AHMM, May 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  He tugged at his bow tie and puffed.

  "Continue the case,” he said, “but only after they pay. Do nothing until then. Unless they retain you to investigate the stolen pots, that is not your duty. You are on hold until the case returns to the Supreme Court in October."

  "That's impossible,” I said. “I need to know where the stolen pots went!"

  "Have you seen today's billing reports?” he asked. “The firm's bank lawyers are doing excellently. You are trailing behind."

  I got up to leave.

  "Did they find Fosbroke's killer?” he asked.

  "Oh, about that,” I said, clearing my throat importantly. “Actually, it wasn't Fosbroke. It—"

  He picked up his ringing phone.

  I imagined two possible reactions if I told Bentley it was me, not Fosbroke, that someone had wanted to kill. Either Bentley would throw me out of this office on my heels, or he'd throw me out on my posterior.

  I allowed neither to occur.

  * * * *

  The Daily Citizen reported the theft on page one.

  The New York art world is reeling with unsubstantiated reports that Sidney Sappleworth, the Egyptologist who excavated Upper Egypt in 1973—79 with the blessing of the Egyptian government, may have stolen six disputed yam pots from the New York Museum. The theft occurred Tuesday afternoon. A group of schoolchildren who witnessed the event told police that the thief, wearing the ceremonial dress of a Wazeerian official, wore American sneakers. Mr. Sappleworth, who is well known to the Antiquities Department at the New York Museum for his hostility toward the museum's ownership of numerous ancient artifacts, was seen leaving the museum right after the theft, wearing blue and orange sneakers and carrying a large suitcase. Coincidentally, the robbery occurred only a few weeks after the unsolved murder of lawyer Clement Fosbroke, as he prepared to argue to the U.S. Supreme Court that the museum should keep the now-stolen pots, which the Republic of Wazeer wants back. Sappleworth's statements quoted in a legal brief to the court highlight the animosity between museums and archaeologists over the yam pots case. “It is a violent crime against mankind and history,” he wrote, “to rip antiquities from the soil for display in a museum.” The day Fosbroke died, the archaeologist was present at the Supreme Court, looking disheveled, some say.

  "What archaeologist doesn't look disheveled?” said Edith. “They're always climbing out of dust holes."

  Sappleworth's connection to the unsolved stomach poison death of two Egyptian workers on a dig he led in Mesopotamia decades ago adds to the art world intrigue about him. Madison Avenue art dealers have been abuzz about Sappleworth since his public outburst Monday at a New York bar association seminar, saying he would have killed Fosbroke. Museum lawyers present at the seminar immediately called police to report the statement. But police refuse to comment on the case. Fosbroke was New York City's best-loved lawyer, known to have argued twenty-seven cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, winning every time.

  "Six yam pots?” said Edith. “Which one of you can't count?"

  I threw down the paper. I had to know where the pots were. Did Bwodkona have them? Were they back in Wazeer, already on display at the national museum? I was furious at my client. What would happen to our lawsuit?

  The government prosecutor called, furious. The same questions had occurred to him.

  "Tilbury,” said Ben Hoyt, “what is this? Did a diplomat from Wazeer steal the very pots that this case is all about? If the pots were stolen by Wazeer, this case is over! That's the end of it! It will be the last time the U.S. Government gets involved in a stolen antiquities case. Have the pots actually gone back to Wazeer?"

  I cleared my throat.

  "I have not been able,” I intoned, “to reach Wazeer.” I breathed in deeply. “I do not even know,” I made clear, “that the man was actually a Wazeerian diplomat as he said. I never met a Mr. Bwodkona before. Have you? You dealt with more Wazeerian officials than I did on this case."

  "No,” said Hoyt. “I never heard of Bwodkona. If you find out that the pots are in Wazeer, call me. And if your client stole them, we'll send him to federal prison!"

  I shuddered.

  * * * *

  Despite the dreariness of a week's rain and the anxiety of receiving no news from Bwodkona, I made significant progress on the Cubblesby case in a series of high brainpower workdays, lasting about fifteen hours each. One afternoon, Edith poked her head in the door.

  From the aroma wafting into my office, I deduced she was dining on hefty Szechuan takeout for lunch. “Here,” she said, with a pitying glance at my jam sandwich, “is your memo for your two P.M. trial in the ABZ case."

  I jumped. “Two o'clock on what day?"

  "Today,” Edith glared. Her eyes squinted furiously behind her reading glasses. “Remember? The mutilated curtains."

  "But I have not,” I glowered, “finished my lunch!"

  She thrust the memo in my briefcase. She thrust my lunch in after it. “Eat it in court,” she said, stuffing me out the door.

  I sent Edith a text message on the subway downtown.

  WHO MAY HAVE INHERITED UNUSUAL PERSONAL EFFECTS AMONG LIST OF NAMES AM SENDING? MUST KNOW 2DAY.

  Edith wrote back.

  WL STRT RT AWAY.

  * * * *

  Edith's note was waiting when I returned to the office. But not with the information I sought.

  Are you going to bring home Athena? She's still here. Not pleased, I daresay.

  Drat! The cat. But I flipped through my lawyer's diary till I found the phone number that Bwodkona had given me and dialed.

  "This is not,” the woman said, “the Consulate of Wazeer. Where is Wazeer?"

  It was exactly what Directory Information reported. There was no Consulate of Wazeer in New York.

  I pulled out the phone number in Wazeer of my initial contact, Mr. Kwadbeke. Despite Bentley's insistence to Spend No Unbillable Time, I had to know. Who had the pots? Who was Bwodkona? Would Wazeer discontinue the lawsuit? My cheeks burned. How would the U.S. Government, for that matter, stay in the case if the pots were back in Wazeer? The whole thing was highly confounding. I called the U.S. prosecutor and left a conciliatory message saying I had no idea what had happened to the pots.

  No sooner had I hung up than I received a phone call from an attorney at Nutchett, Fosbroke's firm.

  "Tilbury,” came the voice, with a note of confidence that told me that the firm of Nutchett had negotiated an unlimited budget to take all legal steps necessary to keep the pots at the New York Museum forever, “good to see you at the club the other morning—this is Paul Kidder. I'm taking over Fosbroke's case after—ahem. I'm sorry to have to tell you, but we are suing the nation of Wazeer for stealing the museum's yam pots. To whom, exactly, shall I deliver the lawsuit summons?"

  I sank like a deflated balloon. “To me,” I murmured. “But I don't really think—"

  "How greatly,” he observed, “it will demean the archaeologists’ effort to ‘rip’ prized artifacts from U.S. museums to be sent back to foreign lands, now that the nation of Wazeer has actually stolen our yam pots. And to think—"

  I heard a “mew.” I shriveled. What if Kidder heard? A cat. In my office!

  "—that the theft occurred during a proceeding where all parties had submitted to the rule of law and decision of the court. The donor who made the splendid gift of the pots, Justin Docker, who as you know is a wealthy philanthropist highly respected in New York's charitable circles, is beside himself with grief. The yam pots are beloved by all New Yorkers. The media,” he said, with disturbing calm, “will demand the return of the pots to the people of this city. Your client could not,” he said smoothly, “have taken a course more helpful to the New York Museum."

  I said a courteous good-bye.

  Then I dialed Mr. Kwadbeke in the Wazeerian capital, again without success. The line was busy. I phoned the international operator.

  Hadn't I heard? Phone calls to that country had been jammed for several days.


  Something was rotten in the State of Wazeer.

  But that's not why I went to Wazeer. I went to Wazeer because Bentley's college-age son was coming to pick up his drum.

  * * * *

  "The drum?” I stammered, not sure I had seen it since he deposited it in my care months ago.

  "Yah, dude, I'm coming to Boston to have lunch with my dad next week, and I kinda thought I could, like, drop in and snag it. Did you research it like Dad said?"

  Research? Your outrageous drum in its orange polyester-fleece wrapper?

  "No,” I demurred. He told me the date and time. He would pop in to see me next Thursday. I hung up my phone and took a deep breath. I had to find the kid's drum.

  Edith stood by the door, pointing to the phone.

  "A reporter from the New York Daily Citizen. He wants to know if Wazeer has the pots. Are they at the Wazeer National Museum?"

  "Can't talk,” I said, striding to my office closet.

  The drum was huge and heavy. Its fleece wrapper was offensively bright orange or yellow. I had thought it was in this closet. Yes, I had placed it deep inside, I was sure, behind the volumes of outdated Smither's Law of Micronesia. But was it still here?

  I flung open the door. I flicked on the closet light, only to hear it sputter out with a pop. A faint light filtered in from my outer office, highlighting the crammed-in castoffs I had stored inside. I peered.

  The drum was there. I could see the orange tufts. I entered, dodging between boxes. But the bag was jammed in. Stuck, you might say. As I strove to wrest it free from where it was wedged between Aunt Betty's crockpot cooker (still in its box) and Uncle Theodore's deep sea diving suit, I heard a howl.

  A cat's green eyes flashed in the dark, darting into a far corner.

  I pulled.

  Athena yowled.

  The drum broke free into my arms. I stumbled back and fell. I heard a crack. The contraption splintered in its fleece bag and broke.

  Into two, three, four, a hundred pieces!

  I couldn't even stagger to my office door to fetch Edith. I had to collapse at my desk and phone her instead, practically weeping.

  "Now what am I to do?"

  "Get on a plane,” Edith said, “to Wazeer."

  "What? And get a new drum?"

  "Exactly."

  * * * *

  Don't think I slept on the plane. I did not.

  The Pacific sun, gleaming through the windows on the left side of the plane, shone and never set. Passengers were crammed into their seats like toes in a tight shoe. The meal had no taste, and the seats were hard. Unable to sleep, I opened my briefcase to read up on the Cubblesby case.

  But what was this? The Far-Flung Traveler in Wazeer and Micronesia, one of the popular Far-Flung travel guides. With a blue sticky note from Edith. “Read chapter on cuisine. Bon voyage."

  Cuisine? Why on earth had Edith bought me this book, and what kind of budget did she think I was on? Bentley would certainly never pay for the trip, let alone a single meal out. I slid the volume back in my briefcase and read the ABZ file, daydreaming about aqua blue cocktails I couldn't pay for at a beachside resort in Wazeer.

  Fourteen hours later, we arrived. I took a scooter taxi to the Ministry of Education, Archaeology, Antiquity and Whatever.

  * * * *

  The capital city was dry and hot. Mopeds scooted. Horns tooted. Dirt and popsicle wrappers flew in a dry wind. I could barely breathe the dusty air. And the Ministry of Education, Archaeology, Antiquity and Artifacts was closed.

  I buzzed the doorbell. I had come to buy a new drum, yes. But I had also come to do business with the Ministry, and was it really true, after flying all this way and changing planes in Los Angeles and Honolulu, that I could do nothing more than wait by a cheap, do-it-yourself doorway buzzer?

  I buzzed again.

  The sun bore down. The concrete shoebox building, with a rickety TV aerial and single window, looked lifeless. I buzzed and buzzed and buzzed.

  Then there was an explosion.

  * * * *

  "What's it for this time?” said Edith, when I called her from the pay phone. Inside the Wazeer National Jail.

  "Suspicious activities,” I reported. “I was present at a bomb blast at the Ministry of Education this morning. I'll be out in a few days,” I hollered, as the line started to fade. “Bentley is getting the best lawyer in Melanesia, who's getting me the best lawyer in Wazeer."

  The phone cackled.

  "Why did Bentley agree to pay for that?” Edith's voice echoed.

  "It's good publicity for the firm,” I shouted into the cackling phone. “Anything new?"

  "I'm making progress with the inquiry,” she shouted. “I ordered court documents from several states. I took home,” she hollered, “your cat."

  * * * *

  In my two days at the Wazeer National Jail, meals were a highlight. It was quite good tropical stuff, really. There were plantains and melons, goat steaks and red fish, and—yams. I read Edith's Far-Flung guide with special attention to the pages on cuisine. Yes, I got to know Wazeer's cuisine history very well.

  By the third day, Bentley had wrestled the Melanesian lawyer off a family get-together on a remote island, and the lawyer had enlisted the hottest lawyer in Wazeer. As my release was accomplished at ten at night, she said I could call at her offices the next day to settle her bill.

  "I have arranged,” she said, after I had paid her in traveler's checks, “for the Minister of Education, Archaeology, Artifacts and Antiquities to meet with you here right now to discuss your pots."

  "My pots?” I corrected. “Your pots. The pots of the nation of Wazeer!"

  She didn't seem interested.

  The minister entered. He was not wearing ceremonial dress. He wore a linen short-sleeved jacket and tie with linen shorts. “Thank you, Mr. Tilbury, for all your excellent work in the case of the pots. We have heard the reports of the theft from the museum. That is a terrible loss. At least we had known where they were and could sue to recover them. Now how can we?"

  "Then they're not here? But everyone thinks you have them! Then who was Mr. Bwodkona?"

  "No pots. No Bwodkona. We have issued a statement for the American press. I am giving it to you to circulate to the U.S. media."

  I looked at the press release, typed on a manual typewriter. The pots were not in Wazeer, it said. The Republic would persist in its quest to return the yam culture artifacts to their native land through the efforts of its lawyer, George P. Tilbury.

  I was deeply gratified. I shook his hand. I would send it to every newspaper. Bentley would be thrilled!

  I launched into a discussion of the implications of the museum theft on the future of the Supreme Court case. But he said he had to go. There was a national crisis this moment over the lack of rain for two months in the northern province, and he was leaving for a meeting with farmers. We left the law offices and stood in the parking lot by a palm tree. He got on a moped.

  "Just one question,” I said.

  "Of course."

  "About that radiocarbon dating test the Interior Ministry performed on the yam pots when you borrowed them from the museum in 2004. May I see the lab report again?"

  "Absolutely. As you know, our test confirmed, almost exactly, the museum's separate radiocarbon test results from the California lab. Both tests date the pots to about 2000 B.C.,” the minister said.

  "Yes—but there were no yams here then, according to my Wazeer dining out guide."

  "That is a problem to which we of course gave considerable thought,” said the minister. “But we assumed, based on the indisputable lab results, that the notion about yams having not arrived in Wazeer until recently must be mistaken, although such statements do continue to be made in historical texts. You cannot beat the radiocarbon results,” he said, starting the moped engine. “Two laboratories cannot be wrong."

  "And where did you get the introduction to the lab you used?"

  "From our friends at t
he Archaeology Ministry in Australia. Miss Hamley at the Interior Ministry will show you the radiocarbon report if you request it,” he said. He saluted and sped off.

  I phoned the Interior Ministry first to make sure it wasn't about to explode. Miss Hamley greeted me and had the report ready.

  It was as I remembered. RadioLab in Australia dated the five pots to about 2000 B.C. The technician, Stan Putter, had signed and dated the report.

  I walked to the nearest tourist stall and bought Bentley's son a new drum. After that, I booked a flight to Sydney, where I paid a visit to Mr. Putter of RadioLab.

  * * * *

  "So the killer wasn't an archaeologist seeking to stop Fosbroke?” asked Bentley.

  It was three days later. I was at the Honolulu Airport talking on my cell phone, gratefully sipping an iced coffee.

  "No,” I told him. “Because it wasn't Fosbroke they wanted to kill, it was me."

  "Why would archaeologists want to kill you?"

  "Not them! Someone else!"

  "How are you going to prove it?"

  "Edith,” I explained, as the bottom of the iced coffee gurgled, “has gathered the necessary information."

  "And we're all three to go to New York together?"

  "Yes."

  "Who's paying?"

  "You are. I can see the headlines now. Boston lawyer solves the yam pots murder case!"

  * * * *

  We deplaned at LaGuardia. We took a cab to Midtown and at the sidewalk café of a fashionable Fifth Avenue hotel waited until the building across the street opened.

  "How did you ascertain,” I asked Edith, “that he will be there, at this time?"

  "Shouldn't we have gone to his business office instead?” Bentley asked.

  "He doesn't have an office,” Edith said. “He works from his Park Avenue home. We will intercept him,” she said, “at his eleven A.M. meeting."

  At twenty minutes to eleven, we entered the New York Museum. We waited in the vast lobby, where fluttering banners announced an exhibit of French paintings. We headed down the left hallway toward the administrative offices. At exactly five minutes to eleven, Justin Docker turned the corner by a statue of Aphrodite.