Trophies

by J. Gunnar Grey

  But I let my mind drift no further than that. I was tired, confused, and aching all over. For all my various facets, it was time for a break.

  Best of all, I didn't have to fight with Patty over attending the gallery's opening party that night. She didn't even suggest it. Instead, I overheard her calling Prissy Carr and begging us off. Whatever inducements she used to accomplish that were nothing I wanted to hear. I snuck away on tiptoe and wasn't even ashamed of the fact.

  After fajitas we assembled banana sundaes, and after cleaning the kitchen we passed around Bonnie's canteen of homemade hooch in the den. Patricia made certain it bypassed Lindsay, but I could see that girl was awaiting her chance. I cracked my jaw yawning.

  "Where the hell has she gotten to?" Sherlock asked thin air.

  I looked at Bonnie. She looked at me. I grabbed the cordless and punched in Theresa's cell phone from memory.

  It was answered on the third ring. "Who dares disturb my temper tantrum?"

  I recognized the crackling alto even through the awful static and background clamor. "No need to ask who this is. There's no mistaking those exquisite manners, that dulcet tone, the sense to check the Caller ID—"

  "Oh, stuff it, you jerk. It's your fault I'm in this mess."

  I leaned back on the long sofa. "And what mess might that be? By the way, has your flight taken off yet?"

  Sherlock, in the blue armchair, was already shaking his head. Bonnie used the distraction to ease the canteen out of his reach — okay, out of the reach of anyone except Sherlock.

  "Don't tell me you can't hear that racket," Theresa said. "I'd forgotten how noisy these transports are. They tell me we're somewhere over Montana."

  "So what's the — hang on, you're flying from Del Rio to Boston by way of Montana?"

  No wonder she was pissed; Theresa hadn't a lick of patience, which was generally not considered a desirable trait in an explosives expert.

  "That's the mess." There was a definite note of furious triumph in her voice, even through the racket.

  "Well, it could be worse, you know. You could be helping Wings call artillery shots. Anyway, why didn't you just hop a commercial flight?"

  "Because I brought my kit. Just in case."

  I shuddered. I could picture no turn our investigation might take that would require the use of high explosives, or low ones, for that matter. "That was, well, thoughtful of you, but pardon me if I hope it turns out to be a misguided notion."

  Sherlock snatched the canteen before Bonnie got it to safety and took a long swig. After all, he was the one who had to clean up any messes behind us. He surfaced long enough to say, "Get her ETA."

  "Our beloved leader wants to know when you intend to arrive."

  "I'll be there first thing in the morning." Her voice was firm. "Have coffee ready. And don't worry. They'll never know what hit them."

  I disconnected as Bonnie rescued the canteen. Sherlock let it go and settled back.

  "How many women are in your unit?" Lindsay asked, a note of calculation in her voice to match the eye she kept on that canteen.

  William was going to kill me.

  Sherlock eyed her, grabbed one of the squashy maroon pillows, and smashed it between his palms. "Two. Why? Are you volunteering?"

  I winced. The thought of pillow stuffing all over the parlor was not one designed to comfort me, no more than the thought of the house all over Cambridge should Theresa not work off her sour mood prior to arrival. Perhaps I didn't feel perfectly at home yet; that resolution seemed extreme.

  Bonnie handed me the canteen. "You missed last round."

  The hooch, Sherlock's recipe and Bonnie's cooking, burned a path like liquid hydrogen down my gullet and went supernova in my stomach. I closed my eyes and handed back the canteen as the shock juddered all the way to my toes. When I surfaced, Sherlock was watching me. It was that cobra stare again, damn it. I wished I could have another drink, but Bonnie slid the canteen down into the cushions of the short sofa, beneath her protective frown. I'd have to go through her to get it and her stubborn chin meant that wouldn't be easy. Wrestling with Bonnie was like competing with Sherlock: it wasn't to be undertaken lightly.

  "You ready, Robbie my Robber?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Bonnie, tell us about your day."

  She shrugged. "When I got there, General von Bisnon had a courier waiting. I handed over the evidence, refused dinner, and headed back."

  "I thank you for refusing dinner."

  "You should. I guarantee, it wasn't homemade fajitas. But he didn't press."

  This was good news; it meant the Kraut was taking our illicit request seriously, and that meant we might have our ballistics results before Detective Wingate had his.

  Sherlock gave a quick account of our own day, glossing over my rational time-out. I was grateful but didn't say so. There were some things he didn't need to know.

  "So much for spotting our tails." Bonnie was sinking into the corner of the short sofa, one pillow behind her back, another beneath her head, and her hand on the canteen. If she propped her boots on the glistening coffee table, the wrestling match would be worth it. "I mean, we'll never see those two cars again, at least."

  "That's right." Lindsay shared the short sofa but was losing ground fast as Bonnie got comfortable. I wondered how long it would take before Lindsay was pushed to the floor. "Now that we know what those two look like, the drivers will get new ones, right?"

  "And that Suburban was fairly demolished by the time you and that cannon were through with it," Patricia said.

  Sherlock shrugged. "Someone should have warned him not to mess with my officers. Hell, tails aren't that hard to spot, and now I know to watch out for at least two of them. We oughta go for a drive right now, just to flush them out."

  "Not now." I was too lazy, too well fed, and too comfortable. If he wanted to go chasing his own tail he could do it without me.

  "So the question becomes," Caren said, "are they working together or separately?"

  Sherlock glanced at her. "I like the way your mind works. As you say, that is the question. Opinions?"

  "They don't seem to have a lot in common, do they?" I stretched and dropped my arms along the back of the long sofa. Patricia sat on one side of me, Caren on the other. It was a good feeling.

  Sherlock, in the blue armchair where Aunt Edith had once humiliated my father, shook his head. "Not a thing in common. Not even their target."

  "What does that mean?" Patricia asked.

  "It means the driver of that Impala is looking for something Edith Hunter refused to give him. He started searching this house but was interrupted, then he went and searched Robbie's condo. The driver of the Suburban, on the other hand," he turned to face me, "has it in for you personally. That's twice he's tried to take you out."

  "I'd rather he not get a third opportunity." Caren's voice was quiet.

  "Trust me, he won't." I tickled the nape of her neck. "I'm ready for him now."

  "Based on that," Sherlock said, "my guess is, no, they're not working together. I think Mister Impala set this chain of events in motion by shooting Edith Hunter, attempting to get whatever it was she refused to give him. Mister Suburban, on the other hand, seems less organized to me, more like an opportunist. I think he's just taking advantage of the situation to go after Robbie."

  "Like a vulture," Lindsay said with relish.

  "Great," I said, "a hungry young cannibal."

  "Well, I hope they trip over each other," Bonnie said from her two-thirds of the short sofa. At least I wasn't the only one who sounded sleepy. "It would be so lovely if they took each other out. Nice neat solution, huh?"

  "But remember what Prissy told me at the gallery?" I eased my arm onto the sofa back and played in Caren's hair. The Army shrink was right on that point: texture could be pure satisfaction. "About the artist Sidnë arguing with Aunt Edith? I mean it, that woman never raised her voice. I once dropped a caramel sundae on her favorite expensive rug and she didn't yell even then."
>
  "What did she do?" Lindsay didn't sound sleepy at all. Oh, to be that age again, or at least to have that age's energy.

  "She looked at me. I cleaned it up and it never happened again."

  But Sherlock was shaking his head. "No, I really don't think it's one of the artists."

  I stared at him. When Sherlock made a statement like that, something straight out and unequivocal, it could be taken as gospel. "Why do you think that?"

  "Because both of those drivers gave themselves away this afternoon. Both of them made the same serious mistake. And finding them tomorrow is going to be a lot easier than it was today."

  I froze, a sudden hope teasing me. Actually, I think the room itself froze, because no one seemed capable of moving. If Sherlock truly had spotted some clue that could identify our two mystery attackers, then perhaps the entire damned day would prove worth it.

  "Well," Caren finally said, "are you going to tell us or do we have to beg it out of you?"

  Negotiations with this woman would definitely continue. I stroked her shoulder, warm sultry satin like an orchid's petal, and she shivered beneath my touch. But she didn't pull away, nor glance aside at me. I took that as permission to continue and traced up her neck.

  Sherlock held out a hand. Bonnie surrendered and gave him the canteen. After his slug and the canteen's ritual return to its rightful owner, he leaned back in the chair.

  "None of you saw it? All three of you Brits, or former Brits, and no one noticed what those two vehicles did at the condo?"

  Everyone's eyes glazed as they thought and I'm certain mine were no different. The Impala had pulled away from the curb and drove off down the empty side street while Sherlock watched and I panicked. After the attack — and this memory was so clear I believe I actually relived it sitting in the parlor — the Suburban reversed from the parking lot and roared off down the same street.

  "They both drove on the left," I said.

  Patricia gasped.

  Sherlock pointed one finger at me. "Bingo. Mister Impala departed because he got nervous, Mister Suburban because he didn't like being shot at, meaning they both ran under stress. And that's when people tend to revert to natural habits, like driving on one side of the road or the other."

  And easy as that, the pressure lifted again from my shoulders. We were on the right track after all, with the death clothes, the old Browning, and other stuff we'd found in the garret. And speaking of shoulders, my stitched-up left one was hurting again. I pulled that arm into my lap, and only then did I realize I was still wearing Uncle Hubert's old ring. Suddenly embarrassed by its gaudy opulence, I pulled it off and stuck it in my pocket. Maybe no one noticed.

  Caren shifted closer beneath my right arm, which thankfully didn't hurt nearly as much. I wondered if she'd deliberately chosen to sit on my right for that reason. Because she could read me so clearly, it was hard to tell what was my imagination and what were her actual intentions. Whatever her intentions, though, the opportunity she'd presented me wasn't one to be missed, and I slipped my hand beneath her hair, stroking the back of her neck with one finger.

  "Unless one of the artists is an accomplice," Caren said, giving no clue of my shenanigans. "After all, we've decided that Mister Suburban is an amateur. Before he embarked upon his life of crime, perhaps he convinced someone to work with him."

  "To bolster his courage," Lindsay said.

  "I really like the way your mind works. If you ever need a job—" Sherlock rubbed his eyes. He'd been driving a lot of the day and that usually gave him a headache. "As Robbie can tell you, I save the most important item on the agenda for last. Doctor Caren, you have the floor."

  I stilled my hand; it wasn't fair to distract her during a briefing. Self-restraint on my part was part of earning her trust, little as I liked it.

  She retrieved the old scrapbook from beneath the wilting roses. Setting it on her knees, she opened it to that first black-and-white photo of the intense young man. She paused, then flipped to another photo, almost at the back.

  The same man descended a broad flight of white steps. Again he wore a dark suit, with light shirt and elegant inconspicuous tie, this time adding a Homburg and an expensive coat draped over his arm. He watched his feet as if ignoring the cameraman; even across the distance and through the years, rage glittered in his slitted eyes.

  "This man's name," Caren said, "was Basil Glendower. He was a stockbroker in the City of London."

  "I've heard that name somewhere before." I shut my eyes and tried to think, but my tired and stressed brain was not cooperative. "I just can't recall where. Help me out, Patty? I think it was Aunt Edith who mentioned it."

  But Patricia shook her head. "I've never heard it before."

  "So what about him?" Lindsay asked.

  Caren compressed her lips. "This scrapbook contains newspaper clippings — stories about a series of burglaries in England over a two-year period about thirty years ago. We're not discussing the family silver or credit cards here. Only gemstones and jewelry were stolen and only collectors' items, in the category of the Hope diamond, the Waterford Blue, the Star of India, stuff like that."

  "Whoa." Lindsay sat back.

  Bonnie took advantage of Lindsay's distraction and stretched over more of the sofa. "The sort of stuff Richard Burton bought for Elizabeth Taylor."

  "Yes," Caren said. "The last robbery went south. The thief murdered a guard who'd just been added to the manor's security staff. Scotland Yard never caught the thief. They never found the murder weapon nor the stolen jewelry." She took a deep breath and returned the scrapbook to the coffee table. "Those are the facts. The press, of course, had a field day and printed all sorts of rumors. Basil Glendower was one of the people asked in for questioning. Because he was the most prominent and respectable of the suspects, he was the one the press concentrated on, and they trashed his name and reputation. Scotland Yard did not reveal their evidence. Glendower fled England and vanished before he could be charged, some people said because the scandal the press created ruined him. The last article says he killed himself."

  I did not like that tale and could sit still no longer. Across the room hung the photograph of Aunt Edith and Uncle Hubert on their wedding day, on the far wall beyond the sideboard. He was a bit portly even then, hair already lightening and thinning, pompous and wonderful in his penguin suit and mustache. She was stunning — there was no other possible word for it — in that royal sweep of white silk, her arms full of lavender, black hair gloriously unbound and decorated with glints of jewels to echo the thousands of seed pearls sewn into the bodice and purple-slashed princess sleeves of her gown. For some reason I never liked seeing that photo hang off kilter, which it often did, and straightened it now more out of habit than anything else.

  "Why, why ever would Aunt Edith have something like that?" I gestured to the scrapbook.

  Caren met my gaze without flinching. "She would have been Glendower's contemporary. She would have moved in the same level of society and might have known him."

  The circle of society that had rejected her, I wanted to say. But suddenly I wondered why it had done so, what they knew that I didn't. I stayed silent.

  Sherlock shifted and said it for me. "And, if she got her hands on the murder weapon and the dead security guard's uniform jacket, she could have blackmailed Glendower and maybe contributed to his suicide." He turned to Patricia. "And that's why I've got to know what those financial records mean. If I'm correct, we've reached the heart of this mystery and you should find some deposits from Glendower among Edith Hunter's transactions up to the point where he killed himself. Bonnie, I know this isn't your sort of thing, but give Patricia here all the help you can, okay? This is what we have to figure out next."

  Bonnie's lip curled, but she nodded. "I wonder if we can get his fingerprints. We should check them against the ones on that Browning."

  "But the Suburban—" Lindsay began.

  Sherlock gently cut her off. "The hell with the Suburban, Lindsa
y. He's just after Robbie and we can deal with that."

  "Oh, you're sweet, you are," Patricia said.

  "Seriously, that's Mister Suburban's Achilles heel. He's after Robbie, for whatever reason. We keep Robbie surrounded, in a car, what have you, and we keep him safe. Then Mister Suburban can do his worst and we'll catch him."

  I knew he was right but still wanted to hit him.

  "Meeting adjourned," Sherlock said. "I'll take first watch. Bonnie, you're mid-shift, and Robbie, you're dawn patrol. Okay? Let's get some sleep, people." He stood and stretched. "Wherever you can find room to spread out."

  We moved Sherlock into my old bedroom with me, leaving the guest suite for Caren and Bonnie, and Theresa when she arrived, and crowded Lindsay in with Patricia. Aunt Edith's suite we left empty; no one even suggested using it.

  It took a long time for me to sleep, even though I knew Bonnie would rouse me for sentry duty all too soon. I still stared into the night when Sherlock came in from first shift and slid into the double bed beside me; he snored within moments. I'd seen Doctor Caren slip him some ibuprofen; headache, jarred muscles from hitting me and the concrete, or both — I wasn't about to ask.

  The threat to my career was bad enough, with Sherlock now aware of how hard I fought the manifestations of PTSD to maintain my stability, much less my competence. But the subjects I couldn't exorcise from my thoughts were Father and Aunt Edith. She'd seduced me with her glamorous wickedness and shady ways, and only now did I fully appreciate that. She'd stolen me from my father heart and soul. And I'd let her, showing no more loyalty for my family than love. Seventeen years after the fact, I finally felt the shame that deserved.

  But my change of allegiance from the home-country side of the family to the exiled side did not change the fact that Father left me there. He never returned to Boston for me. What had she said to convince — or force — him to leave me with her? What could possibly coerce a man to abandon his son? And did I have any reason to forgive him for that abandonment?