Fallen Idols

by J. F. Freedman

  “Thank you.” Tom hesitated before pressing on. “Thinking back on that, and I know it might be fuzzy, it was over a year ago, and the circumstances were terrible, was there anything you noticed, or saw, or heard during that time that seemed … well … unusual to you?”

  “Unusual like what?” came the muted question.

  “I don't know, frankly. Anything strange involving my parents, or one of my parents and a volunteer, or someone connected with the government. Have you been on other digs?”

  “Uh huh. I worked in Belize the year before that one. The summer before,” the student said, more specifically.

  “And this one wasn't any different?” Tom asked.

  “It was better. More complete. Your dad was the best teacher in the field I've ever had. He really made ancient civilizations come to life. It was like the ancient Maya were living with us. It's a shame what happened to him, afterward,” the student commiserated. “He didn't do anything wrong.”

  It's great that you feel that way, Tom thought. “One last question,” he said.

  “Shoot.”

  “Do you remember all the people on the trip?”

  There was silence for a moment. “I don't know,” the student answered.

  “If I asked you a name, you'd know if they were on the trip or not.”

  “Yeah,” the student replied. “For sure.”

  “Emma Rawlings,” Tom said. “Does that name mean anything to you?”

  “No,” came the immediate reply.

  “There was no one named Emma Rawlings in the group.”

  “Nope, there wasn't.”

  “Okay, then,” Tom said, deflated. “Thanks for your time.”

  “No problem,” the student replied. “How's your dad doing these days?”

  Tom thought for a moment before answering. “He's doing remarkably well, under the circumstances,” he decided to say.

  “That's great to hear. Is he teaching anywhere?”

  “Not currently.”

  “Well, I hope he does again,” the student said with enthusiasm. “He's the best I've ever had. Almost anybody who ever had him would tell you the same thing.”

  “Thank you,” Tom said sincerely. “I'm glad you feel that way.”

  He hung up. Nothing there, except that his father was a saint.

  He continued calling: two nonanswers, two volunteers who repeated what the first one had told Tom. Nothing unusual happened until the incidents of the last day, there weren't any problems they saw or knew about, it had been a great summer of work. What happened to Jocelyn Gaines had been a terrible and shocking accident, but nothing more than that. Nothing sinister.

  He glanced at his watch as he hung up from his last call. He needed to get rolling, change into his working clothes and head out. A couple more calls, and that would be that. He dialed a telephone number in Vermont.

  “Hello?” a woman answered.

  “Is this …” He glanced at the volunteer list. “… Bridget O'Malley?”

  “Yes? Who is this?” came the reply, in a strong New England accent.

  “My name is Tom Gaines, Ms. O'Malley. I'm the son of Walt and Jocelyn Gaines.”

  There was silence from the other end.

  “Ms. O'Malley?” he said into the receiver.

  “I'm here. What do you want?” The voice was cold, distant.

  “I'd like to ask you a few questions about the summer work you did with my dad and mom. The summer my mother was killed,” he said, almost wincing as he said the word “killed.”

  “I can't help you,” came the terse reply.

  “Look, Ms. O'Malley,” Tom said wearily. “I realize it was a traumatic experience for everyone. But no one suffered more than my father did, and my brothers and me. He lost his wife. We lost our mother. So please—just answer a few questions for me. I promise it won't take any time at all.”

  “That's not what I mean,” the woman replied.

  “How so?” Tom asked.

  “I can't help you, because I wasn't there.”

  “You weren't? But …” He glanced down at the list. There was her name, her telephone number, her school information, passport information.

  “No,” she said. He could hear anger from the other end of the line. “I was dropped.”

  “Dropped?” he repeated, a beat behind her.

  “Yes, dropped,” she said emphatically. “I was all set to go. I had everything in order. I had already turned down two other summer fellowships for it, and then with a week to go, they dropped me.” The woman was still livid and carrying a chip on her shoulder about it, a year and a half later.

  “How did that happen?” he asked. “Did my dad call you?”

  “He sent me a goddamned e-mail. He said they had overbooked, that the government down there wouldn't let as many students in as he had planned. So I was dumped.”

  “I'm sorry,” Tom said.

  “No kidding. I blew my entire summer,” the woman ranted, “it was too late for me to get anything else going. I wound up waitressing in Provincetown, which was the pits, in case you've never been there. I had great credentials, it was wrong of him to do that, so close to when we were leaving.”

  “I'm sorry,” Tom said again, taken aback at the vehemence of the woman's wrath. “I'm sure my dad explained it to you the best he could.”

  “He didn't explain anything. All I got was this damn e-mail, and that was it. Not even a phone call.” She paused. “I heard about what happened to your mother. I'm sorry about that. But I can't help you.”

  The phone went dead in his hand. He placed the receiver back in the cradle.

  A last-minute change of plans. That didn't sound like his parents. One of the secrets to their success was their organizational skills, particularly his mother's. When it came to his father's work, especially the out-of-country trips and excavations, she was extremely buttoned-down. If there had been problems such as the one the rejected woman described, the professors Gaines would have dealt with them long before the eleventh hour.

  It was time to go. Tom went into his bedroom, opened the desk drawer, and pulled out the accordion file, which was bulging with old correspondence. As he was about to put the manifest back in, he noticed a couple of other pages, similar to the one he had been using to make the phone calls, that had been clipped to a cover letter to the authorities in the district where La Chimenea was located. The cover sheet was basically a form letter, informing them when they would be arriving, how many, and so forth. Flipping it over, he saw it was like the ones he had just replaced: the names of the volunteers, along with their vital information.

  He scanned through it quickly. It contained the same names as on the other sheets, with one exception—no Bridget O'Malley. This must be a revised list, he thought, to account for her not being on the trip.

  Putting the list down, he thought about the conversation he'd had with the disgruntled woman. How many others had gotten that unfortunate e-mail, he wondered. He took the original list from the file and laid it out on top of the desk, then placed the new list next to it and scanned the names.

  They were all similar, with the one exception of the omission of Bridget O'Malley from the trip list. Instead, a new name had been inserted, another woman. He read the name: Diane Montrose. A new student-volunteer named Diane Montrose was replacing Bridget O'Malley. No biographical information, not even a telephone number. Just a name.

  His father had notified Bridget O'Malley that she was being dumped because the list had to be pared down, but it hadn't been; one person was substituted for another, but the total had remained the same.

  Bridget O'Malley had been lied to.

  He picked up the telephone and dialed.

  “Hello?” A man's voice.

  “Kurt Campbell?”

  “Yes? Is that you, Mr. Gaines?”

  “Tom. Yes. Sorry to bother you again, but I have one more question I forgot to ask. Does the name Diane Montrose ring a bell?”

  “Sure,” c
ame the immediate response. “Diane was on the trip.”

  “Could you describe her for me at all? Approximate age, height, hair coloring.” His leg was starting to do a Saint Vitus’ dance on the floor. He pushed down on his knee to keep it still.

  “She was older than most of us,” came the reply. “I guess maybe early thirties? Fairly tall, five-eight or nine.’’ He coughed. “Sorry. I'm coming down with a cold.”

  “That's okay,” Tom said. He was feeling feverish himself. “Hey, thanks, buddy.”

  “Glad to help out,” Campbell said. “Do you know Diane?” he asked.

  Tom licked his lips—they were dry. “I don't know anyone named Diane Montrose.”

  “She's a knockout,” Campbell told him, with a young man's sexually charged enthusiasm. “A lot of the guys had the hots for her.”

  “I see.” Oh man, do I see. He was fearful of asking the next question, but he had to. “Was she friendly with my dad?”

  “Yeah, they got along okay. She was kind of aloof but she got along fine with everybody.”

  Tom was reeling. “Thanks,” he told Campbell. “Sorry I butted in on your evening again. I won't be calling you again, I promise.”

  “Not a problem. Glad I was able to help you.”

  Tom left a message for Will, telling him he'd come across damaging data about the situation at La Chimenea and that Will should contact him at Finnegan's. Then he called Clancy and told him the same. They agreed to meet at the bar at seven-thirty when the happy hour rush would be over and they could talk without being disturbed.

  It was impossible for Tom to keep his mind on his work. His brain was spinning with the ramifications of his discovery. He and his brothers and sister-in-law had been revolving in the unsettling revelations of his parents’ lives since they'd started their investigation into their mother and father's—basically, their father's—dark side. Emma had been part of it, true; but as an adjunct, one element of many, not as a principal. But now, with this new knowledge, she was front and center.

  Clancy, Callie, and Will all arrived together. “Pete, can you handle both ends of the bar?” Clancy called out as Callie and Will grabbed the last booth in the back.

  “Ten-four,” Pete called back.

  Tom look off his bartender's apron and ducked under the opening at the end of the bar, joining the others in the booth.

  “It's her,” Callie said emphatically, as soon as Tom finished delivering his bad news. “It has to be. She was put on the list at the last minute under false pretenses which were engineered by your dad, she was there the entire summer, she was there when your mom was killed, and she was at the funeral. Now they're living together.”

  Clancy was absolutely shaking. He said what they had all been thinking, but had never spoken out loud. “Were dad and her in a conspiracy against mom?” he asked.

  “It looks bad,” Tom said.

  “Terrible,” Will agreed.

  “So were they having an affair?” Clancy asked, more a rhetorical statement than a question. “We know dad was less than pure in his sexual forays.” He grimaced. “Jesus, that sounds so tawdry. With mom there and all.”

  Callie shook her head. “I don't think so,” she said thoughtfully. “I mean, they might have been, but I don't think that's the reason Emma—I can't not call her Emma, that's how I know her—was brought onto this trip. I think Walt wanted her there for another reason.”

  “What?” Will asked.

  “That's the million-dollar question.” She clapped her hands together. “Okay. We have a name now. I'll call the detective out in L.A. tomorrow morning …” She glanced at her watch. “It's only five-thirty back there. I'll call her now. Give her the name, what else we know, let's see what she can come up with.”

  Clancy buried his head in his hands. Callie put a supportive arm oh his shoulder. He looked up at his brothers, sitting across the table from him. “Did she have anything to do with mom being killed? That's what we've all been scared about, isn't it?”

  Will and Tom nodded. They were too numb to talk.

  “It was an accident,” Clancy said in anguish. “A tragic, senseless accident. That's what we've always thought, what everyone's said, everyone who was there, starting with dad. It's what the student you talked to tonight said, right?” he asked, looking at Tom.

  “Just the way dad told it,” Tom confirmed.

  “At least he wasn't lying about that,” Callie said.

  “Small consolation,” Clancy told her. He slumped back.

  “I need to go home.” Callie slipped out of the booth and put on her parka. “The detective's phone number's there, I want to call her right now.”

  “I'll come with you,” Clancy said. “There's nothing else we can do here now.” He clapped Tom on the shoulder. “Take the rest of the night off. None of us are in any shape to be working.”

  Artesia Garcia, the Los Angeles private investigator, called back the following afternoon. They listened in on the speaker as the detective laid out what she'd learned.

  She had struck out with the phantom Emma Rawlings, but not with Diane Montrose. The woman presently involved with Walt Gaines is, in fact, Diane Montrose, she confirmed. She had been able to match the photo that Callie had sent her with one from a New York driver's license that had been issued to Diane Montrose in 1999 (which was going to cost an additional five hundred dollars, she told them, she had to call in some heavy favors). So that part of the mystery was solved. They knew who she was, and equally important, that she had known Walt before he moved to Los Angeles.

  Diane Montrose was not and had never been enrolled in any Ph.D. program at any university in the United States. She did, however, have a master's degree in Art History from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Her last current residence of record was New York City, borough of Manhattan, but she no longer lived there and had dropped out of sight—there was no forwarding address.

  “When was that?” Clancy asked, leaning forward in his chair.

  “About two years ago,” Garcia answered.

  The detective recited the rest of what she had found out: Diane was not a fugitive, there were no outstanding warrants on her that Garcia could find. Her last known employment had been as a consultant to some private art galleries and wealthy individual collectors in New York. That was two years ago, which coincided with when she had left her apartment and dropped from sight. Garcia read out the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of the galleries and collectors. Callie wrote them down.

  “What do you want me to do now?” Garcia asked.

  “Nothing,” Callie immediately mouthed.

  “Why not …” Will whispered.

  “Trust me on this,” Callie whispered back urgently.

  Clancy leaned in to the speaker box. “We'll get back to you,” he told Garcia. “Thanks for your help.”

  Will had to go out of town on business, so Clancy, Callie, and Tom met with Laurel Johnstone in her office at the Art Institute. Laurel, a couple of years older than Callie, was an assistant curator. Both women had gone to Stanford. They hadn't known each other there but they had friends in common, so when Callie and Clancy moved to Chicago they had struck up an acquaintance ship, meeting for drinks or lunch about once a month, usually in the company of other mutual friends. Callie had phoned Laurel after the conversation with Artesia Garcia and asked if she and her husband and one of his brothers could come by and pick her brain.

  Laurel, a dark-eyed woman with long, curly brown hair that billowed out from her heart-shaped face, listened attentively as they told her what they had learned about Diane Montrose.

  “Did you ever find out what happened at La Chimenea that caused the government to revoke your father's privileges?” she asked, when they had finished. “Did your father ever tell you what the specific problem was?”

  “He hasn't said anything about it to us at all,” Tom told her. “Just the opposite—he's avoided it. He says he I doesn't want to go back because of the bad memori
es, that he's lost his zest for it.”

  “We're not sure they've been officially revoked,” Clancy said. “Everything we know is secondhand.”

  “It would be useful to find out if they were, and if so, why,” Laurel counseled them. “The professor you met at UCLA who told you there was a problem. Why don't you ask him?”

  “We can't do that,” Clancy said. “It's too delicate.”

  Laurel's full eyebrows came together in a frown. “I hate to bring this up.” She paused.

  Tom beat her to the punch. “Looting at the site.”

  She nodded. “It's a huge problem at every pre-Columbian site, particularly when they're in the early stages of excavation.”

  “That possibility's been growing in our brains like a cancer,” Tom said. “But we haven't had the guts to face it.”

  Clancy was almost writhing in his chair, he was so distraught. “I don't want to believe that,” he proclaimed. “This was his life. He had too much integrity to do anything that would be unethical or immoral in his work.”

  Laurel smiled sympathetically. “I believe you. I certainly want to,” she qualified. “But this Montrose woman might have,” she pointed out. “She could have been stealing priceless artifacts for some of the private museums, or more likely, collectors, on your list. If looting had happened while your father was in charge down there, the consequences would have rubbed off on him whether he was involved or not.”

  “Without his knowing it?” Tom asked doubtfully. “That doesn't feel right. He would have known. He was the one who put her on the list, don't forget.”

  Clancy buried his head in his hands. “If that were true, it would be the pits. All the other shit is terrible enough, but that? Jesus.”

  “I don't want to believe dad was dirty any more than you do,” Tom said, “but I'm not going to close my mind to anything anymore. We've had our eyes screwed tight about this, but we're going to have to open them. First we have to find out about Diane. If we do, then the rest might fall into place.”