Cradle of Solitude

by Alex Archer

“You haven’t heard, have you?”

  Her stomach clenched as anxiety shot through her. “Bernard? Is he…?”

  “Professor Reinhardt is fine, Miss Creed,” Laroche said gently, putting a hand on her arm as he realized the distress his offhand comment had caused her. “My apologies. I didn’t mean to alarm you.”

  “Well, if it’s not Bernard, then what… It’s Captain Parker, isn’t it?”

  His brow furrowed in puzzlement. “Captain Parker?”

  Annja remembered that they hadn’t informed anyone of their suspicions yet. “The skeleton from the Metro.”

  Henri’s eyes widened. “You’ve identified the body already?”

  They had as far as she was concerned, but she knew that they didn’t have enough conclusive evidence to prove it yet so she explained that all they had at the moment were a few suspicions and that they were using the name as a matter of convenience only.

  “It seemed more respectful than referring to him as ‘the skeleton’ all the time. I think we’re getting closer, though, and I can show you what we’ve done so far if you’d like.”

  “I see. That’s too bad—you had my hopes up for a moment there. You see, proving your theory is going to be much more difficult now, as the museum was burglarized during the night and the thieves made off with the skeleton.”

  Annja couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Why would someone steal the skeleton?

  Laroche’s next comment made her heart sink.

  “Professor’s Reinhardt’s office was ransacked, as well.”

  Annja grimaced. “Our notes and photographs?”

  The commissaire shook his head. “Gone, as well, I’m afraid.”

  At least they still had the Davis letter in their possession. Bernard had insisted on locking it away in the museum’s vault for safekeeping the minute he’d recognized the letter’s potential value. If the U.S. government didn’t exercise their right to claim it, there were more than two dozen universities and museums he could think of off the top of his head that would pay handsomely to add it to their collections, his own included. He hadn’t been inclined to take any chances with it. And thank heaven for that.

  Laroche was looking at her expectantly, making her realize that she must have missed his question while thinking about the letter.

  “I’m sorry. What was that again?”

  “I asked if you had any idea why the thieves would be interested only in our Confederate friend’s remains?”

  Annja frowned. “That’s all they took?”

  The museum was full of priceless artifacts worth far more than the missing Confederate remains. A fair number of excellent pieces were stored just down the hall from Bernard’s office. Once past the security system and inside the museum, it would have been a simple matter to force the locks on those storerooms and walk off with dozens of priceless artifacts. She had assumed that the thieves had hit Bernard’s office and lab as part of a larger sweep for items of value.

  “They were only interested in the skeleton and the documentation pertaining to it that you and Professor Reinhardt assembled. Nothing else was taken, including items of considerable value that were in plain view in Dr. Reinhardt’s office.”

  That put an entirely different spin on things. Breaking and entering to steal museum pieces worth millions was one thing; doing so just to make off with the recently recovered remains of a Confederate captain no one even knew was there was another, she thought.

  Her thoughts turned immediately to the shadowed figure she’d encountered in the catacombs the night before.

  There was far more going on here than she’d realized.

  Laroche was still waiting for her to answer his question so she put on her game face and told him that she didn’t have any idea. She didn’t like keeping information from him, but she also didn’t feel that she had any choice. Someone must have revealed the skeleton’s presence to the thieves and until she knew who that someone was, she wasn’t taking any chances with the information she had gained. Right now everyone was suspect, including the commissaire. After all, she barely knew him. It was clear that Laroche didn’t quite believe her, but he didn’t push the issue and that was good enough for her. Since she was an integral part of the team that had been responsible for the skeleton’s retrieval and examination, he let those on duty know that she was free to come and go as she needed. He then escorted her through the police barrier and over to the elevator leading to the lower floors where Bernard’s laboratory was located.

  “If you think of anything that might be helpful, please give me a call,” he told her as she got inside the elevator car.

  Annja assured him that she would. And at some point, if she decided it was the right thing to do, she would.

  The scene was no less erratic on the lower floor than the one above. Police officers stood in small groups of twos and threes while crime scene technicians moved through the various rooms, carrying out their usual duties. She spotted Bernard standing off to one side, a pained look on his face and a cup of coffee in his hand. He must have felt her attention on him for he looked up, caught her gaze and then nodded his head in the direction of a nearby staff room.

  Annja met him there a moment later, away from the scrutiny of the others in the hall.

  “Is it true that they got everything?” she asked.

  Bernard nodded glumly. “I’m afraid so.”

  It wasn’t what she wanted to hear, but no more than she’d expected. “At least we still have the Davis letter.”

  Bernard didn’t say anything.

  “You did put the letter in the vault, right?”

  “I was going to do so, but it was late and I thought the safe in my office would be adequate for one night.”

  Damn it! There went their only possible proof that not only were the remains those of William Parker but that he had been there on an official mission for the president of the Confederate States.

  This was not turning out to be a good day.

  Annja could see that Bernard was feeling guilty over his part in the process, and right then she was having a hard time forgiving him.

  He used that moment to break what little good news he did have.

  “I took the liberty of calling Abbot Deschanel late last night,” he said quietly.

  “And?”

  “He’s agreed to see you. Apparently mention of Captain Parker piqued his curiosity.”

  “Well, at least there’s that.”

  Bernard didn’t appear thrilled with the idea, however.

  “This has become very serious business, Annja. It’s obvious that someone out there knows more about what’s going on than we do. If they went to the trouble of breaking into the museum to disrupt our investigation, there’s no telling what they’re willing to do.”

  Again, she thought about the man she’d encountered in the tunnels. Who was he? What did he want?

  Without mentioning any of that to Bernard, she reassured him that she would be careful.

  Not fully satisfied, but knowing he couldn’t do anything about it, Bernard shrugged and continued speaking.

  “Abbot Deschanel expects you later this afternoon,” he said, handing over some handwritten directions outlining the route to the monastery and a pair of car keys. “You can use one of the vehicles from the museum motor pool, as well. I had it arranged when I came in this morning, before I discovered this mess.”

  Annja gave him a quick hug, surprising him, and herself.

  “We’ve still got a chance to break this wide open, Bernard,” she said as excitement over what was to come stole over her. “The monastery holds the answer to all this, I know it does!”

  With a four-hour drive ahead of her, Annja didn’t waste any more time. She said her goodbyes to Bernard, thanked him again for the directions and the vehicle and then got out of there before the police decided that they wanted to question her.

  11

  It was a beautiful day for driving. The sun was shining in a bright blue sky,
and for a time Annja forgot about the morning’s events and simply enjoyed the scenery. The farther she got from Paris, the more the landscape changed. The rolling green hills gradually gave way to the foothills of the mountains and by the time she reached the final hour of her drive she was winding her way through narrow mountain passes and verdant pine valleys. As she neared her destination, her thoughts turned to the meeting ahead of her. She decided the best plan of action was to simply lay it all out there for the abbot, letting him know what had happened so far. Whoever had broken into the museum had gotten the scrap of paper with the monastery name on it, along with the rest of their discoveries. They might not be able to put the puzzle pieces together as swiftly as she and Bernard had, but there wasn’t any reason to believe that they couldn’t do it. That meant the thieves could very well be on their way to the monastery at any time. The abbot deserved to know if the people under his care were in danger and she had no intention of keeping that information from him.

  She glanced out the window, taking in a nearby river as she drove on past, and then, as she came around a bend in the road, she got a glimpse of the monastery for the first time.

  It sat on the edge of a high promontory, like a castle guarding the mountain approach. In fact, it looked sort of like a castle, fashioned of stone that shone in the bright sunshine, with high crenellated towers and several balconies that jutted out from the protective walls.

  More twists and turns in the road kept the monastery from view, until about fifteen minutes later when she found the way forward blocked by a locked set of wrought-iron gates. They were twice her height and barred entrance to the property. A small bell hung off to one side and with no better idea of how to get the attention of those she had come to see, she drove up next to the bell, grasped the rope and gave it a solid yank.

  The bell rang crisp and clear. Several minutes passed, long enough that Annja was thinking about giving it another pull, when the front door of a small shack on the other side of the gates that she hadn’t noticed before opened and a man dressed in the brown robes and sandals of a Benedictine monk stepped out. He came down the walk and stood on the other side of the gate from her, a questioning expression on his face.

  When he didn’t say anything after a moment, Annja volunteered through the gate, “I have an appointment to see the abbott.”

  The monk raised his eyebrows and then mimed seeing some ID, still without saying anything.

  The monk was under a vow of silence, she realized. Annja dug her driver’s license out of her backpack and then got out of the car so she could hand it over to him. He glanced at it, compared the picture on it to her face and then triggered a switch that opened the gates electronically. He handed her a photocopy of a hand-drawn map to follow.

  She drove through the gates and continued onward through the trees for a few hundred yards until she emerged into an open space, a parking area roped off on her right with the bulk of the monastery rising up on her left.

  She parked the car and got out, surveying the massive structure in front of her. She’d expected something small, innocuous, not this sprawling behemoth of a monastery that seemed to occupy every square inch of the promontory on which it was built.

  Some kind of warning must have passed from the guard shack to the monastery itself, for another brown-robed monk was waiting for her on the front steps.

  He watched her without saying anything as she got out of the car and approached along the walk. It was only when she actually reached the top of the steps that he let a smile settle on his face and stepped forward with his hand out.

  “Good morning, Miss Creed. I’m Brother Samuel.”

  Annja shook the offered hand, a relieved smile on her face. For a minute there she’d thought he, too, was under a vow of silence. “Pleased to meet you,” she told him.

  “The abbot has asked me to escort you to his office in the chapterhouse.”

  He turned and entered the complex, Annja at his heels. Just inside the front door was a long central hall with offices on either side. Typical office sounds reached her ears even through the closed doors—the ringing of phones, the clack of computer keyboards, muffled voices, even the sound of a kettle whistling away somewhere.

  They passed through a set of double doors at the end of the hall and found themselves outside once more in the cloister, a large square area of ground open to the sky and surrounded by covered walkways on each side split repeatedly by arched openings known as arcades. The soaring heights of the cathedral rose up over the walkway directly opposite them and Annja was struck with the desire to wander through the interior and see what the centuries-old church looked like. Brother Samuel, however, turned right and Annja had to hurry along to catch up with him.

  He noticed her interest in the church, and began pointing out some of the details around her. “This part of the claustral complex contains several of the most highly trafficked areas—the cathedral, the administrative offices, the chapterhouse and, of course, the living quarters.”

  They came to the end of the walkways and he pointed out across the grounds to another set of buildings. “Over there we have the kitchens, the storehouses, the infirmary and the guest quarters.”

  He turned left this time, so that they were headed toward the cathedral once more, but they had only gone a few yards before they found themselves standing at a plain, unadorned door.

  The monk knocked and then led her inside.

  The room she entered was a simple office that contained only a desk, two chairs and a kneeler for prayer. A cross hung on the wall behind the desk, over the head of the wizened old man seated at the desk.

  Smiling, he rose and extended his hand. “Good afternoon, Miss Creed. I’m Abbot Deschanel. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

  “Thank you. And thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”

  “Happy to help. Tell me, how is Professor Reinhardt?”

  “As impetuous as ever,” she replied, correctly sensing that Abbott Deschanel was looking for confirmation that she did, indeed, know Bernard Reinhardt personally. She couldn’t imagine what anyone would gain by faking such a relationship, but that didn’t mean someone wouldn’t try to do it, she supposed. Bernard came across in casual meetings as a steady-as-a-rock type of personality. It was only once you’d worked with him a bit that you began to realize just how impulsive he really was. The business with the spray-on packing foam was just one example.

  Her answer must have satisfied the abbot, for he gestured for her to take the seat before his desk as he sank back into his own.

  “So how can I help you?”

  “Well, it’s a bit of a complicated story actually,” she began, and then laid it all out for him. How the section of the catacombs had been discovered and what the Metro workers had found lying within. How she and Professor Reinhardt had been asked to manage the excavation and what they had found once they had moved the body to the museum. How she’d been confronted in the tunnels and how the remains had been stolen from the museum the night before.

  “Sewn into Captain Parker’s shirt was a small scrap of paper. Written on it was the name of this place, Berceau de solitude.”

  The abbot sat watching her without any change of expression.

  “And so I thought, maybe, I mean it’s been a long time, more than a hundreds years, I know, but still…”

  Get to the point. You’re rambling, she told herself.

  She took a deep breath. “I thought maybe you’d have some record of him coming here,” she finished in a rush.

  A small smile slipped over the abbot’s steady facade.

  “Well,” he said, “that’s quite a story. Quite a story.”

  I can feel a “but” coming on, Annja thought.

  “But I’m not sure I understand. We’re just a poor community of brother monks. Why would a man like that have come here, of all places?”

  Abbot Deschanel’s tone was light, the question a relatively innocuous one, but Annja felt g
oose bumps rising on her arms nonetheless.

  He knows something.

  Trying to keep the eagerness out of her voice, she replied. “I honestly don’t know. I was hoping you could tell me.”

  “If I had such information, and I’m not saying I do— I’m just speaking hypothetically at this point—what would you do with it?”

  Annja suddenly felt as if she were standing on a precipice. Something about the way the abbot held himself, the slightest change of tension in his frame, betrayed the importance of her answer.

  Say the wrong thing now and you can kiss your answers goodbye.

  She’d told him the truth about everything so far, and that seemed the wisest course of action.

  “I had the body of a man I believe to be Captain Parker back in the laboratory at the museum. He was the victim of a gunshot wound, his remains previously lost in the depths of the Paris catacombs until their discovery yesterday. And yet a man claiming to be the very same Captain Parker survived the war, held public office and eventually died peacefully in his sleep at the age of seventy. Clearly one of them was not who he claimed to be. I’d like to solve that mystery.”

  He watched her carefully for a moment, as if weighing the truth of her words. Apparently her motives must have met his approval for he said, “You are right, Miss Creed. Captain Parker did indeed come here. The abbot at the time, Brother Markum, was actually a distant cousin on his mother’s side, you see.”

  Annja felt a surge of excitement.

  “According to Brother Markum’s account, Captain Parker was agitated, perhaps even fearful for his life, and he gave my predecessor specific instructions to watch over a piece of his property until someone came to retrieve it in his name.”

  Annja was leaning forward in her chair, full of questions, but Deschanel raised a hand and held her off, at least for a moment.

  “There is no indication in Brother Markum’s account as to the specific nature of Parker’s mission or the source of his fear. Just that he was clearly afraid and that he felt it likely that he might not be back to retrieve the object himself. But I don’t know any more than that and, unfortunately, Brother Markum is no longer around for us to ask him ourselves.”