Timothy Simmons was on a hunting trip in Maine. Alone.
Dr. Rodriguez was driving to Los Angeles to bid on a rare collection of pottery at an estate sale. As for the warning message from Señor Herrera, Rodriguez claimed the letter never arrived.
Any one of them could have flown to Mexico, slipping in and out of the country for a day or two. As for tracing them, it was child’s play to obtain an appropriate birth certificate and use that name to get a tourist card.
Each man denied involvement. Then came the real surprise. What, after all, could be proved against that unseen whisperer?
Stolen goods?
Stolen from whom? The golden artifacts didn’t belong to the Ortegas. Or to the Mexican government. If they could be traced without question to Heinrich Schliemann, they should be returned to the Royal Museums of Berlin.
Who could prove that? Certainly not I. I had seen two pieces, in a dim cellar, and I was by no means an authority on Trojan jewelry.
If the man wasn’t a thief, wasn’t a dealer in smuggled goods, then, after all, he was responsible for what?
Juan murdered Raúl.
Lorenzo murdered Juan and Gerda.
The whisperer had done nothing beyond instructing Lorenzo to strike me down. How could that be proved? The man left with Lorenzo, but Tony and I knew how desperately Lorenzo was wounded and it was those wounds that killed him. After an initial flurry of excitement, the case was closed. Lorenzo was dead, and it was he who had left behind such a visible trail of blood.
Jerry, of course, was still furious with both Tony and me. It would have been a fantastic coup if he had been able to find the Treasure of Priam and reclaim for archeology the gold, which shone like butter. He still felt, I thought unfairly, that the loss of the treasure was my fault.
As for me, well, I was glad on several counts that I would not be returning to my museum to work, even though I had loved it. I didn’t think I would ever feel comfortable there again.
Chapter 18
After that night in the cellar, I don’t think I ever questioned what the future would bring. But Tony is a very methodical man. My first evening out of the hospital, back in the Casa Ortega, he rather gravely asked me to walk in the garden with him. Amid the luxuriant flame-colored flowers and rustling leaves of palm and pepper trees, he asked me to marry him.
I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t need, either, to touch my lucky sixpence to remember that my mother had left her home and gone to a new land and had always counted her decision as a joy. There would be challenges because he was a complex person from a background different from mine, but, more important, he was the man I could picture with me walking in a park, smiling across the table, reaching out at night, laughing and living and loving, and growing old together.
We were married quietly, as is proper in a family that had so recently suffered such losses.
We went to Acapulco to the Ortega villa for our honeymoon. Acapulco is made for lovers. Sea-fresh breezes and the rustle of coconut palms and the vivid, brilliant colors of bird and flowers surround you and there is never a thought for tomorrow. Only for now.
We found an apartment when we came home to Mexico City. We had fun picking out colors, deciding on furniture and pictures. We were busy, Tony at the office and I with plans for a biography of Nefertiti.
Our lives were settling into a happy pattern, one singular to us, when the postman brought a small package, and, in my own mind, the truth about the Treasure of Priam became absolutely clear.
Thursday morning when I kissed Tony good-bye, I thought my day would follow the plans I had made, a morning of research, lunch with one of Tony’s cousins, some pleasant shopping in the Zona Rosa, a late-afternoon game of tennis with Tony, dinner at eight.
Perhaps one of life’s more bittersweet charms is its unpredictability. You never know how a day will go or what will happen.
The maid brought the mail to me. Cristina’s youthful face reminded me of Lorenzo’s sister who had led me into danger at the Ortega house. She fled when she learned of Lorenzo’s death and the grisly night at the hacienda. The police found no trace of her.
I flicked through the letters, then balanced on one palm a small brown paper-wrapped package.
It was addressed to Mrs. Antonio Ortega. It was postmarked New York and had no return address. I began to unwrap it. I dropped the brown paper and lifted the lid on a small white box. I pulled free a square of cotton padding and stared down in disbelief.
Two exquisite butter-bright shell earrings lay on another pad of cotton. A white card was tucked in the side of the box. I picked up the card and read the single typewritten line:
Thought you deserved a little something for your trouble.
I knew then who the schemer was, knew who had gambled and won an incredible treasure. I recognized in the laconic line a daredevil gambler with a sardonic sense of humor. He had put me to a little trouble, yes. Used me as a decoy and scared me to death, and here was a little something to make it right.
I picked up one of the earrings and was surprised at its weight and delighted in its smooth, silky feel.
I could never prove my hunch. To be honest, I wouldn’t try. But I knew his name and face now as certainly as if he’d signed that card. It wasn’t careful Mr. Taylor. Or stern-faced Karl Freidheim. Or cheerful Dr. Rodriguez.
Oddly enough, I’d been almost sure Timothy Simmons wasn’t the man. He was, after all, my age. A beginner. But now, as I felt the smoothness of the gold, I remembered his restiveness and his contempt for conventions.
I dropped the earring back onto the cotton pad beside its mate. Training urged me to alert the Mexican archeological authorities. But what good were two alone? They could not be proven to belong to the Trojan hoard. The same period, the same area, right. But nothing more from two alone.
Prudence counseled calling the police. Again what crime could be proven?
I wondered what Timothy was going to do with his golden hoard. Ransom it to the Royal Museums of Berlin? Or was a queen’s necklace even now smooth against the milky white skin of some oilman’s Sophia?
No matter what I did, I wouldn’t affect the fate of the treasure.
I laid the little box on the coffee table in front of me and watched as the soft sunlight shone through the window and touched them with fire.
Gold could bring, perhaps most often brought, great misery and danger. Priam’s Treasure would likely cause more grief before the gold ever came to rest, if it ever did.
Slowly I reached out a finger to lightly touch a golden coil.
Should I keep them? Or should I not?
Keep reading for a special excerpt from the newest novel by Carolyn Hart
WHAT THE CAT SAW
Available October 2012 in hardcover from Berkley
On the upside, the airport was small. On the downside, a blustery wind took Nela Farley’s breath away as she stepped out of the terminal, pulling her small wheeled bag. She shivered in her light coat. She’d expected cold temperatures, but she’d not expected a wind that buffeted her like a hurried shopper in a crowded mall. She’d also known she wouldn’t be met. Still, arriving in a strange place without anyone to greet her was a reminder that she was alone.
Alone . . .
She walked faster, hurried across the double drive to a parking garage. Chloe’s call this morning had been even more fragmented than usual. “. . . on the fourth level, slot A forty-two. Leland’s car is an old VW; I mean really old. Pink stripes. You can’t miss it.”
In the parking garage elevator, Nela opened her purse and found the keys that had arrived by overnight FedEx from her sister. They dangled from what seemed to be a rabbit’s foot. Nela held it gingerly. In the dusky garage, she followed numbers, chilled by the wind whistling and moaning through the concrete interior.
She spotted Leland’s VW with no difficulty. Why pink stripes? The decals in the rear window would have been distinctive enough. In turn, they featured a mustachioed cowboy in an orange cowboy hat and orang
e chaps with OSU down one leg, a huge open-mouthed bass fish, a long-eared dog with the caption, My Best Friend Is a Coonhound, and a gleaming Harley with the caption, Redneck at the Ready.
Nela unlocked the driver’s door. Soon she would be off on an Oklahoma adventure, all because Chloe had roared off one sunny California day on the back of her new boyfriend’s Harley, destination the red-dirt state. Plus, Nela had lost her job on a small SoCal daily and was free to answer Chloe’s call that she come to Craddock, Oklahoma.
Nela was both irritated with her sister—one more call for a rescue, this time to protect her job—and grateful to have somewhere to go, something to fill leaden days. As for Chloe’s job, she would have been grateful if she’d had an inkling of what to expect, but in her usual fashion, Chloe had spoken of her job only peripherally.
Nela expected she’d manage. It definitely would be different to be in Oklahoma. Everything was going to be new, including subbing at Chloe’s job, whatever it was. Knowing Chloe, the job could be raising guppies or painting plastic plates or transcribing medical records. Only Chloe could hold a job for several months and, despite hour-long sisterly confabs on their cells, had always been vague about where she worked or what she did. Nela had a hazy idea she worked in an office of some kind. On the phone, Chloe was more interested in talking about what she and Leland had done or were going to do. The wind blows all the time, but it’s kind of fun. . . . Hamburger Heaven really is . . . There’s a farm with llamas . . . went to see the Heavener Runestone . . . However, she’d promised to leave a packet full of “stuff” on the front passenger seat.
Nela popped her suitcase in the backseat. She breathed a sigh of relief as she slid behind the wheel. Indeed, there was a folder and on it she saw her sister’s familiar scrawl: Everything You Need to Know. Nestled next to the folder was a golden box—oh, she shouldn’t have spent that much money—of Godiva. A sticky note read: Road treats. Confetti dangled from the rearview mirror. Taped to the wheel was a card. She pulled the card free, opened the envelope. The card showed an old-fashioned derrick spewing oil. She opened it. Chloe had written: I gush for you. Nela, you’re a lifesaver. Thanks and hugs and kisses—Love—Chloe
Nela’s brief irritation subsided. She smiled. She wished her little—though so much taller—sister were here and she could give her a hug, look into those cornflower blue eyes, and be sure everything was right in Chloe’s world. So long as she could, Nela knew she would gladly come when her sister called.
She picked up the folder and opened it to find a garage parking ticket, a letter, and a map with directions to I-35.
. . . turn south. It’s an hour and a half drive to Craddock. They say Hiram Craddock, a rail gang supervisor for the Santa Fe Railroad, took a horseback ride one Sunday in 1887 and saw a cloud of butterflies stopped by the river. When the tracks were laid, he quit his job to stay and build the first shack in what later became Craddock. This fall when the monarchs came through, I loved thinking about him seeing them and saying, This is beautiful, I’ll stay here. He married a Chickasaw woman. That was real common for white men who wanted to be able to stay in the Chickasaw Nation. He opened a trading post. Anyway, I don’t know if I explained about staying at Miss Grant’s apartment after she died. I did it as a favor and I know you won’t mind. It’s because of Jugs. You’ll love him. In case your plane’s delayed, there’s plenty of food and water, but the last I checked, your flights were on time. Anyway, it’s sad about Miss Grant but I didn’t mind helping out. Nobody knows you’re coming in today and I didn’t take time to explain but I left a note and said Jugs was taken care of. But they do expect you Monday morning and there are directions in the folder. The key with the pink ribbon is to Miss Grant’s place. Oh, I left my car coat in the backseat. I won’t need a coat in Tahiti! There’s a pizza in the fridge. Anchovies, of course, for you. (Shudder.) When you get to Craddock . . .
Nela scanned the rest of the disjointed message, obviously written in haste. But Chloe could have a day or a week or a month at her disposal and her communications would still careen from thought to fact to remembrance to irrelevance. Nela retrieved Chloe’s map and the ribbon-tagged key. She placed the map on the passenger seat and dropped the key into her purse.
Nela drove out of the garage into a brilliant day. She squinted against a sun that was surely stronger than in LA. Whatever happened, she intended to have fun, leaving behind the grayness now that was LA, and the sadness.
Bill wouldn’t want her to be sad.
Occasional winter-bare trees dotted softly rolling dun-colored countryside. Nela passed several horse farms. Cattle huddled with their backs to the north wind. The usual tacky billboards dotted the roadside. Nela felt more and more relaxed. The little VW chugged sturdily south despite its age. The traffic was fairly heavy and it was nearer two hours when she turned onto the exit to Craddock. After checking the map, she drove east into town, passing red brick shops, several banks, and a library, and glancing at Chloe’s directions, she turned off again to the south on Cimarron. Ranch-style houses predominated. After a few blocks, the homes grew more substantial, the lots larger, the houses now two and three stories, including faux colonials, Mediterranean villas, and French mansards.
Nela noted house numbers. She was getting close. She came around a curve. Her eyes widened at a majestic home high on a ridge, a Georgian mansion built of limestone with no houses visible on either side, the grounds stretching to woods. Nela slowed. Surely not . . . Chloe had clearly written of a garage apartment.
Nela stopped at stone pillars that marked the entrance and scrabbled through Chloe’s notes.
. . . so funny . . . I use the tradesmen’s entrance. Keep going past the main drive around a curve to a blacktop road into the woods. It dead-ends behind the house. That’s where the old garage is and Miss Grant’s apartment. It’s kind of prehistoric. You’ll see the newer garages, much bigger, but they kept the old one. It isn’t like Miss Grant rented it. People like Blythe Webster don’t have renters. Miss Grant started living there when she first came to work for Harris Webster. He was Blythe’s father and he made a fortune in oil. That’s the money that funds everything. She went from being his personal assistant to helping run the whole deal. Now that she’s gone, I imagine they’ll close up the apartment, maybe use it for storage. Anyway, it’s a lot more comfortable than Leland’s trailer so it’s great that someone needs to be with Jugs. Be sure and park in the garage. Miss Webster had a fit about the VW, didn’t want it visible from the terrace. No opener or anything, just pull up the door. It’s kind of like being the crazy aunt in the attic, nobody’s supposed to know the VW’s there. It offends Miss Webster’s “sensibilities.” I’ll bet she didn’t tell Miss Grant where to park! Anyway, the bug fits in next to Miss Grant’s Mercedes. Big contrast. The apartment’s way cool. Like I said, nicer than a trailer, but I’d take a trailer with Leland anytime. So everything always works out for the best. I mean, except for Miss Grant.
Even with the disclaimer, the message reflected Chloe’s unquenchable cheer.
Nela pressed the accelerator. Names bounced in her mind like errant Ping-Pong balls—Grant, Webster, Jugs—as she chugged onto the winding road. If delivery trucks actually came this way, their roofs would scrape low-hanging tree limbs. In the second decade of the twenty-first century, Nela felt sure that FedEx, UPS, and any other delivery service would swing through the stone pillars into the main drive. Tradesmen entrances had gone the way of horse-drawn buggies, milk bottles, and typewriters.
As the lane curved out of the woods, she gazed at the back of the magnificent house. A rose garden that would be spectacular in summer spread beneath steps leading up to a paved terrace. Lights blazed from huge windows, emphasizing the gathering winter darkness that leached light and color from the dormant garden. Lights also gleamed from lantern-topped stone pillars near the massive garages Chloe had described as new. Almost lost in the gloom was an old wooden two-door garage with a second-floor apartment. The windows were
dark.
Nela coasted to a stop. She put the car in park but left the motor running while she pulled up the garage door. The bug fit with room to spare next to the Mercedes coupe. She glanced at the elegant car as she retrieved her suitcase. Very sporty. It would be interesting to see Miss Grant’s apartment. It would be odd to stay in the apartment of a woman whom she’d never met. But ten days would speed past.
And then?
Nela shook away any thought of the future. For now, she was hungry and looking forward to pizza with anchovies and taking sanctuary in a dead woman’s home. Miss Grant, wherever you are, thank you.
She didn’t take time to put on Chloe’s coat, which surely would hang to her knees. She stepped out of the garage and lowered the overhead door. Pulling her suitcase, carrying Chloe’s coat over one arm, she hurried to the wooden stairs, the sharp wind ruffling her hair, penetrating her thin cotton blouse and slacks.
On the landing, she fumbled in her purse until she found the ribbon-tagged key, then unlocked the door. Stepping inside, she flicked a switch. She was pleasantly surprised. Despite January gloom beyond the windows, the room was crisp and bright—lemon-painted walls with an undertone of orange, vivid Rothko matted prints, blond Danish modern furniture, the sofa and chairs upholstered with peonies splashed against a pale purple background. A waist-high blond wood bookcase extended several feet into the room to the right of the door.
Her gaze stopped at car keys lying there next to a Coach bag. Had the purse belonged to Miss Grant? Certainly Chloe had never owned a Coach bag and, if she had, she wouldn’t have left it carelessly in an empty apartment. Nela shrugged away the presence of the purse. The contents of the apartment were none of her business.
As for Miss Grant, she wasn’t the person Nela had imagined. When Chloe wrote Too bad about Miss Grant, Nela knew she’d been guilty of stereotyping. Miss Grant was dead so she was old. Until she’d read Chloe’s note, Nela had pictured a plump elderly woman, perhaps with white curls and a sweet smile. This apartment had not belonged to an old woman.
Cry in the Night Page 17