The Face of the Seal

by Jennifer Cumiskey

  “The chief just called. The FBI got Heikkinen. Wesley Walters’s confession had a lot to do with it.”

  “I hope Mr. Fancy Pants Harvard Professor isn’t off the hook for murder and attempted murder.”

  “Of course not. But he might get a more lenient sentence. Let the FBI deal with it.” Ryan took a sip of what he called the froufrou coffee. “Not too bad.”

  “What was Walters thinking that he could kill two women and get away with it?”

  “I asked him that question this morning, just out of curiosity. He said it was a calculated risk. He never planned to come back to New York City, or the United States. He was never quite sure what the face of the original Empress Seal was made of, but he suspected it was worth far more than a pigeon’s blood ruby since William Blackwell had gone to so much trouble to keep it. Then there were the bad-asses in China, threatening to ruin his reputation or even kill him if he didn’t get the genuine face back. In a way he had no choice. He was prepared to kill Gerel if necessary, get the seal face, and then disappear to a remote paradise island to live like a king. He was sure that rock was worth more than all the assets he had amassed so far.”

  “You mean all the assets from star-fucking.” Ive took another sip of the brew.

  “You should have seen the expression on Walters’s face when I told him the rock was actually a raw red diamond.”

  “Did we ever find out how much it was worth?”

  “Don’t know, I don’t think we’ll ever know.”

  “I wonder what’s going on with Gerel Garnier,” Ive said, contemplating something.

  “I think she’ll be fine.” Ryan would love nothing more than to share with Ive what Gerel had told him about her connection to the face, body, and soul of the Empress Seal. But he didn’t and couldn’t. He promised Gerel that her secret was safe with him. But Ryan was sure that one day he’d be able to tell Ive the story. For now, he had something more important to tell Ive. “Cheers to your female instinct. You’ve proven your theory of the William Blackwell murder case—HISTORY, plus a woman.”

  Epilogue

  Beijing, China, seven months later

  Gerel stood in the courtyard of the Rose Pavilion in the Forbidden City. It was a splendid autumn morning in Beijing and she never expected it could be so beautiful. Under a clear blue sky the foliage around the pavilion was shades of gold, orange, and deep red.

  She came here to pay respect to Meigui, the concubine, the unofficial Empress of China for a short time, and a woman who was the mother of her own great-grandmother Lis Garnier. Seven months ago, Gerel had rushed by the well where Meigui had drowned herself. She didn’t have a chance to say hello, to bid goodbye. This time, she’d do it properly.

  She glanced at her cell phone screen, it was almost 10:15 a.m., the agreed-upon meeting time. She hadn’t seen Ryan since they had said goodbye seven months ago at her villa in Normandy. But they’d talked via Skype. Walters had confessed that he’d killed Simone by spiking her wine with a lethal dose of fentanyl because she’d been blackmailing him. She had threatened to expose Walters’s drug dealing activities if he didn’t fork over three million dollars to her. More shocking to Gerel was that it turned out Simone was the one who’d killed William Blackwell. Gerel had suspected Walters might have been the one who had something to do with Blackwell’s death. But Ryan said the evidence was indisputable. Walters had recorded Simone’s confession on his cell when he walked in on Simone shortly after she’d strangled William Blackwell. So, they were blackmailing each other and deserved each other.

  For quite a while, the thought that Wesley Walters had gone to Normandy with the intention to kill her and then disappear to some remote island with the red diamond still made Gerel shudder, especially in the darkness of night.

  There had been a couple touch and go moments with the police, especially the French police. She’d laughed at the French inspector who tried to coax a confession out of her. How could he believe Wesley Walters, a man who had come there to kill her? No, she didn’t steal the red diamond, William Blackwell gave the stone to her as a gift. That was her official statement. What could the authorities do? The face of the Empress Seal was gone, forever.

  But it was different with Ryan. She’d privately admitted to him that she’d taken the stone. She was sure that sooner or later he’d want to question her again. No matter what, she’d committed the crime of antique theft. But Ryan never brought up the subject again. Maybe he would let it slide since he knew the face of the seal was now somewhere at the bottom of the ocean. But deep down, she knew someone like Ryan wouldn’t let it go.

  “Hello, we both made it.”

  Gerel turned around, Ryan was right behind her. He wore a tobacco brown tweed jacket over a black crew neck t-shirt, blue jeans, and dark brown oxford wingtip shoes. Definitely more the image of a writer than a cop. His smile was ear-to-ear and his eyes bluer than the sky above. And he’d recently visited the barbershop.

  “Hi, I’m so glad you could come. I know it was a big request when I asked you to make a trip halfway around the world, but I think you need to be here.” Gerel felt heat rising on her face, she was flustered. For a moment, they just stood and stared at each other.

  “No big deal, I do this all the time, solving murder cases leads me to exotic places,” Ryan said coolly with a wave of his hand.

  Gerel mimicked an annoyed look. Her heart was beating fast, she had thought about how to tell Ryan a thousand times, but nothing she’d come up with seemed to be right. “I need to show you something.” Just get to it.

  “What’s that?”

  She pulled her fist out of her jacket and uncurled her fingers. On her palm was a small egg- shaped red stone, more like a dome. On one side was an engraved pattern of a rose. Under the bright sunshine, there was a faint glint under the dull surface.

  Ryan gazed at it for a long moment. “I guess this is THE face of the Empress Seal.”

  Gerel nodded. “The one I was almost killed for, and the one and only red diamond in the world today of its size. Blackwell told me he was about to sell it to an unnamed buyer, he would’ve gotten ninety million dollars for it,” Gerel said guiltily.

  “Wow, that explains why people have been willing to kill for it. But somehow I had the feeling that it never really hit the bottom of the ocean.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Remember when I was leaving after my visit at your villa that afternoon?”

  “Yes?”

  “You were going to ask me something, but you held back. I was sure you had something important to tell me but somehow you couldn’t bring yourself to do it.”

  Gerel had no words, she nodded, swallowing a lump that was heaving up her throat.

  “But how did you lead Walters to believe you threw it over the balcony?”

  “The minute I got into the bedroom and saw Walters sitting there, I knew what he’d come for. As I tried to get close to the balcony, my fingers got busy in my pocket. I loosened the string and got the stone out of the pouch before he put the tie around my neck. I did everything I could to get close to the railing. When I knew he was going to kill me I threw the pouch over the balcony praying he’d lunge forward to try to save it. And it worked.”

  “What are you going to do with it now?”

  “I’ve done a lot of thinking and a lot of historical research about priest Jacques Bernard. His life with Sarnai was touching, but why would he want to preach about his God in a foreign country where the law clearly prohibited him to do so? On the other hand, the torture and punishment the Chinese officials inflicted on him were so cruel that the French government used it as part of their justification to go to war with China. Did his God help start a war? You know, more than a century later, the Vatican canonized him. But is he really a saint in that sense?” Gerel spoke softly, like she was reciting an introspective monologue.

  “We’ll just say Jacques Bernard is a saint with a past.”

  “They say Jacques Bernard wa
s the one who found the diamond, of course it might have just been a red rock to him. Maybe he took it as a sign from God and later gave it to Sarnai. But I don’t think either Sarnai or Meigui knew what the stone really was. To them it was a symbol of love, something they could remember Jacques Bernard by.”

  They were both quiet for a moment. “What are you going to do Gerel? If it once belonged to Sarnai and Meigui, it seems natural you are its next keeper, don’t you think?” Ryan said hesitantly.

  “What can I do? Technically, the red diamond belongs to the country of China, doesn’t it? Well, you see the rose on the diamond? Meigui thought a rose in Christian terms wore two faces, love and passion, transgression and sin. I think the rose on this diamond has seen enough sin and transgression. I don’t know about sin, but what I’ve done was a serious transgression, don’t you think?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The truth is I did steal the diamond from Blackwell. I didn’t go there with the intention to steal it, but opportunity was there, and I took it.”

  “But . . .”

  “I know what you are going to say, I could say I’m just taking back what was mine. But Blackwell told me it was a gift given to Blackwell’s great-grandfather by the Dowager Empress of the Qing Dynasty. I believed him, and I still believe what he said.” Gerel paused. Let’s leave William Blackwell I, the distinguished reporter, and his character flaws for another day. I’m not here to dig out the ghosts of the past. So, she went on. “Telling myself that the stone was mine because of its history with Sarnai and Meigui would be fooling myself. I couldn’t say I was never tempted by the monetary value of the diamond. I think it’s time to send it back to where it might see love and passion again.” Gerel scanned the surroundings in the courtyard, the palace had just opened twenty minutes ago and not too many people were around the Rose Pavilion yet.

  Suddenly, Ryan realized what she was going to do. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  Gerel stepped closer to the well. She looked back over her shoulder at Ryan. “Absolutely.” She flipped her palm. The stone fell into the well.

  Ryan lunged toward the well and looked down. But it was too late, the red diamond, the face of the Empress Seal, had disappeared into the dark water.

  When he looked up at Gerel again, her amber eyes were smiling at him, warm, serene.

  The End

  About the Author

  Jennifer Cumiskey was born in Shanghai, China. She immigrated to the United States in 1986. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in English literature and an MBA in finance. After a career in corporate finance and management consulting, she now writes full-time as an indie author. She resides with her husband Paul in Vienna, Virginia. She can be reached at www.windchimepress.com

  The Face of the Seal is a work of fiction loosely based on historical occurrences. Names, characters, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.