I leaned back, staring at my sandwich without seeing it. So, between Ford, Mac and myself, we’d said enough for Ferris to figure it out. How many other people knew? I shook my head. It didn’t matter. It’d be over soon.
I leaned forward abruptly. “I’d like you to take the gold now.”
“Sure. Sure.” Superman nodded. “After your meeting with Rittenour.” He checked his watch. “We have a few more questions for you to ask him, and you need to have it available to show him if you need to. Yeah.” He pushed away from the desk. “Let’s set up.”
“You mean you want the gold here?” I pointed to the statue shelf.
“Yeah. You can get it out of the safe now.”
I snorted. “Some safe.”
“Isn’t the gold in a safe?” Superman looked worried.
I shook my head. “We don’t have a safe, at least not one that works. The gold’s in a dry toilet tank.”
Eyebrows choked on his coffee.
Superman’s mouth fell open. “You mean — they really could have walked out of here with the gold? Why didn’t you—” he spluttered.
“You didn’t tell me what to do with it, so I kept it where it had been. No one knew exactly where the gold was but me.”
Eyebrows jumped to his feet still wiping his mouth. “I’ll help you.”
He followed me into the bedroom housing the chamber pot display. “Seriously,” he muttered. “I understand the statues were in the laundry chute.”
“I know the statues are the least valuable of the two, so that’s why I led Reid there first. Especially since the wood’s western hemlock,” I replied.
“How’d you know that?” Eyebrows stopped in the bathroom doorway, watching me lift the tank lid.
“I know someone who knows someone.” I set the lid down and tipped my head. “Microscopic analysis. They look at cell shape and density, grain patterning. I trust my source.”
“And got it done faster than I ever could have.” Eyebrows blew out a puff of air and looked at me with a new, open expression — relief? “We’ll still have to do our own testing, confirm the results.”
“Of course.” I moved the gold rods to his cradled arms and replaced the lid.
CHAPTER 20
Earl arrived early, so I missed the chance for last-minute jitters.
Lindsay called while Superman and Eyebrows were doing a final audio check. “Your appointment’s here.” Her voice lowered to a hoarse whisper. “And I want the full scoop as soon as he leaves.”
I swallowed, and my stomach reminded me that lunch was now in the garbage can. I eased down the stairs. Hesitating on the last landing, I watched, trying to size him up. Fidgety, nervous — his behavior reflected what I’d heard in his voice during our phone calls.
Earl was bald — his taut white pate mirroring the overhead lights. He wore a business suit and wingtips under a sober knee-length raincoat and paced across the parquet floor in front of the gift shop entrance, his pant legs flapping against skinny ankles. Pivoting at the end of his picket route, he spotted me descending the stairs.
“Meredith?” He hurried over and pushed his glasses up with a forefinger against the nose piece. He extended his hand, stretching like an egret with an extraordinary wingspan.
I stepped off the last stair and tilted back to look in his face as we shook hands. “Earl.”
“I expected a stack of crates—” He spun around, taking in the whole ballroom with his open arm. “Is everything alright? I drove around the building and didn’t see a loading dock.”
My eyebrows arched involuntarily. Nosy. I forced a smile. “Why don’t you come up to my office. There has been a little — difficulty.”
Earl gasped. “What?”
I took his arm and held my finger to my lips. A little tug got him headed up the stairs.
He was so melodramatic that it made playing my part easier. I’d never acted, preferring instead to help with stage and costume design in high school — again the legacy of my art therapist mother. Kneeling backstage among the cardboard and tempura paints was far better than standing in front of a tittering audience trying to remember what I was supposed to say. Today, the stage was my own though — my beloved Imogene, and I felt surprisingly comfortable except for the gnawing in my midsection.
On the third floor, we passed the tightly shut storage room door. No light seeped underneath. I imagined Eyebrows and Superman crammed in the dark, holding their breath.
From my office doorway, Earl honed in on the statues with amazing alacrity. He took three long steps to the bookcase and gingerly lifted a male statue off the shelf. Turning, he cupped the wood figurine and held it toward the window.
“It’s been broken.” He said it without rancor, just an observation.
“Is that the only thing wrong with it?” I asked.
“No.” Earl slowly rotated the statue, then fingered the plug I had reglued in the bottom. “This is nothing like — I can’t even call it a reproduction.” He sagged and put a hand on the glass to steady himself.
I pushed a chair toward him, and he sat. I scooped the other statues off the shelf and laid them in a neat row on my desk. “Are any of them authentic?”
Earl added his statue to the row then slumped forward, elbows on knees and face hidden in his hands. “No. No, no, no. This is not good,” he mumbled.
“Earl.” I put a hand on his shoulder.
As though my touch had shocked him, he jerked upright. “Where are the others? I paid for 114.”
“How much did you pay?”
Earl glared at me, and the light in his eyes withdrew. A secret. Did he know he’d done something illegal? His fingertips drummed on his knee and his gaze dropped.
“They were stolen.” I spoke softly. “Last week. Off the delivery truck. The driver stopped here to make my delivery first, but he was attacked, knocked unconscious. They took thirteen crates but missed one, which we found and I opened.”
Earl moaned. “It was too good to be true. I should have known.”
I slid into my chair behind the desk and waited.
He clenched his hands on the sides of his head — as though he would have pulled out his hair if he’d had any — and doubled over, his face contorted. “I’m ruined.”
“It can’t be that bad.”
“Oh, yes it is.”
Well, if he wanted to argue, I’d take him on. “Why?”
“I spent Mona’s inheritance from her grandfather on them.”
I sat in stunned silence.
Earl caught the shocked look on my face. “It was the only way I could get enough money,” he whined.
“What did you think you were buying? You said they’re not authentic.”
“Oh, the real thing alright.” Earl’s voice picked up heat. “He showed me the most detailed funerary monument I’d ever seen — and I know funerary monuments from my time in Tanzania with the Peace Corps. Said there were hundreds more. I knew they were stolen from graves, but it was a rescue. If I didn’t buy them, they’d be destroyed or sold to someone who didn’t understand their value.” Earl stood and resumed pacing. “Those countries are all in an uproar now — there are no governments or institutions that can protect their national treasures. They’re not even really nations, just warring factions. Cultural preservation is not on their list of priorities.”
“Who sold them to you?”
Earl stopped and ran a hand across his forehead. “Qasim Abdul-Makir. Probably not his real name.”
“And where was this?”
Earl collapsed to tie his shoe then catapulted upright. He was like a marionette with rubber bands for strings — taut and jerky, and about to spring apart. “London. Mona’d been nagging me — wanted a big trip for our anniversary. So we went to London. She spent her time shopping, and I wandered around the museums. Some anniversary, huh? One day I got lost and ended up in, uh — well, a ghetto, really. None of the signs were in English. I stopped to ask for directions in a storefront office �
�� desks and chairs, a few computers. I thought maybe they’d speak English. And one of them did — Qasim. He had a funerary monument on his desk. As soon as I saw it, I knew.”
“Is Qasim a gallery owner? How did he get the monuments?”
“His brother-in-law runs an import/export business in central Africa.”
“And robs graves?”
Earl shrugged. “Or knows someone who does.”
“You made an offer to Qasim right then and there?”
“Pretty much. I mean, we talked about the monument for a while. He seemed genuinely concerned that civil war and ethnic cleansing were also destroying culturally significant artifacts. He said his brother-in-law had sent him the monument for safe-keeping.”
“So you arranged for a shipment.”
“Yes. First to England, then here. Easier that way, Qasim said. Then he could handle all the paperwork, customs — stuff I know nothing about. All I had to do was arrange for a wire transfer to a London bank, take the cash out, and deliver it to him. I couldn’t write him a check, you understand, because of the sensitive nature of the artifacts. Cash only.”
“Mmmm.”
“But there’s paperwork.” Earl slid into his chair and leaned forward, suddenly eager. “Qasim gave me a receipt for the payment, and there’s a contract. The goods weren’t listed specifically, of course, but delivery of a shipment by October 31st — it ran late — but that was documented.”
“Do you have the papers with you?”
Earl shook his head. “No. In my safe at the office.”
"So you knew you were buying contraband?”
“I was preserving items that otherwise would have been lost.” Beads of sweat popped out all over Earl’s head. He pushed his glasses up.
“How much did you pay?”
“$312,554.”
“And change?”
Earl slumped. “It’s all I had — all we had.”
“Did you buy anything from Qasim beside the monuments?”
“No. He said if his brother-in-law came across any more monuments, he’d let me know. But he knew of 114 for sure. And he gave me the one on his desk. I considered it an act of good faith.”
“And you keep that monument in your office at work.”
Earl scowled. “How do you know?”
“I didn’t think Mona would like it at home.”
Earl groaned. “What am I going to tell her?”
“The truth. Let’s start with the gold — what’s the truth about the gold?”
“Gold?” The glasses slid up his nose as his face scrunched in confusion — a reflexive action, not faked.
I rose and pulled a gold rod off the shelf. I tried to set it lightly on my desk, but it dropped with a dull thump. Earl flinched.
“The plugs in the bottom of the monuments — each statue contained a gold rod.” I perched on the edge of my chair, examining Earl’s face.
He stretched out a tentative hand and touched the rod. “Is that why they were stolen?”
“Probably.”
Earl’s white face became sickly. The corners of his mouth stuck together when he spoke. “I’m in trouble then.”
“Did you know about the gold?”
He shook his head, a barely perceptible movement, like a tremor. “What should I do?” He closed his eyes. “I’ll call someone — the police, customs — who—” He raised a shaking hand and removed his glasses. “Who deals with this?”
“I do, Mr. Rittenour.” Superman strode into the office and leaned over Earl. “Wayne Tubman, Investigator, U.S. Department of the Treasury.” He held out his credentials and a business card.
Earl stared, blinking fast.
“Ms. Morehouse, a few minutes?” Superman tipped his head toward the door.
I pushed my chair back and scooted into the hallway. I almost bumped into Eyebrows who was lurking just outside. He grabbed my elbow and pulled me into the storage room. We listened as Superman took Earl through a repeat of most of the questions I’d asked.
“What will happen to him?” I whispered.
“Probably not much. We’ll seize all his paperwork relating to the transaction, examine his bank records, check his phone history. It sounds like he and Qasim had several back-and-forth communications. We’ll try to locate this guy, Qasim. From there—” Eyebrows shrugged. “These supply chains link up and break and reform all the time. It’s really hard to trace, but we’ll do everything we can.”
“But if he’s telling the truth, he didn’t really do anything wrong. He meant to, but since the monuments are fake, he didn’t.”
“Yeah.” Eyebrows snorted softly. “Lucky him.”
“Do you believe him?”
“Actually, I do. Body language, vocal patterns — yeah, I do. Facing his wife’s probably going to be his worst punishment. And he’ll never get the money back. If he was experienced, he would know not to pay more than a small deposit in advance.” He peered at the video feed on a large flat-screen monitor. “That’s my cue.” He jumped up and hustled around the corner.
I watched as the two agents sandwiched Earl and escorted him out of my office. I quickly pushed the storage room door closed so Earl wouldn’t see me as they turned at the stair landing and descended.
When their footsteps died away, I tiptoed out of the storage room and latched the door behind me. My office felt foreign. I walked to the window and gazed at the river, my arms folded tight across my chest. I shivered then whirled around.
The statues — and the gold — were gone.
I sighed and shook my head. I must have grown accustomed to those wood eyes staring at me, my small, silent companions for the past several days. Even when they weren’t in my office, I’d known they were close, hanging in the dark laundry chute. Gone. Probably to languish in a lonely evidence room for months or years.
And good riddance. I blew out a big breath and turned back to the window.
CHAPTER 21
Calling Pete — the moment I’d been putting off for the sheer joy of anticipation plus the more practical reality that it would be better and easier to be able to tell him the whole story instead of only part. Smiling, my fingers shaking slightly, I dialed.
A throbbing roar, the deep wahhr-wahhr-wahhr of the tug’s diesel engines, sounded first, then Pete yelled over the noise. “Meredith.”
“Are you busy?”
Loud clanking like someone had dropped a wrench down a metal staircase. “We’re linking up.” He was still shouting. “Babe, I’m sorry. Can I call you back?”
Babe? Had he called me babe? I wasn’t sure — all that racket. “Okay.”
The line went dead.
I was in the mood for talking — which is a use it or lose it sort of thing. I dialed Arlene.
“Meredith, I was just thinking about you.”
I cringed. “Good or bad?”
“Don’t be silly. Good, of course. Well, not good — I mean the situation—” Arlene sighed. “I’m planning the funeral.”
“When is it?”
“Friday. Several people in the prosecutor’s office are pushing for a big, showy service. They want to give eulogies. I just — I don’t know if I can handle that, especially — considering—”
“What do you want?”
“I want to sit in a dark room and cry my eyes out one more time. Then I want to finish separating my daffodil bulbs.”
I blinked back tears. Arlene had the most beautiful garden in her neighborhood. It would certainly be a solace to her, even in winter. A way to keep busy, a way to heal.
Arlene sniffed loudly. “Enough. I keep telling myself, enough. He’s not coming back.” She sighed again. “Do you want to come?”
“To the funeral?” I leaned against the cool glass and held my breath. “Would it offend you if I said no? I’m not sure I can handle it either.” I bit my lip. “But I want to be there for you.”
“I don’t want to be there either. I’ve already said good-bye. A lot of hoopla isn’t going
to make things better. Your stepfather offered to arrange—”
“Then let him,” I interrupted. “He’s good at that. Can you sneak away and visit me instead?”
Arlene laughed, a good sound. “I already have my bags packed, in my head. You have a dog, don’t you? I bought a chew toy. I never look at that aisle in the grocery store. But then it just ended up in my cart.”
“She’ll love it. She’ll love you. She’s still faintly skunky, but I’ll give her another bath before you come.”
“Skunky?”
By the time I hung up, I’d managed to make Arlene laugh several more times by relating Tuppence’s antics and Jim’s turbulent repair of the ice storm damage to my RV.
“You’d better watch out,” Arlene had said. “I might just rent the campsite next to yours and never leave.”
“Sounds good to me,” I had replied.
I tapped the phone against my palm, a metronome for my heart. The tension dripped from my body with each beat. I inhaled and blew a warm breath against the window glass, creating a condensation spot. It quickly evaporated.
A yellow backhoe bounced into view with one of the Wind in the Willows crates strapped into its wide bucket. Jim pulled to a stop. With jerky, robotic movements, he angled the bucket out, over and then into the trench. He hopped out of the cab and began unstrapping the crate.
“Knock, knock.”
I spun and smiled. “How are you?”
“Homeless for a few hours. I’m letting the boys use my office to take Mr. Rittenour’s statement,” Sheriff Marge said.
“Any leads on where the stolen crates are?”
“Treasury raided the front company in Tukwila a couple hours ago — the one the truck’s registered to. They were there. 106 statues.”
“And 106 kilograms of gold?”
“Yep. Agent Tubman thinks the proceeds were meant to fund an energy source for a Somali warlord.”
“Energy?”
“Their economy’s shattered. Out in the bush, if you need electricity for a military compound, where does it come from? The country probably has untapped natural gas reserves but that would take a lot of research and drilling. And none of the militias can offer the security necessary for the length of time it would take to get a facility productive, not to mention international sanctions that make that kind of investment next to impossible. Tubman thinks it might be as simple as methane.”
Doubled Up (Imogene Museum Mystery #2) Page 18
