The Stolen Chalicel

by Kitty Pilgrim

  “John . . .” She giggled, delighted.

  He trailed a hand up her thigh. She was absolutely luscious this afternoon. He started kissing her neck, nibbling his way up to her ear. Her skin was warm and soft.

  “John. What are you doing?”

  “Kissing you. Any objections?”

  “I didn’t say that . . .”

  She turned her face toward him and pressed her mouth to his. Her lips were pliable. The first kiss turned into another. His hunger mounted. He shifted her weight against him and fumbled with the buttons of her jacket.

  “John, don’t start something you can’t finish,” she warned. Her mouth sketched a line of kisses along his jaw.

  “Who says I’m not going to finish,” he said, unbuttoning the silky little blouse beneath her jacket. She was wearing some wisp of lace underneath.

  “Don’t you have work to do right now?” she asked.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact I do,” he answered, pulling her to her feet. “I have a meeting upstairs, with you.”

  Grand Teton National Park, Jackson Hole

  IT WAS TIPPER’S second night in the abandoned cabin, and nobody had come for her. It was getting a lot colder. All she was wearing was a thin shirt, a suede riding jacket, and jeans. As the sun went down and the temperature dropped, her body was racked with deep waves of uncontrollable shaking.

  She heard something scurrying around in the far corner of the shed—probably mice. Dear God, don’t let it be a snake! In the shadows, something was moving. For that reason alone, it was important to stay awake. She was convinced that if her eyes closed, she might die. Sleep finally came, and the shivering stopped.

  Tipper dreamed of a warm place, and Ted was there. They were sailing on The MoonSonnet, and the ocean spray was cool on her face. They were happy.

  She woke to the sound of dripping water. The ceiling was leaking and her clothes were wet. She could hear rainwater pounding on the tin roof. There hadn’t been anything to drink for more than twenty-four hours, and she was mad with thirst. Tipper bent her head and licked the rainwater off her hand. Then she sucked some out of the sleeve of her leather jacket. It tasted like dust.

  Another full day had come and gone. It was nearly dawn. Tipper’s hands and feet were getting numb, but she didn’t care. Life was slipping away. There was no longer hunger or cold.

  She lay on the floor and looked up at the ceiling. The timbers of the shed were turning blue-gray in the early dawn and pale patches of sky were visible through chinks in the roof.

  How did she end up here? Tears coursed down her face to the dirt floor. Was this some kind of divine justice? How could she have stolen from her own husband? And to take his favorite cup was unforgivable!

  Ted didn’t deserve that. Sure, he was dull and predictable. But she had known that when she married him. Over the years, she had wanted more excitement and had strayed. Then it got out of control. Too many men, too much booze, and, ultimately, the drugs.

  The years had become a blur. There had been only a few moments of real enjoyment to remember. And when she really thought about it, the good times were in the early days—when she and Ted still loved each other.

  With each outrage on her part, Ted’s polite manner had become more rigid and unforgiving. With each passing year, she had done more and more to try to provoke him, until there was nothing left between them but animosity.

  And that was the saddest thing of all. She would never again have the chance to tell him that she truly loved him. It was too late. She was going to die in this shed in the middle of the wilderness.

  Tipper heard something moving in the corner. A long shhhhhhh sound, as if something were dragging along the dirt. The noise would stop and then start again.

  Exhaustion and thirst had sapped her strength, and all kinds of terrors seized hold of her. Off and on, all through the night, she had imagined a snake. But then she told herself it was a figment of her fevered imagination.

  With the first light of dawn her fears were realized—it was a rattler! She could see its eyes clearly—glimmering in the growing light; the scales had an oily sheen. It undulated sideways a few feet to the left or right, but seemed in no hurry to approach.

  She watched the snake constantly, aware of its menace. During her childhood in Jackson Hole, she had picked up encyclopedic knowledge of rattlesnakes. The reptile would never approach a human thinking it was food. But if antagonized the snake could be deadly, striking and paralyzing her with a dose of its myotoxic venom. Death would come within hours.

  “Get out of here!”

  She shouted in the hope of scaring the reptile into retreat. Every time she yelled, it would coil and hiss but gave up no turf. Apparently this abandoned shed was its home, and Tipper was the intruder.

  Horrified, she realized that her body was completely immobile. Drained of all strength, she could neither struggle nor move. Her hands and feet were still bound with leather restraints. After two full days of extreme temperatures, she was suffering from exposure.

  Heavy rain had come through the roof in the evening, soaking her to the skin but not giving her much in terms of hydration. Nighttime temperatures had been close to freezing. And then there was the other extreme—heat. During the day, the high-altitude sun broiled the tin roof so that inside the shed it easily reached ninety degrees. The air filled with dust particles.

  Tipper had not been able to drink water for two and a half days except the few drops of rain she could suck out of her clothes. Dehydration was robbing her of any will or ability to escape. A person could survive only a few days like this. Her head pounded from lack of fluid.

  Thankfully, every time she shut her eyes it brought relief. Finally, unable to keep the snake in sight any longer, she closed her eyes and willed herself to let go.

  It was seven o’clock in the morning and the sheriff was standing on a ridge, surveying the spot where Tipper had probably disappeared. They could only guess by figuring out her direction from the house and drawing possible routes through the wilderness.

  There was no way to track anything up here. The high ground was unprotected from the wind. It had rained heavily last night, and most of the water had run off into the gullies. Now the earth was bone-dry again. The sagebrush was no help—the resilient groundcover sprang back instantaneously after the horses trod on it.

  “You figure it was about here?” the sheriff asked Arthur. The heavyset man nodded slowly. “Tipper said she was going to ride out this way.”

  “About what time?”

  “Just before noon. For a couple of hours.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes, Jane and I drove into town. We did some shopping and then stayed for dinner.”

  “That’s kinda odd, to go into town when you have a houseguest.” The sheriff squinted at the man with suspicion.

  “Not really. Tipper was raised here. Her daddy was one of the early land developers in Jackson. She’s a good rider and loved to go out on her own. Did it all the time.”

  The two men looked out over the expanse of the valley. There were hundreds of acres of private ranches and national parkland, all the way up to the Montana border.

  “Well, my deputy and I’d better get going. We have a lot of trail to cover today if we are going to find her. The search party went north yesterday and didn’t turn up so much as a broken twig.”

  “We better find her soon,” Arthur worried aloud. “It’s been two and a half days.”

  Late in the afternoon, the Jackson Hole sheriff rode up the trail that skirted the edge of the Grand Teton National Forest. He saw an old shed at the edge of the woods—an abandoned outbuilding for horses or cattle. It clearly hadn’t been used in decades.

  Thousands of these old structures were scattered throughout the national parkland. Many were log cabins and shacks from the 1860s—vestiges of the early settlers. Traces of the early inhabitants of the West were everywhere, preserved in the arid climate. As people rode through the park, they often
came across old Conestoga wagon wheels lying in the high grass.

  The sheriff pointed out the abandoned homestead to his deputy. He couldn’t check every building or they’d be out here for a month. They had nearly eighty acres to ride.

  Still, it would be better to look. With a guy as rich as Mr. VerPlanck, the sheriff didn’t want anybody saying his investigation wasn’t thorough—even if finding VerPlanck’s wife out here was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

  The assignment wasn’t bad. Nothing to complain about so far. Two days, beautiful and clear, fall foliage glowing in the hills. Even the horses seemed to enjoy the afternoon, walking with energy along the steep trails. Wildlife galore: yellow-bellied marmots, deer, elk, and antelope, and lots of little ground squirrels known as chizzlers. But, so far, no trace of any human presence.

  The sheriff climbed down off his horse and strode toward the ramshackle building. He couldn’t see through the dust-streaked windows.

  He tried the latch on the door and found it locked, so he took out his folding knife and jimmied the rusting keyhole. When he pushed the door open, the hinges creaked heavily. It took a few seconds for his eyes to become accustomed to the light.

  Then he saw her. In the middle of the dirt floor—a life-size rag doll with soiled clothes and dull eyes in a sightless stare, looking at the ceiling.

  “Jiminy Cricket,” he said to himself softly.

  This was the lady they had been looking for, all right. There was no question. He could see that the boots next to her were top-of-the-line Lucchese, sold by the most expensive shop in town. And the fringed suede coat was too fashionable to be worn by anyone local. Her hands and her feet had been bound with leather restraints. She was quite dead. Coiled next to her was one of the biggest rattlers he had ever seen. His hand strayed to his gun as he stared at it.

  “Curt, you better get over here! I think we found her,” he called out. “And bring your Colt. We’re gonna need it.”

  Long Island City

  CARTER WALLACE PARKED his Prius next to the exterior of Fantastic Fetes catering company. The old warehouse looked derelict; the brick was worn, and there was no commercial sign on the dented steel door. Carter knew this was the right place because of the yellow crime-scene tape cordoning off the sidewalk.

  He ducked under the tape and entered the building. The first room was a large kitchen equipped with stainless-steel counters, enormous Vulcan stoves, and half a dozen floor-to-ceiling refrigerators. The gleaming surfaces were spotless, but the scent of vanilla cake still hung in the air.

  Sounds were coming from the back of the building, so he followed the noise and found a door ajar. Attached to the industrial kitchens were huge warehouses with garage doors that opened out into a parking lot. Sunlight flooded in. More than thirty shipping containers were stacked floor to ceiling.

  “Sir, you can’t come in here,” an officer said, turning when he heard Carter’s footsteps.

  “I’m from the Brooklyn Museum,” he said. “I’m supposed to meet Detective Polistrino here.”

  “Can I see some identification?”

  “Sure.”

  Carter pulled his museum badge from his pocket and put the lanyard around his neck.

  “OK, you can take a look around.”

  The shipping containers were all different colors. Carter instantly knew exactly where each box was from. Every museum had its own special crates with a distinctive color, so they could be identified in the airport cargo bays. The Met used bright blue, the Museum of Modern Art a paler blue, the Frick Collection black, and the Guggenheim yellow.

  Some crates were taped shut, and others were open and partially unpacked. Carter walked over to the Met’s containers. They had been crammed willy-nilly with a variety of objects: paintings, statuary, sculpture, stone and metal artifacts. As he looked at the jumble, he couldn’t help but feel a flash of professional irritation. Whoever packed this had no idea what they were doing. These were not museum shipments at all. The thieves had used colored crates to mask their illegal activities.

  Clearly, amateurs had packed this art. The warehouse floor was strewn with material known as excelsior, a type of straw made from the shavings of aspen trees. Art shipping companies had stopped using wood straw decades ago because it left traces of resin on anything it touched. Even the Chinese had moved away from it.

  A few of the crates were jammed with Styrofoam peanuts. That was another tip-off. No museums ever used peanuts—they held a static charge and small pieces always broke off and stuck to the artifacts.

  A real museum packing case would utilize the crate-within-a-crate system—custom-cut, four-inch-thick polyurethane Ester foam. It was PH-neutral, nonstatic, and shock-absorbent.

  At the far end of the warehouse, a drop cloth was arrayed with several dozen Egyptian artifacts. Five policemen were standing around discussing what they had found.

  “OK, Dr. Wallace,” said the senior officer, reading the name on Carter’s badge. “Take a look at these trinkets and tell me if they’re from the Met.”

  Carter pulled on a pair of HyFlex gloves, bent down, and picked up an alabaster canopic jar.

  “Try to avoid touching anything with your bare hands,” he cautioned the officers. “Your fingers leave oil and acid residue.”

  “We got gloves,” the senior officer said, showing him cotton gloves with rubber gripping dots on the fingers.

  “No, don’t use those!” Carter admonished. “The rubber comes off and leaves invisible marks.”

  “Really?” the cop asked, looking at the offending items.

  “About twenty years ago, those gloves were popular because they were thought to have a better grip,” Carter explained. “But now half the masterpieces in the world have traces of polka dots all over their frames.”

  “We didn’t know.”

  “I’ll have the museum send over some other gloves,” Carter told him.

  “OK, professor. Anything you say.” The officer tossed his gloves into the trash.

  As Carter began examining the objects, a heavyset policeman approached. “So whad’ya think? Museum gift shop crap or the real deal?”

  “These seem to be genuine,” Carter said without glancing up. “I would need further tests to be a hundred percent sure, but these artifacts certainly don’t appear to be copies.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about paintings, would you?” another officer asked, pointing to a huge canvas lying on the tarp.

  Carter looked over at the painting—a glorious array of yellow and orange fruit on a yellow tablecloth. The combination was stunning.

  “What do you think of that thing?” the officer asked derisively.

  “I’m no expert on paintings,” admitted Carter, standing up and walking over to examine the still life.

  “Well, I am,” came a voice from behind him. Carter turned and saw the director of European paintings from the Met. He was a puny, nondescript little man who always wore a bright red bow tie when he appeared on cable TV shows.

  “That,” the man said, dramatically pointing at the painting, “is a Cézanne belonging to Ted VerPlanck. I would know it anywhere.”

  Brooklyn Museum

  CARTER WALLACE WALKED through the modern glass entrance to the lobby of the Brooklyn Museum and made his way past the bustle of schoolchildren and teachers. A white marble sculpture of the archangel Michael battling a snarling demon was drawing the attention of the children; the little boys were making faces at Satan and squealing with laughter.

  Carter smiled as he headed toward the bank of elevators. Wouldn’t it be great if life were that simple? Just make ugly faces and evil would go away.

  On the second floor, the executive offices were silent. This new wing was all soaring architecture and glass walls—a far cry from his little cave in the basement of the original building. He was so lowly he didn’t even rate a window.

  Carter walked down a corridor and knocked on an open door. Dr. Edward Bezel, a round li
ttle gnome if there ever was one, was hunched over his desk. The director of Egyptian, classical, and ancient Near Eastern art always had a bemused smile on his face.

  “Hello, Carter.” Bezel stared at him through oversized glasses. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you. What’s all this about a warehouse of stolen antiquities?”

  “I was called in to take a look at it because Holly is in London.”

  “Any sign of our mummy?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Carter said. “I was there until two in the morning, helping inventory everything. But no Artemidorus.”

  “A shame, really it is,” Bezel said, losing his smile for a full minute.

  “How long will Holly be gone?” Carter asked.

  “She won’t be back for another week,” Dr. Bezel confirmed. “She had to go break the bad news to the Brits.”

  “I just don’t understand why. After all, Holly’s in the conservation department. Why didn’t one of the curators go to London?”

  “Holly is the person who arranged for the loan in the first place. But if you ask me, the press did a number on her,” the director hissed in a sibilant whisper. “Have you seen the papers?”

  “No, I haven’t. I’ve been busy.”

  “Don’t bother. They’re practically blaming her for the theft.”

  Carter felt his face grow flush with anger. How dare they make Holly the public scapegoat? He wanted to throttle someone.

  “Is there any way I can get in touch with her?” Carter asked.

  “Oh, sure,” Bezel said, smiling again.

  Carter couldn’t tell if Bezel was amused that he was asking for Holly’s private phone number or if he was just being his jolly self.

  Bezel clicked through a few screens on his computer and came up with the number. He jotted it down on a fluorescent pink Post-it.

  “I am sure she won’t mind you calling,” he said, extending the sticky notepaper toward Carter on his index finger. Then he winked.