by Karen Harper
“I understand,” Dale told him. He rested his cast on the table; in general, he looked like the walking wounded. “I wish Marian James hadn’t turned up right now with everything else falling in on me. I can remember my dad quoting some Shakespeare play—‘Thus do all things conspire against us,’ something like that.”
“I’m sure Claire’s heard of it, but I do know the feeling. So, help me out with a couple of questions I have about the Twisted Trees estate. Why is what Claire called the carriage house, which I’m sure was used for a garage, so intact-looking compared to the rest of the mansion?”
Dale shrugged, then winced from the movement. “The hurricane that ripped the roof off didn’t touch that. Sturdier built maybe or lower to the ground. Dad used to say that was fate, like there was some sort of reverse curse on that part of the place, after its history.”
“I’m not following now. Explain what he meant.”
Dale heaved a huge sigh. “Sorry if I don’t make sense. These pain pills are making me a little spacey. He meant—I found out from my mother years later, because she was bitter and talked more once she had dementia—that’s where my great-uncle kept his German mistress.”
Nick sat up and leaned forward. “No kidding? In a garage?”
“There’s an apartment on the second floor, above where the cars were kept. That’s all I’d need is that woman and her committee getting a look inside there. It’s been sealed up for years, like a time capsule or a tomb. Mother said there’s Nazi regalia in there, things that no one needs to see, but she couldn’t bring herself to clean it out—well, you know she was a hoarder. Now that there’s pressure to see it or sell it, I’ve got to get in there and pack things up, clean it out, but—hell, Nick—I was told not to when I was young and just haven’t been able to get up the nerve to do it.”
“You’re right about checking it out, maybe clearing it out. I can always claim attorney privilege if we find strange things in there, so how about I go with you? Bronco too, to keep a watch for us outside. So your great-uncle brought not a wife but a mistress with him when he fled the Third Reich in its darkest days? She’s obviously long gone—dead, or did she return to Germany after the war? And why didn’t he marry her?”
“Don’t know, but no, he didn’t bring a wife to Florida when he fled. She had died before the end of the war, some American B-17 bombing raid, so I overheard once.” Dale grimaced as he attempted another shrug. “I suppose it might have been secret because, in past times, a mistress was something you hid. And why didn’t he marry her? Don’t know that either.”
“Yeah, you’d think with no wife, she’d be mistress in the big house, especially one so private and plush.”
“I’ve thought about trying to get answers, going through the place, but it just seemed—well, as both my parents used to say, verboten.”
“Yeah,” Nick said. “When I found my father dead with his gun in his hands and half his head gone, no one wanted me to talk about it or pursue it, to prove there was no way he would have committed suicide. But I did and eventually proved it was murder. Then I finally stopped the man behind it.”
“I heard,” Dale said. “I’m sorry it—it haunted you like this haunts me. But I guess I’m finally ready to have answers, even if they are terrible ones. Okay, before Ms. James and her cabal of secret sponsors push us more, let’s take a look at what’s been locked up there for decades.”
* * *
Claire had waited in the hall outside Brad Vance’s office for a good ten minutes after he’d said on the in-house phone she could come to see the artifacts. She was excited, pacing. She must have misunderstood that she couldn’t see them. He had opened his door a crack to say that he would be a little longer on the phone with what must be an inside-the-grounds call, then closed it again.
She scolded herself for being tempted to put her ear to the door to see if she could make out anything he was saying, but all she’d need was to get booted out of there for eavesdropping.
The muted sounds of his deep voice stopped inside. Brad opened the door. She realized that he must have some way to call out of there when no one else did. Or did he have some private line to their house nearby and linked in to that? But no way she was going to pursue that question and seem nosy. She’d just ask Kris later. Her target was getting to see those artifacts. He motioned her in, and she went, her eyes skimming the room for any of the precious grave finds he might have out to study.
But his examination table under bright lights was bare. The huge computer monitor she’d seen him looking at before was lighted but blank. An even larger screen, one that would have been good for watching movies, was suspended from the ceiling, also blank. No, there was a small caption at the bottom of it: Trio Exhibit.
“I don’t usually keep myself shut in here—open door policy,” he said as he sat on a high rotating stool and gestured for her to sit in the other one about three feet from him. “In general, I don’t like closed rooms or doors.”
She sat and put her feet on the round rail beneath. “I’ve worked with people who have claustrophobia,” she told him. “It often, as I’m sure you know, stems from a particular frightening incident in childhood that is internalized in an older adult who suffers from that malady too.”
“I’ve looked into it more than once,” he admitted. “I just live with it, but that’s right, you’re a psych major—which is why Andrea and Kris thought you could help. So—to the artifacts. I have them blown up here twenty times their size for comparative study.”
Her hopes fell. He was still going to have her looking at pictures, not the real items. How much should she protest? He was obviously the man with power behind Andrea’s archaeological throne.
But she was intrigued by what was on the screen: two daggers, no peat or blood on them, evidently chipped out of flint. One was no doubt Hunter’s and one the murder weapon that had been in Reaching Woman’s heart. So strange, but at the moment, Claire felt as if something pierced her chest with pain. She scolded herself, for she’d always been too empathetic with those who were hurting. But of a long-dead people, buried for centuries in a bog?
“I suppose you heard,” she said, “we found what we believe is Hunter’s heart nestled on Reaching Woman’s thighs.”
“Andrea told me just a few minutes ago. She’s hoping you can posit the meaning of that. Punitive? Ritualistic? Sexual? Religious?”
“Just think how we might say today, ‘She had his heart.’ I need time—and clues, like from a close look at the artifacts—to try to figure that out.”
“So, okay,” he said, turning his attention back to the screen as if he did not want to discuss that bizarre find further or her subtle plea to see the real items. “Both daggers are made of chert, not flint. Chert is a lot more lustrous than flint and a bit stronger. A mixture of chalcedony, quartz and silica, probably from microfossils—even bacteria—over the ages. The greenish tinge may come from eons of alga or moss being pressed together. Like flint, striking a chert dagger against another stone can start a fire, so the dagger could be doubly useful, for instance to cook meat a hunter brought home.”
“Do you mind if I take notes?”
“Sure, but I’ll keep any photos in my control for now. So you can see why I cleaned the bog mud and blood off these weapons.”
“Chert does have a certain luster to it. Can those kinds of stones be found locally, or do you think they had to trade for them?”
“I’d say they came from somewhere north, but did they trade for them or come from there themselves? So many questions to answer, puzzles to solve.”
“If Andrea and her team have turned up other daggers, utensils and the like, were any of them of those substances?” she asked.
“No. Much more, let’s say, plebian, but nothing this valuable and useful. Of course, there is the fact Hunter’s dagger seemed to have carvings on it.”
“As d
id Leader’s staff of office or whatever it is. Do you have slides of those?”
“Of course, but let’s stick to these right now.”
Claire jumped as a high voice came from right behind her: “Brad, I have what you wanted—Oh, so sorry. I did not see you had someone here. Hello, Claire.”
“Hi, Yi Ling.”
“No problem. I will come back later,” she said, frowning.
Yi Ling had nothing in her hands. Claire read that the young woman was used to just walking in there and was rather put out that Claire had been there with Brad. It had seemed to her earlier that the digging trio reported only to Andrea, but she must be mistaken. She sensed strange vibes that bounced between Senator Vance and this petite woman who nearly scurried from the room.
“Anyway,” he went on, after clearing his throat, “we’ve found flint that would chip away, even wooden utensils, some with sharks’ teeth embedded in them to give them bite, so to speak.” He turned and smiled at her, as if he’d made a joke. His teeth, especially for a man of his age, were—well, telegenic. White and even. Large.
“Could I actually see the woman’s broken necklace and Leader’s bracelet, at least?” she asked, looking down at her notes to break the tension between them. She didn’t know why she felt so nervous near him. He had even left the door open, so they weren’t really alone.
“Locked up in a safe for now. Let’s stick with these high-resolution photos.” He moved the slides along, showing what looked like big bone needles, maybe a leather drumhead, a small clamshell cup and a turtle shell that might have been a mixing bowl.
“There,” he said, sounding strangely triumphant as a slide appeared which showed cleaned stones with thongs through their drill holes, though the longer one—Reaching Woman’s broken necklace—had its polished stones separate and laid out side-by-side.
“Agate is the material for these,” Brad told her. “Lovely patterns called banding, though these are not fine enough examples to be classed as gemstones. A rough surface here and there, because their tools were so primitive. Nothing carved on any of them, though the mud stuck in some of the crevasses made it look that way at first.”
“I was hoping so.”
“There is carving on Leader’s staff, which I’ll show you next, and that is a mystery. Nothing recognizable to modern eyes, though maybe you can copy the lines and discern some pattern—primitive writing, even.”
“Wouldn’t that be a bombshell?”
“Speaking of that, I—we—need you to be very certain that you are not being followed or somehow targeted, after that attack on your event at the country club. If something else happens like that, I’m afraid you might need to withdraw from this project. Kris tried to explain it all away, but, as you know, secrecy is of the utmost importance to us here until we are ready to go public with all this.”
“I told the detectives it was not aimed at me, though, of course, my husband has a career which has some fallout at times.”
“Yes, I should think so. Having been in politics, I can sympathize. I made a lot of friends, and, unfortunately, a few enemies too.”
“And despite the fact that it was our event, other people attended besides us, and the country club itself is under a sort of attack by a neighbor.”
“Yes, so I gathered from Kris and the newspaper article. Just wanted to be clear that you must bow out if there is any question of your being a chink in our armor, so to speak, a break in the dam of privacy and secrecy here.”
“I’m aware of the concerns, Senator Vance, really.”
“Good,” he said with a decisive nod and what she considered to be a forced smile as he brought up the slide of the cleaned and lighted staff. Claire was disappointed. There were some carvings on it but they seemed only decorative. She’d glimpsed the staff briefly, but hadn’t there been more, or had the mud and peat just made it look that way? The other side of the staff was amazingly similar but with more peat clinging to it.
“Let me run you through some earlier photos of artifacts,” he said after she’d taken some notes without further comment. “Nothing as grand as the ones found with our trio, that’s for certain.”
Claire nodded, but what was for certain around here? She could fully grasp their need for secrecy with the outside world until they had a chance to study everything, but she had the strangest sensation that there were other secrets being kept around here too.
20
“So is Daddy just too busy for me right now?” Lexi asked Claire when she tried to tell her Jace couldn’t pick her up after school tomorrow and might not come over to see her for a little while. She was sitting on Lexi’s bed, trying to tuck her in, though the child kept throwing the covers off.
“It’s just that he’s changing jobs.” Claire tried another tack.
“Then doesn’t he get a little vacation between them? Or does he just want to spend time with Brit now ’cause he loves her more.”
“No, sweetheart. He will always love you, whether or not Brit is in his life. The way he loves Brit will be like a husband and wife, but you are special, his only and very best girl.”
Leaning down, she hugged Lexi closer. “I don’t know,” the child said with crossed arms and a big sniff, “’cause I heard him say Brit was his girl.”
Claire knew she was doing a bad job of explaining this, but what to say? Nice to have all those psych classes years ago and a darned diploma on her wall, but she was failing miserably counseling her own daughter. The problem was she felt protective of both Lexi and Jace in this situation. Her heart went out to both of them...both of them...again she saw that horrid heart cradled in Reaching Woman’s thighs.
She shook her head to clear that dreadful picture. “You know grownups have problems sometimes,” she told her daughter. “But it doesn’t mean that you are not dearly, dearly loved, and Daddy will make it up to you when he can.”
“Can you pick me up at school instead?”
“You must ride the bus like usual. Okay? Hey, how about we have mac and cheese tomorrow night and make dinner together? I have to go see the people I’m helping tomorrow afternoon.”
“Mac and cheese is okay, but I’m kind of sad. I want to call Daddy and tell him.”
“We’ll call him later—sometime. Lexi, he’s feeling bad too, and he can’t help some things right now.”
“Sometimes I wish my ’maginary friend would come back, but I think she died.”
Claire held her even closer. “Don’t say that. Remember, you finally let her go off on a trip, but you don’t have to let Daddy go. You know Dad Nick loves you too,” she said, evoking Nick as Lexi had come to refer to him.
“It is funny to have two dads and you had both of them for husbands, right, Mom?”
“It happens, my dear girl. You know, I think I’ll just stay right here until you go to sleep.”
Feeling exhausted and overwhelmed—and so inadequate—Claire turned off the bedside table lamp and stretched out beside her. And found herself wondering if Reaching Woman had loved both of the men she had slept beside in the bog, almost for eternity.
* * *
“I didn’t know where you were until I looked in on Lexi,” Nick said later that night while she reheated supper for him. “Sorry to wake you up.”
He hadn’t wanted to get home late, but he had. Too much time spent on current cases after he’d sent Dale home early.
“Yeah, I conked out having a heart-to-heart with Lexi about why she can’t see Jace for a while. I did a lousy job of it, I’m afraid.”
“I don’t mean to put this on you when you’re tired, but maybe tomorrow, as soon as possible, I’m hoping you can do me—and Dale—a favor. I know you’d once started to research Cyndi Lindley and were on her Facebook page, but if you could turn up anything else about her online, it might help. Her phone call to Marian James is causing a mess. The woman has given me
and Dale one week to let her release her photos and info on Twisted Trees or she’s going to publicize the phone call, and that won’t help Dale. Frankly, I’m hoping you can find something else to cast doubts on Cyndi being responsible or trustworthy. If Dale didn’t kill her, we have to come up with who she got in with who could have. And Tanner and her ex-fiancé might not be enough.”
“Back to proving the gold digger and getting-in-over-her-head angle? I agree the Nazi connection could blow things wide open for Dale again,” she said, putting his plate of spaghetti before him and pouring him a glass of red wine.
“Yeah,” he said with a sigh. “If it comes out Dale and two other generations of his family wanted Twisted Trees and the Nazi connection kept secret, that provides another motive for him murdering Cyndi, either to keep her quiet or in anger for her already going public with Marian James. Dale and I are going to take a look in that well-preserved garage–carriage house on the mansion property tomorrow. Dale says his great-uncle kept a mistress in an upstairs apartment there, one he brought from Germany, but why not in the big house if there was no wife in the way?”
“I can’t believe all that. A German mistress, probably swastika wallpaper in the garage apartment. ‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ said Alice in Wonderland.”
“You and your mother’s literary quotes. I’ll take Bronco along to Twisted Trees for security’s sake.”
“In other words,” she said, sitting up straighter, “I can do the online research, but not go with you to help solve the riddle of what’s there? Nick, that’s exactly what I’m being paid big bucks to do at Black Bog, find and prove a theory—on-site. I want to go with you to look around there.”
“I know you’re busy. And I’m not sure that it’s entirely safe.”
“So I’ll be stuck looking at my laptop in the den?” she asked, her voice rising as she jumped up. “We used to be a team!”
