The Cruel Ever After (28 page)

Jane had been dreading the question. Her relationship with Chess was like a nightmare octopus with ever-growing tentacles. Each time she thought she’d seen them all, a new one would appear. She started in, talking about Chess, about her marriage to him. When she faltered, Cordelia picked up the story, explaining everything that had happened. Jane was grateful. Once again, her problems had leaked over onto her brother’s life. She started to apologize, but Peter cut her off.

“It’s not your fault, any more than what happened last fall was your fault. You saved my life, Janey. I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for you.”

She supposed it was one way of looking at it. There were others.

“So this bull was stolen?” asked Sigrid, wiping tears away from her face.

“From the Baghdad Museum,” said Cordelia. “Chess showed up here because he had a buyer for it, but then the buyer was murdered.”

“We have to call the cops,” said Peter.

“No we don’t.” Sigrid stood rigidly next to the fireplace.

He glanced up. “I thought we agreed.”

“I’m her mother. I should get the final say in what we do or don’t do.”

“Meaning what? Since I’m not her biological dad, I don’t have
any
say in the matter?”

“Let’s not start in on ourselves,” said Cordelia with a sigh. “We’re all we’ve got.” She rose and dished herself up some food. When she realized everyone was staring at her, she said, “What? I don’t think well on an empty stomach.”

“If we’re voting, I’m with Peter,” said Jane.

“And I’m with Sigrid,” said Cordelia.

“We’re not voting,” said Sigrid. “It’s my call. No police.”

“Then what do we do?” Peter’s face had grown flushed. He perched on the edge of the couch. “How the hell are we supposed to find this bull all by ourselves?”

“Any way we can,” said Sigrid.

“What about Nolan?” asked Peter, looking over at Jane.

“He’d tell us to bring the police in.”

“Does that mean he won’t help?”

She’d been thinking about that ever since she found the note. “I can pretty much tell you what he’d say. Start contacting antiquities dealers in the area. Ask if anyone has called or stopped by wanting to sell them a gold statue. See if they have any connections with private collectors who buy antiquities. When we’ve exhausted the local market, we start calling galleries around the country.”

“That could take forever,” said Peter.

“Unless we catch a break, it’s all we’ve got.”

Cordelia held her fork in the air, thinking out loud “There are four of us. And we’ve got”—she glanced at her watch—“forty-five hours.”

“What about Chess?” asked Sigrid. “Can he help us?”

Jane shook her head. “He says he doesn’t know where the bull is.”

“Do you believe him?”

“He’s lied to me so many times, I have no way of knowing.”

“We should call Dad,” said Peter.

Jane tapped a pencil against her desktop. “There’s nothing he can do. Why worry him?”

“He and Elizabeth would make two more people to make phone calls,” said Cordelia.

“She’s right,” said Peter. “I’ll phone him.”

A heavy silence descended as they each weighed the impossibility of the task.

“If we don’t get Mia back, I’ll hunt those people down and kill them with my bare hands,” said Peter. “I mean it.”

Just what the world needed, thought Jane. Another vendetta. Except she felt the same way. If anything happened to Mia, she’d be right there with him.

32

Irina looked down at the chair, then up at the Plexiglas partition. There was a time in her life when filth hadn’t bothered her. She might not even have seen the grimy, greasy fingerprints, the dried spit, the dark red lipstick imprint where some silly woman had kissed the Plexiglas. Yet now, inside this narrow, airless room, she struggled to breathe. She would make the meeting quick. She’d made a decision on the way over and couldn’t wait to break the news to Chess.

Sitting down on the edge of the chair, she gazed anxiously at the phone hanging from the wall, imagining the crawling bacteria, the slithering microbes, knowing that in just a few moments, she would need to touch the cold black plastic with her bare hand. She would be strong—for Dusty’s sake. For Chess’s sake. And for her own. She would get through this and then go back to the houseboat and stand in the shower for as long as it took her to feel clean again.

The door at the back of the room opened, and Chess walked out. He was smiling, his hand reaching to touch the Plexiglas separating them as he sat down. Her heart twisted inside when she saw how tired he looked, but she couldn’t bring herself to press her hand to his. She lifted her arm, tried to force her hand forward, but she couldn’t do it.

He seemed to understand and picked up the phone.

She hesitated before she did the same. “I’ve missed you so much,” she whispered.

“I’ve missed you, too,” he said, still smiling. “You look wonderful.”

She looked strung out and knew it, but she appreciated his hopefulness, the yearning in his eyes. It meant more to her than anything he’d ever said or done before—because it was real.

“What did the lawyer say?” he asked. “When do you get the money? When can you get me out of here?”

“It’s not going to happen. My mother tied up all the funds. The trust states that I have to see a shrink before I get any of it.”

“So go see one. Today. This afternoon. Call a psychiatrist and make an appointment.”

“I don’t need to. We’ll sell the bull, get the money that way.”

His eyes darted around the room. He gave his head a tight shake. “You mean that beautiful little bullfrog figurine you bought in China last year? Sure, I can help you sell that, once I get out of here.” He flashed his eyes at her.

She got the message. This wasn’t a safe place to talk.

“But you lost the bullfrog,” he said casually.

“I did, but then I found it again. Last night.”

His eyes registered shock. “You
found
it?”

“I’ll explain it to you later. I thought you’d be happy.”

“I’m thrilled. But … you’re sure about this now. You’re not just pulling my leg, telling me what you think I want to hear.”

“No, I have it. It’s safe and sound.”

He sat back, tapped his fingers on the counter, studied her for a few seconds. “You know, I may have a buyer for you.”

“Of course we have a buyer. Julia Martinsen.”

“She’s, ah, no longer interested. This is someone else. Someone who’d pay top dollar. You remember I told you about that friend of mine, Jane Lawless? She’d love to own it.”

“No way. I don’t like her.”

“You don’t even know her. Besides, right now, we can’t be choosy. I’ll call her. I’m pretty sure I can persuade her to post the bond. Maybe she can still get it done today. If not, I’ll be out tomorrow for sure. You said you were staying at your mom’s houseboat, right? Where is it?”

She didn’t like this. She didn’t want that woman involved. “The River Bay Marina.”

“Okay, here’s what we do.”

“No,” she said, sitting up straight. “The bullfrog belongs to me. I get to say how this goes down.”

“I
have
to get out of here.”

“I understand that, but I don’t want to sell it to that woman. Go ahead and phone her. If she agrees to put up your bail money, great. You can ditch her once you’re free.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“You’re clever. Figure it out. If you have to bring her out to the marina, fine. We’ll handle things there. I’ll rent a car this afternoon. I’ll swab it down with disinfectant and get it all ready for a nice drive with you and me and Dusty. You know, out in the country. Maybe we can even have a picnic.”

“A picnic sounds good.”

She would miss her mom’s funeral if they left the state, but that couldn’t be helped. “Take a cab to the marina. Or if you have to come with her, I’ll meet you on the foredeck.” She explained where the boat was moored. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

“A surprise?”

“No hints. I’ll need you to bag all your clothes before you come aboard, and then I want you to shower, get all the grime from the jail off you. I’ll buy you some clean clothes at Target this afternoon. We’ll dump your old clothes before we leave for our drive.”

“You’re going to the store now?”

“As soon as I leave.”

“What about Dusty?” He glanced at his watch. “When did you leave the marina?”

“Around eleven.”

“That’s almost four hours ago. You need to get back there.”

“He’ll be okay. It won’t take me that much longer.”

“But the poor little guy. What if he starts to cry? What if he’s scared?”

“He’ll be fine.” She wished people would stop telling her what was best for her son. “We’ll make this work, Chess. You’re with me, right?”

“All the way.”

She felt exhilarated, ready for action. “Call me when you know what time you’re getting out.” She finally understood the desire to put her hand on the partition. She wanted to touch him, even if it wasn’t for real—but her revulsion caused her better judgment to kick in. They could touch all they wanted later, under the immaculately clean sheets in her mom’s cabin. She would hold that thought—until he could hold her in his arms.

*   *   *

Jane searched through the local yellow pages before her family left her office. She wanted to divide up their investigative work but quickly learned that the only gallery of ancient art in all of Minnesota was the Morgana Beck Gallery of Antiquities.

“What do we do now?” asked Peter, dropping down on a chair.

Jane logged on to the Internet and began a wider search. She clicked around until she found an article from the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
. “Says here that there are lots of ancient art galleries associated with museums of fine arts, like California’s Getty and New York’s Metropolitan, but fewer private galleries, where people can actually buy the artifacts.”

“Maybe that makes it easier for us,” said Cordelia.

Jane read on. “Get this. Most reputable museums actually own stolen artifacts. The concept of ‘provenance’ appears to be tricky—and murky—when you’re dealing with something that ancient. Museums are generally wary of tighter laws because they feel those laws would drive art antiquities underground—into the hands of private collectors. Cultural sensitivity notwithstanding, the black market is booming.”

“Great,” said Peter. “Private collectors aren’t going to list themselves on Google.”

“Maybe we can get to them through some of the more reputable galleries,” said Jane.

“How?” said Sigrid.

“Come at it generally. First ask about Babylonian art. Then ask about any gold artifacts they may have from that time period. If they bring up the Nimrud gold, run with it. If they don’t, maybe we should act dumb—like we’ve heard about it but don’t know a lot, whether it’s for sale or not.”

“Makes sense,” said Peter.

“I think we should also ask if they know any private collectors who have a collection from that period.”

Jane made a printout of a list of private galleries around the world. They each took a chunk. Once again, she could see in everyone’s eyes how overwhelmed they were by the impossibility of the task, and yet they all knew they had to do something.

With assignments in hand, and a feeling that the next few hours would be critical, everyone left the office except for Jane and Mouse. They would all use landlines to make the calls, leaving their cell phones free to phone each other with updates.

Supplying herself with a pot of coffee, Jane sat behind her desk and began to call galleries in northern Europe. She spoke a little French, enough to ask some basic questions.

Two hours later, she tossed her pencil down and ran her hands through her hair. She’d talked to dozens of people and gotten exactly nothing. This felt worse than trying to find a needle in a haystack. At least with the needle, you knew it was
in
the haystack. Jane wasn’t at all sure where the statue was. It could easily be in somebody’s trunk.

“Mouse, come on. We’ve got someplace we need to be.” She felt a little guilty as she clipped the leash to his collar. She should be spending every waking minute calling galleries, but she had an idea and wanted to follow up on it.

She drove by her house on the way to her destination, seeing two men sitting on the front steps and a WTWN-TV truck parked by the curb. Had to be reporters. She wondered how long they’d stick around.

She pulled up a few minutes later across the street from Melvin Dial’s house, a stately redbrick Colonial with tan shutters, white trim, and a dark green door. The house on the south side was less palatial—a one-and-a-half-story Craftsman-style bungalow with a
FOR SALE
sign in the front yard. The neighbor Chess had talked about, a Mr. Smith, lived there. Jane wasn’t surprised to see that the house was for sale. Chess had mentioned that the man and his wife were having financial problems due to a lost job. Chess had also thought there was something off about the guy, so Jane figured it made sense to check it out. It would probably lead nowhere, but she didn’t want to leave any loose ends.

Opening the door of her Mini, she flipped the seat forward, and Mouse jumped out. She secured the leash to his collar, then walked him across the quiet, sun-dappled street to a box attached to the underside of the
FOR SALE
sign. The real estate company had stocked it with brochures about the house, so she might as well take a look. As she reached inside, a gray-haired woman came out of the house next door to move the yard sprinkler from one side of the grass to the other. When she saw Mouse, she stopped and smiled.

“Nice dog,” she said, raising a hand to shield her eyes from the sun.

“Thanks,” said Jane.

“I used to have a Lab. He was black, not brown. His name was Thaddeus.”

“This is Mouse.”

The woman laughed at the name, walked a few paces closer, and held her hand out for him to sniff. “He friendly?”

“He loves people.”

Mouse sat down and held up his paw for her to shake.

“He’s showing off,” said Jane.