by Cal Moriarty
‘Cute,’ said Al.
‘He is, isn’t he? It was my last chance. I had to get back in that house. I knew damn well he’d lied to the lawyers, the accountants, everyone including me and his own kids. Arnold Lomax would never leave himself penniless. Not unless the real Arnold’s been abducted and replaced with an incredibly dumb alien.’
‘I think he’s an astute businessman, you’re right, ma’am,’ said Marty.
‘I’d been watching them a few months. Crazy time. But I’d learnt their patterns. Hers, particularly, as he was out at the office most of the time anyhow. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, Detectives.’
But she would anyway.
‘Even Bobbi Lomax, but that girl was a space cadet. We had an alarm system, a good one, she never put that alarm on once. Too many digits to remember, I guess, all three of them: 911.’
Marty smiled.
‘So you went back into the house?’
She nodded. ‘Morally, that was at least half my house. I don’t care what fudge Arnold made of those land records, it was. I was expecting the safe to be full again, that he’d have put back all the papers he’d been hiding from me and whoever else.’
‘And it wasn’t?’
‘No, it was still empty, except for this time at the side, leaning up against the wall so you couldn’t see it unless you cranked the safe door completely open, was a slim black notebook, a small one.’
‘Really?’ said Marty.
‘I thought I might have missed it before. But I couldn’t have: I’d run my hand around the walls of the safe in case it had any hidden compartments. Wishful thinking. I didn’t even want to open it, at first. Who knows what he’d written in it. It’s a bit like reading someone’s diary.’
‘Never know what you’ll find,’ said Al
It was true: Marty had read Liss’s diary, frantically searching for clues. There weren’t any. Not that turned into anything real, anyhow. He wanted clues he could follow like crumbs leading away from the witch’s cottage and out of the forest. Or was it the other way around? He couldn’t remember.
‘What did it say, Linda, this notebook?’ said Al, pencil ready.
‘It was a whole bunch of numbers, a kind of ledger, and what looked like dates, payments in and out, that kind of thing. And in the final column was Arnold’s signature on each line and next to it a signature I couldn’t read.’
‘Could it have been Peter Gudsen’s signature?’
‘No. I saw Peter’s signature on a lot of things. His was very legible. You could read the name easily. Isn’t that what the banks say, for security, write legibly so it’s less easy to forge?’
‘They do indeed. I do that myself,’ said Al.
‘Was your lawyer able to use any of the information in the ledger, Linda?’ said Marty.
‘No, I called him. He also asked me where I got the ledger and when I didn’t answer him, he guessed I hadn’t just come by it. Said we wouldn’t get another go-round based on it unless I was prepared to tell him where I had got it. He’d have to tell the divorce judge, something about ‘full discovery’. The case had already settled, a few months ago, not that I got anything, this was just all a couple of weeks back.’
‘A couple of weeks? Really? Do you still have it, this ledger?’
‘No, I don’t,’ she shook her head. ‘When I found out from Peter’s dad that he’d quit working with Arnold and that there might be some financial fall-out I went to visit with Peter at his new office. I gave him the ledger. I knew that whatever had gone on over there hadn’t been his doing.’ She closed her eyes, moved the Kleenex back up to her face. ‘May the Prophet protect that poor boy’s soul.’
‘You gave the ledger to Peter Gudsen?’ said Al.
‘Yes.’
‘Did he know what it was?’ said Marty.
‘He was shocked when he looked through it. He said it was just what he’d been looking for.’
‘Did he say why?’ said Marty.
‘No, he didn’t. He was always very discreet. I was just happy that I could be of some help to him. Even if it just helped him disassociate himself from whatever catastrophe Arnold had cooked up around them.’
‘The keys, for the safe, did they have a ribbon around them, tying them together?’
Linda Lomax looked at Marty, astonished. ‘Yes, a red one, how did you know that?’
‘A red one.’ Marty looked at Al.
Al nodded, understanding.
‘Did you give those keys to Mr Gudsen?’ said Marty.
She hesitated a moment before answering.
‘Yes. Yes, I gave the keys to him. And the ledger.’
‘Where did you get the red ribbon, ma’am?’
‘The ribbon?’ She shrugged. ‘Probably an old roll left over from Christmas, why?’
‘Where is it now, this roll?’
‘Probably back at the house. My house.’
‘We’ll check. But you didn’t keep a copy of the ledger? Please, ma’am: even if it was just a page, it’s very important.’
‘No. I honestly didn’t.’
‘Do you think you could recognize the signature, if you saw it again?’
‘I don’t know, possibly.’
‘Can you remember any of the letters in the signature? Even what you think one might have been, if you can’t say for sure?’
‘I don’t know. It was tiny.’
‘But it was written a lot of times on the pages?’
‘Yes, fifteen or twenty times, at least. Over a few of the pages. The same one.’
‘And the dates, can you remember any of the dates?’
‘All over the past year.’
‘And the sums?’
‘I can’t remember the particulars, but I do remember the last line said 666. That’s why I remembered it.’
‘666?’
‘Six hundred and sixty-six thousand. Owing.’
‘Arnold owed that much, on one account?’
‘No, whoever signed that owed Arnold the money.’
‘Owed Arnold? Really?’ said Marty.
Linda nodded.
‘That’s a chunk of change,’ said Al.
‘Tell me about it. I would have liked to get my share of that.’
‘Did you ask Arnold about any of this?’
‘No. He called asking me where it was, all irate. Asking how I’d gotten into the safe. Wouldn’t he like to know. I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘That there were two copies of it. And I should get a life. Then he slammed the phone down.’
‘When was that?’
‘The afternoon I took it.’
‘And he hasn’t mentioned it since?’
‘No. We’re not in contact.’
‘Then there probably are two copies of it. Otherwise, if it’s important to prove someone owes you almost three-quarters of a mil, important enough to keep in a safe, you’d kind of need it. Shame we don’t know where either of them is.’
‘Big shame,’ said Al.
‘I saw Peter, at the Mission offices, last week. After I’d given him that ledger.’
‘Just last week?’ said Marty. He hadn’t been much looking forward to his planned meeting with the Faith, but now he couldn’t wait.
18
December 22nd 1982
Rooks Books
Outside the months of snow had swamped everything. Inside, though, it was warm and cosy. The books and the Rooks liked it that way. Clark had ensured he went there every week, without fail. Different times, but usually Thursdays or Fridays. Mostly with coins, a good balance of buying and selling. But on one occasion there’d been a book. Henry James, signed first edition, inscribed to his dear friend Edith Wharton. London, 1916. James, his hand weakened, lay dying. Clark, its creator, had thought it was a bit much, overdone, too much of a confection, but Rod had loved it and paid way over the odds. He had a collector friend in London was a big Jamesian and was s
ure he could flip it fast for a tidy profit.
On his side of the store, Ron, with a tray of Venetian gold ducats in front of him, was peering down his pince-nez, giving descriptions of each one into the handset he hugged tight between shoulder and ear. Rod was staring, stock still, at the Bible in his hands. ‘Absolutely unbelievable. Where did you get this, Clark?’ It was the first time he had spoken for a good few minutes.
‘A collector.’
‘Where did he get it?’
‘Somewhere on the road. Nevada someplace, I’m sure he said. He sold vacuum cleaners, door-to-door. Traveled all over. To relieve the monotony of the never-ending loops, he took up antiquing, book collecting. He picked this up in a little antique store. Over thirty years ago, he thought. And now he’s retired, the wife wants them to downsize, move nearer their pregnant daughter. He gave me a lot of interesting stuff. At a deal.’
‘He didn’t realize it might be connected to Robert Bright, maybe even his Bible? The Robert Bright?’
‘Not a clue. The family’s not Faith. I won’t tell you how much I got it for, but let me tell you it was a steal. Probably what he would have paid for it thirty years ago.’
‘What’s his name, the collector?’
‘Come on Rod, I can’t tell you that. You know the collectors like to fly under the radar. Don’t want the Federal Government stiffing them for thousands in taxes on their investments.’
Clark knew that mention of the Federal Government would shut that line of enquiry down immediately. The folks of Canyon County were not natural friends of the Federal Government, having been chased into the canyon by them over two hundred years prior on account of their creative, but unlawful, money-making schemes, which often involved selling the same tract of land to thousands of investors, or selling barren land as fertile.
‘May I take a closer look?’
‘Sure. Take a good long look. I’m here soliciting opinion, Rod: you know how much I value yours. I hope it could be genuine, but history’s a bitch.’
‘It sure is.’
‘I thought it might have been an In Memoriam-type thing, written in after the family had passed, by one of the kids or grandkids.’
‘That depends what family branch it ended up in and when. It’s likely none of the descendants would have wanted to broadcast their womenfolks’ involvement in polygamy.’
It was always better not to be too confident, not to go all guns blazing into hard sell. It was always better to take your foot off the gas, back away a little, give them enough space, enough time and silence to allow the want side of their brain to take over the reason side, and when it did they would have convinced themselves it was the real deal. That way, if reason defeated their want, you’d been the first person to express doubts. It was a win-win situation for you, always.
‘So you think the writing was contemporaneous?’
‘That would be my guess, Clark. Written at a time when no one had anything to lose by writing about their place in a practice the Faith would stamp out a couple of decades later.’
‘So, before polygamy was outlawed?’
‘I think so. Let’s get a better look.’
Rod took out a cushioned stand and a set of rosary-like beads minus the crucifix. Very gently he lifted the Bible and placed it on the stand, open on the front inside cover. Then he draped the beads over it to hold the page open as gently as possible without too much weight, to avoid flattening the page in the wrong place and weakening it, breaking the book’s spine or leaving its pages vulnerable to tearing. Rod took up his magnifying glass. And bent double towards the Bible.
Clark could barely look.
He moved over to the coins. Ron was still on the phone, negotiating a price back and forth with the buyer. They settled on a thousand plus tax. They were getting a rare couple of medieval ducats for that: a pretty good deal. If they were genuine.
Clark smiled at Ron. Ron beamed back at him and turned the tray around so Clark could get a better look. Nice examples. Mostly gold, beaten and battered into wafer-thin coins from a time before it was all done by cast and machines. Even though it was five hundred-plus years ago, the Venetian Mint’s records were themselves a treasure trove for collectors and scholars, even revealing the names of the men who had beaten these coins into shape from molten gold: Piero Luigi and Dante San Antonio. Their names preserved forever in the Mint’s ledgers.
As Ron read out the Rooks’ address to send the check to, Clark moved back over to Rod, who was making some notes on a small jotter. Notes were good. That meant possibility, not instant rejection. Rod looked up over his pince-nez: ‘It’s wonderful, Clark.’ He seemed reluctant to close it up and hand it back. That was another good sign. ‘From what I can tell, Clark, these dates are right. Did you check them also?’
‘Of course.’
‘Pencil’s impossible to date.’
‘Of course.’
‘So that doesn’t help.’
‘Although I hear the FBI have been trialing some carbon and lead tests.’
‘Sooner the better.’
Clark hoped the Bureau would take a good couple of decades to perfect that, as his creations were beginning to rely on it.
‘I thought the two different types of handwriting were interesting,’ said Rod.
‘Well, if it belonged to one of the wives, it might have been one of the kids writing in it? Maybe after the mother passed.’
‘Traditionally, it’d be the wives who wrote in it, and no one else. Educated wives or, at least, ones schooled in their letters, as it would have been then.’
‘So you’re saying this might be the handwriting of two of the Prophet’s wives. Two?’ Clark hoped he sounded surprised, but he wasn’t. He had been both of those child-wives. Rebecca and Ellen. Three nights ago. He had written in charcoal pencil because he knew it was impossible to date and because it was likely that, on the road, the Prophet and his band of Merry Women would have had access to charcoal pencils more readily than ink.
‘If this is all genuine – and not, as you so rightly said, perhaps an In Memoriam added later – then this is a very interesting find, Clark. An important find. Controversial. But important all the same. The three wives and no record of any divorces means these were bigamous, of course. But I think you’d find a buyer, no problem. You’ll have to get provenance on it.’
‘Naturally.’ Clark had already planned for that and it involved Edie and the baby, representing a solid Faith family unit, and a long trip to a small suburb of Reno, probably with a diversion en route for the slots. ‘How much do you think it might be worth?’
‘I’d pay four thousand,’ Rod said, smiling. He was slowly removing the beads and turning the cover page back over the Bible, but when he picked it up Clark recognized an expert’s instinct, a refined curiosity crossing Rod’s face.
‘That’s funny.’
‘What?’
‘There’s some kind of bump here.’
‘It’s old, Rod, it’s bound to have a few bumps,’ said Clark.
‘No, underneath the cover.’
‘Not going to affect the value, is it?’
‘Feels like there’s something in here.’
Rod held the book closer, staring at it, prodding at it with the eraser end of his pencil.
‘Here.’
‘Careful, Rod, it’s old, don’t rip the pages none.’
‘There’s something in here. Feel.’
He handed it to Clark.
‘Oh, yeah, I see what you mean.’
‘Do you want me to find out what it is?’ said Rod.
‘I don’t know if we should.’
‘Now, don’t worry, Clark. I’ll be gentle.’
Ron was by Rod’s side now, peering down at him as he used the tip of a scalpel to prise open the book’s spine and moved the knife slowly from side to side under the cover.
‘What’s all this?’
‘Don’t interrupt him, Ron. I don’t want a chunk out of my Bible.’
‘What is it?’ said Ron.
‘That’s what we’re trying to find out,’ said Rod as both the other men stared down nervously at him. ‘OK, I’ve tweaked a little opening. There’s definitely something in here, looks like a piece of old paper.’
‘Maybe it’s an old treasure map. Oh, I love treasure,’ said Ron.
‘Don’t you have enough to keep you going?’ said Clark, nodding his head in the direction of the rows of coin trays.
‘You can never have too much treasure, Clark.’
‘Do you want me to open it right up?’
‘Rod, are you sure you should?’ Ron asked.
‘Can’t you see what the piece of paper is?’ said Clark.
‘No.’
‘We think this Bible might have belonged to one of the Prophet’s wives, Ron.’
‘Really? Which one?’
‘Rebecca,’ said Clark.
Ron looked suitably astonished. ‘Rebecca. His amanuensis?’
‘That’s the one,’ said Rod, nose to the task. ‘His second wife. I’m in. See, told you it’d be OK.’ He picked up a set of tweezers, lifted up the Bible’s leather covering and teased out the piece of paper from within.
‘Careful, Rod, careful,’ said Clark as he watched.
Moments later, almost with a flourish, Rod was holding up a piece of parchment with strange symbols all across it.
‘Maybe it is an old treasure map, in some strange language,’ said Clark.
‘That’s no strange language.’
‘It isn’t?’
‘No, Clark, don’t you recognize it?’
‘It looks kind of familiar.’
‘That’s the language the Spirit spoke to the Prophet in, and the only way the Spirit would let Rebecca transcribe his words.’
Clark stared at the paper. ‘It looks like a bunch of symbols: hieroglyphics. I remember it from Sunday School, now. It’s been a while.’
‘The Voice of the Spirit has many similar characteristics, but it is its own language. We are not meant to fully understand it. Just feel its power,’ said Ron, gazing at the manuscript.