by The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2021
“This is it,” she said.
This was a mega mansion that looked to be at least ten thousand square feet in size. I had to crane my neck to take in the whole length of the front porch and the three-story height.
“Nice little shack. What does Mr. Ruskin do to pay the lighting and heating bills in this place?”
“He doesn’t have to do anything. He comes from an old New England family that made its fortune years ago in labor procurement, energy, and pharmaceuticals.”
Bridget answered the question with a straight face, but the airy lilt in her voice sent me a different message. “I get it. The skeletons in the closet of many a respectable Yankee family. Slavery, whale butchery, and the opium trade, in other words.”
“Yes. In other words. Mr. Ruskin currently dabbles in nation-building.”
I had to think about that. “Gun running?”
“Guns, missiles, and bombs. And people to use them.” She cocked her head. “I think I like you, Mr. Socarides.”
“Soc. My friends call me Soc.”
“Very well, Soc. I answer to Bridge. Shall we?”
The slightly stooped man who answered the front doorbell looked like the greeter in a funeral parlor. Gray hair, grayer face, and matching four-button suit, all the color of fog. Speaking softly in an undertaker’s voice, he said, “Follow me to the visitation room.”
He led the way down a long hallway, opened a door, and ushered us into a rectangular space around twenty feet square. Three walls were plain. The fourth was covered by a hanging tapestry that showed a medieval hunting scene of sharp-toothed dogs taking down a unicorn. The fact that the victim was an animal that never existed did little to ease its pain at being ripped apart.
The gray man pressed a wall button. The tapestry slid silently aside to reveal a glass window. He pointed to a leather sofa facing the window, then left us alone.
The lights on the other side of the window went on seconds after we had taken our seats. We were looking into a big room. Directly in front of us was a metal and plastic desk and chair.
The room was a zoo of the dead. Animal heads of every kind festooned the walls. Their eyes were glassy and their expressions far from happy. Antelope, mountain goats, bear, some big cats.
Bridget was silent.
“You’ve seen this before?” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “I think it’s kind of creepy.”
“Ever wondered what hunters do with the rest of the animal?”
“That’s even creepier.”
“What is this place?” I asked.
Before she could answer, a door swung open between a pair of tusked boar heads at the far end of the room. A ghostlike apparition entered the room, made its way in our direction, and stopped next to the desk. It wore a hooded white suit, like the kind worn to protect against hazardous materials. A white gauze mask covered the lower part of the face. The feet were encased in fabric pull-ons.
“You’re right; Ruskin is eccentric,” I murmured.
“That’s not him,” Bridget said. “That’s his valet.” She put her finger to her lips, then glanced at a red plastic globe on the wall above the window. “That’s a camera and a microphone that is very, very sensitive.”
The door opened again. Another man entered, leisurely walked the length of the room, and stood next to the figure in white.
“Ruskin?” I whispered.
Bridget nodded.
I’d pictured Ruskin as a raw-boned flinty-eyed Yankee with a mouth full of horse teeth, mop of unruly hair, and a profile that looked as if it had been carved from a granite quarry. Bad call. Ruskin was as bald as a bullet, had a neck that belonged on a cartoon bully, and looked as if he chewed steroids as candy. He was wearing a snug T-shirt and shorts that showed off a buff physique. His hands looked as if they could hurt someone.
He said, “Thank you for coming, Mr. Socarides. Please pardon the unusual meeting arrangements. This is a protected environment. I suffer from a number of acute allergies, all potentially life-threatening. It’s a rare, progressive affliction particular to the Ruskin family. This gentleman is an employee of mine. The suit he has on is to protect me from outside allergens that would cause a severe reaction.”
Despite his mauler looks, Ruskin spoke with a cultured accent that carried echoes of an English boarding school.
“No different than talking over the phone,” I said, although it was a lot different. “Ms. Callahan said you need a private detective to recover some valuable property.”
“Correct. Tell me, are you familiar with the work of Elmer Crowell?”
“The bird-carver?”
“That’s right, although he was much more than that. Anthony Elmer Crowell is considered the Father of American Bird Carving. He was the master of a unique form of American art who has been called the Cezanne of waterfowl carvers. Another question. Have you heard of Viktor Orloff?”
I would have to have been stuck in a cave not to know about Orloff. His face had been in all the papers and on TV. “Sure. Orloff was the financial guy who conned his clients out of millions of dollars. Were you one of them?”
Ruskin’s lips twitched in an almost-smile.
“I knew better than to invest money with that slimy old grifter. We had a business arrangement. He had agreed to sell me a preening merganser.”
“Come again?”
“It was a carving, part of a set of six half-scale models that Crowell had carved for special friends. I own the other five. I paid Orloff for the decoy, but before I could pick it up he was arrested and put in jail. The judge denied bail because Orloff was a flight risk. His house was sealed with all its contents.”
“Including the bird?”
He nodded. “As you probably know, Orloff was convicted and went to prison. He had my money but I didn’t have the decoy.”
“No chance of getting your money back through legal channels?”
“Unlikely. Even if I could dig it out of whatever black hole Orloff had hidden it in.”
“I see the problem. There must have been a long line of people trying to get their investments back.”
“I wasn’t an investor. I could prove that I owned the bird. I didn’t want my money. I wanted the decoy to complete the set. An intact set of Crowell decoys would be worth millions, but the bird was desirable to me as a collector.”
“Any chance you could get the house unsealed?”
“Yes, under ordinary circumstances, but the house burned down before my lawyers could file a claim. Cause of the fire is still unknown. Then Orloff died in prison of a heart attack, which surprised many people who didn’t think he had a heart.”
“The decoy?”
“It supposedly went up in flames.”
“You sound like you have doubts.”
Ruskin whispered to the man in the white suit, who went to a wall cabinet and slid open a glass door. He reached inside and came out with a large plastic cube. He carried it back to Ruskin, who set the container on the desk, flipped the lid back, took something out, and held it above his head like an offering to the gods.
The carved bird in his hands was around half the size of a real one. Its copper-colored head was turned back in a graceful curve with the long, sharp beak pointed at the tail. The gray and white feathers painted on the wooden wings looked so real they could have riffled in the breeze.
“The preening merganser has everything Crowell was famous for,” Ruskin said, lowering his arms. “Attention to detail, accuracy, and beauty.”
“You’re confusing me, Mr. Ruskin. You said the merganser is missing, presumably burned.”
“It is.”
He turned the bird over and brought it to the window, close enough for me to see the black oval sticker on the bottom. Printed on the sticker in silver letters were the words: “Copy of A. E. Crowell Preening Merganser. Product of China.”
“A Chinese rip-off?” I said.
“Yes. A well-done fake, but still a fake.”
“W
hat does it have to do with the missing bird?”
“Everything, Mr. Socarides. Only someone with access to the Crowell carving could have made a reproduction that is so accurate in every respect to the original.”
“Not sure I understand.”
“Ms. Callahan?” Ruskin said.
Bridget explained.
“The reproduction was advertised for sale in a collectors’ publication. It was purchased for a hundred and fifty dollars. My firm’s investigators traced the bird to a manufacturer in Hunan province, China, which specializes in making wooden reproductions of all kinds. The original piece is scanned digitally and the data fed into computer-guided laser carving machines. Skilled craftsmen do the final detailing.”
“That would mean the Chinese had access to the original?”
“Indirectly,” she said. “A company in upstate New York does the scanning and transmits the data to China.”
Ruskin rejoined the discussion. “And I believe the American and Chinese companies used the real decoy to manufacture the fake.”
“Do you know who contracted for the work?”
“No. Someone dropped the carving off, waited while it was scanned, and picked it up. Payment was in cash.”
“Could they have copied it from a photo?”
“Yes. But not as accurately as this,” Ruskin answered. “Crowell knew bird anatomy from years as a professional hunter, and his birds were accurate in every detail. Moreover, he imbued his models with life. This is good for a fake, but without the hand of the master it is just a prettied-up piece of wood.”
“Have you been able to run a trace on the magazine ad?”
He put the carving back into the case, closed the cover, and handed the container to his valet, who carried it from the room. Ruskin lowered his athletic body into the swivel chair, leaned his elbows on the desktop, and tented his fingers.
“The ad was placed by something called Elmer’s Workshop. No email address. Orders went through PayPal. The ad listed a post office box in the town of Harwich, Massachusetts, where, coincidentally, Crowell lived and worked.”
“Any idea who rents the PO box?”
“No. It’s since been closed.”
“Any chance the reproduction was made before the fire?”
“The records at the New York and Chinese operations show that the reproduction was made after the fire, indicating that the original survived the blaze.”
“What would you like me to do, Mr. Ruskin?”
“I believe finding the source of the fake will lead you to my property. You may have some contacts locally. Having city detectives poking around would attract unwanted attention. You understand the need to be discreet, of course.”
The job seemed like an uncomplicated one, except for the Orloff angle. The charming old bandit had left suicides, divorces, and bankruptcies in the wake of his stealing spree. And his greedy fingers were still reaching from the grave. Ruskin was unsavory, but he wouldn’t be the first client of dubious character that I’d worked for. Any doubts I might have entertained went up in smoke when Bridget handed me a check made out in an amount triple what I would have charged.
I rubbed the check lightly between my thumb and forefinger. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Good,” Ruskin said. “Let me know as soon as you hear something.”
He rose from his chair and, without another word, headed for the door.
Hiring interview was over.
Seconds after Ruskin left the room, the old gray man showed up and pushed the wall button. As the unicorn tapestry slid across the window, he handed me a cardboard box.
“Mr. Ruskin thought this might assist you in your work,” he said. “He wants it returned when you are through. It is not to be taken from its protective container.”
He led us back the way we came. We stepped onto the porch and the door clicked shut behind us.
“Was that for real?” I asked, taking a breath of fresh air. “That stuff with the allergies?”
“Mr. Ruskin could be a hypochondriac, I suppose, but he’s gone through a lot of unnecessary trouble and expense modifying this house if he’s simply imagining his allergies. All his food is prepared in accordance with his allergy issues. The butler is a bit of a gossip. He told me Ruskin is allergic to everything you can think of.”
“Does he ever leave the house?”
“Not very often, the butler says; only for urgent matters, and when he does he wears a hazmat suit. He usually goes out only at night.”
I set the cardboard box down on the porch and peeled off the sealing tape. Then I lifted out the transparent plastic container that held the reproduction decoy Ruskin had shown me. The lid was secured with a padlock.
I jiggled the lock. “Ruskin is very protective of his property.”
“Mr. Ruskin is deathly afraid of contaminated things or people coming into the main house. When it comes back this box will go through a clean room where it will be wiped down and sterilized. Anyone coming into the living quarters from the outside has to wear a throwaway suit.”
“Like the valet?”
“Yes. His name is Dudley. That’s all I know.”
I put the bird container into the cardboard box and Bridget gave me a ride back to the marina.
There wasn’t much small talk. I was thinking about Ruskin’s strange request. She was probably mind-counting her retainer. She dropped me off in the parking lot. When I got out of the car, she handed me a brown, eight-by-ten envelope.
“This report was prepared by our staff investigators. I’ll call you at some point to see how things are going. Mr. Ruskin’s phone number is inside. He has asked that you contact him directly as the investigation moves along. I’ll be in touch.”
She put the car into gear and left me standing at about the same spot she stopped my trek to Trader Ed’s. This time I made it all the way to a barstool. My personal alcohol meter was on empty, but I decided to stay sober. Sipping on a club soda with cranberry juice and lime, I went through the papers inside the envelope Bridget had given me.
I skimmed a history of the Crowell decoys and read that his workshop was still standing. It had been moved from the original site to the property of the Harwich Historical Society at Brooks Academy, which was a short drive from where I was sitting.
Seemed like a logical place to start. I tucked the papers back into the envelope, slid off the barstool, and headed for my pickup truck with the cardboard box tucked under my arm.
If you looked at a map of Cape Cod you’d see that the town of Harwich is near where the elbow would be on the peninsula, which curls out into the Atlantic like a bent arm. Harwich is an old seafaring town with Nantucket Sound at its doorstep, so it’s no surprise that it once had a school of navigation.
The school was housed in a graceful, nineteenth-century Greek-revival building named Brooks Academy that had been turned into a museum run by the Harwich Historical Society. I parked behind the academy and walked across the parking lot to a low shingled building.
Hanging over a sliding barn door was a black quarter board with the words “A. E. Crowell, Bird Carvings” in white letters. On a shelf above the door to the shop was a carving of a Canada goose. The workshop was closed, but a pleasant, middle-aged woman working in the museum opened it up for me. She accidentally set off an alarm and had to shut it off. I stepped through the entrance to the workshop and into a room with wall displays that told about Crowell and his work.
I tossed a couple of bills into the donation box and said I carved birds for a hobby. I jokingly asked if the Canada goose was a Crowell. She laughed. “It wouldn’t be out there if it were.”
The museum had a few Crowell decoys in its collection, she said, but nothing like the carvings that were bringing a million dollars.
The shop contained a workbench, wood working tools, a pot-bellied stove, and what looked like an antique sander and band saw. A half-dozen miniature bird models with minimalist details sat on a shelf.
A carving on a workbench caught my eye. It looked identical to the fake bird sitting in the box on the front seat of my truck. I asked where it came from.
“A bird carver named Mike Murphy donated the reproduction. We had it in the museum where it would be more secure, but since it’s only a reproduction someone suggested we put it out here. As you may have noticed, we have a burglar alarm in the barn, but there’s nothing in the workshop that’s really valuable. Even the tools are borrowed.”
I thanked her, put another couple of bills in the donation box, and walked back to my truck. I leafed through the folder Bridget had given me and reread the investigation report where they interviewed someone named Mike Murphy.
A guy with the same name had been the caretaker of the Orloff mansion. He told the investigators he had seen the merganser in Orloff’s study. The bird was there when the marshals sealed the place. He assumed it had been burned in the fire. He couldn’t say for sure because he got to the fire after the house had burned down. Someone at the fire department had called him.
The investigators left it at that. I might have done the same thing, except for Murphy’s donation to the historical society. It suggested that he had more than a casual interest in the preening merganser, fake or not. And I wanted to know why.
Murphy lived in a one-story ranch house in a working-class neighborhood that was probably never fashionable, nor ever would be. I parked in the driveway behind a beige Toyota Camry and knocked on the front door. The stocky man who answered the door stared at me with inquisitive blue eyes.
“Can I help you?” he said.
“My name is Socarides.” I pointed to the Thalassa logo on my blue polo shirt. “I run a charter boat out of Hyannis. I’m also an ex-Boston cop and I pick up a few bucks on the side as a private investigator for insurance companies. I wonder if I could ask you a few questions about Viktor Orloff.”
He gave a weary shake of his head. “Orloff is the gift that keeps on giving. Wish I never heard of the guy.”
“From what I know of Orloff, you have a lot of company.”
Murphy grinned. He had a wide jaw cradling a mouth filled with white, even teeth.