The Moche Warrior by Lyn Hamilton Page A

road, I go slightly nuts. Clive was right. It was time for me to get a grip.
    But how, exactly?
    A mixture of smells greeted my nostrils as I stepped in the door: part doused campfire, part wet dog, and partly, to my hyperactive imagination, the odor of death. I pointed out the spot where I’d found Alex to Constable Chu, then looked around as she made notes.
    The fire itself had done surprisingly little damage. The storage room door had blown out, and it and the frame were badly singed, the walls in that area marked by smoke stains. The sprinkler system had done what it should and put out the blaze very quickly.
    The water damage was something else, however. Already the paint on some of the antique wood pieces was beginning to peel away, and watermarks were showing up on everything. The sofas were absolutely sodden, and the carpets on the floor, some really lovely old kilims I’d picked up on a hair-raising trip through Pakistan a few months earlier, squelched as I walked over them. I desperately wanted to get an industrial cleaner in, but the doors were still barred by yellow police tape. If we weren’t allowed in soon, nothing would be salvageable. I could have cried.
    Lewis arrived. “Anything missing?” he said in his usual succinct manner.
    I looked around. The store is a bit of a barn really, just one large room with a teeny office behind the front desk, the storage room at the back, and another small showroom off to the right. In order to make the merchandise look more inviting, we had room arrangements in several areas of the shop: a dining table and chairs with places set, a candelabra hanging from the ceiling above; a living room arrangement against one wall, with a sofa, side chairs, end tables, coffee table with accent pieces on it, and perhaps a wall hanging or a carved mirror behind the sofa.
    When someone bought an item, we rearranged the setting so that it wouldn’t look bare. In other words, our merchandise was constantly in motion. Alex would have known exactly where everything was, but it would take me days to make a complete inventory. In any event, I did my best to have a careful look around.
    I started with the office where I had left the jade snuff bottle. Much to my relief, and somewhat to my surprise, it was still there. It had been tossed into a corner along with the contents of the three drawers in the desk, but it was not damaged in any way that I could see. The safe was still locked. The place was a mess, but I couldn’t see anything missing.
    I forced myself to go and look in the storage room. That room was pretty well a write-off. I could see the chalk outline on the floor where Lizard had been found.
    “There’s nothing missing in the office that I can find,” I said to Lewis, giving him a progress report. I looked toward the storage room. “Did he burn to death?”‘ I asked, my voice shaking, and thinking what a really horrible way that was to die.
    “Garroted. Wire pulled so tight, it cut into his neck.
    Burned too, and locked in just to make sure. Somebody wanted him dead.“ Lewis paused.
”Your
keys too. In the storeroom door. Locking him in. Not necessary. Wasn’t going anywhere.“ Before I could respond to that implied accusation, he concluded, ”Keep looking.“
    Horrified, I carried on as instructed. A jewelry case at the front desk had been opened and the contents jumbled up. There were a few nice pieces in there, but as far as I could tell, nothing was missing there either.
    I was perplexed. I’d thought that Lizard was interested in the snuff bottle: It was the only thing of any value in the box from the auction. But it was still there. So what else could it be? On the assumption that it was no coincidence that I’d taken the objects he’d wanted at Molesworth & Cox, I thought about the contents of the box.
    I turned back to the main room. The vase, the reproduction pre-Columbian piece with the lovely serpents on the rim, was missing. I spent almost an hour