And it’s contract work, anyway.”
“So maybe they’ll dump the contract.”
“Let ’em.”
Finch rubbed his chin and sighed. “You know, if I owned a janitorial service and some employee caused me to lose a contract, I’d fire him.”
“And blackball him so he’d never get work in town again,” Elias added.
Booth’s smile returned. “You’re breakin’ my heart, guys. I’ll never work in this town as a janitor again? Boo-hoo. I’ll work construction. Better money, anyway.”
All three men fell quiet for a moment. Booth watched both men, his face a mask of calm bravado.
Finch broke the silence. “Are you still on probation, Mike?”
Booth shook his head in disgust. “I wondered how long it would take you to get around to that. No way is my probation officer going to violate me because I won’t take a lie detector test.”
“Probably not,” Finch said. “But no one is perfect. Everyone screws up, especially when they’re bound by all sorts of rules.”
“Like a guy on probation,” Elias said.
“Sooner or later, a guy is going to screw up. Might be something small, but still a screw-up. And if anyone is watching that guy when he screws up…” Finch shrugged nonchalantly.
“He gets hammered,” Elias finished.
“So, should I give your P.O. a call?” Finch asked.
Booth’s gaze went back and forth between the two detectives. Then he sighed. “Why are you guys hassling me? I didn’t take the mummy. I don’t know anything about it.”
“You’re hiding something,” Finch said. “That’s why.”
Booth stared at him for a long while. Finally, he asked, “Look, if I tell you the truth, can I get a pass on some misdemeanor crap?”
Finch and Elias exchanged a glance. Elias gave Finch a short nod.
“Probably,” Finch told Booth. “Depending on what it is.”
“It’s got nothing to do with this mummy or anything like that,” Booth said.
“Then what?”
Booth sighed. “Follow me.”
He led the detectives out of the utility room and down the hallway. Elias leaned close to Finch’s ear. “Be careful he doesn’t turn and rush us,” he whispered.
Finch nodded. “At least if he does, we’ll have a better story than last time.”
Elias winced and grinned at the same time.
Booth pushed open a door marked “Employees Only-Men.” Light reflected off the bright tile on the locker room floor. A long row of blue lockers stood along the wall. A bench ran the length of the lockers. Booth stopped in front of number twelve. He turned to face the detectives, his face grave. “I’m trusting you guys here. I’ve been screwed over by cops before.”
“We just want to find the mummy,” Finch said. “What is it?”
“The thing is,” Booth said, “I’ve got a lot of joint pain. Lifting weights in the pen got me really big, but then I didn’t stick with it after I got out. There’s a lot of pressure on my joints, but the doctor won’t prescribe anything harder than Tylenol for it.” He shook his head. “He sees ex-con, same as you, and probably thinks I’m scamming to get some OxyContin or something.”
“What’s this have to do with the mummy getting stolen?”
“Nothing,” Booth said. “But-”
A Nextel phone on Booth’s belt chirped. A tinny version of Moore’s voice echoed in the locker room. “Mike? Where are you?”
Booth cursed and spoke into the phone. “Locker room.”
“You with the detectives?”
“Yeah.”
“Be there in a couple.”
Booth cursed again, replacing the phone on his belt. “If he finds out about this, I will get canned.”
“Finds out about what?” Finch asked.
Booth pointed to locker number four. A piece of masking tape on the front bore the name “Mike” in black marker. “That’s my locker there. This one here”-he pointed to twelve-“is supposed to be empty.”
“But it’s not.”
“No. It’s not.” Booth slipped a key into the lock and opened it. Then he stepped aside for the detectives.
Elias stepped forward first and examined the interior of the locker. He let out a long, loud sigh. Then he stepped aside for Finch.
Finch looked inside the locker. At first sight, it appeared empty. Then his eyes lighted onto the upper shelf. A rolled baggie of marijuana the size of two thick cigars perched halfway to the rear of the locker.
Finch groaned. “This is about some marijuana?”
“Yeah,” Booth admitted. “I smoke it for the pain in my joints. I don’t sell it, man. I just use it, you know, medicinally.”