by John Lutz
Castle smiled modestly. “ ‘Sir’ will be just fine, Minnie.”
Minnie looked as if she might be about to upchuck, but she held her smile. “Good luck to you and to your fascinating family, sir. Tally-ho!”
Castle smiled thinly and Britishly, not exposing his teeth.
Quinn used the remote to switch off the TV just as a commercial for a product that made computers operate faster was coming onto the screen. An infant wearing a pin-striped business suit and a power tie appeared seated behind a vast desk.
“Did we really just see that?” Pearl asked.
“The baby IT guy?”
“You know what I mean,” Pearl said. “Sir Winston Castle.”
Quinn shrugged and then stood up to leave for the office.
Said, “Cheerio, old thing.”
It was priceless, the way Pearl glared at him.
77
Quinn found himself thoroughly admiring Winston Castle’s acting ability. So convincing had been Castle that he even had someone as incessantly phony as Minnie Miner frequently off balance. Surely this portly, elegantly attired factory of charm was on some level absolutely sincere. A kernel of sincerity lay concealed in every expression of bullshit. Though this installation of the news commentary program had been Minnie Miner’s production, Minnie Miner ASAP had been Winston Castle’s show.
At the same time, Minnie could seem to be whichever sort of person she chose. A woman with a closet full of personalities. Outward and aggressive as she was, she could also fool people into mistaking her for a naïf. Nature did that sometimes, made the most deadly flowers seem beautiful and innocuous. The ones with the poisonous thorns.
Quinn settled back in his desk chair, thinking about the Far Castle garden, how the concrete birdbath had been hidden in plain sight. Even if it had happened to be noticed and more carefully regarded, no one would have suspected that it might have been the concealment for something remarkable within.
No one would have dreamed that a creation of Michelangelo might lie beneath a crude layer of concrete, or that a much sought after concealed object might be a worthless facsimile.
This investigation reminded Quinn of those Russian dolls, each slightly smaller and hidden within the other, becoming successively more diminutive as they were explored. That kind of concealment tried the patience of any searcher, looking over and over again, finding the same thing, until curiosity, and then hope, finally waned.
It all reminded Quinn of the Tucker-Castle whatever it was—family, or cult, or what was the difference—when it came to finding and claiming a thing of beauty and a fortune? These people weren’t as deadly as D.O.A., but they were easily just as devious.
Quinn had his suspicions that it wasn’t only the killer who was yanking his chain.
He dragged his desk’s land line phone over to him and called Pearl.
She was still at the brownstone, and sounded calm when she answered the phone. Which meant that Jody had probably left. They had begun the day with the two women arguing about whose phone the government had legal and moral authority to tap. Pearl and her daughter could discuss such subjects until they were all talked out and Quinn had long since fled to wherever it might be legal and moral to smoke a cigar.
“Still reeling from the Minnie Miner show?” Pearl asked him.
“Not per se,” Quinn said.
“That sounds like something Winston Castle would say. He must have gotten to you with his member-of-parliament persona.”
“I suppose that’s why I’m calling,” Quinn said. “There’s something familiar about Winston Castle’s act. It reminds me of a magician’s patter, designed to get you looking at one hand while he’s doing something with the other. Just when everybody’s attention is distracted, Presto! Out of the hat pops the rabbit.”
“Or the right card,”
“Never play poker with them,” Quinn said.
“Rabbits?”
“People. Like the ones in Winston Castle’s whack-job family, or whatever it is. They have their patter.”
“Meaning?”
“Maybe somebody has a real Michelangelo up a sleeve.”
“Magicians,” Pearl said, not quite understanding. “I’ve always kind of liked them.”
“Their act wouldn’t work if you didn’t.”
“I still like them.”
“They cut people in half, you know.”
“Only beautiful girls. And it doesn’t seem to hurt.”
“I wouldn’t want to see you proved wrong.”
“Where are you going with this,” Pearl asked with a sigh. Jody had apparently worn her down.
“We are going to stake out the Far Castle’s Garden.”
“I thought we were concentrating on D.O.A.”
“Maybe we are,” Quinn said. “My guess is he’s not one of the many people who think Bellazza isn’t in the garden, just because an imitation has already been found there.”
“Are we among the many, Quinn?”
“On one hand, yes.”
“But on the other?”
“Presto!”
78
The searcher came by night, as Quinn had suspected he would, and hours after the restaurant had closed.
Quinn was slouching low behind the steering wheel in the black Lincoln. He’d parked where he had a catty-corner view across the intersection and the Far Castle’s outdoor dining area. Beyond the stacked and locked tables and chairs loomed the shadowed topiary forms of the garden. Beginning several feet behind the flower beds was the larger garden, wilder and less arranged than the beds, with a variety of bushes and miniature trees. Adjacent to that, the entrance to the hedge maze loomed, a pathway to deeper darkness.
Quinn tensed his body. Had he heard a soft sound through the car’s lowered window?
An odd sound. Like a muted clunking followed by a soft scraping noise.
It took him only a moment to realize that what he’d heard came from the direction of the dark garden.
Quinn knew he might have imagined the sound. He sat still, staring into the garden.
A full minute passed. He didn’t hear the sound again, but he was sure he saw something move in the shadows.
Quinn and Pearl were in constant touch with their cell phones. A simple tap of Quinn’s fingertip made Pearl’s phone buzz softly and vibrate.
“We got something,” Quinn whispered, when he knew they were connected.
“I heard something, and there’s movement in the garden, kind of repetitive. Could be digging.”
“Or a couple making wild passionate love,” Pearl said.
“The British don’t do that.”
“Hah! Isn’t that what English gardens are for?”
“We should find out,” Quinn said. “Call for backup, but make sure they move silently and don’t close in yet.”
“You mean backup for the wild passionate love?”
“Pearl! Damn it!”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ll just twiddle and wait. Maybe the butler will happen by.”
Quinn waited exactly three minutes. He knew that by the time backup came on the scene, it might be too late. And careful as they were, they might spook whoever might be digging in the garden.
Quinn didn’t like this.
Too many mights.
He had the Lincoln’s interior lights set so they wouldn’t come on when he opened the doors. He slipped out of the vehicle into the night.
In the silence, he could hear the ticking of the engine cooling down, and mentally eliminated that as the source of the faint but undeniable noise he’d heard. As if the night weren’t warm enough, heat rolled out from beneath the car, along with the smell of high-octane gas and baked oil.
Staying low, he carefully moved away to approach the Far Castle.
When he got closer, he saw the movement in the garden again. What moonlight there was picked it up. He entered the garden as quietly as possible.
He quickly lost sight of wh
ere he thought he’d heard the sound. Crouching motionless, he stared into the darkness.
Again! The sound.
He saw nothing but moved toward it. Took a wrong turn in the maze and then silently retraced his steps.
And there was the sound again. Louder. Closer.
He was sure now of the source of the sound.
The noise he’d heard was what he’d first guessed, that of a shovel blade working the earth.
Now he knew what he was dealing with. He drew his old police special revolver from its holster. There was no safety on the gun, so he thumbed back the hammer.
The sound of someone digging—unmistakable now—became even louder, lending direction. With each chunk! of the shovel he could hear an exhalation of breath. With each cautious step he took, the picture gained definition.
He saw a bulky figure with a shovel, facing three-quarters away from him, standing in what looked like the middle of a bush and wielding a long-handled spade. He was wearing what appeared to be elbow-length brown leather gloves that flared out at the top as if to protect his forearms.
The digger paused and spoke: “Ouch! Damn it to hell!”
Winston Castle. Sounding not at all British.
Quinn kept his revolver pressed against the side of his thigh and stepped forward. “Hurt yourself?”
Castle made a sound that was almost a shriek. Staring at Quinn, he dropped his shovel and held his heart. “Ah, Quinn! I’m glad to see you, but you scared the bloody bejibbers out of me.”
He recovered quickly, did Castle.
He flashed his white smile. “This bush is a pyracantha, sometimes called a thornbush because it’s full of bloody thorns.” He leaned forward, graceful for such a paunchy man, and picked up the shovel handle, planted the spade’s scoop, and leaned on the wooden handle. “Not the best sort of spot to bury something,” he said.
“Oh? You’re burying someone?”
“Some thing, old chap. Some valuable papers in a waterproof pouch.” Castle shook his head and made a face, as if there were a nasty taste in his mouth. “One can’t trust the banks these days. Not anymore.” He cocked his head to the side, regarding Quinn. “Say, old chap, can I trust you?”
“Marginally.”
Quinn holstered his revolver.
He motioned with his head. “I see a hoe over there. I’ll help you dig. Between us, we can keep those thorns out of the way.”
“Why, that’s bloody sporting—”
“And we’re not burying anything,” Quinn said. “We’re digging up something.”
“Ah! You have me there.”
“Yes, I do.”
The wide, white, BBC smile. “You’re sure of that, old thing?”
“I am.”
“Well, you’re spot on. I assumed this would be the last place where anyone would choose to dig, where there are such wicked thorns. I think that’s especially true now, with the other bust already found and established as worthless.”
“So what are we digging up?” They both knew, but Quinn wanted to hear Castle say it.
“Hmmph. What I want has been long enough in the ground.”
Quinn waited.
“All right,” Castle said. “It’s Bellezza. The real one. Now we both know, and we can bend ourselves to the task at hand.”
“You underestimated me,” Quinn said, hacking away at the thick branches with the hoe. “You hired me in part so Q&A and the NYPD would scratch you off their suspect lists. You’re still on mine.”
“Suspect list? Good heavens, you can’t be serious! I never killed anyone. I absolutely couldn’t.”
“Don’t underestimate yourself.”
But Quinn was sure Winton Castle wasn’t a psychosexual killer. Certainly not D.O.A.
He warned himself not to be so sure about Castle. It was impossible to fathom somebody with such a tenuous hold on reality. Hard to believe that over the centuries Michelangelo had instilled in Winston Castle a conscience.
“I’m interested only in recovering Bellezza for my family,” Castle said. “The rightful owners.”
“Keep digging,” Quinn said. “We can determine later who owns the bust. If it’s actually here, where you say it is.”
Winston Castle looked him square in the eye. “It isn’t something I’d lie about.”
Something else, maybe, Quinn thought.
79
It took another twenty minutes before Quinn’s hoe struck something solid. Castle, digging next to him, leaned forward eagerly and tapped whatever it was with the point of his shovel. There was a faint hollow sound.
Quinn saw something dark gray in the hole they’d dug. It was cloth. He bent low and touched it with his fingertips. Something wrapped in oilcloth had been buried beneath the pyracantha thorns. He scraped with the hoe while Castle frantically dug around the object with his shovel. Quinn found himself wishing he had a pair of long leather work gloves like Castle’s. His bare forearms burned as needlelike points of the thorns lacerated flesh.
“A box!” Castle said breathlessly. “It’s in a wooden box wrapped in old cloth!”
He squatted low and extended a gloved hand into the space they’d cleared between cloth and mud. Across from him, Quinn lowered himself to his knees. Then he reached down and was glad to shove his bare hand deep into mud. His fingertips touched oily cloth—and wood.
“I got my fingers under it,” Castle exclaimed through a wild grin. “Got you, beauty, got you, beauty . . .” he muttered. Quinn thought that if this was another phony piece of sculpture, or an empty box, and Castle knew it, he was laying his act on awfully thick.
And, Quinn had to admit, convincingly.
Quinn curled his own fingers beneath the bottom edge of the box.
He and Castle looked at each other, exchanging a silent signal, and heaved together to lift the box from its hole.
Castle yanked the oilcloth away and tossed it to the side. What was left was a sturdy wooden packing crate. There was what appeared to be a label on it, long since faded and stained until it was illegible. The acrid smell of aged cedar wafted from the box and from the hole it had been in. Quinn was reminded of graves opened for exhumations.
Castle hurled off his gloves and began frantically prying the box’s lid with his fingertips. The lid was stubborn. Castle should have gone slower, examined the box, before laying into it like that. Quinn saw the glisten of blood in the faint moonlight.
“The lid’s nailed tight,” Quinn told him. “There’s a better way to get into it.”
Castle struggled to his feet, wiping his wrists across his perspiring forehead. His eyes were glistening like the blood seeping from beneath his fingernails. Quinn realized that for Castle, this was indeed like finding the Holy Grail.
It took Castle only a minute or so to use his shovel to pry the box’s wooden lid open far enough to where he could wedge the shovel blade beneath it, then use his weight to pry the lid open all the way. Feeling some of Castle’s excitement, Quinn helped with the hoe.
Tightly driven old nails squealed as they were pulled from ancient wood. Ignoring the rusty nails, Castle tossed the wooden lid aside and dropped to his knees like a supplicant. Quinn knelt beside him to examine the box’s contents.
There was something large wrapped in a soft green cloth. Castle’s trembling hand lifted a corner of the material. Lifted it higher.
The cloth had concealed the bust of a beautiful woman. In ways not immediately comprehensible, it made the previous, fake Bellezzas, look lifeless and artificial.
“Look!” Castle was saying in an awed voice. “Would you look at this!”
“I’m looking,” Quinn assured him. And what struck him was that Bellezza seemed to be looking back at him.
“These, too!” Castle said. “These, too!”
He was pointing at a ribbon-bound stack of letters. When he moved to untie the ribbon, it separated in his fingers.
A cursory look at the letters revealed that they were written by French resistance
fighters. No doubt the ones who had rescued Bellezza from the Germans. There were also letters composed by Nurse Betsy Douglass, addressed to her married sister, Willa Kingdom. Those letters authenticated the origin of the bust.
In the corner of his vision, Quinn saw a figure cross the street farther down and enter the garden. He immediately assumed it was Pearl, grown impatient in the car. She was probably leading the backup that had silently arrived.
It wasn’t Pearl.
Goaded by fear, Pearl fought her way up from unconsciousness. It took her a few minutes to realize the fix she was in. To remember the suddenly moving shadow, the figure that had sneaked up beside the parked Lincoln’s rolled-down window.
The knife blade had glinted dully, moved quickly, too fast for Pearl even to cry out.
And now . . . ?
She dropped a hand to her lap, raised it, and was amazed by the amount of blood that she saw. She glanced down and was horrified.
Pearl probed gently about with her fingertips, exploring to find out where she was bleeding.
When she did find out, it scared the hell out of her.
Blood was pulsing from low on the left side of her neck, her carotid artery. Her assailant had reached through the window and drawn the knife blade across her neck, knowing she’d bleed out fast, figuring she’d be out of the game.
But he’d only nicked the artery, she was sure. She’d seen arterial bleeding before and knew this could be a lot worse.
Pearl remembered that Quinn kept a box of tissues in the glove compartment. Keeping her left hand pressed to the slow wellspring of blood coming out of her neck, she reached over with her right and opened the glove compartment.
Damn!
The only tissue was a small, unopened cellophane-wrapped pack.
She removed the pack, then tore its cellophane wrapper and dropped it on the car seat. Using the entire package of folded tissues as a pad, she pressed it to the side of her neck.
It stanched the flow of blood, but she knew the tissue would soon become saturated and the bleeding would increase again. To minimize that, she removed the cloth belt of her slacks and wrapped it at an angle around her neck, pulling it tight so it kept the tissue compressed and in place. She was still bleeding and would become weaker. The world would fade.