Brian Sadler Archaeological Mysteries BoxSet

by Bill Thompson

  By now he was shouting. He threw his glass at the fireplace as hard as he could. The Waterford crystal martini glass shattered into a thousand pieces as Brian fell back into the chair, sobbing and holding his head in his hands. Did John Spedino do all this? That’s impossible. How could he have enough power to pull something this big off? And why? What’s really behind all this?

  Through the haze of vodka a thought crept into Brian’s mind. He sat up abruptly. Nicole. Was Nicole going to be harmed too?

  Brian picked up his phone, dialed a number and reached the FBI’s Manhattan office. When Agent Underwood answered Brian told him about Arthur Borland’s death and Brian’s suspicion that it wasn’t from natural causes. His words slurred and he paused occasionally, attempting to arrange his thoughts. The agent finally stopped him.

  “Mr. Sadler, are you all right? You don’t sound like yourself.”

  “Oh, absolutely. I’m just terrific. I’m sitting here on top of the world having a martini. Everything’s just wonderful and I have yet another funeral to go to this week.” Brian stopped. He could talk no longer. He began to cry, heaving chest-racking sobs.

  The agent had known it would all hit Brian Sadler eventually. No one could be a rock forever. He waited, saying nothing, until Brian composed himself.

  “I’m afraid for Nicole. I think John Spedino may be behind this after all. Whoever’s doing this has hurt me and killed Arthur. Nicole’s the only one left of the three of us who put Johnny Speed in prison for life.” He paused again. “That’s a laugh, isn’t it, Agent Underwood? You put a guy in prison for life, then suddenly he’s gone! And no one gives a rat’s ass until he’s out killing people. Then it suddenly becomes important. At least to me. You know what I mean, Agent Underwood?” Brian shouted into the phone. “You get it? I think he’s going to kill Nicole next. What the hell are you all going to do about that?”

  Brian hung up.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The ringing of Brian’s phone jolted him awake. In a fog, he struggled to remember why he was asleep in his living room chair, fully dressed, with shattered glass all over the hearth. He glanced at the phone; it was 5:35 am and Nicole was doing her daily check-in. He slid the arrow to answer the call.

  “Well, it took you a while to answer. I almost gave up on you,” she said, concern in her voice. “Are you OK, Brian?”

  “Oh shit,” he mumbled. “Oh shit. I feel terrible.”

  “What’s the matter? Are you OK? I got a call from the FBI…”

  “Hell, that’s my fault. I got a little drunk…a lot drunk, actually…and I called Underwood. I was feeling sorry for myself last night. I’m still in my clothes, asleep in the chair in the living room. And my head feels like someone’s jack-hammering inside it. Give me a minute, Nicole. I’ll be right back.”

  He stood unsteadily and walked to the bathroom to find a couple of aspirins. He took them with a large glass of water and immediately felt as though he were going to throw up. He forced himself to stop thinking about it and choked down the warm acid rising in the back of his throat. He returned to the living room and picked up the phone. “You still there?”

  “I’m here. Brian, I talked to Agent Underwood after today’s trial wrapped up. He had left an urgent message to call him and I had no idea if you were in trouble or what was up. I’m fine, Brian. I appreciate your worrying about me but I don’t think John Spedino has the wherewithal to do all that’s been done. I think there’s something else going on here, something that obviously involves you and Arthur but I don’t see any connection with me.”

  She told Brian to get in bed and rest for a few hours before tackling work. “I’ll call you sometime after noon your time when your head clears and we can talk this through. I know right now probably isn’t a good time for you to carry on a conversation.” She was right. His temples throbbed.

  “I need to go, Nicole. Now.”

  After exchanging I-love-you’s they hung up, allowing Brian roughly ten seconds to make it to the commode. Thankfully he arrived in time. Afterwards he felt a little better. Naked under the bedcovers with a wet washcloth on his forehead, Brian slept fitfully for three hours trying to recover and awoke vowing he would never drink again. Ever.

  Around noon Brian took a taxi to the office. He’d showered and shaved and felt much better but didn’t want to tackle the subway and bounce along the tracks to Green Park Station. He had forced himself to eat some toast and drink a little club soda. He was maybe seventy percent, he told himself optimistically.

  He played back the last couple of days. He and Carissa had gone to the police station the morning after Arthur’s death. She was allowed to identify the body via a video hookup with the morgue. Brian was grateful – that was far better than her having to see him in person. The coroner had requested an autopsy and she consented, hoping to learn what had actually happened to her husband.

  Every train car in London is monitored by at least one video camera. Depending on where that camera is positioned they can be more or less helpful for viewing activities of riders. The Metropolitan Police had requested footage from the car Arthur Borland had taken. The officer promised to view it as quickly as possible and report back.

  Carissa Borland signed a consent document allowing Brian to be notified about all aspects of the investigation of Arthur’s death. She told Brian and the officer it would be easier on her to get information through her good friend than from the police.

  Carissa told Brian she would call the funeral director and have Arthur picked up once the police released his body. There was little family and she planned a graveside service in a few days. “I hope you’ll come,” she told him. “Arthur thought the world of you.” Brian assured her he would be there.

  Borland’s briefcase had not been recovered. The policeman said it was not with him when his body was removed from the train, but that Carissa Borland shouldn’t read too much into that. People take things on trains, especially when a person appears to be sound asleep. Brian didn’t know what someone would gain from taking Arthur’s case with nothing but a thick sheaf of notes about the Knights Templars. The thief probably thought he might score big – a laptop or iPad, something to fence for drug money. Surely that was it. No one would steal his briefcase just for the notes he’d made.

  That afternoon in one phone call Brian received both the autopsy results and the information gleaned from the camera in the train car. The autopsy was startling. In Arthur’s system at the time of death were two drugs – sodium pentothal and potassium chloride. They had apparently been injected through his clothing into his upper left arm – the coroner found tiny needle holes puncturing his jacket and shirt and an entry in the arm itself.

  These two drugs were familiar to the coroner and were frequently used together. Not in the UK, where capital punishment has been illegal for years. But in half of the states in the USA these two drugs are used to execute criminals. The policeman gave Brian the coroner’s opinion. After an injection of these drugs he would have been unconscious in five seconds and dead in perhaps twenty minutes. There would have been no spasms, no outward sign of distress. He would have appeared to be asleep.

  The officer turned to the next report, the video footage from the train car. At first it didn’t appear helpful. The camera was mounted in the front of the train and Arthur had sat on the first row. Therefore Arthur himself was not in the recording – the camera’s angle didn’t include his seat but it did show the one next to him. That seat was empty at first but then an older man in a trenchcoat had taken the seat next to Arthur’s for perhaps two minutes. From the camera’s angle the police could see almost straight down onto the man’s balding pate. But they had one important four-second piece of footage that showed the man turn toward Arthur and, using his hand, possibly graze Arthur’s arm. It was impossible to tell for sure – Arthur’s arm itself wasn’t in the picture – but the policeman surmised from the seat placement and the camera angle that the man could have bumped Arthur’s
arm in the place where the injection had occurred.

  Five seconds later the man left his seat and ten seconds after that he exited the train. The police had very little – they knew the station at which the man left the train and they had a very vague description of a balding older probably Caucasian man with gray hair wearing a trenchcoat. There was no frontal shot from the camera so they had no idea what he looked like.

  Brian asked, “Are you treating this as a homicide?”

  “We are, Mr. Sadler. I wish I could be optimistic about the chances of successfully finding this man who sat next to your friend, but we have very little to go on. I promise to give it my best shot and keep you informed.” He gave Brian his phone number and email address for future contact.

  Brian then gave the officer a brief background of the bombing in New York and Arthur’s connection to the vanished mobster John Spedino. He also provided the number of Special Agent Underwood in the Manhattan office of the FBI. If there were a connection between the events in New York and Arthur’s death these two men needed to communicate.

  At four pm Nicole called. Brian gave her the news that Arthur Borland’s death was a homicide. Carissa wasn’t strong, he said, and he was going to try to convince her to move into central London for a week or so in order that he could be of more help to her.

  “I feel so sorry for her, Nicole. She has nobody but some neighbors. Her mother lives in South Africa and is very old and Arthur’s mother is in a dementia facility north of London. She hasn’t been lucid in months. I want to help Carissa but I have to work too. It would be so much easier if I could have her staying nearby. I’m going to offer the second bedroom in the flat. If she refuses I’m going to try to put her up in a hotel near here. That’s the least I can do for old friends.”

  Nicole changed the subject. “Agent Underwood called me again and reiterated your concerns for my safety. I wish you’d talked to me first, Brian. I’m a big girl; I don’t need you arranging a baby-sitting service for me.”

  “I know it’s no excuse but I told him all that when I was drunk. I agree I should have called you but I knew you wouldn’t do the security if I asked you. Are you going to do it?”

  “No. I don’t want to live like that, watching over my shoulder every second. I agree with you John Spedino might have had something to do with the bombing and Arthur’s death. But remember something. In fact, I’m sure you remember it every single day. I do. John Spedino got his revenge on me already. He raped me, Brian. He violated me like the animal he is. His score with me is even already.” She began to cry.

  “I don’t think about it, Nicole. I know how traumatic that was and I love you more than I ever have. You were a victim. And you’re right – he was an animal. That doesn’t mean he thinks the score’s settled. But it’s your decision. I can’t do it for you.”

  After his conversation with Nicole, Brian called Carissa Borland. To his surprise, she immediately accepted his offer to use the second bedroom at the flat in Cadogan Square.

  “I won’t be a bother,” she told him, “and I think I need to be in the city to deal with everything right now. A hotel would be expensive for me but your flat would be a welcome change to this old house where Arthur and I have lived for decades.” Her voice quivered. “It’s really hard without him, you know.”

  “I know the loss I feel,” Brian replied. “I can’t comprehend the depth of yours.”

  Brian sent a car to pick up Carissa late that afternoon. He arrived at the flat before she did, cleaned things up from his episode last evening and presented her a key when she arrived. By seven pm she had settled in so they popped around the corner to a quiet pub for a pint and a sandwich. So much for Brian’s vow to stop drinking.

  Earlier Brian had told Carissa about the lunch with Arthur and the manuscripts he was working on. Now he brought up a subject he’d been waiting for the right time to broach with Carissa. “Would you mind after things settle down if I come out to your house and look through Arthur’s papers? I’m wondering if he might have photocopies or other notes. This Knights Templars thing somehow is involved with the crimes that have been committed.”

  She was more than happy to have Brian come out. “Arthur was a bit of a packrat, Brian, as you may know. When he’s on a mission, like he has been lately with this Knights Templars thing, he has his laptop, books, papers, you-name-it, all over the place. I can’t even dust in his study, it’s so cluttered! I guess…” her voice broke, “I guess I can clean it up now, can’t I?”

  “Leave everything until I come, please. Let me go through things. I need to know what he’d been researching – it might help figure out the reason for his death.”

  They agreed Brian would come to the house soon, after the funeral was over and things calmed down a bit.

  -----

  “There was nothing in the briefcase other than his notes, sir. Maybe fifty pages of scribbling about this and that.”

  “Any reference to manuscripts?”

  “Everywhere. Apparently he was working on something involving copies of old manuscripts. You want to see the notes? I can scan and email them to you.”

  Copies of old manuscripts? There are copies? “Yes. Do that but do this too. Get in his house and find those copies. I didn’t know copies existed so I need you to get them. This is critical. Don’t let anyone know you were there.”

  “His wife lives in the house – right? What about her?”

  “What about her? Find the copies of those books. Do I need to tell you how to do this job or can you handle it by yourself?”

  “Yes, I can handle it, sir. Just wanted to be sure how big a priority finding the copies is. Dirty work costs more – but you already know that. It’ll be done. Tonight.”

  -----

  At three am the ringing of the cellphone on his nightstand awoke Brian. He listened, speechless, responded briefly and hung up. He walked down the hallway and knocked softly on the second bedroom door.

  “Carissa, it’s Brian.”

  She was a light sleeper, especially in a strange place. “Come in,” she immediately responded.

  She saw the grim look on his face and cringed. No news in the middle of the night was ever good.

  “I just got a call. I’m so sorry, Carissa. I’m so sorry to have to tell you this but your house is on fire. Totally engulfed in flames. It’s a total loss, the policeman said.”

  “Oh Brian. What’s going on?” She cried quietly.

  “I wish I knew. Dear God, I wish I knew.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  As police and arson investigators combed through the ruins that had been Arthur and Carissa Borland’s house outside London, Giovanni Moretti sat at his office desk in his apartment in Rome. It was a beautiful morning and he had his French doors open wide. The bustling noises of the street below were somehow soothing. He had come so far – on top of the world, down again and now back up. At this point nothing could go wrong and he was going to make sure it stayed that way.

  On his desk lay a cheap cellphone he had bought yesterday on the street. It was a throwaway – the kind people use who can’t afford a cell plan. The phone rang and Moretti picked it up – only one person had the number so he skipped straight to business. “What did you find?”

  “Nothing. We tossed the entire house, top to bottom. We spent a lot of time in his study and looked for anything that might involve manuscripts. Especially we looked for copies of books, like you requested. I didn’t see a laptop, although there was a computer desk and some wires. It looks like he used his study for research – there were open books all over the place – pretty messy. But no copies of manuscripts. Oh by the way, his wife wasn’t there so that wasn’t an issue. So we torched the house. They’ll never know we were there.”

  Moretti digested that information. “Before you set the fire you made sure there was no evidence that could tie this to you or me. Is that correct?”

  “Are you kidding?” the man said haughtily. “This ain’t my first
job, mister.” He didn’t know who his employer was and frankly could care less. After the job he was to call this number and report. Then he would receive fifty thousand Euros in his Swiss account. Same as the last time. Regardless, nobody questioned his abilities. He was good at this and that made him angry. “You do your job, buddy, whatever it is, and I’ll do mine. Capisce?”

  Moretti hung up, made a few keystrokes on his computer and transferred the money to the arsonist’s account. He hadn’t expected the man to find anything and frankly could care less about the manuscript. That was Cardinal Conti’s baby, not his. He just wanted Borland’s house searched with no loose ends. He had hoped Borland’s wife would be out of the picture too, just for the sake of wrapping everything up neatly. That last part hadn’t happened but he felt satisfaction anyway. An eye for an eye. Vindication. Job complete.

  After the call Giovanni Moretti concentrated on the next project. He furiously jotted notes on a legal pad, finalizing a plan for vendetta number three. The first two, he mused, had gone exceedingly well. He had wanted Brian Sadler dead but the antiquities dealer was too high profile for that. One of Sadler’s best friends was President of the United States. Even an accident would have been given the highest possible scrutiny.

  No, Moretti mused, I handled that correctly. Conti wanted the book, the book was in Brian Sadler’s beloved gallery, and now both it and his associate Collette Conning were gone. The investigation appeared to be geared completely toward the theft of the manuscript, and why not? Blowing up a Fifth Avenue store was a big deal, but that just added an element of mystery to everything. No one had a clue that it was in retribution for what Brian Sadler had done to him. Yes, that one had gone well.

  So did Arthur Borland’s unfortunate demise. Moretti had checked the Internet for any information that might indicate Borland had been murdered – there was nothing. Being an Earl and a member of the House of Lords, his obituary understandably had been prominently featured. His flamboyant father Captain Jack Borland was also mentioned, but from what Moretti read in the newspapers the Earl’s death was presumed from natural causes.