Illicit Artifacts

by Stevie Mikayne

  At the checkin counter, she presented her passport and itinerary and waited, her heart beating so fast she felt the air in her lungs constrict.

  “Hmm,” said the flight attendant. He frowned and looked at her.

  She met his eye. “Problem?”

  “You’re not in the system yet. Did you just buy the ticket, by any chance?”

  “Yes, today,” Jil said. An hour ago.

  He clicked through to something else and smiled. “Ah. Here we go.”

  She waited, consciously not tapping her fingers on the desk as the printer chugged and spat out her boarding pass. “Here you go.”

  “Thank you.”

  As she moved away, he called out, “Hey!”

  She turned back.

  “Your passport.”

  Jil took it out of his hand and rolled her eyes. “Thank you. Can you tell I haven’t had my coffee yet?”

  He grinned.

  Practical intelligence—that’s what she’d scored highest on in all those stupid school tests they’d made her take. Her IQ was above average, but that didn’t matter. Practical intelligence got people further along. Their ability to smile and say the right thing to the right person. Grease the wheels. Get to the next step.

  How far would her practical intelligence get her today?

  Down the elevator, past the smoothie kiosk on the mezzanine, and down another elevator to the security line. Fixing her gaze on the bookshop down the hall, she advanced with the line, one person at a time, until her turn came.

  Jil dumped her carry-on bag onto the roller belt and threw in her phone, money clip, and boarding pass. She’d timed it on purpose so she didn’t have a lot of time to loiter at the gate. Just in case. She avoided looking over her shoulder, or down at her watch. These people were trained to look for anxiety in travelers.

  The security guard beckoned with one hand and threw his arms up, gesturing that she should come through the metal detector. It beeped. Her damn steel-toed boots. She’d forgotten about those. She gave him a small smile and rolled her eyes. “Sorry. Footwear.”

  He waved her toward him and scanned her up and down, from side to side. “Boots off, please.”

  She complied, handing over her footwear to another guard who sent them through the small-items scanner as she waited barefoot on the thin airport carpet.

  The other guard nodded and handed her back her boots. “Go ahead.”

  She grabbed her stuff and headed toward her gate. Ten minutes until boarding.

  They ticked by slowly. She never imagined she could cram so many activities into one ten-minute period, trying not to watch the clock. Behind the bookshelves in the bookstore seemed like a good place to keep out of sight, so she browsed the literature section.

  Every title reminded her of Elise.

  She looked at the magazines for a while instead, but the glossy centerfolds of glamorous women irritated her even more than usual. What the hell did the photographers think they were capturing?

  She looked for Ellen on a cover somewhere—found her—and felt marginally better.

  Six minutes.

  Exiting the bookstore, she looked up for a sign to the ladies’ room and found one. Right next door. For once, she’d actually hoped for a longer walk. She ducked in anyway. Used the toilet and washed her hands.

  Outside, she heard raised voices, and the door to the washroom burst open. She froze.

  A kid ran in. Four years old at most. “Gotta go, gotta go,” she squealed.

  Jil stepped back quickly as the girl’s mother hurried in after her. “Sorry.” She flashed Jil an apologetic smile.

  Five minutes.

  In the hallway, flight crews marched by, rolling their carry-on bags behind them. Jil took note of the different uniforms. The scarves, short and pointed like bowties. The professional high heels. The silk stockings. She scoped out a coffee kiosk and made her way over.

  Four minutes.

  A female captain walked by in her wide-brimmed hat as Jil shuffled forward in line. She felt like saluting.

  “What will you have?”

  “Vanilla latte, please.” Why not? If St. Clair planned to throw her in jail, she might as well enjoy her time on the outside. As she waited, she kept sight lines on the elevator, the gate, and the opposite hallway. This was the perfect vantage point.

  “Vanilla latte?”

  She took her drink and moved to the side. Two minutes.

  “Calling all passengers for Flight 598 to Shannon, Ireland. Passengers traveling with small children, and those who need extra time to come on board are now boarding. Flight 598 to Shannon, Ireland, now boarding.”

  Purposely slowing her walk, Jil walked to the gate and stood at the back of the advanced boarding line.

  Inside, sitting next to the window, she waited.

  The plane taxied down the runway.

  They were airborne.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Jil didn’t realize she’d dozed off until the announcement came to buckle up for landing. She couldn’t believe she’d made it.

  For a wild moment, she wondered if the police had called ahead.

  If they’d found out she’d boarded the plane.

  If they’d be waiting to arrest her as she cleared customs.

  But she got through without difficulty and breathed a sigh of relief mixed with suspicion as she passed the luggage carousels and searched out a sign for the taxi stand.

  She stopped for a minute to think. Something didn’t add up. Why hadn’t she been detained? Why hadn’t someone come after her? How had she made it to Ireland without any problems at all, if she was the main suspect in a murder? It didn’t make sense.

  She pulled out her phone. St. Clair got the arrest warrant for Fraser.

  Stupid! St. Clair wasn’t getting a warrant on Fraser’s behalf; she was getting one to arrest him!

  She thought of turning around to help him.

  Hello? He’s screwed up. He can’t be trusted. Leave him alone and look after yourself.

  Padraig. He held the key.

  As she ducked through the revolving door, she almost missed him standing on the sidewalk, smoking a honey vanilla cigar.

  She stared at him for a second. How the hell did he know she’d arrived? And what cheek to meet her here, just like old times, when she’d come to give him a piece of her fist.

  “What the fuck?” she spat as soon as she got within earshot.

  He steered her through the crowd by the top of her arm. “You can yell at me in the car,” he muttered into her ear. “Make a scene and we’ll both be arrested. Airports are no joke around here.”

  She shook him off—subtly—but allowed him to lead her to the parking bay, where an old black two-seater sat waiting in the five-minute parking. She headed around to the passenger side.

  “You don’t know how to drive in this country, Kidd.” Padraig chuckled, and she realized that she’d come around the driver’s side.

  She shot him a death glare but circled the back of the car and opened the passenger’s side door.

  “I knew you’d come,” Padraig said when they were shut inside the car.

  “You think this is funny!” Jil shot back. “Do you know they think I killed her?”

  “Who?”

  “Elise! Who do you think?”

  “No, I mean who thinks you killed her?”

  Jil slammed back in her seat. She felt like a petulant teenager all over again. She fixed him with raised eyebrows. “Detective St. Clair.”

  Padraig stroked his beard. For a while, he wouldn’t meet her gaze, but then he looked over and sighed. “We’ll take care of that when we get back.”

  Jil stared at him incredulously. “What the hell are you people, spies?”

  He guffawed. “Spies. Oh, how I wish. Come on, I’ll buy you a drink.”

  “I’m not sure I feel like spending time with you.” Jil glared at him. She felt cheated. Abandoned. Downright pissed off.

  “Aye, well, you
’ve only got a few hours and then we’re going back home. Too bad you couldn’t have come earlier and helped me sort out this mess here.”

  “You might have clued me in.”

  He sighed. “I should have. I knew you’d figure it out eventually. But she hoped you wouldn’t so I played along even though I knew better. So let me take you for supper and a pint, okay?”

  They drove in silence. She turned on her phone and scrolled through the messages. Morgan.

  Where the hell are you? Jessica was at the station this morning giving a statement. You’ve got an alibi. Should be cleared up soon.

  Jil shook her head. She should have known she’d do that. She knew as well as Jil did that suspected murderers weren’t allowed on planes so she’d tried to clear her name before she’d even taken off. Why hadn’t she seen that one coming? And what was this going to mean for her job?

  “We’re going to have to sort out Jess too when we get back,” Jil muttered.

  Padraig frowned. “Right. You’ll feel better with some fish and chips in your stomach.” Padraig let Jil lead the way to their table, following the server. He ordered a pint of ale for himself and a glass of cider for Jil.

  “Full or half pint for you?” the server asked.

  “Half, please,” Jil replied. “Apparently, I’m flying again.”

  Padraig nudged her under the table. “And two specials.”

  Amazing how easily she let herself collapse back into her role she’d tried to outgrow. When would she ever truly emerge from his shadow?

  “You owe me a lot more than a pint,” Jil growled. “Now start talking.”

  Padraig fixed her with a tired look. “I’m sorry to have left you alone with all this.”

  She looked away. His insight cut through her—every time. “I’m over it. But I came all the way here to find you because you wouldn’t answer your fucking phone, and now you owe me an explanation.”

  Padraig stroked his beard roughly. “Aye. I suppose I do. But just because you ask some questions doesn’t mean you get all the answers. Agreed?”

  “Fine. Start at the beginning.”

  “The beginning? Well. That’s going back a fair bit.”

  Jil waited while the server put down their drinks. “Go back to the orphanage. And the expatriation.”

  Padraig sighed and took a sip of ale. “You know we all grew up together, yes?”

  “Yes. But it seems like that’s a pretty loose term for kids who got sent over on a boat together, then grew up on a working farm.”

  “We were released when we were eighteen. We found our own lives. In different ways, obviously.”

  “Elise always talked about her parents like she’d grown up with them.”

  “Well, she did, to a point. They died when she was about fourteen. After that, the three of us were the only family we had.”

  “You looked after one another, you mean.”

  Padraig drummed his finger against the side of his sweating glass. “She was the only one among us who came over with anything. No money, mind you. None of us had any money. But she did have some very valuable jewelry. When we left the farm, she sold it all to help us get a fresh start. A real chance at careers.”

  “You took that chance, obviously, and so did she.”

  “We did. And then there was Duncan.”

  “So…how did Elise get the jewelry in the first place?” Jil asked.

  “From her father, Mr. Fitzgerald. She brought it over on the boat, sewn into the hems of her coats and skirts. How she managed to keep them close to her for all those years afterward is a mystery to me.”

  Jil frowned. Elise had many talents, and secret keeping seemed to be one of her finest.

  “She kept one piece though. Her mother’s ring.”

  Jil looked up quickly. “The emerald ring you mean?”

  “Her mother’s engagement ring.”

  She bit her lip. Of course.

  “Her father was a lawyer, wasn’t he? What was he doing with jewelry like that?”

  Padraig took a long sip, and Jil felt his resistance loosening. “You’ll have to understand the times he was working in. Mr. Fitzgerald started his practice in the early nineteen thirties. He dealt with some rough folks back then. The Great War had just ended, and the Depression had just started. Times were pretty desperate. Lawyers were working for pittance—I mean, twenty-five dollars a deal, which could take them all week. Factory workers made almost as much as they did—even on reduced earnings.”

  Jil waited. She felt threads of a connection start to form in her mind. The 1920s cigarette lighter took on a whole new meaning.

  “People had no money. Even their valuables weren’t valuable anymore, because nobody could afford to buy them if they had to liquidate. Mr. Fitzgerald, though, he knew how to make a penny stretch. He’d been a poor kid too. He wasn’t afraid to eat cabbage soup and neither was his wife. He said, fine, if the rich people wanted to pay him in art and artifacts instead of cash—because nobody had cash—then he would accept it. And wait for better times. Then sell the art and jewelry and everything else for their real value when the economy had turned around.”

  “But that took years. Didn’t it?”

  “Aye. Nobody knew when it started what the Depression would be like. They didn’t know how long it would last. And certainly no idea it’d last for years. Mr. Fitzgerald developed quite a collection. By the time Elise was born in the late forties, the Depression had long since ended, and Mr. Fitzgerald was back from the war and back in business. He had cash flow again, as a lawyer, and a collection worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. But the situation in Ireland was getting a bit dangerous for him. He’d developed quite a reputation. He’d planned to move his family over to Canada, and had made all the arrangements. Boxed the items and had them shipped to a storage facility in Montreal.”

  The server returned with two platters of fish and chips. The smell of the salted fries made Jil’s mouth water. Days of stress had taken a toll on her appetite.

  She grabbed a steaming chip from the plate and blew on it while Padraig took a long draught from his glass. “Go on.”

  “Well, just as they were getting ready to go, Mrs. Fitzgerald took ill. She died of tuberculosis three months later, as did Elise’s youngest sister.”

  “And both your parents,” Jil finished.

  “Aye, and both my parents.”

  My mother smelled of rosewater and told me stories as she washed the dishes. I miss her most while I’m rinsing teapots.

  Not everything Elise told her could have been a lie.

  “And what happened to Mr. Fitzgerald?”

  Padraig squinted, as if trying to recall an elusive memory. “I’m not sure they ever did find out.” His voice dropped even lower. “One night, shortly before he was supposed to leave for Canada, he disappeared coming home from the office. They thought he might have had a car accident or been run off the road. In any case, the police came to the door. Elise was only fourteen at the time—and she and her two younger sisters ended up on the boat with Duncan and me and all our lot. The youngest ones were sent to foster homes, but we went to the farm.”

  Jil shook her head, imagining the frightened cluster of kids separated and sent to live with strangers. A thought clicked. “Wait. What happened to the stuff Mr. Fitzgerald sent over to Montreal?”

  Padraig smiled sadly. “Well, since he never came to claim it, a lot of it was stolen. Elise spent the next twenty years trying to recover it all.”

  Jil sat back. Now she understood what had attracted Elise to the underground world in the first place. She had to move like she belonged there to track down everything that had been stolen.

  “Her father meant everything to her, and his collection was all she had left of him. She got herself an education, of course. A real career. But she kept one foot in the shadows, one ear to the ground.”

  “So that’s why she and Duncan paired up.”

  “Aye. He was helping pay her back I supp
ose, for what she tried to give him by way of a start in life. He helped her track down some of the bigger items. But he was a bad seed. Once he made contacts in the underground, he never turned back. Made himself an entire career out of it, and dragged Elise right along with him.”

  “But she ended up on the right side of the law and Duncan didn’t.”

  Padraig sniffed. “He was too greedy to be patient. For Elise, it was never about the money; it was always about the art.”

  “And for Duncan it was the other way around.”

  Jil ate in silence for a few minutes, digesting this part of Elise’s history. Finally, the lump in her throat made it impossible to take another bite. She had to know.

  “Why did she take me, Padraig? I want the truth.”

  Padraig put down his fork. “Elise had never been a foster parent before,” Padraig said. “And I suppose you know that now.”

  “Yeah. So how did she get clearance?”

  Padraig looked away. “She didn’t. I did.”

  “What?”

  “You were sixteen. Old enough to be emancipated. I knew they’d never find you another long-term placement at your age, and it would have been group homes for you. But I also knew my house—my long hours, with no set schedule—was not a good fit for a young girl like you, so I applied to be your legal guardian, and they approved me, based on our history.”

  “Well, since I was already sleeping on your office couch.”

  Padraig cracked a wry smile. “I didn’t mention that. But I did call in a few favors to have things moved along. That situation at the Hendricksons’…” he trailed off and Jil suppressed a shudder. He shook his head, exhaling loudly.

  “So then what?”

  “Then you were off their docket and mine to worry about. So I asked Elise to look after you.”

  Jil felt the heat rising in her neck.

  “But why did she agree?”

  Padraig looked away but didn’t answer.

  Jil waited, and finally he said, “I owed it to your mother, and Elise knew that. I didn’t even have to ask her, really. She volunteered.”

  So many conflicting emotions. “So I was out of the system at sixteen? She never told me. She never said the agency wasn’t paying her to take me. All the clothes she bought me, the school supplies, the food I ate. God, Padraig, we ate like queens.”