by Jan Coffey
“A missing eight-year-old.”
Ellie stared at the picture. “‘Missing’ as in the system lost him, or ‘missing’ as in his family is looking for him?”
“The system is all he’s got. And he’s been reported missing.”
She handed him back the picture. “Can’t help you.”
“You and that boy were two of the last people to leave Fort Ticonderoga Museum on Friday afternoon.”
Ellie immediately bristled. “I was also one of the first people in line at Independence Hall yesterday morning, along with a few hundred tourists. Do you expect me to remember all those faces, too, Mr. Murtaugh?”
“You know, Ms. Littlefield, I would have thought you of all people would have a little more empathy for this little boy and the trouble he could be in right now.”
“So now we get down to it. What are you, Social Services or FBI? Well, if you’re Social Services, think about this. Maybe I—of all people—think that being missing is a blessing for a kid like him. Maybe I think it’s better than being a file tab in some state office drawer identifying children who are too much to handle.” She reached around him and yanked open the door. “Good day to you, Officer.”
She was angry enough to shove him out the door, but he saved her the trouble and stepped out himself. She slammed the door and felt great satisfaction at the solid sound of it.
Ellie leaned her back against the door and looked at Victor, who was staring at her openmouthed from the rear of the shop, the phone still in his hand. No matter how many years passed, these authorities never forgot. But Ellie Littlefield had come a long way from the motherless twelve-year-old constantly being shoved from one foster home to the next while her father served his time at Graterford Prison. And she was done going hungry.
Waving off Victor’s questioning look, she went to the phone beside the cash register and dialed a number in upstate New York. Her past was part of the person she’d become. The days of lying and stealing, the nights sleeping on cold floors and in stairwells of empty buildings were behind her, but they had also pointed her toward where she was now. It took six rings before the phone was picked up.
“It’s Ellie. They’re looking for the boy.”
Four
Nate Murtaugh drove slowly by an abandoned car, smashed and stripped and sitting on its bare axles. Fifty feet past it, an overflowing Dumpster sat on the cracked sidewalk in front of a brick building that looked as if it had probably been condemned during FDR’s first term. Nate glanced at the scribble on the piece of paper in his hand and pulled to the curb before two buildings that could have been used for practice sessions by the Philly fire department.
His destination, across the street, was a marked improvement over the rest of the neighborhood. Nate looked again at the building. It was a well-kept brick place, just one version of a thousand houses like it in Philadelphia. Neat, tidy and austere, it reminded him of a gaunt, bloodless second cousin who once came to dinner on Thanksgiving, sat in a straight chair with her purse in her lap and never took off her coat. Well kept, but scary. Nate cut the engine and glanced at his watch. He was early.
Some kids—no doubt just released from reform school for the summer—were playing in the street, and the bubble-gum-colored ball bounced off the windshield and disappeared somewhere on the sidewalk. It was too hot in the car, and Nate grabbed his jacket off the passenger seat and stepped out.
The kids had stopped their game and were staring at him as if he were from another planet. He locked the car and leaned a hip against it, staring back.
One of the boys sauntered up to recover the ball. Seventy pounds of skin and bone and attitude. Picking it up with a wise-guy look on his face, he tossed the ball back to the pitcher, put his hand in his armpit and made a noise like a fart before trotting back to his spot by the abandoned car they were using for third base.
Nate thought of Chris Weaver and imagined him having the same kind of attitude. Yesterday, after the briefing by Hawes, he’d stopped at the police station to talk to McGill. The young cop had gone out on a call. Nate tried to contact him again before leaving town last night, but they hadn’t been able to connect.
After watching the security surveillance tapes from the museum yesterday, Nate was more curious than ever to talk to McGill about Christopher Weaver and what was known about the kid. The video cameras had captured a child moving down the hall in an obvious search for a bathroom. They had also caught Ellie Littlefield coming down the same hall and talking to Chris.
Putting a name to her pretty face had been easy, considering the fact that she’d used her credit card to pay for admission to the museum. Reading her file had felt like winning one of those instant-lottery scratch cards. She had an extensive file on record and was connected with legit and shadier members of the antique collecting world. And the fact that she was at Fort Ticonderoga looking at the Schuyler flag minutes before it was destroyed couldn’t be coincidental. Luckily for her, the security cameras in the room had filmed her exit before they were put out of commission some minutes later. Other surveillance equipment in the building had recorded Ellie Littlefield’s departure, as well. What confused the hell out of Nate, though, was her denial this morning about seeing the boy. Well, she hadn’t exactly denied seeing him, but she hadn’t been particularly forthright about it, either.
Nate crossed the street and waited on the sidewalk. Less than a minute later, a second sedan containing a driver and two passengers pulled onto the street and parked in front of the Dumpster. Eric Wilcox stepped out of one side. As Sanford Hawes closed the door on his side, a deep drive to left center banged off the hood of the car. Hawes fired a dirty look over his shoulder at the ball players as he and the museum administrator crossed the street.
“Been waiting long?”
“Just got here,” Nate answered, pulling his jacket on. The three men climbed the steps and Wilcox rang the bell. “Is she expecting us?”
“Yes, she is.”
“Did you tell her anything?” Nate asked Hawes.
“Enough for her to understand the gravity of the problem.”
Nate flexed one shoulder, pulled the sleeve of the jacket tighter down one arm and straightened the knot in his tie. The assistant director cocked an eyebrow at him.
“Catholic school, huh?” Hawes asked with a knowing grin.
“How could you tell?”
Nate noticed that Wilcox was clutching the handle of his briefcase in a death grip. As the artifacts director went to ring the bell again, the door opened. A young Latino-looking woman dressed in a navy-blue habit and wearing a large silver cross on a chain around her neck looked out at them. After Hawes’s brief introduction, the nun invited them in, telling them that Sister Helen would join them in a few minutes.
Nate brought up the rear as they were ushered in. He looked into the small, dark sitting room furnished with old mismatched furniture. The only window in the room was open and an ancient oscillating fan creaked back and forth on a table in the corner. Nate shoved a finger inside the neckline of his shirt and adjusted his necktie again. He could feel the sweat running down his back and considered taking off his jacket.
The ridiculousness of his anxiety hit him when Hawes motioned him into the room. The young nun left them alone. Nate shook off the feeling, reminding himself that he was thirty-six years old and one threatening sonovabitch. This broad might be a nun, but she was also an ex-con and he was a special agent with the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation, the most prestigious law-enforcement organization in the world. Period.
Feeling a little more in control, Nate tried to identify the familiar feel of the place. It wasn’t just the flash-back to fifth grade; it was the fact that the place looked a lot like his grandmother’s house in Albany. But the convent was missing the scent of oatmeal cookies she liked to make.
Nate moved to the window. As he looked outside at the noisy ball game still in progress, he kept an eye on the other two men. Wilcox sat stiffly on a
straight chair near the door, with his briefcase upright on his lap. Hawes stood staring at old framed pictures on a table. The pope. The Virgin Mary. Men in clerical garb.
Hawes picked up the photo of the pope in his meaty hands and looked at Wilcox. “Are you sure she still has her old connections?”
Eric Wilcox glanced uncomfortably at the door and lowered his voice. “I’m sure. For the past twelve years, since becoming a nun, she’s received a generous amount in donations for her charities from dealers she worked with before being sent to jail.”
“Art dealers believe in supporting charities, too, Dr. Wilcox,” a soft voice responded from the doorway.
Nate and Hawes turned abruptly to the woman dressed in a blue habit. Sister Helen Doyle was standing and watching them in the doorway. Medium height, with a plain but expressive face, she looked to Nate like a woman with tremendous pent-up energy. Like a racehorse waiting for the gates to bang open. Wilcox, in his rush to stand, knocked over the chair he was sitting on.
“And my former colleagues are not the only ones on my list of benefactors, which also includes several U.S. Senators, the governors of three different states and a number of police officials from the city of Philadelphia. And on occasion we’ve even received donations from a former assistant to the Pennsylvania Attorney General.” She cocked one graying eyebrow at Sanford Hawes.
“That would be me,” he admitted in a strained voice. “Sister Helen’s projects are known to be both effective and, uh, useful.”
Sister Helen Doyle entered the room, casting a withering glance at Wilcox and eyeing Nate, who received a nod in response to his own.
“This meeting is off to a wonderful start,” she said, crossing the room.
Eight years of parochial school had given Nate a good understanding of the kind of discipline and dedication it took to become a nun. These women gave up the pursuit of fancy cars, comfortable checking accounts, fashionable town houses, exotic vacations and sex to follow their spiritual beliefs. The fact that Helen Doyle had once been married and had spent eight years in jail for art forgery and swindling before discovering her true calling made no difference. Her file said she’d been a nun for twelve years now, and this made her too damn intimidating for Nate.
Hawes and Wilcox both sat down after Sister Helen seated herself in a well-worn wing chair beneath a wooden cross. Nate held on to his square foot of space near the window.
“Sanford, is this the agent you were telling me about on the phone?”
Nate felt his face growing warm under the nun’s critical scrutiny.
“Yes. Sorry, my apologies. We somehow bypassed the introductions.” Hawes motioned to the museum director first. “You know Dr. Wilcox.”
“We’ve never been introduced, but I’ve seen enough of him on television these past few months.” With a dismissive nod, she turned her attention to Nate. “Is this the gentleman who will be working on this case?”
“Yes. Sister Helen, this is Special Agent Nate Murtaugh. I think I told you he’s been with the Bureau for eleven years. Syracuse, then Columbia for his law degree. He has been one of our top agents in the New York City white-collar-crime division for about four years now. Last year, Agent Murtaugh received a medal from the Attorney General for bravery in the line of duty during the recovery of more than seventy million dollars in stolen art and cultural artifacts. Lives of a half dozen police officers and others were at risk during the operation.”
Nate looked in disbelief at Hawes as he continued to rattle off confidential information. There’d been no mention of Nate’s name in the public record of the Rockwell case for the purpose of preserving his anonymity in future cases. Right now, though, short of giving her a copy of his medical records, Sanford sounded as if he was selling him to another Bureau division chief.
“Wait a minute, Sanford.” Sister Helen raised her hand, silencing Hawes midsentence. “My understanding was that this would be a simple operation. No wiretaps. No gathering of information for secret files. No hidden agenda. And definitely no gun-slinging hot-shot.”
“You are correct in that. I was just trying to give you an idea of Agent Murtaugh’s experience and qualifications. In the Bureau’s opinion, he’s the man for the job.”
Just as Nate was thinking of pulling Hawes aside for a friendly reminder that confessions were made to a priest and not a nun, Sister Helen appeared to read Nate’s mind as her gaze narrowed on him.
“Our mission here, Agent Murtaugh,” she began, “is to help people from all walks of life.”
Suddenly, he was back in parochial school and nodding his understanding.
“In addition to our traditional role of ministering to the poor, the elderly, the infirm and unwed mothers, we also try to help those who have gotten onto the wrong path in their lives and are trying to correct that. These people have sinned. They have been lawbreakers. But these people have now found in themselves a desire to serve other people and God. They are already on the road to reform. We work very hard to help them…whether the statute of limitations has run out or not.” The nun’s piercing glare moved from Hawes to Wilcox, before coming back to Nate. “We try to help people like me. Can you trust an ex-criminal, Agent Murtaugh?”
Nate’s knee started aching again. “I respect what you’re trying to do, Sister. Your mission is a necessary one.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“There are different levels of trust. I’m here, so you can assume that I trust you.”
“You’re here because your boss told you to get your butt in here,” she challenged him, arching her brow expressively.
Nate looked at her steadily. “I have an assignment. My understanding is that you might be the person who can help me accomplish this task within the time limitations that we have. That’s why I’m here.”
“Now we’re getting someplace.” Her nod was patronizing at best. “Let’s discuss this for a moment. You have sworn to uphold the law. Now, here you are, and I am agreeing to help you with your assignment. But because of your instincts as a law-enforcement officer, you come in contact with people whom you suspect have not yet paid their debt to society.”
“We know what you’re getting at, Sister,” Hawes chirped. “You have my word that Agent Murtaugh is perfectly capable of using his discretion to focus solely—”
“I am speaking to Agent Murtaugh, Sanford,” she snapped at the FBI assistant director. “He appears perfectly capable of answering for himself.”
“The nature of my job requires that I work with people of all kinds, just as you do,” Nate explained in what he hoped was a reasonable tone. “I have no intention of getting involved with anything other than the case in question. On the other hand, if I witness the commission of a crime, then I have to take action.”
“And that will make two of us.” She leaned forward in her chair. “We only try to help reformed criminals, those who have sworn to change their lives. We don’t sponsor illicit activities, no matter how large or small. Is that clear?”
“I’m glad to hear that, Sister.”
“If I agree to help you, you must agree to respect the efforts of these people.”
It was impossible to ignore Hawes as he repeatedly rubbed the back of his bull neck. Nate didn’t need a signal. He knew he was supposed to agree to everything that was being said here.
“Short of breaking the law myself, Sister, I won’t betray any confidence here. But before I add any more length to the rope that is eventually going to hang me, are you telling me you’ve heard the same thing that Wilcox has been telling us about the existence of an original Betsy Ross flag, and about the rumor of it going on auction soon?”
“Yes, I have. But I should tell you that how I feel about you will not serve as an admission ticket to any auction.”
Hawes looked relieved, but Nate knew that had to do with the first part of the nun’s answer. “Whatever it is you want Agent Murtaugh to do, he’ll do it.”
Nate felt the squirmy m
ovements in the can of worms he was putting his hand into.
Sister Helen’s attention focused on Hawes. “I trust you to make whatever arrangements necessary to avoid any unpleasantness if Agent Murtaugh cannot fight the temptation to pursue those he comes in contact with through me.”
“Yes, Sister,” Hawes offered eagerly. “There will be no unpleasantness. Our specific task is to acquire that flag and have it available for the Fourth of July celebration.”
She nodded and turned to Nate. “Except to a handful of people who must know the truth, you’ll be introduced with a false identity to everyone else in the art crowd we have access to. What I know of the flag and what your Dr. Wilcox here has told you amounts to nothing more than rumor. Once we get your name and face out there in the right circles as an interested and credible buyer, a real lead might appear.”
“And how do we do that?”
“The place to start is to get you introduced to a friend of mine who happens to be a well-respected dealer here in Philadelphia. She’ll be able to put out the word that you’re looking for an old flag. She can even take you along to some of the high-end auctions so the other dealers can size you up.” Sister Helen turned to Wilcox and Hawes. “Of course, your other option would be for all of you to stay in the background and let my friend act as your agent. As it is, we are putting her at risk if Agent Murtaugh messes up.”
“Either way we play it, there is no guarantee that we’ll even get a chance to bid on the flag within the two weeks we have left, is there?” Nate asked.
“No. There’s no guarantee.”
“We want Agent Murtaugh directly involved,” Hawes stated. “We need to know that everything that can possibly be done is happening.”
“I can understand that.”
The nun turned her gaze back on Nate. He felt as if he were back in second grade and in trouble. He was still standing and this gave her more square footage to be critical of. His knee was aching again, too, and the damn room was too hot. And Wilcox—who’d been silent since Sister Helen entered the room—wasn’t helping matters by continuously wiping the sweat off his thin face.
