Read Online Frozen by Jay Bonansinga - Free Book Online

makes when a game becomes hopeless, and Zorn secretly delighted in the sound. At the age of forty, one of the youngest profilers in the division, Zorn was a mover, a bundle of ambition, from the top of his stylish bald head down to his thousand-dollar lizard cowboy boots. Originally from Amarillo, with a bachelor’s from Texas A&M and a master’s from Yale, he still spoke with a faint drawl. Cops loved him. At crime scenes he played the good old boy sleuth to the hilt.
    â€œI’m not saying I don’t have faith in the man,” Geisel finally murmured in a low tone. “For all I know, this mummy holds the key to Sun City. Just like Grove claims. What I’m saying is, we’ve had Grove on the case for twelve months now, and he’s up there operating all alone, no other perspective. Do you see what I mean?”
    â€œY ’all want me to go there.”
    â€œI know you’ve got a hellacious workload, Terry, and the review’s coming down the line.”
    â€œDon’t give it another thought, Tom. I’ll be on the first flight out tomorrow morning.”
    â€œI really appreciate it, Terry.”
    â€œHow’d you leave it with Ulysses?”
    â€œHe asked me if I could send help, and I told him I’d ask you.”
    â€œOutstanding, Tom.”
    â€œWhich reminds me, Terry . . .”
    There was a pause then, and Zorn waited. He knew the old man had a soft spot for Grove, and it was probably killing the director to undermine his golden boy. But it was also obvious to Zorn that Grove’s days were coming to an end. The Great Ulysses Grove had finally blown a gasket, and was up there in the wilds of Alaska, picking apart some cockamamie fossil when he should be working on a rapid-response plan for the next Sun City crime scene.
    Zorn said, “What is it?”
    The pause went on for another beat. Another sigh. “Terry, I’m sending you up there in an official capacity of second banana on this mummy thing. You take orders from Grove. You’re there to help. Ostensibly . But unofficially . . . I want you to keep tabs. Reign this thing back in. Get Grove back on track with Sun City, if you can. Bottom line is, you’re my guy. You’re my eyes and ears up there. Does that make any sense?”
    Zorn smiled to himself. “It makes perfect sense, Tom.”
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    Grove spent the rest of that day learning everything he could about the Iceman. He went to the graduate archaeology library with Okuda, and underwent a primer in early Copper Age man. He snuck back into the Schleimann Lab and took another look—albeit through layers of hermetically sealed glass—at the mummy. He took digital pictures of the thing and found himself staring for inordinate amounts of time at the Iceman’s leathery face. There was something about that face, and those gaping, waxen eyes, that transfixed Grove. Maybe it was the nightmare he had had the previous night, or perhaps it was the matching victimology. But something about the expression frozen onto the mummy’s face fascinated Grove.
    He mentioned this to Okuda, who commented that he thought the expression cemented onto the mummy’s face was a clue as to how the Iceman had died. Okuda believed that the mummy was a victim of human sacrifice. Copper Age humans worshipped many nature gods, including mountain deities, and believed in the significance of sacrificial offerings in order to affect the weather, the harvest, even the birth rate. This was known now, according to Okuda, because of the fossil record, and because of the tools, belongings, and implements that had been found alongside mummies such as Keanu. Plus, recent CT scans and three-dimensional computer imaging of the mummy’s internal organs revealed that part of the liver and the heart had been removed postmortem (this was done through a ragged opening beneath his ribs, a wound that was initially thought to be the result of a fall).