The Grey Falcon

by J. C. Williams

  Outside, Dickie gave Stacker final instructions. “Tow the car. Tape off the flat. Send us the pictures that the ME took when you hauled him out. Ask the ME to send us the same results that she sends you. Blood testing, observations, etc. You stay point. Coordinate all the interviews. Give us a call tomorrow.”

  Stacker was elated to be left with the case.

  “Yes, sir. Yes, ma’am.”

  “Anything else?” Dickie asked Sandy.

  “Don’t lead the witnesses. Like letting on he was French.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I like Inspector or Sandy. Ma’am makes me feel old.”

  “Yes. Ma…. Inspector.”

  As they drove away from Welton, Sandy said, “That was nice of you to leave him the case.”

  “Busy work. I didn’t want it.”

  “Right,” she chuckled. “You’re not the grumpy old hard-arse you pretend to be.”

  “H-m-m-f-f,” he grunted. “What do you think?”

  “Nothing says murder. Nothing says suicide. But, it’s a hell of an accident. Falling off the bridge. Wonder if he drinks that much alone and often. And why.”

  “You can’t get inside their heads, Sandy.”

  “I like to try.”

  “Going to try and get inside of mine?”

  “Nope. Too thick a skull. Lights are on, nobody’s home.”

  “H-m-m-f-f-f,” was all Dickie had to say. He leaned back and slept until they reached London.

  Chapter 24

  “Do you know how big Malta is, Harry?” Chad asked as their four-hour flight passed over Italy’s heel and toe.

  Chad was giving himself a crash course on Malta via the Internet.

  “How big?”

  “As big as York. Or for me, as big as Athens, Georgia.”

  “I’ve not been to York. Or Georgia. How does it compare to London?”

  “London is almost five times the size of Malta.”

  “Smashing, we can be done here in an hour and a half. We can be gone before anyone knows we’re there.”

  “Harry, are you worried?”

  “You may have noticed, Chad, that I am not a running-fit and wall-climbing strong six foot one twenty-eight year old.”

  “I’ll look out for you. Do you think we should have taken the Minister’s offer to send bodyguards?”

  “No, you were right. They would bring added attention to us.”

  “We’ll be okay. Now, guess the population.”

  “I’ll get this one,” Harry said. “Let’s see. London has over eight million. It’s five times the size of Malta. England is an island. Malta is an island. Malta is mostly Catholic. Large families. Divide by six, carry the two. I estimate it to be four hundred fifty thousand people.”

  “Hey, you’re cheating,” Chad exclaimed.

  They were both using the private jet’s Wi-Fi.

  “What else have you learned?” Chad asked.

  “It has had a wild history, colorful. Its location is strategic in the Mediterranean. It seems that everyone possessed it at one time or another. The Phoenicians, the Romans, the Greeks, the Muslims, the Normans, the French, and the British. And of course, on and off, the Sicilians and the Italians. What did you pick up?”

  “There are several archeological sites. One in particular is a series of caves that lead back to 5000 BCE. We should go there.”

  “Oh, fun,” Harry said sarcastically.

  “You’re right. Let’s assume if there is something here, it’s in a church or monastery or vault somewhere.”

  Harry scrolled and clicked. “Great. There are three hundred sixty-five churches. If we do one a day, we’ll be here a year.”

  “So in the five days or so that we have left, we have to do over seventy a day. All my distance running will help me. I don’t know about you, though.”

  “I’ll keep up. Besides, how many could there have been around in 1440 or 1500?”

  “Harry, what did you learn from the Croatian historian about the Knights?”

  “It was unfortunate. The leader of the knights was John of Palisna. He was a prior in a territorial fight in Croatia. When he left to fight the Ottomans, his enemies at home took his last stronghold. The Knights could not return to Croatia. Did Dr. Maric give you a good lead for a Malta historian?”

  “I have a name to contact at the Mediterranean Conference Centre. Vittor Grech. The Minister’s office is calling ahead to arrange for him to meet us this evening.”

  “I hope he can narrow our search.”

  “Me, too. Here’s a fun fact, Harry. Malta gets over a million tourists a year.”

  “Sounds like we’ll join a barmy do.”

  “A barmy do? I’ve not heard that before?” Chad asked.

  “A party, a crazy party,” Harry explained.

  “You’re probably right. Crazy. There are two tourists for every resident. That may help us to blend in. How’s your Maltese?”

  “None.”

  “Italian?”

  “Nope.”

  “Study Latin?”

  “Never.”

  “Tell me again why you’re here?” Chad prodded.

  “Legal assistance?”

  “You practice international law?”

  “No. Criminal law. I can help you when you’re arrested for stealing national treasures and artifacts.”

  “Great. Comforting having you here, Harry,” Chad said sarcastically. Nonetheless, the archeologist ethical dilemma of artifact ownership surfaced. As it always did.

  Chapter 25

  “You can go in now,” the nurse said to Sandy and Dickie.

  The room held two beds. One was empty. The other held Cyrus Best, though they would not have recognized him. Bandages wrapped part of his head. Black bruises covered whatever the bandages did not. Wires held his jaw immovable. Elastic bandages stabilized his ribs. His left arm lay on the bed, the hand hidden in gauze, with extra wraps around the last two fingers. IV drips flowed from bags into his right arm. Other tubes led from under the covers to green screens beeping softly and displaying various colored lines and graphs.

  They had agreed that Sandy would lead the questioning. Good cop. Dickie was held in reserve as the bad cop.

  “Mr. Best, are you awake?” Sandy asked softly standing near the bed. Dickie was at the end of the bed. She had to repeat it.

  Best’s eyes opened, focused on each of them and wearily closed again.

  “Mr. Best, we heard about the robbery. We are sorry about that and what happened to you. But, we are not here for that. We’d like to ask you some more questions about Alfred Baywater.”

  Best opened his eyes again, shook his head no, grimacing at the effort.

  “Look,” Dickie said roughly, “you know something more about Baywater and where he would go. We need to know, or..”

  Sandy interrupted him, touching his arm. “We won’t get anything now. Let him rest.”

  Dickie looked at Best then looked at Sandy. He turned and left the room.

  “You rest now, Mr. Best. We’ll talk again.” She followed Dickie out.

  “You’re right,” he said. “Let’s go back to the office. We’ll have to extend our family tree for Baywater and friends. We’ll find someone somewhere.”

  -----

  Three hours later, Dickie hung up the desk phone and rolled his chair back from his desk. Sandy was leaning over her desk into the computer monitor. She spoke without turning away.

  “I’ve checked civil and criminal records on every relative I could link. I’m out of names, Dickie.”

  “That was the last of the units calling in on all your leads. No sign of Baywater.”

  A voice came from the doorway. “I was hoping I’d find you here this morning.”

  Sandy and Dickie looked up.

  “Sergeant Atwater, nice to see you,” Sandy said. “How is your robbery coming? We saw Best at the hospital. Not much help is he?”

  “No he’s not, Inspector. But I brought someone who is
.”

  Sergeant Atwater moved into the room. A tall, thin, and casually dressed man followed him in.

  Dickie smiled, at the man. “Detective Inspector Robby Fillmore, as I live and breathe.”

  “Dickie,” the man acknowledged.

  “Inspector Saundra Moffat, meet DI Robert Fillmore from Cambridge.”

  Sandy waved a hello.

  Dickie asked, “Robby, what brings you here? Staking out more of our London retailers. Get caught again did you?”

  “You still sore about that, Dickie? As I see it, you lads were in disarray here, so I saved you manpower, turf fights, and what have you.”

  “What we had was a detective from Cambridge who greatly overstepped his authority and left all common courtesies in Cambridge.”

  Sandy leaned back enjoying the sparring.

  Dickie explained. “You see, Sandy, Robbie felt a stolen coin collection from Cambridge, a valuable one mind you, found its way to London. He took it upon himself to set up surveillance of several suspected fences.”

  “I found it didn’t I?” Fillmore smirked.

  “Yes you did, after you were nearly arrested by an observant constable who felt you were casing one of the shops. You nearly got the boot, didn’t you?”

  “Never even close, Dickie. We look at results in Cambridge. If I had waited for your reorganization of Major Crimes to be complete, I’d still be twiddling my thumbs.”

  “Why’s he here?” Dickie asked Atwater, not trying to disguise his annoyance.

  Atwater answered. “I knew about that incident from six months ago. I called the Inspector and asked if Cyrus Best was one of the shops he had watched. It was. I told him about the robbery and asked for any help he could give me. He came down in person and shared something with me that you should hear.”

  Fillmore took the cue. “Best was one of my stakeouts. Several days at a time. Over a month. Here’s the inconsistency with your robbery. Every day, regular as clockwork, eight thirty at night, Best and a rather large man would make a night deposit at the bank. He never missed the deposit.”

  D S Atwater took over. “I checked the bank and street CCTVs. Best made that deposit the night before last. There wouldn’t have been any money in the safe.”

  “But it was open. He had to give up the code. His finger was cut off,” Dickie said.

  “What else would have been in the safe?” Sandy asked. “Something like Robby’s coin collection?”

  “I doubt it,” Robby said. “Whatever illegal transactions he did, he kept them out of the shop.”

  Sandy made the connection quicker than Dickie. “You think that the safe and the robbery was staged. The assault had to do with our case.”

  “That’s what I think,” the Atwater agreed. “The camera recording inside the shop was erased. CCTV in the neighborhood wasn’t any help. I saw a darkly dressed figure in a car a block away. He kept his face from the cameras. He probably parked behind the shop and went in the back door. I tracked the car. It was stolen. We found it. It’s clean.”

  Dickie inserted, “Professional. It ties to the level of operation in the museum robbery.”

  “Ruthless, people,” the sergeant commented. “Thinking about the finger.”

  Sandy stood up. “Thank you for the information, Sergeant. Inspector Fillmore, we appreciate your help. Dickie, I think we need to revisit the hospital.”

  Chapter 26

  “How do you want to do this?” Sandy asked Dickie.

  “I think we need to motivate him to help. I’ll be bad cop again.”

  They walked into Best’s room. He looked up, wide awake, slurping his lunch through a straw.

  Dickie led off. “Cyrus, we just wanted to let you know that the robbery has us very perplexed. We are putting a large team on this, because we want to solve it quickly; just so you can open your shop back up. There are so many items in there. It may take us weeks. Don’t worry though. When we are done we’ll know exactly which items are missing and also the source of each and every item in your shop.”

  Best rolled his eyes in frustration. Dickie left and Sandy sat in the chair next to the bed. She stayed quiet.

  Best grunted something, held out his right hand gesturing, and shrugged his shoulders.

  “You want to know why I am still here, huh?”

  He shook his head.

  “We found out you made a bank run earlier that evening. There was no money in your safe.”

  He tried to say something. Sandy made out the word, “so.”

  “So. You might have had something else of value in your safe. Did you?”

  He tried to remain motionless. Sandy held his eyes until he turned them away.

  “I didn’t think so. Why would you? Therefore, it makes me wonder why you held out giving up your safe combination. Why would you lose a part of a finger for an empty safe?”

  He was still non-responsive.

  She continued, “You wouldn’t. It had to be something else that the thief wanted. Information?”

  Best looked away again, but Sandy saw the hard swallow.

  “What information, Cyrus? Something to do with the museum robbery? Something about Baywater?”

  This time he looked down.

  As softly as she could, she asked, “He wanted to know where Baywater was?”

  She waited. Finally, he shook his head yes.

  “Cyrus, what is your connection to Baywater? We haven’t found one. Why were you protecting him?”

  He tried to say something through the wires around his jaw.

  “Here,” Sandy said taking an iPad from her bag. “Use this.” She set up a Word document and the keyboard display so he could type with his one good hand.

  Cyrus typed: Cut my finger off first.

  “I know. Hey, I’d give up Baywater, too, if I lost a finger. It was admirable that you held back. Heroic even. But, why?”

  Best shook his head back and forth rapidly.

  “What do you mean, no?” she asked.

  Best used the keyboard: Came in back door. Wore hood. Had gun. Tied me up. No questions. Cut finger off first, and then he asked questions!!!

  “He cut your finger off before he asked anything?”

  Best nodded yes.

  “He cut the finger first to show you he would do it. So that you would feel that pain. Then he threatened to cut off more?”

  Again, Best nodded yes.

  “You told him where to find Baywater?”

  Best typed: Do not know where. Gave a name.

  “Who?”

  Best wavered.

  “Are you afraid he’ll come back?”

  Best nodded yes.

  “I’ll put a uniform outside. Cyrus, if we can find the man who did this to you, we can stop him. You can help us find him.”

  Best was unmoved by her arguments.

  “Cyrus, he’ll find out about all of the visits. He’ll suspect you told us. So, you may as well.”

  He thought about that and came to a conclusion. He typed: Maggie. Schoolmate. Lives somewhere north. Maybe Manchester. Or, Liverpool.

  “That’s all?”

  He nodded yes.

  “Did the thief believe you?”

  He nodded yes again while typing: I gave it up very quickly.

  Sandy felt he told her all. She stood and started to leave. Before she reached the door, she turned back and looked over Best’s injuries and bandages. “So why the beating, Cyrus? He had another question didn’t he?”

  Best nodded yes.

  She moved back to the bed. “Something else you gave up quickly?”

  He nodded yes, and smiled as best he could through the wires.

  She gave him the iPad again.

  Gave up second name even quicker.

  “Who?”

  He pointed at her.

  “Me?”

  He wanted the name of copper I tipped about the museum.

  Chapter 27

  Chad spoke to the young man who answered the knocking on the h
uge glass doors of the MCC, “Hi. I am sorry that I do not speak Maltese. My name is Chad Archer. Mr. Grech is expecting us. ”

  “This way, please. I speak English. I am Anton Grech. You have an appointment with my grandfather Vittor.”

  Chad and Harry followed Anton. The young man was almost as tall as Chad. His black wavy hair was a clue to his strong Spanish heritage. His skin, a Mediterranean mix. Greek. Turkish. Arabic. Italian. Centuries of conquests, surrenders, and re-conquests. Both of countries and of hearts. His thick forearms and broad shoulders were a result of strong genes and hard work.

  Anton led them to a large office area. A light came from an office at the end of the room. The man inside was as much a source of light as were the fluorescent bulbs above him. His smile was radiant and his eyes spoke of an energy that better fit a man thirty years younger than his ninety-two years.

  “Dr. Archer. Mr. Barrison. Welcome to Malta.”

  Vittor wore a dark blue blazer, a red tie, a stiff white shirt, and neatly pressed grey slacks. He leaned on the desk and extended his hand. His grip was strong even though a part of his strength flowed through his left hand, holding onto the desk.

  “I liked your book about Henry Clark, Dr. Archer. I attended a conference once where he gave a lecture.”

  “Thank you. Please call me Chad.”

  “Wonderful. Call me Vittor. I was pleased to get a call from Sonja Maric. She and I have spoken once or twice over the years. I admire her work.”

  “Thank you for seeing us so late. We will not take too much of your time. Though saying that, we may need to hear about seven hundred years of history. And in a very short time.”

  “I will do what I can. Tell me what you are after. Dr. Maric said it was a quest for artifacts. I assume they are from our Order of Knights in the Balkan area?”

  “Yes,” Chad responded. “We are looking for weapons and royal objects once possessed by Prince Lazar. Our research indicates that a group of Knights Hospitallers was near where he fell in the Battle of Kosovo in 1389. Our premise is that they may have returned to Croatia but moved on from there very quickly. We know the path of the Knights in general. Cyprus, Rhodes, Europe, Malta, and onward. We are hoping that such treasures from the war may have found there way here. Can you tell us more about the MCC and the relationship to the Knights?”