6 - The Eye of the Virgin: Ike Schwartz Mystery 6

by Frederick Ramsay

  “I don’t know,” she murmured.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Frank called that afternoon. “Here’s a coincidence for you, Ike. We got a call from the church, you know, the Episcopal one my mother attends? Anyway, she called, and there’s been a break-in.”

  “How is that important?” Ike was on the edge of being annoyed. Fictional sheriffs and top cops were always called, paged, texted, or whatever technology was au courant, by their staffs about everything and anything. But in truth he didn’t need to know about everything and anything. He wanted to know the status of ongoing investigations in a timely fashion, of course, but the weekend was the weekend. “It doesn’t strike me as an emergency or even very pressing, Frank.”

  “Sorry, you’re right, neither of those, but I haven’t told you the interesting part, and I thought you’d want to hear it and then think about it.”

  “Didn’t mean to sound short. What is this interesting thing?”

  “The only thing missing from the break-in at the church was…you’ll never guess.” Frank waited a beat and when Ike didn’t venture a guess, continued, “An icon.”

  “The reverend has icons? I didn’t know that. They must be something new. And one was stolen. You’re right, it’s an interesting coincidence. I hope it doesn’t mean—”

  “No, no, listen. You’re right, it was a new one he’d recently bought. He put it up Thursday afternoon.”

  “And they only called in a break-in today?”

  “We can’t be sure when the break-in occurred. Something about Friday is his day off and the secretary, her name’s Gloria, happened to take the day off, too, so nobody was in the church until this afternoon. That’s not all. The icon that was taken? He bought it from Dakis.”

  “This is asking too much, but call Dakis and find out what kind of icon he sold to Fisher. Then, check and make sure the one he has is still in place. If it is, there’s a better than even chance they’ll be back for his tonight.”

  “You coming in, Ike, in case they do?”

  Ike swung around in his leather chair and looked at Ruth curled on the couch up in front of the fire place, a book open in her lap. Sensing his gaze, she looked back and smiled and tapped her sheriff’s badge.

  “No, I trust you, Frank. You know what to do.” He hung up and joined Ruth.

  ***

  Louis Dakis watched as Lorraine drove away. She’d be back in the city in a few hours. He wrestled with his feelings. As much as he wanted to stay angry at her, he had an equally strong desire to reach out and help her. What was that all about? He stamped his foot in frustration. The Volvo disappeared around the corner and was gone. The sun began its slow descent behind the pines that lined his little street, and he felt as though the temperature had dropped ten degrees.

  If their marriage had been a bad one, he could understand, and until this week he’d thought it was good. He’d been wrong about that evidently. She thought she might be pregnant? That came like a bolt out of the blue. How did he feel about that? Not good, he guessed but he needed to let it go. Jesus, it was too much. He turned and retreated into his house. As he stepped onto the porch, he heard the phone ring.

  “Mr. Dakis?” One of the deputies. “We need you to make yourself scarce again this evening. We’re pretty sure our thieves will be back.”

  “I can do that. There’s a movie in Roanoke I want to see and…yes I can do that.”

  “Good. By the way, did you happen to paint one of those icon things for the Reverend down at the church?”

  “I did, yes.”

  “Can you tell me what it was about?”

  Louis gritted his teeth. Icons weren’t about anything, they were of something, they signified something, they represented a spiritual place. Comic books were about something. Soap operas and mystery stories were about something. Sports were about…“It was a second copy of the one I painted for the sheriff.”

  “Exact copy?”

  “Yes and no. The one I painted for your sheriff had been treated to make it look old, like the original you have locked up. The priest’s was not treated like that. It looked new.”

  “Thank you, sir. That pretty much nails it down. They’ll be back. You clear out. We’ll be watching.”

  Louis walked over to the icon he’d created to mimic the original and stared down at it. Something caught his eye. Something was not right. He picked it up and held it as he remembered the sheriff had done. Then he saw it. He squinted at the small bleb on the Virgin’s eye. What was that? He ran his forefinger across it. It had been fastened with some sort of mastic.

  This must be the thing that caused all the trouble. It must have been what that Sacci/Zaki person was after. Nothing else made any sense. Lorraine was attractive and all that but…Sacci came to Picketsville. He must have come for the icon, for this thing stuck on the icon, and something must have gone wrong. The icon wasn’t in the house when he came and he’d failed. Was that why they, whoever they were, killed him? Louis felt the anger building. His life sent into the dumpster for this? People had to die for this? He wanted to meet the people who so easily destroyed other people’s lives. His life, Lorraine’s life. What kind of terrible game were they playing? He felt the bile in his throat. He put the icon down and strode to his desk and called Lorraine’s cell phone.

  ***

  “I asked you to call me, Ike. You didn’t. You could be in trouble. I can only sit on this for so long and—”

  “Charlie. I did get your message and I responded, sort of. Ms. Ryder is on ice where you can’t get your hands on her.”

  “Don’t be silly, Ike, I can have her located in an hour or two. I will, too, unless you tell me what’s going on.”

  “A question first, what is the Agency’s interest in the USS Liberty business? Before you seed the clouds with governmental bombast and cause a metaphorical snow storm, I know your boy Wainwright was here in my town. I know he was with the men who were responsible for shooting Sacci, and I think I know what he was after.”

  “I won’t ask you how you found all that out. What I want to know is why you found all that out. Why did you?”

  “I have a murder on my hands, and, as we both know, it’s related to the bit of business glued to the icon. I am the sheriff of this here town, and I aim to bring the varmints to justice.”

  “Very funny. Look, as you also know, it’s national in scope. If these guys are located, they’ll be ours.”

  “Yours? I don’t think so, friend. First, it’s domestic and, therefore, outside your jurisdiction. The FBI can threaten me on this, but not you. Second, if I catch them first you will have to bluff your way in here to remove them. You’ll need a high-level court order. And to get one of those, you will need to explain all to someone, and I don’t think you want to do that.”

  “Why wouldn’t I want to do that?”

  “Number one, as I said, it’s domestic. Why isn’t the FBI all over this, Charlie? Karl Hedrick was here when you came. It’s his call, not yours. Surely you’ve kept the Bureau in the loop.”

  “You’re being sarcastic. You know why.”

  “I do and since I do, you and your gang will back off until I have my bad guys under lock and key.”

  “If you know what I must assume you know, and I have some doubts on that score, you must also be aware that there will be a notification from the State Department informing you that an embassy has invoked diplomatic immunity and the bad guys will be on a plane headed for the Near East inside and hour.”

  “Not going to happen, and not the Near East, I don’t think.”

  “And why is that, O Mighty Sheriff?”

  ‘Because you, or more properly, your boss, the director, is not going to let it.”

  “I’m waiting.”

  “Who shot Wainwright? Not one of these guys. They probably shot Sacci. I’m reasonably sure of that, but Wainwright was long gone, on his way to Rock Creek Park. Do I have that last bit correc
t?” Charlie didn’t answer. “I’ll take that as a yes. So, what do your intelligence buddies tell you happened to him?”

  “We’re working on it.”

  “Bullshit, Charlie, you know. Someone ratted your boy out. Someone, if I have the sense of this right, either told someone else who he was and that he’d slipped inside the Mossad, and they, that is to say the Mossad, dropped him. I’d hate to think that, but desperate times, and so on. Or someone dropped the hint that he killed Sacci, and one of Sacci’s friends, who would be on the opposite side of the street, so to speak, set him up and killed him as revenge. A fitting application of the Code of Hammurabi for them. There is a third possibility, but we’ll hold on that for now.”

  “I think you’re fishing here, Ike, so please get on with it.”

  “Don’t play dumb with me, Charlie. Wainwright was one of yours. So what happened? Someone leaked it that Wainwright was Sacci’s killer? You don’t want that someone, or any of the other likely suspects, peripheral players, or spear carriers on a plane and out of the country inside an hour. And that third possibility, the one you’d rather didn’t exist but that you must be considering anyway, stinks. You want me to have these guys because you need to know what happened to Wainwright and they can lead you to the answer.”

  Chapter Forty

  The phone rang three times. Louis thought he would be transferred to voice mail. On the fourth Lorraine answered.

  “Hold on a minute. I’m driving and there isn’t an easy place to pull off close by.” Louis listened to traffic noise and Lorraine’s muttering. Finally the engine noise subsided. “What is it, Louis?”

  “I need to ask you a question. When you picked up the Virgin of Tenderness in Egypt, did you notice anything odd about it?”

  “Odd, what do you mean, odd? Nothing except we got a fabulous price and transporting it out of the country seemed, I don’t know, expedited. Why? What’s this all about?”

  “There is something not right about this whole business. We need to talk.”

  “Louis I am on a pull-off on I-81. Trucks are whipping by me at a zillion miles an hour and nearly knocking the car over. Why do you want to talk about the icon now? I give up. It’s too much. You keep and sell it. I am done with this whole rotten business.”

  “Don’t hang up, this is important. Just bear with me. It didn’t strike you as unusual, the bargain price, the greased wheels in customs? No, I suppose it wouldn’t. But that’s not what I meant. Tell me about the icon itself. Did you notice if there was an imperfection on its surface, on the Virgin’s eye, for example?”

  “Damn, there goes another one. I’m going to get myself killed sitting out here like this. On the eye? Which eye? I don’t remember any, no. But I don’t think I would have noticed it in any event. You called me about seeing it in the catalog, and what a great buy it would be if we could get it. I went to Cairo to see it and then Franco said…I bought it and took it to Italy, end of story.”

  “Right, I know that part. Another question, and please don’t be angry at me for asking, but when did Sacci show up, relative to the purchase, I mean.”

  “I don’t see what…if you’re trying to stir up something here—”

  “Lorraine, I promise you, I’m not. What’s done is done. I’m not happy about that, but there it is. Listen, am I correct in thinking that Sacci appeared about the time you arrived in Cairo, seemed to be an insider, so to speak, facilitated the sale, and then returned to Italy with you? That’s what you told the police, right?” Louis waited for a response and receiving none, pressed on. “Okay, I’ll assume that’s yes. Lorraine, there is something fishy about this whole business…wait, hear me out. You told the sheriff that you brought the icon into this country but that Sacci came a week afterwards. What happened then?”

  “Then?”

  “Yes, did your relationship with him seem to change after he arrived?”

  “I don’t see where this is going, Louis. Now I must get back on the road.”

  “Please, Lorraine, answer the question. I am not trying to…to imply anything, but I think the icon was tampered with, and I think Sacci knew all about it. See, by the time he’d arrived in the country, the icon was gone. I’d taken it. He was supposed to deliver it to someone after he landed, and I guess he got desperate. He needed to produce it or the thing on it, or he was in trouble with some one, and he couldn’t. Then somehow, don’t ask me how, he found out that it was with me here, and he came to Picketsville to fetch it. Only I think he must have picked up some other people who came with him and…”

  “And what? You mean those other people killed him? But why?”

  “Because they wanted what was glued on the Virgin’s eye. Because he was supposed to deliver to a party once it arrived in the country and couldn’t. They were not his friends, or if they were, they must have figured they were done with him and didn’t want to leave any, I don’t know, traces behind, maybe these others wanted it for themselves. That’s why I asked about any change. There was that delay of a week or so, don’t you see?”

  “There was a problem with his visa and they held his baggage for a week. Yes, I already told you—”

  “I want to know about him and the icon.”

  “What about them?”

  “When he’d cleared customs, or whatever his problem was, it came time to produce the icon for the people he was supposed to be escorting it into the country for—”

  “You can’t possibly know that.”

  “Okay, I’m guessing, you understand, but anyway, when he came for it, like I said, I’d already taken it away and he didn’t know where right away. You said he told you he was going to New York but he came here. Now do you see it?”

  “I don’t understand what…You keep saying there was something on the icon. What was it?”

  “I think it was a microchip or microdot, a spy thing, with secrets embedded in it. I don’t know what kind, but something important, probably. You know secret plans maybe, or a list of names. Remember, the police said his name, his real name was Farouk Zaki and he was born near the Gaza. Right?”

  “You trying to tell me he didn’t…He was using me to…that he’s a terrorist? Louis that’s an awful thing to say.”

  “I know, for your sake I’m sorry, but it’s the only explanation for everything that’s happened to us. And I thought you…”

  “I’d what?”

  “I thought you might want to help me get the people who killed him.”

  “Get the people who…? You and me? You can’t be serious. You are. How? No, this is crazy. All the security courses we took emphasized do not confront criminals or, indeed, even a potential lawbreaker, whatever the circumstance might be. You must remember that.”

  He did. He didn’t care. Enough was enough. “They will come back tonight to steal the icon; I’m sure of it. The police are counting on it. Come back here. We will be waiting for them in the house. They won’t expect us to be there because they will have seen me leave already. Before we turn them over to the police, we will have a chat, maybe. Maybe more.”

  “You still have your guns?”

  “I do.”

  “This is insane.”

  “These people ruined my life, yours, too. Destroyed us. I don’t want them to get away with it.”

  “But the police, the FBI, whoever does those things. Won’t they catch them?’

  “They don’t care about you or me, Lorraine. They will find them and then all kinds of international negotiating and cover-ups will take place. Spies aren’t real people with real names. Mark my words, they will disappear into some super-secret black hole, and you and I will be out in the cold with nothing, no explanation, no justice, nothing.”

  “You think?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll…have to think about it.”

  “Come back to think about it then. We can do this together.”

  “This is crazy, but okay, I’ll come back, but on
ly to think about it.”

  “Park in the next block over and wait for me. I have to leave the house so the police and the thieves will see me go. We’ll sneak back through the hedge at the rear of the house and wait with the lights off.”

  “I may live to regret this but, okay, I’m on my way.”

  ***

  Ruth was not going to be happy, but Ike had the itch. Something was going down this evening, and he needed to be there. There were too many players in the game.

  “I have to go into town. I’m sorry. Something came up.”

  “You’ve been talking to Charlie again, haven’t you?”

  “I have.”

  “You’re going to play hero again.”

  “Not tonight. I need to nip something in the bud. We have a very unhappy CIA, a soon to be very unhappy FBI, I’m guessing, and a possible international incident about to burst into full flower, you could say, right here in ‘River City.’”

  “And so, as I said, you’re going to play hero.”

  “Nope, I’m going to play sheriff and nab me a murderer or two, then I’m going to play hero.”

  “If I wear my badge and hat, can I come too?”

  “No.”

  “I let you come to my faculty meetings. How much more lethal can what you’re doing be than that?”

  “You have a point, but no. There’s dodging verbal barbs and there’s dodging bullets. Not that I expect to have to dodge either tonight, but these are bad guys with no place to run. I’ll be back before midnight. Stay here and keep your badge warm.”

  ***

  “Jacob is angry. We stole the wrong icon. He wants us to go back to that man’s house and search again and not come out until we have it.”

  “What if the man is there?”

  “You still have your gun, don’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “So?”

  “Killing another person in this town is not so wise, you think, after Zaki, I mean. Serak said Avi Kolb is dead too. He was shot.”