Michelangelo_s Notebook fr-1

by Paul Christopher

  Everybody hit the dirt, and it seemed like everyone but Hayes made it to the ditch that ran at an angle across the meadow, more like it had been some kind of earthworks defense a few hundred years ago when they were fighting some other stupid war. Anyway they all got down behind it. The three guys from the ALIU were all lieutenants except for Cornwall, who was a captain, but none of the three of them knew shit about how to fight a fucking war, so they left it up to him because he was a sergeant and he’d also managed to keep from getting killed over here for the last few years and he didn’t think any of them had been here longer than since Christmas.

  The sergeant looked up for a second to get his bearings and the Kraut with the SVT took another shot, knocking out a groove in the dirt about three inches to the left of his head. He got what he wanted, though-the lay of the land.

  The farm looked more French than German: half a dozen buildings including a barrackslike barn probably used for cows, a big house-low, two stories, the thatched roof like a hat pulled low, heavy linteled window with the glass shot out long ago leaving black holes like dead eyes. All of this surrounded by a stone wall about five feet high and three feet wide and covered with half a dozen generations of blackberry and bramble-more effective than barbed wire. The wall ran off to the left and connected with the old abbey, two stories high like the farmhouse, the roof slate looking very dark in the light rain. The windows on the second floor of the abbey were very narrow and most of them were covered by wooden shutters. Some of them hung on one hinge, letting you look into the blackness beyond. Almost certainly where the firing had come from.

  The sergeant got out the little pair of caramel-colored binoculars he’d traded a Canadian for and took a closer look at everything. They were on the upslope of the meadow that went down to the road so from where they were they could see over the wall and even over the roofs of the farm buildings. That’s when he started figuring something was different about this whole thing because behind the barracks-type building, the big low barn, he could see half a dozen of those three-tonner Opel Blitzes the Krauts used for just about everything. These ones were closed with canvas backs. They didn’t have any unit designations that the sergeant could see except for the bumper plate on the one closest to the edge of the building. The number plate had SS lightning bolts on it but the metal pennant plugged into the passenger side ferrule was orange, which meant they were feldjager-military police. Six three-ton trucks capable of carrying maybe a hundred men out in the middle of nowhere? It didn’t make any sense at all.

  “What we got, Sarge?” It was Dormouse. He had snot running down both sides of his fat lips like a little kid and his eyes blinked all the time.

  “Wipe your fucking nose, Dormouse.”

  “Sure, Sarge.” He did, but his nose continued to run. “That Hayes who got hit?”

  “Yeah, sniper in the old church place there-the abbey, I guess you’d call it.”

  “What’s the fucking point of defending an old ruin? And if this is a bunch of Krauts on the run what are they doing with a sniper?”

  “You ask too many questions, Dormouse. One of these days it’s going to get you in the shit. And wipe your nose again. You look fucking disgusting.”

  The sergeant stared through the binoculars, looking at the trucks, wondering what the hell was inside them. It was a funny war now. Time was you picked up a gun and got moving and shot Germans and they shot back at you. Now it seemed like they were all in some kind of secret maze, looking for secrets and things that properly didn’t have a fuckin’ thing to do with fighting any war he’d ever heard of. He picked up the binoculars again and looked down at the farm. Military police?

  19

  Greyfriars Academy was located on the Sark River in the hilly, wooded countryside a dozen miles north of Greenwich, Connecticut. The closest civilization was the small crossroads village of Friardale on the way to Riverview and Toll Gate Pond. Passing through the village, Michael Valentine followed the signs to Oaklane and drove along beside a low fieldstone wall capped with wrought iron spikes to the main gates of the school. Directly ahead, down a slightly curving gravel drive lined with mature oaks, was the main building. It looked like a cross between a medieval church and a weathered, ivy-covered English country house. It was huge and looked very old.

  “Like something out of a Harry Potter story,” Finn commented, staring through the windshield of Valentine’s rental as they went down the sun-dappled drive toward the school.

  “More like Frank Richards,” murmured the older man.

  “Who?”

  “Never mind.”

  They continued up the tree-lined drive. To the left there were half a dozen outbuildings, including a porter’s lodge, something big enough to be a swimming pool or a gymnasium and a small chapel complete with miniature bell tower. To the right was a baseball diamond, tennis courts and something that could have been a stable. Behind the main building and running back to the wall was an orchard, the stunted trees laid out in neat rows. In between everything there were winding paths, neatly trimmed lawns and a number of artfully placed flower beds. It was clearly a school for rich kids.

  They parked in a small lot outside the main quadrangle. The lot was empty except for a burgundy-colored mid-nineties Taurus station wagon with one of its windshield wipers missing and an old, humpbacked Jaguar Mark II saloon in British racing green. The Taurus had a toddler-sized car seat in the back.

  They left their rental car and stepped into the hot morning air. The sun was almost directly overhead and everything had a flat, baked, deserted look about it. A school in midsummer was like an abandoned husk until September. They entered the main quadrangle. Directly in front of them was a stone fountain topped by a large, classically draped figure of a woman with a tilted amphora on her shoulder, spilling water down into the granite pool below. It looked as though the figure had stood there spilling water for a hundred years, the pool never filling, the container on her shoulder never emptying. The burbling water was the only sound and movement in the place. They turned to the left and went up a set of wide stone stairs. Valentine pulled open one of the dark oak doors and they stepped into the cool interior of the school.

  They found themselves in a large reception hall paneled in the same oak as the front doors. The floor was marble, laid out in alternating squares of light and dark. The ceiling was more coffered oak set in the center with a massive wrought iron chandelier. Finn expected to see suits of armor and crossed halberds ranged around the room but instead she saw dimly lit display cases filled with dusty trophies and old framed photographs. Just inside the doors there was a massive granite slab bolted to the wall, etched like a tombstone, which is what it was, in a sense. Picked out in gold, the inscription running along the top of the memorial said simply: 1916-1918-1941-1945. Below the dates were a dozen columns of names. Apparently for Greyfriars, history had stopped at the end of the second world war and paid no heed to the conflicts that had followed. Either that or they’d simply run out of space and the Greyfriars dead from Korea, Vietnam and Iraq were left to fend for themselves.

  Finn and Valentine crossed the entry hall, following the seesaw sound of an old dot-matrix printer and the blurred clatter of fingers on a keyboard. Through the main hall they found a narrow corridor disappearing left and right, half paneled in oak, with ancient ochre-colored plaster above. A number of small rooms led off the corridor; only one had an open door. Valentine peeked in, tapping lightly on the doorframe. A small, plain woman was working away in front of a keyboard, her feet neatly tucked under her desk, her head erect and posture perfect. She wore glasses and had her hair drawn up into a loose untidy bun. She looked up at Valentine’s knock, eyes going wide behind the glasses. Valentine smiled.

  “I’m Dr. Michael Valentine from New York. This is my assistant, Miss Ryan.”

  “Dr. Valentine?” The woman looked even more startled now, a rabbit frozen in high beams. “No one here is sick that I know of. There’s really nobody here. A few of
the masters, the head.”

  “You are?” Valentine asked.

  “Miss Mimble. Jessie Mimble. I’m the receptionist.”

  “We’d like to see Dr. Wharton, if you don’t mind.”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No. It’s about the stolen knife.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “Right. We’re here about that.” The young, rabbit-eyed Miss Mimble stared up at them as though expecting further orders. She seemed transfixed by Valentine.

  “Dr. Wharton?” Finn reminded.

  “Oh, right,” said the woman. She got up from behind her desk and scuttled off to an adjoining door, knocking mouselike before entering. Watching her go, Finn noticed that she had an enormous rear end and jutting hips, as though the body of a much slimmer woman had been grafted onto the waist of a Bradley tank camouflaged in a flowered skirt. She was back a few moments later, pulling open the door and standing aside.

  “Dr. Wharton will see you now.” She gestured them into the room and closed the door behind them.

  Dr. Harry Wharton was in his mid-fifties, bald, clean-shaven and wearing bright red reading glasses which he took off and dropped on the pile of papers in front of him on the desk as Valentine and Finn Ryan entered the room. The room itself was pleasant and bright. The curtains on the tall window behind Wharton were bright red and drawn back to let in the sun. The desk was dark oak, large and modern. The carpet matched the curtains and the tack-upholstered red leather chairs that sat in front of the desk. On the wall behind the headmaster was a framed aerial photograph of the school. The rest of the walls were taken up with floor-to-ceiling bookcases. Very professorial, like the Architectural Digest version of a private school headmaster’s office. Finn smiled; just the kind of thing to set rich parents at ease. The room smelled faintly of apple-flavored pipe tobacco. There was no ashtray.

  Wharton stood up, most of his attention on Finn. She noticed the tie he was wearing was bright red with small blue heraldic shields on it. His suit was a dark pinstripe and the toe caps of his brogues shone like the top of his head. He reached out a hand across the desk and smiled. The smile seemed perfectly pleasant and genuine. Finn took his hand first. The grip was dry and firm and he wasn’t one of those people who kept pressing the flesh for too long. He sat down again.

  “Dr. Valentine, Miss Ryan, what can I do for you?”

  “We’re here about the koummya.”

  “The knife.” Wharton nodded. “It was stolen several weeks ago.”

  “Yes,” said Valentine.

  “I’d like to know why you’re interested?” Wharton asked. His voice was still pleasant enough but there was a faint edge to the question.

  “I’m generally interested in antiquities but I’m more interested in how this one was put to use.”

  “The murder.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re with the police then?”

  “I sometimes do consulting work for them.”

  A nice bit of evasion, thought Finn. Not the truth but not necessarily a lie either. Said without a twitch or hesitation-an expected question, the answer ready. As her mother might say, Michael Valentine certainly was a caution.

  “Unfortunate,” said Wharton. “There’s no connection to Greyfriars, of course. It was simply the weapon used. Nevertheless, it reflects poorly on the school. We can only be glad that it took place during the summer holidays.” Not the kind of thing that attracted the rich and famous, certainly, Finn thought.

  “Alexander Crawley wasn’t an alumnus of Greyfriars?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure.”

  Wharton’s otherwise pleasant and neutral expression suddenly hardened. “Absolutely. In the first place, I checked the records of the New York Police. Given Mr. Crawley’s age he would have attended Greyfriars at the same time I did. I was here from 1955 to 1967. If he’d been a student here, boarder or day boy, I would have known him.”

  “I see.”

  “There was a robbery. The knife caught the thief’s eye. Unfortunately Mr. Crawley became his victim.”

  “Seems a little far-fetched, don’t you think?”

  “It seems like an odd conjunction of events, and a tragic one, but I can assure you that’s all it was.”

  “Why did Greyfriars have the knife in the first place?” Finn asked.

  “We have a small museum here. What they used to call a cabinet of curiosities. The knife was a gift from one of the alumni.”

  Valentine glanced across at Finn. She took her cue instantly.

  “May we see it?” she said brightly, giving Wharton her best smile. “The museum, I mean.”

  “I don’t really see the point,” the headmaster responded. “The knife is no longer there, after all.”

  “Please,” said Finn. She stood up, putting the brass button on the front of her jeans roughly at Wharton’s eye level. He barely paused.

  “I suppose,” the headmaster answered gruffly. He stood up, the fingers of his right hand automatically going to the button of his jacket and doing it up. He smoothed his tie. “We can get to it through the school but it’s easier if we simply go across the quad.”

  The headmaster led them out into the hallway, informed the goggle-eyed Miss Mimble of their destination and went into the main entrance hall and then outside. He made no effort to talk to either Finn or Valentine, striding quickly down the narrow gravel pathway that cut through the well-tended grass, almost as though he was daring them to keep up with him.

  They reached a small set of stone steps on the far side of the quadrangle, climbed them and went through a small glass-paned door that led into a small cloakroom space fitted out with rows of brass coat hooks on either side. They were at a right angle between two wings of the large building and two narrow hallways led off left and right. Without a word Wharton turned to the right. Immediately on their left an open door led into what was obviously a science lab. Beside it was a door with a neat wooden sign that said DARKROOM. Wharton turned and stopped in front of a door on the left. He reached into his trouser pocket, took out a large ring of keys and fitted one into the lock.

  “You lock the door to the museum?” Valentine asked.

  “We do now,” Wharton answered sourly. He turned the key and the door swung open. He flicked a switch on the wall and several overhead fluorescents crackled to life.

  The museum was small, no larger than the average living room. There were maps and paintings on the wall and glass-topped display cases ranged around the walls. The room had an old-fashioned look about it, like photographs Finn had seen of early displays at the Smithsonian. The display cases held everything from a collection of bird eggs resting on small beds of yellowing cotton balls to an old stereopticon with several slides to an Olympic gold medal for track and field from 1924 and somebody’s Congressional Medal of Honor from WWII.

  High on the wall above one case were a pair of Brown Bess caplock muskets from the War of 1812, and in the case itself, a collection of Civil War memorabilia including an old navy Colt revolver. Beside the revolver in gruesome juxtaposition was a pair of brass-bound binoculars with the right lens smashed and the eyepiece a twisted, exploded mess. Finn grimaced. It gave a whole new meaning to “Don’t shoot till you see the whites of their eyes.”

  Far to the right, almost invisible, was a small, rather amateurish-looking oil painting of a monkey. The painting looked as though it hadn’t been dusted in years. Below it was a wood-and-glass case. A roughly triangular section of glass had been removed from the case, clearly cut with a diamond glass cutter and pulled off with a lump of putty. The scored piece of glass was still sitting to one side of the hole and the whole display case was cloudy with fingerprint dust. Finn looked through the opening, and could see where the curved knife had lain against the green baize cloth that covered the bottom of the case, leaving a darker, unfaded ghost impression of itself. A small printed card said: MOORISH RITUAL DAGGER. GIFT OF COL. GEORGE GATTY.

  “Who
was George Gatty?” Finn asked.

  “He was here in the thirties, according to the records. Went on to West Point.”

  “One wonders where he came across a Spanish dagger,” murmured Valentine.

  “Presumably during the war. Spanish Morocco, Casablanca, somewhere like that.”

  “You know your twentieth-century history,” Valentine commented.

  “In addition to being headmaster I’m also head of the history department. I teach sixth form.”

  “Sixth form?” asked Finn.

  “He means grade twelve,” said Valentine.

  “Do you know anything more about Gatty?”

  “No. Only that he went here in the thirties and went on to West Point. That’s all the information on him I was able to give the police too.”

  “You don’t know where we could find him?”

  “Tracing down old students isn’t my job, Mr. Valentine. That’s what the alumni association is for.”

  “Dr. Valentine.”

  “Whatever you call yourself.” Wharton turned on his heel and left the museum.

  “Short-tempered fellow,” Valentine observed.

  “I’ll say,” commented Finn. “You think we’ll be able to track down Colonel Gatty?”

  “With a name like that I don’t think it’ll be too difficult.”

  Valentine took a last look at the small painting over the display case and then followed Wharton out of the little museum. The man was waiting beside the door. As Finn and Valentine stepped out of the room he closed the door and locked it.