“Who took it to the hospital? Why? Richard, did you take it?” she yelled back.
Richard paid no attention to the passengers behind him, intent on dodging bicycles, pedestrians, and, in the middle of the chaos, a horse-drawn carriage, stopped dead in the middle of Queen Street.
Fannie screamed and covered her eyes as Richard’s driving careened his passengers from side to side, barely avoiding the carriage. Amarintha stared at Thompson and leaned over to yell in his ear, “Who the hell are you, Thompson Denton?”
“Later, please,” he yelled back. “We need to survive this ride first.”
Richard kept moving and turned right onto Broad Street. The road was clogged with cars, so he darted off the pavement onto the sidewalk, dodging the palmetto trees that lined Broad Street like an entrance to a Palm Springs golf course. The large blue stone blocks rattled the little cart, each one tooth jarring. Soon Broad Street turned more residential, but Richard continued to steer through the streets and the yards as fast as he could, until the cart was stopped dead by a flowerbed of chest-high delphiniums.
An elderly woman holding shears and a basket straightened up behind the flowers. The old woman removed earplugs. Stunned, she said, “Is that you, Richard Anderson?” Before he responded, she looked outside her front yard and noticed dozens of pedestrians on the street.
“Mildred, get inside and turn on the TV. You might need to evacuate,” yelled Richard.
“Richard, you know I don’t own a TV. What in tarnation is going on? What in the world are all these people doing here? It’s not the Spring Tour of Homes, is it?”
Richard backed up, and pulled onto the road. Thompson looked behind him to see her still standing, holding her shears.
Handling the little cart like a man possessed, Richard continued veering onto sidewalks and, when necessary, driving through people’s yards. When they sailed by Colonial Lake, Thompson motioned to Richard to pull over into a driveway belonging to a half-built house.
The noise in the streets elicited Thompson’s memories of 9/11. Suddenly he was there again, standing in front of the Twin Towers. He had been ready to go into the building when the first plane hit. Frozen in the street, he had stood looking at paper drifting from the top of one of the World Trade buildings, only to realize, in horror, that the papers were human bodies, either propelled out of the building by the airplane’s crash, or people jumping, an unthinkable decision made to avoid being burned to death. After 9/11, his ears had vibrated in a pulsing pain that had not subsided for weeks. A memory of this pain reverberated even now, brought back by the noise, and Thompson realized that the fear he felt for Amarintha was affecting him physically in the same way that 9/11 had.
Ava and Fannie stood to the side, murmuring to each other. Amarintha walked over to them, and all three hugged. The group was too close to MUSC for Thompson’s comfort. The police would shut down all egress from the city, and law enforcement would eventually show up at the marina, just a few blocks away from the hospital.
“Amarintha,” urged Thompson. “We need to get to Richard’s boat. Let’s leave the cart here and get over to the marina. You sure your boat is fueled, Richard?” asked Thompson.
“Yes.”
Thompson turned to the three women. “I will explain everything, I promise, but right now, we need to get Amarintha and Richard out of Charleston. The two of them touched what was dug up in Amarintha’s yard.”
Fannie turned to Amarintha and said, “We probably can’t get out of town any other way than by boat right now. Let’s just go.”
“Where are we going?” asked Ava.
“A B&B in Georgetown,” Thompson replied.
Amarintha nodded and grabbed Ava’s hand. Ava tilted her head to the right. Thompson shut his eyes, and for the first time in many years, said a silent prayer, asking whoever was listening to watch over them.
Chapter 60
“Hey, hey, somebody reading me?” yelled Frank. He pivoted around the post rail trying to reach the handcuff keys and hoped the body camera hadn’t filmed Thompson latching him to the porch. “Hey!” he yelled again. The street in front of Richard’s house was almost deserted now, everyone apparently gawking at the fallen church steeple a block away, or going back inside to hang on every word of CNN.
“Detective Edson, do you read?” said one of FBI agents who had been in the car.
“I do, I do read. Can you get somebody to Richard Anderson’s house on Church Street? I’m handcuffed to a porch rail.”
Frank looked at his watch; realizing only fifteen minutes had passed since the explosions. He was lucky to get anyone’s attention. He debated about whether to tell the FBI just who had slapped the cuffs on him, and quickly decided not to. The fact that Thompson, a smaller and older man, had been able to pull him over to the railing and fasten the cuffs was humiliating. Added to that, the statement Thompson made about the Task Force having a leak, repeated in his ear like the
refrain to an unwanted song: There’s a leak, there’s a leak, there’s a leak.
“Did you say you’re handcuffed to a porch railing?” asked the agent.
“Yes, you heard right. Do you have someone you can spare? The handcuff keys are in my back pocket but I can’t reach them. Tell Agent Reynolds that the Sims family is not in custody. They have left the scene, and I don’t know where they are.”
He could take the FBI’s kidding, but it looked like he’d have to be rescued by someone at CPD. He’d never hear the end of the story about how the great Detective Frank Edson had to be unlocked from his own handcuffs.
The regular officers already treated Frank differently, because he was from Ohio, and because he had received a degree in Criminal Justice before joining the force. The patrol officers called him “Brainiac.” A new moniker would result from this fiasco.
Frank gritted his teeth and said, “Call somebody at the CPD main station. They should have a clerk or someone who can come down.”
“I’ll call over there as soon as I can, Detective, but as you can imagine, we’re pretty busy.”
Frank sat down on the steps, lowering the cuffs down the post with him. Mentally, he tallied the number of people who had known that the reliquary had been sent to MUSC, and possible motives for leaking its location.
The FBI: No way there was a leak there.
Charleston Police: The same.
The Vatican: Impossible.
CDC, Homeland, SLED, DHEC. Not them either.
Not Thompson.
That left Thompson’s boss Sergei something and the agent in Istanbul who had received the tip about Kate Strong’s kidnapping. Frank didn’t want to be xenophobic, but he had worked with everyone else on the Task Force, all from U.S. agencies, and didn’t think any of them could be the leak. In any event, every single agent on the team knew exactly where the reliquary had been taken. If the exact location of the reliquary had been leaked, why bomb the church?
A voice in his ear said, “We’ve called your headquarters. They will be sending somebody.”
“Wait. I have a question about the bombings. Does the FBI have surveillance tapes from the hospital yet?”
The agent replied, “We’ve just received the first footage. Two men entered MUSC, and one man went into the Huguenot Church’s sanctuary. We are getting ready to run the video against our facial recognition systems.”
“Where have you set up Incident Command? I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“We’re at the Francis Marion Hotel. Get here when you can.”
Frank had no doubt that Bunin, through Alternative Auctions, had criminal contacts in the area that could easily make and place a bomb within a few hours. Thompson had validated that Richard had the artifact at approximately 8:00 a.m., and before 9:00 a.m., the FBI had taken it to the special lab at MUSC. It was now 12:15. In three hours, the perpetrator had identified where the reliquar
y might be, made and planted the bombs.
Frank yelled into his body camera again, “You got an ETA on somebody to cut me loose?”
No one answered him, and at that moment, he heard a rumble. A police officer on a motorcycle rounded the corner and stopped in the front yard of Richard Anderson’s house. The officer parked the bike and took off his helmet. Frank groaned. “You?”
The rookie who had used the Taser on Jack Strong looked at him like a puppy dog. “I figure I’d do you a favor, so you’ll go easy on me in your report,” the young rookie said earnestly.
“Yeah, yeah, ok,” said Frank. “Just get me out of these things. I need to get to the Francis Marion Hotel.”
Chapter 61
Thompson checked his watch. Twenty minutes since the explosion. He envisioned scores of firefighters, police, and FBI agents working the scenes. The FBI would certainly be in charge and have already established an Incident Command, a central location for all activities related to the bombings. The police would not allow any more vehicles downtown, and the interstate would be a parking lot of cars, trucks, delivery vans, and airport shuttles, all holding their drivers hostage.
As the five of them approached the marina, Thompson noticed a large group of people standing on the restaurant porch, looking towards the explosions, but no one paid attention to the group as they walked down the pier. Richard reached his slip and untied the lines, motioning everyone to board. Thompson watched Amarintha hop into the boat, an effortless movement that telegraphed her improving condition more than her appearance. Ava and Fannie followed, with only Fannie needing a hand. The three women went immediately below deck.
Although Amarintha would not believe him, he was certain that handling the reliquary had something to do with the dramatic change in her health. What about the priest with vitiligo? He too seemed to have experienced something—a cure, a remission? Had these two modern people experienced the same type of miracle that children in 1685 had experienced?
Thompson had not been able to find any other articles about Monsignor Ogier and his profile on the Vatican Museum’s website was brief. The man was a trained art restorer, and was American. He had been in Rome for almost thirty years. Why would he want Amarintha? The reliquary, yes, he got that, but Amarintha?
He was certain that the monsignor knew more about the missing reliquaries than he had shared. Why had someone leaked the location of the reliquary? For the diamond? The value of the stone was enough to tempt the most honest cop. The motivation might be as simple as money. The only reason Bunin was the suspect was because of the FIG computer prediction and Zora Vulkov’s voice on the recording that reported an alleged kidnapping of Kate Strong. What if all of them
had the motive for the theft of the artifact completely, utterly wrong?
Richard eased the boat out of its berth and brought it around to navigate Charleston Harbor towards the Cooper River, where he would turn northeast to Georgetown. The boat was about thirty feet long; a comfortable cabin cruiser with what Thompson presumed was a bedroom, small galley, and head below. He did not know whether to be relieved or worried that all he could see on the Ashley River was a lone sailboat. Thompson turned and looked towards Charleston, watching the two plumes of smoke, their tops billowing into one. The day was warm for April—80 degrees, so no one was wearing coats, but the weather could change quickly this time of year, and Thompson thought he might rue his decision to get Amarintha and her family out of town with nothing other than the clothes on their backs.
What about Frank? As soon as he got loose from the cuffs, he’d name Thompson as the culprit. Abruptly, he said to Richard, “Give me your cell phone.” He stuck his head below deck, repeated the request and then began to remove the batteries from Richard’s phone.
“Why? Are we being tracked?” Ava was looking up at Thompson, her question sincere, and with the sight of her face, he felt another jolt, a sense that his life had tilted.
He had suppressed his feelings for Amarintha because of his work and her illness. No, his burgeoning affection for a grown woman had not been the only motivation for the spontaneous, headlong flight from Richard’s house. It had been the sight of Ava standing in the grass that had driven him into action.
The girl looked just like his mother. What were the chances that a teenage girl living in Charleston, South Carolina was the doppelganger of a sixty-five-year-old woman living in Lyon, France? That Ava Sims could be the result of Thompson’s long ago ejaculation into a cup for gas money, while he had slouched in a bathroom, made him want to throw up.
Looking away from Ava, he said, “Yes or at least I might be.”
Amarintha handed him three phones. “You need to tell me what’s going on” She sat down on one of the benches that hugged both sides of the boat.
“I know. I’m sorry for dragging all of you into a situation you didn’t have a chance to understand. Give me a minute.” Thompson went below and yelled up, “Richard, you want a beer?”
“Yep, I do.” Smoke was still rising above the city. The Battery, the most southern part of the Charleston peninsula, was now full of people, some of whom were waving at the boat.
The waves were choppy, and Thompson felt salt spray on his face. “Don’t go over there, Richard.”
“I won’t. I guess they have the roads north blocked, and folks are desperate to get off this piece of land. This is like 9/11. I never thought I’d see Charleston like this. Who do you suppose did it?”
Fannie and Ava came up on deck and sat beside Amarintha. The women stared at the Battery, and its frightened mass of people. Fannie said, “I’ve heard a lot about you, Thompson Denton, but I’m damned if I believe you’re an interior
decorator.”
At this, Thompson laughed until tears came from his eyes. He pulled at the label on his beer bottle and sat opposite the women. “First of all, Mrs. Sims, you are right. I am not an interior designer. I’m an agent with Interpol.” He had expected some sort of reaction, but not the one he got.
Amarintha snorted. “Well, thank God. I kept thinking that you couldn’t be a designer, but figured the cancer and chemo made the reasonable seem ridiculous. An agent from Interpol. That certainly never came up on my list of your potential professions.”
Thompson shook his head. “What did you think I was?”
She shrugged. “Well, the story you told me about writing a book was obviously not true. You never wrote anything down. So then I thought you might be a scout looking to do a real estate show about Charleston.” She looked down. “I hoped
whatever the reason you were here might keep you around for a while.”
Fannie looked hard at Thompson, but said nothing.
Amarintha gazed out at the water. “We have a while before we get to Georgetown. Start talking.” She went below, grabbed a beer from the refrigerator, and gave Ava and Fannie bottles of water.
Ava rolled her eyes. “Really, Mama. I could use a beer too.”
Thompson wiped his mouth and said, “First, if Detective Edson reports that I handcuffed him, Charleston’s finest may want to arrest me. Richard can stop in Mt. Pleasant and I’ll get off the boat. You all can go on to Georgetown. He was silent for a moment.
“I want to know why the detective wanted to take me in first. You’re not getting off this boat until you explain that,” said Amarintha. Ava and Fannie nodded their agreement.
Where to begin, he thought, and how much to tell them? “What you found is a reliquary, one missing from France. No one knew that until the Vatican brought the contents of a convent church’s altar to Rome. When the researchers checked the Vatican’s records, they discovered that one item was missing from the altar, your reliquary. Three Vatican researchers became ill from handling the other contents of the altar. That’s when the Vatican notified Interpol that an item was missing and that it might be contaminated. I happened to be in Charleston working
a case focused on a professor at the College named Adam Chalk.”
“That’s the one that was murdered on the Cooper River Bridge!” Fannie put her hand to her mouth, all eyes.
“Right. Kate Strong worked for him, and she went missing the same day.”
Ava gave a gasp, her eyes as big as Fannie’s. “Is that why she left town?”
Thompson took a deep breath. “The truth is she was likely kidnapped.” He put his hand up as he saw Amarintha open her mouth. “Yes, Jack knows. There is a lead on her whereabouts, and he’s in contact with the FBI.”
Amarintha studied his face. “How does this tie into my reliquary?”
“Your reliquary is very valuable. The FBI believes that Kate Strong’s kidnapper, a Russian named Anton Bunin, was pressuring her to find it, and perhaps other relics.”
He looked over at the Battery again. “What exactly did the reliquary have in it, and did you touch the contents?”
Amarintha drank the rest of her beer in gulping swallows. “Seeds. I think they were some type of seeds. Yes, I touched them.”
He certainly had not expected this. Based on his knowledge of what typically was in reliquaries, he was expecting cloth, pieces of wood, or bones. Seeds? That was odd.
“What are the researchers sick with? I assume that is what I need to be tested for,” said Amarintha.
“The researchers are sick with anthrax, a strain no one has come across in modern times.” Thompson watched Amarintha.
He thought she would protest and say it was impossible. Instead, she said, “Some biologists have been afraid that one day archeologists would find an unknown microbe in an object or in a body that had been buried, or mummified.”
Thompson looked at her, astonished. This woman continued to surprise him. “So, it isn’t out of the question that bacteria could live that long?”
She shrugged, “Anthrax can form spores. Live anthrax still hides along the Old West’s cattle trails, so we know it can live in the ground for at least a hundred years. I’m guessing that when the researchers were found to have an unknown variant that the CDC was called?”
The Huguenot Thief Page 23