Claim the Crown

by Carla Neggers

  “If it isn’t Jeremy with two r’s Carruthers.” The photographer who’d caught them at the institute joined him on the stoop. “Just missed our mystery heiress.”

  His heart thumped. “Did you see where she went?”

  “Maybe. What rag you with?”

  “None—”

  “Free-lance? You know, if you’re on to something, I can get you good money. You do the copy, I provide the photos.”

  “What about your partner?”

  “We’re not married. Here’s my card.”

  It was mass produced and dog-eared. Jeremy tucked it into his pocket. “I’ll think about it. But if I don’t find her, my story’s stillborn.”

  “Got in some old truck parked on Mount Vernon and lit out of here like a bat out of hell. Storrow Drive West. My asshole partner’s trying to follow her, but she got a pretty good head start and was really cooking. The jerk’ll lose her. Hey— where’re you going?”

  Jeremy was bounding down the stairs to his rented car. “Following a hunch.”

  “Call me, okay? I’m staying at the Parker House.”

  “Right.”

  * * *

  The rock where Ashley and David had played pirates as children stood just beyond a stone wall that divided field and woods. It was a large, solitary boulder, left by the glaciers of long ago, and the twins had liked to play there because it was near a shallow brook and not too deep into the woods. The possibilities for imaginative play had been endless.

  Ashley laid the velvet jewel cases in the princess pine and freshly fallen leaves at the southern base of the boulder, which was taller than she or her brother. David, of course, had come with her.

  She asked him, “Did you ever believe in the bogeyman?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “I did. When I was out here alone, I sometimes felt it watching me.”

  David didn’t make fun of her. Instead he admitted, “I believed we had lions and tigers and bears in the woods, and I used to think I was going to be eaten alive any second.”

  “We all have our fears.” She smiled. David’s bruises were healing nicely, but he still moved slowly, and his ribs, especially, seemed to give him some pain. She went on, talking quietly, “And we’ve hardly even seen a measly old fox out here.”

  “I know it.”

  “David, are we doing the right thing?”

  “We’re doing the only thing we can do.”

  He crept through the ferns and layers of dead leaves and crouched behind a smaller boulder, about ten yards south of the pirate’s rock. From his vantage point, he could see anyone approach the jewels. Ashley climbed an oak near him; she was on lookout. Just like when they were kids, she thought, guarding their treasure from other marauding pirates.

  The temperature had fallen, and the clouds rolled in once again, true to the changeable nature of the New England climate. It began to rain. The dampness brought out the smells of the woods, of rotting leaves and wet bark and muddy stream. Ashley wasn’t prepared for the sudden afternoon shower, or even for skulking about in the woods and climbing trees. The rain pelted her silk suit and soaked her nylon stockings. In a matter of minutes, she was drenched and shivering. She had, at least, put on a pair of sneakers; they were squishy now.

  The wind and rain brought down bright red leaves from the young maples. Even in the rain, the woods glittered with the brightest colors of fall. Ashley looked out across the fields, where cornstalks yellowed in the cool autumn air.

  A rustling sound came from below. Twigs, leaves, the wind—it could be anything. She looked all around her.

  A stout figure was moving toward them from deeper within the woods. It was a male figure and was dressed totally in black: black turtleneck, black trousers, black socks, black shoes. He jumped lightly across the muddy stream, and Ashley saw the fringe of brown hair.

  “It’s Barky,” she whispered down to David.

  She had rarely seen him in anything but worn jeans and T-shirts. He carried a thick walking stick.

  David bounced to his feet. As planned, Ashley would not immediately announce her presence. “Barky,” David said. “Where the hell have you been? What kind of getup is that?”

  “Ach.” Barky shook his head in disgust. “You and Ashley are mosquitoes on my back. Leave me alone.”

  “Let you fish?”

  “Yes!”

  It was all Ashley could do to remain silent in the tree.

  “Barky, what do you want with the jewels?”

  He sighed heavily. “You should have done what I said in the note. You should have trusted me.”

  “It’s not a question of trust. Barky, please. I want some answers. Who is MacGregor Stevens? What’s he got against you? And the son of a bitch who beat me up—”

  “David, you must stop.” Barky didn’t yell. Ashley had never seen such a graveness and depth of emotion in their uncle.

  “Listen, old man, I don’t care if I have to knock you over the head and drag you home, we’re having some words. I want to know what the hell’s going on.”

  Barky shook his head, impatient, adamant. “I have no time. You and Ashley must let me do what I must do. Trust me! Go away. Go spend your money and have fun. Find a place and lie in the sun. Leave me to this!”

  “No.”

  “Ach.” The man in black regarded his nephew in despair. “Then you leave me no choice. David, I want you always to remember that I love you and Ashley as my son and my daughter. I love you more than I do myself. But you must stay away from this. I have kept you alive all these years; I don’t intend for you to be killed now.”

  Talk of love and death from a man always so stoic and taciturn drew Ashley off her guard. She dug her fingers into the branch above her to steady herself.

  “David, what I do, I do only for you and your sister. I have nothing left in my heart for anyone else.”

  “Barky—”

  “You must listen carefully. The pain will be intense, but the break will be clean. And it doesn’t matter if you ever forgive me. It only matters that you live and leave me to what I must do.”

  “What the hell—”

  Barky’s face twisted in anguish and the thick cane raised up, and David yelled out in horror, and then Ashley did. “No!”

  She leaped out of the tree and came down hard in the wet, slippery leaves. She scrambled to her feet.

  The blow came—firmly, quickly, sharply. Ashley heard the snap of her brother’s shinbone. Too late, she wildly jerked the walking stick from her uncle’s hand and threw it as far as she could. “You maniac!” she screamed.

  David cried out in agony; he had collapsed on the cold, wet ground.

  Ashley was crying. “Barky, no, don’t do this to us. Barky!”

  “I must.”

  With a horrible deftness, he raised his big callused fist and smashed it down on the back of her neck. Disbelief and the stunning strength of the blow dropped her to her knees; pain stabbed through her.

  Barky...don’t do this to me...

  She didn’t know if she moaned aloud. The leaves soaked through her knees and a twig stuck in her shoe.

  There was a sound. What? Where?

  She tried to get up. Her head ached.

  She heard the thud of another blow, and her head dropped forward as the shaft of pain sliced through her. She went down next to her brother. Get up...you have to get up. You have to follow him!

  The rain stopped. All around her she could smell the musty dankness of the woods.

  She picked herself up and looked around, but there was nothing, just her brother, her twin, writhing in pain as he moaned into the ground.

  “Oh, God. What have I done?”

  15

  The screen door banged behind him as Jeremy walked out of the farmhouse and stood on the flat step, next to the dried-up, tangled rag mop. The air smelled faintly of wet chicken manure. It was dusk and no one seemed to be around, although the Jaguar, Land Rover and truck were all parked in the horseshoe driveway.<
br />
  He cut between the red shed and the house and headed up the slope to the outbuildings. He glanced in the chicken yard. Hens clucked at him. He checked the barn, the pigpen, the sheep pen.

  Where the hell were Ashley and David?

  Impatient, he tucked his thumbs in his jeans pockets and looked out behind the barn, across the fields.

  Two figures were moving slowly down the edge of the nearest field. One in jeans, one in silk. One male, one female. The Wakefield twins. Soaked. Clinging to each other. Bedraggled and worth millions. David was practically swamping his sister, who seemed to be holding him up entirely on her own.

  Then Ashley dropped her brother and sank to her knees.

  Jeremy flew. He slid in the wet grass, and the cold wind sliced through him. Neither slackened his pace.

  When he reached Ashley, she was trying to get her brother back up. David’s face was ashen. Hers was flushed with pain and exertion.

  Jeremy stifled a rush of panic when he noticed the unnatural angle of David’s leg and the angry bruise on the back of Ashley’s neck. His throat tightened. “Ashley, it’s all right. Take it easy.”

  She couldn’t speak. He tore off his shirt and threw it over her shoulders. She made a move to give it to her brother, but Jeremy stopped her. “I’ll get David to my car,” he told her. “Then I’ll come back for you. It’ll be okay.”

  He hoisted the taller David onto his back and shoulders caveman style and felt himself sinking into the wet ground. David was no lightweight. Grateful for the downward slope, Jeremy moved as rapidly as he could; his calves screamed in protest and his back ached.

  David didn’t make a sound.

  As he approached his car, Ashley jumped in front of him. Naturally she hadn’t waited for him. She opened the door and helped him get David into the back seat.

  Then she reeled, and Jeremy caught her by her waist. She was slender, but strong and fit. She smiled through her pain and anguish. “I’m all right.”

  “I’m glad you think so.” He opened the passenger door for her and shoved her in. “Don’t look in the mirror. Is there a hospital nearby?”

  “Northampton.”

  He got in the driver’s seat and turned the key in the ignition. He was sweating and his heart was thumping painfully in his chest. Adrenaline and overexertion. He glanced in the back seat.

  David managed a wink and a single, vicious curse.

  That seemed to hearten Ashley. She told Jeremy to go out to Bay Road to Route 9 and follow it over the Connecticut River to Northampton. “There’ll be signs.”

  He resisted asking questions until he hit the highway. Ashley had thrown off his shirt and, leaning over the seat, arranged it over David. Now she sat with her arms crossed, shivering violently, lips blue. He guessed there wasn’t a millimeter of her that was dry.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  She wouldn’t look at him. “It was Barky.”

  * * *

  At Fifty-Sixth and Fifth Avenue, Trump Tower is a fashionable high rise, built by wunderkind Donald Trump, and in an area of high prices and luxury, it offers some of New York’s priciest and most luxurious shops and condominiums. In the upper stories, overlooking Central Park, the Crockett Industries condominium was decorated lavishly in black lacquer and gold, more for effect than for comfort. It was a place to entertain and impress, not to live and love.

  Andrew Balaton, in a velvet smoking jacket, greeted his not unexpected guest. There had been no telegram, no telephone call, no note that he was coming, but Andrew knew.

  The president of Crockett Industries poured two glasses of Courvoisier brandy, and the two men sat opposite each other, each looking through the floor-to-ceiling windows to Manhattan glittering beneath them. It was after midnight.

  The man who called himself Bartholomew Wakefield looked benevolent, even in his solidly black attire, a simple man out of place in the sumptuousness of the Manhattan apartment. Andrew knew better.

  “So,” the executive said, “it’s been a long time.”

  “Nearly thirty years.”

  “Don’t misunderstand me, but I assumed I’d never see you again.” Andrew measured his words carefully. “Perhaps I should say I hoped I never would.”

  The farmer’s expression of placidness and sympathy didn’t change. “Necessity brings me here.”

  Andrew smiled into his brandy. “I shouldn’t think you were pleased to have your picture in a national magazine. Did you know I would recognize you?”

  “The picture means only that I must act now rather than later—or perhaps not at all. We shall see.” The man in black spoke in a mild tone, as if he were discussing the fate of the chickens he’d been raising the past decades. “I helped you when no one else could, Andrew Balaton.”

  “You didn’t help me.”

  “That’s a matter of opinion, but it makes no difference now.”

  The farmer reached into his trouser pockets and withdrew a tiny glittering gold crown. He handed it across to Balaton.

  The color had gone from Andrew’s face, and his hands began to tremble. He refused to touch the crown of his nightmares. He swallowed with difficulty; shock had constricted his throat.

  The man who called himself Bartholomew Wakefield smiled. “I see you recognize this little crown. Such a simple piece. Do you know it’s a replica of the Crown of St. Stephen? The first king of Hungary. Pope Sylvester II sent him the crown and an apostolic cross in the year 1000. St. Stephen christianized Hungary, bringing it firmly and irrevocably into alliance with Western culture. His realm extended Hungarian influence and borders far beyond what they are today, and because of him his country became the ‘shield of Christianity’ for centuries, a bulwark against expansionism of the Mongols, the Turks and the Russians. Of course, in many ways St. Stephen was a brutal man, but history forgives the weaknesses of its heroes. Some say the Crown of St. Stephen is Hungary, even today. The Communists, naturally, would say that is counterrevolutionary propaganda. What do you say, Balaton András?”

  He gave the Hungarian pronunciation of his name, with the surname first, according to custom. Andrew gripped the sides of his chair. “I am Hungarian,” he said stiffly. “I know the history of my country.”

  “But do you know the significance of this tiny crown?” The man in black held it up between his thumb and forefinger.

  Andrew looked away. “It’s the sign of the mad monk.”

  “Orült szerzetes. A ‘hero’ of the ‘56 revolution.”

  “A myth. He never existed!”

  “Anything’s possible, I suppose.” The farmer pocketed the crown.

  Andrew cleared his throat. “Where did you get it?”

  “It was left for me. You see, Balaton András—”

  “Don’t call me that! My name is Andrew. Andrew Balaton. I haven’t been back to Hungary since the revolution. I’m an American citizen. This is my country.”

  The farmer shrugged impassively. “As you wish. But Andrew Balaton, legend or not, the ‘mad monk’ has returned. And he’s watching us. You, Andrew. And me.”

  “No!” Balaton sprang from his chair. “It’s you who wants to destroy me!”

  “How could I destroy you? I’m a farmer. All day I plant, I hoe, I work. You are the head of a giant corporation. I can’t destroy you.”

  Balaton’s hair was wild, his eyes blazing with anger and confusion. What was this man doing to him? What did he want? He wiped his brow with the back of his hand; only on the squash court did he sweat like this. “Why are you here?” His voice was hoarse. “What do you want?”

  The man in black remained silent.

  “Tell me!”

  “I have the Balaton jewels.”

  Balaton collapsed back into his chair. “You can’t.”

  “I wouldn’t have come to you unless I did,” the man in black continued calmly. “I know you want them. I know you must have them. However, to get them, you will have to help me.”

  “What is it you want me to do
?”

  He smiled, smug. “You’re the president of Crockett Industries. I’m sure together we can come up with something that would make it worth my while to return the Balaton jewels to you. An exchange, perhaps? Information for jewels.” His smile deepened. “Let us use our imaginations.”

  * * *

  Ashley wrapped herself in a ratty afghan and settled down on the couch next to the wood stove. Jeremy was putting another log on the fire. They’d come back from the hospital, where they’d been forced to leave David. The break wasn’t as clean as Barky had promised it would be. David had had to go into surgery for an open reduction; the doctors put on a fiberglass cast and hooked him up to an intravenous solution to pump some antibiotics into him. He’d have to remain in the hospital overnight, possibly longer.

  Ashley had a nasty bruise; the doctor gave her a prescription for some painkillers, which Jeremy insisted they stop and have filled.

  He sat next to her. “How do you feel?”

  “Fine.”

  She could appreciate his discomfort. She had lied to the doctors about how she and her brother had been injured. She had refused to call the police. And she was beginning to resent Jeremy because the evidence was mounting against Bartholomew Wakefield instead of MacGregor Stevens.

  None of it was Jeremy’s fault; she knew that. And despite all the anger she directed toward him, anger that was at once as unreasonable as it was inevitable, she didn’t want him to leave. She couldn’t bear to be in the house alone.

  It occurred to her that she never had. Barky or David had always been there.

  Now they were both gone.

  “When we were kids, David and I, we used to get bats upstairs at night.” She spoke softly as the fire crackled and filled the air with warmth and the distinctive smell of burning oak, and nostalgia for her girlhood overcame her. “We’d wake up and hear a bat flapping its wings somewhere. We could never tell right away where it was. So we’d lie on our beds, under our blankets, and be very still and listen, and try to figure out if it was in my room or his. I can remember times when the bat would suddenly land on my bed. It would crawl on me, and I’d have to lie there, not moving, until it flew away. When we were really young, we’d scream for Barky.”