When they reached the top of the stairs, he waved the light around the room and checked for any movement, paying special attention to the corners. All was still. The dusk lingered outside the window, and soon it would be completely dark. Garnet covered her hair with her free hand in an attempt to shield it, just in case.
“Look at all the stuff up here,” Dan remarked.
“I know. Some of it’s pretty good, too. I went through a few of the boxes before. Antique dealers would love it. Look at this.” Garnet led him to the music box. She let go of his hand and wound the crank.
“Cool,” Dan said when the music started. They left it playing while they carefully picked their way, hand in hand, around boxes and household items in search of a mirror. But it wasn’t long before Garnet felt the sensation of something soft brush against her cheek.
“Oh, no! They’re back!” she shrieked. Garnet let go of Dan’s hand and flicked the backs of her hands against her face. “That’s it! I’m out of here!” She turned to flee, but Dan grabbed her arm. He took the flashlight and directed the light toward her face.
“It’s a cobweb. A big dusty cobweb caught in your hair,” he said, brushing it away.
“Oh, Dan, I just can’t do it. Let’s come back tomorrow. If there’s a mirror in here, it’ll still be there when it’s light and the bats have gone to bed.”
He sighed. “All right.” He flashed the light around the room one last time. “It’s just too bad we’ve got nothing else to go on.”
Garnet bit her lip. The whole idea to look for the jewels had been hers and now she was behaving like such a baby. “Hey, I know you’re only trying to help. It’s just that I’m really kind of creeped-out tonight.”
Dan shrugged. “It’s okay. Let’s go.”
The music box stopped playing. He held the light in front of them, and reached for Garnet’s hand again. As he tried to step around the wooden rocking cradle, he stumbled and something crunched under his shoe. He let go of Garnet and aimed the flashlight at the floor. A rectangular package wrapped in newspaper lay on the floor.
“I think I was hiding behind that before. It might have fallen when I ran out.”
Dan bent down to lean it against a box. “Hmm. The newspaper’s from May 1942.”
“Really? I wonder what’s inside? You don’t suppose ...?” Garnet stopped. It was too much to hope for.
“Should I bring it downstairs?”
“Yes.”
Dan handed Garnet the flashlight and he lifted the awkward package. Pieces slid and jingled inside as he carried it down the stairs. In the kitchen, Dan carefully laid the package on the table and untied the string. When he pulled away the brittle newspaper, Garnet gasped.
Between two sheets of cardboard, cut from an old box, were pieces of glass, cracked and broken, fallen out of a gold, ornamental frame. The silver coating behind the glass was tarnished.
“It’s the mirror,” Garnet whispered. “And now it’s smashed to bits.”
“It might not be as bad as it looks,” Dan said in an attempt to console her. “We can try putting some of it back together like a puzzle.” He scrutinized the larger pieces, then picked up some of the smaller ones as he tried to match the shapes.
Garnet swallowed hard. She picked up a piece of glass and set it back down again. This was bad, anyone could see that. If a clue had ever been scratched into the glass, how would they ever find it now? It was destroyed forever.
With a finger, she traced the frame, which had once held the mirror, and now only supported a thin board. The inner edge of the frame had a rough texture, surrounded by layered golden leaves, like those of a vine, so realistic that even the veins were engraved into them. Her finger stopped at one of the leaves. Was it her imagination or was something scratched onto it in a swirled script to camouflage it into the pattern?
“What is it?” Dan asked.
“Does this look unusual to you?” Garnet asked, pointing.
He leaned closer, then looked up. “It sort of looks like E-C-C-L 3.1’— Ecclesiastes 3, verse 1.”
Garnet wasted no time. She sprang from her chair and hurried to the library. Dan was only a step behind her. While Garnet reached for Elizabeth’s Bible on the desk, Dan picked up his.
“How do you know all the names of those books, anyway?” Garnet asked as she scanned the index to find the page number for Ecclesiastes.
“I had to memorize them all a few years ago in confirmation class. And don’t forget, my grandfather’s a pastor. Something must have rubbed off.”
“Well, maybe I should go to church sometime so I can learn this stuff,” Garnet said, rolling her eyes. “It might help me in this search.”
“Maybe you should. How about tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow?” Garnet gave a little snigger. “Yeah, right. I wasn’t serious.”
“I am,” Dan said, looking up from his Bible. “Why don’t you come with me?”
“I don’t think it’s really my thing.”
“So? You said it might help you with the search. What have you got to lose?”
Sleep. Sweet Sunday sleep. Garnet shrugged. “I’ll think about it.”
“Great. I’ll pick you up at nine-thirty.”
Garnet frowned and Dan chuckled.
“So, what does yours say?” he said.
“Just a minute, I’m still looking.” She fumbled through the pages. “Here it is: ’To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.’” She looked up. “What about yours?”
“‘To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.’”
Garnet thought for a moment. “They’re nearly the same. They’re both about time.”
Dan scratched his head. “Time. How about a clock? Are we getting too smart for this, or what?” he said dryly.
Garnet laughed. “We’re not that smart or we’d know which one, wouldn’t we? There are a few of them around, you know.”
Dan looked over at the mantel. “Why don’t we start with that one?” He reached for the clock and placed it on the desk.
A hinged glass cover protected the face, which had been painstakingly hand-painted with a tree depicting each season of the year, for each quarter hour. A winter scene covered the first quarter, from the twelve to the three, then spring from the three to the six, summer from the six to the nine, and autumn from nine to twelve. The numbers themselves were painted in black Roman numerals.
“What’s this for?” Dan asked, pulling a key from a hole in the side of the clock.
“To wind it. Clocks used to be wound with keys before electricity and batteries,” Garnet explained. “See these holes over the four and the eight on the face of the clock? You’re supposed to use the key to turn these knobs inside the holes. One knob’s to keep the time and the other one’s to make the clock chime. I’ve seen these in antique shops. Only this key doesn’t look right,” she said, frowning as she held it up. “This looks like a key to open something.”
Dan opened the hinged glass door. The short hand of the clock was stopped just after the three and the long hand at the seven. He touched the hands and tried to move them. “Hey, these hands are stuck.”
Garnet reached over and gave them a nudge herself but found the same. “You’re right. They don’t move. That’s weird.”
They examined the clock further to check for any markings or anything else unusual about it, but found nothing. “Maybe this really is just a broken clock,” Garnet said. “Too bad, because it does go with that season theme.”
Dan nodded. “Let’s look at another one.”
He set the clock back on the mantelpiece and they walked down the hall to the front entrance. The grandfather clock chimed once as Garnet turned the light on. The numbers on the face of this clock were also black Roman numerals, but were painted inside a white outer circle with a golden inner circle in the centre. The small black hand, shaped like a delicate ornamental heart, pointed between the ten and eleven, while the
larger hand pointed to the six. Garnet glanced at her own watch. It said twenty minutes after nine.
“Is that really the time?” she asked, pointing to the clock.
Dan looked down at his watch. “Yeah. I’ve got ten-thirty.”
“My watch is slow. I didn’t realize it was this late.”
Dan opened the door of the wooden cabinet. Inside were chains that had to be pulled to wind the clock and a pendulum that swung rhythmically back and forth. They searched both the inside and outside of the cabinet, knocking for hidden compartments and again looking for markings, or anything else unusual.
“No luck with this one, either,” he said after a while and closed the cabinet.
“There’s only one more clock I can think of,” Garnet said. “The ones in the kitchen and Elizabeth’s bedroom are newer electric ones.”
She opened the French doors to the living room. In the centre of the mantelpiece stood the unusually shaped porcelain clock that was really more a sculpture with its moulded flowers adorning the sides, and flowers painted in pinks and greens on the front of it. The face of this clock had a raised inner circle with blue Arabic numerals surrounded by paler outer circles. The golden hands indicated the time: twenty minutes to eleven.
Dan pulled the key out of the side of the clock. “This key looks different.”
“Yeah, that’s the kind for winding clocks.”
“How often do you have to wind them, anyway?”
Garnet shrugged. “I don’t know.”
They carefully inspected this clock as well, but after several minutes, found nothing unusual about it, either.
“I think we’re out of luck, Sherlock,” Dan said.
Garnet let out a disappointed sigh. “I thought we were on the right track. Unless we missed something. Or there’s another clock we don’t know about.”
“Or Ecclesiastes isn’t a clue. Maybe those aren’t really markings. Maybe they’re just part of the leaf pattern.”
He set the clock back on the mantelpiece. And that was when Garnet noticed it: the empty space on the right side of the mantel.
“Where’s the angel?” she asked.
“The angel? I don’t know.” Dan furrowed his brow. “Why?”
“Because it’s gone! The angel’s gone!” she exclaimed. Garnet looked around the room.
“Are you sure? Maybe you moved it.”
But Garnet shook her head. “I looked at it before when I was waiting for you, but I put it back.”
“Are you saying someone took it?”
“Well, obviously it didn’t fly away!”
Their eyes met.
“There’s only one person who could have taken it,” Garnet said. “That faceless BMW person. We have to find out who it is and what they know.”
9
A Wild Ride
Stained-glass windows surrounding the nave cast a bluish-red light onto the pews that were nearly three-quarters full. Over the centre of the altar, above the flower arrangements, hung a plain wooden cross. Garnet smoothed out her pale-yellow skirt and took a seat next to Dan and his family near the back of Trinity Lutheran Church. Dan had picked her up in his car and they had arrived only moments earlier. She was surprised they didn’t sit in the front pew. Somehow she had expected that the minister’s family would be front and centre.
Dan quickly introduced his parents and his twelve-year-old sister, Jenna, who eyed her with some curiosity. His parents nodded and smiled at her. It was obvious that Dan took after his father with his dark hair and build, but he had his mother’s blue eyes. Jenna, with her blond hair, was the younger image of their mother.
Bells rang and Pastor Norman Peters appeared at the front of the church. A white and gold stole curled around his collar and down the front of his knee-length white garment, which covered an ankle-length black cassock. A silver cross hung over his chest. His confident voice filled the room as he opened the service with the words, “The Lord does not forget his promises. Let us remember this today as we begin with our first hymn.”
Then the music began and Garnet was surprised that it was lively and uplifting, not the muted organ music she was expecting and had last heard at her grandmother’s funeral. Two men played guitar at the front of the church while one woman played the recorder and another the keyboard. A small choir of men and women harmonized with the congregation as they sang “Holy Spirit, Ever Dwelling” from the hymn book.
Dan passed Garnet the printed order of service and she tried to follow along. Pastor Peters would say something and Garnet responded when Dan and the congregation did. Then Pastor Peters read from 1 Samuel in the Bible. Garnet was intrigued by the story of an irrational King Saul and David, a shepherd boy, who had killed a giant named Goliath with a slingshot. An evil spirit would sometimes enter King Saul and, to try to calm the king’s nerves, David would play the harp for him. After some time, though, King Saul became jealous of David because the people liked David more. So, in a rage, Saul tried to kill David with a spear as he played the harp, but missed. Saul tried to kill David numerous times again after that, but God kept him safe.
After the sermon, Garnet found herself lightly tapping her toe as the choir sang and the offering plate was passed around. She fumbled through her purse for a toonie and placed it on the plate when it came to her. Several pews ahead of them, she noticed Gerdie seated with Stan. Gerdie sat with her back straight, in a flowered skirt and blouse, while Stan sat slightly slouched and was biting his nails.
They were an odd couple, Garnet decided as she watched them. Gerdie, with her chimp-like face, was not what she would call attractive. Stan, on the other hand, with his rugged features, could possibly be considered handsome for someone his age.
“How did Gerdie ever meet up with Stan?” Garnet whispered to Dan.
“I don’t know,” Dan replied. “He’s new to the congregation. He started coming here a few months ago, when he and Gerdie started dating.”
When the offering had been collected, Pastor Peters led the congregation in prayers, a couple more hymns were sung and then the service was over. Pastor Peters walked down the aisle and stood at the exit of the church to greet the departing parishioners. Dan introduced Garnet to his grandfather on their way out.
“Wonderful to have you here today,” Pastor Peters welcomed Garnet with a warm smile and a firm handshake. “I hope to see you again soon.”
“Maybe you will,” Garnet replied.
She squinted in the late morning sun as they left through the doors and strolled along the sidewalk to the parking lot.
“Isn’t your family coming?” Garnet asked when she noticed they weren’t behind them.
“Nah, they’ll probably be a while. They usually stay and talk to people.”
“Don’t you stay?”
“Sometimes. But I didn’t know if you wanted to. I thought I’d break you in slowly,” Dan replied with a grin. “So, what did you think?”
“What did I think of what?”
“The service.”
“It wasn’t bad. It was more upbeat than I thought it would be.”
“That’s because it was the contemporary service. We have one every other week unless it’s a special day in the church calendar. Then it’s just the regular kind. You know, organ and stuff.”
“Well, it wasn’t as boring as I thought....” Garnet stopped and stared. “Hey!”
“What?” Dan turned and followed her direction.
“It’s the car!” Garnet exclaimed, pointing at a dark blue BMW waiting to turn out of the church parking lot.
Dan shielded his eyes and they watched as the car turned right and sped onto the busy four-lane street. “I’ve never seen that one here before. Either someone has a new car or we had a visitor at our church today. Come on! Let’s follow it!”
They ran to Dan’s car and he quickly unlocked the doors. As they hopped in, they were met by a wall of heat and yelped simultaneously as they sat down onto the scorching seats that had absorbed the sun�
��s rays. Dan started the engine and quickly rolled down the windows and switched on the air conditioning as he began to manoeuvre toward the parking lot exit between parishioners walking to their cars. They were almost there when a gold Chrysler cut in ahead of them, his left-turn signal flashing.
Dan groaned. “Oh great. Now we’ll never get out. Not with Mr. Yager in front of us. The guy’s close to ninety and way too cautious making his left turn. He’s been known to make prisoners of everyone in the entire church parking lot. And there’s no way around him.”
Garnet kept her eyes trained on the blue BMW. “It looks like it’s stopped at the red, two lights ahead.”
The traffic finally cleared for Mr. Yager to make the left turn. Dan quickly turned right, hit the accelerator, and sped down the four-lane road, weaving between the left and right lanes. The traffic lights remained green and soon they were gaining on the BMW. It turned right and Dan and Garnet followed. They were getting closer, with only several vehicles between them. Dan switched to the left lane. A bare, white, masculine arm came out of the driver’s window of the BMW and flicked a cigarette butt.
“Try and get the licence-plate number,” Dan said, his knuckles white as he clutched the steering wheel.
Then, without warning, from one of the side streets, a green Buick turned into the lane directly in front of them and slowed.
Dan slammed on the brakes. “What in the world is that guy doing?”
They were forced to a crawl, the traffic not allowing them to switch over to the right lane, while the BMW drove on.
Dan banged his fist on the steering wheel. “And they complain about young drivers. Look at this guy. He can barely see over the dashboard!”
Garnet scanned the road ahead. “It switched lanes. I think it’s turning left.”
Dan looked over and was so focussed on the BMW that he didn’t notice the Buick in front of him had come to a complete stop.
“Watch out!” Garnet screamed.
The tires of the Grand Am squealed to a halt, a hair’s breadth away from a collision. Traffic came to a stop behind them and slowed in the next lane. A woman in a Camry glared at them and shook her head at the near-miss. Only then did they realize that the Buick had stopped because the car in front was waiting to turn left at the traffic light. The driver of the Buick signalled to enter the right lane and eased over. Then the light turned red.
The Jewels of Sofia Tate Page 11