Doubled Up (Imogene Museum Mystery #2)

by Jones, Jerusha

  Rupert chuckled. “You have that scheming look, so I’ll leave you to it.”

  “Call me if you buy anything,” I said, but Rupert was already gone. My request was pointless anyway. In his pursuit of oddities and treasures, Rupert forgot all about the less important details like whether or not the item would fit in a display case.

  After pulling my knees up to sit more comfortably cross-legged, I flipped open the laptop. Where to begin? I propped one of the male figures against a stack of books.

  “Where’d you come from?”

  He gave me the silent treatment, lower lip protruding and ears poised for take-off.

  “I can’t post pictures of you on the forums until Sheriff Marge says it’s okay, so it looks like I’m on my own.”

  I sighed. Talking to my dog, Tuppence, at home was one thing. Talking to a wood statue in my office was quite another. I grabbed a pencil and jotted a list of possible search terms.

  “Here we go,” I said to my little inanimate audience.

  Three hours later, after uncountable rabbit trails, goose chases and tangents, I'd had my fill of wood carvings. From whimsical to freakish to downright scary, nothing looked like the statues from the Rittenour shipment.

  I balanced my wordless companion across my palm. He was heavy, too heavy for any kind of wood I knew. That could be the key.

  I clicked through a few links and found a reference to microscopic wood analysis, where super thin cross- and tangential sections are shaved off with a razor blade. The mini-chips are examined under a microscope, and the cell structures are compared to known samples for identification.

  I dialed Greg Boykin, my graduate student intern. He had just returned to Oregon State University with a smaller cast on his fractured ankle. We’d fallen into the same cavern several days apart and both came out with broken bones. I shifted the sling that held my shoulder in place while my collarbone healed, grateful we’d been rescued. It had been a close call for Greg.

  “Hiya. Do you know anyone in the forestry research department?” I asked.

  “Uh, no.”

  “Think you could talk to them anyway? See if someone could do microscopic wood analysis for me?”

  “Shoot, Meredith, what are you up to? Wait a minute. I have to write this down.”

  “Sorry. Are you walking?”

  “Yeah. I’m late for class. I still forget crossing campus takes twice as long on crutches.” He paused as he rustled through his backpack. “Okay. Ready.”

  “We had some excitement here this morning. I’ll tell you about it when you come up after Thanksgiving. But the net result is that I’m researching wood statues from either Africa, Asia or Australia. A comprehensive Internet search came up empty. They’re extraordinarily heavy, so I’m hoping the wood type will help narrow the region of origin. If I get approval from Sheriff Marge, I could send one for sampling.”

  “Sheriff Marge? Was it criminal excitement?”

  “Could be.”

  Greg whistled. “Nothing like a little mystery to get a scientist salivating. I’ll find somebody and let you know.”

  CHAPTER 4

  The next morning, I hurried to my doctor’s appointment. The hospital is in the town of Lupine, the Sockeye County seat and a good half-hour drive east on Highway 14. Besides medical care, Lupine boasts a hardware-household goods-craft supply-drug store, one diner, a pizza place, a diesel mechanic shop, a post office and a decrepit library. You can get your needs met in Lupine, but if you want anything fancy — anything designer-labeled, custom-made or in the luxury goods category, you have to plan an expedition to Portland.

  An old Datsun pickup with pale, oxidized blue paint loomed in my rearview mirror. The driver’s visor was down against the glare of the rising sun, so I couldn’t see his face. I slowed to let him pass, but he dropped back. There was plenty of room and no traffic.

  “Make up your mind,” I muttered.

  A few minutes later, he was on my bumper again. I slowed, and so did he.

  “Probably on his cell phone. Good grief.”

  The Datsun followed me into the hospital parking lot and backed into a slot a few spaces away from where I parked. The driver wore a red baseball cap and sunglasses. He didn’t have a passenger. Maybe he was picking somebody up. A makeshift plywood canopy covered the pickup’s bed. I smiled at how much I pay attention to pickups now that I own one myself with a special hitch to tow my fifth-wheel RV. Pretty good for a city-born and raised girl.

  I walked through automatic sliding doors into the ER entrance and took the first hallway to the left. The X-ray technician leaned against the waiting room wall, flipping through a Field & Stream magazine.

  “Hey.” He brightened when he saw me. “Maybe today’s the day.”

  “I sure hope so.” I followed him into a small white room.

  “You know the drill,” he said.

  I took the sling off and stood with my right shoulder in front of a white box on the wall. The technician strapped a lead apron around my waist and spent a few minutes aligning my collarbone with the film slide. He stepped into his protective cubicle and pressed the button. Then he rearranged me and took one more image.

  “You can go wait for the doc. I’ll have these ready in a jiffy,” he said.

  My choices of reading material were the discarded Field & Stream and a year-old issue of Parenting, so I eyed the water stains on the ceiling. At least the hospital didn’t pipe Muzak into its waiting rooms. Hurried rubber-soled shoes squeaked on the waxed floor, pushing a clattering gurney. Laughter drifted in from a nurses’ station, along with the bitter smell of burnt coffee.

  “Having trouble sleeping at night?”

  I jerked. Had I been dozing? The white-coated doctor stood beside me.

  “No. Just been sort of busy.”

  He grunted and beckoned. I followed him to his cramped, windowless office and slid into an empty chair. He sat on the corner of his desk and gave me the doctor look — the one that feels like they’ve peeled back your skin and are watching your innards chugging away. I held my breath.

  “How’s the sling?”

  “A nuisance.”

  “Any pain?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Show me what you’re doing when it hurts.”

  I demonstrated. “And when I pick up anything too heavy.”

  “That’s all normal. The pain is telling you that you shouldn’t have done whatever you just did, so pay attention to it.” He handed me a printout. “And do these stretches three times a day to get your range of motion back. No skimping.”

  I nodded. “So I don’t have to wear the sling anymore?”

  “Nope. Something tells me you haven’t been using it much lately anyway.”

  “You can tell that from the X-rays?”

  He laughed. “Nah. Those motions you just showed me — you can’t do those with the sling on.”

  My face grew warm.

  “You have a mal-union, which means the broken ends of the clavicle are not perfectly matched up, but it’s healing nicely. Most patients get antsy to resume their regular activities, so they fudge with the sling. That’s when I know it’s time to stop using it. If the break wasn’t healing well, you’d still be uncomfortable enough to want the sling.”

  I exhaled and smiled. “Good news.”

  “You’re free to go. Get some rest.”

  “Aye, aye.”

  I swung my arms as I walked back to my pickup. The freedom felt good, energizing. Sun broke through the thick overcast cloud layer for a minute — long enough to warm my back.

  I hadn’t realized how much Terry’s parole problems were weighing on me. And the questions about the wood statues.

  My mood lightened as I thought about Pete’s invitation to Thanksgiving dinner aboard his tugboat. It wouldn’t be too awkward since he’d invited Pastor Mort and Sally Levine and their two teenagers as well.

  The spot where the little blue Datsun pickup had parked was empty.

>   I had a lot to be thankful for.

  o0o

  “Better late than never,” I announced as I stepped into the museum gift shop.

  “How’d it go — oh, you’re sling-free,” Lindsay Smith, the cashier and official greeter, said as she rose from behind the counter with a stack of trail maps in her hand. Her face was flushed from bending over, and she pushed her long blond hair back into place. “Feel good?”

  “Even better than I imagined. Sorry about yesterday.”

  “No problem. It was nice to have the day off. I went shopping with my mom to get the potatoes, celery and black olives we still needed for Thanksgiving.”

  “Have Sheriff Marge or Terry been by?”

  “No to Sheriff Marge. Terry’s the truck driver, right? I saw the truck parked out there, but I haven’t seen him.”

  I absently spun a postcard carousel rack.

  “Somebody else is here to see you, though. A Hamilton—” Lindsay checked a note beside the cash register. “—Wexler. He said you knew him. He wasn’t interested in looking around the museum while he waited, so I put him in your office.”

  Black spots appeared before my eyes, and a swirling buzz — the noise of a maddened hive — filled my ears. I forgot to breathe.

  “I hope you don’t mind. I didn’t know what else to do. You’ve never had a visitor before.”

  I pressed my hands onto the glass countertop, hoping they’d act as suction cups and somehow hold me upright.

  “Are you okay? Did you have blood drawn this morning?” Lindsay placed a warm hand on my cold one.

  I waved her off. “Fine. I’m fine.” I staggered into the grand ballroom. Right. Left. Right. Left. Breathe in. Out.

  He wasn’t supposed to be here. That’s why I moved to the middle of almost nowhere. To get away from him, the memories, the family pressure. My own quiet spot far, far away. And now he’d invaded it. Why was he always taking what wasn’t his?

  I climbed the stairs carefully, slowly, like a rickety old man. I needed time to think, put on my polite face, hide the roiling emotions.

  I thought the confusion, anger and frustration he caused were gone, died out like campfire embers. Oh no. All it took was the mention of his name, and my insides sparked into a wildfire with no warning.

  Well, he wouldn’t stick around long. He never did. He had the attention span of a fruit fly.

  Through the half-open door to my office, I saw his legs. He was sitting in my chair — granted, the only chair in the room — an ankle propped on the opposite knee, the custom-made loafer clad foot jiggling allegrissimo. Yep, there was only one Ham Wexler.

  I took a deep breath and pushed the door open.

  The wood statue he’d been tossing from hand to hand clunked on the hardwood floor. “Ooops. Sorry. Wow, you look great.” He bent to retrieve the statue. “These things are scary. It would be hard to wake up next to this every morning.” He held up the female figure.

  The lopsided grin and tiny cleft in his chin that used to weaken my knees seemed immature now in spite of new streaks of venerable gray at his temples.

  “That could be an historical artifact.”

  “Really? How old?” He held the statue at arm’s length and peered at it.

  I snatched the statue and pressed it against my stomach. “Why are you here?”

  “Just wanted to see you. Old-times’ sake — all that.”

  I was no longer as young and stupid as I used to be. “No. Not all that. Why?”

  “Don’t be hard on me. I just wanted to see you. How ‘bout some lunch?”

  I moved to the side so he had clear access to the door and could leave the more expediently. I also pointed toward the doorway in case the first hint was too subtle.

  “Come on, Meredith. Hear me out. I know I was immature, but I’ve changed. I’ve certainly changed my mind about you.”

  “Well, I’m no longer interested in you. That will never change.”

  “But I’m not talking about dating. I’ve come to my senses. I’m talking about marriage.” Ham tilted toward me, his hand sliding dangerously close to my waist.

  I dodged, bumped into a bookcase and gritted my teeth. “You were talking about marriage last time, too, in case you forgot. With both Sheila and me at the same time.” I exhaled. “How is Sheila, by the way?”

  “She dumped me right after you did.” Ham shook his head and chuckled as though the girl had done something endearing. “You both cleared out on me.”

  Bitter comebacks blazed around inside my head, but nothing strung together coherently. I kept my mouth clamped shut.

  “Don’t look at me like that. I told you I’ve changed. I’m up for a judgeship now. It’s time I settled down, and you’re the perfect woman for me.”

  I thought my head might blast off, a cranial rocket.

  I could bash him in with the heavy statue. Death by ugly blunt object. Let the punishment fit the crime, tra la.

  Ham kept talking, but all I heard was wah—wah—wah. He amped up the Pepsodent smile, turned on the charismatic charm that wooed juries, especially if they were predominantly women, and did what he did best — schmoozing.

  Had he said judgeship? That would be the day.

  Oh, judges were elected, weren’t they? Which meant he only had to fool the voting public. Unfortunately, he could probably do so with his hands tied behind his back. He had a top-notch glib-o-tron. I wondered if he’d dyed the gray streaks in order to appear more trustworthy.

  “I can tell you’re distracted,” he rushed on. The man never drew breath. “I probably interrupted your work. You know what — I’ll come back later, when you’re feeling better. We can talk over the details. Arlene will be thrilled.”

  I hated that he called his mother by her first name. Wait, what was Arlene going to be thrilled about?

  “Catch you tomorrow, sweetie.” Ham winked, spun on his heel and left.

  “No!” I shouted, but it came out like a death groan.

  I hadn’t nodded my head, had I? Given him any kind of encouragement? I was certain I hadn’t agreed to anything.

  “Aaargh!” I slammed the statue on the desk, then froze, realizing what I’d done.

  CHAPTER 5

  The thing was indestructible, or was it? No chunks broke off. I gingerly tipped the statue to standing and felt its weight shift. Something rattled inside.

  I lifted the statue, and a circular wood plug fell out of the bottom. A dull gold-colored rod, six or seven inches long and the thickness of two fingers, thudded on the desk. The statue was suddenly as light as balsa wood, an empty shell. I sat down hard.

  Then I jumped up, shut the door quickly and locked it. My mind raced. This was a whole new ballgame.

  In a way, it explained a lot. If the statues were just a foil, a transportation mechanism, then they wouldn’t have documentation or historical record. Maybe they’d been carved in the past few months, which would account for their poor workmanship. But importing gold wasn’t illegal, was it?

  I flew to the computer and checked the U.S. Customs list of banned items. No, gold was okay. Of course, the government would appreciate anyone importing gold to declare that fact. But there were no limits. Unless.

  Unless the gold was from a short list of countries or a much longer list of ‘specially designated nationals’ — in other words, terrorists, war lords and their power brokers and financiers.

  I blew out a big breath. What had we stumbled into? Did Terry know? Was he really good at faking bumblingness? Because a scheme like this seemed way over his head.

  Maybe it wasn’t gold.

  I rummaged through the file cabinet’s bottom drawer and found a digital scale. I switched it to metric and balanced the metal rod in the scale’s plastic bowl. One kilogram exactly. The weight of a standard gold bar. And the density seemed right for gold — the heaviness for its relatively small size.

  The rod didn’t have any markings. I had never seen a gold bar in person, but online pictures showed
they usually had their source, weight, purity and sometimes a company name stamped on the surface. The rod appeared to have been molded to fit in the statue’s hollow core. The sender probably wanted to remove any chance to track the gold based on its markings. The gold was ready to melt into a new bar even if it hadn’t been in that form before.

  It might not be pure.

  But if it was . . . I found the price of gold. While it fluctuated, $1500 per ounce was a reasonable average. I scribbled on a notepad, converting metric to American weights, then multiplying. If the missing thirteen crates had a similar number of statues each, and there was a kilo of gold in each statue, the shipment came close to $6 million. No wonder someone laid in wait for it.

  My stomach burbled, reminding me that I’d missed lunch. But I felt more nauseated than hungry and was as shaky as Terry without his nicotine.

  Steady on. I examined each statue, pried out the plugs and lined up seven more gold rods beside the first one.

  My eyes flitted over the bookshelves lining the walls, the file cabinet, the stacks of research papers. There was no place to hide the gold rods, no place to secrete something so valuable, not even in the rest of the museum. The original safe in the basement was a joke to a professional safecracker, probably even to a thug with a sledgehammer.

  I wrinkled my nose. Why was my first instinct to hide them? They should be exposed. The criminals — I had no doubt of that now — needed to be found, their motives uncovered.

  I dialed Sheriff Marge and burst into explanation when she answered.

  “Slow down,” Sheriff Marge said in a low tone. Someone shouted obscenities in the background.

  “Where are you?” I asked.

  “At the Randalls’ place. You probably don’t know them. He takes her hostage every once in a while, usually around the holidays. Family tradition.”

  “Oh.” Suddenly my problem didn’t seem so urgent.

  “I’m going to have to think about this one,” Sheriff Marge said. “And figure out which federal agency to contact. They’re all closed for Thanksgiving anyway. The bank in Lupine’s probably closed too. Find a good place to hide them and don’t tell anyone else for now.”