Sword of the Templars

Sword of the Templars Page 6

by Paul Christopher

  “There’s a place in Massachusetts with the same name,” said Holliday, “They pronounce it ‘Lemon-Stir, ’ home of Foster Grant sunglasses and the original plastic pink flamingo.”

  “Your brain must be a very strange place,” said Peggy, laughing.

  “In my business your head tends to get clogged with a lot of irrelevancies. Take horses. Did you know Adolf Hitler had a thoroughbred named Nordlicht, or North Light, and that it died on a plantation in Louisiana in 1968? Or that George Armstrong Custer was riding a horse named Victory at the Little Big Horn, not Co manche for instance? Or the fact that Teddy Roosevelt was the only one of his Rough Riders at San Juan Hill who had a horse at all?”

  “And I’ll bet you know its name,” said Peggy.

  “Of course.” Holliday grinned. “It was called Little Texas. By the time they got to San Juan Hill the horse was exhausted, so Roosevelt had to dismount and lead the charge on foot.” He laughed. “Although I think it probably had more to do with public relations; didn’t look good in the papers to be the only one in the saddle.”

  “That’s enough history,” said Peggy, holding up her hands in defeat. “Let’s go eat.”

  “Gary’s Diner again?” Holliday said.

  “Let’s try something more upscale,” suggested Peggy.

  Upscale in Fredonia, New York, meant the White Inn, an outsized mid-nineteenth century clapboard farmhouse with an overdone columned portico and a wrought iron fence that made it look like an imitation of its namesake in Washington, D.C. According to Peggy they served a mean chocolate martini in the lounge and great prime rib in the dining room. Holliday let Peggy have the prime rib while he ordered the baby spinach and shrimp.

  “You sure you don’t want the prime rib?” Peggy asked. “That thing on your plate looks like an appetizer.”

  Holliday looked at the immense slab of meat Peggy was happily carving her way through. It looked like enough to feed a small army and came complete with a giant baked potato swimming in butter and sour cream, butter beans, and a side salad besides. She popped a forkful of meat into her mouth, then tore up a dinner roll and used it to swab up a small puddle of au jus that was wending its way dangerously close to the baked potato and its sour cream and dripping butter pat summit.

  Holliday speared a shrimp.

  “You’re young. I’m old. Gotta watch my figure.”

  “I’m like a hummingbird,” said Peggy, scooping up some baked potato. “I have to eat my own weight every day or I fade away.” She ate some butter beans. “And you’re not old, Doc, you’re distinguished.”

  Holliday looked at her fondly. In jeans and a T-shirt Peggy could probably pass for a freshman at the university. He, on the other hand, had salt-and-pepper hair that was now considerably more salt than pepper, used reading glasses, wore Dr. Scholl’s in his shoes, and occasionally felt twinges of arthritis in his joints. She was still climbing uphill in the morning of her life, and he was sliding slowly down in the early evening; a world of difference.

  “Easy for you to say,” he said wistfully. Who was it who said that youth was wasted on the young?

  “George Bernard Shaw,” he said.

  “Huh?” Peggy asked.

  “Nothing,” said Holliday.

  Peggy sliced off another chunk from the slab on her plate.

  “Speaking of old, what are we supposed to make of Grandpa Henry and the secretary?”

  “He wasn’t always old.”

  “He didn’t mention her in the will.”

  “I’m not surprised. Wills are public documents, and discretion is clearly important to her,” he shrugged. “Besides, he may have already given her his bequest.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She was reading a copy of Anne of Green Gables when we came into the office.”

  “So?”

  “It was a first edition.”

  “You think Grandpa gave it to her?”

  “Probably,” he nodded. “You still have that BlackBerry machine?”

  “I’ll have you know it’s called a personal digital assistant,” said Peggy airily, swabbing a piece of prime rib in a generous blob of horseradish. “Or sometimes ‘CrackBerry’ for its addictive qualities.”

  “You have it with you?”

  “Always,” nodded Peggy. She put down her fork, rummaged around in the old denim messenger bag she used as a purse, and eventually pulled out the flat little rectangle of black plastic.

  “See if you can find out what a first edition of Anne of Green Gables is worth.”

  Peggy tapped away briefly, using thumbs instead of fingers. The device reminded Holliday of the all-knowing featureless black slabs in the epic space movie 2001. Except, he thought, 2001 the year was long gone, the slab fit into one hand, and this time we are the monkeys.

  Peggy’s eyes widened.

  “Twelve thousand five hundred dollars,” she said, awed.

  “What did I tell you?” said Holliday. He ate another shrimp. “The Anne book probably isn’t the only thing he gave her.”

  “That sounds like the punch line to a Marx Brothers joke.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “He must have cared for her,” she said. “I wonder why he never made it formal.”

  “Maybe she didn’t want to get married. Maybe he liked the status quo.” Holliday shrugged. “We’ll probably never know. Children never really know their parents; that goes double for nephews and grandfathers.”

  “So what do we do now? About the sword and all that, I mean?”

  “I’m not sure. The sword belongs in a museum, I know that much. Or we can sell it if you want. It’ll be worth more than the Anne of Green Gables, that’s for sure.”

  “I don’t need the money.”

  “Neither do I,” said Holliday.

  “Why don’t we donate it to a museum in Grandpa’s name?” Peggy suggested.

  “Good idea,” agreed Holliday.

  “And the house?”

  “Selling it, you mean?”

  “I’ve got a three-room apartment in New York that I’m barely ever in. You live at the Point. We’re the only heirs. I don’t have any room for half that stuff.”

  “Ditto.”

  “Why not an auction?”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Holliday, although he hated the idea of having to sort through his uncle’s possessions; history was one thing, but personal history was a different thing altogether. He wondered if they should quietly tell Miss Branch that she was welcome to a memento from the house if she wanted it. Maybe better to let sleeping dogs lie.

  “Buy me one of those chocolate martinis in the lounge for dessert, and then we’ll go back to the house and start figuring out what we want to keep and what we want to let go. How’s that?”

  “Deal,” agreed Holliday. Two of the frothy, too-sweet cocktails and a long-necked Heineken later they headed back to Hart Street, a few blocks away on the other side of Canadaway Creek.

  It was almost fully dark by the time they turned off Forest Place and steered into the short cul-de-sac. Lights were on in the few houses on the tree-lined street, and a soft breeze was blowing, taking some of the edge off the early-summer heat.

  “I love that smell,” murmured Peggy happily as they left her rental car at the curb. “Somebody’s burning leaves.”

  That wasn’t right.

  “In July?” Holliday said. They reached the stone wall in front of Uncle Henry’s house and turned up the walk.

  Peggy squinted ahead into the gloom.

  “What’s that in . . .”

  The concussion from the explosion lifted them both off their feet, throwing them backward onto the ground, flaming debris and broken glass blossoming into the air as they fell. Holliday rolled with it, holding his arms up across his face. He got to his hands and knees just in time to see the giant fireball swallowing up the entire front of the house in an all-consuming whirlwind. A moment later Peggy groggily began struggling to her feet.

  “Down!” Holliday yelled. Concussion, then blast, then fire: the first axiom of the thermochemistry of explosives. He lurched forward and bowled Peggy off her feet, tumbling the
m downward as the firestorm roared briefly overhead.

  Out of the corner of his eye Holliday caught a flicker of shadowy motion and turned his head to follow it—a figure, hunched, carrying something, racing away from the house, heading through the trees. Peggy must have seen the man, as well.

  “Get him!”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes! Yes! Just get him!”

  Holliday scrambled to his feet again and ran forward, skirting the angry fire spitting out of the burning house in long fiery tongues. The blazing heat was already beginning to shrivel the young leaves on the surrounding trees. A bank of rosebushes planted on the protective flank of the old house burst into flames; the first early-summer flush of blooms turned to black ash in an instant. The upstairs windows began to explode like gunshots, and the first searching fingers of fire crept out through the tinder-dry shingles of the roof.

  The shadow figure appeared again, outlined in the light. The figure turned, and for a split second Holliday had a glimpse of a startled face, pale and narrow, some sort of hood or cowl disguising the rest of his head. The eyes were wide and glistening. Then the man turned away, running hard toward the creek.

  For a moment Holliday thought that the man might have a boat in the water, but at this time of the year the creek was too low for that, and besides, where would he go? The creek wound its way through the town and into the suburbs, finally emptying into Lake Erie; not the smartest escape route. Could he have a car waiting at one of the bridges along the route? It seemed too elaborate.

  The man fell; Holliday heard the dull explosive grunt as he hit the earth. He picked himself up, but Holliday had gained valuable ground. For the first time he saw what the man was carrying: Uncle Henry’s sword, still in its ghoulish silken shroud. Burn down a house to cover his crime? Crazy. What was going on?

  Broadbent the lawyer?

  No; this man was tall and lean, legs pounding like a long-distance runner. Broadbent was built like a Tele-tubby. The purple one, Tinky-Winky or whatever the hell his name was. The one with the purse.

  “Stop!” Holliday yelled, feeling like an idiot even as the word burst out of his mouth. The man was a thief and an arsonist; why would he stop? Holliday sprinted after his quarry, one eye on the ground in front of him looking for obstacles, the other on the runner.

  He was breathing hard now, but he forced himself to go even faster. The thief had stolen Uncle Henry’s sword and burnt down a house full of memories—Holliday’s memories, the best ones from a childhood where they were few and far between. In the distance Holliday heard sirens.

  The man fell again, tripping on a branch, almost losing the sword, and Holliday gained a few more yards. He twisted around one of the willows at the embankment and then jumped down onto the narrow strip of stony beach below. Holliday was hard behind him, close enough to see the reflective swoosh on the heel of the runner’s New Balance shoes.

  The fugitive splashed into the water, pushing himself toward the opposite bank. The creek was no more than two feet deep at the foot of Uncle Henry’s property, but the rocks were slippery, covered with weed and algae. The man slipped, regained his balance, then slipped again. The breath was tearing out of Holliday’s lungs in angry gasps, but he was gaining. He slammed into the water. Ten, maybe fifteen feet away now, so close he could hear the other man’s ragged breathing as well as his own.

  The running thief reached the far bank of the creek. There were only two ways to go. To the left, the bank was shallower, and led up to the football field where the Fredonia Hillbillies played. The right side was steep and wooded. He’d go left. Holliday swung that way, trying to cut him off. The runner reached the far bank then turned suddenly, throwing the silk pennant to one side and brandishing the sword.

  Holliday pulled up short, arching back from the swinging blade. The man was no swordsman, but thirty inches of sharpened steel was daunting in anybody’s hand. He caught a better glimpse of his antagonist; not as young as he’d first thought, maybe late thirties, clean shaven, hair hidden under the hood of a black sweatshirt.

  Ducking under the swing, Holliday lunged forward, shoulder dropping, and caught the thief in the chest, knocking him backward, half up the embankment. The thief swung the sword again, the blade slashing toward his head in a whistling arc. Holliday threw himself to one side as the sword came close to decapitating him.

  The man turned, tossing the sword away, and scrambled up the bank, using both hands to haul himself upward. Holliday lunged again, managing to grip his attacker’s ankle. The man kicked back furiously, this time connecting, catching Holliday in the chin. Holliday fell away, stunned, then tumbled back down the embankment. By the time he got to his feet again the man who’d burned down Uncle Henry’s house and tried to steal the mysterious sword had vanished into the night.

  7

  Doc Holliday and Peggy Blackstock showed up at the Main Street offices of Broadbent, Broadbent, Hammersmith, and Howe at nine the following morning after spending a few brief hours sleeping in adjoining rooms at the White Inn. They’d watched as the Fredonia Volunteer Fire Department desperately tried to quench the flames consuming Uncle Henry’s house, but in the end all they could really do was contain the blaze and keep it from spreading to other houses on the street. By three o’clock in the morning the old Queen Anne mansion was nothing more than cinders and ashes.

  According to the fire chief, a man named Hoskins, admittedly no expert, the fire was almost certainly arson, originating at the gas stove in the kitchen of the house. To the chief it looked as though someone had blown out the pilot lights, switched the gas on full, and left some sort of timing device attached to a small initiating device, perhaps something as simple as a cardboard tube filled with match heads.

  There was no way of telling if the arson was professional or amateur; you could find out anything on the Internet these days, including detailed instructions on how to build a time bomb or burn down a building.

  “Miss Blackstock, Colonel Holliday,” said Broadbent, standing up behind his desk as they were ushered into the lawyer’s office by his secretary. “Nice to see you again. So soon.” He didn’t look pleased at all. He extended his hand across the desk. Peggy and Holliday ignored it. “What can I do for you today?”

  “My uncle’s house burned down last night.”

  They sat down; so did Broadbent.

  “Yes,” said the lawyer, affecting a solemn tone. He sounded like an undertaker. “A terrible thing.”

  “The fire chief thinks it was arson,” said Holliday.

  “Really?” Broadbent said. “Do you have some sort of experience with that kind of thing?”

  “Somebody burned down my uncle’s house last night, then ran away. I almost caught him.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” Holliday paused. “He was stealing something from the house.”

  “What would that be?”

  “You know exactly what he was stealing,” said Holliday.

  “I do?”

  “A sword, Mr. Broadbent. The sword you were so interested in yesterday.”

  “So it really does exist then?”

  “You know it does.”

 

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